Lists
by Keith Mosman, October 15, 2021 9:12 AM
I like to think that a big part of my job is giving people good news. The good news is usually that cool books are on their way. This is especially true this year, with a blockbuster set of fall releases hitting the stores on a weekly basis. But not all of the news is good.
These are uncertain times, and one of the big results, and thereafter causes, of all this uncertainty is the supply chain. Every retailer you have contact with this season will have struggles stemming from the disruptions, blockages, delays, and shortages that are plaguing the flow of goods. And books are both good and goods.
So, here is a moment when you can avoid those disruptions by claiming your piece of the holiday bookscape now...
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Lists
by Jeremy Garber, October 13, 2021 9:18 AM
For baseball fans and worldly readers alike, October is perhaps the holiest of all months, filled with eager anticipation, wild speculation, betting odds, bated breath, contrarian takes, and/or quizzical acceptance. While neither ticker tape nor a Gatorade bath await any literary MVPs this month (alas), the Swedish Academy does award one of the book world’s highest honors: the Nobel Prize in Literature (congrats to 2021 laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah!). So, whether hot stove means to you another long off-season of grumbling disappointment or simply the place where you heat up your favorite beverage, this month’s list of new literature in translation will keep you wiling away the moments until spring...
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Lists
by Powell's Staff, October 12, 2021 9:24 AM
Have a book lover on your gift list, but no idea where to start? Let us help with 40 recommendations that suit all kinds
of readers. These are the books we're gifting, and, well, we have very good taste.
100 Things We've Lost to the Internet
by Pamela Paul
To: My adolescent children who’ve not known a world without the
Internet
From: A loving mother who desires balance between then and now...
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Lists
by Michelle Carroll, October 7, 2021 9:47 AM
We've started to get the big fall rains in Portland recently, which means we’ve started seeing mushrooms pop up everywhere. I’m a bit of a fungi novice — I love eating chanterelles, but haven’t yet embarked on the Pacific Northwest rite of passage of foraging for my own mushrooms. Luckily, there are some fantastic books to guide the next stage of my mushroom appreciation. Whether you’re just beginning to seek out sumptuous spores, looking to identify the new friends sprouting from a tree stump, or just searching for more fungus puns in your life, this list is for you...
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Lists
by Emily B., October 4, 2021 8:51 AM
Is there any combination more Portland than books and craft beverages? The rain that makes this city the green, sometimes gloomy place we love is finally back and when it’s wet outside there’s nothing better than curling up by the window with a book and a good drink. But which book? And what drink? We called in the experts at 12 of our favorite local breweries and cideries to share their perfect pairings. With book + brew combos ranging from the spooky to the psychedelic, your fall reading and drinking are covered.
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Original Essays
by Laura Moulton, October 1, 2021 9:54 AM
The kid in front of me was scuffed-up at the edges, young but weathered. The book he most wanted from the street library was a copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, but he hesitated.
"I’m hopping a train tonight to get to the Rainbow Gathering in Washington,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t take this because I just don’t know when I’d be back through to return it."
"But you have to take it,” I told him. “Given everything you’ve just described, I’m pretty sure you’re the reader it’s been waiting for."
In ten years of running a bicycle-powered mobile library in Portland, I met thousands of readers like him. One of them was Ben "Hodge" Hodgson, the co-author of our book...
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Ask Aunt Paige
by Aunt Paige, September 30, 2021 9:40 AM
Ho, ho, ho, my sweet wee wassails, it’s the end of September, so naturally we’re talking about the holidays. It may not be time to select your tree, light the menorah, or dance beneath a solstice moon, but it is time to start thinking about where and when you’re going to buy gifts. Because “supply chain,” darlings, two words I rank only slightly higher this year than “COVID-19,” “caffeine-free,” and “new adult.”
You’ve probably seen the articles explaining supply chain disruptions, but the physical and logistical mechanisms of e-commerce are confusing, and I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how books are being impacted and what a conscientious local shopper is supposed to do when every option points to online shopping.
I hope my answers, below, help alleviate some of the confusion or stress you’re experiencing...
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Banned Books Week
by Cynthia Gabriel Walsh, September 28, 2021 9:12 AM
As we approach National Banned Books Week, I think about my friend Hassan Bility, a prominent Liberian journalist and human rights activist. I first learned of Hassan through Amnesty International’s Banned Books Week Action. Hassan was one of the featured cases that I took action on by writing a letter to the government in Liberia denouncing the torture that Hassan suffered as a result of the Liberian government trying to silence his reporting on a civil war that left more than 250,000 dead, thousands mutilated, and 1.3 million people displaced from their homes. While serving as editor in chief of the Analyst Newspaper under the regime of Charles Taylor, Hassan was arrested and brutally tortured on Taylor’s orders because of his critical, independent journalism...
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Original Essays
by David Banis and Hunter Shobe, September 27, 2021 8:35 AM
In some ways creating this book was driven by a desire to make walking around cities an official part of our jobs. Walking allows us to take in details at a human pace. We remember thinking we needed a new creative focus after finally finishing Portlandness. In part we decided the next book should be about the cities in which we most wanted to spend time walking.
At first, the working title and vision for the project was Transects. We thought that choosing five routes through each city would provide us with a solid platform from which to create maps and graphics, write essays, and tell stories. After working with that idea for about a year we decided that the concept was too limiting so we refocused on a cultural atlas in the spirit of Portlandness...
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Banned Books Week
by Buzzy Nielsen, September 24, 2021 9:46 AM
Editor's note: We’ve been reviewing the Oregon Intellectual Freedom Clearinghouse’s excellent, annual reports of challenged books for years without pausing to think about the governmental agency and individuals responsible for putting them together. This year we’re correcting that oversight with the help of state librarian Buzzy Nielsen, who kindly took the time to answer our questions about what the OIFC is, what is does, and why its work is vital to maintaining everyone’s right to intellectual freedom.
What is the main role of the Oregon Intellectual Freedom Clearinghouse (OIFC)?
The OIFC collects information about intellectual freedom issues in Oregon’s public, school, and academic libraries. The goal of the Clearinghouse is to document attempts to limit someone’s free exploration or expression of ideas...
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