Powell's Books is honored to host author events online and in-store at our locations in downtown Portland, Oregon and Beaverton (Cedar Hills Crossing).
We’re continuing to offer virtual events featuring authors from around the world. Please read our lineup of upcoming events carefully, to see whether the event you’d like to attend will be online or at one of our store locations.
Missed one of our virtual events? Watch them all on our YouTube channel.
Questions about how to attend our virtual events? Click here for our FAQ.
.png)
Monday, August 15 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
Decades of cuts to local government amidst rising concentrations of poverty have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Some of these discarded places are rural. Others are big cities, small cities, or historic suburbs. Some vote blue, others red. Some are the most diverse communities in America, while others are nearly all white, all Latino, or all Black. All are routinely trashed by outsiders for their poverty and their politics. Mostly, their governments are just broke. Forty years after the anti-tax revolution began protecting wealthy taxpayers and their cities, our high-poverty cities and counties have run out of services to cut, properties to sell, bills to defer, and risky loans to take. In The Fight to Save the Town (Avid Reader/Simon & Schuster), urban law expert and author Michelle Wilde Anderson offers unsparing, humanistic portraits of the hardships left behind in four such places. But this book is not a eulogy or a lament. Instead, Anderson travels to four blue-collar communities that are poor, broke, and progressing. In one, Josephine County, Oregon, community leaders have enacted new taxes to support basic services in a rural area with fiercely anti-government politics. Our smallest governments shape people’s safety, comfort, and life chances. For decades, these governments have no longer just reflected inequality — they have helped drive it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Anderson argues that a new generation of local leaders are figuring out how to turn poverty traps back into gateway cities. Anderson will be joined in conversation by Kate Dwyer, Executive Director of the Four Way Community Foundation.
Buy the Book
.png)
Thursday, August 18 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
Shutter (Soho Crime) is Ramona Emerson’s blood-chilling debut set in New Mexico’s Navajo Nation, equal parts gripping crime thriller, supernatural horror, and poignant portrayal of coming of age on the reservation. Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque police force. Her excellent photography skills have cracked many cases — she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward the clues that other investigators overlook. As a lone portal back to the living for traumatized spirits, Rita is terrorized by nagging ghosts who won’t let her sleep and who sabotage her personal life. Her taboo and psychologically harrowing ability was what drove her away from the Navajo reservation, where she was raised by her grandmother. It has isolated her from friends and gotten her in trouble with the law. And now it might be what gets her killed. When Rita is sent to photograph the scene of a supposed suicide on a highway overpass, the furious, discombobulated ghost of the victim — who insists she was murdered — latches onto Rita, forcing her on a quest for revenge against her killers, and Rita finds herself in the crosshairs of one of Albuquerque’s most dangerous cartels. Written in sparkling, gruesome prose, Shutter is an explosive debut from one of crime fiction's most powerful new voices. Emerson will be joined in conversation by Cara Black, author of the Aimée Leduc mystery series.
Preorder a Signed Edition
.png)
Tuesday, August 23 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
Part memoir, part sweeping journalistic saga: as Casey Parks follows the mystery of a stranger's past, she is forced to reckon with her own sexuality, her fraught Southern identity, her tortured yet loving relationship with her mother, and the complicated role of faith in her life. When Parks came out as a lesbian in college back in 2002, she assumed her life in the South was over. Her mother shunned her, and her pastor asked God to kill her. But then Parks's grandmother, a stern conservative who grew up picking cotton, pulled her aside and revealed a startling secret. "I grew up across the street from a woman who lived as a man," and then implored Casey to find out what happened to him. Diary of a Misfit (Knopf) is the story of Parks's life-changing journey to unravel the mystery of Roy Hudgins, the small-town country singer from her grandmother’s youth, all the while confronting ghosts of her own. For ten years, Parks traveled back to rural Louisiana and knocked on strangers’ doors, dug through nursing home records, and doggedly searched for Roy’s own diaries, trying to uncover what Roy was like as a person — what he felt; what he thought; and how he grappled with his sense of otherness. With an enormous heart and an unstinting sense of vulnerability, Parks writes about finding oneself through someone else’s story, and about forging connections across the gulfs that divide us. Parks will be joined in conversation by Anna Griffin, vice president of news at Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).
