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| May 21, 2015 |
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Good afternoon, Readers,
We booksellers are thrilled about the stacks of books hitting our shelves recently! We've pulled the best of our book return, featuring small presses and undiscovered titles, especially for you. This collection is now marked down 30% off, and you won't want to miss it!
Looking forward to reading this week: The newest from noir futurist Neal Stephenson, an exploration of the Pacific Northwest with regional expert Jack Nisbet, and experiments in the literary world in paperbacks by Joanna Rakoff and Phyllis Rose.
Grass Roots has updated hours for this holiday weekend: we will be open from 11:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Monday, Memorial Day.
Plans for this evening? We've got them...Molly Gloss will be making a special appearance at the Troubadour Music Center tonight at 7:00! This is a free event, with books available for purchase and signing. Bring your friends!
Have a wonderful weekend,
~ Marissa
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New Hardcovers
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by Neal Stephenson
[Fiction]
A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remains . . . Five thousand years later, their progeny -- seven distinct races now three billion strong -- embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.
Hardcover; $35.00
Publisher: William Morrow & Company; ISBN: 9780062190376
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by Jack Nisbet
[Non-Fiction]
 Nisbet uncovers touchstones across the Pacific Northwest that reveal the symbiotic relationship of people and place in this corner of the world. From rural Oregon, where a controversy brewed over the provenance and ownership of a meteor, to the great floods 15,000 years ago that shaped what is now Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, this is a compelling collection of stories about the natural and human history of our region.
". . .Nisbet peels back the landscapes of the Northwest to uncover layers of meaning in unexpected places. He encourages us to look with a new, but also eons-old, light on mountains and rivers, traditional cultures and more recent settlers. . ." - Peter Stark, author of Astoria
Hardcover; $21.95
Publisher: Sasquatch Books; ISBN: 9781570619809
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by Peter Whybrow
[Non-Fiction]
 "Like the brain itself, this book is made up of two complementary halves. The first is concerned with how the human brain developed, how it functions, and why it is so susceptible to immediate gratification. . .It needs fine tuning, and that is the focus of the book's other half, which discusses already-tested ways of making ourselves better able to resist commercial coercion -- such things as heightening empathy, educating to build good character, reviving small farming and gardening, building human-scale communities suited to existing physical and economic uses, and fostering imagination. [Whybrow draws] upon history, current events, and personal experience as well as science to illustrate and advance his arguments." - Booklist
Hardcover; $27.95
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 9780393072921
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by Anne Hillerman
[Fiction]
"In her worthy sequel to 2013's Spider Woman's Daughter, Hillerman continues the exploits of the beloved Navajo cops of MWA Grand Master Tony Hillerman (1925-2008). Officer Bernadette Manuelito, Sgt. Jim Chee's wife, makes a routine traffic stop of a speeding car on a New Mexico road that morphs into a mystery when the nervous driver tries to bribe her -- but the only suspicious cargo he has are two boxes of dirt. Meanwhile, Chee takes a security assignment in Monument Valley. . .and finds not only a missing person but a newly dug grave. . .[Hillerman] skillfully [combines] Native American lore with present-day social issues." - Publishers Weekly
Hardcover; $27.99
Publisher: Harper; ISBN: 9780062270511
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New Paperbacks
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by Malcolm Brooks
[Fiction]
 "Brooks's debut captures the grandeur of the American West. Catherine Lemay, a former pianist, goes to Montana in the 1950s as a young archeologist to survey a valley for signs of native habitation before the area is flooded by a hydroelectric project. . .In the ruggedly masculine West, she almost immediately butts heads with her assigned guide, Jack Allen. She also falls under the spell of John H., an artist and lover of horses who leads a nomadic life in the badlands. . .When the two meet, intrigue sparks respect, which eventually flares into passion. . ." - Publishers Weekly
Paperback; $16.00
Publisher: Grove Press; ISBN: 9780802123817
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by Mark Z. Danielewski
[Fiction]
 The Familiar's diverse characters include a therapist-in-training whose daughters prove far more complex than her patients, an ambitious East-L.A. gang member hired for violence, a recovering addict in Singapore summoned by a powerful but desperate billionaire, a programmer near Silicon Beach whose game engine just might augur far more than he suspects, and at the very heart, a 12-year-old girl who one rainy day in May sets out from Echo Park to get a dog only to find something else . . . something that will not only alter her life but threaten the world we all think we know and the future we take for granted.
