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| November 6, 2014 |
Hello, Readers!
As you can see, this week's newsletter is a bit shorter (Jenny is out for the week), though we are bringing you all the books, music, and December Book Group book as normal. Please check the Grass Roots website for the most up-to-date information on upcoming author events this week. Staff Nightstands are on reprieve for now, but will be back soon.
Important Announcement: The deadline for signing up for our Indies Next Event has been extended until Wednesday, November 12. That means local authors can email us at groots@peak.org (ATTN: Claire in subject line) to let us know you are interested in working the Saturday, Nov. 29 event and your preferred time range of morning, early afternoon, or late afternoon.
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New Hardcovers
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[Fiction]
 Known for its quick-witted humor, the Onion has come out with an encyclopedia parody of massive proportions. As Onion staffers say themselves: "Seen by tens of billions worldwide, these are the unforgettable Onion Magazine covers that altered the course of human history and radically redefined your trivial life anew every weekend." Nothing hyperbolic about that. The book is news though the double-lens of picture and satire--a satisfying experience for anyone who doesn't mind a little tongue-in-cheek mixed into their headlines.
Hardcover; $26.00
Publisher: Little Brown and Company; ISBN: 9780316256452
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by Denis Johnson
[Fiction]
 "Roland Nair is a NATO intelligence operative assigned to report on his old comrade-in-arms Michael Adriko after Michael, currently an attache with a Green Beret unit in the Congo, mysteriously summons him to Africa. Arriving in Sierra Leone, Roland soon hooks up with Michael and his fiancee, Davidia St Claire, an American college girl and daughter of Michael's commanding officer. Michael wants Roland to accompany him to his home village to get his clan's blessing to marry Davidia and to participate in scamming Mossad about a flight load of highly enriched uranium rumored to have disappeared in a plane crash many years earlier. . ." -Library Journal
Hardcover; $25.00
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux; ISBN: 9780374280598
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by Michael Connelly
[Fiction]
 "Harry Bosch has retired from the LAPD before and then come back, but this time it appears he's played out his string. So when Harry is paired with a rookie detective in a cold case like no other--the victim of a nine-year-old shooting has only now died, leaving the detectives with a warm corpse and a cold investigation--he's tasked with a dual charge: find the killer and train the newbie, Lucie Soto, who has an agenda of her own. . . Harry, who has never seen a rule he wasn't willing to break, agrees to help his new partner, if she agrees to put their real case first." -Booklist, Starred Review
Hardcover; $28.00
Publisher: Viking Books; ISBN: 9780525427919
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"Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land continues to reflect on the meaning of existence in these four absorbing, funny, and often profound novellas. The collection is set in New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, in the weeks leading up to Christmas 2012. Frank considers the evanescence of life as he travels to the site of his former home on the shore; has an unsettling experience with a black woman whose family once lived in his present home in fictional Haddam; visits his prickly ex-wife, who is suffering from Parkinson's, in an extended-care institution; and meets a dying former friend. . ." -Publishers Weekly
Hardcover; $27.99
Publisher: Ecco; ISBN: 9780061692062
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by Carlos Santana
[Non-Fiction]
"Although Santana first captivated the world at his Woodstock performance, his intimate relationship with his guitar had long sustained him. Now, for the first time, the elusive guitarist tells his story in prose that is by turns ragged and sparkling. As he does with his music, Santana uses words to paint pictures, describing the streets of his Mexican hometown of Autlan, his earliest gigs at the El Convoy bar in Tijuana, and his move to San Francisco as a teenager, where his career first took off, with the help of, among others, famous rock promoter Bill Graham. . ."
