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| July 2, 2015 |
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Happy Independents Week, Readers!
We're offering a 20% off coupon good for any single item throughout July 7 -- just stop by Grass Roots and tell us what you love about your local, independent bookstore!
And all month long, grab your passport at the bookstore and find Waldo! The search is on at more than 20 local businesses for your chance to receive a coupon and win amazing raffle prizes. Anyone can participate!
This event only comes once a year, so get your head start here and see our promotions this summer -- including a Summer Reading Challenge for kids.
If you visited our website recently and noticed it looks a little different, don't panic...it just got revamped! You'll find more efficient and comprehensive book search tools, a sneak peek of upcoming releases before they hit our shelves, and an updated page of local and regional authors, titles, and presses (now with their own special section in the bookstore, too)! Ordering books from us online is a snap. Just search your desired title using any variety of parameters (keyword, author, subject, etc.), add it to your cart, and check out! We encourage your feedback about these new and updated features, and see our tutorial for information on using the new site. This Fourth of July, Grass Roots will be open from 11 to 4 p.m. -- swing by and enjoy good old-fashioned American folk music and merriment on the riverfront.
Have a safe and happy holiday!
~ Marissa |
New Hardcovers
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by Rinker Buck
[Non-Fiction]
". . .When [Buck] found out that the Oregon Trail is meticulously preserved and traversable. . .[he] and his foul-mouthed handyman brother, Nick, set out to follow the 2,000-mile path, with only a covered wagon and mule team as their mode of transportation. The ensuing tale combines the brothers' personal narrative with the remarkable history of the trail, including written accounts from the pioneers who braved it. . .Buck's enthusiasm for the often arduous trip, coupled with his honest assessment of poor judgments and mistakes along the way, makes for an entertaining and enlightening account of one of America's most legendary migrations. . ." - Publishers Weekly
Hardcover; $28.00
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 9781451659160
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by Felix J. Palma
[Fiction]
". . .Cornelius Clayton, new detective with the Special Branch unit at Scotland Yard, is in for a faith-shaking experience when he joins the team investigating the case of beautiful Valerie de Bompard. . .First, Clayton is called to authenticate the proceedings of [a séance]. . .Then, recurring character H. G. Wells and his friends are attending a séance of their own when figures from his books begin making real-life appearances. Unbeknownst to them, Clayton, Wells, and a rich cast of characters, both historical and imagined, have become caught up in a battle that spans time and space, and the fate of the earth hangs in the balance. . ." - Booklist
Hardcover; $27.00
Publisher: Atria Books; ISBN: 9781451688184
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by Jessica Jackley
[Non-Fiction]
 Jackley, the co-founder of the revolutionary microlending site Kiva, had a singular and urgent ambition: to help alleviate global poverty. While in her twenties, she set off for Africa, and the insights of those she met changed her understanding: Patrick, who had next to nothing and started a thriving business using just the ground beneath his feet; Blessing, who built her shop right in the middle of the road; and Constance, who cornered the banana market in her village with her big personality and sense of mission. Each had crucial lessons to teach Jackley lessons about resilience, creativity, perseverance, and, above all, entrepreneurship. . .
Hardcover; $28.00
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau; ISBN: 9780679643760
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New Paperbacks
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by Caitlin Moran
[Fiction]
"To make money when she fears she caused her struggling family's government benefits to be cut, teen library-junkie Johanna Morrigan submits a poem about her best friend, her dog, to a contest. She wins, nabbing a cash prize and a spot on Midlands Tonight. . . Nearly overnight, autodidactic freaky fat girl Johanna becomes feared music reviewer Dolly Wilde, her tools of transformation being hair dye, eyeliner, a top hat, all black, and her radio. As herself, Johanna is endearing, hilarious, pathetic, and wise. Bawdy Dolly adopts a successful fake it till you make it approach, getting known by tearing new bands to shreds and hastily, gleefully, explicitly jettisoning Johanna's many virginities. . ." - Booklist
Paperback; $15.99
Publisher: Harper Perennial; ISBN: 9780062335982
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by Jacqueline Winspear
[Fiction]
 By July 1914, the ties between Kezia Marchant and Thea Brissenden, friends since girlhood, have become strained by Thea's passionate embrace of women's suffrage and by the imminent marriage of Kezia to Thea's brother, Tom, who runs the family farm. When Kezia and Tom wed just a month before war is declared between Britain and Germany, Thea's gift to Kezia is a book on household management -- a veiled criticism of the bride's prosaic life to come. Yet when Tom enlists to fight for his country and Thea is drawn reluctantly onto the battlefield herself, the farm becomes Kezia's responsibility. Each must find a way to endure the ensuing cataclysm and turmoil.
