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Historical Fiction Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us on September 4th at 4pm for our Historical Fiction Book Club. We will discuss City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. About the book: Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant,…

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Free

Timothy Zahn in Conversation With Tom Hoeler

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Beyond the edge of the galaxy lies the Unknown Regions: chaotic, uncharted, and near impassable, with hidden secrets and dangers in equal measure. And nestled within its swirling chaos is the Ascendancy, home to the enigmatic Chiss and the Nine Ruling Families that lead them. The peace of the Ascendancy, a beacon of calm and stability, is shattered after a daring attack on the Chiss capital that leaves no trace of the enemy. Baffled, the Ascendancy dispatches one of its brightest young military officers to root out the unseen assailants. A recruit born of no title, but adopted into the powerful family of the Mitth and given the name Thrawn. With the might of the Expansionary Fleet at his back, and the aid of his…

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Free

Gary Cole presents Black Box: Page to Stage

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Note: Gary Cole and CoHo Productions are offering a 25% discount on tickets purchased by Aug. 15th if you use the promotional code "LITPDX" when purchasing tickets! If at least 10 purchases are made with the code, an additional drawing for a "Book Club Bonus" package (10 signed copies with free shipping and author call-in) will be offered for those purchasers. Purchasing a ticket for any date will provide you with access to all scenes captured on video and invitations to live talkbacks, in addition to a copy of the book (and a custom inscription and book club call-in, if applicable). CoHo Productions Co-founder Gary Cole presents Black Box: Page to Stage A Virtual Limited Run in Support of Covid-19 Arts and Culture Relief As CoHo…

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$50 – $100

Kids’ Storytime With Josh Funk

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Today, author Josh Funk joins us to read from his new picture book, Short and Sweet (Sterling), illustrated by Brendan Kearney. Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast are back with a twist: they’ve been transformed into small children. Now it’s a race against the clock to turn our favorite duo into grown-ups again! Lady Pancake is aching; Sir French Toast’s looking pale. Could they be going… STALE? Maybe a visit to Professor Biscotti’s lab for her despoiling procedure will help. But instead of beautifying them, Biscotti accidentally transforms the two treats into toddlers! Frightened of the now gargantuan (to them) Baron von Waffle, the mini breakfast foods scamper off on an adventure in the fridge, visiting everywhere from the Bran Canyon to Limes Square. Will…

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Free

Fantasy Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

September 8th will be a Fantasy Pick. Join us on Tuesday September 8th at 6pm for our Books Around the Corner Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Club. We will discuss Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. About the book: The Emperor needs necromancers. The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman. Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense. Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth, first in The Locked Tomb Trilogy, unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as arcane revenants. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy. Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife…

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Free

Delve Readers Seminar: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Composed in the era of the Second World War, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has become, through various incarnations, one of the best known stories in the world and also part of a larger system of myth and lore–thee so-called “Tolkien universe”–that also includes the Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and countless additional tales in prose and verse. The three volumes of The Lord of the Rings, however, are a distinct and remarkable literary accomplishment in their own right, the summoning up of an entire narrative world (with its own contexts, traditions, languages, civilizations, personae, and challenges), at once related to and distinct from the modern world of industry and war. Tolkien’s personal experience, his deep immersion in modern philology, his spiritual and historical affinities,…

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$220

Kids’ Storytime With Keely Parrack

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Author Keely Parrak joins us for kids’ storytime to read from her new picture book, Morning, Sunshine! (North Atlantic), illustrated by John Bajet. As we all wake up, the outside world bustles with life! Discover new facts about familiar creatures — from fluttering moths and scurrying beetles to shy foxes and humming bees — as they go about their morning activities. In the city, the countryside, and the suburbs, nature can be found everywhere! A series of haiku takes readers on a close-up, observational look at the amazing abundance of nature right outside our homes. Each stanza focuses on an aspect of the natural world or a creature going about their daily activities as the sun begins to rise. Alongside the haiku, informative text goes…

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Free

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi in Conversation With Tayari Jones

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

International award-winning author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s new novel, A Girl Is a Body of Water (Tin House), is a sweeping and powerful portrait of a young girl and her family: who they are, what history has taken from them, and — most importantly — how they find their way back to each other. In her 12th year, Kirabo, a young Ugandan girl, confronts a piercing question that has haunted her childhood: Who is my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small village of Nattetta — her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts — but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow. Complicating these feelings of abandonment, as Kirabo comes of age she feels the emergence of a…

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Free

Jordan Ifueko in Conversation With Bethany C. Morrow

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Nothing is more important than loyalty. But what if you’ve sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy? Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill…

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Free

Joanna Rose in Conversation With Susan Leslie Moore

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

How does a librarian from New Jersey end up in a convenience store on Vancouver Island in the middle of the night, playing Bible Scrabble with a Korean physicist and a drunk priest? She gets married to the wrong man for starters — she didn't know he was "that kind of Catholic" — and ends up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. She gets a job in a New Age bookstore, wanders toward Buddhism without realizing it, and acquires a dog. Things get complicated after that. Pattianne Anthony is less a thinker than a dreamer, and she finds out the hard way that she doesn't want a husband, much less a baby, and that getting out of a marriage is a lot harder than getting into it,…

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Free
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