Hanukkah Alert!
This year the first eve of Hanukkah is on November 27 - the night before Thanksgiving. So early! Don't get caught without enough candles, dreidels, gelt, cards, and other Hanukkah goodies. We'll have plenty.
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That you can order books 24/7 on our website? Select "pay in store/pick up in store," and we'll notify you when they're ready for you to pick up!
That we sell Kobo eReaders and eBooks that you can read on any device (including your iPad) except Kindle devices?
That we happily gift wrap any of your purchases from us at no additional charge?
That our gift certificates never expire? If we don't expire, they don't expire!
That more than almost anything else we love helping you choose just the right gift? So don't hesitate to ask for ideas if you're stuck.
That we are long-time supporters of local literary and educational activities?
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Our Hours:
Monday - Saturday
10 am to 7 pm;
Sunday
Noon to 5 pm
Open 24/7 on our website!From November 29th through December 23rd, we will be open extended hours:Monday - Saturday10 am to 9 pm;Sunday10 am to 7 pm
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Local
Independent
Here for you.
Thank You for Supporting Local Businesses!
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Read next year's Multnomah Country Library's Everybody Reads book:  Learn more
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Congratulations to short story maven Alice Munro, winner of The Nobel Prize for Literature. We're thrilled!  Learn more
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New in Paperback
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Broadway Books
A Great Little Store with Great Big Service
November 2013 Newsletter
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Greetings!
Still basking in the glow of that freakishly fabulous October weather, we slide into November with our hearts and heads full of thanks and hope for the winter months. Truly, there is no more exciting time in the life of a bookstore than the last two months of the year.
Publishers hit their stride, issuing more new books than at any other time of year. Shelves start quivering with the bounty of the season. We get a kick out of just opening the door, in anticipation of what wonders will come through it -- customers, friends, boxes full of great reads, neighborhood dogs, the lady who sells homemade tamales, folks we haven't seen since last year and those we haven't yet met, those angel authors who come to sign books and schmooze...the list is endless. We hope to see you soon!
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Monday, November 4th,7 pm: The Oregon Writers Book Colony Presents R. Gregory Nokes
 The Oregon Writers Colony's final OWC Book Club discussion of the year. will feature Breaking Chains: Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory by R. Gregory Nokes and published by Oregon State University Press. This nonfiction book tells the story of the only slavery case ever adjudicated in the Oregon courts, in 1853. Former reporter and editor Kathleen Glanville will interview Mr. Nokes to launch the discussion. Thursday, November 7th, 7 pm: Short Stories by Natalie Serber and Stevan Allred
Ms. Serber is the author of Shout Her Lovely Name, published by Mariner Books. Mothers and daughters ride a familial tide of  joy, pride, regret, guilt, and love in these stories of flawed, resilient women. Several connected stories within the collection follow two decades of a family created when a capricious, magnetic and ambitious college student becomes a single mother to a cautious daughter in 1970s California. The stories, called "funny, bittersweet" (Vanity Fair) announce the arrival of a stunning new talent.
Mr. Allred is the author of A Simplified Map of the Real World: The Renata Stories, published by Forest Avenue Press. These  fifteen linked stories chart a true course through the lives of families, farmers, loggers, and many others who live in the richly imagined town of Renata, Oregon. A man watches his neighbor's TV through binoculars. An errant son paints himself silver. An enormous barn emits a mysterious humming. Intimate boundaries are loosed by divorce and death in a rural landscape where even an old pickle crock has an unsettling history. These stories deftly navigate the stubborn geography of the human heart.
Tuesday, November 12th, 7 pm: Lindsay Hill, Sea of Hooks  Portland poet Lindsay Hill will be with us to read from his new novel, Sea of Hooks, published by McPherson & Company of Kingston, New York. Publishers Weekly has just named this debut novel one of the Ten Best Books of 2013.
Sea of Hooks is a novel structured to reflect the interweaving of the two worlds inhabited by its main character, Christopher Westall. Christopher holds the spheres of ordinary days and weeks in precarious balance against the shifting field of images and voices that lies behind them. A series of traumas shatters this balance. The parallel narratives recount Christopher's youth in San Francisco, where he struggles with the icy Victorian household of his mother, and his subsequent journey to Bhutan for answers to questions that haunt him. The narrative is comprised of the shattered fragments of Christopher's world and is driven by the forces that compel him to reassemble it, at any cost.
