July 2009
Blake Nelson
Sunday the 12th, 2:00PM Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Blake Nelson's latest young adult novel, Destroy All Cars (Scholastic), features James Hoff, who likes to rant against America's consumerist culture and his ex-girlfriend, Sadie, who he feels isn't doing enough to change the world. But, just like he can't avoid buying things, he also can't avoid Sadie. "[A]n elegant and bittersweet story," cheers Publishers Weekly.
Footprints
Monday the 13th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
In Footprints (Hadley Rille), 21 authors spin tales of speculative fiction, imagining a future where alien explorers find human traces on the moon after the human species has died out. This event features contributors Brenda Cooper, Jody Sherry, and Chad Grayson.
The Girls' Guide to Rocking
Monday the 13th, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
Written by Jessica Hopper, an obsessive music lover who's spent her life playing, performing, publicizing, and writing about rock 'n' roll, The Girls' Guide to Rocking (Workman Publishing) is a hip, inspirational guide for rad girls who want to make their rock dreams come true.
The Crying Tree
Monday the 13th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Dramatic, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting, Naseem Rakha’s The Crying Tree (Broadway Books) is an unforgettable story of love and redemption, the unbreakable bonds of family, and the transformative power of forgiveness. "This complex, layered story of a family’s journey toward justice and forgiveness comes together through spellbinding storytelling," cheers Publishers Weekly. "[A] testament to Rakha’s ability to create wonderfully realized characters."
Macintosh Users Group
Tuesday the 14th, 6:30PM
Powell's Technical Books
Join us every other Tuesday for a fun and informal meeting with like-minded Mac geeks. Bring your questions and tips to share with the group.
Science Fiction Book Group
Tuesday the 14th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
This month we meet to discuss The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Join us!
Colum McCann
Tuesday the 14th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Award-winnining author Colum McCann's most ambitious work to date, Let the Great World Spin (Random House) offers a dazzling and hauntingly rich vision of the loveliness, pain, and mystery of life in New York City in the 1970s. "[McCann] succeeds in giving us a high-wire performance of style and heart". (Publishers Weekly).
Eric Barnes
Wednesday the 15th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
A beach-bag perfect combination of intrigue and deceit, Eric Barnes's Shimmer (Unbridled Books) is the timely, gripping tale of a worldwide corporate Ponzi scheme.
The Book of William
Wednesday the 15th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Paul Collins’ The Book of William (Bloomsbury) is the first popular narrative history of Shakespeare's First Folio, the world's most obsessively pursued book. "Collins is the best sort of popular historian: someone who can make the obscurest facts and people absorbing and entertaining," says Nancy Pearl, author of Book Lust.
Derek McCormack and Stacey Levine
Thursday the 16th, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
Starring a host of Hollywood’s brightest stars, Derek McCormack's The Show That Smells (Akashic) is a thrilling tale of hillbillies, high fashion, and horror about a country music singer dying of tuberculosis whose wife tries to save him by selling her soul to the devil. In The Girl with Brown Fur (Akashic), PEN-West Award winner Stacey Levine has invented stories that will thrill readers of literary fiction who hunger for an innovative American voice.
Tin House Magazine's 10th Anniversary
Thursday the 16th, 7:30PM
Newmark Theater
Celebrate Tin House's 10th anniversary with a gathering of some of the country's most exciting established and emerging writers who've been published by the magazine in the past decade. With readings, personal anecdotes, and short interviews, the night promises to be a snapshot of what Tin House offers in each of its issues, quality fiction and poetry with personality to spare.
Emceed by Colson Whitehead (Sag Harbor), the event will include these readers/presenters:
Dorothy Allison - Steve Almond - Aimee Bender
Charles D'Ambrosio - Matthew Dickman - Michael Dickman
Ron Hansen - Holly MacArthur - Win McCormack
Lee Montgomery - Peter Rock - Jim Shepard - Rob Spillman
Proceeds from the event will benefit WITS (Writers in the Schools), a program of Literary Arts. Please note: This ticketed event takes place at the Newmark Theater, 1111 SW Broadway. Tickets, $12/$15, are available through Portland Center for the Performing Arts or Ticketmaster.com, or by phone at 1-800-745-3000.
Get Animated!
Thursday the 16th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
A clearly written and illustrated guide for the home animator, Tim Maloney’s Get Animated! (Watson-Guptill) shows aspiring animators how to create studio-grade animation on simple home equipment.
Cheeky Pages Romance Book Group
Friday the 17th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
This month we meet to discuss Rebellion by Nora Roberts. Join us!
Things to Know before You Say "Go"
Sunday the 19th, 4:00PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
Elsbeth Martindale’s Things to Know before You Say "Go" offers individuals a unique and powerful method of examining romantic partnership. The set contains a deck of 76 cards and accompanying book, both printed on recycled materials and packaged in a reusable, earth-friendly box.
The Motion of the Ocean
Monday the 20th, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
The Motion of the Ocean (Touchstone) is the humorous true story of Janna Cawrse Esarey who abandons her tidy life to honeymoon across the Pacific on a leaky old boat -- only to find that sailing 17,000 miles is easier than keeping her relationship off the rocks.
Generation T: Beyond Fashion
Monday the 20th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
From Megan Nicolay, the author of Generation T, comes Generation T: Beyond Fashion (Workman), a new collection of 110 projects to take the humble yet ever-malleable T-shirt in dozens of new directions -- from baby gifts to pet accessories. Bring your own T-shirt to the event to follow along with Megan’s demonstration!
