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Grass Roots Books and Music
— 227 SW 2nd Street, Corvallis OR 97339 — 541-754-7668 |
| April 10, 2014 |
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Hello! Wow, look at that sun and all those tulips. Makes me think that spring is turning over a new and optimistic leaf. Speaking of which, we have tons of new books in our New Hardbacks section, excellent music, aaaand very exciting events. There are updates for World Book Night, a Community Poetry Reading, and author events to prepare for. Not to mention: CHUKAR CHERRIES discount!
Read on fellow Grass Rooters,
Jenny |
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| Newest Books |
The Plover
Brian Doyle
A compelling, marvelous novel by the acclaimed author of Mink River, Declan O'Donnell has left Oregon aboard his boat, the Plover, to escape the life that's so troubled him on land. He sets course west into the Pacific in search of solitude. Instead, he finds a crew, each in search of something themselves, and what at first seems a lonely sea voyage becomes a rapturous, heartfelt celebration of life's surprising paths, planned and unplanned.
Hardcover, $24.99
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; ISBN: 9781250034779 |
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Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Barbara Ehrenreich
"Based on a notebook she started when she was 14 after a series of puzzling 'dissociative episodes that verged on the mystical, Ehrenreich, best-known for her polemics on issues of social justice (Bright-Eyed; Bait and Switch), fashions an intensely engrossing study of her early quest for 'cosmic knowledge'. . . Smart in math and science, non-believing and obedient to her father's instruction to ask always why, Ehrenreich was resolved not to turn out like her [alcoholic] mother, yet she could not quite be the scientist of her father's dreams because she was a girl; the out-of-body incidences when 'the trees step out of the forest' were more exhausting than frightening, but kept goading her to delve deeper into mortality and meaning. . . " -from Publisher's Weekly
Hardcover, $26.00
Publisher: Twelve ISBN: 9781455501762 |
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In Paradise
Peter Matthiessen
From the two-time National Book Award winning author of The Snow Leopard and Shadow Country, a short, powerful novel about an American professor of Holocaust Studies who, over the course of a weeklong spiritual retreat at Auschwitz, is forced to grapple with his own past and a family secret: the Jewish mother abandoned to her doom by his Gentile father.
Hardcover, $27.95
Publisher: Riverhead Books; ISBN: 9781594633171 |
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The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration
Bernd Heinrich
"Naturalist Heinrich (Life Everlasting, 2012) returns with another richly crafted title that immerses readers in the wild world. In this outing he focuses on the mysteries of migration and the homing instinct while also delving into the personal story of his own Maine home. From such expected migrators as birds and butterflies to moths, eels, and grasshoppers, Heinrich's elegant passages (with line drawings) wander in and out of discussions on long travels, dwelling construction (bees are primary players), and home crashers, which include bed bugs and other pests. His trademark wit and self-deprecating humor are evident throughout, especially in a delightful chapter highlighting the intricate web building and preservation of a spider he rightfully dubs Charlotte. . . " -from Booklist
Hardcover, $27.00
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; ISBN: 9780547198484 |
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A Poet's Glossary
Edward Hirsch
"A glossary is useful, welcome, sometimes fun, but rarely, if ever, a catalyst for astonishment. Leave it to revered poet, poetry apostle, and glossator extraordinaire Hirsch (The Living Fire, 2010) to turn this humble resource into a vibrant, polyglot, world-circling, century-spanning, mind-expanding work of profound scholarship and literary art. . . Lush with poem excerpts and poet profiles, the longer entries on such subjects as the epic and free verse possess the contextual richness and narrative drive of master lectures, while the more concise definitions are models of clarification. The result is a uniquely vital, cogent, conversational, and inclusive inquiry into the craft, philosophical concerns, and emotional intensity that gave rise to oral and written traditions, diverse movements, and many small devices and large mysteries." -from Booklist, Starred Review
Hardcover, $30.00
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; ISBN: 9780151011957 |
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| New in Paperback |
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Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Katherine Boo
