This just in! We have conclusively proven that the term "April showers" is a misnomer. To test the theory, we stood out in the Oregon downpour for over an hour with a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo, and guess what? We're not clean in the least. What's more, you can't change the size or intensity of the spray, and there are no removable rain clouds that you can use to clean those hard-to-reach places. Also, there's no hot water, it's all cold. And there's the matter of the screaming pedestrians and then the police... but that's a story for another day.

POWELLS.COM INTERVIEWS: SARAH WATERS
Sarah Waters has been called "one of the best storytellers alive" (Independent). She's also among the most fun. In her first three novels, beginning with the juicy Tipping the Velvet and culminating in the international bestseller and Booker finalist Fingersmith, Sarah Waters invented, and then perfected, the "lesbian Victorian romp." After putting the first lesbian romp on the Booker shortlist, though, what's left to accomplish? Quite a bit, apparently. Though Waters's new novel, The Night Watch, may surprise her many fans — set in the forties, it's her first non-Victorian novel — it has so far delighted critics. "Sophisticated, beautifully written" (Washington Post). "Swings along irrepressibly" (Independent). "Her most compelling depiction yet of women's struggles for various kinds of liberation" (London Times). Perhaps this is familiar territory after all.

SIGNED FIRST EDITIONS: THE NIGHT WATCH
From the author of the Booker Prize finalist Fingersmith, Sarah Waters's The Night Watch is a novel of relationships set in 1940s London that brims with vivid historical detail, thrilling coincidences, and psychological complexity. Tender, tragic, and beautifully poignant, The Night Watch is a towering achievement. The Rocky Mountain News raves, "For the reader who values complex characters and a fine elegiac prose, this novel will not disappoint." Get your signed first editions now.

KATRINA PROJECT
The Katrina Project aims to rebuild the New Orleans Public Library damaged by Hurricane Katrina — and you can help by contributing exclusively through Powells.com! Here's how: purchase a book pledge (or pledges) for $8.95 apiece, then suggest a book for the New Orleans Public Library collection during the check-out process. The Katrina Project will add a book to its Levee for Life at Princeton University each time a pledge is purchased at Powells.com. Your pledge will be delivered to the New Orleans Public Library Foundation, a 501(c)(3) educational and charitable organization whose mission is to support the New Orleans Public Library. To find out more, or pledge now, visit this page.

ORIGINAL ESSAY: LORI LEIBOVICH
"Writers often tote out the cliche that the process of creating a book is like having a baby," writes Lori Leibovich. "For me, having a baby has been like creating a book." In this original essay, the editor of Maybe Baby shares how a series of essays on Salon.com called "To Breed or Not to Breed" provoked readers to send in hundreds of personal stories about their own experiences in parenting, inspiring her to turn the series into a book. "What was clear to us as we sifted through the mountains of mail was that we were hearing from the first generation for whom parenting was a choice, not a given." Read the essay and save 30% off the cover price of Maybe Baby.

INK Q&A: DAVID JAMES DUNCAN
David James Duncan describes his newest book, God Laughs and Plays, as "a collection of what I call 'churchless sermons' united by my belief that the way of life preached and embodied by Jesus in the Gospels is meant to be an example to Christians." In this INK Q&A, the beloved author of The River Why and The Brothers K explains why he'd rather date his wife than any fictional character, offers some of his favorite passages from other writers, and shares his boundless love for his Patagonia wading shoes. Read the Q&A and save 30% when you buy God Laughs and Plays.

INK Q&A: JUNE CASAGRANDE
June Casagrande explains why she wrote Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: "There are plenty of language books on the market....They have great information, but no one ever reads them past page 5. My solution was to compile a bunch of essays, anecdotes, and rants to be read for their own sakes. The grammar lessons are slipped in on the side." In this INK Q&A, Casagrande reveals which story she'd like to live in, offers a favorite passage from Kurt Vonnegut, and shares her favorite Simpsons episode. Read the Q&A and save 30% on Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies.

At Powells.com, we prefer to eat eggs rather than color them. And we like our eggs scrambled, over-easy... any way except hardboiled. So when that one day with the rabbit and candy comes along, we dye our favorite books instead. Try it sometime: when the old cover gets a little dull, you can give it a splash of blue, red, and yellow for a festive new look.

