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May 28, 2015
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Hello, Readers,
 
Welcome to the final weekend of May. Two authors will be in the store tonight for a reading and signing of their unforgettable memoirs: meet Kathleen Cremonesi and Danuta Pfeiffer this evening at 7:00!

Here's a question of the week: As our reading media evolves and changes, what happens to the physical book?

Grass Roots co-owner Jack Wolcott, together with author M. Allen Cunningham (The Flickering Page: The Reading Experience in Digital Times) will discuss Bookstores, Printed Books, Ebooks, and the Future of Reading. Join us for this engaging class next Thursday, June 4 at First Congregational Church through the Academy for Lifelong Learning spring 2015 schedule. Membership is open to everyone! For more information, see Community Events with Grass Roots below.

Cunningham will also appear at the bookstore later that day for a meet and greet (see Events at Grass Roots for updated news).

Summer solstice feels right around the corner. As we move into warmer weather, look for these brand new titles to add to your summer reading lists: Kent Haruf's final novel, a short story compilation from Chuck Palahniuk, and a special BBC America tie-in edition of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke in paperback. 

Read on, Readers -- and as always, thank you for supporting your local, independent bookstore!

~ Marissa

New HardcoversNHardcovers

by Peter Nichols
[Fiction]  

Set against dramatic Mediterranean Sea views and lush olive groves, The Rocks opens with a confrontation and a secret: What was the mysterious, catastrophic event that drove two honeymooners apart so suddenly and absolutely in 1948 that they never spoke again despite living on the same island
for 60 more years? And how did their history shape the Romeo and Juliet like romance of their (unrelated) children decades later? Centered around a popular seaside resort club and its community, The Rocks is a double love story that begins with a mystery, then moves backward in time, era by era, to unravel what really happened decades earlier.

Hardcover; $27.95

Publisher: Riverhead Books; ISBN: 9781594633317

by Kent Haruf
[Fiction]  

"The latest novel by the highly regarded author of. . .Benediction is also, sadly, his last novel; Haruf died in
November 2014. . .Addie Moore has lost her husband, and one day she boldly invites a neighbor, widower Louis, whom she does not know well, to come spend the night sleeping with her. . .just so that she may have someone to talk to and confide in during those particularly lonely early-morning hours. Meanwhile, Addie's grown son is in a troubled marriage, and because of that, he dumps his son on her. . .[forming] a new family unit from the spare parts surrounding them. . ." - Booklist, Starred Review

Hardcover; $24.00

Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group; ISBN: 9781101875896

by Chuck Palahniuk
[Fiction]  

A compilation of 21 stories and one novella that will disturb and delight. . .in "Zombies," the best and brightest of a high school prep school become tragically addicted to the latest drug craze: electric shocks from cardiac defibrillators. In "Knock, Knock," a son hopes to tell one last off-color joke to a father in his final moments, while in "Tunnel of Love," a massage therapist runs the curious practice of providing 'relief' to dying clients. And in "Expedition," fans will be thrilled to see a side of Tyler Durden never seen before in a precursor story to Fight Club.

 

Hardcover; $26.95

Publisher: Doubleday Books; ISBN: 9780385538053

by Deborah Levy-Bertherat
[Fiction]  

"In this. . .haunting French novel, Helene Chambon is a 20-year-old who arrives in Paris in 1999 to study at the Institute of Archeology. She is staying with her great-uncle, Daniel Roche, a world traveler and author of the popular Black Insignia young adult book series. . .[Helene] knows that her great-uncle is Jewish, that he was adopted by her family during World War II, and that his real name is Daniel Ascher. As she works to excavate her great-uncle's past, Helene comes to understand that Daniel's life is a series of mysteries. And the closer she gets to unlocking them, the more mysterious he becomes. . ." - Publishers Weekly

Hardcover; $22.95

Publisher: Other Press (NY); ISBN: 9781590517079

by Kevin Cook
[Non-Fiction]  

Almost two hundred father-son pairs have played in the big leagues. Cook takes us inside the clubhouses, homes, and lives of many of the greats. Aaron Boone follows grandfather Bob, father Ray, and brother Bret to the majors three generations of All-Stars. Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. strive to outdo their famous dads. Michael Jordan walks away from basketball to play minor-league baseball to fulfill his father's dream. In visiting these legendary families, Cook discovers that ball-playing families are a lot like our own -- and how it's not whether you win or lose that counts, it's how you share the game.

