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| October 1, 2015 |
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Greetings, Readers (and hello, October)!
There are so many fantastic new happenings everywhere you look this week! Without further ado...
The annual Magic Barrel has an official date: Friday, October 23! Listen to readings by Oregon authors and enjoy music and refreshments, with proceeds benefiting Linn Benton Food Share. Don't miss this epic evening! Keep scrolling for upcoming events.
For Banned Books Week, we encourage you to pick up a banned or challenged book in the store and read all about the controversy. And in time for October, our YA section is decked out with spooky "wicked reads." this week include a Margaret Atwood novel, Mary Oliver poetry in paperback, and the final installment in a Lemony Snicket series for kids.
Lastly, keep up to date with our 2016 wall calendars and dayplanners, and prepare for fall holidays with a great selection of Halloween and Thanksgiving cards, in stock right now.
We'll see you in the bookstore soon!
Marissa |
New Hardcovers
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by Margaret Atwood
[Fiction]
"In the dystopian landscape of the unflappable Atwood's ( Stone Mattress) latest novel, there are not enough jobs, and too many people, which drives married couple Stan and Charmaine to become interested in the Positron Project, a community that purports to have achieved harmony. There is a catch, as Positron leader Ed explains: citizens are required to share their home with other couples, alternating each month between time in prison and time at home. It's an odd arrangement, but one that temporarily satisfies Charmaine and Stan until. . .their infatuations put the entire Positron arrangement into question. . ." - Publishers Weekly
Hardcover; $26.95
Publisher: Nan A. Talese; ISBN: 9780385540353
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by Paul Theroux
[Non-Fiction]
One of the most acclaimed travel writers of our time turns his unflinching eye on an American South too often overlooked. Theroux finds there a paradoxical place, full of incomparable music, unparalleled cuisine, and yet also some of the nation's worst schools, housing, and unemployment rates. On road trips spanning four seasons, wending along rural highways, Theroux visits gun shows and small-town churches, laborers in Arkansas, and parts of Mississippi where they still call the farm up the road the plantation. And he talks to the people who, despite it all, never left, and also those who returned home to rebuild a place they could never live without.
Hardcover; $29.95
Publisher: Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; ISBN: 9780544323520
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by Ruth Reichl
[Non-Fiction]
 "When the doors closed at Gourmet magazine in 2009, editor-in-chief Reichl comes to terms with her professional upheaval by plunging herself into her greatest pleasure -- cooking. . . Her recipes, introduced by haiku-like images of smells, tastes, sounds, and cityscape, read like kitchen conversations. . .[they] are arranged by season and include comforting dishes such as roasted tomato soup, corn pudding, fried chicken, grilled cheese with leeks, and hamburgers on potato buns. There's plenty of international fare: pastas, lemony hummus, Yanghuo-style dumplings, spicy Korean shrimp, and vegetable rice sticks. . .Reichl reminds readers that getting lost in a recipe can be excellent therapy." - Publishers Weekly
Hardcover; $35.00
Publisher: Random House; ISBN: 9781400069989
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by Claire Vaye Watkins
[Fiction]
"Watkins' first book, the story collection Battleborn, won a string of awards. . .setting high expectations that are spectacularly exceeded by her purposefully imagined first novel. The California drought is catastrophic, forcing the population, designated Mojavs, to enact an exodus in reverse of that of the Okies who fled the Dust Bowl. A few hardy, rebellious, thirsty souls remain. . .Ray is AWOL after serving in the Middle East, and his survival skills are keeping [he and Luz] alive. . .But when they take in a very strange little girl, they realize that it's time to seek a safer place. . ." - Booklist, Starred Review
Hardcover; $27.95
Publisher: Riverhead Books; ISBN: 9781594634239
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by Yeonmi Park
[Non-Fiction]
Yeonmi Park has told the harrowing story of her escape from North Korea as a child many times, but never before has she revealed the most intimate and devastating details of the repressive society she was raised in and the enormous price she paid to escape. Park would regularly go without food and was made to believe that, Kim Jong Il, the country's dictator, could read her mind. In In Order to Live, Park describes the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, confronting her past with a startling resilience.
