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| April 2, 2015 |
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Hello, Readers,
Welcome to National Poetry Month! With April showering upon us, we hope our selection of poems from many talented local wordsmiths and Grass Roots' own shelves bring a bright spot to your days. It's not too late to receive our Poem-A-Day.
This week -- in addition to a colorful array of author events -- we have Gary Snyder's new poetry collection just in time for the season, Simon Scott's Unforgettable memoir (which you may have heard about on public radio), Anna Gavalda's French bestseller Billie, and Brian Doyle's The Plover for the first time in paperback for your reading pleasure.
Please note that we'll be closed this Easter Sunday, April 5th! But you won't want to miss all the goodness happening in store below.
Cheers,
~ Marissa
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New Hardcovers
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by Matthew Crawford
[Non-Fiction]
In his brilliant follow-up to Shop Class as Soulcraft, Crawford investigates the challenge of mastering one's own mind. We often complain about our fractured mental lives and feel beset by outside forces that destroy our focus and disrupt our peace of mind. Any defense against this, Crawford argues, requires that we reckon with the way attention sculpts the self. He shows that our current crisis of attention is only superficially the result of digital technology, and becomes more comprehensible when understood as the coming to fruition of certain assumptions at the root of Western culture that are profoundly at odds with human nature.
Hardcover; $26.00
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux; ISBN: 9780374292980
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by Scott Simon
[Non-Fiction]
 "Simon's memoir is so captivating that everyone, not just fans of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, will enjoy learning about the wellspring that nourished the award-winning journalist's wit, intelligence, heart, and chutzpah. . .Patricia Lyons Simon Newman Gelbin, Simon's thrice-married mother, whom he was privileged to escort to the very doorway of the beyond in the summer of 2013. Wait, an enjoyable memoir about a dying mother? Indeed. . .During their days-long hospital haul, he posted numerous 140-character info bites on Twitter, in part to help relieve stress. What wasn't included in those hors d'oeuvre-size tweets was the banquet of life he and Patty shared. . ." - Booklist, Starred Review
Hardcover; $24.99
Publisher: Flatiron Books; ISBN: 9781250061133
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by Aislinn Hunter
[Fiction]
 "When she was 15, Jane Standen lost track of the five-year-old girl she was watching while on a walk in the woods. The girl was never found, the event changing Jane in profound ways and making her much more timid in both her career choice and her personal life. Some 20 years after the girl's disappearance, Jane is working as an archivist and is researching the history of N, a woman who went missing in 1877 from a lunatic asylum located near the woods where Jane's young charge also disappeared. [And] surrounding Jane is a chorus of ghosts. . ." - Booklist
Hardcover; $26.00
Publisher: Hogarth; ISBN: 9780553418521
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For his first collection of new poems since his celebrated Danger on Peaks, published in 2004, Gary Snyder finds himself ranging over the planet. Journeys to the Dolomites, to the north shore of Lake Tahoe, from Paris and Tuscany to the shrine at Delphi, Snyder lays out these poems as a map of the last decade. Placed side-by-side, they become a path and a trail of complexity and lyrical regard. And in the mix are some of the most beautiful domestic poems of his great career, poems about his work as a homesteader and householder, as a father and husband, as a friend and neighbor.
