“One beautiful spring day in London, Charlotte, an elderly retired English teacher, is mugged and breaks her hip. This event ricochets off the lives of seven other characters in her orbit, unsettling and rearranging them. While Charlotte convalesces with her likable daughter Rose, and her son-in-law Gerry, she takes measure of her infirmity. She imagines herself …
“All advice is autobiographical.” —Austin Kleon I never thought doing my zine for eight years was going to get me published. It was just something I did because I enjoyed it. “Getting published” —that was why I went to college, sent my stuff to literary journals, took community classes, got my MFA and studied “the craft.” …
“Portlander Vanessa Veselka has written a phenomenal debut novel that kicks ass and takes names. Zazen (which is set in an slightly alternate universe, but is still wonderfully and satirically recognizable as Portland) is a brilliant, moving, maddening, punk-rock novel that will give you fury and hope.”— Jill Owens, Powells.com. Buy Zazen from Powell’s.
“How to ever convey in this small space how magnificent this debut fiction is? Words like mesmerizing, poetic, and true all come to mind. To sum: two farm wives, the land, what is remembered, what is sacrificed, what endures. Reminiscent of Willa Cather and John Steinbeck. Hoover’s novel is a haunting, plainsong. Winning and so …
“In this picture book biography, Bryant’s engaging prose and Sweet’s stunning mixed-media illustrations celebrate the amazing man who finds a way to earn a living and to honor his calling to be a poet.”—Pam, A Children’s Place Bookstore, Portland
When we visited Green Bean Books in Portland this summer (this is a great new store that manages to be homey and stylish and full of kid-pleasing nooks and wonders), they were prominently displaying the picture book A Sick Day for Amos McGee, whose illustrator Erin E. Stead won the won the 2011 Caldecott Medal, it was …
Harriet Fasenfest is a writer, cook, gardener and self-described backyard economist. Her new book, A Householder’s Guide to the Universe: A Monthly Guide on How to Get Back to the Basics and Change the World (Tin House), offers both practical advice for urban homesteading (from gardening and canning to budgeting and cleaning) and Fasenfest’s sharp, …
Green Bean Books opened in Northeast Portland in the summer of 2009, and we at PNBA are excited about taking our children there. We want to check out the vintage vending machines and the secret cubbies, hang out on the deck with the mulberry bush reading fort and then head down the street for burritos …
In the midst of the storm over a pastor wanting to burn the Quran in Florida and a Portland pastor’s Facebook page being pulled over his opposition to the burning, a Portland church has ordered copies of the Quran from Broadway Books and asked that they be distributed for free. The Rev. Scott Dalgarno, interim pastor …
