Broadway Books - Independently owned and supporting the NE Portland community since 1992.

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Did you know?

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?



Our Hours:


Monday - Saturday
10 am to 7 pm;
Sunday
Noon to 5 pm
Open 24/7 on our  website!

We're proud
to be your
bookstore.

Thank you for supporting local businesses!

SAGE and Literary Arts Present a Special Event with
Nicholas Kristof

We all want to make a difference, but it's all too easy to think that our individual charitable giving will never make a difference. In his new book A Path Appears, Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn illuminate meaningful and effective ways to connect to causes that make a real difference.

Sunday,  October 5th, at 4 pm at the First Congregational Church of Christ. More information and tickets can be found here.


Download the free Kobo app to read on your phone or tablet. Or buy an e-reader from us. We have two new outstanding models: The Kobo Aura ($139.99) and the Kobo Aura HD ($169.99).

Mmmm...Alma!

Pair your new book
 with a package of
 pure deliciousness
with locally made
yummy-beyond-compare Alma chocolates.


Multnomah County Library has announced its selection for the Everybody Reads program for 2015:
The Residue Years
by Mitchell S. Jackson, who was born and raised in Portland and currently lives in Brooklyn.

New in Paperback


Broadway Books
A Great Little Store with Great Big Service
October 2014 Newsletter
 
 

 
It's October already. How did that happen? We are reminded of our favorite Groucho Marx line: "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

October brings so many good new books! Titles from authors as diverse and talented as Nicholas Kristof to Lena Dunham to Marilynne Robinson to Ina Garten and many, many more. If you visit the store every single day in October (sounds crazy, but it can be done), you will have (on average) more than a dozen new books to check out each day.

We're also no slouch in the "events" department this month. We open with Karen Karbo and close with Lois Leveen, with Ted Mahar, Alice Hardesty, Penelope Scambly Schott and Brian Doyle in between. Also, an offsite event with Nicholas Kristof. We're wound up and ready to go!

What's that you say? Who's our new business partner? We had hoped to announce it by now, but prudence tells us to wait until every single legal "i" has been dotted and "t" has been crossed. Why do these things always take longer than we want them to? You'll be as happy as we are when you get the news.

Below you will find our October events, and some new books we're particularly thrilled to have in the store. Happy reading.

Roberta Dyer and Sally McPherson
Broadway Books
1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR 97232
(503) 284-1726
[email protected]

October Readings
Wednesday, October 1, 7 pm: Karen Karbo
We are hosting a launch party for Karen Karbo, who will be here to read from her newly reissued novel, The Diamond Lane. This book is published by Hawthorne Books as the newest volume in their Rediscovery Series, which reissues worthy out-of-print gems.

The Diamond Lane is a comic novel about two sisters, their boyfriends, engagements, and efforts to  break into Hollywood as filmmakers. The New York Times Book Review said, "This kind of novel is a devil to pull off...and Ms. Karbo has done her job brilliantly." The New York Times wrote, "A wonderfully comic novel about savvy Hollywood outsiders trying to get in...not only is the plot ingenious, but the writing remains deft all the way through." This new edition features an introduction by Jane Smiley.

Karen Karbo is the author of novels, memoirs and books on the lives of famous women and what we can learn from them. Her books have been named New York Times Notable Books and her memoir The Stuff of Life won the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. She is most well known for her bestselling Kick Ass Women Series: Julia Child Rules, How Georgia Became O'Keeffe, How to Hepburn, and The Gospel According to Coco Chanel. She grew up in California and lives in Portland, where she continues to kick ass. 
 
Sunday, October 5, 4 pm: Nicholas Kristof
This event will not be held at our store. See left-hand column for further details.
 
Tuesday, October 7, 7 pm: Ted Mahar 
We are happy to welcome to the store Ted Mahar, who has edited a new book of gardening columns written for The Oregonian by his late wife, Dulcy Mahar.

Thousands of Dulcy's fans purchased the first collection of her columns, Back in the Garden with Dulcy, published by RLO Media Productions two years ago. This new book, Through the Seasons with Dulcy, is the perfect companion to that first volume.

Through the Seasons with Dulcy includes 140 of Ms. Mahar's most popular columns that were published weekly in The Oregonian beginning in 1989. These columns are organized by season. In this book, readers can again find  inspiration and humor, as well as get a glimpse into the places in her garden she most cherished. Ted Mahar reflects here on their fifty-year marriage, their beloved pets and her well-known garden, plus takes readers behind the scenes into Dulcy's favorite places inside their home. The essays are accompanied by 150 full color photographs.

