Ask a bookseller: Rediscovered Books in Boise
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Every week, The Thread checks in with booksellers around the country about their favorite books of the moment. This week, we spoke with Bruce DeLaney of Rediscovered Books in Boise, Idaho
Ten years ago, Bruce DeLaney gave up a career as a physicist to open a bookstore with his wife. He considers it one of the best decisions he's ever made.
Rediscovered Books sits just down the street from Idaho's capitol building in Boise. DeLaney sees a wide range of customers cycle through, from hunting and fishing enthusiasts to lawmakers to members of the shop's human rights book club.
DeLaney himself reads a lot of history and science fiction, but a new YA title from Sharon Cameron caught his eye this fall: "The Forgetting."
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It's set in a world where a mysterious plant grows.
"Every so often, this plant releases a pollen that causes all of the people to forget everything. You forget who you are, you forget what you can do, you forget who your family is. You basically wake up and you know nothing," DeLaney explained.
"So everyone carries around these journals that they keep that talk about: 'Who am I? Who do I know? What is my history?'
"The main character is a girl who doesn't forget. When this pollen causes everyone else to forget everything, she doesn't. She's also one of the very few people who knows that not everyone is truthful in these journals.
"It's this whole interesting science fiction book about identity and who we are and what is truth and what is history. It's all of these really, really interesting and meaty issues," DeLaney explained. "It's a really great example for people who think: 'Teen books are just for kids.' No. I would recommend this to any science fiction customers who come in."
But because DeLaney is a history buff, he had another recommendation to add to the list: Mary Beard's "SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome."
"It gives a history of Rome as the Romans saw it," he said. "What did Cicero think of Roman history? What did Caesar think of Roman history? What did Nero think of Roman history? And how did what they thought about the history of Rome influence Roman cultural moving forward?
"It's a fascinating way to look at the history of a people. It would be like looking at our American history and saying what did Lincoln think about American history? What did Kennedy think of American history? What did Martin Luther King think of American history?"
For Bruce DeLaney's full recommendation on "The Forgetting," use the audio player above.