Hardcover; $22.00
Publisher: Counterpoint LLC; ISBN: 9781619025240
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by Mary Norris
[Non-Fiction]
 "Norris has spent more than 35 years in The New Yorker's legendary copy department, earning the nickname Comma Queen along the way. So it makes sense that her first book is a delightful discourse on the most common grammar, punctuation, and usage challenges faced by writers of all stripes. Not surprisingly, Norris writes well with wit, sass, and smarts, and the book is part memoir, part manual. She recounts the history of Webster's Dictionary [and] explains when to use 'who' vs. 'whom' and 'that' vs. 'which'. . .It's a sure bet that after reading this book, [readers will] think more about how and what they write." - Publishers Weekly
Hardcover; $24.95
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 9780393240184
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New Paperbacks
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by Elizabeth Warren
[Non-Fiction]
 "Warren, the freshman senator from Massachusetts turned Democratic rock star, serves up a frank and lively account of how she became the banking and finance industry's fiercest nemesis. Warren's passion is rooted in her personal history. . . [She] puts herself through college, marries, grows weary of stay-at-home motherhood, [and] develops an expertise in bankruptcy, becoming one of the country's go-to experts. In these pages, she displays a down-home charm and an effortless rapport with everyday people that makes her story more engaging than the average political tome. . . Warren emerges as a committed advocate with real world sensibility . . ." - Publishers Weekly
Paperback; $17.00
Publisher: Picador USA; ISBN: 9781250062253
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by Brian Doyle
[Fiction]
 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.
Paperback; $16.00
Publisher: Picador USA; ISBN: 9781250062451
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by Anna Gavalda
[Non-Fiction]
 A number one bestseller in France, this brilliant evocation of Paris and moving tale of friendship tells the story of two young people, Billie and Franck, who, as the story opens, are trapped in a gorge in the Cevennes Mountains. With darkness encroaching, their situation is dire, and Billie begins to tell stories from their lives in order to survive. In alternating episodes, the novel moves between recollections of the two characters' childhoods and their dreadful predicament. A beautifully crafted novel for readers of all ages and from all walks of life that conveys a positive message about overcoming life's trials and tribulations.
Paperback; $15.00
Publisher: Europa Editions; ISBN: 9781609452490
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by Robin Oliveira
[Fiction]
 The young Mary Cassatt never thought moving to Paris after the Civil War to be an artist was going to be easy, but when, after a decade of work, her submission to the Paris Salon is rejected, Mary's fierce determination wavers. Her father is begging her to return to Philadelphia to find a husband before it is too late, her sister Lydia is falling mysteriously ill, and worse, Mary is beginning to doubt herself. Then one evening a friend introduces her to Edgar Degas and her life changes forever.
Paperback; $16.00
Publisher: Penguin Books; ISBN: 9780143126102
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by Patrice Vecchione
[Non-Fiction]
 Step outside your door and reconnect with nature with a guide that will replenish your connection to the earth and inspire you to develop and strengthen your imagination. Vecchione demonstrates how nature can support and enhance your creative output, invigorate your curiosity, and restore your sense of connection to and love of the earth. Included throughout the book is "The Cabinet of Curiosities," exercises and suggestions for practical and unexpected ways to stimulate your imagination, deepen your relationship with nature, and experience the harmony between creativity and the natural world.
Paperback; $16.00
Publisher: Beyond Words Publishing; ISBN: 9781582705002
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New For Young Readers
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by Lorena Siminovich
[Fiction]
Ages 1 to 3
 A new title in this series of charming and inventive board books! Readers will find a little book nestled inside a bigger one. Turn the pages to match the baby meadow animals to their parents, and learn early concepts along the way.
Board Book; $8.99
Publisher: Chronicle Books (CA); ISBN: 9781452140117
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 Farmer Brown, oh-so-sleepy, has a new, adorable -- and loud -- duckling to deal with in this addition to the award-winning Click, Clack series. There's more trouble on the farm, but Duck has nothing to do with it, for once. This time the trouble is a four-ounce puff of fluff who just won't go to sleep, and whose play-with-me "peeps" are keeping the whole barnyard awake with him. How do you get a baby duck to hit the hay? Poor Farmer Brown will find out -- and Duck might just find himself in trouble after all...
