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Sallie Tisdale

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Sallie Tisdale, author of the acclaimed Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them) brings “her singular sensibility, her genius for language, her love of our deeply imperfect world” (Karen Karbo) to The Lie About the Truck: Survivor, Reality TV, and the Endless Gaze (Gallery), an insightful exploration of reality TV and the shifting definitions of truth in America. What is the truth? In a world of fake news and rampant conspiracy theories, the nature of truth has increasingly blurry borders. In her clever and timely cultural commentary, Tisdale tackles this issue by framing it in a familiar way — reality TV, particularly the long-running CBS show Survivor. With humor and in-depth superfan analysis, Tisdale explores the distinction between suspended disbelief and true authenticity,…

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Free

Susan Orlean in Conversation With Meg Wolitzer

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Susan Orlean — the beloved New Yorker staff writer hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post and author of The Library Book and The Orchid Thief — gathers a lifetime of musings, meditations, and in-depth profiles about animals. “How we interact with animals has preoccupied philosophers, poets, and naturalists for ages,” writes Orlean. Since the age of six, when Orlean wrote and illustrated a book called Herbert the Near-Sighted Pigeon, she’s been drawn to stories about how we live with animals, and how they abide by us. Now, in On Animals (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster), she examines animal-human relationships through the compelling tales she has written over the course of her celebrated career. These stories consider a range of creatures — the…

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Free

Scary Stories with Wendy N. Wagner at Willamette Writers

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Trick or treat? Join us for BOTH this October 11th online at 7PM as we talk scary stories, submissions, and so much more with author and editor, Wendy Wagner. The Eugene and Southern Chapters would love you to join us for this spooky evening! About Wendy N. Wagner Wendy N. Wagner is the editor-in-chief of Nightmare Magazine and the managing/senior editor of Lightspeed. Her short stories, essays, and poems run the gamut from horror to environmental literature. Her longer work includes the novella The Secret Skin (forthcoming at the end of October), the horror novel The Deer Kings, the Locus bestselling SF eco-thriller An Oath of Dogs, and two novels for the Pathfinder role-playing game. She lives in Oregon with her very understanding family, two…

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Free

Jonathan Franzen in Conversation With Maria Semple / Ticketed Event

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Jonathan Franzen’s gift for wedding depth and vividness of character with breadth of social vision has never been more dazzlingly evident than in Crossroads (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), the first novel in his new magnum opus trilogy, A Key to All Mythologies. It’s December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless — unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem’s sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high school class,…

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$30

Terry Brooks in Conversation With Sarah Beth Durst

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Child of Light (Del Rey) is the electrifying first novel of an all-new fantasy series from the legendary author behind the Shannara saga, about a human girl struggling to find her place in a magical world she’s never known. At 19, Auris Afton Grieg has led an… unusual life. Since the age of 15, she has been trapped in a sinister prison. Why? She does not know. She has no memories of her past beyond the vaguest of impressions. All she knows is that she is about to age out of the children’s prison, and rumors say that the adult version is far, far worse. So she and some friends stage a desperate escape into the surrounding wastelands. And it is there that Auris’s journey…

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Free

Judith Barrington Poetry Reading

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Judith Barrington's poetry reading will be livestreamed on October 13, 2021 on the Ledding Library YouTube Channel. (link is external) Judith Barrington’s sixth collection of poetry, Long Love: New & Selected Poems, 1985 - 2017 came out in 2018 from Salmon Poetry. She is also the author of The Conversation (2015), whose title poem was the winner of the Gregory O’Donoghue International poetry award, and three previous collections of poems, as well as two chapbooks. Her Lifesaving: A Memoir was the winner of the Lambda Book Award and runner-up for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir. Among her other awards are: The Robin Becker Chapbook Prize, The Andres Berger Award, The Dulwich Festival International Poetry Competition, an American Civil Liberties Union Freedom of Expression Award, and, from Literary Arts, The…

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Free

Cecily Wong in Conversation With Liz Crain

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Wonder is around every corner, and on every plate. The curious minds behind Atlas Obscura now turn to the hidden curiosities of food, which becomes a gateway to fascinating stories about human history, science, art, and tradition — like the first book, all organized by country, lavishly illustrated, and full of surprises. Covering all seven continents, Gastro Obscura (Workman) by Cecily Wong and Dylan Thuras serves up a loaded plate of incredible ingredients, food adventures, and edible wonders. Ready for a beer made from fog in Chile? Sardinia’s “Threads of God” pasta? Egypt’s 2000-year-old egg ovens? But far more than a menu of delicacies and unexpected dishes, Gastro Obscura reveals food’s central place in our lives as well as our bellies, touching on history (trace…

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Free

Livestream Event: Belonging – Middle Grade Author Panel

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join Annie Bloom's Books for a livestream event with middle grade authors Waka Brown (While I was Away), Kathleen Lane (Pity Party), Susan Hill Long (The Care and Keeping of Freddy), Rosanne Parry (A Whale of the Wild) and Kate Ristau (Clockbreakers series). The authors will discuss the theme of belonging: how kids search for and maintain connections, and how the books they read explore and support those connections too. This event is free and open to all ages. Please register in advance for this Zoom event: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIud-CqqzgpG9UUTbHOhaYNOUq-9c1Smc0q If you would like signed or personalized copies of the authors' books, please leave a note in the comments section of your order! Waka T. Brown's While I Was Away is an empowering middle grade memoir from debut author…

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Free

Live Wire: Tom Scharpling, Mohanad Elshieky, Kaveh Akbar, and MAITA

Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St, Portland, OR, United States

TOM SCHARPLING Tom Scharpling has hosted the weekly radio call-in comedy program, The Best Show with Tom Scharpling, for 18 years. He and his comedy parter Jon Wurster released a 16 disc compilation of their greatest hits, The Best of the Best Show, in 2015 to critical acclaim. He is also known as the voice of Greg Universe on the hit Cartoon Network animated series Steven Universe and as a writer-executive producer for the Emmy Award–winning show Monk. In his new book, It Never Ends, Scharpling is sharing a story he has never told before—his own harrowing coming of age. He chronicles the lengths he has gone to pull away from the brink of self-destruction, his difficult rehabilitation and how he committed himself to reinvention…

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$30 – $45

Joshua Jay in Conversation With Joe Posnanski

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The door to magic is closed, but it’s not locked. And now Joshua Jay, one of the world’s most accomplished magicians, not only opens that door but brings us inside to reveal the artistry and obsessiveness, esoteric history, and long-whispered-about traditions of a subject shrouded in mystery. And he goes one step further: Jay brings us right into the mind of a magician — how they develop their otherworldly skills, conjure up illusions, and leave the rest of us slack-jawed with delight time after time. Along the way, Jay reveals another kind of secret, one all readers will find meaningful even if they never aspire to perform sleight of hand: What does it take to follow your heart and achieve excellence? In 52 short, compulsively…

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Free
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