Preorder a Signed Edition
.png)
Wednesday, August 24 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
What is the internet doing to us? What is college for? What are the myths and metaphors we live by? These are the questions that William Deresiewicz has been pursuing over the course of his award-winning career. His new book, The End of Solitude (Henry Holt), brings together more than 40 of his finest essays. Ranging widely across the culture, they take up subjects as diverse as Mad Men and Harold Bloom, the significance of the hipster, and the purpose of art. Drawing on the past, they ask how we got where we are. Scrutinizing the present, they seek to understand how we can live more mindfully and freely, and they pose two fundamental questions: What does it mean to be an individual, and how can we sustain our individuality in an age of networks and groups? The End of Solitude is a passionate, probing collection gathering nearly 30 years of groundbreaking reflection on culture and society by one of our most respected essayists and critics. Deresiewicz will be joined in conversation by Audrey Bilger, president of Reed College.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Tuesday, August 30 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
Seven years ago, readers around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck, whose infectious curiosity about history launched him across the West in a covered wagon pulled by mules and propelled his book about the trip, The Oregon Trail, to ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, Buck returns to chronicle his latest incredible adventure: building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. A modern-day Huck Finn, Buck casts off down the river on the flatboat Patience, accompanied by an eccentric crew of daring shipmates. Over the course of his voyage, Buck steers his fragile wooden craft through narrow channels dominated by massive cargo barges, rescues his first mate gone overboard, sails blindly through fog, breaks his ribs not once but twice, and camps every night on sandbars, remote islands, and steep levees. As he charts his own journey, he also delivers a richly satisfying work of history that brings to life a lost era. With a rare narrative power that blends stirring adventure with absorbing untold history, Life on the Mississippi (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster) is a muscular and majestic feat of storytelling from a writer who may be the closest that we have today to Mark Twain.
Preorder a Signed Edition
.png)
Wednesday, August 31 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Orphaned as a baby, 19-year-old Signa has been raised by a string of guardians, each more interested in her wealth than her well-being — and each has met an untimely end. Her remaining relatives are the elusive Hawthornes, an eccentric family living at Thorn Grove, an estate both glittering and gloomy. Its patriarch mourns his late wife through wild parties, while his son grapples for control of the family’s waning reputation and his daughter suffers from a mysterious illness. But when their mother’s restless spirit appears claiming she was poisoned, Signa realizes that the family she depends on could be in grave danger and enlists the help of a surly stable boy to hunt down the killer. However, Signa’s best chance of uncovering the murderer is an alliance with Death himself, a fascinating, dangerous shadow who has never been far from her side. Though he’s made her life a living hell, Death shows Signa that their growing connection may be more powerful — and more irresistible — than she ever dared imagine. In Belladonna (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), Adalyn Grace brings to life a highly romantic, Gothic-infused world of wealth, desire, and betrayal. Grace will be joined in conversation by Sara Gundell of Novel Novice.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Thursday, September 1 @ 5pm (PT)
Syren Nagakyrie’s The Disabled Hiker’s Guide to Western Washington and Oregon (Falcon Guides) is the first book of its kind to consider the diverse needs of disabled people in the outdoors. This groundbreaking guidebook includes 60 outdoor adventures, including drive-up experiences, verified wheelchair accessible trails, and foot trails suitable for disabled hikers. This guide removes one of the barriers to access — a lack of information — by utilizing a rating system and detailed trail information designed for the disability community. Each trail is personally assessed according to Nagakyrie’s skilled and detailed review and established accessibility guidelines. Nagakyrie will be joined in conversation by Naomi Ortiz, author of Sustaining Spirit: Self-Care for Social Justice.
