By the time he was twenty-nine, Charles Darwin had puzzled his way toward two-thirds of his theory of natural selection. He understood that plants and animals passed traits (hair color, say, or beak shape, or flower scent) down to their offspring. And he understood that those traits were not passed down perfectly. We resemble our …
The 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction came as no surprise to many Northwest booklovers! Revisit our coverage of this fantastic novel by clicking on this link for an original essay by the author, reader recommendations, and much more. Congratulations to Idaho author and literary luminary Anthony Doerr!
The UO Duck Store threw a party for UO alum William Ritter. He was recognized as 2015 PNBA Book Award Winner for his novel published by Algonquin Young Readers, Jackaby. The event featured a reading and signing as well as the award plaque presentation. photos by Laura White of the UO Duck Store
On Friday, March 6, Broadway Books in Portland hosted the PNBA Award presentation for Molly Gloss for her novel, Falling from Horses. Sally shared these photos from the event. She wrote, “A lovely small group of ardent admirers. Cake and wine. A few short speeches. Of the cake photo one might say ‘everyone loved Molly’s …
Wednesday night a delighted crowd gathered at Book Larder in Seattle to celebrate Renee Erikson and the incredible team behind the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) Book Award-winning cookbook, A Boat, a Whale, & a Walrus. The bookstore’s Culinary Director, Kyle Wisner, served up delicious nibbles from the book including pâté and crostini. Lara Hamilton, …
It didn’t seem like overkill when I dropped twenty pounds of good unsalted butter and ten liters of Moroccan olive oil on Jess Thomson’s porch in April of 2013. She’d need at least that much for recipe testing for A Boat, a Whale and a Walrus. As I drove away, I couldn’t have known that …
I’ve gotten a lot of questions about inspiration since publishing Jackaby. What inspired me to write about X, Y, or Z; what do I do when I don’t feel inspired; where does inspiration come from? Inspiration is weird. Here’s my best advice on the subject. Inspiration is a marvelous thing. There are times when whole …
They say write what you know. And when you grow up in the Pacific Northwest what you know is rain. Days that begin and end with grey skies and that misty drizzle we all know so well, the kind that clings to your eyelashes and paints your clothes with its damp dew. Our suede boots …
I sit back and read the announcement’s first paragraph, that whole thing about If Not for This being “crowned.” I reread that, all royalty. But then I get to the killer line, the Jurassic-scale fly in the ointment; “…we would like each winner to choose his or her favorite PNBA member bookstore…” Seriously? One? I …
People harbor certain assumptions about the Pacific Northwest, and they seem to get more incorrect the farther I get from home. Many folks think, for example, rain. But here in Boise we average just 12 inches of rain a year, only 6 more than Baghdad, and 31 fewer than Cincinnati. Other folks think, lumberjacks, but …
