Armchair Books Whistler
4205 Village Square V0N 1B4 Whistler, BC, Canada

Happy Sunday, and welcome to Staff Inspections! Gosh, it's been a few weeks since I last posted a review. I'll freely admit that I'm back in a bit of a reading slump, so I'm cutting myself some slack; I set aside my library holds and advanced copies in favour of an older book that has been on my list for years. The Break begins when a young Metis mother called Stella witnesses an assault taking place outside her home from an upstairs window. Exhausted from her new baby and t...errified by what she thinks she's seeing, she doesn't intervene, but calls the police. The events of this night reverberate through Stella's life and through the family of the victim, and the full details emerge as all involved begin the difficult process of healing. Although the subject matter of The Break is often brutal, this novel is highly readable - I couldn't put it down. I should have known when I opened the cover to find a family tree that I would LOVE this story; I'm a sucker for a family saga, and the fact that this one revolves around generations of women is icing on the cake for me. I loved that the reader gets to see each character through their own eyes and through the eyes of their loved ones; inevitably, each woman is her own worst critic, their "flaws" revealed as beauty, cunning, skill, empathy when viewed by a mother, sister, cousin, or daughter. Of course, the multiple perspectives mean that we experience the heartbreaks in this story again and again and again, but for me, this served to immerse me more completely in the narrative. I've already picked up Katherena Vermette's new novel, The Strangers, which is a companion to The Break - I'll report back soon! Thanks for reading!

Hello readers - a quick note to let you know that we're offering 15% off all books by Indigenous authors today, in recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. We may be biased, but we think that reading is a great way to start or continue your personal reconciliation journey. Our friends at the Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre in Whistler are open from 10 am to 5 pm today, with speakers and performances all day. Admission is free today - learn more at https://slcc.ca/ndtr-at-the-slcc

Tonight's the night when we find out if Armchair Books will take home the Whistler Chamber of Commerce Excellence Award for Service in a Small Business. We have our fingers crossed! The awards ceremony will take place live at 7 p.m. tonight - follow the link below to tune in on the action!

We see it everyday.

Happy Sunday, and welcome to Staff Inspections! It's a foregone conclusion that I'll read every book that Michael Pollan releases, so this post is inevitable. I'm sure most of you are already familiar with Pollan's work, but in case you're not, I'll say this: for more than 30 years, he's been writing about how humans interact with plants: in their gardens, on their plates, inside their bodies, and throughout history. Pollan is a journalist and a gardener rather than a scienti...st, so his books have strong personal narratives supported by thorough research and conversations with many experts. This is Your Mind on Plants is classic Pollan. This quick and fascinating book is comprised of three sections (long essays, really), each exploring a plant "drug": opium, caffeine, and mescaline. We dive into the cultures around the consumption of these psychoactive substances (yes, even caffeine is psychoactive) and learn about the chemical processes taking place inside the human mind and body when they are consumed. And, of course, we spend quite a bit of time on the author's journey to experience/imbibe each substance, because Michael Pollan doesn't deal in theory when it comes to his subjects. It probably goes without saying that I found this book easy to read, entertaining, and informative. I wasn't quite sure about the thesis of the book as a whole - "here are three plants that impact the human mind" is a somewhat less focused concept than Pollan's previous work - but if I may speculate, I think that this book provides commentary on the arbitrary lines humans draw around substances that they don't understand. Each chapter, in its own way, draws attention to the capricious nature of the laws and regulations around these plants and the chemicals they produce. As with all of Pollan's work, this book is not just about nature, but about human nature. One final note: if you're looking for your first Michael Pollan read, don't start here! I would start with Cooked (still my favourite) or The Omnivore's Dilemma and move on from there. Thanks for reading!

In case you haven't heard - Armchair Books is nominated for a Whistler Chamber of Commerce Excellence Award this year! We're in the category of Service Excellence - Small Business, along with our wonderful neighbours at Moguls Coffee House and the fine folks at the Whistler Medical Clinic.

