Luis Alberto Urrea
Luis Alberto Urrea is a poet, novelist, journalist, and essayist who has been writing about the relationship between the United States and Mexico, amongst other things, for 30 years. His 2004 nonfiction work, The Devil's Highway, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His novel The Hummingbird's Daughter was an epic work of shimmering prose which imagined the life of Teresita, the real-life "Saint of Cabora," who was in fact a relative of Urrea. In this interview, Urrea discusses his new novel, Into the Beautiful North, his family history, mythic quests, and Rush Limbaugh's relatives.
China Mieville
 China Miéville is one of the bright lights in the new breed of fantasy/science fiction writers. His works often take place in cities, where the cities are characters as much as their inhabitants. Miéville's latest The City and the City, is a crime noir set in Eastern Europe, in two cities separated by a very unusual border. "An excellent police procedural and a fascinating urban fantasy," lauds Booklist in a starred review.
Reif Larsen
 Twelve-year-old T.S. Spivet draws maps of train routes and water tables, maps of loneliness, the resilience of memory, even a map of his sister shucking corn. When his work is honored by the Smithsonian — the institute naturally assumes that he's an adult — T.S. runs away from home in Divide, Montana, and hoboes his way to Washington, D.C. An adventure story, a family saga, and a format-busting beauty (T.S.'s drawings sit side-by-side with the text), The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is a revelation. "Read it and marvel," Bookpage recommends.
Michael Perry
In Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting, Michael Perry finds himself transplanted onto 37 overgrown acres of farmland with his wife and daughter and a new baby en route. Perry takes on fowl, firewood, and pigs (regular and guinea) while reflecting on his unorthodox childhood — being raised in an obscure fundamentalist faith by dairy-farmer parents who took in dozens of foster children — for clues to how as proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father. Kirkus raves, "Dryly humorous, mildly neurotic and just plain soulful — a book that might even make you want to buy a few chickens."
Peter Singer
 In 1975, Australian ethicist and philosopher Peter Singer published Animal Liberation, which became a seminal text for the animal rights movement and inspired a generation of vegetarians. His textbook, Practical Ethics, is a classic in the field. He has written eloquently about globalization, euthanasia, abortion, and a host of other moral concerns. In The Life You Can Save, Singer makes a clear, decisive case that the citizens of wealthier nations can and should be doing more to combat global poverty in order to lead truly moral lives. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly raves, "[C]ompelling....[Singer's] solution can be found in the middle, and it is reasonable and rewarding for all."
Robin Romm
 In a front page feature, the New York Times Book Review called The Mercy Papers "a furious blaze of a book." The Oregon native explains, "There are so many measured books out there about loss. This one wasn't to be part of that." Maybe that's why Romm's first nonfiction is holding readers in thrall. Did the author really just compare the hospice nurse to a cockroach? Is it okay that I'm laughing? Yes, and yes. The San Francisco Chronicle proposed, "The raw honesty of this book may be as healing to read as it must have been to write."
Paul Harding
 Paul Harding's debut is only now arriving in bookstores, from a small publisher affiliated with NYU's School of Medicine. Already Tinkers is the talk of the literary world. Publishers Weekly calls it "an especially gorgeous example of novelistic craftsmanship." In 191 incantatory pages, Harding somehow makes you intimate with three generations of a New England family. Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson raves, "It confers on the reader the best privilege fiction can afford, the illusion of ghostly proximity to other human souls."
Annie Leibovitz
 In case it wasn't enough to photograph Nixon's resignation, Annie Leibovitz covered the story alongside Hunter S. Thompson. And while you may know that many of her celebrity portraits were shot for American Express campaigns, you probably wouldn't have guessed that Amex only gave her a credit card after she left an envelope with thousands of dollars in cash at a pay phone during one of those shoots. Leibovitz recently visited Portland to discuss At Work, a career-spanning retrospective of her photos and the remarkable stories behind them.
Art Spiegelman
 Thirty years after its initial publication, the new edition of Art Spiegelman's Breakdowns is bookended by a brand new, career-spanning, illustrated comic and a prose postscript supplemented by yet more classic drawings. Together, the three sections offer a grand, unifying vision of a master's career. In conversation, Spiegelman covered just as much ground, from the seminal early strips in Breakdowns to Maus (winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1992) to In the Shadow of No Towers, even his much-loved commercial work. (Remember Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids?)
Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson has been a staple name in science fiction ever since his incandescent opus Snow Crash appeared. What separated Snow Crash from the other cyberpunk novels of the world was, first, Stephenson's knowledge of computers and programming and, second, his wealth of research on topics as obscure as Sumerian mythology. This theme of in-depth research has continued through his other books, especially Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle. Before his reading, Stephenson discussed the mathematical philosophy and quantum mechanics in his newest novel, Anathem, as well as why he still writes by hand.
Annie Barrows
 Annie Barrows's creative process for co-authoring The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was, by her own admission, unusual. It's not often that your adored librarian aunt hands you a rough manuscript to finish. And allowing for the fact that we are prejudiced towards the novel's pure expression of love for booksellers, we found it to be absolutely delightful. Barrows takes the time to explain her experience of co-writing Guernsey, what it means to be a community of readers, and why we hunger for charm in these modern times.
