C. C. Humphreys
Monday the 17th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
A rousing new adventure series starring the "007 of the 1770s," C. C. Humphreys's Jack Absolute (Sourcebooks Landmark) marks the exhilarating beginning of an epic historical series.
Jessica Anya Blau
Monday the 17th, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
A new comic novel based loosely on Alice in Wonderland, Jessica Anya Blau's The Wonder Bread Summer (Harper Perennial) is the thrilling story of Allie Dodgson, a straitlaced college student on the lam after stealing a Wonder Bread bag filled with cocaine.
Daniel James Brown
Monday the 17th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Daniel James Brown's The Boys in the Boat (Viking) tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals including the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in Berlin.
Ken Scholes
Tuesday the 18th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
In Requiem (Tor), the fourth book in Ken Scholes's Psalms of Isaak series, the plots within plots are expanding as the characters seek their way out of the maze of intrigue. Who is the Crimson Empress, and what does her conquest of the Named Lands really mean? Who holds the keys to the Moon Wizard's Tower? Hidden truths reveal even deeper truths, and nothing is as it seemed to be.
Tao Lin
Tuesday the 18th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
From Tao Lin, one of this generation's most talked about and enigmatic writers, comes Taipei (Vintage), a deeply personal, powerful, and moving novel about family, relationships, accelerating drug use, and the lingering possibility of death. Taipei is an ode — or lament — to the way we live now.
Kids' Storytime
Wednesday the 19th, 3:00PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Wednesday during the summer months for a special midweek kids' storytime. Today we're reading Ribbit! by Rodrigo Folguiera.
NoViolet Bulawayo
Wednesday the 19th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
We Need New Names (Reagan Arthur) is NoViolet Bulawayo's unflinching and powerful novel about a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe to America. A literary debut that calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her — from Zadie Smith to Monica Ali to J. M. Coetzee — Bulawayo tells a vivid, raw story all her own.
Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health
Thursday the 20th, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
Eating on the Wild Side (Little Brown) is the first book to reveal the nutritional history of our fruits and vegetables. Starting with the wild plants that were central to our original diet, investigative journalist Jo Robinson describes how 400 generations of farmers have unwittingly squandered a host of essential fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. This event is sponsored by Edible Portland.
Colum McCann
Thursday the 20th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
The most mature work yet from National Book Award-winner and incomparable storyteller Colum McCann, TransAtlantic (Random House) is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with each passing year.
Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest
Friday the 21st, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Scientists have identified Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver as the urban centers of what will be the biggest earthquake in the continental United States. Science reporter Sandi Doughton's Full-Rip 9.0 (Sasquatch) reports on the scientists who are trying to understand when, where, and just how big "the big one" will be. Ian Madin, chief scientist at Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, and Jay Wilson, vice chair on the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (OSSPAC) and emergency manager, will join Doughton for a panel discussion.
Kids' Storytime
Saturday the 22nd, 11:00AM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Saturday for kids' storytime. Today we're reading The Story of Fish and Snail by Deborah Freedman.
The Good Life Lab: Radical Experiments in Hands-On Living
Sunday the 23rd, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Wendy Tremayne's The Good Life Lab (Storey) is the inspirational story of how one couple ditched their careers and high-pressure life in New York City to move to rural New Mexico, where they made, built, invented, foraged, and grew all they needed to live self-sufficiently.
Michael Gurian
Monday the 24th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Psychologist Michael Gurian, author of The Wonder of Boys and The Wonder of Girls, returns with The Wonder of Aging (Atria), a comprehensive, holistic look at the emotional, spiritual, and physical dimensions of life after 50, showing readers how to embrace and celebrate life as they age.
Carl Hiaasen
Monday the 24th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Bad Monkey (Knopf) has Carl Hiaasen back doing what he does best: spinning a wickedly funny, fiercely pointed tale in which the greedy, the corrupt, and the degraders of pristine land in Florida — now, in the Bahamas too — get their comeuppance in ingenious, diabolically entertaining fashion.
Kevin O'Brien
Tuesday the 25th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
A riveting new thriller from Kevin O'Brien, Unspeakable (Pinnacle) takes readers into the darkest corners of the human mind, where a therapist unwittingly uncovers a tangled web of deception, corruption, and murder.
