wildly curious
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

2015 Holiday Book Show

Photo by Kenneth R Rowley, CC via Flickr

Many people have suggested that books are a sort of passport to another world, and as the writer Neil Gaiman reminds us, "it's much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world!” So with that in mind, we’re gathering our panel of local booksellers to make their suggestions for titles to match everyone on your holiday list. Doug is joined by Betsy Burton (The King’s English), Catherine Weller (Weller Book Works), and Ken Sanders (Ken Sanders Rare Books).

Adult Books: , Ken Sanders, Catherine Weller, Betsy Burton

Children's Books: Betsy Burton , KenSandersCatherineWeller

**********************************

Ken Sanders' Books for Adults,Ken Sanders Rare Books

Utah, The Mormons, Western Americana

  • Abbey in America: A Philosopher’s Legacy in a New Century by John A. Murray (Editor), University of New Mexico Press, hardcover, $39.95
  • Confessions of a Revisionist Historian: David L. Bigler on the Mormons and the West by David L. Bigler (Edited by Will Bagley), University of Utah Tanner Trust Fund, hardcover, $29.95
  • Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West by Sarah Alisabeth Fox, University of Nebraska Press, hardcover, $29.95
  • The Mapmakers of New Zion: A Cartographic History of Mormonism by Richard Francaviglia, University of Utah Press, hardcover, $34.95
  • The Electric Edge of Academe: The Saga of Lucien L. Nunn and Deep Springs College by L. Jackson Newell, University of Utah Press, hardcover, $39.95
  • How the World Moves: The Odyssey of an American Indian Family by Peter Nabokov, Viking, hardcover, $32.95
  • Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness by W. Paul Reeve, Oxford University Press, hardcover, $34.95
  • An 1860 English-Hopi Vocabulary Written in the Deseret Alphabet by Kenneth R. Beesley and Dirk Elzinga, University of Utah Press, paperback, $19.95

Local Authors and Publications

  • Kate MacLeod: A Collection of Songs by Kate MacLeod, Dream Garden Press, paperback, $25.00
  • Some Love by Alex Caldiero, Signature Books, paperback, $17.95
  • The Possum Codex by Stefene Russell, Otis Nebula Press, paperback, $15.00
  • Dark Desert Night by 3hattrio (Hal Cannon, Greg Istock, Eli Wrankle), Okehdokee Records, AudioCD, $15.00
  • Painters of the Grand Teton National Park by Donna Poulton and James Poulton, Gibbs Smith, hardcover, $75.00
  • The Art and Life of Jimmie Jones: Landscape Artist of the Canyon Country by James M. Aton, Gibbs Smith, hardcover, $75.00
  • Saltfront: Studies in Human Habit(at) Issue #4, paperback, Saltfront, $12.00
  • Sugar House Review: An Independent Poetry Magazine Issue #11, Sugar House Review, paperback, $8.00

Fiction and Literature

  • The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz, Knopf, hardcover, $27.95
  • The Dying Grass by William T. Vollmann, Viking, hardcover, $55.00
  • The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch, Harper, hardcover, $24.99
  • The Familiar, Vol. 1: One Rainy Day in May by Mark Z. Danielewski, Pantheon, paperback, $25.00
  • The Familiar, Vol. 2: Into the Forest by Mark Z. Danielewski, Pantheon, paperback, $25.00
  • The First Bad Man by Miranda July, Scribner, paperback, $16.00
  • Purity by Jonathan Franzen, hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux, hardcover, $28.00

Non-Fiction

  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Spiegel & Grau, hardcover, $24.00
  • What We’re Fighting For Now Is Each Other: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice by Wen Stephenson, Beacon Press, hardcover, $29.99
  • Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2010 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Liveright, hardcover, $35.00
  • M Train by Patti Smith, hardcover, Knopf, $25.00
  • So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson, Riverhead, hardcover, $27.95

Joe Hill and the IWW

  • Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture (Second Edition) by Franklin Rosemont, PM Press, paperback, $29.95
  • Rebel Voices: An I.W.W. Anthology by Joyce L. Kornbluh (editor), Charles H. Kerr, paperback, $27.95
  • A History of Utah Radicalism: Startling, Socialistic, and Decidedly Revolutionary by John McCormick and John Sillito, Utah State University Press, hardcover, $37.95

