Grass Roots Books and Music — 227 SW 2nd Street, Corvallis OR 97339 — 541-754-7668
January 23, 2014
Contents
Newest Books
New in Paperback
Featured Books for Young Readers
Music
Events
News
This Week's Puzzle
Reading Group Selection
On Our Nightstands
Grass Roots Online — Contact Us
 
Newest Books

The Crane Wife

Patrick Ness

Divorced and lonely ex-pat George lives a quiet and polite life in London; too polite, because every woman he is in a relationship with eventually leaves him for being too nice. One night he is astonished to find a great white crane in his backyard, its wing pierced by an arrow. George struggles to remove the arrow, saving the bird�s life before it flies away into the night sky. The next day the beautiful and mysterious Kumiko enters his print shop, asking for his assistance with her artwork. Falling desperately in love with her, George is certain she can change his whole life, if only he can get her to reveal the secret of who she is.

Hardcover, $26.95

Publisher: Penguin Press; ISBN: 9781594205477

I'll Take You There: Mavis Staples, the Staple Singers, and the March Up Freedom's Highway

Greg Kot

�Never forgetting their down-home southern roots even as musical styles changed, the Staple Singers for decades maintained an integrity that strongly appealed to fans and musicians. Music journalist Kot chronicles the amazing story of a family that went from a hardscrabble life in Mississippi to Chicago's church circuit to worldwide fame, merging the genres of roots, gospel, and soul. . . This is a moving tribute to a very talented family and one gracious woman, in particular.� �Booklist Starred Review

Hardcover, $26.00

Publisher: Scribner Book Company; ISBN: 9781451647853

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The Wind Is Not a River

Brian Payton

�Still grieving the loss of his brother who went down with his plane over the English Channel, journalist John Easley, determined to make sense of the war, dons his brother's uniform and heads to the territory of Alaska where he hopes to document the Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands. While John is accompanying a crew on a bombing run, his plane is downed over the island of Attu. He and one other survivor of the crash endure a desperate struggle to survive the cold and hunger while evading patrolling Japanese soldiers. Meanwhile John's wife, Helen, leaves her ailing father in Seattle and joins a USO show, hoping to make her way to Alaska to search for her husband.� �Library Journal Starred Review

Hardcover, $26.99

Publisher: Ecco Press; ISBN: 9780062279972

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Spirit Rising: My Life, My Music

Angelique Kidjo

Spirit Rising brings to life the woman behind the music that has captured audiences around the world. From Benin, West Africa, to Paris and the United States, Kidjo always had one goal in mind: to do what she wanted to do with her life�sing�for �when you feel the music, you forget your worries and discover truths about yourself.� Rich in details about life as a black woman trying to make it as a singer, Kidjo's memoir pays homage to the many musicians she's performed and recorded with. . . . Interspersed with color photographs and reflections on the evolution of her albums and live concert hall performances, Spirit Rising delights readers with details of Kidjo's family life.� �Shelf Awareness

Hardcover, $27.99

Publisher: Harperdesign; ISBN: 9780062071798

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New in Paperback

A Well-Tempered Heart

Jan-Philipp Sendker

In the sequel to The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, almost ten years have passed since Julia Win returned from Burma, her father's native country. Though she is a successful Manhattan lawyer, her private life is at a crossroads; her boyfriend has recently left her and she is, despite her wealth, unhappy with her professional life. One day, she hears a stranger's voice in her head that causes her to leave the office without explanation. In the following days, her crisis only deepens; not only does the female voice refuse to disappear, but it starts to ask questions Julia has been trying to avoid.

Paperback, $15.95

Publisher: Other Press; ISBN: 9781590516409

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The Shining Girls

Lauren Beukes

�In 1930s Chicago Harper Curtis discovers a key to a house that is a time-travel portal. He finds and tracks young girls who �shine� in his eyes through different eras, killing them as they develop into young women. He uses this fantastic ability as a means of extending and titillating his inner demons. Unknown to him, his victim in 1989, Kirby Mazrachi, survives his vicious attack. As she works to find the identity of her assailant, she tracks down clues to other killings and realizes a serial killer is at work.� �Library Journal

Paperback, $16.00

Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little Brown and Company; ISBN: 9780316216869

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The Beauty of Ordinary Things

Harriet Scott Chessman

Back from a tour of duty in Vietnam, Benny Finn, eldest son in a large Irish-American family, strives to find his bearings amid the everyday life of 1973 New England. At a Benedictine abbey in rural New Hampshire, Sister Clare, a young novice, confronts the day-to-day realities of a cloistered existence. Linking these two is Isabel Howell, a college student soon to discover that she must chart the course of her own life in a way she could not have imagined. These three lives are quietly folded together, each person forgiving and needing the others.