Elizabeth Royte
Why do Americans spend more than $10 billion a year on bottled water? "The facile answer is marketing, marketing and more marketing," supposes the New York Times Book Review, "but Elizabeth Royte goes much deeper into the drink, streaming trends cultural, economic, political and hydrological into an engaging investigation of an unexpectedly murky substance." The Boston Globe calls Bottlemania, "Ingenious. Amiably, without haranguing or hyperventilating, this veteran environmental writer has produced what could be, assuming enough people read it, one of the year's most influential books."
Ethan Canin
 Kirkus calls America America, Ethan Canin's first novel in seven years, "[a] novel of character [that] is powerful and haunting, a major work." It is a sweeping, epic story that more fully explores themes Canin has written about previously — class, politics, fatherhood, wealth, and power — in a seamless and beautiful multigenerational American saga. America America is both an important work and a page-turning summer read. Especially in this election year, it is a powerful reminder about what is great, and what is broken, within our country. In this interview, Canin discusses his new book, the politics of generosity, class-jumping, and method acting for writing.
Aleksandar Hemon
Aleksandar Hemon, who came to the United States in 1992 from his native Bosnia, and then stayed on after war broke out in Sarajevo, began writing in English in 1995. He won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2004, and has drawn plenty of comparisons to Nabokov both because of his circumstances and his crackling, inventive, and blackly funny prose. The New York Times has called him "an extraordinary writer....not simply gifted, but necessary." In The Lazarus Project, Hemon reconstructs the story of an immigrant's death in Chicago a century ago, but it is also a book about storytelling, about the nature of memory and reality, and about the relationship of America to the rest of the world, then and now. In our interview, Hemon discusses storytelling, canvassing for Greenpeace, Bosnian jokes, and his remarkable novel.
Jhumpa Lahiri
In 2000, Jhumpa Lahiri's debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize. A few years later, her first novel, The Namesake, became a bestseller and the basis for a major motion picture. Lahiri's third book, Unaccustomed Earth, more than lives up to her previous work: this deeply moving, gorgeously written collection of stories is Lahiri's strongest fiction yet. The Boston Globe raves, "[E]ight beautifully crafted stories that reaffirm [Lahiri's] status as one of this country's most accomplished and graceful young writers." In this interview, Lahiri discusses her new collection of stories, the ways in which her writing has changed, and her literary mentors.
Jodi Picoult
The Washington Post claims, "Picoult has become a master — almost a clairvoyant — at targeting hot issues and writing highly readable page-turners about them...It is impossible not to be held spellbound by the way she forces us to think, hard, about right and wrong." In her new novel, "Change of Heart," Picoult tackles thorny issues surrounding religion and capital punishment with grace and aplomb, creating a fast-paced but thoughtful exploration of free will and redemption. In this interview, Picoult spoke about the Gnostic gospels, visiting death row, and moving interactions with her readers.
Lauren Groff
 Lauren Groff needed four drafts and several years to discover her novel's ultimate voice and structure — a pastiche of letters and diaries, traditional first-person narrative, dramatic monologue, genealogical charts, old photographs and newspapers, even a Greek chorus. The Monsters of Templeton contains multitudes: literary mystery, academic comedy, ghost story, romance... Which only makes it more impressive how seamlessly the pieces fit together, and what a pleasure the novel is to read. Groff spoke about growing up in Cooperstown and reinventing the town in her marvelous, bestselling debut.
David Shields
 In The Thing about Life Is that One Day You'll Be Dead, David Shields takes readers from womb to casket, addictively blending family narrative, biological science, and wisdom from the likes of Schopenhauer and Ice-T. It all adds up to an audacious and, yes, lively collage that immediately won over several Powell's staff members. Now, days before The Thing about Life arrives in bookstores, Shields reflects on giggling girls, Bill Murray, and the force that through the green fuse drives the flower — in other words, what it means to be alive.
Deborah Madison
Deborah Madison has been called the Julia Child of vegetarian cooking (Lynne Rosetto Kasper), a "wizard with fresh produce" (New York Times), and "one of very few people responsible for reinventing and furthering the cause of American home cooking" (Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything). What's her secret? Details that have now become standards of gourmet cooking: a focus on seasonal, fresh ingredients grown as locally as possible; a focus on classical simplicity; and, perhaps most importantly, a willingness to take vegetables on their own terms. Consequently, Madison's recipes have garnered devoted fans among herbivores and omnivores alike. Molly Katzen describes Madison as "an intuitive, intelligent, and passionate cook who presents her broad knowledge in a lovely, lyrical writing style," and Alice Waters praises her "refined taste and style and consistently critical and good palate." This fall, the tenth anniversary edition of the bestselling Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone has just been released, along with the paperback edition of Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison's Kitchen; if you haven't yet had the pleasure of trying Madison's cuisine, these are both excellent ways to begin.
Steven Pinker
 An evolutionary psychologist with a focus on language, Steven Pinker is the author of several bestselling books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, and The Blank Slate. No stranger to controversy, in The Blank Slate Pinker challenged the view that all people are born equal, instead arguing that genetics shapes much of personality and predisposes people towards processing information certain ways. He teaches at Harvard and is an active researcher as well as a popular public lecturer. Pinker's latest book is The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window into Human Nature, which Wired calls "a fascinating look at how language provides a window into the deepest functioning of the human brain." On a rainy day in September 2007, Dr. Pinker discussed causality, the concept of concepts, how to swear in several languages, and how irregular verbs can lead to romance.