Richard Melo
Tuesday the 25th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Richard Melo's Happy Talk (Red Lemonade) is an absurdist take on history in the style of a '60s-era postmodern, black-humor novel that walks the edge of contradiction — satiric yet sentimental, avant-garde yet accessible, offensive yet agreeable — and provides a serious look into the American soul.
Kids' Storytime
Wednesday the 26th, 3:00PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Wednesday during the summer months for a special midweek kids' storytime. Today we're reading Again! by Emily Gravett.
Jami Attenberg
Wednesday the 26th, 6:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
With pitch-perfect prose, huge compassion, and sly humor, Jami Attenberg delivers an epic story of marriage, family, and obsession. The Middlesteins (Grand Central) explores the hopes and heartbreaks of new and old love, the yearnings of Midwestern America, and society's devastating, fascinating preoccupation with food. Please join the author for an in-store reception at 6:30pm, to be followed by a reading at 7:30pm. This event is sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland and the Mittleman Jewish Community Center.
Whitney Otto
Wednesday the 26th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Whitney Otto's Eight Girls Taking Pictures (Scribner) is a profoundly moving novel about the lives of women, imagining the thoughts and events that produced eight famous female photographers of the 20th century. These memorable characters seek the extraordinary through their art, yet also find meaning and reward in the ordinary tasks of motherhood, marriage, and domesticity.
Temple Grandin — SOLD OUT
Wednesday the 26th, 7:00PM
Bagdad Theater
In The Autistic Brain (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Temple Grandin weaves her own experience with remarkable new discoveries, introducing the neuroimaging advances and genetic research that link brain science to behavior. This event is already sold out. If you would like to be among the first to know about upcoming events, please sign up for our newsletter at Powells.com/events.
Classics Book Group
Wednesday the 26th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
This month we meet to discuss The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Join us!
Alex Morgan Booksigning
Thursday the 27th, 4:00PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
From Portland Thorns star forward and Olympic gold-medalist Alex Morgan comes Saving the Team (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), the first book in an empowering, fun-filled, sports-themed series for middle-grade girls about believing in themselves and working as a team. Please note: this is a booksigning only.
Lian Dolan
Thursday the 27th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Satellite Sister Lian Dolan is back with another smart, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy. Elizabeth the First Wife (Prospect Park Books) is the lively and very funny tale of Elizabeth Lancaster, an English professor at Pasadena City College, reinventing her life in unexpected ways.
E. R. Brown
Thursday the 27th, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
Medicinal marijuana can be murder in E. R. Brown's Almost Criminal (Dundurn Group), the first novel in his Crime in Cascadia Mystery series. This tightly wound tale of steadily building suspense is the story of a young man's eagerness to impress his mentor and earn the trust of his family, as well as his desperate attempt to escape before violence sweeps him, and everyone he loves, away forever.
Matt Bell
Thursday the 27th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
In Matt Bell's epic, mythical debut novel, In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods (Soho), newlyweds escape the busy confusion of their homeland for a distant and almost uninhabited lakeshore. They plan to live there simply, to fish the lake, to trap the nearby woods, and to build a house upon the dirt between, where they can raise a family. But as their every pregnancy fails, the child-obsessed husband begins to rage at this new world.
Rosanne Parry
Friday the 28th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Rosanne Parry shines a light on Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest in the 1920s, a time of critical cultural upheaval. In Written in Stone (Random House Books for Young Readers), Pearl, a young Makah, must deal with the death of her father and the loss of her tribe's traditional ways.
Joanne Chang
Friday the 28th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
The ideal companion to Flour — Joanne Chang's beloved first cookbook — Flour, Too (Chronicle) is a mouthwatering collection featuring 100 gratifying recipes and the most-requested savory fare to have made Chang's four cafés Boston's favorite stops for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Kids' Storytime
Saturday the 29th, 11:00AM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us for kids' storytime. Today we're reading Not Your Typical Dragon by Dan Bar-el.