Register for the Zoom event / Buy the Book
.png)
Tuesday, September 6 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
What if Nature is more cooperative, and less competitive, than we think? In the follow-up to her previous book, The Soil Will Save Us, Kristin Ohlson’s Sweet in Tooth and Claw (Patagonia) extends the concept of cooperation in nature to the life-affirming connections among microbes, plants, fungi, insects, birds, and animals — including humans — in ecosystems around the globe. For centuries, people have debated whether nature is mostly competitive — as Darwin theorized and the poet Tennyson described as “red in tooth and claw” — or innately cooperative, as many ancient and indigenous peoples believed. In the last 100 or so years, a growing gang of scientists have studied the mutually beneficial interactions that are believed to benefit every species on earth. Sweet in Tooth and Claw is full of stories of generosity — not competition — in nature. Ohlson’s book is a testament to the importance of a healthy biodiversity, and dispels the widely accepted premise of survival of the fittest. It is a rich and fascinating work full of amazing stories, sure to change your perspective on the natural world. Ohlson will be joined in conversation by Lee van der Voo, author of As the World Burns.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Tuesday, September 6 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Welcome to The Sunbearer Trials (Feiwel & Friends), where teen semidioses compete in a series of challenges with the highest of stakes, in an electric new Mexican-inspired fantasy from Aiden Thomas, author of Cemetery Boys. As each new decade begins, the Sun's power must be replenished so that Sol can keep traveling along the sky and keep the chaotic Obsidian gods at bay. Sol selects ten of the most worthy semidioses to compete in the Sunbearer Trials. The winner carries light and life to all the temples of Reino del Sol, but the loser has the greatest honor of all — they will be sacrificed to Sol, their body melted down to refuel the Sun Stones, protecting the world for another ten years. Teo, a 17-year-old Jade semidiós and the trans son of the goddess of birds, isn't worried about the Trials… at least, not for himself. His best friend, Niya, is a Gold semidiós and a shoo-in for the Trials, and while he trusts her abilities, the odds of becoming the sacrifice are one-in-ten. But then, for the first time in over a century, the impossible happens. Sol chooses not one, but two Jade competitors. Teo, and Xio, the 13-year-old child of the god of bad luck. Now they must compete in five trials against Gold opponents who are more powerful and better trained. Worst of all, Teo's annoyingly handsome ex-best friend and famous semidiós Hero, Aurelio, is favored to win. Teo is determined to get himself and his friends through the trials unscathed — for fame, glory, and their own survival. Thomas will be joined in conversation by former bookseller Alex Abraham.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Wednesday, September 7 @ 5pm (PT)
It’s Brooklyn. It’s winter. It’s so cold outside you could execute billionaires in the street about it. Sam lives with Eleanor and they are in love. He has three or four outstanding invoices that would each cover rent for a month. At some point, the President is going to make some absolutely wild announcements that will only end in doom. In a surreal, funny, and heart-breaking version of reality, Sasha Fletcher’s highly anticipated debut novel occupies that rare register that manages to speak to an increasingly incomprehensible world. Through scenes that poetically transform the mundane into the sublime and the absurd into the tragic, Be Here to Love Me at the End of the World (Melville House) is about the exquisite beauty of being in love in a world that is falling apart. Fletcher will be joined in conversation by Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State.
Register for the Zoom event / Buy the Book
.png)
Wednesday, September 7 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
From Kristina McMorris, author of Sold on a Monday, comes a sweeping World War II tale of an illusionist whose recruitment by British intelligence sets her on a perilous, heartrending path. As a little girl raised amid the hardships of Michigan's Copper Country, Fenna Vos learned to focus on her own survival. That ability sustains her even now as the Second World War rages in faraway countries. Though she performs onstage as the assistant to an unruly escape artist, behind the curtain she's the mastermind of their act. Ultimately, controlling her surroundings and eluding traps of every kind helps her keep a lingering trauma at bay. Yet for all her planning, Fenna doesn't foresee being called upon by British military intelligence. Tasked with designing escape aids to thwart the Germans, MI9 seeks those with specialized skills for a war nearing its breaking point. Fenna reluctantly joins the unconventional team as an inventor. But when a test of her loyalty draws her deep into the fray, she discovers no mission is more treacherous than escaping one's past. Inspired by stunning true accounts, The Ways We Hide (Sourcebooks Landmark) is a gripping story of love and loss, the wars we fight — on the battlefields and within ourselves — and the courage found in unexpected places. McMorris will be joined in conversation by Rene Denfeld, author of The Butterfly Girl and The Child Finder.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Thursday, September 8 @ 5pm (PT)
How do we find a sense of home and rootedness in a time of unprecedented upheaval? What happens when the seasons and rhythms in which we have built our lives go off-kilter? Once a distant forecast, climate change is now reaching into the familiar, threatening our basic safety and forcing us to reexamine who we are and how we live. In At Home on an Unruly Planet (Henry Holt), science journalist Madeline Ostrander reflects on this crisis not as an abstract scientific or political problem but as a palpable force that is now affecting all of us at home. She offers vivid accounts of people fighting to protect places they love from increasingly dangerous circumstances. A firefighter works to rebuild her town after catastrophic western wildfires. A Florida preservationist strives to protect one of North America's most historic cities from rising seas. An urban farmer struggles to transform a California city plagued by fossil fuel disasters. An Alaskan community heads for higher ground as its land erodes. Ostrander pairs deeply reported stories of hard-won optimism with lyrical essays on the strengths we need in an era of crisis. Ostrander will be joined in conversation by Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts.