Happy Sunday, and welcome to Staff Inspections! Oooh, this week's book is delicious. When Canada Reads was taking place earlier this year, I heard Francesca Ekwuyasi on CBC quite a few times, and after each interview, I said to myself, "Jeanette, you've gotta read Butter Honey Pig Bread." This debut novel ticked a lot of my boxes - Nigerian author/setting (have we talked about the greatness of Nigerian fiction?!) blended with Canadian content, queer characters, multiple narra...tors, FOOD, and the list goes on! I'm so glad I finally picked it up, and that I get to discuss it with our Community Book Club this month. Spanning three continents, Butter Honey Pig Bread tells the interconnected stories of three Nigerian women: Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye. Kambirinachi and her two daughters become estranged from one another because of a trauma that Kehinde experiences in childhood, which leads her to move away and cut off all contact. Now, after more than a decade of living apart, Taiye and Kehinde have returned home to Lagos. It is here that the three women must face each other and address the wounds of the past if they are to reconcile and move forward. As I mentioned above, it was kind of inevitable that I would love this novel. We have three completely distinct, fully realized narrators whose stories weave together across time and multiple continents - and despite the geographic scope, the story as a whole feels deeply intimate. We have luscious descriptions of food used as a really clever narrative device. We have realistic, messy depictions of romantic, platonic, and familial relationships. Butter Honey Pig Bread is warm and absorbing, and it blows my mind that this was a debut offering from Ekwuyasi. And the cherry on top of this vivid sundae - in the last book I reviewed (Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler) I learned the term Ogbanje, and BAM, this Igbo word appears on the first page of the very next book I picked up (and plays an important part in the narrative). Coincidence, or the universe approving of my book choices?! You be the judge. Thanks for reading!

Have you heard? We're offering two Community Book Club meetings this month! Join Jeanette in person on Monday, August 23 in Florence Petersen Park, or join on Zoom on Wednesday, August 25. Email her at [email protected] if you have questions or want to sign up for either meeting!

Happy Sunday, and welcome to Staff Inspections! I'm coming to you later than usual today after a very wet morning of waiting in lines and a little bit of skiing; I don't have the capacity for a very cogent review, but at least it'll be enthusiastic! Rebecca Roanhorse's Black Sun is the first book in a new fantasy trilogy; the fantasy and mythology of the series is inspired by the indigenous civilizations of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, which makes for a refreshing departure fro...m the typical Eurocentric setting of SO many fantasy novels. The bulk of our story takes place in Tova, a holy city preparing for the upcoming winter solstice, which will coincide with a solar eclipse this year. In the days leading up to this auspicious event, we're introduced to four characters: Naranpa, the newly appointed Sun Priest; Xiala, a Sea Captain charged with transporting precious cargo to Tova in time for the solstice; Okoa, a highly-trained warrior and son of the recently deceased Matron of the Crow Clan; and Serapio, a young blind man with business in Tova. You all know how I feel about a well-built fantasy world, and that's exactly what Black Sun delivers. Roanhorse has struck a perfect balance for the first book in a trilogy: she introduces just the right number of characters, cultures, and locations to keep the reader captivated and on their toes, and hints at how much more we have to learn in the subsequent books. This world feels entirely new, with many layers to discover, but the characters are deeply human, flawed, and relatable, which grounds the narrative in reality. My only complaint is that this book only came out in October 2020, so we may be waiting a good long while for the sequel. I can guarantee that it'll be worth the wait! Thanks for reading, Jeanette

Happy Sunday, and welcome to Staff Inspections! Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half was without question one of my favourite books of last year, so when a trusted reader in my life mentioned that she had enjoyed Bennett's debut novel, The Mothers, even more, I absolutely had to check it out. I'd be hard-pressed to say which book I liked more - certainly both are worth reading, and The Vanishing Half has a more unique concept, but I couldn't put The Mothers down! I'm really look...ing forward to discussing it with our Community Book Club in March. Now, I'm of the opinion that the blurb for The Mothers reveals too many details about the plot of the book; yes, these events happen in the first few chapters, but nevertheless, I'm not going to spill the beans here. I'll let you decide if you need to go find more details! Instead, I'll just share this juicy morsel of a quote: "All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season." Okay, so what can I say without spoiling any of this captivating narrative? Well, I loved the central female friendship between Nadia and Aubrey, especially because we get to see it from both sides, right from the start, with each girl thinking herself lesser or more than the other in complicated ways. I'm a sucker for a coming-of-age story, but I particularly love how this one takes us into adulthood and examines how the choices we make as teenagers shape our lives (or, thankfully, fade into the past). There are many mother figures in this novel, but I loved the titular Mothers, a sort of Greek Chorus of elderly matriarchs that preside over the story - in fact, I wish we had heard a bit more from them! Finally, I applaud Bennett for one of the most nuanced depictions of a church community, and a young person's place within it, that I've ever read. That her family's church can be both a safe haven and a source of judgement for Nadia is a contradiction that reflects the experience of a lot of people in my life. Thanks for reading!