Hardcover; $26.95

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 9780393246001

New PaperbacksNPaperbacks

by Deborah Harkness
[Fiction]


"In the final installment of Harkness's All Souls Trilogy (after Shadow of Night), witch historian Diana Bishop and her vampiric husband, Matthew Clairmont, freshly returned to the present from their sojourn in Elizabethan England, have ample challenges to contend with. They still seek the missing pages of Ashmole 782, the mystical manuscript known as The Book of Life and the key to the origin of all supernatural beings, and now must negotiate the internal politics of Matthew's extended vampire family. Also to be considered is the Congregation of vampires, witches, and daemons, who will not look at all kindly on the impending birth of Matthew and Diana's twin children. . . " - Publishers Weekly

Paperback; $17.00

Publisher: Penguin Books; ISBN: 9780143127529

by Hampton Sides
[Non-Fiction]

"In 1879, U.S. naval officer and explorer George W. De Long (1844-81) set off on a highly publicized attempt to reach the uncharted and mysterious North Pole. Sides. . . presents a lengthy, gripping, and well-written account of De Long's treacherous expedition. Backed by the vast wealth of newspaper magnate James Gordon Bennett, De Long's voyage aboard the USS Jeannette ground to a grim halt when the vessel became trapped in the ice for two interminable years and later sank. After abandoning ship onto the frigid ice fields, De Long and his crew embarked on a desperate trek toward rescue in distant Siberia. . . " - Library Journal

Paperback; $16.95

Publisher: Anchor Books; ISBN: 9780307946911

by David Shafer
[Fiction]

"Journalist and history professor David Shafer's debut novel concerns three 30-somethings as they attempt to find meaning in their lives by pursuing the Committee, a cabal of corporate industrialists and media barons who want to privatize all the world's data in hopes of selling it back to the highest bidders -- whether they're individuals, corporations or governments. Members of the resistance front, Dear Diary, choose silly code names like Dixon Ticonderoga so they can anonymously pursue their plan of freeing humanity with new, plant-based computers that are not yet fully understood. . .Blending elements of spy, science-fiction and literary genres, [the novel] takes place in evocative locales like Myanmar, Oregon and London. . ." - Shelf Awareness

Paperback; $15.95

Publisher: Mulholland Books; ISBN: 9780316252652

by Dave Eggers
[Fiction]

"Thomas is mad as hell. Life isn't going according to his grand plan, his government has made some bad decisions, and the folks he needs to talk with won't respond. Thomas has never hurt anyone. . . but he's so angry and his head hurts, and he just wants someone to share his umbrage. Using a trick he picked up from a TV cop show, Thomas begins his search for the truth by chloroforming and kidnapping Kevin, a NASA astronaut and former instructor. His destination is Fort Ord, an abandoned army base in California. . . Interviewing his captives about war, police brutality, and pedophilia, Thomas reveals the layers of his troubled soul. . . " - Library Journal

Paperback; $15.95

Publisher: Vintage; ISBN: 9780307947536

by Susanna Clarke
[Fiction]

In this internationally bestselling novel -- soon to be a BBC America TV mini-series airing in June -- English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, but by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr. Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England's magical past. . .All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative -- the very opposite of Mr. Norrell. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Mr. Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be are very different. . .
Paperback; $18.00

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; ISBN: 9781620409909

by Paulo Coelho
[Fiction]

A woman around her thirties begins to question the routine and predictability of her days. In everybody's eyes, she has a perfect life: a solid and stable marriage, a loving husband, sweet and well-behaved children and a job as a journalist she can't complain about. However, she can no longer bear the necessary effort to fake happiness when all she feels in life is an enormous apathy. All that changes when she encounters an ex-boyfriend from her adolescence. Jacob is now a successful politician and, during an interview, he ends up arousing something in her she hadn't felt for a long time: passion.

Paperback; $14.95

Publisher: Vintage; ISBN: 9781101872246

New For Young ReadersYReaders

by Eric Carle
[Fiction]
Ages 2 to 5

Find out what award-winning author/illustrators' favorite animals are in this collection from Eric Carle and friends. Bringing together some of the finest modern children's book illustrators of our time, Eric Carle asks, "what's your favorite animal?" and the result is an astonishingly colorful parade of animals, from giraffes with their heads in the clouds to fuzzy dogs to squishy snails.


Board Books; $8.99

Publisher: Henry Holt & Company; ISBN: 9781627793032

by Christie Matheson
[Fiction]
Ages 3 to 7

In this interactive bedtime story, touch, tap, blink, whisper, and more to make magic happen in the nighttime sky, from sunset to sunrise. What happens while you're sleeping? With lush, beautiful watercolors and cut-paper collage, Christie Matheson reveals the magic of the nighttime sky, using the same kinds of toddler-perfect interactive elements as her acclaimed Tap the Magic Tree. Wave goodbye to the sun, gently press the firefly, make a wish on a star, rub the owls on their heads. . .

