https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/lisas-book-blog daily 0.75 2026-09-24 https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/lisas-book-blog/land monthly 0.5 2026-09-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/e0912401-463e-44a4-8b5d-404c1a272255/OIP+%281%29.webp In the Margins and Off the Map - Land - A map can tell you where something is. It can give you boundaries, distances, names, and directions. But knowing where something is and knowing what it is are not quite the same thing. That distinction runs through Maggie O’Farrell’s Land, a novel in which the landscape hold far more than any map can record. Someone can survey the land, measure it, and give it shape on paper. But the people who inhabit it carry their own maps, too. Maps of their histories, their relationships, and the people they believe they know. And those maps don’t always agree. I kept thinking about Father Joseph and the version of Liam he carries in his head. He has already decided who this boy is, what he means, and where he belongs. There is no room in that understanding for Liam to be someone else. And I kept wondering how often we do this to one another - mistaking the story we’ve constructed about a person for the person himself. The characters in Land inhabit the same history, but each carries a different version of it. What happened, what they believe happened, and what they have been told happened are not necessarily the same thing. These differences shape their loyalties, their choices, and their understanding of where they belong. https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/lisas-book-blog/thepalmhouse monthly 0.5 2026-09-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/ecbfe92b-2b5e-473e-aff6-d9810c8f5953/239704041.jpg In the Margins and Off the Map - The Palm House - It is rare these days that I go into a book completely cold. I am, allegedly, a professional bookseller, which means I usually know something - the publisher pitch, the author, the reviews, the buzz, or at least some reason the book has ended up on my radar. With Gwendoline Riley’s The Palm House, I knew exactly one thing: it was on the 2026 Booker Prize longlist. That was pretty much it. And for a while, I wasn’t even sure I liked it. The Palm House follows Laura across different periods of her life and through the relationships that shape her, especially her long friendship with Putnam. The writing was sharp, but everything felt so quiet and held back that I couldn’t quite get a grip on it. I wasn’t bored exactly. I just wasn’t attached to anybody yet. I was curious enough to keep going, but I wasn’t in it. Not yet. And then somewhere along the way, I was. A few days after I finished the book, I listened to a reviewer I really admire absolutely tear it apart. What fascinated me was that nearly everything he disliked - the ordinariness, the repetition, the pub conversations, the tiny social details, the refusal to explain people clearly - was exactly what I had come to love. Listening to him hate it helped me understand why I loved it. Because not much happens in The Palm House in the obvious sense. People talk. They remember. They disappoint each other. They take care of each other badly or well. They avoid things. They repeat themselves. They sit in pubs. They tear open bags of crisps. https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/sierras-book-blog daily 0.75 2026-09-23 https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/sierras-book-blog/gilead monthly 0.5 2026-09-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/97b02482-fd6c-4a74-9481-113921eff29a/71kW3I8WH5L._AC_UF1000%2C1000_QL80_.jpg Sierra's Book Blog - Gilead - Lisa Tuchek’s review of The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley, which you can read here, struck me when she described how a book can creep up on you. Into you, really. As you turn the pages, you’re not even sure if you like what you’re reading, but something like an undertow pulls you beneath the surface. And then suddenly you’re on the last page, you’re done, and John Ames, your dear protagonist, is dead and gone. I struggled to articulate the central question that was pulling me through reading this story. I had to resurface and breathe for a second. Now, I think it was this: what are you trying to say, Ames? A couple of years ago, when I was newly married and my algorithm knew it, I saw an article that gave relationship advice. The author suggested that a couple, when they have a conflict, ought to spiral downward, circling the problem in ever-shrinking ringlets until they hit that central point, together, at rock bottom. The conflict becomes clear. A harmonious air is restored. But it feels like hell first, down there in that deep, dark pit. I’m not sure how good that is, at least for our personal conflicts. To my mind, the spiral is Ames throughout Gilead—and it’s all of us who write our thoughts out for posterity. How often do I write a cutting, brilliant sentence and think Aha! I’ve got it now! I feel calm and restored until I return to my journal days later and wonder what in the world I was thinking. I continue to move around some point I can’t yet see, my frustration grows, and I never seem to reach the bottom. https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/home daily 1.0 2026-07-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/05919321-87d9-4cc4-82c0-973cb44cc980/IMG_2101.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/e94fddf7-80a2-4b6b-9b64-8da6a6b7b0e9/IMG_1713.jpg https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/pastevents daily 0.75 2026-07-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/cc3fe956-4f13-4011-89fe-1bc71cefc11a/Book+Signing+Event+Flyer.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/91f66783-d507-4407-adf0-182d2d086901/Book+Signing+Event+Layout.png https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/bookclubs daily 0.75 2026-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/cdc98bc0-28fa-43ca-855b-062fbf32b52e/OIP+%281%29.webp https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/17ebf732-6cf4-42a9-a930-e7e08c5541f3/OIP.webp https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/cdc98bc0-28fa-43ca-855b-062fbf32b52e/OIP+%281%29.webp https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/39479aa9-c3b8-40ec-8867-664e778f88c8/217114261.jpg https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/upcomingevents daily 0.75 2026-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/124e288f-b70f-4655-b61e-939ffe78cda9/Screenshot+2026-09-18+114434.png https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/watermarkweekly daily 0.75 2026-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/1cc38e87-595f-4391-8cf9-1b7d26ba43a9/IMG_2106.jpeg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/afcb61ba-8ef9-4a85-b8d2-625cdd083cf7/Screenshot+2026-09-19+113356.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/b26364f8-99bd-4f8a-9761-e1f9f55fd685/Screenshot+2026-09-19+113652.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/b5b82dc0-5cb2-41d5-ad14-c63b77a3ea03/Screenshot+2026-09-19+111350.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/70eb7b1f-2ccb-429a-8f91-de173aad78a8/Screenshot+2026-09-12+120750.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/050d9712-7df0-4960-b596-05d46c55c711/Screenshot+2026-09-12+140559.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/bde710b4-5321-4228-8590-b93e650f3a8f/IMG_1979.jpeg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/5f62db8a-fd4b-4692-af31-24bb266319e3/IMG_1981.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/8e1e1114-4d4b-431c-8c3c-69f1fe7dd126/IMG_1982.jpeg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/50ea479e-7dcc-4bfe-a0c5-cb3c67f9c14a/IMG_2002.jpeg https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/theteam daily 0.75 2026-09-03 https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/lisasbookblog daily 0.75 2026-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/3e53b6ab-c67a-4b44-9aa7-88c5e943aa68/OIP+%282%29.webp https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/9841d358-2e46-4d35-9d96-7bbc0fc769f6/522x840.jpg https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/sierrasbookblog daily 0.75 2026-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6a3172ff0756ac500776166f/7a76a011-a53f-4236-b839-fb1038596f30/81zCJs4avlL._SL1500_.jpg https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/store daily 0.75 https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/store/gift-certificate monthly 0.5 2026-06-26 https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/store/tickets monthly 0.5 2026-06-26 https://www.watermarkbooksnc.com/store/p/meet-the-author-bob-crawford monthly 0.5 2026-09-01