-Publisher's Weekly
Hardcover; $30.00
Publisher: Little Brown and Company; ISBN: 9780316244923
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New Paperbacks
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[Non-Fiction]
 "The bare bones of Cash's story are widely known. . . Here, Hilburn, who covered music for the Los Angeles Times for more than 30 years, puts some meat on those bones. Did you know, for example, that when Cash moved to Memphis, he hadn't heard of producer Sam Phillips, or Sun Records? And did you know that the lyrics of Cash's early hit, Folsom Prison Blues, were lifted, not quite word-for-word, from Gordon Jenkins' Crescent City Blues? The book is based on previously published material and on the author's interviews, over the years, with numerous sources, including Cash and his family. . ." -Booklist
Paperback; $20.00
Publisher: Back Bay Books; ISBN: 9780316194747
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[Non-Fiction]
 "Journalist Hylton highlights the efforts to find missing American military personnel lost during WWII in the Pacific theater. The focus of the story is Dr. Pat Scannon, an M.D. with a doctorate in chemistry who became fascinated with the wreckage of American military aircraft while on a 1993 diving expedition in the Republic of Palau. The book follows Scannon as he establishes the Bentprop project and leads repeated private expeditions to Palau to search for the crash sites of the missing aircraft. One aircraft, a WWII bomber, becomes his obsession, and Hylton's story traces Scannon's decade-long quest to find it while highlighting many different and important aspects of the search for America's lost military personnel. . ." -Publishers Weekly
Paperback; $16.00
Publisher: Riverhead Books; ISBN: 9781594632860
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by Margaret Atwood, Wallace Earle Stegner,
Edward P. Jones, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Marilynne Robinson
[Non-Fiction]
 "Marking the 30th anniversary of the nonprofit Literary Arts in Oregon, this collection of 10 lectures from celebrated writers reanimates the humanistic argument that, far from being a 'marginal cultural activity,' the production of serious literary fiction is an essential task. With eloquence, humility, and humor, contributors reflect both on their own creative processes and on literature as a whole. . . the subjects addressed are refreshingly diverse Atwood writes on feminism, Russell Banks on film. . . and Ursula K. Le Guin on the 'moral seriousness' of fantasy, to name a few. As a whole, the essays illuminate the importance of books in widening our intellectual horizons and the struggle to bring novels and their characters to life. . ." -Publishers Weekly
Paperback; $16.95
Publisher: Tin House Books; ISBN: 9781935639961
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[Non-Fiction]
(Revised edition, with new Introduction and expanded Epilogue.)
 The bestselling author of Wherever You Go, There You Are (more than 1,000,000 total copies in print) and Full Catastrophe Living joins forces with his wife, Myla, in this groundbreaking revised edition of the classic book about mindfulness in parenting children of all ages. Updated with new material--including an all new introduction and expanded practices in the epilogue--Everyday Blessings remains one of the few books on parenting that embraces the emotional, intuitive, and deeply personal experience of being a parent, applying the groundbreaking "mind/body connection" expertise from global thought-leader, Jon Kabat-Zinn and his wife, Myla Kabat-Zinn.
Paperback; $17.00
Publisher: Hyperion Books; ISBN: 9780786883141
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[Fiction]
 "A novel of great beauty and violence from Irish writer Lynch. Set in the 19th century, Lynch's narrative first takes us to Ireland and to the desperation of its poorest people. Coll Coyle has a wife and young daughter (and another child on the way) and helps out on the farm of Hamilton, a ruthless landowner who's recently informed Coll he's being evicted for no apparent reason. In a rage, Coll goes to the landowner and, during an argument, accidentally kills him. This one event sets into motion the rest of the plot, for Coll must first hide and then escape, forced against his will to leave his family. . ." -Kirkus Reviews
Paperback; $15.00
Publisher: Back Bay Books; ISBN: 9780316230261
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New For Young Readers
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 "Sweetie Pie is the last hamster chosen at the pet store, but he remains cautiously optimistic about what lies ahead after a little girl takes him home. What he doesn't know yet is that Pigtails is the first of a series of unreliable children who will be his caretaker. Each child loses interest in succession, distracted by a new computer or a bigger dog, trading Sweetie Pie from one house to the next until, at last, he is left out in his cage in a blizzard, forgotten. He manages to escape, though, and finds happiness with an adopted family of squirrels, as the children turn their (temporary) attentions to a new class guinea pig." -Booklist
Hardcover; $18.99
Publisher: Harcourt Brace and Company; ISBN: 9780547315829
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 A family road trip is supposed to be a lot of fun . . . unless, of course, you're the Heffleys. The journey starts off full of promise, then quickly takes several wrong turns. Gas station bathrooms, crazed seagulls, a fender bender, and a runaway pig--not exactly Greg Heffley's idea of a good time. But even the worst road trip can turn into an adventure--and this is one the Heffleys won't soon forget.
