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Posted by Powell's Staff, September 11, 2013 1:56 pm
Filed under: Required Reading.
 In an age when everyone and their niece has written a tell-all book, when even fictional characters like Ron Burgundy are penning the stories of their lives, how does a memoir stand out among its peers? What qualities make it like nothing we've seen before?
Sometimes truly extraordinary experiences can launch a memoir into uncharted territory. Jewish-Austrian Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal was troubled for years by questions surrounding forgiveness; his book, The Sunflower, became an investigation of these uncertainties. In other cases, such as Joe Brainard's I Remember, the subject matter may be familiar, even mundane, but the author's unorthodox method of storytelling creates a singular, unforgettable experience.
Below is a full selection of what we at Powell's consider to be the best unconventional memoirs. They do things a little differently, and they're better for it.
Posted by Chris Bolton, September 9, 2013 10:00 am
Filed under: Original Essays.
Editor's note: Chris Bolton is not only a former Powell's employee, he was also once the primary writer for this blog. So we are particularly proud today to post the following essay by our former coworker and friend as he promotes the publication of his first book. Congratulations, Chris!
 As is so often the case in life, the conception of Smash was a whole lot easier — and faster — than the birth.
A bit of background first. My younger brother Kyle and I grew up loving comic books. The monthly trip to the comic shop was our mecca. We spent our $20 allowance in a heartbeat — although our poor, sainted mother, waiting in her hot car, might argue it took many, many heartbeats. The comic books of the 1980s influenced our creative growth: Kyle became an artist whose style bore a distinctly comic-bookish flavor, while my writing was heavily influenced by the serialized storylines and cliffhanger endings of comics.
Several years into reluctant adulthood, while Kyle was attending the Art Institute of Seattle, I took the train north for a visit. We were walking around downtown Seattle when ...
Posted by Powell's Staff, September 6, 2013 10:00 am
Filed under: Ask a Book Buyer.
 At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for a vegetarian who loves Radiohead and Flight of the Conchords? Email your question to askabuyer@powells.com. We'll be posting personalized recommendations regularly.
Q: I'm a bookseller, so I don't usually have a hard time finding books to read. But I've been reading mainly adult fiction for years, and I just recently began dipping my toes back into the world of YA to see what's new. I thoroughly enjoyed A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly, Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys, and Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. I love coming-of-age and school stories — I recently read and loved The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood and The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu. I like my heroines fierce, smart, and flawed. What can you recommend? –Emma
Continue »
Posted by Ben Dolnick, September 3, 2013 12:24 pm
Filed under: Q&A.
 Describe your latest book.
My latest novel is called At the Bottom of Everything, and it's about two men in their mid-20s, one of whom goes off the rails and disappears in India, the other of whom tries to find him and bring him home.
What fictional character would you like to date and why?
I'm pretty sure the fictional character I've been most attracted to, ever, is Viv from Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion. That book meant a huge amount to me when I was in high school, but now just about the only things I retain from it are a vague impression of Pacific Northwest weather and a scene in which Viv plays footsie with her brother-in-law around a campfire.
Offer a favorite sentence or passage from another writer.
One I have up on my bulletin board is from a George Saunders story called "CommComm": "When that wall cracks, there's another underneath." In the story this line describes a visualization exercise the narrator uses to calm himself down, but I take it more as a mantra about writing, and about life: there's always ...
Posted by Powell's Staff, August 30, 2013 10:00 am
Filed under: Ask a Book Buyer.
At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for a vegetarian who loves Radiohead and Flight of the Conchords? Email your question to askabuyer@powells.com. We'll be posting personalized recommendations regularly.
Q: I am going to Tasmania in September and would love to read a good book by a Tasmanian author. Do you have any suggestions? –Dalma
A: I'd wholeheartedly recommend Richard Flanagan. All of his works are excellent, but my favorites are Gould's Book of Fish and The Sound of One Hand Clapping. –Shawn
 Q: I have only a week left of my summer break and I am looking for a great book to read. My taste in books leans more towards nonfiction. Some of the books I've read recently that I've enjoyed include Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson, Is Everyone Hanging Out without Me? by Mindy Kaling, and Girl Walks into a Bar by Rachel Dratch. As you can see, I enjoy humorous biographies. I also enjoy fiction. Some of my favorites include 11/22/63 and Joyland by Stephen King and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I want to find a book so good that I won't be able to put it down — something funny, compelling, and touching. Any recommendations? –Jorge
A: Some other great, funny literary voices: Jonathan Ames (What's Not to Love?), Kelly Oxford (Everything Is Perfect When You're a Liar), David Sedaris, and Sloane Crosley. –Kevin
You won't go wrong with Bossypants by Tina Fey. –Tom
Posted by Gina Perry, August 26, 2013 10:00 am
Filed under: Original Essays.
 You may have heard of Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments. Perhaps you've read about them in a textbook at school, as I did. Even if you haven't, you've likely come across them without knowing it — in the episode of The Simpsons, for example, where a therapist hooks the family up to a shock machine, and they zap one another as Springfield's electricity grid falters and the streetlights flicker. You might have seen them referenced in other TV programs, from Malcolm in the Middle to Law and Order: SVU. Perhaps you read in the news about an infamous 2010 French mock game show where contestants believed they were torturing strangers for prize money. Or you might have heard the experiments mentioned in a documentary about torture or the Holocaust.
