Port Book and NewsletterMarch
Your Peninsula Booksellers and Happy Window Curators since 1985
104 E. First Street, Port Angeles, WA 98362
March 2026•Volume 1, Number 3
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A Flood of Good Books: March at Port Book and News

Usually, great nature writing trickles in over a season. This March, it arrived in a flood.

Publishing schedules have aligned to give us a whole new shelf for the naturalist's library, all at once. The lineup is breathtaking: deep dives into the Cascade wilderness, the secret lives of salmon, and the centrality of flowers, alongside new work from two writers who've changed how we think about hope in the natural world. If you've been looking for a way to root yourself in the Pacific Northwest this spring, this is the month.

Even better: one of these voices is coming to us in person. On April 11, Eric Wagner brings Seabirds as Sentinels to the Dungeness River Nature Center — a perfect bridge from page to place.

Details below and on the back.

Our Next Author Event

April 11: Eric Wagner

Every spring, thousands of rhinoceros auklets return to Destruction Island off Washington's coast. In Seabirds as Sentinels, biologist and science writer Eric Wagner follows the researchers tracking these birds to understand what their fates tell us about a changing ocean. Natural history, marine science, and Pacific Northwest storytelling at its best. New from University of Washington Press.

We are honored to host Professor Wagner and partner with the Dungeness River Nature Center to present this event.

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Staff Picks

The Lies that Summon the Night by Tessonja Odette (Feb 3)

From the setting of the Holy Continent to the witty characters on it, Tessonja Odette does a wonderful job of weaving a beautifully dark and twisty world into this amazingly fun romantasy. She tells the story of Inana Westwood, a runaway performer in a world where all forms of art are banned, and a Shadow Hunter named Dominic who has a need for people like Inana. Make sure to pick up a copy of this first in a series now so you can say you've been a fan since the beginning! P.S You really don't want to miss the BEAUTIFUL map.

—Belle

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews (Mar 31)

Say you are a fan of a book series, perhaps 'Game of Thrones', and you have read all the books multiple times. You know the world, you know the characters. This is what you come back to read once every year or two. One day you wake up and find yourself in the world of this book series. You are naked and you have no special isekai powers, only your knowledge of the characters and the plot. How long do you think you would survive? If you do survive more than a day, how would your choices change the world you loved to read? This is what happens to Maggie in "This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me". I LOVED this book (the audio book too!) and I hope you will too.

—Helena

Nature Books for March

Cover of The Glorians

The Glorians by Terry Tempest Williams (Mar 3)

Williams introduces the "Glorians" — not distant deities, but the overlooked presences of the natural world. These essays balance grief for the Great Salt Lake and the loss of Barry Lopez with a stubborn insistence that beauty is still unfolding. Richard Powers compares reading her to reading Whitman or Thoreau.

Cover of How Flowers Made Our World

How Flowers Made Our World by David George Haskell (Mar 24)

Two Pulitzer nominations, a Burroughs Medal, and now a startling premise: flowering plants are the architects of the modern world. A deep dive into eight specific plants — from roses to tea — tracking how angiosperms reinvented cooperation on Earth. Elizabeth Kolbert calls it "mind-blowing."

Cover of To Catch a Fish

To Catch a Fish by Mark Kurlansky (Mar 31)

Kurlansky was a commercial fisherman before he wrote Cod and Salt. Forty short essays on fish and the compulsion to pursue them, paired with Bri Dostie's illustrations. For anglers, certainly — but also for anyone who's stood at the edge of the Elwha and felt the pull. A handsome small-format hardcover.

Cover of John McPhee: Encounters in Wild America

John McPhee: Encounters in Wild America by John McPhee (Mar 31)

A definitive collection: four complete books including two PNW essentials, 'Coming into the Country' and the North Cascades-based 'Encounters with the Archdruid.' Nine hundred pages of the best nonfiction ever written for $45. If you know someone who loves the wilderness, this completes their library.

New Books this month

The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit (Mar 3)

The essential sequel to 'Hope in the Dark', twenty years later. A sweeping survey of sixty-five years of social and environmental transformation — from an energy revolution to salmon returning to restored streams. Instead of consolation, hard evidence of what is possible.

A Far-flung Life by M.L. Stedman (Mar 3)

Stedman's first novel since The Light Between Oceans. Enormous sheep station in Western Australia, vast and sweeping.

Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser (Mar 3)

Cinderella retold from the stepmother's POV, shattered and rebuilt. Historical, feminist, twist-heavy.

Whidbey by T. Kira Madden (Mar 10)

Debut novel from the author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. Literary thriller set on Whidbey Island. Three women connected through an abuser's murder. This is a major Pacific Northwest debut.

Chain of Ideas by Ibram X. Kendi (Mar 17)

The 'Stamped from the Beginning' author traces how "great replacement theory" moved from fringe conspiracy to global political force.

Life: A Love Story by Elizabeth Berg (Mar 17)

Classic Elizabeth Berg—warm, wise, and life-affirming, focusing on friendship, reconciliation, and the beauty of small moments.

Western Star by David Streitfeld (Mar 24)

The definitive McMurtry biography, by the NYT journalist. For anyone who's read 'Lonesome Dove' or appreciates a good bookstore. [pauses for effect] A life in books and landscape.

So many more March books! Go to https://portbooknews.com/march

Famous Last Words

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. — George Orwell, Animal Farm

Old Eric Blair new how to end a book. And begin them. And write all those words in between. Animal Farm remains a bestseller after 80 years. Thank goodness for Secker & Warburg, the fiercely independent British house that championed Orwell (the pen name of Eric Blair) when he was an outlier, with editors who said "yes" to politically dangerous work simply because they believed in it.

March is Small Press Month, and we are celebrating that spirit in our window display. Every title featured comes from a publisher independent of the five corporations that dominate the industry. Small presses are where the risks are still taken—on debut voices, translated literature, and the niche subjects that matter most. Stop by and see the display; come take a chance on a press that takes chances.