Tom Perrotta
Although it was his fifth book (and fourth novel), 2004's Little Children finally put Tom Perrotta on the map for many critics and readers — and the screenplay adaptation he co-wrote earned him an Oscar nomination. With his searingly hilarious new novel, The Abstinence Teacher, Perrotta proves his long-awaited success was no fluke. In a starred review, Kirkus calls it "shrewd yet compassionate....Ruefully humorous and tenderly understanding of human folly: the most mature, accomplished work yet from this deservedly bestselling author." In this Powells.com interview, Perrotta discusses how he researched both sides of the religious divide, why presidential elections have inspired so much of his work, and how writing is like football.
Diane Ackerman
A work of narrative nonfiction, The Zookeeper's Wife focuses on Jan and Antonina Zabinski, zookeepers in Warsaw during World War II. In addition to saving as many animals as possible during the ongoing German assault on the city, the Zabinskis saved the lives of hundreds of Jews, often at great risk to their own. The Los Angeles Times raves, "[A] shining book beyond category....[A] book to read and reread and give to others." In our interview, Diane Ackerman discusses her new work, empathy, crocodilians, and synesthesia.
William Gibson
The Washington Post calls Spook Country "a devastatingly precise reflection of the American zeitgeist....Gibson takes another large step forward and reaffirms his position as one of the most astute and entertaining commentators on our astonishing, chaotic present." In a starred review, Publishers Weekly calls it "one of Gibson's best." And they're right; if you haven't read William Gibson before, Spook Country might be the ideal place to start. Set a few years ago in an uncanny America, one which seems simultaneously eerily familiar and utterly foreign, Spook Country weaves a complex mystery through the eyes of three very different characters navigating through the web of money and influence in our post-9/11 world. In this interview, William Gibson discusses Spook Country, writing, Voodoo, and reveals his secret dream job.
Anne Fadiman
 Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and Ex Libris, turns her hand in her newest collection to the familiar essay, a form at which she excels. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly calls At Large and at Small "a perfectly faceted little gem," and Booklist raves, "A master of the tangential, a close observer, and a lover of language, Fadiman is blithely brilliant in her pursuit of beauty and meaning as she wrestles with questions of life, death, and rebirth." Before her reading at Powell's City of Books, Anne Fadiman stopped by our offices to discuss familiar essays, poetry, the collecting spirit, and balancing narcissism and curiosity.
Khaled Hosseini
 Khaled Hosseini's debut, The Kite Runner, spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, here comes his follow-up, A Thousand Splendid Suns, the tale of two Afghani women who come to share a husband and a home — and it's arguably a better book. At Powell's earlier this month, Hosseini discussed Kabul, the Taliban, seemingly small decisions, kid games, working with the U.N., and more.
Sherman Alexie
 Darkly funny, sharply observant, Flight lays bare the experience of a teenaged outsider circa 2007. Alternately heartbreaking and wondrous, Sherman Alexie's first novel in ten years tells the story of an orphan careening through foster homes until finally, not long after we meet him, he walks into a bank and comes unstuck in time. Gritty, intense, and especially timely, it's a lightning-fast read besides. Alexie discussed his new novel, slobbering on Stephen King, potlatch culture, pile of crap novels, and more.
Barbara Kingsolver
 The typical food in an American supermarket has traveled considerably farther than some people do in a year of vacations. Consider the impact of those miles on fuel consumption, or the effect that chemical preservatives and industrial processing have on our health, not to mention what this long haul paradigm does to local economies and to our grasp of what food really costs, what food is. For one year, Barbara Kingsolver's family pledged to eat only what it could procure from within an hour of its home. Meats, vegetables, grains, you name it. "Her tale is both classy and disarming, substantive and entertaining, earnest and funny," Publishers Weekly raved in a starred review. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is "a well-paced narrative and the apparent ease of the beautiful prose makes the pages fly."
Christopher Hitchens
After calling Henry Kissinger a "war criminal," Bill Clinton a "rapist," Ghandi a "half-naked fakir," and Mother Theresa "a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud," what target could Christopher Hitchens possibly aim for next? Why, nothing less than God. In his new bestselling book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Hitchens wastes no time getting to the point (just go back and reread that subtitle). But he's not just a provocateur. Hitchens is also a first-rate writer whose command of the language is legendary; his wit ferocious. In this interview, Powells.com's C. P. Farley spoke with Hitchens about his new book, God, and other controversial matters.
Kevin Young
 The New York Times Book Review has called Kevin Young's work "highly entertaining, often dazzling, and, as book reviewers like to say — but rarely about contemporary poetry — compulsively readable." His fifth book of poems, For the Confederate Dead, is an elegant, deeply felt, and masterful collection, ranging from elegies both public and private to poems about mythical Southern towns to a series of ballads about an imaginary personification of Jim Crow. The San Francisco Chronicle praises, "Besides mourning loss, For the Confederate Dead celebrates the regenerative and enduring power of the imagination."
Ishmael Beah
 Ishmael Beah became a soldier at age thirteen, one year after rebels attacked his village, flushing him into the forest to live on the run with other boys his age. In A Long Way Gone, Beah describes Sierra Leone's civil war as he knew it, entirely absent of political context. Kill or be killed, these were a homeless orphan's options. "This memoir seems destined to become a classic," Publishers Weekly predicts. On the eve of publication, Beah discussed rehabilitation, forgiveness, hip-hop, moving walkways, and more.