Hardcover; $13.95
Publisher: Amulet Books; ISBN: 9781419711893
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 ". . . Sixteen-year-old former horse-trick rider Kit Bristol is shocked to learn that his playboy master is secretly the infamous masked highwayman Whistling Jack, whom Kit discovers dying after being double-crossed. When Kit attempts to go for help, he's mistaken for Whistling Jack and forced to flee from authorities and rivals alike. As Kit undertakes his master's mandate to free the faerie Princess Morgana before she's forced into an unwelcome marriage, he and the princess are bound together by fate and circumstance. Accumulating a motley assemblage of allies, including a senile ringmaster and an amiable baboon, Kit and friends attempt to make their way to safety in Ireland. . ." -Publishers Weekly
Hardcover; $17.99
Publisher: Tor Books; ISBN: 9780765335494
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New Music
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Ani DiFranco Genre: Pop/Folk
This marks the contemporary folk artist's 20th album since she burst onto the scene in 1990. Recorded largely in her New Orleans home, DiFranco's band includes longtime bassist Todd Sickafoose, Ivan Neville, Jenny Scheinman, and more.
($16.95) |
Genre: Pop/Folk
Larkin Poe began as 2/3 of a gospel and old-timey family act called the Lovell Sisters. With the departure of one sister, Rebecca and Megan Lovell have turned their talents to a slightly rootsy brand of pop music.
($11.95) |
Genre: Pop/Folk
As heard on NPR: "Storytone ... is exactly the sort of odd detour that fits neatly into Young's catalog: He recorded all of its 10 songs with either a 92-piece orchestra or an elaborate big band (not to mention the occasional choir), for a sound that couldn't be farther from the raggedness exemplified in his acoustic and electric recordings alike."
($18.95) |
Events
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Wednesday, November 5 at 7 p.m.
Grass Roots Books and Music
 In Love Cycles, veteran couples therapist Linda Carroll presents a groundbreaking model of the five natural stages of romantic relationships - the Merge, Doubt and Denial, Disillusionment, Decision, and Wholehearted Love - and a guide for navigating through them toward the secrets of wholehearted love. Love Cycles helps readers understand where they are in the cycle of their relationship and provides a clear strategy for how to stay happy and committed, even in difficult times, and how everyone can win at love.
Linda Carroll, MS, has worked as a couple's therapist for more than 30 years in Corvallis, Ore. She teaches workshops and delivers keynote addresses throughout the United States and is a frequent speaker at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico. Love Cycles is her third book.
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Store News
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Store News
Reminder: The Corvallis Independence Alliance school scrip program is ending; please submit your coupons soon! Scrip is no longer being issued, but will be honored for the rest of the school year.
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Halloween Recap!
Here's the Grass Roots staff all dressed up for downtown Trick-or-Treating! (White Rabbit, Mrs. Peacock, The Raven, Kara Thrace, the Dude, and Charlotte's Web.) What an exciting day for downtown Corvallis!
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Jigsaw
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Puzzle will be back next week!
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Reading Group Selection
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by Bill Bryson
Tuesday, December 2, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
 Join Claire as she leads the December Book Group with The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson.
Using the persona "The Thunderbolt Kid" as a springboard, Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality--a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. In his funny memoir, Bryon travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was.
Regular Price: $15.99
On sale for:$13.59
Until Tuesday, December 2
Publisher: Broadway Books
ISBN: 9780767919371
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