Ted Mahar was a film and television writer and critic at The Oregonian for nearly four decades. This is his second book.

Thursday, October 9, 7 pm: Alice Hardesty 
Irvington resident Alice Hardesty has written a very personal memoir. An Uncommon Cancer Journey: The Cosmic Kick that Healed Our Lives is the story of Alice's husband Jack's extraordinary healing from esophageal cancer in the 1980s, despite two "terminal" diagnoses. After conventional medicine failed to provide a cure, Jack tried every alternative and complementary treatment he could, including vitamins and enzymes, bodywork, spiritual healing, and intensive psychotherapy. Alice accompanied and supported him throughout this journey, and found that along with the physical healing came the healing of their marriage.
Please join us as Ms. Hardesty reads from and talks about her memoir.

Tuesday, October 14, 7 pm: Penelope Scambly Schott 
Penelope Scambly Schott will be here to read from and talk about her latest poetry collection, How I Became an Historian (Cherry Grove Collections).

This quirky new book includes slugs, a fertility goddess, her grandfather's Buick, bag ladies, loose eyes, refugee camps, ancient Roman toilet paper, instructions for cave painting, and God's day job as a hairdresser. Past and present remain deeply connected. According to Ralph Salisbury, these poems contain "Something of Diane Wakoski's comedic genius, something of Sylvia Plath's poetic rage, something of Dylan Thomas' profound vision."

Penelope Scambly Schott is a past winner of the Oregon Book Award for poetry. Her two most recent books (besides this one) are Lovesong for Dufur and Lillie Was a Goddess, Lillie Was a Whore. She lives in Portland and Dufur, Oregon, where she teaches an annual poetry workshop.

Thursday, October 16, 7 pm: Brian Doyle 
Portland writer Brian Doyle will be here to read from his new collection of essays, Children & Other Wild Animals (Oregon State University Press).

In this new book, Mr. Doyle describes encounters with astounding beings of every sort and shape. These true tales of animals and humans (generally the smaller sizes, but here and there elders and jumbos) delightfully blur the line between the two.

These short vignettes explore the seethe of life on this startling planet, the astonishing variety of our earthly companions, and the joys available to us when we bother to look for them. Doyle's trademark prose style is at once lyrical, daring, and refreshing. His essays are poignant but not pap, sharp but not sermons, and revelatory at every turn.

Mr. Doyle is the author of the novels Mink River and The Plover as well as several essay collections, a memoir, and other books. He edits Portland Magazine at the University of Portland.

Tuesday, October 28, 7 pm: Lois Leveen 
Portland writer Lois Leveen will be here to read from her newly published novel, Juliet's Nurse (Atria Books).

This unusual story imagines the life of a character from Shakespeare who is identified only as "Nurse to Juliet" in the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. The author has named the nurse Angelica, and this story covers the fourteen years of her life that she spends first as Juliet's nurse, and then as her nanny, companion, and confidante until Juliet's untimely death.  

It's a richly imagined tale that begins with Angelica mourning the death of her day-old child. Hired as a wet nurse for Juliet by her powerful and demanding parents, Angelica lives her days loving Juliet but also missing her husband, and also trying to deal with the strict expectations of the Church. When Juliet's family's darkest secrets erupt over five momentous days of passion and loss, Angelica must confront her own deepest grief to find the strength to survive.

By turn comic, sensual, and tragic, Juliet's Nurse gives voice to one of literature's most unforgettable characters.

Award-winning author Lois Leveen has had her work published in many scholarly and literary journals as well as The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal and on NPR. Her previous novel, The Secrets of Mary Bowser, was a Broadway Books Bestseller.

Exploring the Ocean
When Dan Kainen came out with his Photicular book Safari (Workman Publishing), we could barely keep it in stock. Now he returns with another book we're sure will also fly off the shelves -- or should we say swim: Ocean: A Photicular Book.

With an introduction on sea creatures written by Carol Kaufmann, the book brings you face-to-face with undulating creatures of the deep: the sea turtle flaps, the octopus pulses, the yellow-banded sweetlips puckers up, and more. The Photicular process uses an innovative lenticular technology, sliding lenses, and original four-color video imagery to make its magic.You can watch a video of some of the pages from the book here.
Press Here: The Game
One of the bestselling book for kids in the past few years has been Press Here, by Herve Tullet. Now the same author and publisher (Chronicle Books) have produced a game based on that book.