Paperback, $13.95

Publisher: Atelier26; ISBN: 9780989302319

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Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

Maria Konnikova

�Readers who esteem Sherlock Holmes as superhuman will be pleasantly surprised by Konnikova's first book, wherein the Scientific American columnist makes good on her premise that the average person can indeed train his or her mind to emulate the thinking style of the iconic fictional sleuth. . . Starting with Holmes's concept of the �brain attic,� where care is taken to maximize the use of limited space, Konnikova uses illustrative examples from the original stories to make her points, along the way correcting several misconceptions, pointing out where Holmes went astray, and highlighting his reliance on curiosity and the imagination. . . . Not for Baker Street Irregulars alone, this fascinating look at how the mind works replete with real-life case studies and engaging thought experiments will be an eye-opening education for many.� �Publishers Weekly Starred Review

Paperback, $16.00

Publisher: Penguin Books; ISBN: 9780143124344

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things

Paula Byrne

Paula Byrne offers an original look at the life of Jane Austen through a variety of key moments, scenes, and objects in her life and work. Exploring the lives of Austen's extended family, friends, and acquaintances, readers view Austen on a much wider stage and discover unexpected aspects of her life and character. As Byrne reveals, small things in the writer's world�a scrap of paper, a simple gold chain, an ivory miniature, a bathing machine�hold significance in her emotional and artistic development.

Paperback, $16.00

Publisher: Harper Perennial; ISBN: 9780061999109

 
Music

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Hard Working Americans

Hard Working Americans

Genre: Pop/Folk

This Americana supergroup is convened by Todd Snider, who is joined by Dave Schools from Widespread Panic, as well as members of the Trucks family, Great American Taxi, The Cardinals and more. Full of carefully chosen covers, the band rocks harder than Snider's solo work, allowing space for blazing blues and some prime soloing. ($14.95)

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Mollie O'Brien and Rich Moore

Love Runner

Genre: Pop/Folk

Tim O'Brien's sister has always been a talent in her own right. These days, Mollie records with her husband, multi-instrumentalist Rich Moore. On a mix of originals and covers, the duo pay visits to folk, jazz, blues, and bluegrass territory. ($13.95)

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Reverend Horton Heat

REV

Genre: Pop/Folk

This new record marks The Rev's 25th anniversary as an uncompromisingly original recording artist. With his small group, he blends rockabilly, country, and punk into a garage rock frenzy. ($13.95)


Although we specialize in new releases, Grass Roots can usually get you any album that's still available.

 

 

Ask at the the store!

 
Events

Thursday, Jan. 30 at 7 p.m.

Grass Roots Books & Music

227 SW 2nd Street, Corvallis

Ann Staley

Instructions for the Wishing Light

Join us at Grass Roots to celebrate the release of local poet Ann Staley's second collection, Instructions for the Wishing Light.

Ann Staley�s second collection features 89 poems will lead the reader inching toward spring blooming with the violets and the daffodils and arriving in the promise of a green season. These Northwest poems move steadily like the beating of one's heart, run deep, inspire, and illuminate a life lived to the fullest. U-turns, tangents, asides, monologues, second-guesses and conversations with the dead and missing - Ann Staley holds nothing in ransom. Indeed, you may find yourself simultaneously flinching and applauding. At the conclusion you will trust the words you have read and the woman who wrote them.

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Community Events

Community Events

Darkside Cinema: Movies showing Jan. 24 to 30, showtimes daily, Darkside Cinema, Corvallis. Visit their website for showtimes.