"While the distance between rich and poor is growing in the U.S., the gap between the haves and have-nots in India is staggering to behold. This first book by a New Yorker staff writer (and Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter for the Washington Post) jolts the reader's consciousness with the opposing realities of poverty and wealth in a searing visit to the Annawaldi settlement, a flimflam slum that has recently sprung up in the western suburbs of the gigantic city of Mumbai, perched tentatively along the modern highway leading to the airport and almost within a stone's throw of new, luxurious hotels. . . Boo takes us all around the community, introducing us to a slew of disadvantaged individuals. . . " -from Booklist
Paperback, $16.00
Publisher: Random House Trade; ISBN: 9780812979329 |
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A Guide for the Perplexed
Dara Horn
Josie Ashkenazi has invented a software application that records everything its users do. When an Egyptian library invites her to visit as a consultant, her jealous sister Judith persuades her to go. But in Egypt's post-revolutionary chaos, Josie is abducted—leaving Judith free to take over Josie's life at home, including her husband and daughter. A century earlier, another traveler arrives in Egypt: Solomon Schechter, a Cambridge professor hunting for an archive hidden in a Cairo synagogue. Both he and Josie are haunted by the work of the medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides. What Schechter finds will reveal the power and perils of what Josie's work brings into being: a world where nothing is ever forgotten.
Paperback, $14.95
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 9780393348880 |
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The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast
Bonnie Henderson
Watching the horrific devastation of tsunamis in Southeast Asia, Chile, and Japan, it is easy to forget that the same outcome is possible along the coast of America's Pacific Northwest. Henderson redresses this omission, focusing on Oregon's swath of the Ring of Fire, that Pacific belt responsible for 90% of the world's earthquakes. She begins with a tsunami that hit Seaside, Ore., in 1964, and follows the career of Tom Horning, then a boy in Seaside, whose life is interwoven with the story of the scientific realization that the Earth's crust is made up of moving plates, something still hotly debated 50 years ago. . . " -from Publisher's Weekly
Paperback, $19.95
Publisher: 9780870717321; ISBN: 9780870717321 |
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The View from Penthouse B
Elinor Lipman
Two sisters recover from widowhood, divorce, and Bernie Madoff as unexpected roommates in a Manhattan apartment. Unexpectedly widowed Gwen-Laura Schmidt is still mourning her husband, Edwin, when her older sister Margot invites her to join forces as roommates in Margot's luxurious Village apartment. For Margot, divorced amid scandal (hint: her husband was a fertility doctor) and then made Ponzi-poor, it's a chance to shake Gwen out of her grief and help make ends meet. To further this effort she enlists a third boarder, the handsome, cupcake-baking Anthony.
Paperback, $14.95 US
Publisher: Mariner Books; ISBN: 9780544228078 |
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Burial Rites
Hannah Kent
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Toti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.
Paperback, $15.00
Publisher: Back Bay Books; ISBN: 9780316243926 |
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| Featured Books for Young Readers |
The Pigeon Needs a Bath!
Mo Willems
Ages 4 to 8
"The pigeon is back, and he is filthy! Readers haven't seen the pigeon for a couple of years, not since The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? (2012), and apparently he hasn't bathed in all that time. . . Though he's covered in grime, the obstreperous bird predictably resists. . . He glares at readers and suggests that maybe they need baths. With the turn of the page, Willems anticipates readers' energetic denials: The pigeon demands, 'YEAH! When was the last time YOU had a bath?!'. . . All the elements are in place, including page backgrounds that modulate from dirty browns to fresh, clean colors and endpapers that bookend the story. . . " -from Kirkus Reviews
Hardcover, $16.99
Publisher: Disney Press; ISBN: 9781423190875 |
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The Fault in Our Stars
John Green
Young Adult
"At 16, Hazel Grace Lancaster, a three-year stage IV cancer survivor, is clinically depressed. To help her deal with this, her doctor sends her to a weekly support group where she meets Augustus Waters, a fellow cancer survivor, and the two fall in love. Both kids are preternaturally intelligent, and Hazel is fascinated with a novel about cancer called An Imperial Affliction. Most particularly, she longs to know what happened to its characters after an ambiguous ending. To find out, the enterprising Augustus makes it possible for them to travel to Amsterdam, where Imperial's author, an expatriate American, lives. What happens when they meet him must be left to readers to discover. . . " -from Booklist, Starred Review
Hardcover, $12.99
Publisher: Speak; ISBN: 9780147513731 |
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| Music |
Carlene Carter
Carter Girl
Genre: Pop/Folk
Carter Girl marks only her second record since 1995, and her first since 2008. The songs are a mix of covers and originals, harkening back to the singer's connections to the legendary Carter Family.