Illustrated/Comics

  • Gods’ Man: A Novel in Woodcuts by Lynd Ward, Centipede Press, limited edition hardcover, $40.00
  • Dinomania: The Lost Art of Winsor McCay, the Secret Origins of King Kong, and the Urge to Destroy New York by Ulrich Merkl, Fantagraphics Books, hardcover, $95.00
  • The Eternaut by Francisco Solano Lopez and Hector German Oesterheld, Fantagraphics, hardcover, $39.99

Return to Top

Catherine Weller's Books for Adults,Weller Book Works

  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Speigel & Grau, $24.00
  • Bitterman’s Field Guide to Bitters: 500 Bitters, 50 Amari, 123 Recipes for Cocktails, Food and Homemade Bitters by Mark Bitterman, Andrews McMeel Publishing, paperback, $25.00
  • City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, City Lights Books, hardcover, $21.95
  • City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg, Knopf, hardcover, $30.00
  • Essential Scratch and Sniff Guide to Becoming a Whiskey Know-It-All by Richard Betts, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, board book, $22.00
  • Failure: Why Science is So Successful by Stuart Firestein, Oxford University Press, $21.95
  • Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson, Flatiron Books, hardcover, $26.99
  • Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins, Riverhead Books, hardcover, $27.95
  • Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein, Riverhead Books, hardcover, $27.95
  • Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf, Knopf, hardcover, $30.00
  • Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell, Riverhead Books, hardcover, $27.95
  • Learning to Die in the Anthropocene by Roy Scranton, City Lights Publishers, paperback, $13.95
  • Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Matrix by Mark Bittman, Pam Krause Books, hardcover, $35.00
  • Mislaid by Nell Zink, Ecco, hardcover, $26.99
  • Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings edited by Joanna Brooks, Rachel Hunt Steenblik, and Hanna Wheelwright, Oxford University Press, hardcover $29.95
  • Natural History of Wine by Ian Tattersall and Rob Desalle, Yale University Press, hardcover, $35.00
  • SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard, Liveright Publishing, hardcover, $35.00
  • Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munro, Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, $24.95
  • Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories by Anthony Marra, Hogarth, hardcover, $25.00
  • World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming and Individual in an Age of Distraction by Matthew B. Crawford, Farrar Straus and Giroux, hardcover, $26.00
  • Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2013 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Liveright Publishing, hardcover, $35.00
  • You Don’t Have to Like Me: Essays on Growing Up,  Speaking Out and Finding Feminism by Alida Nugent, Plume, paperback, $16.00

Return to Top

Betsy Burton's Books for Adults,The King's English

New Fiction

  • The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra, Hogarth, hardcover, $25.00
  • And West Is West by Ron Childress, Algonquin, hardcover, $26.95
  • Numero Zero by Umberto Eco, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, hardcover, $24.00
  • The Double Life of Liliane by Lily Tuck, Atlantic Monthly Press, hardcover, $26.00
  • Sweet Caress by William Boyd, Bloomsbury, hardcover, $28.00
  • The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood, Nan Talese/Doubleday, hardcover, $26.95

Best Reads of the Year

  • All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, Scribner, hardcover, $27.00
  • Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf, Knopf, hardcover, $24.00
  • Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig, Riverhead, hardcover, 28.95
  • Martin Marten by Brian Doyle, Thomas Dunne Books, hardcover, $24.99
  • Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg, Gallery/Scout, hardcover, $26.00
  • Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe by Romain Puertolas, Knopf, hardcover, $22.95
  • Best Boy by Eli Gottlieb, Liveright/Norton, hardcover, $24.95

Paper

  • Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher, Anchor, paper, $14.95
  • The Plover by Brian Doyle, Picador, paper, $16.00
  • Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, Vintage, paper, $15.95
  • My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, Europa, paper, $17.00
  • Silence and Song by Melanie Rae Thon, University of Alabama Press, paper, $16.95
  • The 7th Man by Melanie Rae Thon, New Michigan Press, paper, $9.00
  • Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín, Scribner, paper, $16.00
  • Painter by Peter Heller, Vintage, paper, $15.95

Mystery/Thriller

  • A Banquet of Consequences: A Lynley Novel by Elizabeth George, Vikiing, hardcover, $28.95
  • Slade House by David Mitchell, Random House, hardcover, $26
  • Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, Mulholland/Little Brown, hardcover, $28
  • Night Life by David Taylor, Forge, hardcover, $25.99
  • The Promise by Robert Crais, G. P. Putnam, hardcover, $27.95