  • All Is Lost �PG-13: After a collision with a shipping container at sea, a resourceful sailor finds himself, despite all efforts to the contrary, staring his mortality in the face. Robert Redford.
  • Invisible Woman �R: The soundtrack is irresistible, the cast is enthralling and the passions are universal. Flemish and English.
  • The Great Beauty �NR: BEST FOREIGN FILM OSCAR NOM. Golden Globe Best Foreign Film of 2013.
  • 12 Years A Slave �R: BEST PICTURE OSCAR NOM. Golden Globe WINNER Best Picture of 2013.

Opportunities:

  • Academy for Lifelong Learning welcomes Oregon poet laureate Paulann Petersen, �Anyone�s Domain: Everyday Life of Poetry�: Thursday, Feb. 20 at 1:30 p.m.
    First Congregational Church, 4515 SW West Hills Rd., Corvallis. Paulann Petersen was appointed as Oregon�s sixth poet laureate by Gov. Kulongoski for a two-year term and renewed by Gov. Kitzhaber. She queries, �Is poetry the domain of just a few, and the realm of the select, the elect?� Petersen resounds a fervent no! Poetry is as near and accessible as our own breath and heartbeat. She will be reading an array of her penned poems and divulging duties as Oregon�s poet laureate. Petersen will reveal the everyday life of poetry in locales ranging from the Caledonian Games in Athena, to Ione�s one-building K-12 Community School. Please join her to find out the active life of poetry in our state capitol�s legislative sessions and in the dedication of Oregon�s newest state park. Academy for Lifelong Learning is a program of the OSU Alumni Association, though membership is open to everyone. There is no charge to a sampling a class, and pre-registration is not required. For more information, please visit the ALL website.

Ticket Sales: Grass Roots sells tickets for local music events. Please call or stop by the store to see what's currently available.

Friday, Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m.

Valley Library Rotunda

OSU, Corvallis

Visiting Writers Series presents Gary Young

The Visiting Writers Series is sponsored by the OSU MFA Program.

Gary Young is a poet and artist whose honors include grants from the NEH, the California Arts Council, and two fellowship grants from the NEA. He�s received a Pushcart Prize, and his book, The Dream of a Moral Life, won the James D. Phelan Award. He is the author of Hands, Days, Braver Deeds, (Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize), No Other Life, (William Carlos Williams Award), Pleasure, and Even So: New and Selected Poems. His print work is represented in collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum and The Getty Center for the Arts. In 2009 he received the Shelley Memorial Award from the PSA. He teaches creative writing, and directs the Cowell Press at UC Santa Cruz.

The event is free and open to the public and followed by a Q & A and book-signing. Books will be available to purchase from Grass Roots Books & Music.

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Saturday, Feb. 8

LaSells Stewart Center

OSU, Corvallis

Insights into Gardening

This event is sponsored by the Benton County Master Gardeners Association and Oregon State University Extension Service.

Insights into Gardening is a day-long seminar offering practical, hands-on learning for home gardeners and gardeners-to-be. Whether you are an experienced or novice gardener, new to the area or an Oregon native, you will find plenty of ideas to make your gardening easier, more enjoyable and more successful. Please visit the Insight into Gardening website for registration information.

Books recommended by event speakers and general gardening books will be available to purchase from Grass Roots Books & Music. Discounts are available on select items. The onsite bookstore will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

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Feb. 14 & 15

LaSells Stewart Center

OSU, Corvallis

Spring Creek Project Winter Symposium: Transformation without Apocalypse: How to Live Well on an Altered Planet

This event is sponsored by the Spring Creek Project. Featuring Tim DeChristopher, Ursula K. LeGuin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kathleen Dean Moore, Rob Nixon and other speakers. Please visit the Spring Creek Project website for more information.

Humans will be living differently in the very near future, perhaps occasioned by catastrophes brought on by overpowering forces of greed and climatic disintegration. But it�s also conceivable that we will choose, by acts of imagination and collective will, to create new narratives of how to inhabit the planet. This will require a radical re-imagining of who we are in relation to the world and how we ought to live. We have to be doing everything possible to end dependence on fossil fuels, stop the privatization of water, seeds, and the very atmosphere, and arrest climate chaos. But that work will fare better if we have tangible visions of new / old ways to live that promise thriving without exhausting the Earth. This symposium will engage the essential experiment, testing a different sets of ideas about how to live on Earth.

