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Mesha Maren in Conversation With Randal O’Wain

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

Set within the charged insularity of rural West Virginia, Mesha Maren's Sugar Run (Algonquin) is a searing and gritty debut about making a break for another life, the use and treachery of makeshift families, and how, no matter the distance we think we've traveled from the mistakes we've made, too often we find ourselves standing in precisely the place we began. Maren will be joined in conversation by Randal O’Wain, author of the forthcoming book, Meander Belt.

Free

Jody J. Little presents Mostly the Honest Truth

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes Portland author and third-grade teacher Jody J. Little for the launch of her middle grade book, Mostly the Honest Truth. After Pop is sent back to rehab, Jane Pengilly arrives at her newest foster home determined to stick to the straight and narrow and get back to her beloved dad as soon as she can. It’s not the first time they’ve been apart, but Jane’s determined it will be the last. Twelve days out in the boonies of Three Boulders makes Jane miss Pop more than ever. But as the days go by, she realizes that family is more than who you’re related to—and that a home can be found in the unlikeliest of places. Jody J. Little’s tough yet tender debut…

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Free

Paula Butterfield presents La Luministe

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes local author Paula Butterfield for a reading from her debut novel, La Luministe. Berthe Morisot was a fist in a velvet glove. In 19th century Paris, an haute-bourgeois woman was expected to be discreet to the point of near-invisibility. But Berthe, forbidden to enter L'Ecole des Beaux Arts, started the art movement that broke open the walls of the art establishment. And, unable to marry the love of her life, Edouard Manet, she married his brother. While she epitomized femininity and decorum, Morisot was a quiet revolutionary. As an Impressionist, she created light-infused paintings of women in reverie that the other members of the group deemed the most avant-garde of them all. They called Morisot La Luministe, the painter of light. Her…

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Free

Debut Authors ’19 Reading

Enso Winery 1416 SE Stark St, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for a reading by over a dozen authors with debut books arriving (or already arrived!) in 2019. Readers will include Kate Hope Day (If, Then), Susan Bernhard (Winter Loon), K Chess (Famous Men Who Never Lived), Kali Fajardo-Anstine (Sabrina & Corina), Aatif Rashid (Portrait of Sebastian Khan), Julia Phillips (Disappearing Earth), James Charlesworth (The Patricide of George Benjamin Hill), Rachel Howard (The Risk of Us), Daniela Petrova (Her Daughter's Mother), Layne Fargo (Temper), William Dameron (The Lie), Marco Rafalà (How Fires End), Keena Roberts (Wild Life), and possibly more! Contact: James Charlesworth

Free

Valerie Brooks presents Revenge in 3 Parts

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes Oregon author Valerie Brooks to read from her debut thriller, Revenge in 3 Parts. In this gripping psychological thriller and debut noir that takes the reader from Paris to Portland, Oregon, and finally to Kauai, criminal attorney Angeline Porter is forced to fight crime outside the law. Angeline thrives on crime--righting wrongs, fighting for justice, putting away murderers. But after rebuking the sexual advances of the head of her firm, plus putting away his friend, a serial rapist, Angeline is disbarred. When Angeline's beautiful, but troubled sister Sophie commits suicide, she seeks to right the myriad of injustices that provoked her sister and acts to avenge her death. Guilt for not protecting Sophie drives Angeline to investigate, and after discovering Sophie had…

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Free

Joe Wilkins

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

Joe Wilkins joins us to read from his debut novel Fall Back Down When I Die, published by Little, Brown. The book tells the story of  Wendell Newman, a young ranch hand in Montana who has recently lost his mother. Wendell is broke and owes back taxes on his parent's land. Into this situation comes seven-year-old Rowdy Burns, the mute and traumatized son of Wendell's incarcerated cousin. Wendell, as the boy's only remaining relative, must care for him. What is initially an ordeal turns into an unexpected and affectionate bond, one that is stretched to the breaking point during the first legal wolf hunt in Montana in more than thirty years. This haunting novel is an unforgettable tale of sacrificial love, with two indelible characters…

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Free

Christopher X. Shade

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

We welcome New York author Christopher X. Shade to read from his debut novel The Good Mother of Marseille. The novel is set in the summer of 2013, in the year of Marseille's designation as the European Capital of Culture. Americans wander and sightsee in this dangerous and impoverished yet seductive city. The Americans whose stories are told in this novel -- anthropology students Noémie and Corey, the couple from a small town in Alabama, the Colorado man with late-stage cancer, and a woman and her journalist husband -- put their Marseille experience in the context of their own histories. Hovering on the fringe are the Marseillais themselves -- the shopkeepers, artists, and café waiters -- following the rhythm of European street life. The book is a love letter to the…

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Free

Ryan Chapman in Conversation With Justin Taylor

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

An unnamed Sri Lankan inmate has barricaded himself inside a prison computer lab in Dutchess County, New York. A riot rages outside, incited by a poem published in The Holding Pen, the house literary journal. This, our narrator’s final Editor’s Letter, is his confession. An official accounting of events, as they happened. As he awaits imminent and violent interruption, he takes us on a roller coaster ride of plot and language, determined to share his life story, and maybe answer a few questions. Smart, wry, and laugh-out-loud funny, Ryan Chapman’s Riots I Have Known (Simon & Schuster) is an utter gem – an electric, uproarious, and biting debut novel and an approachable send-up that packs a punch. Chapman will be joined in conversation by Justin…

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Free

Julia Phillips & Alix Ohlin

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

One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls – sisters, eight and eleven – go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, Julia Phillips’s powerful debut novel, Disappearing Earth (Knopf), enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother. In her gripping, unforgettable new novel about art, ambition, sisterhood, motherhood, and self-knowledge, Alix Ohlin traces the rich and complicated lives of two indelible women. Dazzlingly insightful and beautifully crafted, Dual Citizens (Knopf) captures the unique language of sisters and makes visible the imperceptible strings…

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Free

Sarah Gailey in Conversation With Fonda Lee

Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton, OR, United States

Ivy Gamble was born without magic and never wanted it. Ivy Gamble has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. She doesn't in any way wish she was like Tabitha, her estranged, magically gifted twin sister. Ivy Gamble is a liar. Magic for Liars (Tor) is the darkly enchanting debut novel from the Hugo Award-winning Sarah Gailey, perfect for fans of Charlie Jane Anders and Megan Abbott, following the harrowing search for a killer at a private academy for mages hidden in modern-day Northern California. Gailey will be joined in conversation by Fonda Lee, author of The Green Bone Saga (Jade City and Jade War).

Free
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