Paperback; $25.00
Publisher: Pantheon Books; ISBN: 9780375714948
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by Joanna Smith Rakoff
[Non-Fiction]
 In the late nineties, after leaving graduate school to pursue her dreams of becoming a poet, Rakoff moves to New York City and takes a job as assistant to the storied literary agent for J. D. Salinger, where she is tasked with answering Salinger's voluminous fan mail. But as she reads the candid, heart-wrenching letters from his readers around the world, she finds herself unable to type out the agency's decades-old form response. Instead, she abandons the template and begins writing back. Over the course of the year, she finds her own voice by acting as Salinger's, on her own dangerous and liberating terms.
Paperback; $15.95
Publisher: Vintage; ISBN: 9780307947987
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by James Runcie
[Fiction]
 "Forgiveness -- of betrayal, deceit, abuse, vengeance, neglect -- is at the heart of this fourth Grantchester mystery, featuring full-time Anglican priest and part-time detective Sidney Chambers. Starting with a distraught man who seeks sanctuary, believing he's murdered his wife, and ending with an art theft after the disastrous Florence flood of 1966, Chambers is continually called on to solve crimes, in concert with his good friend Inspector Geordie Keating. These include a man killed when a piano falls on his head; threats to Sydney's best friend, Amanda Kendall, as she prepares for her wedding; and the explosion in the science building of a boys' school. . ." - Booklist, Starred Review
Paperback; $18.00
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; ISBN: 9781632861030
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by Phyllis Rose
[Non-Fiction]
 "Literary critic and biographer Rose, author of The Year of Reading Proust. . .designed a literary expedition in which she read each and every book found on a shelf in the fiction section of the venerable New York Society Library. . .Each book is a catalyst for provocative inquiries, inspiring Rose to consider the crucial truths gleaned from fiction, the lives of writers, the status of women writers past and present, the distinctions (or lack thereof) between popular and literary fiction, how libraries acquire and weed books, the value of reviews and literary criticism, and the many joys of reading in the digital age. . ." - Booklist, Starred Review
Paperback; $15.00
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux; ISBN: 9780374535360
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New For Young Readers
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by Neil Gaiman
[Poetry]
Ages 5 to adult
 In this breathtaking picture book, Neil Gaiman's lyrical poem guides a novice traveler through the enchanted woods of a fairy tale -- through lush gardens, a formidable castle, and over a perilous river -- to find the way home again. Illustrated in full color by Charles Vess, Instructions features lush images of mythical creatures, magical landscapes, and canny princesses. Its message of the value of courage, wit, and wisdom makes it a perfect graduation gift for all ages!
"Like a more impish version of Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go! Gaiman's book offers riddling advice that could be for young or old." - New York Times Book Review
Hardcover; $8.99
Publisher: HarperCollins; ISBN: 9780061960321
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by Gail Carson Levine
[Fiction]
Ages 8 to 12
 In this sequel to A Tale of Two Castles, Elodie, the dragon detective Meenore, and the kindly ogre Count Jonty Um are all on their way to Elodie's home island of Lahnt. Elodie has barely set foot on land before she learns that the Replica, a statue that keeps her island's deadly volcano from erupting, has been stolen! If the Replica isn't found in three days, a mountain will be destroyed. And when Elodie ends up alone with a cast of characters, each of whom may be guilty, she has to use her wits to try to unravel a tangled web of lies.
