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

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Alison Roman in Conversation With Nicole Rucker

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

Casual, effortless, chic: these are not words you'd use to describe most desserts. But before Alison Roman made recipes so perfect that they go by one name — The Cookie, The Pasta, The Lemon Cake — she was a restaurant pastry chef who spent most of her time learning to make things the hard way. She studied flavor, technique, and precision, then distilled her knowledge to pare it all down to create dessert recipes that feel special and approachable, impressive and doable. In Sweet Enough (Clarkson Potter), Roman — author of Dining In and Nothing Fancy — has written the book for people who think they don't have the time or skill to pull off dessert. Here, the desserts you want to make right away,…

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James M. Zimmerman in Conversation With Candace Pinger Smith

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

In 1923 Shanghai, native and foreign travelers alike are enthralled by the establishment of a new railway line to distant Peking. With this new line comes the Peking Express, a luxurious express train on the cutting edge of China’s continental transportation. Among those drawn to the train are oil heiress Lucy Aldrich, journalist John Benjamin Powell, and vacationing Army Majors Roland Pinger and Robert Allen, wives and children in tow. These errant Americans and their eclectic fellow passengers all eagerly anticipate an idyllic overnight journey in first class. But the train’s passengers are not the only ones enchanted by the Peking Express. The bandit revolutionary Sun Mei-yao sees in it the promise of a reckoning long overdue. From his vantage in Shantung Province, a conflict-ravaged…

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Fonda Lee & Kate Elliott

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

A young woman forms a tempestuous bond with a gigantic and deadly bird of prey in Untethered Sky (Tordotcom), the epic new fantasy fable about the pursuit of obsession at all costs, written by World Fantasy Award–winning author Fonda Lee. Ester’s family was torn apart when a manticore killed her mother and baby brother, leaving her with nothing but her father’s painful silence and a single, overwhelming need to kill the monsters that took her family. Ester’s path leads her to join the King’s Royal Mews, where the giant rocs of legend are flown to hunt manticores by their brave and dedicated ruhkers. Paired with a fledgling roc named Zahra, Ester finds purpose and acclaim by devoting herself to a calling that demands absolute sacrifice…

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Angie Thomas in Conversation With Rosanne Parry

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

Superstar author Angie Thomas makes her middle grade debut with the launch of an inventive, hilarious, and suspenseful new contemporary fantasy trilogy inspired by African American history and folklore. It’s not easy being a Remarkable in the Unremarkable world. Some things are cool — like getting a pet hellhound for your twelfth birthday. Others, not so much — like not being trusted to learn magic because you might use it to take revenge on an annoying neighbor. All Nic Blake wants is to be a powerful Manifestor like her dad. But before she has a chance to convince him to teach her, a series of shocking revelations and terrifying events launch Nic and two friends on a hunt for a powerful magic tool she’s never…

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Don Winslow

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

Following the ambitious City on Fire, comes the dramatic second novel in an epic crime trilogy from Don Winslow, author of the Cartel trilogy (The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and The Border). Hollywood. The city where dreams are made. On the losing side of a bloody East Coast crime war, Danny Ryan is now on the run. The Mafia, the cops, the FBI all want him dead or in prison. With his little boy, his elderly father and the tattered remnants of his loyal crew of soldiers, he makes the classic American migration to California to start a new life. A quiet, peaceful existence. But the Feds track him down and want Danny to do them a favor that could make him a…

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Neal Shusterman & Eric Elfman

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

Eoin Colfer meets Rick Riordan — with a little Margaret Peterson Haddix sprinkled on top — in I Am the Walrus (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), the first book in a hilarious new sci-fi series from authors Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman. When 14-year-old Noah falls from the trees on his classmate Sahara, he doesn’t understand how, or why, he would have been up there. It’s just one more in a string of strange things happening to Noah lately. Like when he keels over and every muscle in his body freezes when confronted by bullies. And when he vanishes into the background at a moment he doesn’t want to be noticed. And when he unexpectedly blasts Sahara with a bird shriek while flapping his…

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Brent Weeks

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

Brent Weeks returns to the world of the Night Angel in Night Angel Nemesis (Orbit), following master assassin Kylar on a new adventure as the High King Logan Gyre calls on him to save his kingdom and the hope of peace. After the war that cost him so much, Kylar Stern is broken and alone. He's determined not to kill again, but an impending amnesty will pardon the one murderer he can't let walk free. He promises himself this is the last time. One last hit to tie up the loose ends of his old, lost life. But Kylar's best — and maybe only — friend, the High King Logan Gyre, needs him. To protect a fragile peace, Logan’s new kingdom, and the king’s twin…

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Eli Francovich in Conversation With Erica Berry

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

The gray wolf has made an astonishing comeback in Washington. Nearly eradicated by the 1990s, conservationists and environmentalists have cheered its robust return to the state over the last two decades. But Washington ranchers are not so joyous. When wolves prey on livestock, ranchers view their livelihood as under attack. In The Return of Wolves (Timber Press), journalist Eli Francovich investigates how we might mend this divide while keeping wolf populations thriving. He finds an answer in the time-honored tradition of range riding and one passionate range rider, Daniel Curry, who has jumped directly into the fray by patrolling the rural Washington landscape on horseback. Curry engages directly with farmers, seeking to protect livestock from wolves while also protecting and proliferating wolf populations. In The…

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Max Miller in Conversation With Holly Erickson & Natalie Mortimer

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

What began as a passion project when Max Miller was furloughed during Covid-19 has become a viral YouTube sensation with a million followers amassed in just two years. The Tasting History with Max Miller channel has thrilled food enthusiasts and history buffs alike as Miller recreates a dish from the past, often using historical recipes from vintage texts, but updated for modern kitchens as he tells stories behind the cuisine and culture. From ancient Rome to Ming China to medieval Europe and beyond, Miller has collected the best-loved recipes from around the world and has shared them with his fans. Now, with beautiful photographs portraying the dishes and historical artwork throughout, Miller’s new cookbook, Tasting History (S&S/Simon Element) compiles over 60 dishes such as: Tuh’u:…

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Ram Shankar Siva Kumar & Hyrum Anderson

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

In Not With A Bug, But With A Sticker (Wiley), adversarial machine learning researchers Ram Shankar Siva Kumar and Hyrum Anderson deliver a riveting account of the most significant risk to artificial intelligence systems: cybersecurity threats. The authors take you on a sweeping tour — from inside secretive government organizations to academic workshops at ski chalets to Google’s cafeteria — recounting how major AI systems remain vulnerable to the exploits of bad actors of all stripes. Siva Kumar and Anderson outline the different ways any AI system — from Alexa to Tesla — can be manipulated by adversaries. Their book is aimed at a general audience, and, in playful language and anecdotes, attempts to answer a multitude of questions: How to subvert these AI systems?…

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