($16.95) |
Emmylou Harris
Wrecking Ball Deluxe Edition
Genre: Pop/Folk
Released in 1995, Wrecking Ball sparked a career resurgence for Harris and producer Daniel Lanois. This Deluxe Edition contains the remastered original, as well as a CD of rarities and a DVD regarding the making of the record.
($26.95) |
Joan Osborne
Love & Hate
Genre: Pop/Folk
Osborne has covered a good deal of musical territory during her career. Her new album focuses on a mix of roots rock and smooth-edged R&B.
($17.95) |
Linda Ronstadt
Duets
Genre: Pop/Folk
On the heels of her celebrated biography, Ronstadt revisits a handful of collaboration from throughout her career. Featured on this compilation are duets with James Taylor, Aaron Neville, Dolly Parton, and more.
($11.95) |
Leon Russell
Life Journey
Genre: Pop/Folk
Russell's first recording was released in 1968. Life Journey looks back on a long lifetime of music, finding the distinctive singer covering his favorite tunes such as "Georgia On My Mind" and "New York State of Mind."
($13.95) |
Peter Mulvey
Silver Ladder
Genre: Pop/Folk
Mulvey is a singer-songwriter in the contemporary folk tradition. His new record is produced by roots rocker Chuck Prophet, and features a more upbeat, crunchy range of sound.
($16.95) |
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| Events |
Thursday, April 10, 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St., Corvallis |
Tim Paulson
Gentle Savage Still Seeking the End of the Spear
The saga of the Waorani has not ended. The great River Curaray, which bathes its lands in the Ecuadorian Amazon, feeds its people, transports its canoes, and conceals its history, then follows its winding course all the way to the sea, so that those who have died and were left on its beaches may rise up as story teller for us who remain. Gentle Savage is a tribute to the oral traditions of a people who did not know how to forgive, but along their pathway learned to do so. This remarkable narration is a rustic song that emerges out of indigenous culture with all the voices of liberty that our own moral censure does not know how to fully appreciate.
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Tuesday, April 15, 4:30-6:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St., Corvallis |
World Book Night Giver Reception (and extra boxes)
As you (hopefully) know by now, World Book Night is fast approaching. Here's the skinny: Grass Roots will host a Book Giver Reception on Tuesday, April 15 from 4:30-6:00 p.m. This is a chance for you to meet and mingle with your fellow Book Givers and pick up your box. World Book Night will take place in the evening of April 23, Shakespeare's birthday! We do hope to host another event after the books are given out around the community, and we will have more information on that soon.
ALSO, BREAKING NEWS: Grass Roots has a few extra Giver boxes on our hands. If you happened to miss the official registration for this exciting event, and you'd like to get involved this year, you can call (541-754-7668), drop by the store, or shoot us an email (grootsreads@gmail.com) requesting a box. State your interest, and we will let you know if any boxes remain. This will be a first-come-first-serve kind of deal, so get in touch if you have the itch! You know where to find us. |
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Wednesday, April 30, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St., Corvallis |
Third Annual Community Poetry Night
Celebrate National Poetry Month with Grass Roots during an Open Mic event in the bookstore. Local poets and poetry fans are invited to read their own work, or a favorite poem by someone else. Everyone is welcome to sit back and enjoy the variety of talent without reading. Participants will be asked to sign up before the event, but everyone is welcome to read, time permitting. Please plan on limiting your reading to 5 minutes. To register, please stop by Grass Roots Books & Music, call at 541-754-7668, or send an email to grootsreads@gmail.com.