Hardcover; $16.99
Publisher: HarperCollins; ISBN: 9780061706370
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by Michael Buckley
[Fiction]
Young Adult
 "This trilogy opener. . .sees two worlds colliding as New York City's Coney Island becomes occupied by the Alpha, an ocean-dwelling race that is nothing like the mermaids of myth. The Alpha come in all shapes and sizes, from the alluring Sirena to the deadly Nix, resembling myriad aquatic species. Their arrival inspires fear, hatred, and confusion. Sixteen-year-old Lyric Walker, who hides secrets of her own, is chosen by her high school's new principal to help several Alpha teens integrate into the school -- a dangerous proposition with anti-Alpha sentiment rapidly on the rise. . .Buckley draws clear parallels between the vicious anti-Alpha attitudes and existing racial and ethnic prejudices. . ." - Publishers Weekly
Hardcover; $18.99
Publisher: Harcourt Brace and Company; ISBN: 9780544348257
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New Music
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Events at Grass Roots
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Kathleen Cremonesi
Love in the Elephant Tent: How Running Away with the Circus Brought Me Home
and Danuta Pfeiffer
Thursday, May 28, at 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
Kathleen Cremonesi knew early on she wanted to be different. Determined to avoid following in her mother's footsteps to an ill-fated marriage, Kathleen left Oregon in her early 20s to travel across Europe. On a whim, she takes a job as a dancer in an Italian circus and, working her way up, becomes an ostrich-riding, shark-taming showgirl. Kathleen bonds with the exotic animals which bring her a peace she has never known. And when she stumbles into the arms of Stefano, the sexy elephant keeper, she finds a man who understands her wild spirit.
Kathleen Cremonesi lives west of Eugene, Oregon, with her husband. She once had the honor of volunteering at a Thai elephant sanctuary, which she still supports through charitable contributions. Kathleen enjoys traveling the world, growing her own food, and sharing great meals and good wine with family and friends.
Chiseled: A Memoir of Identity, Duplicity, and Divine Wine is a story of navigating identities through a remarkable life. Danuta Pfeiffer writes of an unwed teenage mother escaping to the tundra of Alaska; a journalist who inadvertently becomes a television evangelist with a ringside seat to a presidential campaign; a wife caught in a web of deceit and substance abuse. Finally, living happily as a winemaker in Oregon, she finds she must once more reinvent herself, when, during a sojourn to the Carpathian Mountains of Poland, she uncovers long-buried family secrets.
Danuta (Soderman) Pfeiffer was a national radio and television broadcast journalist, columnist, and talk show host for 35 years. Once called the "most visible woman in modern Christianity today," she was known as the popular co-host of The 700 Club with Pat Robertson. Danuta soon returned to her liberal roots expressing her progressive views on radio stations affiliated with Air America.
Anthony Alvarado
Thursday, June 4, at 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
 When author Anthony Alvarado talks about magic, he is not referring to a collection of hokey spells. So what kind of magic is it? It's a con you play on your own brain, a foray into advance self-psychology that makes his new book D.I.Y. Magic a creativity cookbook. It's a guide to hacking your own subconscious, using a plethora of mental exercises that result in, yes, magic. D.I.Y. Magic is perfect for those chasing the muse-artists, musicians, writers-or anyone searching for a radically original way to think, perceive, and experience the world.
Anthony Alvarado has been a forest firefighter, a high school science teacher, a library delivery truck driver, a telephone psychic, and a mental health counselor. He lives with a cat, a dog, and a girl in Portland, Oregon. When he is not doing magical experiments, he spends his time writing and trying not to drink too much coffee.
Uncorked: An Evening of Memoirs, Music, and Merlot
Wednesday, June 10, at 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
Join us for a reading and signing featuring three memoir authors Valerie Willman, Kelly Kittel, and Melissa Hart; the musical talents of Betty and the Boy; and wine!
Valerie Willman
The day Valerie found out she was pregnant with her second child was the day her husband died. He'd fallen asleep driving. She didn't know how to be a widow. She moved cross-country from Massachusetts to Oregon, delivered her baby and sought catharsis in journaling and art. During her spiritual journey, she discovered that falling in love again wasn't a betrayal, and soon enough, she was able to wear grief with grace. Smell the Blue Sky shares one woman's grief process and how she emerged from the darkness, stronger and wiser.
Valerie Willman is the author of Smell the Blue Sky, winner of the B.R.A.G. Medallion for Top Indie-Published Books. She co-chairs the Mid-Valley Chapter of Willamette Writers and teaches various workshops on writing, and on grief, such as "Booze and Chocolate Aren't the Only Ways to Cope: Turning negative emotions into art."  Kelly Kittel
Kelly Kittel never questioned her Mayflower Society mantra -- "Family is the most important thing" -- until the day her 15-month-old son was run over by her 16-year-old niece. Nine months later, Kittel's doctor made a terrible mistake during her subsequent pregnancy and she found herself burying yet another baby. Achingly raw and beautifully narrated, Breathe is a story of motherhood, death, and family in the face of unspeakable tragedy and, ultimately, how she learns to breathe again.