Neil Gaiman — SOLD OUT
Saturday the 29th, 3:00PM
McMenamin's Crystal Ballroom
Wondrous and imaginative, and at times deeply scary, Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane (William Morrow) captures the very essence of childhood fear and uncertainty. In a clash of memory and reality, it is a pitched fever dream of a novel and could very well be Gaiman's most accomplished work to date. This event is already sold out. If you would like to be among the first to know about upcoming events, please sign up for our newsletter at Powells.com/events.
Paul Collins
Sunday the 30th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Paul Collins's Duel with the Devil (Crown) tells the true story of a sensational murder mystery in the early days of the United States — one that shocked the young nation and inspired bitter rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to join forces in the pursuit of justice. Collins is regularly featured on NPR's Weekend Edition as the "literary detective."
Kevin Hearne
Monday the 1st, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
For a 2,000-year-old Druid, Atticus O'Sullivan is a pretty fast runner. Good thing, because he's being chased by not one but two goddesses of the hunt — Artemis and Diana — for messing with one of their own. Dodging their slings and arrows, Atticus, Granuaile, and his wolfhound Oberon are making a mad dash across modern-day Europe to seek help from a friend of the Tuatha Dé Danann. His usual magical option of shifting planes is blocked, so instead of playing hide-and-seek, the game plan is... run like hell. Crashing the pantheon marathon is the Norse god Loki. The sixth book in The Iron Druid Chronicles, Kevin Hearne's bestselling series, Hunted (Del Rey Books) features the coolest, funniest, and most memorable urban fantasy hero since Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden.
The Society for Useful Knowledge
Monday the 1st, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
Benjamin Franklin and his contemporaries brought the Enlightenment to America — an intellectual revolution that laid the foundation for the political one that followed. With the "first Drudgery" of settling the American colonies now well and truly past, Franklin announced in 1743 that it was high time the colonists set about improving the lot of humankind through collaborative inquiry. From his idea emerged the American Philosophical Society, an association hosted in Philadelphia and dedicated to the harnessing of man's intellectual and creative powers for the common good. The animus behind the Society was and is a disarmingly simple one — that the value of knowledge is directly proportional to its utility. This straightforward idea has left a profound mark on American society and culture and on the very idea of America itself — and on the world as a whole. From celebrated historian of knowledge Jonathan Lyons comes The Society for Useful Knowledge (Bloomsbury), telling the story of America's coming-of-age through its historic love affair with practical invention, applied science, and self-reliance. Offering fresh, original portraits of figures like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, and the inimitable, endlessly inventive Franklin, Lyons gives us a vital new perspective on the American founding. He illustrates how the movement for useful knowledge is key to understanding the flow of American society and culture from colonial times to our digital present.
William Shakespeare's Star Wars
Tuesday the 2nd, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Return once more to a galaxy far, far away with this sublime retelling of George Lucas's epic Star Wars in the style of the immortal Bard of Avon. The saga of a wise (Jedi) knight and an evil (Sith) lord, of a beautiful princess held captive and a young hero coming of age, Star Wars abounds with all the valor and villainy of Shakespeare's greatest plays. 'Tis a tale told by fretful droids, full of faithful Wookiees and fearsome Stormtroopers, signifying... pretty much everything. Reimagined in glorious iambic pentameter, Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars (Quirk Books) will astound and edify Rebels and Imperials alike.
Sahar Delijani
Tuesday the 2nd, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Sahar Delijani's Children of the Jacaranda Tree (Atria) is a stunning debut novel set in post-revolutionary Iran that gives voice to the men, women, and children who won a war only to find their lives — and those of their descendants — imperiled by its aftermath. Neda is born in Tehran's Evin Prison, where her mother is allowed to nurse her for a few months before the arms of a guard appear at the cell door one day and simply take her away. In another part of the city, three-year-old Omid witnesses the arrests of his political activist parents from his perch at their kitchen table, yogurt dripping from his fingertips. It is the next generation that is left with the burden of the past and their country's tenuous future as a new wave of protest begins. Based on the harrowing experiences of Delijani, her family, and her friends, Children of the Jacaranda Tree is a poignant, timely drama about three generations of men and women moved by love, inspired by poetry, and motivated by dreams of justice and freedom. This event is sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Oregon.