Paperback; $15.99
Publisher: Harper Perennial; ISBN: 9780062220516
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by Genevieve Valentine
[Fiction]
 In this reimagining of the fairytale The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Jo, the firstborn, "The General" to her 11 sisters, is the only thing the Hamilton girls have in place of a mother. Together they slip out at night to await the cabs that will take them to the speakeasy, eluding their distant and controlling father until the day he decides to marry them all off. They dance at the Kingfisher, the club they come to call home, until one night when they are caught in a raid, separated, and Jo is thrust face-to-face with someone from her past: a bootlegger named Tom whom she hasn't seen in almost 10 years. . .
Paperback; $15.00
Publisher: Washington Square Press; ISBN: 9781476739090
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by David Nicholls
[Fiction]
 "Nicholls brings his trademark wit and wisdom to this by turns hilarious and heartbreaking examination of a long-term marriage. Biochemist Douglas Petersen is about to embark on a grand tour of Europe with his artistic wife of 25 years, Connie, and his temperamental 17-year-old son, Albie, who is about to leave for college. But on the eve of their departure, his wife tells him that, after the trip, she wants a divorce. A shocked Douglas hatches a scheme to win back his wife and repair his fractious relationship with his son. . ." - Booklist, Starred Review
Paperback; $14.95
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; ISBN: 9780062365590
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by Emma Straub
[Fiction]
 "Straub's second novel ( Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures) is contained in the two-week vacation of the extended Post family: Franny and Jim, married over 30 years; their teen daughter, Sylvia; twentysomething son Bobby, his girlfriend, Carmen, in tow; and Franny's best friend, Charles, and his husband, Lawrence. Trading one grand island for another, the mainly Manhattanites arrive in Mallorca with, of course, a few secrets tucked in their literal baggage. . .Straub masters a constantly changing flow of perspectives as readers wonder who will forgive and be forgiven in this sun-soaked, remote paradise. . .a delightful study of the complexities of family and love. . ." - Booklist, Starred Review
Paperback; $16.00
Publisher: Riverhead Books; ISBN: 9781594633881
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New For Young Readers
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[Fiction]
Ages Birth to 4
 BANG! CRACKLE! BOO! Just as there are different kinds of quiet, there are also different kinds of loud: good louds (HOORAY!), and bad louds (CRASH!), and accidental louds that make you the center of attention (BURP!). The Loud Book presents all these kid-friendly noises in a way that is sure to make readers CHEER! Now in a padded board edition just perfect for little hands. Pair this with its equally entertaining (but quieter) The Quiet Book.
Board Books; $8.99
Publisher: Harcourt Brace and Company; ISBN: 9780544430648
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by William Joyce
[Fiction]
Ages 4 to 8
 Billy loves to draw. He draws on books and on his homework and even on his math tests -- he might not get the answer right, but doesn't it look swell sitting in a boat at sea? His teacher doesn't think so. But the librarian has an idea that just might help Billy better direct his illustrative energies: a book-making contest! Billy gets right to work, reading everything he can about meteors, mythology, and...mucus? Yep, his book is going to be about the world's smartest booger, who stays tucked away until needed -- say, to solve multiplication problems, or answer questions from the President.
Hardcover; $17.99
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers; ISBN: 9781442473515
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New Music
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Joy Williams Genre: Pop/Folk Williams is best known as half of the folk duo The Civil Wars. Her new solo record expands her musical palette to include more soulful sounds and larger arrangements behind her intimate voice.
($11.96) |
Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams
Genre: Pop/Folk Guitarist Campbell has played behind Bob Dylan, Levon Helm, Emmylou Harris, and more. This marks the couple's first recorded collaboration, characterized by contemporary folk, Americana, and soulful country.
($17.98) |
Neil Young
Genre: Pop/Folk
Neil Young has never been one to hide his political beliefs, as evidenced by his new collection of songs about humankind's effects on nature. Here he is backed by two of Willie Nelson's sons and the alt-country band Promise of the Real.
($20.98) |
Rickie Lee Jones
Genre: Pop/Folk
Having relocated to New Orleans, this marks Jones' first original collection in several years. Songs range from folk to jazz and R&B, all sung in Jones' immediately recognizable vocals.
($13.98) |
Events at Grass Roots
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Thursday, July 9, at 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
 For 15 years, Evelyn Hess and her husband David lived in a tent and trailer, without electricity or running water, on 20 acres of wild land in the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range. When they decided to build a house -- a real house at last -- they knew it would have to respect the lessons of simple living that they learned in their camping life. They knew they could not do it alone. Building a Better Nest chronicles their adventures as they begin to construct a house of their own, seeking a model for sustainable living not just in their home, but beyond its walls.