Kelly Kittel is a fish biologist by profession but a writer at heart. She is married with five living children, her best work beyond compare. She lives with her husband and their two youngest children in Rhode Island, but her favorite writing space is in their yurts on the coast of Oregon.
Melissa Hart
Melissa Hart and her husband start out convinced they don't want children, but caring for birds who have fallen from their nests triggers a longing to parent an orphaned child. They embark on a heart-wrenching journey to adoption. Every page sparkles with imagery and wit in this memoir of parallel pursuits. Wild Within is, above all, about the power of love -- romantic, animal, and parental -- to save lives and fulfill dreams.
Melissa Hart is an author and teacher from Eugene, Oregon. A contributing editor at The Writer Magazine, her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, High Country News, Orion, The Los Angeles Times, The Advocate, and numerous other publications.
Margaret Grundstein
Tuesday, June 16, at 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
 In 1970, Margaret Grundstein abandoned her graduate degree at Yale and followed her husband, an Indonesian prince and community activist, to a commune in the backwoods of Oregon. Together with 10 friends and an ever-changing mix of strangers, they began to build their vision of utopia. Naked in the Woods chronicles Grundstein's shift from reluctant hippie to committed utopian -- sacrificing phones, electricity, and running water to live on 160 acres of remote forest with nothing but a drafty cabin and each other. Grundstein, (whose husband left, seduced by "freer love") faced tough choices. Could she make it as a single woman in man's country? Did she still want to? How committed was she to her new life?
Margaret Grundstein is a photographer, a psychotherapist in private practice, and the owner/ director of a preschool in Venice, California. She has a B.A. from Goddard College, a Masters in Urban Planning from Yale University, and a Masters in Family Therapy from Loyola Marymount. Naked in the Woods is her first book.
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Community Events
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Darkside Show Times for 5/22-5/28
-Good Kill -R Thought-provoking, timely, and anchored by a strong performance from Ethan Hawke, Good Kill is a modern war movie with a troubled conscience.
-Slow West -R Slow West serves as an impressive calling card for first-time writer-director John M. Maclean -- and offers an inventive treat for fans of the Western. A very dark, dry comedy. Ethan Hawke.
-McFarland, USA -PG A rousing crowd-pleaser about an underdog track team that can proudly takes its place among these other fine sports films.
-Every Secret Thing -R Elizabeth Banks, traditionally known for her comedic stylings, turns in an understated and intriguing turn as Detective Nancy Porter.
-Welcome To Me -R When Alice Klieg wins the Mega-Millions lottery, she immediately quits her psychiatric meds and buys her own talk show. Kristen Wiig.
Arts/Literary Events
by Katy Butler
Reviewed by Cliff Hall; sponsored by the Friends of the Library
Wednesday, June 10, at 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Corvallis-Benton County Public Library
645 NW Monroe Ave.
Corvallis, OR
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Community Events with Grass Roots
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Molly Gloss
 In 1938, 19-year-old ranch hand Bud Frazer sets out for Hollywood with his sights set on becoming a stunt rider in the movies -- and hoping to rub shoulders with the great screen cowboys of his youth. On the long bus ride south, Bud meets Lily Shaw, a bold, outspoken young woman with her heart set on becoming a screenwriter. The two form an unlikely friendship that will carry them through their tumultuous days in Hollywood -- and as it happens, for the rest of their lives.
Molly Gloss is a fourth-generation Oregonian who lives in Portland. Her novel The Jump-Off Creek was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for American Fiction, and a winner of both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Oregon Book Award. The Hearts of Horses, published in 2007, is the novel of a young woman breaking horses for several ranchers in Eastern Oregon in the winter of 1917. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
Claire Vaye Watkins
OSU Visiting Writers Series
Friday, May 22, at 7:30 p.m.