Register for the Zoom event / Buy the Book
Thursday, September 8 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
From Mike Duncan, author of The Storm Before the Storm and host of the Revolutions podcast, comes Hero of Two Worlds (PublicAffairs), the thrilling story of the Marquis de Lafayette’s lifelong quest to defend the principles of liberty and equality. Few in history can match the revolutionary career of the Marquis de Lafayette. Over 50 incredible years at the heart of the Age of Revolution, he fought courageously on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a soldier, statesman, idealist, philanthropist, and abolitionist. As a teenager, Lafayette ran away from France to join the American Revolution. Returning home a national hero, he helped launch the French Revolution, eventually spending five years locked in dungeon prisons. After his release, Lafayette sparred with Napoleon, joined an underground conspiracy to overthrow King Louis XVIII, and became an international symbol of liberty. Finally, as a revered elder statesman, he was instrumental in the overthrow of the Bourbon Dynasty in the Revolution of 1830. From enthusiastic youth to world-weary old age, from the pinnacle of glory to the depths of despair, Lafayette never stopped fighting for the rights of all mankind. His remarkable life is the story of where we come from, and an inspiration to defend the ideals he held dear.
Preorder a Signed Edition
.png)
Thursday, September 8 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Mollie Sheehan has spent much of her life striving to be a dutiful daughter and honor her father's wishes, even when doing so has led to one heartbreak after another. After all, what options does she truly have in 1860s Montana? But providing for her stepfamily during her father's long absences doesn't keep her from wishing for more. When romance blooms between her and Peter Ronan, Mollie finally allows herself to hope for a brighter future — until her father voices his disapproval of the match and moves her to California to ensure the breakup. Still, time and providence are at work, even when circumstances are at their bleakest. Mollie may soon find that someone far greater than her father is in control of the course of her life — and that even the command to "honor thy father" has its limits. New from Jane Kirkpatrick, Beneath the Bending Skies (Revell) is a sweeping novel of hospitality, destiny, and the bonds of family, based on a true story.
Preorder a Signed Edition
.png)
Tuesday, September 13 @ 5pm (PT)
In his new book, The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness (Berrett-Koehler), progressive radio host Thom Hartmann reveals how and why neoliberalism became so prevalent in the United States and why it's time for us to turn our backs to it. While America is at a crossroads regarding its economic future, many of us don't fully understand how we got here. In his powerful and accessible new book, Hartmann demystifies neoliberalism and explains how we can use this pivotal point in time to create a more positive future. The Hidden History of Neoliberalism traces the history of neoliberalism — which applies to a set of capitalistic philosophies favoring free trade, financial austerity, and deregulation — up to the present. Hartmann explains how neoliberalism was sold as a cure for wars and the Great Depression. He outlines the impact that it has had on America, looking at different sectors, including healthcare, unemployment, and education. Hartmann highlights how America can go one of two ways: continue going down the road to neoliberal oligarchy, as supported by the GOP, or choose to return to FDR's Keynesian economics, raise taxes on the rich, reverse free trade, and create a more pluralistic society.
Register for the Zoom event / Buy the Book
Thursday, September 15 @ 5pm (PT)
What happens when fantasy tears the screen of the everyday to wake us up? Could that waking be our end? In Bliss Montage (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Ling Ma — author of Severance — brings us eight wildly different tales of people making their way through the madness and reality of our collective delusions: love and loneliness, connection and possession, friendship, motherhood, the idea of home. A woman lives in a house with all her ex-boyfriends. A toxic friendship grows up around a drug that makes you invisible. An ancient ritual might heal you of anything — if you bury yourself alive. These and other scenarios investigate the ways that the outlandish and the ordinary are shockingly, deceptively, heartbreakingly alike. Bliss Montage crashes through our carefully built mirages. Ma will be joined in conversation by Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun. This event is presented in partnership with Skylight Books (Los Angeles), Politics and Prose (Washington, D.C.), Brookline Booksmith (Brookline, MA), and BookPeople (Austin).