Melissa Fay Greene
 When Melissa Fay Greene's son packed for college, the author and her husband considered adoption. In the process, Greene confronted the devastating impact of AIDS in Africa. Eleven percent of the children in Ethiopia are orphans. Greene wanted to know, "Who is going to raise all those kids?" And in the mountain city of Addis Ababa, she found one incredible woman who has saved more than three hundred lives. "Like the very best literature, There Is No Me Without You charts the human condition in all its extremes," applauded the San Diego Union-Tribune. "It harnesses the most potent of all human forces: the bond between parent and child."
Colum McCann
 Open Zoli to just about any page and you'll find a passage worth reading two or three times. The prose is gorgeous, the story remarkable — the characters practically leap out from the bindings. A week after the novel's publication, Colum McCann talked about Michael Ondaatje, memory, rickety bikes, singing out, and bonfires on the Oregon coast.
Philip Gourevitch
 In March 2005, the award-winning author of We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families was named editor of the venerable Paris Review. This holiday season, in that role, Philip Gourevitch has delivered a gift for the ages. The Paris Review Interviews, Volume I includes sixteen conversations with the likes of Truman Capote and Kurt Vonnegut, Elizabeth Bishop and Joan Didion.
Stephen King
Though Stephen King is best known for frightening his readers, over the years he's also written several works that are less terrifying and more obviously concerned with the universal themes of love and family. Lisey's Story is a hybrid of the most effective traits of both: while the novel has supernatural elements and truly horrific moments, it is also a playful, intimate, and deeply moving tribute to marriage and the art of writing. Kirkus Reviews calls it "one of King's finest works," and Washington Post Book World applauds, "With Lisey's Story, King has crashed the exclusive party of literary fiction, and he'll be no easier to ignore than Carrie at the prom."
Michael Lewis
 Michael Lewis doesn't so much write about business as the people who change it. In The New New Thing, we met Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon. In Moneyball, Lewis introduced Billy Beane, an ex-ballplayer who turned a franchise with one of Major League Baseball's lowest payrolls into an annual contender. Now, in The Blind Side, he offers another engaging portrait of market forces at work, from NFL locker rooms to the projects of Memphis.
Richard Powers
 Richard Powers has been called "the smartest and most warm-hearted novelist in America today" (Chicago Tribune), "a writer of blistering intellect" (LA Times Book Review), and "one of our few indispensable literary talents" (Review of Contemporary Fiction). The Echo Maker, his latest novel, concerns a 27-year old man who has developed Capgras syndrome — the belief that those you love are imposters, played by actors or robots — as the result of a mysterious accident. If you've never read Richard Powers, this mesmerizing, moving novel is one of his masterpieces, and the perfect place to start.
Robert Kurson
 In Shadow Divers, Robert Kurson presents the story of two men consumed by the quest to identify a mystery submarine. The Wall Street Journal points out that "Shadow Divers is not only a gripping adventure story, but a tale of dogged persistence and growing friendship." They might have added: a tale of sacrifice, espionage, courage, and, according to the New York Daily News, "one of the most engaging tales you'll read this year."
Scott Smith
Stephen King calls The
Ruins "the book of the summer" and swears, "It does for Mexican vacations what Jaws did for New England beaches in 1975."
Thirteen years after his staggering debut, A
Simple Plan, we caught up with Scott Smith to talk about his new novel, his Oscar nomination, and what he was doing between books. "With A Simple Plan, it felt like I knew what I was doing," Smith tells us. "With The Ruins, I didn't. I felt like I was skiing but not knowing how to ski, hoping to maintain my footing all the way down the hillside."
Helen Thomas
 In Watchdogs of Democracy?, the longtime White House bureau chief recalls the stories that helped define nine administrations and the journalists that brought the news home. But journalism has changed since Thomas covered JFK, and in Watchdogs Thomas questions her peers, arguing that since 9-11 reporters have failed to protect the public's right to information. "I want the press to start questioning the administration. Every administration," she explains. "I want us to do our jobs better. I think we owe it to the people."
Anthony Bourdain
 Since his first full-length interview at Powells.com, Anthony Bourdain has published "a field manual to classic French bistro cooking," a crime novel, and now The Nasty Bits, a book of previously uncollected essays. All the while he's been globetrotting from the Kalahari to Quebec, documenting culinary culture for the Travel Channel. During a recent Oregon stopover, Bourdain returned to discuss culture shock, maple bacon donuts, how to read restaurant menus, and more.
Amy Hempel
 Amy Hempel has been called a miniaturist—fair enough—but if her stories tend to be small in scale, they drill as deep as fiction goes. Emotionally charged, fantastically precise, an Amy Hempel story is a miracle of efficiency. Upon the publication of her Collected Stories, she talked about creating those immaculate sentences, being not quite so famous as Judy Blume, teaching, fear, and, of course, dogs.
