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Reading: Shawn Levy: The Castle on Sunset

Annie Bloom's Books 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes back Portland author Shawn Levy to read from his latest book, The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont. This is the definitive history of Hollywood's most iconic, storied, and scandalous hotel. For ninety years, Hollywood's brightest stars have favored the Chateau Marmont as a home away from home. An apartment house-turned-hotel, it has been the backdrop for generations of gossip and folklore: 1930s bombshell Jean Harlow took lovers during her third honeymoon there; director Nicholas Ray slept with his sixteen-year-old Rebel Without a Cause star Natalie Wood; Anthony Perkins and Tab Hunter met poolside and began a secret affair; Jim Morrison swung from the balconies, once falling nearly to his death; John Belushi suffered a…

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Free

Oregon’s Ancient Forests: A Hiking Guide

Powell's Books on Hawthorne 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

Chandra LeGue’s Oregon’s Ancient Forests (Mountaineers) is a guidebook with a purpose: to inspire readers to learn about and visit Oregon’s rapturous old-growth forests, and then love them enough to keep them protected. Not just for hikers, this Oregon Wild-sponsored guide explains where the forests are and who manages them, the threats they face, and an action plan for protecting what remains and restoring damaged forests so they may become the ancient forests of the future. LeGue discusses forest ecology, flora, and fauna, and also details 91 of her favorite hikes across the state.

Free

Tucker Malarkey in Conversation With Guido Rahr & Fiona McCann

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

In the tradition of Mountains Beyond Mountains and The Orchid Thief, Stronghold (Spiegel & Grau) is Tucker Malarkey’s gripping account of one man’s determination to protect the world’s last bastion for wild salmon. From a young age, Guido Rahr was a misfit among his family and classmates, preferring to spend his time in the natural world, on his family’s land on the Deschutes River in Oregon. Over the years, as he became an expert fly fisherman, he noticed that each year fewer salmon were returning to their place of birth to spawn, and set out to learn why. What he discovered alarmed him; as the river homes of these fish became increasingly inhospitable to them, due to dams, industry, and climate change, the salmon of…

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Free

What Is Justice? A Personal Exploration – Bill Denham

Another Read Through 3932 N Mississippi Ave, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for a reading from What is Justice? by Bill Denham. Matthew Avery Solomon and Noel Espinoza were murdered on September 4, 2008. Three men were charged with the crime. In What Is Justice?: A Personal Exploration, author Bill Denham studies the crime and what it reveals about himself and about our broader culture’s pursuit of retributive justice. Incorporating poetry, philosophy, theology, and memoir, Denham suggests an alternative system borne out of our inter-connectedness and reliant on the exercise of our imaginations. What Is Justice?: A Personal Exploration is an engaging, deeply personal, and deeply felt exploration into the meaning of justice. It is an essential and thought-provoking piece. “In death will come, poet Bill Denham attempts the near impossible, coming to terms with the…

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Free

Mark Arax

Powell's Books on Hawthorne 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

Mark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers, a writer with deep ties to the land who has watched the battles over water intensify even as California lurches from drought to flood and back again. In The Dreamt Land (Knopf), he travels the state to explore the one-of-a-kind distribution system, built in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, that is straining to keep up with California’s relentless growth. The Dreamt Land weaves reportage, history, and memoir to confront the “Golden State” myth in riveting fashion. Arax’s heartfelt, beautifully written book is about the land and the people who have worked it – from gold miners to wheat ranchers to small fruit farmers and today’s Big Ag. Since the beginning, Californians have redirected rivers, drilled…

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Free

Young Adult Book Club (Hawthorne)

Powell's Books on Hawthorne 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

The Young Adult Book Club is a group of teens who meet monthly to talk about YA fiction. We’re fans of strong stories, diverse characters, and Rainbow Rowell (of course!). This month we meet to discuss Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale. Join us!

Free

Signs, Seals and Sigils: The Occult Science of Magic Script

Daedalus Books 2074 NW Flanders St, Portland, OR, United States

William Kiesel of Ouroboros Press Sigillic scripts are common in the grimoires and manuals of magic. Learn about magical alphabets, asemic writing and the diverse symbols, signs & signets of practical occultism. What is the difference between a sigil and a seal? How are they constructed and used? Join us and find out! In this class Kiesel will discuss the techniques of sigil construction as found in the texts of the traditional grimoires, magic squares, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as well as Austin Osman Spare and other contemporaries. William Kiesel has been a practitioner of Hermetic Qabalah for three decades and is known for his ability to clearly express the abstract ideas found in esoteric traditions. He is the publishing director at…

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Free – $25

Brandon Shimoda in Conversation With Janice Lee

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

Award-winning poet Brandon Shimoda has crafted a lyrical portrait of his paternal grandfather, Midori Shimoda, whose life — child migrant, talented photographer, suspected enemy alien and spy, desert wanderer, American citizen — mirrors the arc of Japanese America in the 20th century. In a series of pilgrimages, Shimoda records the search to find his grandfather, and unfolds, in the process, a moving elegy on memory and forgetting. The Grave on the Wall (City Lights) is a memoir and book of mourning, a grandson’s attempt to reconcile his own uncontested citizenship with his grandfather’s lifelong struggle. Shimoda will be joined in conversation by Janice Lee, author of The Sky Isn’t Blue.

Free

Jessie L. Kwak

Powell's Books on Hawthorne 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

Art and writing can be among the most fulfilling parts of our lives. But let’s face it: sometimes it's difficult to make time and space for it. Sometimes we have so many ideas it’s difficult to keep them all organized, or even to distinguish one from another. With all the clutter overwhelming your scattered brain, how could you expect to get any work done? More likely than not, you'll find yourself procrastinating on an art project, or not actually knowing what the project is. What to do? Jessie L. Kwak’s From Chaos to Creativity (Microcosm) will help guide you through the clutter and teach you how to focus on the good ideas, manage your project, make time in your life, and execute your passions to…

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Free

Superbugs: The Race to Stop an Epidemic

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

Physician, researcher, and ethics professor Matt McCarthy is on the front lines of a groundbreaking clinical trial testing a new antibiotic to fight lethal superbugs, bacteria that have built up resistance to the life-saving drugs in our rapidly dwindling arsenal. This trial serves as the backdrop for the compulsively readable Superbugs (Avery) — and the results will impact nothing less than the future of humanity. McCarthy explores the history of bacteria and antibiotics, from Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin, to obscure sources of innovative new medicines (often found in soil samples), to the cutting-edge DNA manipulation known as CRISPR, bringing to light how we arrived at this juncture of both incredible breakthrough and extreme vulnerability. We also meet the patients whose lives are hanging in…

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Free
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