Books will be available to purchase from Grass Roots Books & Music.

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Saturday, Feb. 22

LaSells Stewart Center

OSU, Corvallis

Oregon Small Farms Conference

This daylong event is geared toward farmers, agriculture professionals, food policy advocates, students and managers of farmers markets. Twenty-four sessions will be offered on a variety of topics relevant to the Oregon small farmers. This year there will be a session track in Spanish. Speakers will include farmers, Oregon State University Extension faculty, agribusiness, and more. For more information and to register, please visit the Small Farms website.

Books will be available to purchase from Grass Roots Books & Music.

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News

Best Books of 2013

Voracious readers we may all be, but is it possible there was something truely great published in 2013 that you may have missed? Is it possible you've read through all of the books you received for Christmas and you want MORE? Our website has an amazing array of recommended and Best Books to inspire your reading list. Check out Staff Favorites, and the Best Books of 2013 from NPR, Publishers Weekly, and the New York Times Book Review. Happy reading!

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who purchased books to donate to the SMART program in our fourth annual Book Drive. This year's focus on paperbacks will put books into the hands of 72 young readers to begin their home libraries. To discover other ways you can support the SMART program, please visit their website. Thank you for sharing your love of reading!

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This Week's Puzzle



Solve this week's jigsaw.
 
Reading Group Selection

Tuesday, Feb. 4, 6:30 to 8 p.m.

The Obituary Writer

Ann Hood

Ne� leads the February Reading Group discussion of The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood, a sophisticated and suspenseful novel about the poignant lives of two women living in different eras.

On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, an uncompromising young wife and mother obsessed with the glamour of Jackie O, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a loveless marriage or follow the man she loves and whose baby she may be carrying. Decades earlier, in 1919, Vivien Lowe, an obituary writer, is searching for her lover who disappeared in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. By telling the stories of the dead, Vivien not only helps others cope with their grief but also begins to understand the devastation of her own terrible loss. The surprising connection between Claire and Vivien will change the life of one of them in unexpected and extraordinary ways.

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

ISBN: 9780393346770

Paperback

Regular price: $15.95

On sale for $13.56 until Feb. 4.

 

 

On Our Nightstands

Linda

A History of the World in Twelve Maps

Jerry Brotton

This beautiful book is a wonderful history of maps of the world, from the very earliest stone map discovered in Sippar, Iraq from around 700-500 BC, to the stunning images of today that are captured in Google Earth. Extensively researched, this fascinating and informative book is excellently accompanied by glossy photos and precise illustrations. The book follows history, and how mankind sees the physical world, as it reads from map to map.

Hardcover, $40.00

Publisher: Viking Books; ISBN: 9780670023394

10 Ne�

Fix-It and Forget-It New Cookbook: 250 New Delicious Slow Cooker Recipes!

Phyllis Good

I�ve been slow cooking up a storm and was excited to find this cookbook! It had the classics I hoped to find (stews, roasts, etc.) but also dishes I didn�t know could be make in a slow cooker (apple pie, peanut butter cake, and omelets). It�s packed with useful tips, substitution suggestions, and colored photos of nearly all the recipes. There�s even a �Quick and Easy� index that directs you to the recipes that take 10 minutes or less to prep. I�ve also found that many of the recipes work well as freezer-to-slow cooker meals, so now you can have healthy homemade meals right out of the freezer!

Paperback, $19.95

Publisher: Good Books; ISBN: 9781561488001

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Adam

Journey

Aaron Becker

Journey, by Aaron Becker, has no words, but don't let that fool you. It still tells a detailed and uplifting story of a lonely little girl, ignored by her family, as she explores her own imagination. With the help of a simple red marker, she ultimately finds exactly what she is longing for. Personally, I could stare at its exquisitely detailed, full-page watercolors for hours. The book goes home with everyone I show it to,and, unsurprisingly, Journey was named one of the best Children's Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review.

Hardcover, $15.99

Publisher: Candlewick Press; ISBN: 9780763660536

 
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