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Grass Roots Books and Music
— 227 SW 2nd Street, Corvallis OR 97339 — 541-754-7668 |
| May 22, 2014 |
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Greetings from Grass Roots! As we head into the second half of the month, we want to mention that the store will be open on Memorial Day, Monday, May 26 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Meanwhile, we remain eager to receive any of your 6-10 word short stories (please scroll down to read some famous examples!), and we have a new display in the store featuring Hachette Book Group imprints (more information on this as well if you check out our Store News section). Plus, we have the latest from Diane Keaton, Conor Oberst, Elizabeth Strout, and many others. A very exciting week on all fronts!
Yours in reading and writing,
Jenny |
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| Newest Books |
The Painter
Peter Heller
Years ago, a well-known expressionist painter named Jim Stegner shot a man in a bar. The man lived, Jim served his time, and he has learned to live with the dark impulses that sometimes overtake him. One day, driving down a dirt road, Jim sees a man beating a small horse. Jim leaps out of the truck, tackles the man, and bloodies his nose. The next night, under a full moon, telling himself he is just going night fishing, he returns to the creek where Dell has his camp and kills him. As Jim tries to come to terms with what he has done, he must evade the police, navigate his own conscience, and escape the members of Dell's clan set on revenge.
Hardcover, $24.95
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group; ISBN: 9780385352093 |
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Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty
Diane Keaton
Unconventional style icon and internationally famous actress Diane Keaton writes a partial memoir focusing on her trials and tribulations in the fashion world. Overall a message of individuality and empowerment, Keaton tells personal anecdotes about experiences concerning outrageous makeup artists and Victoria's Secret excursions. She combines these with insights about what beauty used to mean, and how it changes not just in culture, but for each individual as they age, and that this is a positive thing. Those searching to read a voice to verify fashion starts from the unique inside will enjoy this book immensely.
Hardcover, $26.00
Publisher: Random House; ISBN: 9780812994261 |
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Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises
Timothy F. Geithner
“If you want to understand how America faced down the global financial crisis of the last few years, you could ask Geithner, U.S. treasury secretary from 2009 to 2013 and before that chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Here he is with an insider's account of what strategies were adopted and why they worked—or didn't.” –Library Journal
This is an ideal read for those interested in U.S. politics and policy-making in memoir form.
Hardcover, $35.00
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group; ISBN: 9780804138598 |
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Chaplin & Company
Mave Fellowes
“Eightteen-year-old Odeline Milk was raised by her quiet, meticulous accountant mother and always wondered who her father could be. When her mother dies unexpectedly, only a few weeks pass before determined Odeline leaves her childhood home and purchases a narrow boat, Chaplin & Company, in a London canal where she plans to live while she cultivates her lifelong dream of becoming a great mime. Her romantic ideas about her bohemian adulthood are quickly smashed when she finds that her boat is tacky and ill kept, her first booking is in front of a pub full of drunks, and her neighbors don't respect her art. But she softens as she grows more integrated into the offbeat community of outcasts. . . “-Booklist
Hardcover, $25.95
Publisher: Liveright Publishing; ISBN: 9780871407443 |
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Creativity: The Perfect Crime
Philippe Petit
Philippe Petit is a Renaissance man of the arts: high wire walker, magician, street juggler, visual artists, builder, and writer. In his most recent book he explains to fans and aspiring artists of all genres how to make their projects happen from a unique perspective. Petit wants to divulge the unconventional ways any creative person can finish his/her projects, ways he himself has cultivated over many years of experimentation. Fascinating for how an artist's mind works, this book functions both as an artist's "tell-all," and a "how-to" for those aspiring to create.
