Lists
by Rhianna Walton, August 14, 2020 10:18 AM
Romance novels, despite their reputation for bursting bosoms and throbbing manhoods, are uniquely suited for helping us through periods of despair. The most recent books in the genre are concerned with really difficult issues — mental illness, disability, misogyny, race, gender and sexual identity — and host a diverse range of characters who have to navigate social and personal roadblocks to find the kind of happiness that one passionate kiss alone can’t provide.
The results are enthralling stories with complex characters and a cathartic fusion of real-life issues and fantasy sex. Do yourself a favor this week and give in to the pleasure of stories where hard things are overcome, in more ways than one. We’ve got nine to get your started...
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Lists
by Rhianna Walton, August 7, 2020 9:23 AM
We get it: There are just days (weeks, years?) when it’s hard to concentrate on reading. But before you reach for Twitter or your remote, try shaking up your reading routine with something new. Do you usually read serious histories? Try a memoir. Like literature? Open a romance novel. Or go really crazy and create a birth chart, read a cookbook, get crafty, or start a daily storytime tradition with a beloved classic. There’s no right way to read, and — despite what people (sometimes us) will tell you — no universal required reading list. Read what makes you happy and you’ll be piling up the books in no time.
Here are six eclectic staff favorites to get you started...
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Lists
by Rhianna Walton, August 4, 2020 9:14 AM
Hammock, easy chair, overstuffed couch, unmade bed, extremely large house pet: settle into your favorite reading spot and explore the world from home with our nonfiction-fiction pairings.
For geography fans, young and old
Atlas Obscura, Second Edition
by Joshua Foer, Ella Morton, and Dylan Thuras
You could start by pulling out the Atlas Obscura dream road trip map and fantasy traveling your way across the world’s most mysterious, beautiful, and hidden locations, or simply thumb through the book until one of the pictures grabs you (with underwater villages, boiling rivers, floating gardens, and giant Peruvian mummies, there’s a lot to be grabbed by...
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Lists
by Kim Johnson, July 27, 2020 4:49 PM
As America undergoes a reckoning with the legacy of racism, the call for justice has rung for over 400 years. It’s a call that has stirred me since my first awakening as a young teen activist searching for ways to make progress on social justice. While writing This Is My America, I was determined to pull back the layers that the Black Lives Matter movement elevated into American consciousness after the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman. While the media focused on police brutality caught on tape, I wanted my novel to diagnose it as a symptom of a much larger problem by addressing the systemic issues that plague our criminal justice system. In addition, dispel the myth that acts of white supremacy are not just white cloaks in organizations of terror, but engrained in the DNA of our country — the untended roots of racism at our core. At my novel’s release, never did I imagine it would be during a time our country was in its rawest form of grappling with its history...
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Lists
by Rhianna Walton, July 22, 2020 8:44 AM
Sunny weather and blue skies are beckoning us out of doors. While we need to take extra precautions this summer, that's no reason not to give yourself a well-deserved break from work, childcare, and worry by exploring the gorgeous forests, beaches, and neighborhood parks of the PNW. Whether you seek mountain adventure or patio bird-watching, the seven books below will help you get outside.
Moon Pacific Northwest Hiking
by Craig Hill and Matt Wastradowski
From the casual hiker to the serious explorer, the user-friendly Moon Pacific Northwest Hiking guide offers a great selection of trails in Oregon and Washington, organized by length, difficulty, location, and features like waterfalls or wildflowers. There are even some city hikes for Portlanders leery of straying too far from home this summer, but who still want to experience the city from a slight remove. The tips for places to snack and grab a beer after your hike aren’t as useful right now, but isn’t wonderful to fantasize about the future time when a long hike will once again be capped with a cold drink and a burger...
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Original Essays
by Rhianna Walton, July 17, 2020 9:41 AM
Something remarkable is happening. In the chaotic churn of COVID-19, an election year, and the Black Lives Matter movement, more people than ever are buying books online from local and independent bookstores. In March, our customers amazed us with a mountain of orders, and their continued support is helping us stay open. Every day, our hearts are filled to bursting with gratitude, while our minds and bodies are occupied with getting packages out of the door as quickly as possible.
It’s this last part — moving books from here to there — that poses the biggest challenges for indie bookstores, and small businesses in general, in a pandemic economy defined by e-commerce...
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Interviews
by Rhianna Walton, July 16, 2020 3:58 PM
Acclaimed novelist Gail Tsukiyama’s latest novel, The Color of Air, transports the reader to the verdant rain forests and smoldering lava beds of Hawai‘i in the early 20th century. Centering on the Japanese American immigrant community of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, The Color of Air takes an intimate look at how a diverse group of individuals navigate backbreaking work on the sugar plantations, institutionalized racism and segregation, illness, heartbreak, and natural disasters by forming an extended family deeply tied to one another and to the land. Kirkus writes, “Well-paced and lush, this is a captivating historical novel that shows the power of love and human resilience.” It was a pleasure to speak with Gail Tsukiyama about The Color of Air, Hawai‘i, and her approach to craft...
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Original Essays
by Asako Serizawa, July 13, 2020 10:23 AM
When one thinks of historical fiction, one might think of the immersive experience of dropping into a different time and place replete with the sights and flavors of that world, but there are other kinds of fiction that grapple with the idea of history itself, where the details and experience can only come to the reader slivered, or shrouded, or fractured and dappled, everything, even the most intimate events, contingent on the limits of a particular perspective and, ultimately, the reticence and unreliability of human memory itself.
My paternal grandfather died three years ago, following his 100th birthday. My last remaining grandparent, he was in good health, mobile and relaxed, savoring the mundane pleasures of everyday life...
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Lists
by Powell's Books, July 8, 2020 10:31 AM
There’s something magical about watching a world you loved on the page materialize onscreen.
Here are some of our favorite page-to-screen adaptations for all ages and tastes. Some are guilty pleasures, others genuinely good television, and all are worth watching this summer.
FAMILY-FRIENDLY:
A Series of Unfortunate Events
by Lemony Snicket
Skip the Jim Carrey movie and dive straight into the fantastic Neil Patrick Harris series on Netflix. Just as macabre and ridiculous as the book series, Harris’s vainglorious Count Olaf and his gang of hapless thespians hound the three charming Baudelaire orphans...
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Lists
by Rhianna Walton, July 2, 2020 4:58 PM
It would take an exceedingly hardened patriot to feel celebratory this July 4. There’s so much evidence of how broken America is — our justice system, our healthcare system, certain politicians’ mental functioning — that it’s hard to whoop it up, mask or no.
So maybe instead of celebration, introspection. The following books won’t restore anyone’s flagging faith in our country, but no American history book worth its salt would do that anyway. What the books below do, splendidly, is expand the reader’s understanding of what and whom American history contains, and to whom it belongs. They remind us that patriotism is simply love of country, and love — strong, lasting love — requires questioning, listening, growth, change, contrition, and reparation...
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