Hardcover; $27.95
Publisher: Penguin Press; ISBN: 9781594206795
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New Paperbacks
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by Mary Oliver
[Poetry]
"Winner of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Oliver ( American Primitive) continues to build her legacy with this latest collection of new and selected poems, marking 50 years since her first book of poetry was published. Oliver's keen intuition of the natural world has allowed her to invent a poetic voice distinct to the American landscape and unmatched by that of her contemporaries. Here she is relaxed and at home in poems that read like songs and tell the stories of her companionship -- the experience of love, trust, loss, grief, joy -- with the animals she's spent a lifetime getting to know." - Library JournalPaperback; $16.00
Publisher: Penguin Books; ISBN: 9780143125839
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by Caitlin Doughty
[Non-Fiction]
"In life, death is the only guarantee, yet many of us live in fear of the great equalizer. Doughty, a licensed L.A. mortician, is here to reinstate death. . .[recounting her] fascination (nay obsession) with death, which began, as a child, when she witnessed a toddler's fatal two-story fall, and has continued through her work monitoring a cremation retort and her studies at mortuary school. . .Not shying away from candid descriptions of corpses, cremation, and putrefaction, Doughty -- professional both in the field and on the page -- details postmortem proceedings not to repulse but to reveal our modern society's death denial. . ." - Booklist, Starred Review
Paperback; $15.95
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 9780393351903
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by Steven Pinker
[Non-Fiction]
"Forget Strunk and White's rules -- cognitive science is a surer basis for clear and cogent writing, according to this iconoclastic guide from bestselling Harvard psycholinguist Pinker ( The Language Instinct). Pinker deploys history, logic, and his own deep understanding of language to debunk many prescriptivist grammatical strictures: go ahead and split that infinitive, he declares, start a sentence with a conjunction, and use passive constructions when they improve a sentence's legibility. . . Every writer can profit from and every reader can enjoy Pinker's analysis of the ways in which skillfully chosen words engage the mind." - Publishers Weekly Paperback; $17.00
Publisher: Penguin Books; ISBN: 9780143127796
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by Charlie Lovett
[Fiction]
Book lover and Austen enthusiast Sophie Collingwood has recently taken a job at an antiquarian bookshop in London when two different customers request a copy of the same obscure book. Their queries draw Sophie into a mystery that will cast doubt on the true authorship of "Pride and Prejudice" and ultimately threaten Sophie's life. In a dual narrative that alternates between Sophie's quest to uncover the truth and a young Jane Austen's touching friendship with the aging cleric Richard Mansfield, Lovett weaves a romantic, suspenseful, and utterly compelling novel about love in all its forms and the joys of a life lived in books.
Paperback; $16.00
Publisher: Penguin Books; ISBN: 9780143127727
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by Eka Kurniawan
[Fiction]
 "In the first of 20 transporting stories gathered here, a lonely art history professor, newly separated from his wife, discovers that he can see into the pedicure parlor across the street from his apartment. . .Incidents of desirous surveillance and magical solace occur throughout this disarmingly pristine, covertly cosmic, and piquantly exhilarating collection by heralded short story master Pearlman (Binocular Vision). The director of a soup kitchen, about to depart on extended maternity leave, spies on her replacement. . .Pearlman not only writes with bewitching clarity, she also fathoms much about our inner lives and relationships that is unexpectedly wondrous." - Booklist, Starred Review
Paperback; $15.99
Publisher: Back Bay Books; ISBN: 9780316297233
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New For Young Readers
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 Imagine a world where the sky becomes the Earth; where a waterfall freefalls to become dancing women; where you can cut mountains out of curtains, and ships sail into the sky. This amazing world is what Rob Gonsalves has created. His vision inspires and astounds -- and he wants to share that vision with you. With stunning illustrations that stretch the limits of the imagination, this fourth installment in the Imagine a... series explores a world that is boundless and beautiful, inviting you to imagine a world of possibilities -- to imagine "this" world.
