Cart
|
|
my account
|
wish list
|
help
|
800-878-7323
Hello, |
Login
MENU
Browse
New Arrivals
Bestsellers
Featured Preorders
Award Winners
Audio Books
See All Subjects
Used
Staff Picks
Staff Picks
Picks of the Month
Bookseller Displays
50 Books for 50 Years
25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
25 Books From the 21st Century
25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
25 Women to Read Before You Die
25 Books to Read Before You Die
Gifts
Gift Cards & eGift Cards
Powell's Souvenirs
Journals and Notebooks
socks
Games
Sell Books
Blog
Events
Find A Store
Don't Miss
Spring Sale
Big Mood Sale
Teen Dream Sale
Powell's Author Events
Oregon Battle of the Books
Audio Books
Get the Powell's newsletter
Visit Our Stores
Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
(0 comment)
Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
Read More
»
Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
(0 comment)
Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
(0 comment)
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
##LOC[Cancel]##
Customer Comments
Esther Bradley-DeTally has commented on (4) products
The Orphan Masters Son
by
Adam Johnson
Esther Bradley-DeTally
, January 30, 2013
I read Orphan Master's Son a good 6 months ago, and yet residuals of events within the book stick to my ribs, the underside. The word "gripper" pales when describing the horrors and ordeals the protagonist endured. As a Westerner, with the belief of the oneness of humankind, I find I must read what I consider to be true and authentic. Only by acknowledging someone else's reality is a way to do this, that and consciously become a better person contributing to the world. The young boy is born into the prison system or gulags of Puoninintang(sp) and his existence or struggle for survival seems to be lower than the level of a rat. I'm not surprised at the cruelty, having read books about North Korea, but I am relieved these stories are getting out there. Cruelty and oppression seem to last forever, but the power of the pen does a great deal to obliterate ignorance. I found this book to be profound and well written.
Was this comment helpful? |
Yes
|
No
report this comment
The Orphan Masters Son
by
Adam Johnson
Esther Bradley-DeTally
, January 01, 2013
So many worthwhile books to comment upon, but suffering and endurance lie at the core of our age - a brutal time, and we must honor those whose lives are horror filled. The Orchard Master shines light on those caught in the prisons of North Korea, but the author's depiction of this life is made more horrendously clear by showing someone born into the gulags of North Korea. I read books like this not for titillation but so that as long as I live, I am aware of others' suffering and do my best to lead a life of nobility and service to humankind.
Was this comment helpful? |
Yes
|
No
report this comment
It's All in Your Head
by
McCutchen, Maria
Esther Bradley-DeTally
, June 12, 2012
Maria McCutchen, a stay-at-home mother with two young children and a tight schedule, couldn't find the dairy section of her local supermarket one day. After the usual questions women ask themselves, about stress, being over tired, or I'm imagining this, she asked her husband one night, "Squeeze my head," and he does. Her head ached, and her head also felt like a water balloon pumped full of water, a sense of building pressure. He wrapped his hands around her head, and he squeezed. Her thoughts became more clear, and she felt better. He stopped and a feeling of flood water filled her skull, and her brain fog returned. She consulted a mild, quiet and pleasant doctor. He will be the first of many. She answered the questions, and then follows a routine she will learn by heart: "Stick your tongue out, smile, hold your hands out in front of you like you're carrying a pizza and close your eyes." Ah, and she also walked across the floor of his miniscule office. Long story short, after an MRI, and a call the very next day, "We see something," the doctor's voice matter-of-fact, offering no more or no less says, "I need you to come in." She had a cisterna magna, a posterior fossa arachnoid cyst. But the doctor was not concerned, words such as "benign" and "unremarkable" floated over her head. Moments later, a handshake, and a "You're fine," because you see most people are born with type of cyst and they don't cause problems. She returned home wondering, what if I'm the exception? No time for that. Her husband lost his job. Their insurance will run out. Fast forward to a harrowing pain-filled drive to live in New Mexico, episodic endurance of brain tests done incorrectly, dismissal of her symptoms, suspicion by doctors and blatant repudiation of her illness. Lace that in with family concern, trying to raise 2 kids, keep a family together, and obliterating pain, agony, nausea, you name it, but then, she finally finds a doctor in Arizona. He will recommend brain surgery. the tests before, during and after are trauma filled and painful, and there will be trouble in River City after her brain surgery. But still she reassured herself that she's in the hands of a good neurosurgeon specialist in neurology in Arizona. She must, however, return to New Mexico. More happened. I sat down after 7 o'clock last night to read this book. I got up at 12.30 noting, "I'm up too late again," but I had finished the book. I didn't move. I sat on my black leather couch in our small pool house turning page after page. The unsaid around her struggles reveals a very courageous, loving, gutsy woman in extreme pain, with great times of hopeless and yet a warrior spirit. That makes a noble being in my book. Her account is well written. I think this book should go viral. Yeah, I just broadened my blog base, and here I am using trendy terms, go viral, but the bloggers and FBers out there will know.
Was this comment helpful? |
Yes
|
No
report this comment
Lotus Eaters
by
Tatjana Soli
Esther Bradley-DeTally
, September 05, 2011
The facts: April, 1975, Vietnam with North Vietnamese's relentless march into Saigon, and we all remember the helicopters, Americans flee, Vietnamese left behind. The story told through the viewpoint of a Western Journalist’s life, Helen, a veteran photographer who covers wars, Saigon after the Americans leave. A city of a lonely silence, abandoned, lost, keeper of dreams gone poof, a love story, fugue states, incredible language, and so it goes; I cannot stick to the facts, the straight facts Jack, just the facts, Soli’s language calls me. The language ��" “They drove the empty, hacked roads, dust flying like a long sail of sheer red silk behind them, hanging suspended in the coppery sky.” (p. 51) “This is what happened when one left one’s home��"pieces of oneself scattered all over the world, no one place every completely satisfied, always a nostalgia for the place left behind. Pieces of her in Vietnam, some in this place of bone. She brought the letter to her nose. The smell of Vietnam: a mix of jungle and wetness and spices and rot. A smell she hadn’t realized she missed.” P. 277 The Lotus Eaters was a first novel!
Was this comment helpful? |
Yes
|
No
report this comment