Charles D'Ambrosio
 When the acclaimed author of Orphans stopped by our office to say hello and sign books, we sat him down for a short conversation about working with George Plimpton, hopping freight trains, living in Portland, and crafting the pieces in his "gemlike" (Publishers Weekly) new collection, The Dead Fish Museum. |
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Jim Lynch
 If Carl Hiaasen set one of his novels on a residential stretch of boundary line between British Columbia and Washington, or if Richard Russo's characters had relatives in the Pacific Northwest, the result might be something like Border Songs. Jim Lynch earned a legion of fans with his bestselling debut, The Highest Tide. Border Songs is the rare sophomore effort that lives up to — arguably even exceeds — its lofty expectations. "I'd always been interested in the Canadian border," Lynch explained. "I knew where Border Songs was going to be set before I knew what it was going to be."
Elmore Leonard
At the age of 83, Elmore Leonard has just published his 43rd novel. Road Dogs reunites two of Leonard's most distinctive characters — Jack Foley, the bank robber from Out of Sight, and Cundo Rey from LaBrava — as prison inmates who develop an unlikely friendship. When Foley gets out of prison and meets Rey's wife, the psychic Dawn Navarro (last seen in Riding the Rap), it's an understatement to suggest that complications ensue. In the New York Times, Janet Maslin called Road Dogs "one of Mr. Leonard's most enjoyably sneaky stories," but perhaps Booklist put it best: "Reading isn't supposed to be this much fun."
Laila Lalami
 When Laila Lalami published Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits in 2005, the debut earned praise far and wide, from acclaimed literary authors such as Junot Díaz and even popular weeklies including People magazine. Four years later, the former Portland resident, a native of Morocco, has returned with a remarkable novel of contemporary Casablanca. Secret Son is an utterly timeless story — of identity, kin, and class — that's, paradoxically, very much of our time.
Robert Goolrick
 Catherine Land arrives in Wisconsin on a snowy day in 1907. Receiving her on the train platform, Ralph Truitt knows that Catherine isn't the woman that she claimed to be when she answered his newspaper ad for "a reliable wife." But what else does he know? And how far will Catherine go to fulfill her dreams? Seduction, marriage, money, sex, and drugs... A Reliable Wife has it all. Booklist raves, "Few have permeated their narratives with gothic elements and suspense to such great effect."
David Grann
 The Lost City of Z is 2009's first can't-miss nonfiction. New Yorker staff writer David Grann travels through the Amazon in the footsteps of explorer Percy Fawcett, who captured the world's imagination (and redefined the borders of South America) before disappearing in the jungle without a trace. Nathaniel Philbrick calls The Lost City "a riveting, totally absorbing real-life adventure story" — and early readers at Powell's couldn't agree more.
Temple Grandin
Temple Grandin may be more single-handedly responsible for humane treatment of animals, especially livestock, than any other individual in the last few decades. She's also given the world much greater insight into the way autistic minds work. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly describes her new book, Animals Make Us Human, as "packed with fascinating insights, unexpected observations and a wealth of how-to tips." In this interview, Grandin discusses Animals Make Us Human, core emotional systems in animals, the differences between cats and dogs, the new HBO project based on her life, and more.
Natasha Wimmer
The most critically acclaimed novel published in America this year, 2666 is Roberto Bolaño's masterpiece. "Bolaño has proven [literature] can do anything," Jonathan Lethem marveled in the New York Times Book Review. In an extensive conversation with Powell's, Natasha Wimmer discusses the late Chilean author, specifically his latest publication and its bestselling predecessor, The Savage Detectives. Wimmer knows from whence she speaks. She translated both novels into English.
John Hodgman
 The PC in those Mac ads, the Daily Show's "resident expert" — yes, him. After a star turn in our recent State by State film, John Hodgman returns to Powell's with More Information Than You Require, his second volume of complete(ly made-up) world knowledge. At the Burnside Street store, during a break from Wordstock, he talked about mole-men and hobos, of course, but also Battlestar Galactica, Mall of America food stands, and life as a famous minor television personality.
Chip Kidd
 Graphic designer extraordinaire Chip Kidd presents Bat-Manga!, the first collection of Japanese Batman comics anywhere in the world! Originally published in 1966, at the height of the first worldwide Batman craze, and written and illustrated by manga legend Jiro Kuwata, these adventures were never collected in Japan, and had never been translated into English. We spoke with Kidd about his lifelong Batman obsession, the process of hunting down and collecting these incredibly rare issues, and why these 40-year-old comics are some of the most entertaining Batman stories ever made!
Iain Banks
Iain Banks first published The Crow Road in the UK in 1992, and it is one of his best-loved books. Time Out called it "Riveting...exhilarating...its pace, development, intensity and, above all, its hip and sexy humour never allow it to flag." The Crow Road is a philosophical saga and a romantic coming-of-age story, a mystery and a comedy, and a raucous, moving, and deeply human look at relationships and family. As Publishers Weekly says, "Readers unfamiliar with Banks's prodigious output have a great starting point here."
Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey
 Inspired by a WPA state guide series from the 1930s and 40s, State by State will surely rank among 2008's most notable literary achievements. Fifty writers on fifty states: Anthony Bourdain on New Jersey, Susan Orlean on Ohio, Sarah Vowell on Montana, S.E. Hinton on Oklahoma, Dave Eggers on Illinois... the list goes on and on. Weeks before publication, editors Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey discuss working with the authors, noteworthy contributions, pleasing surprises, and the new Out of the Book film, which stars 19 of the collection's contributors.