Kids' Storytime
Wednesday the 3rd, 3:00PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Wednesday afternoon during the summer months for a special midweek kids' storytime. Today we're reading Tea Rex by Molly Idle.
First Thursday: Troi Anderson
Thursday the 4th, 6:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Troi Anderson is a fine art, documentary, and commercial photographer based in Portland. He began his career working in film for Magnolia Pictures and later as a merchant marine sailing throughout Asia and the South Pacific. Over the past several years, Anderson has embarked on a process to discover and document the religious desire and its elemental expressions outside of Western thought. His most recent project, The Theatre of the Spirit, concerns the occult religious ceremony and ritual practice found in Venezuela and Haiti. He describes this work as bearing witness to a living strength and its intuitive vitality toward the mystery of life, rather than our contemporary rejection. His photographs aim to expose the viewer to a new vision that defies the rational — one whose foundation rests in the unknown. Spirit, ritual, and ceremony exist first from what, in Haitian Vodou, is called the Mystére. Its origins begin with great beauty, warmth, power, and embrace and are rooted in our own ancestry. Their flickering shadows and light still define and illuminate us in the expressive act toward that mystery of life.
Kids' Storytime
Saturday the 6th, 11:00AM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us this Saturday for a musical storytime, as Avery Hill brings her banjo for a post-4th of July celebration featuring "This Land Is Your Land" and other folk songs.
Kids' Storytime
Saturday the 6th, 11:00AM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Join us every Saturday during the summer months for kids' storytime. Today we're reading No, David! and David Goes to School by David Shannon.
Andrew Sean Greer
Monday the 8th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
In 1985, after the death of her beloved twin brother, Felix, and the break up with her longtime lover, Nathan, Greta Wells embarks on a radical psychiatric treatment to alleviate her suffocating depression. But the treatment has unexpected effects, and Greta finds herself transported to the lives she might have had if she'd been born in a different era. During the course of her treatment, Greta cycles between her own time and her alternate lives in 1918, as a bohemian adulteress, and 1941, as a devoted mother and wife. Separated by time and social mores, Greta's three lives are achingly similar, fraught with familiar tensions and difficult choices. Each reality has its own losses and rewards, and each extracts a different price. And the modern Greta learns that her alternate selves are unpredictable, driven by their own desires and needs. As her final treatment looms, questions arise. What will happen once each Greta learns how to stay in one of the other worlds? Who will choose to remain in which life? Magically atmospheric and rapturously romantic, Andrew Sean Greer's The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells (Ecco) beautifully imagines "what if" and wondrously wrestles with the impossibility of what could be.
Anna Keesey
Monday the 8th, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
In the tradition of such Western classics as My Antonia and There Will Be Blood, Anna Keesey's Little Century (Picador) is a resonant and moving debut novel. Orphaned after the death of her mother, 18-year-old Esther Chambers heads west in search of her only living relative. In the lawless town of Century, Oregon, she's met by her distant cousin — a cattle rancher named Ferris Pickett. There, she begins a new life as a homesteader, but Century is in the midst of an escalating and violent war over water and rangeland. As incidents between the sheep and cattle ranchers turn to bloodshed, Esther's sympathies are divided between her cousin and a sheepherder named Ben Cruff, sworn enemy of the cattlemen. Torn between her growing passion for Ben and her love of the austere land, she begins to realize that she can't be loyal to both.
Kate Elliott & Lilith Saintcrow
Tuesday the 9th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Cold Steel (Orbit), the final volume of Nebula Award-finalist Kate Elliott's Spiritwalker Trilogy, finds Cat Barahal plagued by nonstop trouble, treachery, and magic. With revolutions to plot, enemies to crush, and handsome men to rescue, Cat and her cousin Bee have their work cut out for them. The fantastic follow-up to The Iron Wyrm Affair, Lilith Saintcrow's The Red Plague Affair (Orbit) is set in an alternate Victorian world where magic has turned the Industrial Revolution on its head. Emma Bannon, Sorceress Prime in service to Queen Victrix, has a mission: to find the doctor who has created a powerful new weapon. The game is afoot. And the Red Plague rises.
Science Fiction Book Group
Tuesday the 9th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
This month we meet to discuss Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. Join us!
