LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

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Douglas Rushkoff

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

Team Human (W. W. Norton) is a fiery distillation of digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In 100 lean, incisive statements, Rushkoff argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together – not as individuals. Yet today, society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Harnessing research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace.

Free

Portland State Faculty Author Exhibition

Miller Library 1875 SW Park Avenue, Portland, OR, United States

Join us as we highlight three PSU faculty authors who published books in 2018. Leni Zumas is an Associate Professor and Director of the Creative Writing program in PSU’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Zumas is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Red Clocks, recognized by The Washington Post as one of the 50 most notable works of fiction in 2018. Billie Sandberg is an Associate Professor of Public Administration in PSU’s College of Urban and Public Affairs. Sandberg co-authored Reframing Nonprofit Organizations: Democracy, Inclusion, and Social Change. Mitchell Cruzan is a Professor of Biology in PSU’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Cruzan is the author of Evolutionary Biology: A Plant Perspective. Food and beverages will be provided. Open to the public.…

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Free

Debbie Ethell

Broadway Books 1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

We welcome Debbie Ethell, reading from her recently published book The Will of Heaven: An Inspiring True Story about Elephants, Alcoholism, and Hope. Debbie Ethell is the Executive Director for The KOTA Foundation for Elephants and a conservation research scientist. Her book is the powerful true story of how one woman overcame a debilitating addiction, rising from the courtrooms of her past to the grass plains of Kenya as a conservation research scientist. It was there she could finally fulfill her lifelong dream of working with wild elephants. Ethell became obsessed by a group of elephants in Kenya when she was eight years old, after seeing them on a PBS nature show. Over the next several years her obsession grew, until a group of school…

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Free

Marcy Cottrell Houle: A Generous Nature

Broadway Books 1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

We are delighted to host Marcy Cottrell Houle reading from her book A Generous Nature: Lives Transformed by Oregon, published by Oregon State University Press. She will be joined in conversation by one of the heroes featured in the book: Michael McCloskey, an Oregonian who was the director of the national Sierra Club for thirty-five years and whose work helped to pass the Wilderness Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The book offers profiles of twenty-one conservationists and activists who have made enduring contributions to the preservation of Oregon's wild and natural places and its high quality of life. These stories speak to their courage, foresight, and actions--at times against great odds--to save places, enact legislation, and motivate others to cherish and protect the…

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Free

Thor Hanson

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid (Basic), beloved natural historian and biologist Thor Hanson — author of Buzz, The Triumph of Seeds, and Feathers — tells the remarkable story of how plants and animals are responding to climate change: adjusting, evolving, and sometimes dying out. Anole lizards have grown larger toe pads, to grip more tightly in frequent hurricanes. Warm waters have caused the development of Humboldt squid to alter so dramatically that fishermen mistake them for different species. Brown pelicans move north, and long-spined sea urchins south, to find cooler homes. And when coral reefs sicken, they leave no territory worth fighting for, so aggressive butterfly fish transform instantly into pacifists. A story of hope, resilience, and risk, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid is natural…

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Free

John W. Reid

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

Five stunningly large forests remain on Earth: the Taiga, extending from the Pacific Ocean across all of Russia and far-northern Europe; the North American boreal, ranging from Alaska’s Bering seacoast to Canada’s Atlantic shore; the Amazon, covering almost the entirety of South America’s bulge; the Congo, occupying parts of six nations in Africa’s wet equatorial middle; and the island forest of New Guinea, twice the size of California. These megaforests are vital to preserving global biodiversity, thousands of cultures, and a stable climate, as economist John W. Reid and celebrated biologist Thomas E. Lovejoy argue convincingly in Ever Green (W. W. Norton). Megaforests serve an essential role in decarbonizing the atmosphere — the boreal alone holds 1.8 trillion metric tons of carbon in its deep…

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Free
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