Hardcover; $17.99
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Canada; ISBN: 9781481449731
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by Lemony Snicket
[Fiction]
Ages 9 to 12
 Train travel! Murder! Librarians! A Series Finale! On all other nights, the train departs from Stain'd Station and travels to the city without stopping. But not tonight. You might ask, why is this night different from all other nights? But that's the wrong question. Instead ask, where is this all heading? And what happens at the end of the line? The final book in Lemony Snicket's bestselling series, All The Wrong Questions.
Hardcover; $16.00
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; ISBN: 9780316123044
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by Mercedes Lackey
[Fiction]
Young Adult
 "Joyeaux Charmand is a young Hunter, chosen from her village to join the Hunter corps of Apex, protecting its Cits from the Othersiders -- fantastical, menacing creatures -- and also protecting the secrets and people of her village back home. Joyeaux has the arduous task of figuring out the rules of her new environment while showing that she is worthy of her position. She also discovers that there will be cameras almost every step of the way, televising her journey to millions of eager fans. . .Joyeaux's narration is spellbinding, the prose easily balancing the technology of the future with the traditions of the past." - Kirkus Reviews
Hardcover; $17.99
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion; ISBN: 9781484707845
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New Bargain Books
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New Music
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| Regular store music orders will return soon...stay tuned! |
Events at Grass Roots
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Derek "Deek" Diedricksen
Tuesday, October 13, 2015 at 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.
Grass Roots Books & Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR
If you dream of living in a tiny house, or creating a getaway in the backwoods or your backyard, you'll love this gorgeous collection of creative and inspiring ideas for tiny houses, cabins, forts, studios, and other microshelters. Created by a wide array of builders and designers around the United States and beyond, these 59 unique and innovative structures show you the limits of what is possible. You'll also find guidelines on building with recycled and salvaged materials, plus techniques for making your small space comfortable and easy to inhabit.
Derek "Deek" Diedricksen is the author of Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts. His work has been featured on the cover of the New York Times' Home and Garden Section and in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the Seattle Times, the Wall Street Journal, Make magazine, and Apartment Therapy.com; and on NPR, CBS, PBS, and ABC. Diedricksen lives in Stoughton, Massachusetts. |
Community Events
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Darkside Show Times for 10/2-10/8
-Hell & Back -R Remy, Augie, and Curt have been best friends since birth. When they jokingly take a blood oath and break it, Curt is dragged to Hell to be sacrificed. The guys must risk everything to save their friend from a slew of misfit demons, Greek legends, and the Devil himself. Stop action animation. NOT for kids.
-Finders Keepers -R Recovering addict and amputee John Wood finds himself in a stranger-than-fiction battle to reclaim his mummified leg from Southern entrepreneur Shannon Whisnant, who found it in a grill he bought at an auction and believes it to therefore be his rightful property. Yep, it's a documentary. No, really.
-Shanghai -R An American returns to Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret. John Cusack.
-Grandma -R Lili Tomlin is Grandma, who with her granddaughter spends the day trying to scrape up $600 in cash by making unannounced visits to old friends and flames, which end up rattling skeletons and digging up secrets. 92% on RT.
-Sleeping With Other People -R Fresh, funny, and full of witty insights about modern love, this hilariously heartfelt film "is the rare rom-com that reminds us why we love them so much in the first place." Alison Brie, Jason Sudeikis.
