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Elizabeth Brooks in Conversation With Rene Denfeld

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

Elizabeth Brooks’s The House in the Orchard (Tin House) is a startling gothic tale of corrupted innocence that asks — when we look closely — what it really means to know the truth. 1945: war widow Peggy is grateful to have inherited Orchard House from her husband’s Aunt Maude; she looks forward to making a fresh start in rural Cambridgeshire with her young son. The moment she sets eyes on the rambling property, however, doubt sets in. From the bricked-up cellar to the scent of violets and rotting fruit, the place seems shrouded by dark mysteries. When Peggy discovers Maude’s teenage diary gathering dust inside a broken desk, she begins to read, searching for answers. 1876: orphaned Maude is forced to leave London, and her…

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Isaac Fitzgerald in Conversation With Lydia Kiesling

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

Isaac Fitzgerald has lived many lives. He's been an altar boy, a bartender, a fat kid, a smuggler, a biker, a prince of New England. But before all that, he was a bomb that exploded his parents’ lives — or so he was told. In Dirtbag, Massachusetts (Bloomsbury), Fitzgerald, with warmth and humor, recounts his ongoing search for forgiveness, a more far-reaching vision of masculinity, and a more expansive definition of family and self. Fitzgerald’s memoir-in-essays begins with a childhood that moves at breakneck speed from safety to violence, recounting an extraordinary pilgrimage through trauma to self-understanding and, ultimately, acceptance. From growing up in a Boston homeless shelter to bartending in San Francisco, from smuggling medical supplies into Burma to his lifelong struggle to make…

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Nabil Ayers in Conversation With Alicia J. Rose

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

Throughout his adult life, whether he was opening a Seattle record store in the '90s or touring the world as the only non-white band member in alternative rock bands, Nabil Ayers felt the shadow and legacy of his father's musical genius, and his race, everywhere. In 1971, a white, Jewish, former ballerina chose to have a child with the famous Black jazz musician Roy Ayers, fully expecting and agreeing that he would not be involved in the child's life. In his highly original memoir, My Life in the Sunshine (Viking), their son, Nabil Ayers, recounts a life spent living with the aftermath of that decision, and his journey to build an identity of his own despite and in spite of his father’s absence. Growing up,…

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Bowen Blair in Conversation With Kevin Gorman

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

The 85-mile-long Columbia Gorge forms part of the border between Oregon and Washington and is one of the nation’s most historic and scenic landscapes. Many of the region’s cultural divisions boil over here — urban versus rural, west of the mountains versus east — as well as clashes over private property rights, management of public lands, and tribal treaty rights. In the early 1980s, as a new interstate bridge linked the City of Portland to rural counties in Washington, the Gorge’s renowned vistas were on the brink of destruction. Nancy Russell, 48 years old and with no experience in advocacy, fundraising, or politics, built a grassroots movement that overcame 70 years of failed efforts and bitter opposition from both Oregon and Washington governors, five of…

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Elizabeth Weinberg in Conversation With Chelsea Biondolillo

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

As wildfires char the American West, extreme weather transforms landscapes, glaciers retreat, and climate zones shift, we are undeniably experiencing the effects of the climate crisis in more and more destructive ways. Climate change is impacting every inhabited region of the world, but there is much we can still do. Unsettling (Broadleaf) explores human impacts on the environment through science, popular culture, personal narrative, and landscape. Using the stories of animals, landscapes, and people who have exhibited resilience in the face of persistent colonization across the North American continent, science writer Elizabeth Weinberg explores how climate change is a direct result of white supremacy, colonialism, sexism, and heteronormativity. Travel through the deep sea; along Louisiana's vanishing bayous; down the Colorado, Mississippi, and Potomac rivers; and…

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Amber Tamblyn in Conversation With Lidia Yuknavitch, Dr. Mindy Nettifee & Dr. Nicole Apelian

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

Edited by author, actress, and activist Amber Tamblyn, Listening in the Dark (Park Row) is an anthology on women’s intuition, with essays by Amy Poehler, Samantha Irby, Jia Tolentino, Jessica Valenti, US Poet Laureate Ada Limón, America Ferrera, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, and others. Have you ever had a feeling about something that you just couldn’t explain? Something that was telling you in your gut what decision to make, which direction to go in, or what to believe. Most women are taught from an early age to ignore their intuition in favor of making logical, evidence-based decisions. But what if that small voice or deeper knowing was your greatest power? In a time when women are revolutionizing politics, entertainment, healthcare, and other industries, it’s critical to…

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Russ Feingold & Peter Prindiville

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

Over the last two decades, a fringe plan to call a convention under the Constitution's amendment mechanism — the nation's first ever — has inched through statehouses. Delegates, like those in Philadelphia two centuries ago, would exercise nearly unlimited authority to draft changes to our fundamental law, potentially altering anything from voting and free speech rights to regulatory and foreign policy powers. Such a watershed moment would present great danger, and for some, great power. In their important new book, The Constitution in Jeopardy (PublicAffairs), former U. S. Senator Russ Feingold and legal scholar Peter Prindiville distill extensive legal and historical research and examine the grave risks inherent in this effort. But they also consider the role of constitutional amendment in modern life. Though many…

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Notes and Motes: Poetry and Jazz

Rose City Book Pub 1329 NE Fremont, Portland, OR, United States

Rose City Book Pub is more than thrilled to host Notes and Motes: Improvised Jazz with Surreal Poetry on August 29th at 7:30 pm. Swing on by to catch some freeform tunes and listen to some poetry with an edge. Notes and Motes: The Vlatkovich Trio Plus One Michael Vlatkovich – trombone Chris Lee – percussion Shao Way Wu – bass Casey Bush – poetry Michael Vlatkovich has produced over 20 CDs as band leader and composer. He has collaborated with musicians, poets, and conceptual artists. He is an emotionally charged performer expressing raw power and beauty in a minimally structured format. He has worked with many poets including Lisa Gill, Dottie Grossman, Anna Holmer, Chuck Britt, Bill Roper and Mark Weber. Vlatkovich holds duel…

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Chelsey Luger & Thosh Collins in Conversation With Sam McCracken

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

When wellness teachers and husband-wife duo Chelsey Luger and Thosh Collins founded their Indigenous wellness initiative, Well for Culture, they extended an invitation to all to honor their whole self through Native wellness philosophies and practices. In reclaiming this ancient wisdom for health and wellbeing — drawing from traditions spanning multiple tribes — they developed the Seven Circles, a holistic model for modern living rooted in timeless teachings from their ancestors. Luger and Collins have introduced this universally adaptable template for living well to Ivy league universities and corporations like Nike, Adidas, and Google, and now make it available to everyone in their wise guide. In The Seven Circles (HarperOne), Luger and Collins share intimate stories from their life journeys growing up in tribal communities,…

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Katherine Dunn Tribute Event with Naomi Huffman & Lydia Kiesling

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

Toad (MCD) is a previously unpublished novel of the reflections of a deeply scarred and reclusive woman, from cult icon Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love. Sally Gunnar has been in love, has been mad, has been an agent of destruction, has been spurned; and now she has retreated from the world. She lives in isolation in her small house, where her only companions are a vase of goldfish, a garden toad, and the door-to-door salesman who sells her cleaning supplies once a month. From her comfortable perch, she broods over her deepest regrets: her wayward, weed-hazy college days; her blighted romance with a scornful poet; a tragically comic accident involving a paper cutter; a suicide attempt; and her decision to ultimately relinquish a conventional…

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