Kids' Storytime
Wednesday the 10th, 3:00PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Wednesday afternoon during the summer months for a special midweek kids' storytime. Today we're reading Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin.
Portland's Slabtown
Wednesday the 10th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
In Portland's first decades, the northwest side remained dense forests. Native Americans camped and Chinese immigrants farmed around Guild's Lake. In the 1870s, Slabtown acquired its unusual name when a lumber mill opened on Northrup Street. The mill's discarded log edges were a cheap source of heating and cooking fuel. This slabwood was stacked in front of working-class homes of employees of a pottery, the docks, icehouses, slaughterhouses, and lumber mills. Today, Slabtown is a densely populated residential neighborhood, with many small shops and restaurants and an industrial area on its northern border. Mike Ryerson, Norm Gholston, and Tracy J. Prince, coauthors of Portland's Slabtown (Arcadia), used archives, historical photograph collections, and interviews to uncover the little-known history of this charming neighborhood.
Wednesday the 10th, 7:30pm / Powell's City of Books
Devon Monk
Thursday the 11th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
One man struggles to keep his humanity, his honor, and his hell-bent mission intact in Devon Monk's Cold Copper (Roc), the third installment in her Age of Steam series. With the aid of his crew, bounty hunter, and lycanthrope, Cedar Hunt is on a quest to track down all the pieces of the Holder — a deadly weapon capable of great destruction. But a glacial storm forces them to take refuge in the frontier town of Des Moines, Iowa, where creatures of myths and legends run wild through the streets and the mayor rules with an iron fist. To make things worse, Mayor Vosbrough is also mining cold copper for the cataclysmic generators beneath Des Moines. Now Cedar must navigate a town where new friends may not be what they seem, old enemies may be his only hope of survival, and the weapons and deals made by good people may decide who rules the land... and the sky.
Deadly Diversions Book Group
Thursday the 11th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
This month our mystery group meets to discuss Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin.
Where the Roses Smell the Best
Thursday the 11th, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
A creative blend of short stories, vignettes, poems, and visual art, Where the Roses Smell the Best highlights the people, places, and lifestyles of Portland. Students, community members, writers, and poets worked together to create an anthology that offers the taste of Portland — inviting anyone to open its pages and discover something new about our city's lively culture. Please join us as we welcome these featured authors, from local writers to Roosevelt High School students and more.
The Possibility Dogs
Thursday the 11th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
With her critically acclaimed first book, Scent of the Missing, Susannah Charleson was widely praised for her unique insight into the kinship between humans and dogs, as revealed through her work in canine search and rescue. Now, in The Possibility Dogs (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Charleson journeys into the world of psychiatric service, where dogs aid humans with disabilities that may be unseen but are no less felt. This work had a profound effect on Charleson, perhaps because, for her, this journey began as a personal one: Charleson herself struggled with posttraumatic stress disorder for months after a particularly grisly search. Collaboration with her search dog partner made the surprising difference to her own healing. Inspired by that experience, Charleson learns to identify abandoned dogs with service potential, often plucking them from shelters at the last minute, to train them for work beside hurting partners, for whom these second-chance dogs bring comfort and hope.
Kids' Storytime
Saturday the 13th, 11:00AM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Saturday for kids' storytime. Today we're reading The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt.
Kids' Storytime
Saturday the 13th, 11:00AM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Join us every Saturday during the summer months for kids' storytime. Today we're reading My Best, Best Friend and But I've Used All of My Pocket Change by Lauren Child.
Aisha Tyler
Sunday the 14th, 4:00PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Have you ever made a decision you instantly regretted? Humiliated yourself in a room of your peers? Blown a job interview, frozen during a presentation, acted like a total idiot on a date? Ever said the wrong thing at the wrong time, unable to keep your tongue from flapping out the stupidest words you've ever said in your life? If you are a human being, the answer, of course, is yes. Take heart. You're not alone. Aisha Tyler, comedian, actress, cohost of CBS's The Talk, star of Archer, and creator of the top-ranked podcast Girl on Guy, serves up a spectacular collection of her own self-inflicted wounds. From almost setting herself on fire, to vomiting on a boy she liked, to getting drunk and sleeping through the SATs, to going into crushing debt to pay for college and then throwing away her degree to become a comedian, Aisha's life has been a series of spectacularly epic fails. In Self-Inflicted Wounds (It Books), Tyler recounts hilarious stories of personal humiliation, and the personal insights and authentic wisdom she gathered along the way.