Arts/Literary Events
Willamette Writers on the River: Monthly Meeting
with Sarina Dorie
"The Clowning Linguist: How to Write Comedy"
Monday, October 19, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church
114 SW 8th St.
Corvallis, OR
With humor, grace, and various interactive exercises, Sarina will share some of the tricks of her trade. She deals in the unexpected, in curious juxtapositions, in wordplay, and even funny sounds. Learn how to have fun with the hard work of comedy writing. She'll also answer your questions -- if you show up. So be there!
Sarina Dorie is the author of the award-winning YA paranormal romance novel Silent Moon. Her Puritan and alien love story, Dawn of the Morning Star, is due to come this year with Wolfsinger Publications. She has sold more than 70 short stories to markets like Daily Science Fiction and Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Salem Chapter of Willamette Writers: Monthly Meeting
with Leslie Gould
"Street Teams: Why You Need One, When to Create One, & How to Keep It in the Game"
Wednesday, October 21, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Salem Public Library
585 Liberty St. SE
Salem, OR
Word of mouth is the best marketing there is. But how do you generate it? Whether you love promotion or consider it a chore, you need a street team! Find out how to start, sustain, and nurture a group of readers who want to promote your work. Your team can make all the difference when it comes to building your platform and your sales.
Leslie Gould is the #1 bestselling and Christy Award winning author of 20 novels. She received her MFA from Portland State University in 2009 and teaches writing Warner Pacific College as an adjunct professor.
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Community Events with Grass Roots
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Crazy Eights Author Event (Corvallis)
Thursday, October 15, at 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.
Corvallis-Benton County Library
645 NW Monroe Ave.
Corvallis, OR
Speed dating, only with authors! Each author will have eight minutes to address the audience about their life as a writer and introduce a featured book. It will be a fast-paced literary slam. A mixer, wherein the authors will interact one-on-one with members of the audience to discuss their work and personally sign books, will follow the rapid-fire presentations. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
Authors include:
- Dan DeWeese (Oregon Book Award fiction nominee, You Don't Love This Man)
- K.B. Dixon (Oregon Book Award finalist, The Sum of His Syndromes; Eric Hoffer Award)
- Cai Emmons (Oregon Book Award winner, His Mother's Son; new work Weather Woman)
- Lisa Ohlen Harris (Oregon Book Award finalist, The Fifth Season)
- Lauren Kessler (Oregon Book Awards; on David Letterman twice; newest: Raising the Barre)
- Phillip Margolin (Nationally known for NYT best selling legal thrillers; Woman With a Gun)
- Ismet Prcic (Bosnian author of Oregon Book Award winner novel, Shards; NYT Notable Book)
- Ellen Waterston (Award winning poet and essayist, novel of verse Via Lactea most recent)
- Emcee: George Byron Wright (Noted for Oregon-based novels; In the Wake of Our Misdeed)
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Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 2:00 to 3:30 p.m.
Corvallis Public Library
645 NW Monroe Ave.
Corvallis, OR
In death-ravaged Verona, Angelica, a mother mourning her day-old infant, enters the household of the powerful Cappelletti family to become the wet-nurse to their newborn daughter Juliet. Over the next 14 years, Angelica becomes caught up in the Cappelletti's darkest secrets. But when those secrets erupt across five momentous days of love and loss, Angelica must confront her own deepest grief to find the strength to survive.
Award-winning author Lois Leveen's work has appeared in the New York Times, the LA Review of Books, the Chicago Tribune, the Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic and on NPR, as well as in numerous literary and scholarly journals and in film and performing arts festivals. She lives in a bright green house in Portland, Oregon, with two cats, one Canadian, and 120,000 honey bees. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
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The Magic Barrel: A Reading to Fight Hunger
Friday, October 23 at 7:00 p.m. (Doors open at 6:30)
Whiteside Theatre
361 SW Madison Ave.
Corvallis, OR
 The Mid-Willamette Valley's premier literary event, The Magic Barrel: A Reading to Fight Hunger, is held each fall in Corvallis to raise funds for Linn Benton Food Share. This unique event is named after Bernard Malamud's short story collection,The Magic Barrel, and features writers from around Oregon sharing their fiction, poetry, and works of nonfiction in brief readings. The evening begins and ends with music, drinks, and complimentary food, with all proceeds benefiting Linn Benton Food Share. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event, with all proceeds donated to Linn Benton Food Share. For more event details and this year's list of readers, visit https://magicbarrel.org/. |
Crazy Eights Author Event (Albany)
Saturday, November 14, at 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.