Hardcover, $27.95
Publisher: Riverhead Books; ISBN: 9781594631689 |
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Transatlantic
Colum McCann
"Hopscotching back and forth across an ocean, centuries, generations. . . [McCann] interweaves historical and fictional truth as he connects the visit to Ireland in 1845 by Frederick Douglass, whose emancipation appeals on behalf of all his fellow slaves inspire a young Irish maid to seek her destiny in America, to the first trans-Atlantic flight almost 65 years later. . . The novel's primary bloodline begins with Lily Duggan, the Irish maid inspired by Douglass, and her four generations of descendants, mainly women whose struggle for rights and search for identity parallels that of the slave whose hunger for freedom fed her own." -Kirkus Reviews
Paperback, $16.00
Publisher: Random House; ISBN: 9780812981926 |
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Animal Wise: How We Know Animals Think and Feel
Virginia Morell
“Animals have minds, and they use them. As science-writer Morell (Ancestral Passions, 1996; Blue Nile, 2001) points out, the question isn't do animals think? but what do they think? Morell's journey into the minds of animals (and the researchers who study them) began when she watched her dog invent a game; but she was truly set on her path after clearly being singled out by one of Jane Goodall's chimpanzee subjects. In this exploration of animal cognition, the author visits numerous scientists and observes their research, both in laboratories and in the wild. She sees firsthand, and reports in thoroughly engaging language, research with animals as disparate as ants and elephants. . . “ –Booklist
Paperback, $14.95
Publisher: Broadway Books; ISBN: 9780307461452 |
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The Burgess Boys
Elizabeth Strout
"Brothers Jim and Bob Burgess, and sister Susan, are mired in a childhood trauma: when he was four, Bob unwittingly released the parking brake on the family car, which ran over their father and killed him. Originally from small Shirley Falls, Maine, the Burgess brothers have long since fled to vastly disparate lives as New York City attorneys. . . High-strung Susan calls them home to fix a family crisis: her son stands accused of a possible hate crime against the small town's improbable Somali population. The siblings' varying responses to the crisis illuminate their sheer differences while also recalling their shared upbringing, forcing them finally to deal with their generally unmentioned, murky family history. . . " -Booklist
Paperback, $15.00
Publisher: Random House; ISBN: 9780812979510 |
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The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese
Michael Paterniti
Working at renowned Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the author discovered a special Spanish sheep's milk cheese unlike any other. Fascinated by this cheese, he embarked on a quest to find its birthplace in Castile, a small town some distance from Madrid, and became even more fascinated with the cheesemaker and his story.
"[Michael Paterniti] has proved here that if you love something enough and pay a passionate enough attention to it, the whole world can become present in it. That's true of both the cheese and the book."—John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead
Paperback, $16.00
Publisher: Dial Press; ISBN: 9780385337014 |
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Letters from Skye
Jessica Brockmole
“Brockmole uses letters to tell a remarkable story of two women, their loves, their secrets, and two world wars. . . In 1912, young poet Mrs. Elspeth Dunn, who has never left Scotland's Isle of Skye because of her fear of boats, receives her first fan letter from David Graham, a college student in Urbana, Ill. They begin a long correspondence. . . The beauty of Scotland, the tragedy of war, the longings of the heart, and the struggles of a family torn apart by disloyalty are brilliantly drawn, leaving just enough blanks to be filled by the reader's imagination.” –Publishers Weekly
Paperback, $15.00
Publisher: Ballantine Books; ISBN: 9780345542625 |
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| Featured Books for Young Readers |
Edgar Gets Ready for Bed (BabyLit First Steps Books)
Jennifer Adams
Ages 2-5
Meet the plucky toddler Edgar the Raven! He's mischievous, disobedient, and contrary. Dinnertime, cleanup-time, and bedtime are all met with one word: NEVERMORE! But as the evening winds to a close, Edgar's mom knows just what to do to get her son into bed--a bedtime story. Jennifer Adam's charming story gives a sly wink to Edgar Allan Poe's “The Raven” and will have little literature lovers saying, "MORE! MORE!"
Hardcover, $16.99
Publisher: Gibbs Smith; ISBN: 9781423635284 |
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Odin's Ravens (Blackwell Pages #02)
K.L. Armstrong
Ages 8 to 12
"In the second installment of Blackwell Pages, 13-year-old Matt Thorsen and his friends Laurie and Fen, descendants of Norse gods, race to prevent the apocalypse. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the way to the Norse version—Hel—is paved with fire giants, killer guard dogs, Viking zombies, a river of acid, cave bears and even a Hel Chicken. Picking up where the first volume concluded, this tale has Matt and company going to Hel to save their dead friend, Baldwin, but then they must figure out how to get out alive in time to defeat the Midgard Serpent and stop the Norse end of days. . . " -Kirkus Reviews
Hardcover, $17.00
Publisher: Little, Brown Books; ISBN: 9780316204989 |
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| Music |
Jolie Holland
Wine Dark Sea
Genre: Pop/Folk
Holland began her career as a founding member of Be Good Tanyas. Her subsequent solo records have found a balance between vocal jazz, indie pop, and folk music.
