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Seth's Picks

Seth

Catapult co-owner Seth Marko founded the original Book Catapult blog in 2006. He has worked in bookstores from New Orleans to San Diego since 2001 and was a field sales rep who visited bookstores all over the West for a publishing distribution group until early 2020.

Seth's 10 favorite reads of 2023
Seth's 10 favorite reads of 2022
Seth's 10 favorite books from our First Five years (2017-2022)

 

 

 

Whenever journalist Bosker went to art shows & gallery openings in NYC, she always wondered what she was missing with the contemporary art on display. A urinal on a gallery wall or a performance artist who sits on the faces of volunteers? Is this "good art?" Why is this art at all? So she ventur ... Read More about
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Álvaro Enrigue
Current price: $28.00
"Enrigue’s genius lies in his ability to bring readers close to its tangled knot of priests, mercenaries, warriors and princesses while adding a pinch of biting humor." --Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Los Angeles Times “Riotously entertaining... A triumph of solemnity-busting erudition and mischievous inven ... Read More about
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Margaret Renkl
Current price: $32.00
I’ve thought long & hard about how to succinctly recommend this perfect book to you & the best I can come up with is, open it, take a look, slowly read some passages (I suggest “Flower of Dreams” in the Fall section while you’re standing in the shop) then bring it home with you. I thought Ma ... Read More about
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Dann McDorman
Current price: $28.00
LOOKING FOR AN ANYTHING-BUT-ORDINARY WHODUNIT? • Welcome to the West Heart Club. Where the drinks are neat but behind closed doors . . . things can get messy. Where upright citizens are deemed downright boring. Where the only missing piece of the puzzle is you, dear reader. A unique and irresistible ... Read More about
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Lauren Groff
Current price: $28.00
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, TIME, ESQUIRE, VOGUE, LA TIMES, SLATE, HARPER'S BAZAAR and others “Part historical, part horror, part breathless thriller, part wilderness survival tale, The Vaster Wilds is a sto ... Read More about
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Nina Maclaughlin
Current price: $14.95
BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER - LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER - BOSTON.COM BOOKCLUB SELECTION A celebration and meditation on the season for drinking hot chocolate, spotting a wreath on a neighbor's door, experiencing the change in light of shorter days. All aspects of Winter, from the meteorological to ... Read More about
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Patrick deWitt
Current price: $30.00
NATIONAL BESTSELLER From bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself.  Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary ... Read More about
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John Mack Faragher
Current price: $24.00
A concise and lively history of California, the most multicultural state in the nation  “A masterful history.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)  “Faragher takes the reader on a captivating journey through myriad twists and turns of California’s multicultural history, enlivened by stories of people wh ... Read More about
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Lydia Millet
Current price: $17.95
One of NPR's Books We Love for 2022 • A New Yorker Best Books of 2022 So Far • A Publishers Weekly Best Novel of 2022 • A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2022 • One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2022 • An Oprah Daily and Literary Hub Favorite Book of 2022 • A BookBrowse Best Novel for Book Cl ... Read More about
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NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century: the story of the world’s most prolific art thief, Stéphane Breitwieser. • “The Art Thief, like its title character, has confidence, élan, and a great sense of timing."—The New Yorker A BEST BOO ... Read More about
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Emma Cline
Current price: $28.00
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A young woman pretends to be someone she isn’t in this “spellbinding” (Vogue), “smoldering” (The Washington Post) novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls.  “Under Cline’s command, every sentence as sharp as a scalpel, a woman toeing the line between welcome ... Read More about
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Gianfranco Calligarich
Current price: $17.00
The first novel from award-winning author Gianfranco Calligarich to be published in English, Last Summer in the City is a witty and despairing classic of Italian literature. Biting, tragic, and endlessly quotable, this translated edition features an introductory appreciation from longtime fan New Yo ... Read More about
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Susan Straight
Current price: $19.00
“A wide and deep view of a dynamic, multiethnic Southern California . . . Susan Straight is an essential voice in American writing and in writing of the West.” —The New York Times Book Review Named a most anticipated book of March 2022 by the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Alta From the National ... Read More about
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Louise Kennedy
Current price: $18.00
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION “Brilliant, beautiful, heartbreaking.”—J.Courtney Sullivan, New York Times Book Review  “TRESPASSES vaults Kennedy into the ranks of such contemporary masters as McCann, Claire Keegan, Colin Barrett, a ... Read More about
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Maylis De Kerangal
Current price: $18.00