Happy Sunday, and welcome to Staff Inspections! It's February, which means it's Black History Month, so I'm going to share books by Black authors this month, and I hope you'll give one of them a try! First up is Luster, a darkly comic debut by Raven Leilani. Luster introduces us to Edie, a 23-year-old Black woman living in New York, working a menial position in the publishing industry, and just starting to date a married archivist twice her age (Eric). After losing her job a...nd her apartment in one fell swoop, Edie ends up living in New Jersey with her boyfriend, his mortician wife, Rebecca, and their adopted Black daughter, Akila. And yes, the "family" dynamics here are just as messy as you'd imagine. Okay gang, something I've realized about myself recently: I love a cringey book. I love to feel embarrassed or horrified on behalf of a character; let's not even begin to unpack what that means about me. Luster has a high cringe-factor, and we can chalk that up to the fact that Edie is a painfully real character, living an extremely realistic, paycheque-to-paycheque, tiny apartment, casual sexual encounters, New York life. Take this young woman and drop her in suburban New Jersey in the midst of an open marriage between two upper-middle-class, middle-aged white professionals, and you'll have some tense moments. But Luster isn't just messy, it's complex. As time passes, Edie's relationship with Eric takes a back burner to her bizarre power struggle-slash-friendship with Rebecca and her reluctant (on both sides) cultural mentorship of Akila. The relationships between these girls and women are ultimately much more compelling than the lukewarm romance. I was also compelled by Edie's desire to become a working artist; speaking about her painting, she says, I am good, but not good enough, which is worse than simply being bad," and damn, doesn't that hit home? Thanks for reading!

Happy Sunday, and welcome to Staff Inspections! Last year, I had the pleasure of reading, loving, and reviewing books by authors that I happen to know personally - Katherine Fawcett and Mary MacDonald, I'm looking at you! Well, what a delight to add another book to that list so early in 2021. I've had Zsuzsi Gartner's Better Living Through Plastic Explosives on my "to be read" list for years, but when I had a chance to read her latest, "The Beguiling," I let the newer book ju...mp the line. Needless to say, I'm now more eager than ever to dive into Zsuzsi's back-catalogue! I'm going to tell you as little about the plot of this novel as possible, since I had the pleasure of knowing next to nothing going in, allowing me to be delighted, entranced - beguiled, even - as the premise unfolded. So, I'll just say this: our narrator is a woman named Lucy who, after receiving a truly bizarre deathbed confession from her cousin and close friend, Zoltan, is approached by stranger after stranger, all with the same perplexing mission. The Beguiling is Gartner's first novel - she's celebrated for her short stories - and she seems to have already mastered the format. A nod to her favoured construction, Zsuzsi has very cunningly framed the narrative in such a way that each chapter contains embedded short stories, told to the narrator by the aforementioned strangers she meets. These encounters take Lucy and the reader around the world, and each is completely unpredictable in its own way. At times, you might not know where this book is taking you, but I promise, you'll like where you end up. Thanks for reading!

Happy Sunday, and welcome to Staff Inspections! It's great to be back after a proper holiday break. I don't want to jinx anything, but my staycay seems to have rewired my brain, and I'm back to reading at my regular pace. Maybe we have Samantha Irby to thank for that - I devoured two of her books in the last few weeks, one right before the new year, and one right after. It's safe to say she's a new favourite of mine! It's probably not a surprise that I love Samantha Irby's wr...iting - she's funny, honest (to the point of over-sharing in some people's books), wry, and occasionally gross. That's a winning combination for me! Irby's essay collections share every skeleton in her closet - her difficult childhood, the loss of her parents, her lack of adulting skills, misadventures in dating, thoroughly unglamourous stories of 10+ years working at an animal hospital. By reading these books back-to-back, I had the instant gratification of seeing relationships progress and careers solidify across the two collections, and I was delighted to celebrate those successes along with the author - and cackle almost constantly at the mishaps that balanced out the wins. Do yourself a favour and read some Samantha Irby in 2021! In case you care about such things, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life comes first, followed by Wow, No Thank You. And, if you're even smarter than me, you'll read Irby's first book, Meaty, before both. Thanks for reading!