Lindsay Hill has published six books of poetry and his work has appeared in many literary journals. This is his first novel and the product of nearly twenty years of work. Since leaving a career in banking, he has worked in the nonprofit sector. Thursday, November 14th, 7 pm: Karen Karbo, Julia Child Rules: Lessons on Savoring Life  Portland's most kick-ass writer, Karen Karbo, will be here to discuss her newest book, Julia Child Rules: Lessons on Savoring Life, published by Globe Pequot Press.
Just about everyone who cooks knows who Julia Child was, but how many have taken the time to discover what was behind the enormous appeal of the unlikely woman who became a superstar in midlife and changed our approach to food and cooking forever?
In her newest book, Ms. Karbo dissects the life of the sunny, unpretentious chef, author, and bon vivant, with an eye toward learning how we, too, can savor life. She has boiled it all down to ten lessons for getting the best out of one's days on this earth, each one illustrated with stories from Julia's life as well as anecdotes from the author's own experiences. Lessons include "Live with Abandon," "To Be Happy, Work Hard," "All You Need Is a Kitchen and a Bedroom," "Solve the Problem in Front of You," and "Every Woman Should Have a Blowtorch."
This book is the latest in Ms. Karbo's series of books about "Kick-Ass Women." She is the author of similar books about Coco Chanel, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Katherine Hepburn. She is also the author of three novels (each of them named a New York Times Notable Book) and a memoir about her father. Thursday, November 21st, 7 pm: Linda Lee Peterson, The Devil's Interval  Linda Lee Peterson will be here to read from her new mystery, The Devil's Interval, published by Prospect Park Books.
A socialite murdered in the backseat of a limo. A killer on Death Row, watching the appeals clock tick away. A mother, the doyenne of the San Francisco jazz scene, desperate to prove her son's innocence. Enter Maggie Fiori, magazine editor and mother of two young boys (and partner in a dysfunctional marriage), who shouldn't get involved but cannot resist a desperate plea from another mother.
This book is the second of Ms. Peterson's novels to feature San Francisco editor and self-appointed sleuth Maggie Fiori. The first book in this series is Edited to Death. |
 One of our heroes is Sherman Alexie. Besides being one of the best and funniest writers around, he's an important and illuminating presence in our bookselling universe. This year, he has launched a movement called Indies First Day. Sherman has called on his fellow authors to show their support for independent booksellers by working at their favorite indie bookstore on Small Business Saturday, celebrated this year on November 30th.
 Within an hour after he posted his idea on Twitter, we had calls and emails from Cheryl Strayed, Karen Karbo, Kevin Sampsell, and several other Portland writers who volunteered to be part of the staff of Broadway Books on Saturday, November 30th. We are thrilled! At various times throughout the day, our local author heroes will be in the store, talking books and helping our customers find exactly what they need. They'll also sign copies of their own books. We will be posting on Facebook (become a fan of Broadway Books!) and Twitter (@bookbroads) as we get more information about who's coming, so now would be a good time to start following us on both of these social network platforms. See you on November 30th! |
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This year's edition of our annual Holiday Books: The Best of the Independent Northwest will be inserted in selected copies (near-by zip codes) of the Oregonian on Saturday, November 23rd.
This popular 24-page catalog of books is especially designed for Northwest readers and includes hundreds of new titles (and a few choice older ones) of interest in many subjects.On the back page of the catalog is our offer for special savings. Check it out! If you don't get a copy of the catalog in your newspaper, we'll have one at the store for you. We'll also be posting it on our website. Happy Holidays!
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The annual Ladies Night Out on NE Broadway has become one of the most popular neighborhood events of the year! This year it takes place on Wednesday, December 4th, from 5 pm to 9 pm. We'll have more details for you in our December newsletter, but we wanted to get it on your busy holiday calendars right away.
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We are happy to announce our third annual book drive for the Roosevelt High School Library. The book drive begins the Friday after Thanksgiving and continues through December 31st.
Roosevelt's amazingly hardworking and creative librarian, Betsy Tighe, is working with us to make sure that every book we donate will be used by students and staff at Roosevelt. We hope you'll be able to participate.
You may donate to the library in two ways:
1. Buy a book! For every book you purchase from us for Roosevelt, we'll give you a 20% discount.
2. Make a donation! For every dollar you donate, we'll add 20% more. The money will be used by Betsy and her colleagues to purchase books for library and classroom use.
We love supporting one of our public schools in this way almost as much as we love the customers who join us in this effort. Thanks to everyone!
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Broadway Books has a full array of eReaders. If you're thinking about giving eReading a whirl, or if you are thinking about giving one as a gift, we are happy to walk you through the advantages of Kobo eBooks and eReaders.
