Reading Portland is a literary exploration of the city's past and present. In almost over eighty selections, Portland is revealed through histories, memoirs, autobiographies, short stories, novels, and news reports. This single volume gives voice to women and men; the colonizers and the colonized; white, Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Indian storytellers; and lower, middle, and upper classes. Authors Included: Carl Abbott Kathryn Hall Bogle Kevin Canty Beverly Cleary Robin Cody Ed Edmo Stewart Holbrook Lawson Fusao Inada Rudyard Kipling Elnor Langer Jewel Lansing Ursula K. Le Guin Joaquin Miller Richard Neuberger David Oates Sandy Polishuk Harvey W. Scott Gary Snyder Kim Stafford Charles Erskine Scott Wood Elizabeth Woody and many more John Trombold's Introduction addresses Portland's contradictory nature as a providential city on a hill; a cultivated Victorian rose garden; a center for libertarian freedom, gambling, and prostitution; and a place for utopian aspiration. In the Preface, Peter Donahue considers the importance of region - particularly Portland's urbanity and its hybrid population - on literature.

Offering a much deeper and richer experience of the place than a travel book, this sampling will interest visitors to Portland, Oregon as well as residents whose daily life includes not only the places mentioned in the book but also the cultural atmosphere of the city. Trombold (Linfield College, Oregon) and Donahue (Birmingham-Southern College, Alabama) present portions of histories, memoirs, autobiographies, short stores, novels, and news reports--80-plus selections in all--describing views of early days as well as the city's evolution and contemporary life. Some of the writers have national stature, others are local, or, in two cases, anonymous. Each selection is introduced with information about the author and the context. Small b&w historical photos add another dimension. Though not usual in an anthology of this type, an index would have been a welcome enhancement. Published by the University of Washington Press, with Oregon Historical Society.
Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Offering a much deeper and richer experience of the place than a travel book, this sampling will interest visitors to Portland, Oregon as well as residents whose daily life includes not only the places mentioned in the book but also the cultural atmosphere of the city. Trombold (Linfield College, Oregon) and Donahue (Birmingham-Southern College, Alabama) present portions of histories, memoirs, autobiographies, short stores, novels, and news reports--80-plus selections in all--describing views of early days as well as the city's evolution and contemporary life. Some of the writers have national stature, others are local, or, in two cases, anonymous. Each selection is introduced with information about the author and the context. Small b&w historical photos add another dimension. Though not usual in an anthology of this type, an index would have been a welcome enhancement. Published by the University of Washington Press, with Oregon Historical Society. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Ranging from stories told long before Euroamericans arrived in the Pacific Northwest to those published in the twenty-first century, Reading Portland is a literary exploration of the city's past and present. In almost one hundred selections, Portland is revealed through histories, memoirs, autobiographies, short stories, novels, and news reports. Authors include Harvey Scott , Abigail Duniway, Stewart Holbrook, Beverly Cleary, Ursula LeGuin, Elizabeth Woody, and many more.

John Trombold is an independent scholar who has taught at several regional institutions, and is now teaching at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. He is co-editor of Reading Seattle: The City in Prose.Peter Donahue teaches at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama and is the author of many short stories and books, including Madison House. He is the co-editor of Reading Seattle: The City in Prose.