Hardcover; $17.99
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers; ISBN: 9781481424110
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by Chris Grabenstein
[Fiction]
Ages 8 to 12
 "Grabenstein follows up his bestselling Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library with another playful title paying homage to classic works of literature. Billy Gillfoyle is not thrilled at the prospect of spending his summer stuck at Dr. Libris' weird lake cabin with his mom, who's too busy finishing her dissertation to entertain him. Throw in a neighborhood bully and the potential of his parents splitting up, and Billy's summer is off to an awful start. But when the characters in the books he reads start coming to life -- from Hercules to Robin Hood to Pollyanna -- Billy's summer quickly goes from dull to adventurous. . ." - Booklist
Hardcover; $16.99
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers; ISBN: 9780385388443
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by Elizabeth Wein
[Fiction]
Young Adult
 From the author of the bestselling Code Name Verity. Emilia and Teo's lives changed in a terrifying instant when a bird strike brought down the plane their stunt pilot mothers were flying. Em's mother survived, determined to raise Teo according to his late mother's wishes -- in a place where he won't be discriminated against because of the color of his skin. But in 1930s America, a white woman raising a black adoptive son is too often seen as a threat. She brings her children to Ethiopia, but will their devotion to their country and each other be their downfall or their salvation?
Hardcover; $17.99
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion; ISBN: 9781423183105
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New Music
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Events at Grass Roots
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Jim Furnish
Saturday, April 4, at 2:00 p.m. Grass Roots Books and Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
Toward a Natural Forest offers an insider's view of this tumultuous time in the history of the Forest Service, presenting twin tales of transformation, both within the agency and within the author's evolving environmental consciousness. While stewarding our national forests with the best of intentions, had the Forest Service diminished their natural essence and ecological values? How could one man confront the crisis while remaining loyal to his employer?
Jim Furnish is a consulting forester in the Washington D.C. area following a 34-year career with the USDA Forest Service. He served as the agency's Deputy Chief and Siuslaw National Forest Supervisor in Corvallis, Oregon.
David Hargreaves
Thursday, April 9, at 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books and Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
The Blossoms of Sixty-Four Sunsets is a collection of poems written by Durga Lal Shrestha, Nepal's best known contemporary poet and lyricist, and translated from Nepal Bhasa (Newari) by David Hargreaves -- in collaboration with R. Shrestha, D.R. Shakya, R. Manandhar, and the author himself. In these poems, readers will find a mature and deeply personal poetic vision emerging out of a series of dialogues with the setting sun. But readers take note, these are not easy listening sound-bites from the new-age section of the mall bookstore. These are masterfully crafted poems: passionate, rhythmic, imagistic and enigmatic.
David Hargreaves, linguist and poet, holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Oregon, and is currently a professor in the Department of English, Writing and Linguistics at Western Oregon University in Monmouth. He lives in Corvallis.
Elizabeth Heineman
Friday, April 17, at 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books and Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
Ghostbelly is Elizabeth Heineman's personal account of a home birth that goes tragically wrong -- ending in a stillbirth -- and the harrowing process of grief and questioning that follows. In this courageous and deeply intimate memoir, Heineman and her partner learn to live in a new world: a world in which they face each day with the understanding of the fragility of the present.
Elizabeth Heineman is a professor of history and of gender, women's, and sexuality studies at the University of Iowa. Her other books include Before Porn was Legal, Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones, and What Difference Does a Husband Make?
Douglas Perry
Thursday, April 23, at 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books and Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
When Al Capone was finally sent to prison in 1931, much of the credit fell to a 28-year-old Prohibition Agent named Eliot Ness, the unlikely leader of the famous Untouchables squad. Updated for paperback based on newly discovered archival material, Perry's critically acclaimed book reveals that Ness's true legacy is something much more profound, and Capone is only the beginning.
Douglas Perry is the author of The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired Chicago. Perry is an award-winning writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The San Jose Mercury News, The Oregonian, Tennis, and many other publications. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Thor Hanson
Friday, April 24, at 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books and Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
 In his new book, Hanson turns his eye to the ubiquitous seed plants that dominate landscapes and define entire ecosystems. Following the winding path that seeds have paved through evolution, natural history, and human culture, he examines the traits and habits that have allowed seeds -- and the plants that bear them -- to be so successful, and to so thoroughly transform our planet.