Write Around Portland 10-Week Workshop
Monday the 15th, 6:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Based on their acclaimed community writing model, this generative workshop offers exercises to inspire the writing life. Workshop fee ($285) includes free parking and snacks and helps to fund workshops for low-income youth and adults. This workshop takes place on Mondays, July 15 to September 23. To register or for more information, visit Writearound.org.
Charlie Huston
Monday the 15th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Skinner founded his career in "asset protection" on fear. To touch anyone under his protection was to invite destruction. A savagely effective methodology, until Skinner's CIA handlers began to fear him as much as his enemies did and banished him to the hinterlands of the intelligence community. Now, an ornate and evolving cyberterrorist attack is about to end that long exile. His asset is Jae, a roboticist with a gift for seeing the underlying systems violently shaping a new era of global guerrilla warfare. At the root of it all is a young boy, the innocent seed of a plot grown in the slums of Mumbai. Brought to flower, that plot will tip the balance of world power in a perilous new direction. A combination of le Carré spycraft with Stephenson techno-philosophy, Skinner (Mulholland Books) is Charlie Huston's masterpiece — a new kind of thriller for a new kind of world. Huston will be joined in conversation by comic book writers Matt Fraction and Brian Michael Bendis.
Kids' Storytime
Wednesday the 17th, 3:00PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Wednesday afternoon during the summer months for a special midweek kids' storytime. Today we're reading We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Wednesday the 17th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Curtis Sittenfeld, bestselling author of American Wife and Prep, returns with Sisterland (Random House), a mesmerizing novel of family and identity, loyalty and deception, and the delicate line between truth and belief. From an early age, Kate and her identical twin sister, Violet, knew that they were unlike everyone else. Kate and Vi were born with peculiar "senses" — innate psychic abilities concerning future events and other people's secrets. Though Vi embraced her visions, Kate did her best to hide them. Now, years later, their different paths have led them both back to their hometown of St. Louis. Vi has pursued an eccentric career as a psychic medium while Kate, a devoted wife and mother, has settled down in the suburbs to raise her two young children. But when a minor earthquake hits in the middle of the night, the normal life Kate has always wished for begins to shift.
Funny, haunting, and thought-provoking, Sisterland is a beautifully written novel about the obligation we have toward others and the responsibility we take for ourselves.
Chris Bohjalian
Wednesday the 17th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
From Chris Bohjalian, the acclaimed author of Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls, comes a spellbinding new novel of love, despair, and revenge set in war-ravaged Tuscany. The year is 1943. Tucked away in the idyllic hills south of Florence, the Rosatis, an Italian family of noble lineage, believe that the walls of their ancient villa will keep them safe from the war raging across Europe. But when two soldiers, a German and an Italian, arrive asking to see an ancient Etruscan burial site, the Rosatis' bucolic tranquility is shattered. The year 1955: Serafina Bettini, an investigator with the Florence police department, has her own demons. A beautiful woman, Serafina carefully hides her scars along with her haunting memories of the war. But when she is assigned to a gruesome new case — a serial killer targeting the Rosatis, murdering the remnants of the family one by one in cold blood — Serafina finds herself digging into a past that involves both the victims and her own tragic history. Set against an exquisitely rendered Italian countryside, The Light in the Ruins (Doubleday) unveils a breathtaking story of moral paradox, human frailty, and the mysterious ways of the heart.