David Carr
 As David Carr tells it, "The dude was addicted to coke, got off the coke, obtained custody of his kids, a single parent, got off welfare, survived cancer, married well. But that's not what is resonating with people. It's much more the pathology." The dude being Carr, himself. Kurt Andersen attests, The Night of the Gun is "a breathtakingly candid, laugh-out-loud funny, heroically rigorous, consistently riveting, and deeply moving account of a nightmarish descent and amazing redemption." Carr discusses coke and cancer, fact and fiction, parenthood, new media, hope, and his new remarkable book.
David Benioff
 City of Thieves, the newest novel by David Benioff, author of The 25th Hour and When the Nines Roll Over, has been hailed by critics as "a smart crowd-pleaser" (Publishers Weekly, starred review), a "gut-churning thriller [that] will sweep you along" (Kirkus, starred review), and "a funny, sad, and thrilling novel" (Entertainment Weekly). Set during the Germans' brutal siege of Leningrad in World War II, the novel follows the captivating odyssey of two young men trying to survive against desperate odds on an impossible mission through unimaginable depravity. Surprisingly, it's also thrilling, absorbing, and very funny. In this interview, Benioff discusses why it took so long to finish the first chapter, the difficulty of trying to capture the voice of a 17-year-old Russian boy during World War II, and more.
Gil Adamson and David Wroblewski
 Two predictions: The Outlander will win at least one major award. And The Story of Edgar Sawtelle will find a home on bestseller lists. When we discovered these two remarkable debut novels and decided to feature them together in Indiespensable, Powell's subscription club, someone on staff proposed a joint interview with the authors. Their books share more than you might imagine: runaways, ghostly visions, improvised outdoor survival, scenes rendered so powerfully you may forget you're reading fiction (you may forget you're reading, altogether), and characters that linger long after you close the book.
Barbara Walters
 The first woman to co-anchor a network news program. Arguably the most influential interviewer of the 20th century. An American icon. Barbara Walters addresses it all in her incredible new memoir, but in fact it's her family story — the human story, pocked with inevitable failures and regrets — that forms the backbone of Audition. In conversation with Powell's, Walters talked about Baba Wawa, the art of not interrupting, life choices as evidenced by two Hepburns, W's muddy barn, NBC in the 1800s, and a remarkable life, both on- and off-camera.
Willy Vlautin
Willy Vlautin likes racetracks, motels, and diners. He's had a song written about him by stealth performer Herman Jolly, "Woodshack Willy," in which he's referred to as "the countriest western singer I ever saw." Northline, his second novel, comes with a soundtrack Vlautin recorded with his Richmond Fontaine bandmate Paul Brainard; it was published this winter in the UK to rave reviews. We're thrilled to be able to share this conversation between Kate Bernheimer, author of The Complete Tales of Merry Gold, and Willy Vlautin in which they talk about horses, music, and hard work.
Richard Price
 You might think it would be hard for a writer to top an achievement like the novel Clockers — but then, you wouldn't be thinking about Richard Price. With his latest novel, Lush Life, Price tears the shiny veneer off the "new" New York to show us the hidden cracks, the underground networks of control and violence beneath the glamour. It's a powerful, riveting book that is as much character study as crime story, with dialogue so rich you can't help speaking it out loud. When Kirkus raves, "There oughta be a law requiring Richard Price to publish more frequently. Because nobody does it better," we're inclined to agree. In this Powells.com interview, we spoke with Price about the real-life inspirations for his novel, writing for the HBO series The Wire, and more!
Lydia Millet
 Lydia Millet once brought three nuclear physicists back from the dead. "It's hard," Toronto's Globe and Mail admits, "to convey how invigorating Millet's fiction is." On one page she leads you to the brink of despair, and on the next she'll tickle the funny bone in your brain. She is tender and deep; and she writes assholes with flair. Also, her dialogue simply kills. We spoke about longing, Japanese cities, bears in the woods, connective tissue, and her new novel, How the Dead Dream.
Sue Grafton
 With starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, Sue Grafton's 20th mystery featuring Kinsey Millhone is poised to do the near-impossible: It will bring even more readers to Grafton's bestselling books. USA Today calls T Is for Trespass "the best and strongest book in the series." Trespass is "vintage Grafton," Library Journal agrees, "scarily current, carefully plotted, and fast paced." Prior to a signing at Powell's in December, Grafton dished on Kinsey, impossible tasks, identity theft, collaborative writing, kick-ass Mickey Spillane novels, and more.
Judith Jones
 If Judith Jones accomplished nothing more than ushering into print the revolutionary debut of a young chef named Julia Child, her story would be worthy of attention. In fact, Jones had already brought to America an overlooked French title called Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. She would subsequently introduce readers to Madhur Jaffrey, Marion Cunningham, Lidia Bastianich, and many, many others. (She has edited John Updike for forty years.) In The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food, Jones renders a truly remarkable life with modesty and grace. "By the time you get to the 60 or so recipes Jones includes at the end," reflected the New York Times Book Review, "they seem like familiar characters we've met in the well-told tales that precede them."
Oliver Sacks
 A man struck by lightning develops a sudden obsession for piano music. A woman suffers seizures upon hearing Neapolitan songs (and only Neapolitan songs). Clive Wearing is amnesic; he entirely forgets experiences mere seconds after they occur — and yet he remains a brilliant singer and conductor. In Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Oliver Sacks explores the mysterious relationships between sound and movement; music and medical treatment; and memory and imagination. Sacks took time out from his book tour for a conversation about tandem bicycles, auditory cheesecake, soggy manuscripts, lost specimens, and more.