Register for the Zoom event / Buy the Book
Thursday, September 15 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
In her first novel since the Women’s Prize award-winning May We Be Forgiven, A. M. Homes delivers us back to ourselves in a stunning alternative history that is both terrifyingly prescient, deeply tender, and devastatingly funny. The Big Guy loves his family, money, and country. Undone by the results of the 2008 presidential election, he taps a group of like-minded men to reclaim their version of the American Dream. As they build a scheme to disturb and disrupt, the Big Guy also faces turbulence within his family. His wife, Charlotte, grieves a life not lived, while his 18-year-old daughter, Meghan, begins to realize that her favorite subject — history — is not exactly what her father taught her. In a story that is as much about the dynamics within a family as it is about the desire for those in power to remain in power, Homes unpacks a dangerous rift in American identity, prompting a reconsideration of the definition of truth, freedom, and democracy — and exploring the explosive consequences of what happens when the same words mean such different things to people living together under one roof. From the writer who is always “razor sharp and furiously good” (Zadie Smith), The Unfolding (Viking) is a darkly comic political parable braided with a Bildungsroman that takes us inside the heart of a divided country.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Thursday, September 22 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
"A portrait of the artist as a work-in-progress" (Sharma Shields), Chelsea Martin’s hilarious and incisive coming-of-age novel about an art student from a poor family struggling to find her place in a new social class of rich, well-connected peers is perfect for fans of Elif Batuman’s The Idiot and Weike Wang’s Chemistry. At her San Francisco art school, Joey enrolls in a film elective that requires her to complete what seems like a straightforward assignment: create a self-portrait. Joey inexplicably decides to remake Wes Anderson’s Rushmore despite having never seen the movie. As Martin’s Tell Me I’m An Artist (Soft Skull) unfolds over the course of the semester, the assignment hangs over her as she struggles to exist in a well-heeled world that is hugely different from any she has known. Miles away, Joey’s sister goes missing, leaving her toddler with their mother, who in turn suggests that Joey might be the selfish one for pursuing her dreams. Meanwhile, her only friend at school, the enigmatic Suz, makes meaningful, appealing art, a product of Suz's own singular drive and talent as well as decades of careful nurturing by wealthy, sophisticated parents. A masterful novel from an author known for her candid and searching prose, Tell Me I’m An Artist examines the invisible divide created by class and privilege, ruminates on the shame that follows choosing a path that has not been laid out for you, and interrogates what makes someone an artist at all. Martin will be joined in conversation by Leah Dieterich, author of Vanishing Twins: A Marriage.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Thursday, September 22 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Stephanie Garber’s The Ballad of Never After (Flatiron) is the fiercely anticipated sequel to Once Upon a Broken Heart, starring Evangeline Fox and the Prince of Hearts on a new journey of magic, mystery, and heartbreak. After Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, betrays her, Evangeline Fox swears she'll never trust him again. Now that she’s discovered her own magic, Evangeline believes she can use it to restore the chance at happily ever after that Jacks stole away. But when a new terrifying curse is revealed, Evangeline finds herself entering into a tenuous partnership with the Prince of Hearts again. Only this time, the rules have changed. Jacks isn’t the only force Evangeline needs to be wary of. In fact, he might be the only one she can trust, despite her desire to despise him. Instead of a love spell wreaking havoc on Evangeline’s life, a murderous spell has been cast. To break it, Evangeline and Jacks will have to do battle with old friends, new foes, and a magic that plays with heads and hearts. Evangeline has always trusted her heart, but this time she’s not sure she can. Garber will be joined in conversation by Makiia Lucier, author of Year of the Reaper.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Friday, September 23 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
Spaceships, man-eating mermaids, swords, demons, ghouls, thieves, hitchhikers, and life in the margins. Margaret Killjoy’s stories have appeared for years in science fiction and fantasy magazines both major and indie. We Won’t Be Here Tomorrow and Other Stories (AK Press) collects the best previously published work along with brand new material. Ranging in theme and tone, these imaginative tales bring the reader on a wild and moving ride where they’ll encounter a hacker who programs drones to troll CEOs into quitting; a group of LARPers who decide to live as orcs in the burned forests of Oregon; queer, teen love in a death cult; the terraforming of a climate-changed Earth; polyamorous love on an anarchist tea farm during the apocalypse; and much more. Killjoy writes fearless, mind-expanding fiction. Killjoy will be joined in conversation by Robert Evans, author of After the Revolution.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Friday, September 23 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
The millions of people around the world who read and loved What If? still have questions, and those questions are getting stranger. Thank goodness xkcd creator Randall Munroe is here to help. Planning to ride a fire pole from the moon back to Earth? The hardest part is sticking the landing. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyone’s freezer door at the same time? Maybe it’s time for a brief introduction to thermodynamics. Want to know what would happen if you rode a helicopter blade, built a billion-story building, made a lava lamp out of lava, or jumped on a geyser as it erupted? Okay, if you insist. Before you go on a cosmic road trip, feed the residents of New York City to a T. rex, or fill every church with bananas, be sure to consult this practical guide for impractical ideas. Unfazed by absurdity, Munroe consults the latest research on everything from swing-set physics to airplane-catapult design to clearly and concisely answer his readers’ questions. As he consistently demonstrates, you can learn a lot from examining how the world might work in very specific extreme circumstances. Filled with bonkers science, boundless curiosity, and Munroe’s signature stick-figure comics, What If? 2 (Riverhead) is sure to be another instant classic adored by inquisitive readers of all ages
The latest from Eisner Award-nominated and Ringo Award-winning author Sarah Andersen is a delightful peek into the secret social lives of some of the world's most fascinating, monstrous, and mysterious creatures. Do you hate social gatherings? Dodge cameras? Enjoy staying up just a little too late at night? You might have more in common with your local cryptid than you think! Enter the world of Cryptid Club (Andrews McMeel), a look inside the adventures of elusive creatures ranging from Mothman to the Loch Ness Monster. Andersen’s humorous new series celebrates the unique qualities that make cryptids so desperately sought after by mankind (to no avail). After all, it's what makes us different that also makes us beautiful.