Evelyn Searle Hess lives in the foothills of southern Oregon's Coast Range. She currently weeds, writes, and tries to put up her garden produce before the critters get it. In spare moments she helps husband David with their life project, building a house. Hess's previous book To the Woods won the 2011 WILLA Literary Award for Best Creative Nonfiction.
Tuesday, July 14, at 9:00 a.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
Corvallis, OR
Join us at Grass Roots for games, food, and the release of Harper Lee's sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird! The early mockingbird gets the worm: To guarantee a reserved copy, pre-order online at our website, by telephone, or in-store.
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Community Events
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Darkside Show Times for 7/3-7/9
-PG-13 As unconventional and unwieldy as the life and legacy it honors, Love & Mercy should prove moving for Brian Wilson fans while still satisfying neophytes. Paul Dano, John Cusack, Paul Giamatti.
-Sunshine Superman -PG Long before there were GoPros, there was Boenish, with a camera mounted on his helmet, (base) jumping from Yosemite's El Capitan or L.A. skyscrapers under construction. Engrossing, tension-filled, and utterly fascinating.
-Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
-PG The audience for whom this sequel is targeted will enjoy the predictability of a well-executed sequel. Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith.
-The Overnight -R Witty and unpredictable, The Overnight benefits from writer-director Patrick Brice's sure-handed touch and strong performances from a talented cast. Jason Schwartzman, Taylor Schilling.
Arts/Literary Events
Melinda Marie Jetté 
At the Hearth of the Crossed Races: A French-Indian Community in Nineteenth-Century Oregon, 1812-1859
Saturday, July 11, at 1:30 p.m.
Benton County Museum, Moreland Auditorium
1101 Main St.
Philomath, OR
Despite the force of Oregon's founding mythology, the Willamette Valley was not an empty Eden awaiting settlement by hardy American pioneers. Rather, it was, as Jetté explores, one of the earliest sites of extensive intercultural contact in the Pacific Northwest: French Prairie, so named for the French-Indian families who resettled the homeland of the Ahantchuyuk Kalapuyans, provides a window into the multi-racial history of the Pacific Northwest and a community that challenged notions of white supremacy, racial separation, and social exclusion.
Willamette Writers on the River presents 
An Evening with Oregon Poet Laureate Peter Sears
Monday, July 20, at 6:30-8:30 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church
114 SW 8th St.
Corvallis, OR
Peter will read from his own work and also provide writing prompts for the audience. With his excellent ear for the sound of language, he'll provide instant and valuable feedback to those who share their drafts. This will be an interactive event, so bring pen and paper.
Peter is the author of four full-length poetry collections: Tour, The Brink, Green Diver, and Small Talk. Peter is the founder of the Oregon Literary Coalition and co-founder of Friends of William Stafford and Cloudbank Books. He serves on the board of advisors for Fishtrap, and splits his time between Corvallis and Portland. He was appointed Oregon Poet Laureate in 2014 by Governor Kitzhaber.
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Community Events with Grass Roots
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"Sick Around the World" Showing
Thursday, July 16, at 7:00 pm
Darkside Cinema
215 SW 4th St.
Corvallis, OR
T. R. Reid, author of The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, has created a PBS program, "Sick Around the World," that will be showing at Darkside Cinema.
In "Sick Around the World," Frontline teams up with veteran Washington Post foreign correspondent T.R. Reid to find out how five other capitalist democracies -- the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland -- deliver health care, and what the United States might learn from their successes and their failures. Grass Roots will be selling copies of The Healing of America at the event.
Saturday, July 25, at 7:00 p.m.
Russell Tripp Theater, Linn Benton Community College
6500 Pacific Blvd. SW
Albany, OR
 For all the rights and privileges enjoyed in the U.S., this country remains the only industrialized one that does not guarantee medical services to all its citizens. As a result, our health-care system ranks poorly when it comes to infant mortality, life expectancy, satisfaction, and overall performance. Reid traveled the globe to study the health-care systems of other democratic nations, such as France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and Canada, where medical services are available to every citizen, giving a clear picture of why we have a moral imperative to implement a health-care system for all Americans.
T. R. Reid has become one of the nation's best-known reporters through his books and articles, his documentary films, his reporting for the Washington Post, and his light-hearted commentaries on NPR's Morning Edition. Reid is a member of the board of the Health Research and Education Trust, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, and other community and educational institutions. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
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Store News
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Find Waldo Local
All July long, Grass Roots will be hosting Find Waldo Local! Here's what you need to know:
1. Stop at Grass Roots any time in July to pick up a passport and fill out your contact info.
2. Find Waldo at 10 local businesses in Corvallis and get a stamp at each one.
3. Return to Grass Roots for a Waldo button (optional).
4. Find Waldo at 15+ more businesses, then return to Grass Roots to enter a raffle to win a prize from participating businesses.