Ben Winters
Thursday the 18th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
There are just 77 days to go before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth, and Detective Hank Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, Hank's days of solving crimes are over... until a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband. Brett Cavatone disappeared without a trace — an easy feat in a world with no phones, no cars, and no way to tell whether someone's gone "bucket list" or just gone. The second novel in Ben Winters's critically acclaimed Last Policeman trilogy, Countdown City (Quirk Books) presents a fascinating mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse — and once again, Hank Palace confronts questions way beyond "whodunit." What do we as human beings owe to one another? And what does it mean to be civilized when civilization is collapsing all around you?
e. E. Charlton-Trujillo
Thursday the 18th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Her sister was captured in Iraq, she's the resident laughingstock at school, and her therapist tells her to count instead of eat. Can a daring new girl in her life really change anything? Angie is broken — by her can't-be-bothered mother, by her high-school tormenters, and by being the only one who thinks her varsity-athlete-turned-war-hero sister is still alive. Hiding under a mountain of junk food hasn't kept the pain away. Having failed to kill herself — in front of a gym full of kids — she's back at high school just trying to make it through each day. That is, until the arrival of KC Romance, the kind of girl who doesn't exist in Dryfalls, Ohio. With an offbeat sensibility, mean girls to rival a horror classic, and characters both outrageous and touching, e. E. Charlton-Trujillo's Fat Angie (Candlewick Press) is a darkly comic anti-romantic romance. This event is sponsored by Q Center.
Kari Luna, Kirsten Smith & David Iserson
Friday the 19th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
When Sophie Sophia's eccentric physicist father disappears for good and Sophie's mom moves them from Brooklyn to Havencrest, Illinois, for a fresh start, things take a turn for the weird. Guided by Walt, her shaman panda, and her new (human) friend named Finny, Sophie is determined to find her father and figure out her visions once and for all. Kari Luna's The Theory of Everything (Philomel books) is a whimsical novel that will change the way you think of the world. In Trinkets (Little, Brown), Hollywood screenwriter Kirsten Smith (Legally Blonde) tells a story from multiple perspectives with humor and warmth as three very different girls who are supposed to be learning the steps to recovery end up learning the rules of friendship. Firecracker (Razorbill) is a hilarious tragicomedy from New Girl and Saturday Night Live writer David Iserson. Astrid Krieger lives in a rocket ship prototype in the backyard of her parents' estate. Her recent expulsion from the elite Bristol Academy has won her a unique punishment: she'll have to attend public school for the first time ever. Will Astrid finally meet her match there? Will she find out who betrayed her and got her expelled from Bristol?
Kids' Storytime
Saturday the 20th, 11:00AM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Saturday for kids' storytime. Today we're reading Count the Monkeys by Mac Barnett and Kevin Cornell.
Kids' Storytime
Saturday the 20th, 11:00AM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Join us every Saturday during the summer months for kids' storytime. Today we're reading Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and Shrek! by William Steig.
Matthew Specktor & Jodi Angel
Monday the 22nd, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Matthew Specktor's American Dream Machine (Tin House) is the story of two talent agents and their three troubled boys, heirs to Hollywood royalty. It's a sweeping narrative about fathers and sons, the movie business, and the sundry sea changes that have shaped Hollywood and, by extension, American life. Mammalian, funny, and filled with characters both vital and profound, American Dream Machine is a piercing interrogation of the role — nourishing, as well as destructive — that illusion plays in all our lives. Jodi Angel's second story collection, You Only Get Letters from Jail (Tin House), chronicles the lives of young men trapped in the liminal space between adolescence and adulthood. From picking up women at a bar hours after a parent's overdose to catching rattlesnakes with gasoline, Angel's characters are motivated by muscle cars, manipulative women, and the hope of escape from circumstances that force them either to grow up or give up. Haunted by unfulfilled dreams and disappointments, and often acting out of mixed intentions and questionable motives, these boys turned young men are nevertheless portrayed with depth, tenderness, and humanity.
Susan Choi
Tuesday the 23rd, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Regina Gottlieb had been warned about Professor Nicholas Brodeur long before arriving as a graduate student at his prestigious university high on a pastoral hill. He's said to lie in the dark in his office while undergraduate women read couplets to him. He's condemned on the walls of the women's restroom and enjoys films by Roman Polanski. But no one has warned Regina about his exceptional physical beauty — or his charismatic, volatile wife. My Education (Viking) is the story of Regina's mistakes, which begin in the bedroom and end — if they ever do — 15 years in the future and thousands of miles away. By turns erotic and catastrophic, Regina's misadventures demonstrate what can happen when the chasm between desire and duty is too wide to bridge. My Education is an intimately charged novel from Susan Choi, author of American Woman and A Person of Interest.