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Upcoming Events
We have many more events coming up in the next few months! For a complete list of all of our upcoming events, please visit our website. |
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| Community Events |
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Community Events
Darkside Cinema: Movies showing 4/11 to 4/17, showtimes daily, Darkside Cinema, Corvallis. Visit their website for showtimes.
- The Face Of Love–Pg-13 Five years after the death of her beloved husband Garrett (Ed Harris), Nikki (Annette Bening) meets a man who seems his exact duplicate. The Face of Love is a serious look at grief and finding romance after losing the person most important to you.
- The Unknown Known–Pg-13 A gripping exploration of the career and philosophy of former U.S Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. A worthy addition to Morris's body of work, an epic search that demonstrates the limits of language, the ease of sidestepping truth.
- Philomena—Pg-13 Equal parts uplifting tearjerker, odd-couple comedy, and righteous screed against abuse of power in the name of religion. Judi Dench.
Literary Events:
- OSU MFA Reading Series 7:30 p.m., April 17, 2014 at New Morning Bakery, Corvallis, featuring Yaakov Schwartz, Kerry Hill, Jesse Johnson, and Dahlia Seroussi.
Opportunities:
- Spring Creek's sister organization, the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska is opening registration for their summer symposium "Radical Imagining: Changing the Story with Stories of Change" taking place July 18-25. The event will feature guest faculty Winona LaDuke, Alan Weisman, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Molly Sturges. You can find more details at their website here.
- Writers on the River Playing with Poetry Forms, presented by Linda Varsell Smith Monday, April 21, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Dennis Hall at the First Presbyterian Church, 114 SW 8th St., Corvallis, OR 97333
Using a free handbook and PowerPoint, we will play with new and favorite rhymed and unrhymed poetry patterns. Suggestions for further poetic word-play.
Linda Varsell Smith has published 8 poetry books–two books on free-access websites on forms. She taught poetry and creative writing at LBCC and was the Calyx editor for 31 years. Former president of Oregon Poetry Association and current president of Portland PEN Women.
Ticket Sales: Grass Roots sells tickets for local music events. Please call or stop by the store to see what's currently available.
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Wed., April 16, 7:30 p.m.
121 The Valley Library
Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon |
Steve McQuiddy
Here on the Edge
Twenty years in the making and packed with original research, Steve McQuiddy’s Here on the Edge is the definitive history of the Fine Arts Group at Waldport during World War II, documenting how their pacifist actions resonated far beyond the borders of the camp. This reading will appeal to readers interested in peace studies, World War II history, influences on the 1960s generation, and in the rich social and cultural history of the West Coast.
Books will be available for purchase from Grass Roots Books & Music at this event. |
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Friday, April 18, 7:30 p.m.
121 The Valley Library
Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon |
Linda Hogan
A Chickasaw novelist, essayist, and environmentalist, Linda Hogan is the author of seven poetry collections including Seeing Through the Sun (1985), which won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, and The Book of Medicines, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (1993). Hogan’s collections of prose reflect her interests in the environment and Native American culture. Her books include the essay collection Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World (1995), The Woman Who Watches Over the World: A Native Memoir (2001), and, with Brenda Peterson, Sighting: The Gray Whales’ Mysterious Journey (2002). Hogan’s novels include Mean Spirit (1990), Solar Storms (1995), Power (1998), and People of the Whale: A Novel (2008). Active as an educator and speaker, Hogan taught at the University of Colorado and at the Indigenous Education Institute.
This event is sponsored by the Oregon State University School of Writing, Literature, and Film. Books will be available for purchase from Grass Roots Books & Music at this event. |
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Friday, April, 25 7:30 pm
121 The Valley Library
Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon |
Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of two novels, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. The recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Fellowship, she was named one of “20 Under 40” fiction writers by the New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the Graduate Writing Program at Otis College of Art and Design.
This event is sponsored by the Oregon State University School of Writing, Literature, and Film. Books will be available for purchase from Grass Roots Books & Music at this event.