Thor Hanson is a conservation biologist, Guggenheim Fellow, and Switzer Environmental Fellow. His previous books include Feathers, which won numerous awards including the 2013 John Burroughs Medal and the 2012 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Writing, and The Impenetrable Forest, which won the 2008 USA Book News Award for nature writing.
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Community Events
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Darkside Show Times for 4/3-4/9
-Wild
There's something about a cinematic NW road trip that circulates the juices and stirs the pheromones. Reese Witherspoon.
-The Wrecking Crew -NR The Wrecking Crew may not achieve the greatness of the many classic songs its subjects helped bring to life, but it remains a heartfelt, overdue tribute to overshadowed brilliance.
-Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter -NR She thinks Fargo is a documentary. A supple combination of Little Red Riding Hood adventure, ironic road film and cross-cultural confusion.
-What We Do in The Shadows -NR Smarter, fresher, and funnier than a modern vampire movie has any right to be, What We Do in the Shadows is bloody good fun.
-Zombeavers -R A relentlessly-cheesy B-flick far funnier than it is frightening. Go Beavs!
Arts/Literary Events
by John Steinbeck
Reviewed by Bill Robbins; sponsored by Friends of the Library
Wednesday, April 8, at 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Corvallis-Benton County Public Library
645 NW Monroe Ave.
Corvallis, OR
2nd Annual Community Poetry Reading
Sponsored by Friends of the Library
Saturday, April 11, at 2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Corvallis-Benton County Public Library
645 NW Monroe Ave.
Corvallis, OR
To celebrate National Poetry Month, come watch and listen as Corvallis community members read aloud the poems that are important to them. This event will be hosted by Oregon's Poet Laureate, Peter Sears.
Tragedy Full of Joy: Stories By Bernard Malamud
Majestic Reader's Theatre Company
 Saturday, April 25 at 7:00 p.m. & Sunday, April 26 at 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.
Majestic Theatre Lab
115 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
In honor of Bernard Malamud's 101st birthday, The Majestic Reader's Theatre Company and The OSU School of Writing, Literature and Film present Tragedy Full Of Joy: Stories by Bernard Malamud, directed by Robert Leff. Elena Passarello, David Turkel, and Robert Leff have adapted four of his short stories: "Steady Customer," "A Wig," "The Jewbird," and "The Magic Barrel." Malamud, a major mid-twentieth century American writer, was a member of the Oregon State English Department from 1949 to 1961. While living in Corvallis, he wrote the novels The Natural, The Assistant, and the short story collection The Magic Barrel, which won the 1959 National Book Award for Fiction.
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Community Events with Grass Roots
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John Marzluff
Thursday, April 2, at 7:00 p.m.
LaSells Stewart Center: C & E Auditorium
875 SW 26th St.
Corvallis, OR
Join The Spring Creek Project for a reading and signing with John Marzluff and his new book: Welcome to Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhoods with Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers, and Other Wildlife. This excellent book documents engagingly how wildlife has adapted to urban and suburban areas, often in surprising ways. Marzluff, Ph.D., is Professor of Wildlife Science at the University of Washington and author of four books and over one hundred scientific papers on various aspects of bird behavior, he is the recipient of the A. Brazier Howell, Board of Directors, and H.R. Painton awards from the Cooper Ornithological Society. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
39th Annual OSU Gerontology Conference
Thursday, April 2 - Friday, April 3
CH2M HILL Alumni Center
725 SW 26th St.
Corvallis, OR
This two-day conference, held at Oregon State University, will feature workshops by leading geriatric professionals presenting current information for health and human services occupations in a wide variety of disciplines. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
Kristin Ohlson
Thursday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m.