Preorder a Signed Edition (Munroe)
Preorder a Signed Edition (Andersen)
Monday, September 26 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
The Means (Mariner) is the debut novel from “wholly original” (Vogue) memoirist Amy Fusselman, a tragicomic family saga that skewers contemporary issues of money, motherhood, and class through a well-to-do woman’s quest to buy a Hamptons beach house. Shelly Means, a wealthy, stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons. Who would have guessed that Shelly, the product of frugal Midwesterners, or her husband George, an unrepentant thrift shopper, would ever be living among such swells? But Shelly believes it’s possible. It might be a very small house, and it might be in the least-fancy part of the Hamptons, but Shelly has a vision board, an architect, and a plan. What should be a simple real estate transaction quickly goes awry as Shelly’s new neighbors disapprove of her proposed shipping container house at the same time that George’s lucrative work as a VoiceOver artist dries up. Shelly is dogged — she knows how to go into beast mode — but will it ever be enough to realize her beach house dreams? A novel of real estate, ambition, family, and money from “one of our best interrogators of how we live now, and how we should live” (Dave Eggers), The Means is also a fantastical, fast-moving, and very funny exploration of class, wealth, and the value of work. Fusselman will be joined in conversation by Kevin Sampsell, author of I Made an Accident.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Tuesday, September 27 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
Hiron Ennes surreal and horrifying debut, Leech (Tordotcom) combines parasitic body horror with gothic family drama in a post-post-apocalyptic masterpiece — defying our understanding of identity, heredity, and bodily autonomy. In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies. For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed. In the frozen north, the Institute's body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron's castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again. Ennes will be joined in conversation by Sara A. Mueller, author of The Bone Orchard.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Wednesday, September 28 @ 7pm @ (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
Drawing on the experiences of his Vietnamese American family and his love of ’80s sci-fi shows, award-winning creator Jonathan Hill crafts a funny, insightful graphic novel about the immigrant experience and the perils of middle school. Threatened with diminishing resources, Booger Lizk’t and his family flee their lizard community deep below Earth’s crust to survive above among humans. The Lizk’t family of Elberon now passes as the Tomkins family of Eagle Valley. “Tommy Tomkins” wears a human face to school but can’t seem to fit in no matter how he looks. The basketball team becomes a pipe dream when bullies label him a bug eater, and only Dung Tran, an immigrant from Vietnam and fellow outsider, sees Tommy for who he is inside, which is nothing like the outer-space lizard invaders on TV’s hottest series. Can their friendship survive the truth? In his first solo middle-grade book, Tales of a Seventh-Grade Lizard Boy (Walker Books US), Hill perfectly captures the sometimes dystopian drama of middle school while reminding readers of the universal need for belonging. Hill will be joined in conversation by Breena Bard, author and illustrator of Trespassers.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Saturday, October 1 @ 2pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
In Ways to Share Joy (Bloomsbury), Renée Watson — award-winning author of Piecing Me Together — continues her charming Ramona-esque series starring spirited Ryan Hart and her loving family. Ryan Hart is caught in the middle. She has an older brother and a baby sister, and she’s in a friendship tug-of-war with KiKi and Amanda who are both vying to be her best best friend. With all that’s going on, Ryan still finds a way to see the bright side of things. But it’s terribly hard to be cheery when her brother, Ray, pulls a prank and ruins her latest baking project. And who can think about being kind to a classmate who is relentless with his teasing? Ryan is determined not to let anything ruin her mood, and to always find a way to share her bright spirit. With more challenges, change, and lessons learned, book three of Watson’s Ryan Hart Series has even more humor, more love, and more sunshine.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Wednesday, October 5 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
Elizabeth Brooks’s The House in the Orchard (Tin House) is a startling gothic tale of corrupted innocence that asks — when we look closely — what it really means to know the truth. 1945: war widow Peggy is grateful to have inherited Orchard House from her husband’s Aunt Maude; she looks forward to making a fresh start in rural Cambridgeshire with her young son. The moment she sets eyes on the rambling property, however, doubt sets in. From the bricked-up cellar to the scent of violets and rotting fruit, the place seems shrouded by dark mysteries. When Peggy discovers Maude’s teenage diary gathering dust inside a broken desk, she begins to read, searching for answers. 