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| News |
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Chukar Cherries Easter Sale!!!
Get a start on your Easter baskets this year with a fresh burst of chocolate-covered Washington cherries. We have a bounty of Chukar Cherries products in the store and would like to offer you a 25% discount on selected items. These sweets have the Easter Bunny's stamp of approval, after all, so Grass Roots wouldn't want you to miss out on something so festive and delicious. |
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Happy Earth Day!
Celebrate April 22nd this year by buying yourself an eco-themed book. Make it easy and drop by Grass Roots, where we've got a display going between the fiction section and our sand art. Learn what you can do to make a better earth by picking up a copy of Helen Caldicott's Loving This Planet; investigate the healing power of nature with Kathleen Dean Moore's Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature; or learn how to reconnect with the vestiges of the wild with J.B. MacKinnon's The Once and Future World. All these, and MORE!
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| This Week's Puzzle |
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| Reading Group Selection |
Tuesday, May 6, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
This Boy’s Life: A Memoir
Tobias Wolff
Adam will be leading our April reading group discussion of This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff.
This winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction writes a memoir that brings to life the stuff of boyhood—from paper routes to whiskey, fistfights to friendship and betrayal—and captures as well America in the fifties. Separated by divorce from his father and brother, Toby and his mother are constantly on the move, yet they develop an extraordinarily close, almost telepathic relationship. As Toby fights for identity and self-respect against the unrelenting hostility of a new stepfather, his experiences are at once poignant and comical, and Wolff does a masterful job of re-creating the frustrations and cruelties of adolescence.
Stay tuned for more information on Tobias Wolff receiving the Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement through Oregon State University’s School of Writing, Literature, and Film this May!
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Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802136688
Paperback
Regular price: $15.95 US
On sale for $13.56 until May 5.
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On Our Nightstands |
 Tiffany
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry
Gabrielle Zevin
This tender, funny novel tells the story of a curmudgeonly bookseller shattered by the death of his first wife. Taking refuge in his books, Fikry closes himself off until a toddler left in his care transforms his life and opens his heart to the many possibilities of love. Heartwarming yet heartbreaking, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry pays homage to the power of the written word in its most wonderful form: the physical book. A quintessentially quirky read for booklovers and booksellers!
Paperback, $24.95
Publisher: Algonquin Books; ISBN: 9781616203214 |
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Adam
A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain
Adrianne Harun
A Man Came Out Out of a Door is a dark and addicting tale about a small town haunted by dangers both natural and preternatural. It follows the lives of five young people as they try to navigate the backwoods of a world where the stories you tell around the fire, around the kitchen table and late in the evening can both work as a ward against the dangers of the world, but also as an incantation that can bring evil right into your midst. Lush, raw, and utterly entrancing.
Paperback, $16.00
Publisher: Penguin Books; ISBN: 9780670786107 |
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Kendall
Magic Tree House #1-4 (Magic Tree House Collection)
Mary Pope Osborne
Ages 7 to 11
I spent entire days of my childhood reading Magic Treehouse books. I went through them voraciously, one after the other; I couldn't get enough. The series starts off with a young brother and sister discovering an enchanted tree house which can travel through time. They are dubbed librarians and begin the first of many journeys into the past to save ancient books. Whether their destination was Pompeii, Egypt, the Amazon, or the moon, I was completely enthralled and learning the whole way through. I was delighted to find that the series has continued on for more generations of young readers.
Hardcover, $19.96
Publisher: Random House Children's Books; ISBN: 9780375813658 |
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Erika
The Fox and the Crow
Manasi Subramaniam and Culpeo S. Fox
Ages 4-8
The Fox and the Crow is a clever tale with vivid paintings. The crow steals a bread roll from a bakery, but the sly fox is sure to have his way. The images are dark yet beautiful. I liked how some of the spreads were created vertically in this horizontal picture book, making you truly interact with the story and absorb the painter’s style. This story is sure to play into the mischievous side in all of us.
Hardcover, $17.95
Publisher: Chitra Publications; ISBN: 9788181903037 |
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