what's new

Jan

20

2023

Award Winners

An Original Essay by 2023 PNBA Book Award Winner Putsata Reang

My mother sat in the very last row of chairs in the author event space at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon, the day my memoir, Ma and Me, was officially released. She smiled with pride as her gaze skipped across the room, surely taking in the improbability of the moment: her daughter, a child of Cambodian immigrants and an earnest student of English as a second language, was here to read from her own book in a building …

Jan

19

2023

Thursday Themes

Bestseller Spotlight: Pops of Pink

Every Wednesday, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association publishes the regional bestseller list. On Thursdays, we celebrate Thursday Themes to shine a spotlight on some of the books from the list and give our brains a different way of thinking about books. Sometimes the themes come from the covers, sometimes the titles. Readers are enjoying rosy outlooks, …

Jan

18

2023

Livid by Cai Emmons [red background, black and gold pair of scissors]

Face Out

Livid by Cai Emmons

This novel is a fascinating and moving portrait of love, sex, grief, feminism, morality, fortitude, and the complexities of human character. When Sybil returns from Boston to the West Coast town where she once lived, she’s immediately empaneled on a jury for a murder trial. Also on the jury is her ex-husband. Sybil’s sympathy for …

Jan

17

2023

Borrowed Copy

Honoring Beloved Author Cai Emmons

From the website of beloved Oregon author, Cai Emmons: Dear Readers, It is with sadness that we share the news of Cai ending her remarkable life on January 2, 2023. She had planned her death for her 72nd birthday, January 15, but ALS had other ideas. Like so much of her life up to this …

Jan

16

2023

Face Out

Noor by Nnedi Okorafor

Okorafor is a master of brevity who portrays rich, immersive worlds and characters with spare, head-spinning strokes. In a future Nigeria populated by tribes – many bearing animosities, suspicions, and resentments, as well as advanced technical and digital technologies – lives a woman named AO (for Artificial Organism) who is physically half cyborg. Forced to …

Jan

13

2023

Award Winners

The Reading Life, Interrupted: An Original Essay by 2023 PNBA Book Award Winner Kim Fu

I keep a spreadsheet that lists every book I’ve read since 2010. It’s the most consistent and representative record of my life that I have—a life spent reading. I can look back and see that I spent the summer of 2015 reading or rereading Jane Austen novels, and the summer of 2016, all of Sarah …

Jan

12

2023

Thursday Themes

Bestseller Spotlight: Hot Out of the Gates

On Wednesdays, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Bestseller list is published. Every week, we love to see what has been most popular in independent bookstores around our region. As we peruse the list, we ponder patterns. Then we present this weekly feature: Thursday Themes. This week, we noted bestsellers that had just been published since the holidays and …

Jan

11

2023

Face Out

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Demon Copperhead is quirky, heartfelt, and mesmerizing. But more than that, Barbara Kingsolver’s tale, which encompass the childhood, youth, and young manhood of an Appalachian redhead, speaks of an American culture of poverty almost unimaginable to an outsider. This book rings true to our times, our problems, our youth. –Becky, Vintage Books, Vancouver, WA Try the …

Jan

10

2023

One Nightstand

The Dressmakers of Auschwitz by Lucy Adlington

No matter how you look at it, The Holocaust was, and remains, a stain on human existence. Many authors have tried, via fiction and nonfiction, to portray what Jews, and others considered as “non-human” by the Nazis, went through while that evil was in control of Germany. None more eloquently than Lucy Adlington in her …

Jan

9

2023

Face Out

Ma and Me by Putsata Reang

A beautiful story about a family torn apart by war (and some pretty big conflicts) but brought together by love. A queer Khmer story that will upend your assumptions. So beautifully written and a real conversation opener. –Karen, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA  Open a book, open a conversation, open your mind! Find inspiration …

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