1876: orphaned Maude is forced to leave London, and her adored brother Frank, to live with a stranger. Everyone — especially Frank — tells her not to trust Miss Greenaway, the enigmatic owner of Orchard House, but Maude can’t help warming to her new guardian. Encouraged by Miss Greenaway to speak her mind, follow her curiosity, and form her own opinions, Maude finds herself discovering who she is for the first time, and learning to love her new home in the orchard. But when Frank comes for an unexpected visit, the delicate balance of Maude’s life is thrown into disarray. Complicating matters more, Maude witnesses an adult world full of interactions she cannot quite understand with implications beyond her grasp. Her efforts to regain control and right the future as she sees fit result in a violent tragedy, the repercussions of which will haunt Orchard House for the rest of Maude’s life — and beyond. Psychologically gripping and masterfully told, The House in the Orchard explores the blurred lines between truth and manipulation, asking us who we can trust, how to tell guilt from forgiveness, and whether we can ever really separate true love from destruction. Brooks will be joined in conversation by Rene Denfeld, author of The Butterfly Girl and The Child Finder.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Monday, October 10 @ 7:30pm (PT) / Revolution Hall
From Jodi Picoult, the bestselling author of Wish You Were Here, and Jennifer Finney Boylan, the bestselling author of She’s Not There, comes a soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind. Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life — living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher — was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start. And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can trust him completely. Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her. Picoult and Boylan’s Mad Honey (Ballantine) is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves. Picoult and Boylan will be joined in conversation by a special guest.
Please note: Tickets for this event are $39.99 (before service charges) and include admission, as well as one hardcover copy of Picoult and Boylan’s Mad Honey. Books distributed at event.
Buy Tickets
Tuesday, October 18 @ 7:30pm (PT) / Revolution Hall
Pete Souza has spent more time in the Oval Office than almost any person in history. During the Obama administration alone, Souza was inside the presidential bubble for more than 25,000 hours and made nearly 2 million photographs. The result is an unprecedented view of how our democracy really works. Souza's The West Wing and Beyond (Voracious) takes you behind the scenes of consequential moments and introduces the people, places, and traditions that define our nation’s highest office — from the national security staff to the White House groundskeeper. It delivers a new appreciation for the Secret Service, the seriousness of the Situation Room, and even the fun of mini basketball games played in rare moments of downtime outside the Oval. Join former Obama White House Photographer Pete Souza as he presents rarely-seen photographs and tells stories from his new book, The West Wing and Beyond: What I Saw Inside the Presidency.
Please note: Tickets for this event are available in two bundles:
*One admission ticket and one hardcover copy of The West Wing and Beyond is $60 (before service charges)
*Two admission tickets and one hardcover copy of The West Wing and Beyond are $80 (before service charges)
Tickets are available at www.revolutionhall.com. Books distributed at event.
Buy Tickets
Thursday, October 20 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
The 85-mile-long Columbia Gorge forms part of the border between Oregon and Washington and is one of the nation’s most historic and scenic landscapes. Many of the region’s cultural divisions boil over here — urban versus rural, west of the mountains versus east — as well as clashes over private property rights, management of public lands, and tribal treaty rights. In the early 1980s, as a new interstate bridge linked the City of Portland to rural counties in Washington, the Gorge’s renowned vistas were on the brink of destruction. Nancy Russell, 48 years old and with no experience in advocacy, fundraising, or politics, built a grassroots movement that overcame 70 years of failed efforts and bitter opposition from both Oregon and Washington governors, five of the six Gorge counties, 41,000 Gorge residents, and the Reagan administration. While building her campaign, Russell stopped subdivisions, factories, and government neglect through litigation brought by her organization, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, and last-second land purchases by the Trust for Public Land (TPL). Initially ignored, then demonized, Russell’s tires were slashed and her life threatened. The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act barely passed — on the last day of the congressional session in 1986 — and was signed by a reluctant President Reagan hours before the bill would die. Russell positioned the Friends to be a watchdog and orchestrated the purchase of thousands of acres of land for the public. In A Force for Nature (Oregon State University), Bowen Blair, an attorney, former executive director of Friends of the Columbia Gorge, and TPL senior vice president, brings an insider’s perspective to the tumultuous and inspiring story of this conservation battle. Blair will be joined in conversation by Kevin Gorman, former executive director of Friends of the Columbia Gorge.