Get Gardening with Ray Rogers: Pots in the Garden
Tuesday the 21st, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
The use of ornamental containers on decks, patios, terraces, and in the garden itself can save time, space, and money. Ray Rogers's Pots in the Garden (Timber Press) reflects one longtime gardener's accumulated thoughts on and experiences with container gardening and the basic principles behind good garden design.
Chris Hedges
Tuesday the 21st, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges's Empire of Illusion (Nation Books) charts the dramatic and disturbing rise of a post-literate America that craves fantasy, ecstasy, and illusion.
Lance Allred
Wednesday the 22nd, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
In Longshot (HarperOne), Lance Allred, the first legally deaf player in the NBA, chronicles his unlikely journey from a polygamous compound in Montana to playing with the Cleveland Cavaliers. "Allred’s voice is humorously self-deprecating and youthfully winning," cheers Publishers Weekly.
Brett Battles
Thursday the 23rd, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Fast, smart, sleek, and stunning, Shadow of Betrayal (Delacorte Press) is vintage Brett Battles: a gritty, gripping masterpiece of suspense, this thriller will make the pulse pound -- and stir the heart as well.
Robin Romm & Jessica Anthony
Thursday the 23rd, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
Sharply funny and deeply moving, Robin Romm's extraordinary collection, The Mother Garden (Scribner), introduces a young writer of fierce originality and prodigious talent. In The Convalescent (McSweeney's Books), Jessica Anthony, the inaugural winner of the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, makes an unforgettable debut with an unforgettable hero: Rovar Ákos Pfliegman -- unlikely bandit, unloved lover, and historian of the unimportant.
Tattoo Machine
Thursday the 23rd, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
In Tattoo Machine (Spiegel & Grau), natural-born storyteller Jeff Johnson gives a behind-the-scenes tour of Portland’s Sea Tramp Tattoo Company and the fabled tattoo industry. "An amazing firsthand account of all things you wondered about tattoo shops," says Gus Van Sant. "I loved it."
Howard Dean
Friday the 24th, 12:00PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
What would real healthcare reform look like? And how can everyday Americans trump big money and put healthcare back on track? Howard Dean, the former DNC Chairman, presidential candidate, six term Governor, and physician, tells Americans what needs to be done to successfully reform healthcare in his bold new book, Howard Dean's Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform.
Portland Farmers Market
Saturday the 25th, 08:30AM
Portland Farmers Market
Join us the last Saturday of each month at the Portland Farmers Market in the South Park Blocks at PSU in the South Park Blocks at PSU. 
Seasonally appropriate books will help market-goers prepare and store their bounty — and even grow some of their own food. The 2009 series includes:
÷ ÷ ÷
- April 25: Going to Seed — Seed gardening and composting
- May 30: Localvores — Preparing local food and eating locally
- June 27: Birds and Bugs — The care and feeding of chickens and bees
- July 25: Berries — Cook 'em, eat 'em, store 'em
- August 29: BBQ — Build it and they will come
- September 26: Preserving — Capturing the harvest
- October 24: Fun with Fungi — Hunting and cooking the elusive mushroom
Throughout the summer, local authors will be stopping by the booth to sign and talk about their books.This month's selection will feature books on berries. Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson will join us to sign copies of their book,
Rustic Fruit Desserts, from 10 a.m. to noon.
Thom Hartmann
Monday the 27th, 7:00PM
Bagdad Theater
In Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture (Viking), writer and Air America radio host Thom Hartmann looks at the deteriorating state of our planet, where the dynamics of environmental, economic, and population change are boiling over the limits within which society can function. Please note: This ticketed event takes place at the Bagdad Theater, 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Tickets, $5, are available at the Bagdad Theater box office, the Crystal Ballroom box office, Ticketmaster.com, and all Ticketmaster outlets.
Co-sponsored by AM 620 KPOJ
Macintosh Users Group
Tuesday the 28th, 6:30PM
Powell's Technical Books
Join us every other Tuesday for a fun and informal meeting with like-minded Mac geeks. Bring your questions and tips to share with the group.
Tomato Rhapsody
Tuesday the 28th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
In Adam Schell's extravagant, inventive debut novel, Tomato Rhapsody (Delacorte), love's heart beats tomato red under a sultry Tuscan sun. "Schell displays the finesse of a master chef as he spices up the story with a delicious array of humorous subplots — ranging from the bawdy to the sweet — guaranteed to appeal to discerning literary palates".(Booklist).
Classics Book Group
Wednesday the 29th, 7:00PM
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
This month we meet to discuss The Aeneid by Virgil. Join us!
Carolyn Turgeon
Wednesday the 29th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
An atmospheric twist on the tale of Cinderella, Carolyn Turgeon's Godmother (Three Rivers Press) centers on the dark yet enchanting backstory of the Fairy Godmother.
Gothic Charm School
Thursday the 30th, 7:30PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
From Jillian Venters, the creator of the online advice forum about how to be strange and unusual, comes Gothic Charm School (Harper), the ultimate guide to dark decorum and etiquette for Goths and the non-Goths who love them, vividly illustrated by Pete Venters.
Embedded with Organized Labor
Thursday the 30th, 7:30PM
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
Collected for the first time, the essays that comprise Steve Early’s Embedded with Organized Labor (Monthly Review Press) present a unique and informed perspective on the class war at home from a longtime organizer and participatory labor journalist.
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