Valley Library Rotunda
201 Southwest Waldo Place
Corvallis, OR
Battleborn takes its title from the author's home state, Nevada, so nicknamed because it achieved statehood during the Civil War. The stories cover a large chunk of history and a lot of ground, from the failed mining efforts of the forty-niners to Charles Manson's debauchery in his desert enclave (Watkins's father was a Manson associate) to the near-present with a legal brothel known as the Cherry Patch Ranch. Battleborn has won the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. It was named a best book of 2012 by the San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, and NPR.org.
A 2014 Guggenheim Fellow and an assistant professor at Bucknell University, Claire is also the co-director, with Derek Palacio, of the Mojave School, a free creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
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Store News
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30% off Great Books from Under the Radar
Sometimes a great book doesn't get the love it deserves! These titles, whether little known or from small presses, may have flown under the radar, but they haven't escaped our attention. You'll find everything from books on paleo cooking (The Paleo Dessert Bible) to fun and games (Puns, Puzzles, and Wordplay). We're promoting them at 30% off -- a great value.
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Jigsaw
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Reading Group Selection
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Tuesday, June 2, at 6:30-8:00 p.m.
 Join Marissa as she leads our June Book Group with Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt, winner of the Alex Award and Shelf Awareness Reviewer's Choice pick for 2012.
1987. There's only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and that's her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn's company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June's world is turned upside down. But Finn's death brings a surprise acquaintance into June's life -- someone who will help her to heal, and to question what she thinks she knows about Finn, her family, and even her own heart.
Regular Price: $15.00
On sale for: $12.75
Until Tuesday, June 2
Publisher: Dial Press
ISBN: 9780812982855
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Night Stands
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Neé
by Sy Montgomery
[Non-Fiction]
 Sy Montgomery collects evidence that suggests that octopuses possess consciousness and an awareness of the world. For example, rub an octopus the wrong way and they'll squirt you with water every time they see you, regardless of how much time has passed. They also show a propensity for acting out when they get bored; slipping out of their tanks to disrupt their neighbors and putting themselves back before morning. OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center has tried to cease these boredom-induced outbursts by allowing "an octopus to create art by moving levers that release paint into a canvas." This is a great book for anyone who likes nature writing and discovering one's self in the natural world.
Hardcover; $26.00
Publisher: Atria Books; ISBN: 9781451697711
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Marissa
by Neal Stephenson
[Fiction]
 While some say that Stephenson's whopper of a post-apocalyptic novel is intended only for "hard sci-fi" fans, I am politely inclined to disagree. In Seveneves, the planet is doomed, but there is hope for the future of humanity in outer space. Should you ask how this mission could possibly be achievable, its technicalities in terms of cold hard astrophysics are exhaustively detailed. Stephenson leaves no stone unturned, as expected for a story of such magnitude. Female scientists are central to the narrative, and indeed to saving the human race. Political and social commentary abounds. I enjoyed Seveneves for all of these reasons, and recommend to anyone who has ever looked at the stars and wondered.
Hardcover; $35.00
Publisher: William Morrow & Company; ISBN: 9780062190376
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Adam
by Neil Gaiman
[Poetry]
 Based on a poem by Neil Gaiman, Instructions should rival Oh, the Places You'll Go! for graduation gifts this year. Gorgeous illustrations accompany strange but oddly universal advice on how to go into the world, find adventure, friendship, and love, and not get lost along the way. The language is familiar, culled from any number of possible fairytales, but in the end it takes on a magical significance that is at once metaphorical and concrete and bigger than any of those stories. I am happy to admit I feel better after every time I read this thin little volume. It may just be my favorite Gaiman.
Hardcover; $8.99
Publisher: HarperCollins; ISBN: 9780061960321
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Linda
by David Brooks
[Non-Fiction]
 In the "me" world of the United States today, the lifelong focus of an individual is upon one's career and one's impression in the world around one. David Brooks has an excellent way of digging below the surface of this current view, and expanding profusely upon older outlooks, back in our history a little, when people strove to do something better for humankind. Writing like he talks ( PBS-Friday News Hour), his ideas tumble forth fast, calmly furious sometimes, with much feeling most of the time. The book centers around exemplary people Brooks has noted in our history from around the turn and middle of the past century. An excellent book!
Hardcover; $28.00
Publisher: Random House; ISBN: 9780812993257
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