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Tuesday, October 25 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Edited by author, actress, and activist Amber Tamblyn, Listening in the Dark (Park Row) is an anthology on women’s intuition, with essays by Amy Poehler, Samantha Irby, Jia Tolentino, Jessica Valenti, US Poet Laureate Ada Limón, America Ferrera, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, and others. Have you ever had a feeling about something that you just couldn’t explain? Something that was telling you in your gut what decision to make, which direction to go in, or what to believe. Most women are taught from an early age to ignore their intuition in favor of making logical, evidence-based decisions. But what if that small voice or deeper knowing was your greatest power? In a time when women are revolutionizing politics, entertainment, healthcare, and other industries, it’s critical to reclaim intuition as a vital and sustainable tool. Listening in the Dark is a compilation of some of the most striking women visionaries in literature, science, art, education, medicine, and politics, sharing their insights and reflections on learning how to follow their own gut reactions in pivotal, crossroad moments. Filled with deeply personal and revelatory stories by some of today’s greatest minds, Listening in the Dark will empower readers to reconnect with their intuition as a precious resource in becoming their best selves. Tamblyn will be joined in conversation by Listening in the Dark contributors Lidia Yuknavitch, Dr. Mindy Nettifee, and Dr. Nicole Apelian.
Preorder a Signed Edition
.png)
Thursday, October 27 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books
Over the last two decades, a fringe plan to call a convention under the Constitution's amendment mechanism — the nation's first ever — has inched through statehouses. Delegates, like those in Philadelphia two centuries ago, would exercise nearly unlimited authority to draft changes to our fundamental law, potentially altering anything from voting and free speech rights to regulatory and foreign policy powers. Such a watershed moment would present great danger, and for some, great power. In their important new book, The Constitution in Jeopardy (PublicAffairs), former U. S. Senator Russ Feingold and legal scholar Peter Prindiville distill extensive legal and historical research and examine the grave risks inherent in this effort. But they also consider the role of constitutional amendment in modern life. Though many focus solely on judicial and electoral avenues for change, such an approach is at odds with a cornerstone ideal of the Founding: that the People make constitutional law, directly. In an era defined by faction and rejection of long-held norms, The Constitution in Jeopardy examines the nature of constitutional change and asks urgent questions about what American democracy is, and should be.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Tuesday, November 1 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Alison Cochrun, author of the “swoon-worthy debut” (Harper’s Bazaar), The Charm Offensive, returns with a festive romantic comedy about a woman who fakes an engagement with her landlord… only to fall for his sister. One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money. Finding work at a local coffee shop, she’s just getting through the days — until Andrew, the shop’s landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie’s financial woes and isolation. They make a plan to spend the holidays together at his family cabin to keep up the ruse. But when Andrew introduces his new fiancée to his sister, Ellie is shocked to discover it’s Jack — the mysterious woman she fell for over the course of one magical Christmas Eve the year before. Now, Ellie must choose between the safety of a fake relationship and the risk of something real. Cochrun’s new novel, Kiss Her Once for Me (Atria), is the queer holiday rom-com that you’ll want to cozy up with next to the fire. Cochrun will be joined in conversation by Anita Kelly, author of Love & Other Disasters.
Preorder a Signed Edition
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I attend a Powell’s virtual event?
You’ll be able to access our virtual event programming via your home computer, laptop, tablet, mobile phone, or other Internet-ready device. If you’re new to Zoom, please visit their Getting Started guide.
Are Powell’s virtual events free to attend?
As with our prior in-store programming, nearly all of our events are free to attend. On occasion, we will host a special event for which tickets or a book purchase are required for virtual admission — but details will be shared for those specific events separately.
How do I buy an event author’s new book?
Each event listing will include a link to purchase a copy of an author’s new book. A purchase link will be shared by us during the event itself, as well. Purchasing a copy of an author’s new book helps support both the author and Powell’s event programming.
Will I be able to get my book signed?
Signed editions are only available for our in-person events. In some cases, signed bookplates will be available on a limited first come, first served basis for our virtual events. Personalizations are only available to in-store customers.
How can I keep up with all of Powell’s upcoming virtual events?
Please sign up for our marketing emails using the field at the bottom of this page. All of our upcoming events will be listed above on our online calendar. Please also consider following us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
I’m having my problems with my Zoom account. Can you help me?
Zoom offers a troubleshooting guide which is helpful in solving whatever problems you may be experiencing with the platform. Zoom FAQs are available here.