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PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Archive for the 'Original Essays' Category

Original Essays

Conquer Your Fermentation Fears!

by Liz Crain, September 19, 2023 8:59 AM
An image of author Liz Crain next to her new cookbook, Fermenter

For years, my late dog Rubin, a.k.a White Wolf, (a big fluffy Alaskan Malamute/German Shepherd), was terrified of stairs, bridges, and jumping on or off of just about anything elevated. I first found this out when he was just a few months old and we were on a road trip to Northern California.

At the base of some outdoor, pool-side motel stairs, Rubin started shaking and wouldn't budge. I scooped him up and carried him to the top. Again, no budging at the bottom of a different set of stairs later on the trip. I picked him up and carried him. Again, when I took him to the vet weeks later and he needed to hop up on the scale so they could weigh him...

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Original Essays

I Want a Bosom Friendship Like Anne Shirley and Diana Barry

by Lane Moore, April 25, 2023 9:33 AM
Original essay by Lane Moore

Everyone has a lifelong goal they're constantly striving to attain: maybe it's to drink water more regularly (me), maybe it's to actually move your body even though you're sitting most of the day (also me), or maybe, it's to have the kinds of friendships found in our most beloved books, TV, and movies. For me, I want a bosom friendship like Anne Shirley and Diana Barry from Anne of Green Gables more than just about anything in this world (give or take the water and movement thing, but I like to think...

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Original Essays

National SAAM and the Survivor

by Alle C. Hall, April 21, 2023 9:11 AM
INSERT ALT TEXT
Photo credit: Cliff Meyer

In 2016, Barack Obama signed a Presidential Proclamation establishing National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month (SAAM). In doing so, he wrote, “Too many women and men of all ages suffer the outrage that is sexual assault, and too often, this crime is not condemned as loudly as it should be. Together, we must stand up and speak out to change the culture that questions the actions of victims, rather than those of their attackers.”

In the 35 years that I've been healing from sexual trauma, I've seen a huge change in our country's attitude toward survivors...

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Original Essays

From the Stacks: J. M. Ledgard's Submergence

by Kelsey Ford, January 25, 2023 9:21 AM
From the Shelf: Submergence by J. M. Ledgard

Our blog feature, "From the Stacks," features our booksellers’ favorite older books: those fortuitous used finds, underrated masterpieces, and lesser known treasures. Basically: the books that we’re the most passionate about handselling. This week, we’re featuring Kelsey F.’s pick, Submergence by J. M. Ledgard.

Like most good things in my life, Submergence by J. M. Ledgard came into my orbit because of Moby-Dick. A friend knew how much I loved Melville’s epic — its discursiveness, beautiful language, surprising sensuality...

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Original Essays

Powell's 2023 Book Trend Forecast

by Kelsey Ford, January 11, 2023 9:24 AM
Powell's Books 2023 Trend Forecast

While pulling together our first Book Preview of 2023, I started to notice a number of commonalities — themes that seemed to echo throughout the list. I love these synchronicities and the idea of a collective stew that we're all pulling out of — a stew filled with our shared anxieties and obsessions, intersecting vibes and interests. It’s endlessly fascinating to see the seed of something similar sprout into multiple complementary but wildly divergent projects. So I thought I'd pull a few together, for your perusing pleasure...

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Original Essays

Joy-Filled Reading, To You: A Powell's Holiday Song

by Powell's Books, December 23, 2022 9:36 AM
Joy-filled Reading, To You: A Powell's Holiday Song
To be sung to the tune of "The Christmas Song"

holly leaves divider

Curling up with a brand new book
Pages flipping past your nose
A cup of tea, warm in your reading nook
Mark your page before you doze...
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Original Essays

How Romance Novels Saved My Life (and Why They Just Might Save Yours, Too)

by Alison Cochrun, November 1, 2022 9:17 AM
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I’ve always been obsessed with happily ever afters.

It started when I was five, with Belle and the Beast singing to each other in the snow. Then it was the Nora Ephron VHSs I watched on constant rotation with my dad every other weekend. Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries dominated my eighth-grade daydreams, and soon, I was devouring every young-adult novel with a romance subplot I could get my hands on. (Yes, Twilight included.) I adored the meet-cutes and the misunderstandings and the magic...

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Original Essays

Freedom to Write and Read: Powell’s Booksellers on Rushdie

by Powell's Staff, September 26, 2022 10:22 AM
Freedom to Write and Read: Powell’s Booksellers on Rushdie

In response to the horrific attack on Salman Rushdie, and in honor of the 34th anniversary of the publication of The Satanic Verses in the UK, we pulled together some thoughts, reflections, and memories from Powell’s booksellers, as well as our very own Michael Powell.

Powell’s has a strong and proud history of standing beside Salman Rushdie. Back in 1989, when The Satanic Verse was published in the US, Powell’s was set to host a book launch with him. We received multiple threats ahead of the event. Add that to our firm commitment to free speech, and it felt more than important that we continue to use our voice to honor Rushdie and his contributions to the literary community...

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Original Essays

My Decades with Gayl Jones: Reflections from an Editor

by Helene Atwan, September 19, 2022 9:32 AM
My Decades with Gayl Jones: Reflections from Her Editor


Gayl Jones, the highly acclaimed author who was first “discovered" and mentored by Toni Morrison, has twice disappeared from our sight. The first time was after a stellar launch as one of America’s most daring and distinctive literary lights, after two brilliant novels (Corregidora and Eva’s Man) brought out by Morrison at Random House, and one slim but oh-so-astonishing story collection (White Rat), when she went into a self-imposed exile in France, from the late 1970s until the late 1990s...
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Original Essays

Finding the Essential Truth in Your Story

by Catherine Burns, Jenifer Hixson, Kate Tellers, Meg Bowles, and Sarah Austin Jenness, July 29, 2022 8:40 AM
Finding the Essential Truth in Your Story

At the end of every episode of The Moth Radio Hour, we say, “Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.” But memory is imperfect, and sometimes the way we remember events is different from how they actually unfolded. Think of Moth stories — both the ones you’ve already heard, and the ones we hope you tell one day — as an artistic time capsule of one person’s emotional experience of events...

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