Nonfiction

  • The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff, Little Brown, hardcover, $32.00
  • 1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History by Jay Winik, Simon & Schuster, hardcover, $35.00
  • Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell, Riverhead, hardcover, $27.95
  • Grizzly: The Bears of Greater Yellowstone by Tom Mangelsen and Todd Wilkinson, Rizzoli, hardcover, $60.00
  • Painters of Grand Teton National Park by Donna and James Poulton, Gibbs Smith, hardcover, $75.00
  • Ways to the West: How Getting out of Our Cars Is Reclaiming America’s Frontier by Tim Sullivan, Utah State, paper, $24.95
  • Home Is Burning: A Memoir by Dan Marshall, Flatiron, hardcover, $27.99

Return to Top

Betsy Burton's Books for Children,The King's English

Children's Picture Books

  • Merry Christmas, Mr. Mouse by Caralyn Buehner, illustrated by Mark Buehner, Dial, hardcover, $17.99
  • Lenny & Lucy by Philip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin E. Stead, Roaring Book Press, Hardcover, $17.99
  • Dewey Bob by Judy Schachner, Dial, hardcover, $17.99
  • One Word from Sophia by Jim Averbeck, illustrated by Yasmeen Ismail, Simon & Schuster, hardcover, $17.99
  • The Princess in Black and the Perfect Princess Party by Shannon and Dean Hale, Illustrated by LeUYEN Pham, Candlewick Press, hardcover, $14.99 (transitional reader)

Children’s Chapter Books

  • The Marvels by Brian Selznick, Scholastic, hardcover, $32.99 (9 and up)
  • Dumplin' by Julie Murphy, Balzer + Bray, hardcover, $17.99 (14 and up)
  • Trouble is a Friend of Mine by Stephanie Tromley, Penguin, hardcover, $17.99 (12 and up)
  • Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Henry Holt, hardcover, $18.99 (14 and up)

Return to Top

Ken Sanders’ Books for Children (along with Illustrated, Comics and Graphic NovelsKen Sanders Rare Books

Children’s

  • Choose Your Own Adventure (series) by R.A. Montgomery, Bantam, paperback, $3-$5/each (used)
  • The Elephant and Piggie Books (series) by Mo Willems, Disney/Hyperion, hardcover, $9.99

Alice in Wonderland

  • The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll (Original Illustrations by John Tenniel), WW Norton, hardcover, $39.95
  • The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Belknap, hardcover, $29.95

Return to Top

Catherine Weller's Books for Children,Weller Book Works

  • Big Bear Little Chair by Lizi Boyd, Chronicle Books, hardcover, $16.99
  • Cabinet of Curiosities: Collecting and Understanding the Wonders of the Natural World by Gordon Grice, Workman Publishing, hardcover, $24.95
  • George by Alex Gino, Scholastic Press, hardcover, $16.99
  • Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson, Boom! Box, paperback, $14.99
  • Marvels by Brian Selznick, Scholastic Books, hardcover, $32.99
  • Mystery of Life: How Nothing Became Everything by Jan Paul Schutten, Aladin, hardcover, $15.99
  • Nest by Kenneth Oppel, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, hardcover, $16.99
  • Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton, Arthur A. Levine, hardcover, $17.99
  • Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson, Dial, paperback, $12.99
  • Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett, HarperCollins, hardcover, $18.99
  • Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad by M.T. Anderson, Candlewick, $25.99

Return to Top

Doug Fabrizio has been reporting for KUER News since 1987, and became News Director in 1993. In 2001, he became host and executive producer of KUER's RadioWest, a one hour conversation/call-in show on KUER 90.1 in Salt Lake City. He has gained a reputation for his thoughtful style. He has interviewed everyone from Isabel Allende to the Dalai Lama, and from Madeleine Albright to Desmond Tutu. His interview skills landed him a spot as a guest host of the national NPR program, "Talk of the Nation." He has won numerous awards for his reporting and for his work with RadioWest and KUED's Utah NOW from such organizations as the Society of Professional Journalists, the Utah Broadcasters Association, the Public Radio News Directors Association and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Related Content
  • Thursday, it’s time for our bi-annual round up of book suggestions from local experts Catherine Weller (Weller Book Works), Ken Sanders (Ken Sanders Rare…