Powell's Picks Spotlight
by Keith Mosman, May 12, 2022 8:52 AM
This week we’re taking a closer look at Powell’s Pick of the Month The World Belonged to Us by Jacqueline Woodson and Leo Espinosa.
I’m a nostalgia skeptic. I say that as someone in the final days of his thirties, an age when all the normal human inclinations — pushed along by Big Culture — are driving many of us elder millennials to remember just how good things — especially products — used to be. (Exhibit A: The Garbage Pail Kids Tarot Deck, coming in August!)
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Powell's Picks Spotlight
by Keith Mosman, April 7, 2022 8:43 AM
This week we’re taking a closer look at Powell’s Pick of the Month Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong.
I’d like to start Poetry Month off with a confession: although I read a lot of poetry, I don’t write about it very often. I’m an untrained reader, and the question I’m always asking when I sit down with a collection is: “do I connect with this?”
If the answer is no, it is almost certainly my own failure. Contemporary poetry is all so delightfully idiosyncratic; my sense is that poets of past eras were often trying to write the perfect sonnet, while most poets today are trying to write their perfect sonnet. If I’m not vibing with a poem, it’s no one’s fault...
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Lists
by Keith Mosman, March 15, 2022 9:10 AM
Maybe you feel like you’ve had your fill of world-historical days of dread and foreboding recently, but today is the anniversary of a true classic of the genre. The assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar on the 15th of March in 44 BCE has long been the focal point of unending fascination surrounding Rome’s transition from democracy to autocracy, and the figures who led it or lived through it (or didn’t).
So, whether you’re a longtime reader of the Romans, or have been brought to the subject by more recent concerns, here’s a list of books that will grandly edify (and, as a bonus, they make an attractive column)...
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Powell's Picks Spotlight
by Keith Mosman, February 24, 2022 9:25 AM
This week we’re taking a closer look at Powell’s Pick of the Month The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka.
Sure, I have a liberal arts degree or two, and those come with skills that are generally applicable (or so I’m told), but I like to think of myself as an undisciplined reader of fiction...
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Powell's Picks Spotlight
by Keith Mosman, February 3, 2022 9:17 AM
This week we're taking a closer look at Powell's Pick of the Month Short, Vigorous Roots edited by Mark Budman and Susan O'Neill.
I have no musical training. Never took piano lessons; can’t keep a beat or even move rhythmically. I assume this is why I don’t often listen to recorded symphonic music. However, I do love attending the symphony (even if I haven’t been able to do so for quite some time).
When I can see a large group of musicians each contributing to a singular work, it’s like magic...
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Powell's Picks Spotlight
by Keith Mosman, January 26, 2022 9:17 AM
This week we're taking a closer look at Powell's Pick of the Month Devil House by John Darnielle.
I’ve been listening to John Darnielle’s music — he’s the songwriter for The Mountain Goats — for almost two decades. What drew me in were his turns of phrase and his ability to create fully-realized, evocative worlds within three-minute songs. He also developed characters over the course of years; many of his early songs feature the Alphas, an unhappy couple who spread their misery across several states before finally calling it quits.
Given his demonstrated literary abilities, I was excited when he began publishing novels...
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Powell's Picks Spotlight
by Keith Mosman, January 20, 2022 3:54 PM
New Yorker staff writer Kathyrn Schulz may not be a household name, but most readers in the Pacific Northwest know her work quite well. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her New Yorker article “The Really Big One,” about the danger our region faces from a massive earthquake emanating out of the Cascadia subduction zone. A major earthquake near Portland is a virtual certainty, but just how big it will be, and just how much damage it will do, are unpredictable.
That article was terrifying! ( It still is, if you haven’t read it or haven’t read it recently.) Schulz’s work brought renewed attention to the seismic threat that hangs over our region. Like other looming existential threats, it can seem both far off and insurmountable, making it tempting to ignore it and regard the worst consequences as inevitable....
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Lists
by Keith Mosman, December 15, 2021 9:10 AM
When it comes to books, I’m multi-modal. I’ll read on a page, I’ll listen on my phone, and on occasion, I’ll even do both. Sometimes, availability will determine which format I read, but I’m always looking for works that I think will make full use of their medium. The list below consists of my favorite audiobooks of 2021. They’re all great books that would work in any format, but I think that in each case the recordings available on Libro.fm serve to enhance and improve them. Happy listening!
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
Narrated by George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman, Glenn Close, Keith David, Rainn Wilson, BD Wong, and Renée Elise Goldsberry
This book is basically a George Saunders masterclass on the short story, written down. For examples, he includes the full texts of several stories by Russian masters, and then examines why the stories work — and what lessons writers can take from them — all in his wise and compelling voice. Saunders’s prose is anything but dry, but still, a book of literary analysis should probably be read on the page, right? My answer in most cases would be yes, except that Saunders assembled an all-star cast to read the stories, and not only are their performances incredibly entertaining, but their readings also highlight the skillfulness of the stories...
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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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Powell's Picks Spotlight
by Keith Mosman, September 20, 2021 8:59 AM
This week we're taking a closer look at Powell's Pick of the Month Fault Lines by Emily Itami.
I am sometimes haunted by foreclosed possibilities.
I try not to dwell on literary theories that break down all stories into a small number of basic archetypes. I fear it would make my fiction reading seem claustrophobic, and I try to let myself subconsciously attach to whatever facet of a novel most strikes me as uniquely successful, whether that be the quality of the writing, psychological insight, or (ideally) something I can’t identify until after I’ve finished...
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