($16.95) |
The Duhks
Beyond the Blue
Genre: Pop/Folk
The Duhks were founded in Canada more than a decade ago. Through membership changes and relocations, their music has embraced genres from Celtic and folk to blues and jazz.
($16.95) |
Conor Oberst
Upside Down Mountain
Genre: Pop/Folk
Oberst began recording as a young man of 16. Over the years, his collaborations have seen him collaborate with Bright Eyes, Monsters of Folk, and Desaparecidos, in addition to his solo work.
($16.95) |
Chatham County Line
Tightrope
Genre: Pop/Folk
The music of this North Carolina quartet is rooted in bluegrass. On Tightrope, that musical reach extends into country and Americana music, played with impressive musicianship and harmonies.
($16.95) |
Esme Patterson
Woman to Woman
Genre: Pop/Folk
Patterson is a member of Denver's Paper Bird indie folk collective. On her second solo record, she presents a series of "response songs" to other writers' tunes about women. Patterson pens her own response to tunes originally by Townes Van Zandt, the Band, the Beatles, and more.
($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! |
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| Events |
Wednesday, May 28, 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR |
Jenny Milcham
Ruin Falls
In a suspenseful follow-up to her critically acclaimed Cover of Snow, Jenny Milchman ratchets up the tension with this edge-of-your-seat story of a mother determined to find her missing children.
Liz Daniels has every reason to be happy about setting off on a rare family vacation, leaving her remote home in the Adirondack Mountains behind for a while. Instead, she feels uneasy. Her children, eight-year-old Reid and six-year-old Ally, have met their paternal grandparents only a handful of times. But Liz’s husband, Paul, has decided that, despite a strained relationship with his mother and father, they should visit the farm in western New York where he spent his childhood.
On their way to the farm, the family stops at a hotel for the night. In the morning, when Liz checks on her sleeping children, all of her anxiety from the day before comes roaring back to life: Ally and Reid are nowhere to be found. Blind panic slides into ice-cold terror as the hours tick by without anyone finding a trace of her kids. Soon, Paul and Liz are being interviewed by police, an Amber Alert is issued, and detectives are called in.
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Wednesday, June 4, 7 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR |
Dr. Cristina Eisenberg
The Carnivore Way: Conserving and Coexisting with America’s Carnivores
Our tangled history with large carnivores has ranged from a close spiritual bond during pre-European settlement of North America to reviling these species as a threat to our livelihood. Today we are in the process of rewilding America by enabling the return of grizzly bears, wolverines, wolves, lynx, cougars, and jaguars to landscapes from which they had long been missing.
In The Carnivore Way: Conserving and Coexisting with America’s Carnivores, Dr. Cristina Eisenberg explores these species’ fascinating natural history, ecology, and conservation status. Each of the species profiled in The Carnivore Way tells the evocative story of our struggles to rewild ecosystems and live more ethically on this earth.
Cristina Eisenberg conducts trophic cascades research focusing on wolves in Rocky Mountain ecosystems. She teaches ecological restoration and public policy in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and is a Smithsonian Research Associate. Her first book, The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades and Biodiversity, was published in 2010 by Island Press.
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Saturday, June 7, 1:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR |
Judith Bender
Back to Health: the Twenty Minute Workout
(Please note there was a date error for this event in last week's newsletter. It has been corrected for Saturday, June 7 in this week's.)
"The key to developing a better quality of life can be found in this simple exercise program, which only takes twenty minutes per day. Timely and practical, Back to Health, the Twenty-Minute Workout contains an illustrated, step by step exercise program to treat and prevent back and neck pain and provides information on anatomy and body mechanics to help you understand why these exercises are important. Written by a physical therapist with years of experience treating patients with orthopedic problems, this book is full of medical knowledge, presented in a practical and easy to use manner, and will benefit anyone who has experienced back or neck pain or wants to avoid these problems." -Booklist |
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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 5/23-5/29, showtimes daily, Darkside Cinema, Corvallis. Visit their website for showtimes.
- The Grand Budapest Hotel–R Typically stylish but deceptively thoughtful, The Grand Budapest Hotel finds Wes Anderson once again using ornate visual environments to explore deeply emotional ideas.
- Redwood Highway–PG A road-trip movie that takes its time, with an enjoyable ramble through the beautiful woods of southern Oregon.
- Ernest And Celestine–PG Sweet and visually charming, Ernest & Celestine offers old-fashioned delights for animation lovers of all ages. Subtitled French.
- Only Lovers Left Alive–R Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as glitter-free vampires. Jim Jarmusch directs.