Hardcover; $15.99

Publisher: Greenwillow Books; ISBN: 9780062274472

by Jodi Picoult
[Fiction]
Young Adult

"Delilah and Oliver may have found a happy ending in Between the Lines, but this story isn't over yet. In this second collaboration between best-selling Picoult and her college-age daughter, nerdy high-schooler Delilah and the prince she literally plucked from the pages of a book are settling into as normal a life as possible. Edgar, son of said book's author, Jessamyn, has swapped places with Oliver, going into the story so Oliver can live a normal teenage life with Delilah. But the book wants Oliver back, and worryingly, something is very wrong with Jessamyn. . ." - Booklist

Hardcover; $19.99

Publisher: Delacorte Press; ISBN: 9780553535563

New MusicNMusic


 
Eilen Jewell
Genre: Pop/Folk

The Americana writer's new record celebrates two milestones in her career. The album arrives in the wake of her first child, as well as her move from Boston back to her longtime Idaho home. 
($16.98)

 
Keith Jarrett
Genre: Jazz

2015 live release from the jazz great. Where in the past the solo documentation has shown the improvisational process unfolding over the course of a single evening, this time Jarrett zeroes in on the most revelatory moments from six concerts in Tokyo, Toronto, Paris, and Rome. 
($18.98)

 
Putumayo Artists
Genre: World

Putumayo's newest compilation features the upbeat rhythms of Afro-Caribbean music. Contributors include Ska Cubano, Michel Blaise, Asere, and more.
($15.98)
Events at Grass RootsEventsGRR


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. 

M. Allen Cunningham

Thursday, June 4, at 12:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR

M. Allen Cunningham's newest book, Partisans: A Lost Work by Geoffrey Peerson Leed, a found manuscript by the vanished writer, will appear in spring 2015. Partisans is presented in nine parts according to Leed's designs as indicated in manuscripts discovered after his disappearance. One half of Partisans concerns an unspecified war in an unspecified past; the other half centers on Leed himself as he struggles to survive in an unspecified future. At the heart of the book is our present moment, though never dealt with explicitly. 

Cunningham is the author of the illustrated limited edition short story collection Date of Disappearance, the novels The Green Age of Asher Witherow and Lost Son, and two volumes of nonfiction, The Flickering Page: The Reading Experience in Digital Times and The Honorable Obscurity Handbook, which Cynthia Ozick has called "ingenious, variegated, touching, important, wholly absorbing, inspiring and inspiriting."
 
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. 
Community EventsCommunityEvents

Darkside Show Times for 5/29-6/4

-100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared -R Eccentric, wry, and highly entertaining.

-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.

-I Am Big Bird -NR Every bit as good-natured as longtime fans might hope, I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story offers heartwarming behind-the-scenes perspective on a cultural icon.

-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

Community Events with Grass Roots

In partnership with Oregon State University
Spring 2015 course: "Bookstores, Printed Books, Ebooks, and the Future of Reading"

Thursday, June 4, at 9:30 a.m.
First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
4515 SW West Hills Rd.
Corvallis, OR

What is a "book?" What are its essential qualities and how might the "ebook revolution" fundamentally change those qualities? Jack Wolcott, co-owner of Grass Roots Books & Music, and author M. Allen Cunningham will discuss how ebooks are challenging the market forces in printed books, our thinking about new media in general, and "real" bookstores. Is there a "point of no return" related to printed books? Please bring questions! Host: Bonnie Napier. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
Store NewsStoreNews

2015 Firecracker Awards

The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses announced the winners for the six categories of the Firecracker Awards, which seek to celebrate and promote great literary works from independent literary publishers and self-published authors. The winner for fiction was Song of the Shank by Jeffery Renard Allen (Graywolf Press), and the winner for Magazine, General Excellence was Tin House Press of Portland, Oregon.
JigsawJigsaw

Solve this week's jigsaw! 
Reading Group SelectionReadingGroup

by Carol Rifka Brunt
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
Night StandsNightStands

Claire

by Naomi Klein
[Non-Fiction]

Whether climate change makes you sigh, feel afraid, or rise to action, This Changes Everything is a must read. Klein understands that we're past a petty debate over the existence of climate change, and instead takes this opportunity to take a realistic look at where we are. Climate change does not have a simple fix through invention, changing from incandescents to compact fluorescent lightbulbs, or even geoengineering; instead it is deeply intertwined with our capitalist system. Therefore, addressing it must come through a radical change to that system. Well-researched and far from dry, this is The Book to read on climate politics.

Hardcover; $30.00

Publisher: Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 9781451697384

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