WORDSTOCK
Powells.com is proud to be a sponsor of the 2006 Wordstock Festival in Portland, April 21-23. Over 250 authors will read on eleven stages — including Dave Eggers, Colson Whitehead, Joyce Carol Oates, Ursula K. Le Guin, and many more! There will also be over 100 publishers, booksellers and writing organizations at the Oregon Convention Center, a workshop for teachers and writers, and you can enter the Wordstock Writing Challenge! And don't miss an evening with radio host Ira Glass — tickets are on sale now. Click here for more details.

INTRODUCING CUSTOMER COMMENTS
At Powell's Books, we promote books the old-fashioned way: real, live booksellers recommending the books they love to customers. But other good book advice comes by word of mouth from one reader to the next. So in that spirit, we've added a "Customer Comments" feature to all of our book pages. Sound off on your favorite books, from The Da Vinci Code to Atonement to... well, every single title we sell.

GUEST BLOGGERS: CAITLIN FLANAGAN AND ERIN MCKEAN
This week's guest blogger is New Yorker staff writer Caitlin Flanagan, author of To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. Next week we're pleased to welcome Erin McKean, editor of The Concise Oxford American Dictionary. Check out what they have to say — and read all the postings from our past guests, including Laurie Notaro, Susan Orlean, Adam Gopnik, and more!

NEW IN STORES
New to our shelves: Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed Never Let Me Go, which Powells.com's Georgie exalts as "Divine!" (and which she selected as the winner of her round of the Morning News Tournament of Books), has just come out in trade paperback. On April 11, get the trade paperback of Ian McEwan's bestselling Saturday. Elizabeth Berg, author of Open House and The Year of Pleasures, returns with We Are All Welcome Here, based on a true story.

DVDs
Still caught up in the controversy over this year's Academy Awards winner? Now you can compare the odds-on favorite, Brokeback Mountain, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, with the surprise Best Picture winner, Crash, available in a brand-new two-disc special edition director's cut. Decide for yourself which film deserved the statue! And while you're at it, pick up the acclaimed adaptation of Arthur Golden's bestselling phenomenon, Memoirs of a Geisha, new to DVD. As always, all DVDs ship for free from Powells.com!

In our next edition:
An interview with Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close); an original essay from Daniel Handler (Adverbs); and an INK Q&A from Elinor Lipman (My Latest Grievance).

CALENDAR OF EVENTS
With the trademark wisdom, humor, and honesty that made Traveling Mercies a runaway bestseller, Anne Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith is a spiritual antidote to anxiety and despair in increasingly fraught times. From America's premier political analyst and the author of American Dynasty, American Theocracy is an explosive examination of the axis of religion, politics, and borrowed money that threatens to destroy the United States. Jerome Armstrong's and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga's Crashing the Gate is a shot across the bow at the political establishment in Washington, D.C., and a call to re-democratize politics in America. The Grail is Brian Doyle's ebullient and energetic account of the growing, making, and drinking of a truly special Oregon wine. In response to the demonization of the "L-word" that has occurred over the past twenty years comes Proud to Be Liberal, a defiant celebration of the past, present, and future of liberalism by an all-star collection of writers, activists, scholars, cartoonists, and bloggers. Join contributors Thom Hartmann and Laila Lalami for a bold and exciting presentation.

FUP. STORE CAT.
Going on four days now, it's been all Fup can do to stay awake through business hours. Maybe she stirs for dinner around six o'clock, stretches her legs in the aisles, and then naps in the Couch Street window.

"I'm worried about Fup," Corie says, sipping at her morning coffee. "She's hardly been out of bed all week."

Imagine an igloo with an extra-wide door — replace the ice blocks with pillows, and you're starting to visualize Fup's bed/hut.

Lisa comes out from behind her desk and circles around to assess the situation. Fup opens her eyes and stares. Lisa tells Corie, "She doesn't look sick."

You live in a place long enough, spend day after day with people... Times like these, Fup is reminded that the staff seems to think she shuts with the store when it closes. As if you turn off the lights and cats go narcoleptic.

Tired, yes, all day long. Odd how that happens when she stays up through the night with friends.

POWELLS.COM BESTSELLERS (UPDATED HOURLY)
1. Katrina Project Book Pledge (Special)
2. The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson (Humor)
3. The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller (Literature)
4. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Literature)
5. The Force of Reason by Oriana Fallaci (Politics)
6. American Theocracy, Signed Edition by Kevin Phillips (Politics)
7. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Psychology)
8. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Literature)
9. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Popular Fiction)
10. American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips (Politics)