Through the end of the year we're offering the Kobo Mini, the smallest full-feature eReader, for only $59.99, while supplies last. We also have the Kobo Glo, our most popular model, for $129.99.
This month we'll be launching two new eReaders and a tablet: The Kobo Aura, the Kobo Aura HD, and the Arc7 Tablet.
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We were recently saddened to learn that Dorothy Stafford, one of the great ladies of Oregon, had passed away at age 97. A longtime teacher and promoter of literary causes, she was a friend to all of us who write, publish, sell, and read books. For us at Broadway Books, the loss is a personal one indeed, as she was always so generous to us with her presence at and participation in our annual William Stafford birthday celebrations in January. We also saw her at literary gatherings all over town! She will be greatly missed. Our sympathies and love to her family. In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington St. Portland 97205. There is a memorial service to be held at Lewis and Clark's Agnes Flanagan Chapel at 3 pm on Sunday, November 3rd.
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This month Roberta is delighted to offer some of her favorite reads.
November and December are so busy at the store that there is precious little time for me to read. Not complaining! I am happy happy happy to be selling books. Here are a few books that have delighted me for various reasons during the past year:
 Andrew Solomon's important book, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, has just been published in paperback. It's a collection of twelve long essays, ten years in the research and writing, that addresses the problems that families face (and the ways they have of dealing)when they have a child who is different from them. I will mention just some of the twelve "differences" that the author discusses (one per chapter): children who are dwarfs, children who are autistic, children who are gay, children who are prodigies, and children who are criminally violent. At more than 900 pages, this book is a challenge. I have given myself a year to read it, one chapter a month. It's fascinating book, and offers a humane way to redefine how we view and nurture our children who are not like us.
 David Rakoff, a gay, Jewish, Canadian-American actor and essayist who was a regular contributor to Public Radio's This American Life, wrote humorous pieces that garnered him much acclaim and many awards. Many of his essays were autobiographical, and most of them were so funny they left the reader gasping for air. Before he succumbed in 2012 to the cancer that had plagued him for more than a decade, he gave us a novel in verse that is funny, wise, sly, and full of the most delightful wordplay! Love, Dishonor, Marry Die, Cherish, Perish is packed with characters that are witty and sad and true, full of longing and regret and heart and hope, and I fell in love with (almost) every single one of them as they made their way in and out of each other's lives, crossing gender and generational boundaries with abandon. (A special thanks to Mr. Rakoff's friend Chip Kidd, a book designer of extraordinary talent who assembled the author's words in an unusual and totally appropriate package.) My advice to you: You need to read this book aloud to yourself. Take it somewhere where no one can hear you and jump in. You'll stumble over some of the words, perhaps, but let the meter carry you and you will have so much fun. I promise. We also have the book on CD, read by the author.
I talk too much. So now I will quickly run through a few more books.
 I love food writing, and M.F.K. Fisher is my favorite (even though sometimes I get mad at her for leaving things out). Wiley has published a lovely collection of five of her books in one fat volume called The Art of Eating that you can pretty much dip into at will and read until you are sated. This collection was published more than ten years ago, but I find I am constantly rereading sections from it. I remember reading a piece about eggs and then wanting eggs for every meal for a week. Lovely.
 A Compendium of Collective Nouns, compiled by Woop Studios for Chronicle Books, is a word lover's delight. Most of us are familiar with "a murder of crows" or "a clutch of eggs" but how about "a slant of journalists," "a wheeze of joggers," "a pavane of matadors," "an illusion of painters," "a skulk of thieves"? This book offers 220 pages of these marvelous terms, with definitions and etymology.
 Allen Say is my favorite children's author. His most recent book, The Favorite Daughter, is a story about his relationship with only child when she was a little girl. He uses photographs as well as watercolors to illustrate the story. It's a sweet one.
 Have you seen Shake by Portland photographer Carli Davidson? It's an inspired collection of portraits of dogs in mid-shake. This common doggie gesture, the shake, is familiar to us all but has never been explored in such stop-motion detail as in this delightful book. The flying drool! The flappy mouths! The goofy eyes! The wayward tongues! Everything about this little gem is wonderful.
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A Note about our December Newsletter
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There are a gazillion books we want to tell you about, but alas, even the most voracious reader can only absorb so much information at once. We've decided to send our December newsletter to you in themed installments over the course of the month, rather than trying to include everything in one unwieldy gob. Each installment will note our expanded holiday hours and any other relevant information or late-breaking news, plus a brief description of new books in a particular category, with the idea of gift-giving in mind.
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Contact Information
Roberta Dyer or Sally McPherson Broadway Books (503) 284-1726 bookbroads@qwestoffice.net |
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