For ages three and up, Press Here: The Game is easy enough for a toddler to grasp, but also complex enough to challenge older siblings and adults, delivering hours of entertainment for the whole family.
 
Players take turns completing color sequences by placing red, blue, and yellow playing pieces on one of twenty-five game boards. What seems like a simple choice is likely to lead to animated discussion as players come to understand the visual logic at the heart of the game.
New Nonfiction in Hardcover
Sally's favorite book du jour (you know how fickle she is) is Lost in Translation, a charming little book featuring foreign words that have no direct translation into English. For example, the Farsi word tiam refers to "the twinkle in your eye when you first meet someone." The French word feuillemort is an adjective meaning "having the color of a faded, dying leaf." And then there's the  Japanese word for a feeling we're sure none of you ever experiences: tsundoku: Leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piled up together with other unread books. Nope, never happens. The fifty words are accompanied by simple but beautiful illustrations to anchor the words and their meanings. A wonderful gift for the word lover in your life -- and of course one for yourself!
Based on Munroe's wildly popular webcomic xkcd.com, a stick-figure strip that addresses questions of technology, science, and relationships using humor, What If provides hilarious and informative answers to the questions you probably never thought to ask, such as "What would happen if lightening struck a bullet in mid air?" "Which U.S. state is actually flown over the most?" "How high can a human throw something?" "If an asteroid was very small but supermassive, could you really live on it like the Little Prince?" Really, how have we gone this long without knowing the answers to these questions and more? Munroe's TED Talk has been viewed by more than a million people.
Staying on the theme of just a little bit quirky, we encourage you to check out this new book that chronicles the remarkable life of Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter, an American surgeon who lived from 1811 to 1859 and was described as the "P.T. Barnum of the surgery room."

Brilliant, eccentric, and flamboyant, this medical innovator revolutionized American surgery techniques and founded the country's most famous museum of medical oddities. Dr. Mutter's Marvels is based on more than fifteen years of research, including full access to the extensive archives of the Mutter Museum, and includes more than seventy illustrations.
New Fiction in Hardcover
The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters 
From the bestselling author of The Little Stranger and Tipping the Velvet comes an enthralling novel about a widow and her daughter who take a young couple into their home in 1920s London. Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the "clerk class," join the household of impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter Frances, shaking up the routines of the house and profoundly altering the course of Frances's life. Sarah Waters has been named to the Man Booker short list three times and has earned her reputation as one of the finest writers of historical fiction.

We Are Not Ourselves, by Matthew Thomas
We Are Not Ourselves, a multigenerational debut novel of an Irish-American family, centers on Eileen (Tumulty) Leary, an upwardly mobile dreamer. Born in 1941 and raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Queens, Eileen can't help but dream of a calmer life, in a better neighborhood. When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a neuroscientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she's found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. Eileen quickly learns, however, that Ed doesn't aspire to the same, ever bigger, stakes in the American Dream -- a better job, better friends, a better house.

Their lives take an even more challenging turn when Ed is diagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 51. Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future. Through the Learys, Thomas charts the story of the American Century, particularly the promise of domestic bliss and economic prosperity that captured hearts and minds after WWII. The result is a powerfully affecting work of art and one of the frankest novels ever written about love between a caregiver and a person with a degenerative disease.

The Children Act, by Ian McEwan
In Mr. McEwan's newest novel, British High Court Judge Fiona Maye is dealing with two challenges simultaneously: her husband of thirty years has just declared his intent to have an affair, calling her cold and "no fun." And she must rule on the case of seventeen-year-old Adam, who is refusing urgent medical treatment (with the support of his parents) for religious reasons. Should the secular court overrule sincerely expressed faith? Maye's  judgment has momentous consequences for them both.
2015 Calendars are Here!
It's calendar time! We've got datebooks, page-a-days, and gorgeous wall calendars of all sizes.

We know fall just arrived, but now is truly the best time to get your calendars, while the selection is at its best -- many of these calendars cannot be reordered if we run out. Where else can you get such beautiful art that changes every month at such a reasonable cost? Even if you keep your appointment schedule electronically, you still need a calendar in your life, don't you think?
 Is your book club looking for ideas for new books? We're always glad to brainstorm with you. And we're happy to let you know if books are readily available, and when they'll be out in paperback.
 
Contact Information
Roberta Dyer or Sally McPherson
Broadway Books
(503) 284-1726
[email protected]