- The Lunchbox—PG Subtitled Hindi. 97% on RT!
Literary Events:
- Book Club at the Corvallis Public Library on Saturday, May 21 at 7 p.m. in the Library Board Room. Discussion will focus on Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff. The director of The Story of Stuff Project tracks the life of the "stuff" we use every day, transforming how we Baltimore Review Summer Contestthink about our patterns of consumption. This book is based on the author's 2007 internet film, The Story of Stuff.
Opportunities:
- Flash Fiction Competition: 6 Words "The Story of a Thing" Online submission deadline: May 25, 2014 Haunted Waters Press editor, Penny Dreadful, is selecting exceptionally small works of flash fiction to be showcased in Penny Fiction, a regular feature of the literary journal, From the Depths. Stories will also appear in the Penny Fiction Poster Collection. In keeping with the Summer 2014 theme, “The Object of Our Desire,” tell us the story of a “thing” in exactly 6 words—no more, no less. Extra points awarded for writers who adhere to the rules. Not really. There are no points. Just read the contest rules and impress Penny with your ability to follow instructions. Visit website here!
- Baltimore Review Summer Contest Online submission deadline: May 31, 2014; The theme for the Baltimore Review’s summer contest is “How To.” Why? Because writers are unabashedly inquisitive and can instruct readers in such eloquent ways. Instruct our readers in how to do anything—anything at all—in the course of your poem, fiction, or creative nonfiction, and you’re eligible. 3,000-word limit for prose, 1-3 poems per entry. $10 entry fee. Prizes: $500, $200, and $100. All entries considered for publication. Deadline is May 31, 2014. Final judge: Michael Downs. Hit blue Submit button on Submit page, then the Contest link to enter. Also considering non-theme (non-contest) submissions. Visit website here.
- Fourth Annual BOA Editions Short Fiction Prize Postmark submission deadline: May 31, 2014; Established in 2010, the BOA Short Fiction Prize is given annually for a short story collection. The 2014 winner will receive a prize of $1,000 and Spring 2016 publication by BOA Editions in the American Reader Series. BOA Publisher Peter Conners will judge. Submit a manuscript of 90-200 pages with a $25 entry fee and entry form by May 31, 2014, to: BOA Editions, Short Fiction Prize, P.O. Box 30971, Rochester, New York 14604.
Visit BOA's website here for the required entry form and complete guidelines.
- 2014 Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize Online/Postmark deadline: June 15, 2014; Backbone Press is accepting submissions for our annual Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize. The contest, held each spring, honors the prolific work of poet great Lucille Clifton. Widely celebrated for her unpretentious and unapologetic poems, Clifton’s unique free verse was free of punctuation, taut, and always recognizably her. When submitting think: humanness, struggle, adversity, resilience. Please see our website for guidelines.
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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Thursday, May 22, 7:30 p.m.
CH2M Hill Alumni Center
725 SW 26th Street |
Tobias Wolff
Stone Award
Tobias Wolff will be presented with the Stone Award at the Portland Art Museum on May 21, and will visit the Oregon State campus in Corvallis on May 22 to give a public reading at the CH2M Hill Alumni Center Ballroom (725 SW 26th Street).
The biennial award is given to a major American author who has created a body of critically acclaimed work and who has—in the tradition of creative writing at OSU—mentored young writers.
Wolff is best known for his work in two genres: the short story and the memoir. His first short story collection, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, was published in 1981. Wolff chronicled his early life in two memoirs, In Pharaoh’s Army (1994) and This Boy’s Life (1989), which was turned into a 1993 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. He is also author of the novel Old School (2003).
Grass Roots will be selling books at the May 22 reading. |
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| News |
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Short Story Month Challenge
We are still in the midst of Short Story Month with nearly two weeks left for readers and writers to come down and submit their 6-10 word story for a 10% discount coupon on any fiction or craft-of-writing book. Wondering what in the heck a story so short might look like? Here are some published examples:
-"Under all this dirt
the floor is really very clean." ~Lydia Davis, "Housekeeping Observation"
-"Whoever moves disappears." ~Paul Éluard and Benjamin Péret
-"A light white, a disgrace, an ink spot, a rosy charm." ~Gertrude Stein
-"When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there." ~Augusto Monterroso, "The Dinosaur" (my favorite!)
Think you got the hang of it? Maybe you can best some of these! We encourage you to take a crack at it here at Grass Roots any time between now and May 29.