Methodist Church - Wesley Room
1165 NW Monroe Ave.
Corvallis, OR
Thousands of years of poor farming and ranching practices -- and especially modern industrial agriculture -- have led to the loss of up to 80 percent of carbon from the world's soils. That carbon is now floating in the atmosphere, and even if we stopped using fossil fuels today, it would continue warming the planet.
A freelance journalist, author, essayist and fiction writer, almost no topic escapes Kristin's curiosity. Reading sponsored by Benton Food Freedom, Corvallis 350, Corvallis Citizens Climate Lobby. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
David Gessner
OSU Visiting Writer Series
Friday, May 8, at 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. Valley Library Main Floor Rotunda
201 Southwest Waldo Place
Corvallis, OR
David Gessner is the author of the forthcoming book, All the Wild that Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner and the American West, and eight others including Sick of Nature, The Prophet of Dry Hill, and Return of the Osprey, which was chosen by the Boston Globe as one of the top 10 non-fiction books of the year and the Book-of-the-Month club as one of its top books of the year. Gessner is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and founder of the national literary journal, Ecotone. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
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Store News
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Store hours
Grass Roots will be closed for Easter Sunday, April 5th. Have a great holiday!
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IACP Book Awards and Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
The International Association of Culinary Professionals held its annual awards ceremony last week. Winners included Julia Child First Book Award: Heritage by Sean Brock and Cookbook of the Year: A New Napa Cuisine by Christopher Kostow.
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National Poetry Month
Celebrate the creative beauty of the written word! On display here are just a few select titles from our poetry section (also featured in our Poem-A-Day). Explore metered verse in Measure For Measure, the luminous Like the New Moon, I Will Live My Life by Robert Bly, and U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Wright's stirring Caribou. |
Jigsaw
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Reading Group Selection
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Tuesday, April 7 6:30-8:00 p.m.
 Join Adam as he leads our April Book Group with Bernard Malamud's The Magic Barrel: Stories in keeping with the production of Tragedy Full of Joy: Stories by Bernard Malamud by the Majestic Reader's Theatre Company (see Arts/Literary Events above!).
Bernard Malamud's first book of short stories, The Magic Barrel, has been recognized as a classic from the time it was published in 1959. The stories are set in New York and in Italy (where Malamud's alter ego, the struggling New York Jewish Painter Arthur Fidelman, roams amid the ruins of old Europe in search of his artistic patrimony). It is a book about New York and about the immigrant experience, and a high point in the modern American short story. Few books of any kind have managed to depict struggle and frustration and heartbreak with such delight, or such artistry.
Regular Price: $15.00
On sale for: $12.75
Until Tuesday, April 7
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
ISBN: 9780374525866
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Night Stands
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Claire
by Jojo Moyes
[Fiction]
 Three separate people recommended this book to me, so when I picked it up, I was prepared to read it in one sitting -- and I did! The characters Lou and Will are fleshed out and complex, each with their own set of flaws and passions, and they drew me into what otherwise seemed like a fairly simple love story. Then, when it left me heartbroken and thinking about it days later, I began to understand just how real Will's challenges and decisions are for people. Definitely a page-turner, but one that will keep you thinking.
Paperback; $16.00
Publisher: Penguin Books; ISBN: 9780143124542
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Tiffany
by Kazuo Ishiguro
[Fiction]
 In a mythic time after King Arthur's passing, England has fallen into the Dark Ages, and a mist shrouds the land and clouds memories. An elderly and devoted couple, Axl and Beatrice, set out on a journey to visit their son whom they vaguely remember. Beset at every turn by dangers, they encounter a Saxon warrior and a boy, and Gawain, a Knight of the Round Table, along the way. These characters' destinies intertwine in a quest to slay a dragon and eliminate the mist. But if they succeed, what will they recall that might be better left buried? Ishiguro has crafted a modern fairytale that speaks of memory and loss, war and violence, aging, and love. Its layers of meaning will linger long after the last page.
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