Jonathan Kozol
For over 40 years, Jonathan Kozol has written about the dramatic inequalities in America's public schools. His first nonfiction book, Death at an Early Age, described his year teaching in the Boston Public School system and won the National Book Award. Letters to a Young Teacher, Kozol's latest book, may be his most hopeful; written as a series of letters to "Francesca," a young, idealistic, and irreverent teacher, Kozol's advice and deeply felt admiration for teachers who are making a huge difference in the lives of their students is uplifting. The Christian Science Monitor says, simply, "[I]t is a privilege to glimpse the joy and struggles within [Francesca's] classroom." It was our privilege to speak with Jonathan Kozol; in this Powells.com interview, he discusses his partial fast, No Child Left Behind, the joys of teaching, and the state of education today.
Junot Diaz
 Leaping back and forth between the Dominican Republic and New Jersey, pouring across pages in a "combustible mix of slang and lyricism" (quoth Booklist), The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao bridges several generations and distinct cultures with exhilarating doses of Caribbean history and old-fashioned pulse-pounding drama. Politics, corruption, romance, fantasy, faith, despair — the novel, as Diaz explains, contains multitudes. Kirkus, in a starred review, called it "a compelling, sex-fueled, 21st-century tragi-comedy with a magical twist."
Alan Weisman
 If humans disappeared from earth, what would happen? To your home, for example — how long before water damage, sun exposure, or hungry critters start breaking it down? And what would happen to our cities, farms, and oceans? In The World without Us, Alan Weisman leads readers from the alpine moors of Kenya to an underground city in central Turkey, looking back past ice ages and previous extinctions, and then plotting ahead through the unending half-lives of our nuclear waste. A week after the book's publication, Weisman discussed the view from our moon, Al Gore's environmental training, Manhattan's once and future rivers, and more.
Miranda July
 No One Belongs Here More than You delivers sixteen tight, breathtaking doses of Me and You and Everyone We Know, the same deep compassion, anxious humor, and aching vulnerability. July visited our secret, underground, author interview bunker to discuss short stories, film, stage — as well as toaster tribes, the swimming pool she doesn't have, t.v. detectives pulling their faces off, and more.
Frank Deford
 GQ has called Frank Deford "the world's greatest sportswriter," which just about says it all. Six times, he's been voted Sportswriter of the Year by his peers. Deford has won an Emmy, a Peabody, a National Magazine Award... Every week, his voice can be heard on National Public Radio. Still, you can't think of him without conjuring that image of dapper clothes and a suave mustache. At Powell's to introduce The Entitled, he reflected upon Red Auerbach's earth tones, Red Barber's writing, Red Sox slugger Tony Conigliaro's truncated career, and plenty of not-Red-related subjects, besides.
Lionel Shriver
 Lionel Shriver's new novel, The Post-Birthday World, is a psychologically astute exploration of an age-old question: What if? Two parallel stories, running side by side, detail one woman's decision: what happens if she gives in to temptation, and what if she doesn't? Which life is better? Shriver pulls off an impressive balancing act which documents the often surprising consequences of desire. Entertainment Weekly gives The Post-Birthday World an A and high praise: "Shriver, a brilliant and versatile writer, allows these competing stories to unfold organically, each a fully rounded drama, rich with irony, ambiguity, and unforeseeable human complications."
John Kerry
 John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry really need no introduction. The 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee may not be best known for his environmental work, but both he and his wife have been active in the movement for decades. Even if you're well-informed on environmental issues, This Moment on Earth will teach you a thing or two, and give you both hope and positive suggestions for change. Al Gore praises it as "a book that is a profound challenge to all of us but contains...the clear hope that if we can embrace their resourcefulness, determination and essential patriotism we will prevail."
George Saunders
 Three volumes of stories (including his latest, In Persuasion Nation), a political fable, a gorgeous children's book, and now an essay collection on the way — quite an output for the one-time geologist whose literary debut landed just over ten years ago. "Mr. Saunders's satiric vision of America is dark and demented," Michiko Kakutani announced in 1996. "It is also ferocious and very funny." And still the prose goes deeper than that, beyond uproarious humor and biting social commentary. What sets Saunders's work apart is the wonderfully twisted path he blazes, yes, but also its destination, a compassionate and deeply vulnerable heart.
Joshua Ferris
 Rarely does debut fiction generate so much buzz before publication. Nick Hornby describes Then We Came to the End as "The Office meets Kafka. It's Seinfeld rewritten by Donald Barthelme." The novel tells the "savagely funny yet kind-hearted" (says the Observer) story of an ad agency in decline. Throughout, Joshua Ferris uses the first person plural to present the agency's collective voice in the midst of ongoing layoffs. We. It's an audacious narrative gimmick that could easily collapse, and yet it never does.
Ian McEwan
 "No one now writing fiction in the English language surpasses Ian McEwan," the Washington Post Book World noted upon the publication of Atonement, winner of the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. From his early macabre portraits to more recent introspective dramas, each new effort finds its way onto the shortlist of one major prize or another. And yet his latest, for many readers, manages to surpass everything that came before.