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Books Held Hostage: Amazon and Hachette Book Group
Perhaps some of you have heard recent news swirling around a certain internet giant (i.e., Amazon) withholding various imprinted titles under Hatchette Book Group, the third-largest trade and educational publishing house in the world (and long-time friend of the independent book-selling world). If not, you can read all about it here and here via the New York Times.
In light of these developments Grass Roots wants to take a moment to let our valued customers know we are supporters of all readers' rights, and therefore believe it is in everyone's interest (for both booksellers and appreciators alike) to know we currently carry a wide variety of Hachette imprints right NOW, and if we don't have it in stock we can order it through one of our reliable warehouses, having it for you within as little as 24-48 hours for nearly all requests. We've even made an in-store display with several of the most recent and popular Hachette titles to make it easy to find the book you want. This is an opportunity to support local and independent bookstores, and also the book/reading community at large. That's you guys and Grass Roots together!
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Featured Author Interview
Joshua Ferris was recently interviewed by The Paris Review for his latest novel, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. With delightful insight and candor he divulges his writerly obsessions and impulses, and the evolution his latest book took as he embarked on its composition:
". . . Slowly it evolved into the story of a private detective investigating a possibly ancient religion. In a way, the books you almost wrote on the way to finding the final novel will always be more interesting than the published version. They’re a more colorful record of the writer’s life. But with the help of my two editors I came to see that the private detective, who’s inherently a kind of mediating narrator, or a cipher, wasn’t working for me either. . . "
Click on his picture to read the whole fascinating interview! |
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| This Week's Puzzle |
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| Reading Group Selection |
Tuesday, June 3, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards
Kristopher Jansma
Kendall will be leading our June reading group discussion with The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma.
"This canny, seductive, and utterly transfixing tale about the magic of storytelling and the misery of writing is told by an itinerant, chameleonic writer who calls himself Nobody. The fatherless son of a flight attendant, he relies on and cares for his rich, gay, and unstable best friend, who turns out to be a truly gifted novelist, and falls hopelessly in love with an actress so beautiful that princes propose marriage. Like a magician pulling a seemingly endless string of colorful scarves from a hat, Jansma streams stories-within-stories-within-stories, each a diabolically clever homage. As Nobody juggles false identities and survives near-catastrophes in New York, Las Vegas, Iceland, Luxembourg, Dubai, Ghana, and Sri Lanka, readers will detect riffs on Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Truman Capote, Bob Dylan, Tolstoy, Salinger, Borges, Kipling, and many more. . . " -Booklist, Starred Review
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Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 9780143125020
Paperback
Regular price: $16.00
On sale for $13.60 until June 3.
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On Our Nightstands |
 Erika
Chengdu Could Not, Would Not, Fall Asleep
Barney Saltzberg
Ages 4-7
Chengdu Could Not, Would Not Fall Asleep by Barney Saltzberg is a great little story that strikes home with everyone that has had “one of those sleepless nights.” The illustrations are simple yet expressive, really lovely. I liked the way some of the pages interactively fold out to go along with the words. The eyes in the panda are really great and all the different ways he tries to fall asleep—we’ve all been there. The end is just the best and how he ends up falling asleep. . . Everyone needs a good snuggle sometimes, especially with a loved one.
Hardcover, $16.99
Publisher: Disney Press; ISBN: 9781423167211 |
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Tiffany
This Day: Sabbath Poems New and Collected 1979-2012
Wendell Berry
I try always to keep a book of poetry on my nightstand to read in between other things. Reading a poem before sleep comforts me as nothing else quite does. The poems in this exquisite collection derive from Wendell Berry’s solitary Sunday walks around his Kentucky farm. Written across nearly thirty-five years, they encompass love and loss, the beauty of nature, political craziness, and some of his Mad Farmer musings. I dip into their depths and renew my soul with each reading.
Hardback, $30.00
Publisher: Counterpoint LLC; ISBN: 9781619021983 |
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Kendall
CD Supernova
Ray Lamontagne
Ray LaMontagne has been a long-time love of mine, one of my "soul artists" as I refer to him. So when I saw that he was releasing his first CD in years, I was incredibly excited, but also apprehensive. I knew that he was exploring a different style than he had before and I was nervous I wouldn't like it. Turns out, it's amazing. The psychadelic feel to it suits his voice perfectly and he once again delivers beautiful lyrics to accompany incredible music.
CD, $11.95
Label: RCA; UPC: 888430545526 |
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