Kids' Storytime
Wednesday the 24th, 3:00PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Wednesday afternoon during the summer months for a special midweek kids' storytime. Today we're reading A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen.
The Adrenaline Junkie's Bucket List
Wednesday the 24th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Christopher Van Tilburg's The Adrenaline Junkie's Bucket List: 100 Extreme Outdoor Adventures to Do before You Die (St. Martin's Griffin) is a heart-stopping and essential guide to the best extreme outdoor adventures on every continent. The guide runs the gamut of water, mountain, and hiking sports for all skill levels — from beginners to experts. Van Tilburg is a veteran outdoor adventure expert and wilderness physician, presenting readers with 100 amazing and challenging voyages all over the world. Organized by continent, the book offers 15 to 25 trips of a wide variety in each section and also covers local lore and history, hotel and restaurant recommendations, and other relevant services. The Adrenaline Junkie's Bucket List is the perfect book for extreme athletes and armchair travelers looking for an adventurous read. This event is sponsored by Next Adventure.
Susan Fletcher
Thursday the 25th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
In Susan Fletcher's new fantasy adventure, Falcon in the Glass (Margaret K. McElderry Books), a boy risks his life to save some very special children. In Venice in 1487, the secrets of glassblowing are guarded jealously. Renzo, a 12-year-old laborer in a glassworks, has just a few months to prepare for a test of his abilities and no one to teach him. If he passes, he will qualify as a skilled glassblower. If he fails, he will be expelled from the glassworks. But Renzo desperately needs another pair of hands to help him turn the glass as he practices. One night he is disturbed by a bird — a small falcon — that seems to belong to a girl hiding in the glassworks. Soon Renzo learns about her and others like her — the bird people, who can communicate with birds and are condemned as witches. He tries to get her to help him and discovers that she comes with baggage: 10 hungry bird-kenning children who desperately need his aid. Caught between devotion to his family, devotion to his art, and protecting a group of outcast children, Renzo struggles for a solution that will keep everyone safe.
Max Gladstone
Thursday the 25th, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
A god has died, and it's up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart. Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis's steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot. Tara's job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who's having an understandable crisis of faith. When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb's courts — and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb's slim hope of survival. Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Max Gladstone's Three Parts Dead (Tor) introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.
Kids' Storytime
Saturday the 27th, 11:00AM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Join us every Saturday during the summer for kids' storytime. Today we're reading Heckedy Peg and The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Audrey and Don Wood.
Kids' Storytime
Saturday the 27th, 11:00AM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Saturday for kids' storytime. Today we're reading Lost Sloth by J. Otto Seibold.
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
Tuesday the 30th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history's most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion yet rife with contradiction, a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with swords, an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity a secret, and ultimately the seditious "King of the Jews" whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his brief lifetime. Aslan explores the reasons why the early Christian church promulgated an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (Random House) is a fascinating, provocative, and well-researched biography that challenges long-held assumptions about the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth.
Kids' Storytime
Wednesday the 31st, 3:00PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Join us every Wednesday afternoon during the summer months for a special midweek kids' storytime. Today we're reading Fred and Ted Go Camping by Peter Eastman.
Classics Book Group
Wednesday the 31st, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
This month we meet to discuss Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. Join us!
Cathleen Schine
Wednesday the 31st, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
It's 1964 and 11-year-old Fin and his glamorous, worldly, older half-sister, Lady, have just been orphaned. Lady, whom Fin hasn't seen in six years, is now his legal guardian and his only hope. That means Fin is uprooted from a small dairy farm in rural Connecticut to Greenwich Village, smack in the middle of the swinging '60s. He soon learns that Lady — giddy, careless, urgent, and obsessed with being free — is as much his responsibility as he is hers. So begins Fin and Lady (Sarah Crichton Books), the lively, spirited new novel by Cathleen Schine, author of the bestselling The Three Weissmanns of Westport. Fin and Lady lead their lives against the background of the '60s, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War — Lady pursued by ardent, dogged suitors, Fin determined to protect his impulsive sister from them and from herself.