Albany Public Library
2450 14th Ave. SE
Albany, OR
Speed dating, only with authors! Each author will have eight minutes to address the audience about their life as a writer and introduce a featured book. It will be a fast-paced literary slam. A mixer, wherein the authors will interact one-on-one with members of the audience to discuss their work and personally sign books, will follow the rapid-fire presentations. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
Authors include:
- Bill Cameron (Friends of Mystery Award for County Line forthcoming title Accelerant)
- K.B. Dixon (Oregon Book Award finalist, The Sum of His Syndromes; Eric Hoffer Award)
- Molly Gloss (Oregon Book Award winner, Falling From Horses; PNBA winner)
- Lisa Ohlen Harris (Oregon Book Award finalist, The Fifth Season)
- Justin Hocking (Oregon Book Award winner, The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld)
- Jane Kirkpatrick (Noted for 23 historical novels, WILLA Awards, Oregon Book Awards finalist)
- Jody Seay (Oregon Book Award fiction finalist, The Second Coming of Curly Red)
- Molly Best Tinsley (Oregon Book Award winner, Throwing Knives; thriller Broken Angels)
- Emcee: George Byron Wright (Noted for Oregon-based novels; In the Wake of Our Misdeed)
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Store News
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Wicked YA Reads
Devour them before they devour you! Browse dark and scary tales for Halloween in our young adult section and grab a free "Wicked Reads" sampler to see what's new this fall.
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MacArthur "Genius" Award and Thurber Prize
The 24 recipients of this year's MacArthur Foundation "genius" grants -- $625,000 paid out over five years to people who "show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future" -- include Ta-Nehisi Coates, journalist and author of the memoir Between the World and Me; as well as author Ben Lerner and poet Ellen Bryant Voigt.
Julie Schumacher has won the $5,000 2015 Thurber Prize for American Humor for Dear Committee Members. Judges called the novel "a dazzling satire," with humor that "sizzles and settles into you and catches you off-guard." |
Jigsaw
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Reading Group Selection
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Tuesday, October 6, at 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
 Join our October Reading Group with The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize. This intense novel follows Tony Webster, a middle-aged man, as he contends with a past he never thought much about -- until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony thought he left this all behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
Regular Price: $14.95
On sale for: $12.71
Until Tuesday, October 6
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 9780307947727
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Night Stands
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Kerry
[Non-Fiction]
Because of the magical realism and humor in all of Etgar Keret's short stories, I didn't know what to expect from his first non-fiction book. Though it's called a memoir, it reads like a collection of brief anecdotes, beginning with the birth of his son and ending with the death of his father. As usual, Keret is wry and irreverent, but his reflections upon fatherhood, Jewish identity, and everyday life in Tel Aviv is compassionate and moving.
Hardcover, $26.95
Publisher: Riverhead Books; ISBN: 9781594633263
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Dahlia
[Poetry]
Deborah Landau's The Uses of the Body is a tremendous third collection from Copper Canyon Press. The book is sustained by poems in sequence, as well as a frontispiece and final poem. The sequences -- with titles such as "Mr and Mrs End of Suffering" and "The City of Paris Has You in Mind Tonight" -- contain both a sense of epic expansiveness (taking on life's Big Issues like birth, marriage, death), and the urgency of the quotidian. The result is spectacularly sensual and spooky. As the title suggests, Landau explores the bounds and limits of the body -- what happens when it is nurtured, challenged, and tested.
Paperback, $16.00
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press; ISBN: 9781556594816
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