Milgram's obedience research might have started life in a lab 50 years ago, but it quickly leapt from academic to popular culture, appearing in books, plays, films, songs, art, and reality television.
The routine description of the research goes something like this: Stanley Milgram found that 65 percent of people will deliver lethal electric shocks to a stranger because they are ...
Posted by Powell's Staff, August 23, 2013 10:00 am
Filed under: Ask a Book Buyer, Q&A.
At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for a vegetarian who loves Radiohead and Flight of the Conchords? Email your question to askabuyer@powells.com. We'll be posting personalized recommendations regularly.
Q: Can you suggest some books on food and travel writing similar to Anthony Bourdain's work? – Joseph
 A: Marco Pierre White (The Devil in the Kitchen), Bill Buford (Heat), Adam Richman (America the Edible), Ruth Reichl (Comfort Me with Apples, Tender at the Bone), Michael Ruhlman (The Soul of a Chef). If you're not already familiar, you may also want to check out The Best American Travel Writing and the Best Food Writing series, published annually and very popular. –Jeremy
Jeffrey Steingarten's books, The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must've Been Something I Ate. Also, Luisa Weiss's My Berlin Kitchen. And I heartily second the recommendation for Bill Buford's Heat. –Mary Jo
Q: I need to buy a book (or multiple books) for my nephew for his birthday. I know he is a big Annie Dillard fan and devours anything by Chuck Klosterman. He was also a religious studies major in college and still rereads Eliade, Otto, and books on medieval Christian mystics. I know that's a pretty eclectic sampling, but what would some suggestions be? –David
Posted by Powell's Staff, August 13, 2013 10:00 am
Filed under: Ask a Book Buyer.
At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for a vegetarian who loves Radiohead and Flight of the Conchords? Email your question to askabuyer@powells.com. We'll be posting personalized recommendations regularly.
Q: I am going to London for a month and really need some book recommendations. Some books I've enjoyed lately are: Mirror, Mirror off the Wall by Kjerstin Gruys, No Impact Man by Colin Beavan, the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth, the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling (my all-time favorite books), and all of John Green's books (especially The Fault in Our Stars). –Berkeley
 A: A favorite of mine is China Mieville's Un Lun Dun, which shows the underbelly of an alternative and eccentric London. Also try Mind the Gap by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon. Imagine Oliver Twist living in today's Tube tunnels. –Tracey
It won't be released until September 10, but try Rainbow Rowell's book Fangirl. It's about a young woman in her first year of college who writes fan fiction for her favorite fantasy series. Also, the author's first young adult title, Eleanor and Park, is amazing. –Jen
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Q: I'm looking for books that are a retrospective or academic analysis of creative projects. The books should include things like an explanation of the process that went into creating and executing the project, information about the tools and resources used in the project, commentary from the creator of the project, and feedback from others about the project. Do such books exist? I'm especially interested in books concerning creative projects that involve literature and multimedia. –Michelle Rae
Posted by Powell's Staff, July 31, 2013 10:00 am
Filed under: Ask a Book Buyer.
At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for a vegetarian who loves Radiohead and Flight of the Conchords? Email your question to askabuyer@powells.com. We'll be posting personalized recommendations regularly.
Q: I love intense memoirs by American women. I've read lots of them, including books by Cheryl Strayed, Lidia Yuknavitch, Mary Karr, Jeannette Walls, Dorothy Allison, Haven Kimmel, and others. Are there any coming out now or soon that I may not have heard of yet? – Xenia
A: Have you read Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson? – Tom
Christa Parravani: Her, Emily Rapp: The Still Point of the Turning World, Sonali Deraniyagala: Wave, and Domenica Ruta: With or Without You. – Jeremy
I enthusiastically second Tom's Winterson rec. Also in the memoir/novel genre-blending camp, check out Eileen Myles's Inferno (A ...
Posted by Susanna Daniel, July 29, 2013 10:00 am
Filed under: Q&A.
 Describe your latest book.
My second novel, Sea Creatures, spans one summer in the lives of Georgia Quillian, her parasomniac husband, Graham (more on parasomnia later), and their three-year-old son, Frankie, who has recently stopped verbalizing. Like Stiltsville, my first novel, Sea Creatures is set partially at a house built on stilts in the middle of Biscayne Bay, where Georgia works as a personal assistant for a reclusive artist named Charlie Hicks. As Graham's new work and personal limitations pull him away from them, Georgia and Frankie come to depend on Charlie's steadfast attention and Stiltsville's remote beauty. Also, there's a really big hurricane.
Why do you write?
I've said before that I believe writers are, for the most part, hermits at heart. I live with two young children and another adult, my husband, and I adore all of them — but if I didn't hole up in my office and write for hours at a time, how would I justify spending so much time alone with my private obsessions and daydreams?
Name the best television series of all time, and explain why it's the best.
I've really loved Rome, Friday ...
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Required Reading: Best Unconventional Memoirs
