Completed before his death in May 2017, Denis Johnson’s second short story collection comes 26 years after his first, Jesus’ Son. Fittingly, the pieces in The Largesse of the Sea Maiden are more reflective in tone, longer in the telling, and lighter on the mayhem. What hasn’t changed is Johnson’s masterful phrasing and his mordant humor. …
At the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Fall Trade Show, the PNBA Awards Committee presented an overview of some nominated titles by northwest authors and illustrators that have captured their hearts this year. Committee chair Kim Hooyboer of Third Place Books (Seward Park, Seattle, WA) explained that this year a record-breaking 421 titles were nominated. She …
This is more than just a great cookbook full of cheap, easy, and delicious meals, though it is definitely that! It started out as the author’s capstone for her master’s in food studies–a free cookbook to make it easier to eat on the SNAP (food stamp) budget of $4 per person, per day. This version …
Eggers has created a thoughtful–and at times darkly humorous–idea novel that aspires to challenge the all-encompassing corporate rule of the present day, in the way that Orwell confronted the authoritarian state of the previous century. The Circle is an amalgamation of several recognizable tech/marketing/social media companies, which is led by corporation’s “3 Wise Men,” seemingly …
Last week, booksellers from all around the country converged on Portland, OR for a conference on children’s books and bookselling, hosted by the American Booksellers Association. Some lucky participants registered for half-day and full-day bus tours of Portland area independent bookstores, hopping from neighborhood to neighborhood for 20-30 minute drop-ins (Woefully short!). Here are some …
The fall of the Soviet Union left a power vacuum in which organized crime and former KGB agents coalesced in the newly capitalist state. The 2006 London assassination by poison of dissident Alexander Litivinenko served as a lethal threat to Russians who would defy the kleptocratic state and also displayed the willingness of some Western …
In Portland tonight, a Seattle author talks about “everyday meals everywhere.” A.V. Crofts, author of Meet Me at the Bamboo Table Tuesday, February 21, 7pm Annie Bloom’s Books 7834 SW Capitol Hwy Portland, OR Crofts has spent decades eating (and learning) her way around the world. She’s studied in China, taught in Italy, and conducted humanitarian …
With politics still on our minds, I am moved to recommend two books that shed light on the current situation. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis tells his story of being raised in Frank McCourt-style poverty in Appalachia. He makes his way to Yale Law School without ever losing his …
This book is a poetic and scholarly treasure hunt. Cumming reconstructs the story of a bookseller and his quest to prove the existence of a long-lost Velazquez portrait of Charles I. John Snare, who worked as a bookseller and printer before claiming to have discovered a Velazquez painting at an estate sale (at which point …
Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, who has written accessibly about music and organization and attention and multitasking, now turns his focus on how we can interpret both visual and linguistic information. The first third of the book helps us appreciate that we are pattern seekers, which paradoxically makes us suckers for a deceptive graph or chart. Levitin …