** SELECTED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES AS 1 OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ** ** INCLUDED ON THE NEW YORKER'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023 ** “At The New York Times Book Review, I think it's fair to say we were dazzled by the way the author creates . . . a miniature masterpiece of narrative tension and compressi ... Read More about
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A celebrated Danish writer explores the unsung histories and geographies of her beloved slice of the world. Me, my notebook and my love of the wild and desolate. I wanted to do the opposite of what was expected of me. It’s a recurring pattern in my life. An instinct. Dorthe Nors’s first nonfictio ... Read More about
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Jonathan Evison
Current price: $18.00
Four modern families aboard a passenger train hurtle into the night. One hundred and seventy years earlier their forebearers make their way in a young nation built on grand promises. Each family follows their own path, only to find that their destinies are linked inextricably, the culmination of fiv ... Read More about
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"With this book, you feel you can stop time and savor the rituals of life." --Maira Kalman An immersive journey through the culture and cuisine of one Japanese town, its forest, and its watershed--where ducks are hunted by net, saké is brewed from the purest mountain water, and charcoal is fired in ... Read More about
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Rivka Galchen
Current price: $18.00
The startling, witty, highly anticipated second novel from the critically acclaimed author of Atmospheric Disturbances. The story begins in 1618, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years' War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman ... Read More about
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Andrew O'Hagan
Current price: $14.95
An unforgettable coming-of-age novel that becomes a profound mediation on life, death, and lifelong friendship. Everyone has a Tully Dawson: the friend who defines your life. In the summer of 1986, in a small Scottish town, James and Tully ignite a brilliant friendship based on music, films and the ... Read More about
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Laurent Binet
Current price: $18.00
An ambitious and highly entertaining novel of revisionist history from the author of the international bestseller HHhH, Laurent Binet’s Civilizations is nothing less than a strangely believable counterfactual history of the modern world, fizzing with ideas about colonization, empire building, and th ... Read More about
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Sloane Crosley
Current price: $18.00
Hilariously insightful and delightfully suspenseful, Cult Classic is an original: a masterfully crafted tale of love, memory, morality, and mind control, as well as a fresh foray into the philosophy of romance. A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK of 2022 at Glamour, W, Nylon, Fortune, Literary Hub, The Million ... Read More about
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The cult-y pocket-size field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical ... Read More about
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Lauren Groff
Current price: $18.00
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2022 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2021 Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, NPR, The Financial Times, Good Housekeep ... Read More about
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A beautiful, lyrical exploration of the places where nature is flourishing in our absence "[Flyn] captures the dread, sadness, and wonder of beholding the results of humanity's destructive impulse, and she arrives at a new appreciation of life, 'all the stranger and more valuable for its resilence.' ... Read More about
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Erling Kagge
Current price: $14.95
"A joyful celebration" (NPR) that shows us why silence is essential to our sanity and happiness—and how it can open doors to wonder and gratitude—from a renowned explorer and acclaimed author. In this astonishing and transformative meditation, Erling Kagge, famed Norwegian explorer and the first p ... Read More about
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Tamara Shopsin
Current price: $17.00
A WIRED Pick for the 7 Books You Need to Read This Winter and one of Vox’s 11 Titles Not to Miss From the incomparable New York Times and New Yorker illustrator Tamara Shopsin comes a debut novel about a New York City printer repair technician who grows up alongside the Apple computer—featuring orig ... Read More about
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Jonathan Drori
Current price: $24.99
An inspirational and beautifully illustrated book that tells the stories of 80 plants from around the globe. In his follow-up to the bestselling Around the World in 80 Trees, Jonathan Drori takes another trip across the globe, bringing to life the science of plants by revealing how their worlds are ... Read More about
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Kawai Strong Washburn
Current price: $18.00
WINNER OF THE 2020 PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FOR DEBUT NOVEL. One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020. A finalist for the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Named one of the Best Books of 2020 by the New York Times (#30), the Guardian, the Boston Globe, Oprah Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, BBC Culture, Good ... Read More about
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Andrew Krivak
Current price: $17.99
From National Book Award in Fiction finalist Andrew Krivak comes a gorgeous fable of Earth's last two human inhabitants, and a girl's journey home In an Edenic future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some boo ... Read More about
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Roy Jacobsen
Current price: $16.95
Shortlisted for the 2017 International Man Booker Prize - Shortlisted for the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award​ - "Even by his high standards, his magnificent new novel The Unseen is Jacobsen's finest to date, as blunt as it is subtle and is easily among the best books I have ever read."―Eil ... Read More about
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Torbjørn Ekelund
Current price: $17.95