Happy Sunday, and welcome to Staff Inspections! I'm realizing upon reflection that I didn't read very many Young Adult or Middle Grade book in 2020. This seems absurd to me now, since YA books in particular are so deeply comforting to me when I'm in a reading slump - they're generally easy to read, and they tackle relevant issues like racism, transphobia, and classism more competently than any adult fiction out there. So: more YA fiction in 2021, and I've started the year on ...a high note with Felix Ever After. Felix Love has average teenage problems: worrying about college, wishing he would fall in love, navigating a tense relationship with his dad. But, when he experiences a very public but anonymous act of transphobia, a new set of problems arise. Felix wants to find the culprit and exact revenge, but the path to retaliation leads him to unexpected self-discovery...and a possible love-triangle. Not to brag, but I know some pretty great teenagers (okay, I am bragging), and they really do talk and act like Felix and his friends; I assumed that the author was in their early 20s based on how real these characters felt, but Kacen Callender is a 30-something like myself, so I tip my hat to them. Of course, when I say "real" I always mean deeply and wonderfully flawed, and that's very true here. There were multiple times when I was so stressed out by Felix's decision to speak without thinking that I yelled "FELIX, NO" and scared the cat. But, despite his questionable choices and messy, complicated relationships, I was always rooting for Felix, and I think that's the mark of a great protagonist. Callender has also done a wonderful job of including tough conversations about Felix's trans identity within the fabric of the narrative. These don't feel forced (like, how-to-tell-your-dad-you're-trans 101), but instead read as natural, matter-of-course chapters in Felix's exploration of his identity. The author is a trans person of colour, and has likely had versions of these conversations in their own life, and the authenticity really shows. Thanks for reading!

We've received a few more copies of A Promised Land, Barack Obama's new memoir! This is one of our most popular titles for gift-giving this year - if you want to claim a copy, call us at 604-932-5557 or email [email protected] ASAP! No Facebook comment requests, please.

Happy Sunday, and welcome to Staff Inspections! Since we have a mere two Sundays remaining before Christmas, I thought I'd give you folks a round-up of my top ten favourite novels of the year, in case you're still looking for inspiration! Please keep in mind, time is pretty short to order titles that we don't have in stock, but also, time is meaningless this year, so who cares if a Christmas gift arrives in January, right?! Ground rules - I'll let you know what's in stock ri...ght now (as of December 13), but if you want to snap something up, call the store at 604-932-5557 ASAP! Do not comment or message us here for holds, talk to a real person on the phone. Let's proceed (in no particular order): 1. For the lover of fantasy, try The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. Fortune favours the bold, so go ahead and order the trilogy, or if you want something under the tree, we have the first book, The Fifth Season, in stock! 2. For the Millennial or Gen Z romance fan (or for anyone who likes a sexy story with lots of pop culture references), Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston is a sure thing! In stock right now. 3, 4, 5. Short stories were an absolute life-saver for me in 2020! If you've got a reluctant reader on your list, or an enthusiastic reader that's been struck with reader's block like myself (yes, it's a thing), I can heartily endorse Moccasin Square Gardens by Richard Van Camp, The Swan Suit by Katherine Fawcett, and The Crooked Thing by Mary MacDonald. All three are currently in stock! 6. For the lover of magical realism who isn't afraid of a big-ass book, go for The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (all 592 pages of it). In stock! 7 & 8. For readers who relish spooky stories all year long, my two favourite horror novels of the year. The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones is an atmospheric page-turner with slow-burning tension, and The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix is cheekier but just as terrifying. These aren't in stock, but you can order them by calling! 9, 10, 11. Okay, you get a bonus book here. For folks who love contemporary fiction with a message, I have to recommend all three of these novels by up-and-coming young, Black authors: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (in stock), Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (in stock), and Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams (available to order). Happy shopping, and happy reading!

Hello readers! If you’re planning to give books to loved ones this holiday season (and we hope you are), we recommend placing orders sooner than later. Publishers are always busy at the time of year, and deliveries are moving a bit slowly because of COVID-19. So, give us a call at 604-932-5557 or email [email protected] to place holds or order titles! Or, drop by for a browse - as always, we have great options in stock.

Hello readers! We’d like to ask you a big favour: if you’ve ordered books and we’ve let you know that they’ve arrived, please come pick them up ASAP! Our holds shelf gets very full at this time of year, and we don’t have much extra space to spare. Squamish folks, if you’d like your order delivered, let us know! Email [email protected] and we’ll arrange delivery.... Thanks for your continued support!