Poet Ross Gay tasked himself with what sounds like a job for a Hallmark greeting card writer: he spent a year looking for things that gave him joy, be they people, places, or events big or small. Unlike the sentiments usually found on schmaltzy greeting cards, though, the brief prose essays that Gay has written …
On the livestreaming event celebrating the 2021 Pacific Northwest Book Award Winners, an audience member asked the authors for book recommendations. Here are some of the books that came up, some literally pulled from stacks near the authors for show and tell: Entangled Life (recommended by Silvia Morena-Garcia) The Gilded Ones (recommended by Kim Johnson. …
From Broadway Books in Portland, OR: On Inauguration Day 2017, Broadway Books gave away copies of We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This gesture was so well received, we decided to select a book to give away on this year’s Inauguration Day. After much deliberation, the book we selected is Wendell Berry’s Think Little. This slim …
Be sure to read the full list, with recommendations from booksellers around the country, but why not start here, with favorites from Portland and Seattle booksellers? John Rember, A Hundred Little Pieces on the End of the World (University of New Mexico Press) Jeremy Garber, Powell’s, Portland: John Rember’s A Hundred Little Pieces on the End of the World collects …
“One of the great figures in Western literature has passed on to the last best place. He will be sorely missed.” –Pamela Lehman Meyer From the obituary in the Missoulian by Cory Walsh December 5: “What we find in these stories, over and over again, is talk of home, lost or sought after, or in …
Before she was known for her memoir Wild, Cheryl Strayed was writing advice columns under the pseudonym Dear Sugar. The essays collected in this book are unlike any other advice pieces I’ve ever read; they’re filled with empathy and gut-wrenching honesty and are the perfect thing for someone who might be feeling a little (or a …
No better $35 can be spent for a book in this country than this collection of James Baldwin’s collected non-fiction— what were published as five books, from Notes of a Native Son through The Devil Finds Work, with a selection of essays not previously collected included. Timely in their day, this writing feels prophetically and astoundingly true …
Last month, Seattle Independent Bookstore Day and the national celebration of Independent Bookstore Day were officially postponed. Both were originally scheduled for Saturday, April 25, 2020, but are tentatively rescheduled for Saturday, August 29, 2020. Although we have to wait for the in-person festivities (and exclusive merchandise) until a safer time in public health, participating …
Read. This. Book. It is laugh-out-loud funny and is a heartfelt tribute to grandmothers everywhere. For all you lit nerds out there: Midge’s sense of rhythm and pacing as a storyteller is impeccable. This book makes an excellent gift (pro tip: buy it for a friend and then borrow it from them). –Christina, King’s Books, …
I read the back of this book and laughed out loud. OMG! SOLD!!! Then I dove in, feet first. What I hadn’t expected was one of the most thought-provoking pieces of self exploration and BECOMING, I’ve read in the last decade. Slate writes with the lyrical intensity of Kahlil Gibran and narrative storytelling of Joan …