5. Join us for our Waldo celebration party on Saturday, August 1st at 2:30 p.m. We will have activities, draw names for the raffle, and give out prizes!
Current participating businesses are:
Grass Roots Books & Music
American Dream Pizza
Animal Crackers
Burst's Chocolate
Cyclotopia
Fingerboard Extension
Footwise
Francesco's
The Golden Crane
Gracewinds
The Inkwell Home Store
Irene's Boutique
Kaleidoscope Studios
Many Hands Trading
Mod Pod Décor
New Morning Bakery
Peak Sports
Sedlak's Boots and Shoes
Sibling Revelry
Soft Star Shoes
The Toy Factory
If you are a local business interested in participating, email our event coordinator Claire at events@grbookstore.com.
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Kids' Summer Reading Challenge
If your child is between the ages of 5-12, Grass Roots wants you to participate in our Kids' Summer Reading Challenge! Stop by the store and pick up a challenge form listing 10 book genres. Find a book from each of the genres to read or listen to. Return the form to Grass Roots between June 15th -- August 16th with 4 different genres completed and you'll get a 20% off coupon good toward any one children's book and a raffle ticket for a chance to win prizes.
Want more raffle tickets? Keep reading! If you complete 8 different genres you'll get a second ticket, and if you complete all 10 you'll get a third!
Need help finding a book to read? Grass Roots' friendly booksellers are happy to provide you with a
recommendation -- see our display in the store for suggestions within genres! Also, the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library is a great place for recommendations and resources.
Genres include:
Adventure
Historical Fiction
Mystery
Nonfiction
Poetry
Science Fiction/Fantasy
Your Choice!
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 Brand New Bargain Books
Holy bargain books, Batman! We just received a massive shipment of children's books, cookbooks, fiction, and much more -- all bargain-priced. As you can see, it reached the ceiling!
Since there are so many to receive, these one-of-a-kind "remainder" books will hit the shelves this Friday, so come find out what's in these boxes before they run out...
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Carnegie Medals; Harper Lee Legal Fiction Award; Desmond Elliott Prize
Deborah Johnson has won the 2015 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction for her novel The Secret of Magic. The prize is given annually to a work of fiction that "best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change." Johnson is the first woman and African-American to win the prize.
Claire Fuller won the £10,000 (about $15,610) Desmond Elliott Prize for debut novelists for Our Endless Numbered Days (Tin House Books).
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Jigsaw
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Reading Group Selection
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Tuesday, July 7, at 6:30-8:00 p.m.
 Join Claire as she leads our July Book Group with If Not For This by Pete Fromm, a four-time winning author of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Literary Award.
After meeting at a boatman's bash on the Snake River, river runners Maddy and Dalt embark on a lifelong love affair. They marry on the banks of the Buffalo Fork, sure they'll live there the rest of their days. Forced by the economics of tourism to leave Wyoming, they start a new adventure, opening their own river business in Ashland, Oregon: Halfmoon Whitewater. They prosper there, leading rafting trips and guiding fishermen into the wilds of Mongolia and Russia. But when Maddy, laid low by dizzy spells, both discovers she is pregnant and is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, they realize their adventure is just beginning.
Regular Price: $15.95
On sale for: $13.56
Until Tuesday, July 7
Publisher: Red Hen Press
ISBN: 9781597095389
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Night Stands
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 Eduardo Galeano has collected stories and interesting events in history from the world over, and has presented them in this engaging book day to day, through the complete calendar year. Fascinating bits of information, many never realized before, kept me moving swiftly through this intriguing book. What happened on whose birthday? Or, what happened on this holiday? Or, what also happened on July 4th? Galeano reaches far back in time, as well as recent happenings. This is a book one can easily open at any page and read an informative story of history, or a finely, poetically written opinion or belief from ancestors past.
Paperback, $16.99
Publisher: Nation Books; ISBN: 9781568584782
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Marissa
by Andrew Ervin
[Fiction]
 Ray Welter is an ad exec seeking to escape his mid-life crisis and the quagmire of consumerism by traveling to the remote Scottish island where George Orwell wrote 1984 and drinking copious amounts of fine scotch. But the locals are anything but friendly. Everything goes from bad to worse on this vacation from hell, and that's no hyperbole -- Ray's misfortunes are absurdly terrible (and hilarious). Will he ever find meaning in life? Highly entertaining, light summer satire with a philosophical inclination, this debut novel is a top choice for fans of Murakami, Palahniuk, and of course, the titular Orwell himself.
Hardcover, $26.00
Publisher: Soho Press; ISBN: 9781616954949
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