Chris Hedges
 When Chris Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1983, he decided not to get ordained. Instead, he took off to El Salvador to cover the war. The next twenty years brought him from Central America to Yugoslavia, Africa, Lebanon and Bosnia — more than fifty countries before he was through. He's been shot, he's been taken prisoner, he's witnessed the most brutal human behavior of our lifetime. At Powell's, he talked about War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, isolation, science, tolerance, and his latest, a clarion call to protect our democracy, American Fascists.
Paul Auster
 Paul Auster has been writing beautiful, metaphysical, mysterious novels for a long time now, along with screenplays, poetry collections, essays, plays, and memoirs. His latest, Travels in the Scriptorium can be seen as a distillation of much of his life's work — a spare but multi-layered puzzle of existence and creation, conveyed in lovely, minimalist prose. Booklist admires Travels as "an archly playful and shrewdly philosophical tribute to the transcendence of stories." In this interview, Auster discusses his new book (and movie), Hawthorne, poetry, and accidents.
Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread Award for her acclaimed debut, Behind the Scenes at the Museum — but it was her fifth novel, Case Histories, that launched her breakout success in America, introducing Atkinson to a whole new readership. Now she's followed up her bestselling sensation with One Good Turn, again featuring reluctant detective Jackson Brodie. Powells.com's Georgie Lewis sat down with the author to discuss genre, the voices of her characters, and whether there might be a third book in the series.
Steven Johnson
 In 1854, as a cholera epidemic ravaged London, prevailing wisdom blamed "miasma"; in other words, "bad air" was spreading the disease. One prominent physician disagreed. It was Dr. John Snow's work outside of the lab, however — his innovative mapmaking, of all things — that identified beyond a reasonable doubt the epidemic's true source. The Ghost Map thrives, similarly, on author Steven Johnson's interdisciplinary zeal. Local politics, medicine, urban planning, religious faith... The Washington Post raved, "By turns a medical thriller, detective story and paean to city life, Johnson's account of the outbreak and its modern implications is a true page-turner."
Sally Schneider
 What if a cookbook didn't stop at great recipes? What if it made you a better, more confident cook? Yes, The Improvisational Cook will show you how to make decadent Chocolate Wonders and a delicious Tuscan Island Shellfish Stew, but Sally Schneider also wants you to understand how those recipes work. Her highly anticipated follow-up to 2001's A New Way to Cook is a toolbox that empowers home cooks every step of the way from market to table. In conversation with Powell's, she discusses tender Thanksgiving turkey, ham-smuggling, the saffron harvest, and more.
Denise Mina
 Janet Maslin of the New York Times describes Paddy Meehan, heroine of Denise Mina's riveting crime novel The Dead Hour, as "smart, feisty, hot-blooded and guilt-stricken, a riveting creature of her time and place." In this exclusive interview with Powells.com, Mina allows that she shares certain traits with her heroine, admitting, "I'm a bit of a cheeky cow." She is cheeky all right — as well as highly articulate and blessed with a whole lot of talent.
Lee Montgomery
 As The Things between Us begins, Lee Montgomery's father has been diagnosed with a tumor in his stomach. Her remarkable memoir tracks the next eight months, as Monty's fight against cancer brings a broken family together for the first time in decades. She "perfectly captures a middle-aged rite of passage," Kirkus raves. An executive editor at Tin House magazine, Montgomery "breathes new life into the dysfunctional family memoir with clean, vivid writing laced with a bitter bite" (Variety).
Sara Gruen
 Seventy years ago, Jacob Jankowski lost his parents and joined the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Now Jacob is afraid he's losing his mind. The voice of Water for Elephants has been likened to John Irving's. Gruen's story is that kind of character-driven juggernaut. At Powell's to introduce her third novel, she discussed shrunken heads, literary influences, how to steal lemonade without getting caught, and more.
Alison Bechdel and Craig Thompson
 Alison Bechdel's
Fun Home, an illustrated memoir, is
the most celebrated book of the year. When a coworker called it "easily the best original
graphic novel since Craig Thompson's Blankets," a bright bulb suddenly lit up
our office. What if we brought the two groundbreaking artists together for a
conversation? They started talking shop before we'd even turned on the recorder.
Gary Shteyngart
 After the overwhelming success of The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Gary Shteyngart returns with Absurdistan, a gut-busting satire about contemporary capitalism, national identity, love, and war. Aleksandar Hemon attests, "No one is more capable of dealing with the transition from the hell of socialism to the hell of capitalism in Eastern Europe than Shteyngart, the great-great grandson of one Nikolai Gogol and the funniest foreigner alive."
Michael Pollan
 On the heels of his bestselling The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan has served up an equally fascinating exploration of our relationship with the natural (and not-so-natural) world. One thing The Omnivore's Dilemma makes clear: if we are what we eat, it's getting so we hardly know ourselves at all.
Sebastian Junger
 In A Death in Belmont, Sebastian Junger returns with the same nuanced journalism and detail that he brought to the fate of the Andrea Gail in the bestselling The Perfect Storm as well as to his war reporting from Afghanistan. A Death in Belmont is a compact book that focuses on one murder, but it is surprisingly far-reaching, touching on the American justice system, psychology, and Southern history. Junger spoke with us about his new book, journalism, the death penalty, and our responsibility as voting citizens. |
Don't Miss
I read Pullman's His Dark
Materials trilogy back-to-back-to-back in the weeks preceding this conversation.
By the time I'd reached the middle of the first book, 