"What Ekelund is] addressing is the intention to walk one's way to meaning: the walk as spiritual exercise, a kind of vision quest... A key strategy for finding ourselves, then, is to first get lost."--The New York Times Book Review An ode to paths and the journeys we take through nature, as told ... Read More about
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Helen MacDonald
Current price: $17.00
From the New York Times bestselling author of H is for Hawk and winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction, comes a transcendent collection of essays about the human relationship to the natural world. Animals don't exist in order to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and ... Read More about
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Nina Maclaughlin
Current price: $14.95
Summer is fireflies and sparklers. Fat red tomatoes sliced thin and salted. Lemonade and long dreamy days. The treasures of the season are gone much too soon -- but they're captured here, in loving sensuous prose that's both personal and universal, for you to find any time of year. Experience the m ... Read More about
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"Hands-down one of the most beautiful books of the year." --NPR From beloved, award-winning poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil comes a debut work of nonfiction--a collection of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us. As a child, Nezhukumatathil called ... Read More about
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Margaret Renkl
Current price: $16.00
Named a "Best Book of the Year" by New Statesman, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and Washington Independent Review of Books Southern Book Prize Finalist From New York Times contributing opinion writer Margaret Renkl comes an unusual, captivating portrait of a family--and of the cyc ... Read More about
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Ben Ehrenreich
Current price: $16.95
Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, this New York Times Notable Book presents a stunning reckoning with our current moment and with the literal and figurative end of time. Desert Notebooks examines how the unprecedented pace of destruction to our environm ... Read More about
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Robert Macfarlane
Current price: $17.95
National Bestseller • New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year" • NPR "Favorite Books of 2019" • Guardian "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" • Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award "Mesmerizing…Underland is a portal of light in dark times." —Terry Tempest Williams, New York Times Book Rev ... Read More about
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"Finch is today’s best, most perceptive Cape Cod writer in a line extending all the way back to Henry David Thoreau." —Christian Science Monitor Weaving together Robert Finch’s collected writings from over fifty years and a thousand miles of walking along Cape Cod’s Atlantic coast, The Outer Beach i ... Read More about
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Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago TribuneA Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff PickA pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also ... Read More about
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Wendell Berry
Current price: $15.95
This poetry collection about nature, community, and tradition is a stunning primer on the poetic works of the award-winning Kentucky writer, environmentalist, and cultural critic.  The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry gathers one hundred poems written between 1957 and 1996. Chosen by the author, thes ... Read More about
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Richard Powers
Current price: $18.95
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction Winner of the William Dean Howells Medal Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Over One Year on the New York Times Bestseller List A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book ... Read More about
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Jonathan Drori, Lucille Clerc
Current price: $24.99
"An arboreal odyssey" – NATURE "One of the most quietly beautiful books of the year" – DAILY MAIL Discover the secretive world of trees in Jonathan Drori's number one bestseller… Bestselling author and environmentalist Jonathan Drori follows in the footsteps of Phileas Fogg as he tells the stories o ... Read More about
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Hernan Diaz
Current price: $18.00
Finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction A young Swedish immigrant finds himself penniless and alone in California. The boy travels East in search of his brother, moving on foot against the great current of emigrants pushing West. Driven back again and again, he meets naturalists, criminals ... Read More about
Robert Macfarlane
Current price: $20.00
The acclaimed author of The Wild Places and Underland examines the subtle ways we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move Chosen by Slate as one of the 50 best nonfiction books of the past 25 years In this exquisitely written book, which folds together natural history, cartography, geolog ... Read More about
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the visionary German naturalist whose ideas changed the way we see the natural world—and in the process created modern environmentalism. • From the acclaimed author of Magnificent Rebels. "Vivid and exciting.... Wulf’s pulsating account br ... Read More about
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David Mitchell
Current price: $18.00
By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks | Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in twenty-first-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for ... Read More about
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Peter Heller
Previous price: $18.00 Current price: $17.00
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of The River: In this "end-of-the-world novel more like a rapturous beginning" (San Francisco Chronicle), Hig somehow survived the flu pandemic that killed everyone he knows. His gripping story is "an ode to friendship between two men...the strong bond between a ... Read More about
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