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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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2015 VERSELANDIA!
Treat yourself to an exciting night of great performance poetry at Literary Arts' fourth annual Verselandia Poetry Slam, the Grand Slam for the winners of individual slams at local high schools. Check out the Verselandia page for tickets or more information.
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Is your book club looking for ideas for new books? We'd love 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.
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Missed a newsletter? Find past issues using this link on our homepage ~~~~~~~~~
See you next month!
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Broadway Books
A Great Little Store with Great Big Service
April 2015 Newsletter
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As we climb aboard the roller coaster weather ride of April, we pause to consider, well, April. The Romans believed that the word Aprilus, the Latin basis for April, derived from a verb meaning "to open," presumably as in the opening of blossoms in the spring. We propose augmenting that connotation to include not just the opening of blossoms but also the opening of new books, new treasure troves of words and stories -- and we have many candidates from which to choose.
This month we join Literary Arts in feting some of the finest new works by Oregon authors, and we join in celebrating the joy of poetry during National Poetry Month. You can read about our special poetry sale later in this newsletter.
Oregonians have long been blessed with an abundance of talented and inspiring authors -- poets, essayists, novelists, writers of nonfiction and of short fiction -- and that tradition continues to this day.
We not only celebrate the finalists for this year's Oregon Book Awards but also present to you a line-up of wonderful authors to read to you at our cozy little store. Surely everyone will find something that speaks to them from among this array of options.
Whether you open new books, open your minds, celebrate the opening of blossoms, or all of the above -- we wish you a happy April and look forward to seeing you in the store.
Sally McPherson and Kim Bissell
Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR 97232
(503) 284-1726
bookbroads@qwestoffice.net |
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Thursday, April 2nd, 7 pm: Melissa Madenski
 Poet Melissa Madenski joins us to read from her new chapbook , Endurance. The collection has been described by Kim Stafford as "poems in a musical key rarely encountered but indelibly remembered." Madenski's poems, short stories, and essays have appeared in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. She is a recipient of a Literary Arts fellowship in non-fiction and residencies at Sitka Center, Shotpouch Creek, and Playa. Madenski has taught throughout the Northwest in public and private schools and institutions. She was the first in her family to attend college, receiving a scholarship from the PSU bookstore. She grew up in Portland and has raised her two children on the Oregon coast near the Suislaw Forest.
Tuesday, April 7th, pm: Sandra Stone
Sandra Stone will be here to read from her new book, A Sum of Whirlygigs, published by Prospect Cove Press.
Stone in the author of Cocktails with Brueghel at the Museum Caf�, winner of the Oregon Book Award and later selected as one of 150 outstanding books of poetry by Oregon poets.
In 1999, she was standing in line at the post office when she saw a flyer for a free trip to Japan for the person who could best capture friendship in 25 words or fewer. With the deadline that day, she composed a 24-word award-winning entry on death and friendship. Her book based on on her experience in Japan,
The Inmost House: Memory Making Journeying Dwelling, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2013.
Stone writes in Portland, where she works as a conceptual artist. She proposes and selects literary text for public buildings and spaces. Among her recent commissions are several libraries, the Oregon State Archives Building, and a U.S. Federal courthouse.
Thursday, April 9th, 7 pm: Lisa Ohlen Harris and Jared John Smith  We welcome two authors to our store:
2015 Oregon Book Award finalist Lisa Ohlen Harris, author of The Fifth Season, and Jared John Smith, author of Rabbit:(a novel?), to read from and discuss their new books.
In The Fifth Season, Harris's recounting of her years as a caregiver to her mother-in-law bestows illuminating immediacy on the difficulties of caring for an elderly parent while raising four young children in an extended family household. Chronicling that last season of love and struggle as she grappled with ethical convictions and personality clashes, Harris finds her way through conflicted emotions to a place of compassion and peace.
 Portland author Stevan Allred describes Rabbit: (a novel?) thusly: "Filled with its own idiosyncratic angst, Rabbit leaps across the pages the way an actual rabbit runs, herky-this way, jerky-that, never still. J, our guide through this meditation on the meaning of love and family, constantly turns every stone in his restless, brooding mind. His obsessions -- his schizophrenic father, astronomy, folklore, ghosts -- become our obsessions in this kaleidoscopic, mind-bending trek through the disordered shards of a 21st century life."
Tuesday, April 21st, 7 pm: Brian Doyle
Perennial Portland favorite Brian Doyle joins us to read from his new novel
Martin Marten (St. Martin's Press), an intertwined coming-of-age story of two energetic, sinewy, muddled, brilliant, and creative animals, one human and one a pine marten.
Dave is an eager fourteen-year-old about to start high school, which is both scary and alluring to him. Martin is a pine marten, a small, muscled hunter of the deep woods. He is about to leave home for the first time, which is both scary and thrilling to him. Both of these wild animals are setting off on adventures on their native Mount Hood in Oregon, and their lives, paths, and trails will cross, weave, and blend. Once again, Doyle blends animal and human kingdoms into a seamless narrative of the wonderment of life.
Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland and the author of seventeen books of essays, fiction, poems, and nonfiction, among them the novels Mink River (a finalist for the Oregon Book Award for Fiction) and The Plover. Honors for his work include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Thursday, April 23rd, 7 pm: Maggie Messitt and Rene Denfeld Broadway Books is pleased to offer a special event on Thursday, April 23rd, at 7 pm: Journalist Maggie Messitt and novelist Rene Denfeld  will read from their respective new books and talk about the differences in writing in their respective genres. An independent narrative and immersion journalist, Maggie Messitt has spent the past decade reporting from inside underserved communities in southern Africa and middle America. Typically focused on complex issues through the lens of everyday life, her work is deeply invested in rural regions and social justice. A dual-citizen, Messitt lived in South Africa from 2003 to 2011, during which time she was the founding director of a writing school for rural African women, editor of its community newspaper and international literary magazine, and a freelance reporter.
The Rainy Season, a work of literary journalism, is Messitt's first book. It introduces readers to the complicated reality of daily life in South Africa, telling the stories of three generations of Africans in a remote bushveld community. Messitt currently lives in southeast Ohio, where she is completing her doctorate in creative nonfiction at Ohio University.
 Rene Denfeld is an author, journalist, and death-penalty investigator who works with men and women facing execution. She has written for The New York Times, The Oregonian, and The Philadelphia Inquirer and is the author of four books of nonfiction. All God's Children was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction in 2007.
Her debut novel The Enchanted, is narrated by a man locked inside an ancient prison. For him, life in the prison is full of magic as he watches through the bars of his cage an investigator hired to help the men escape execution, a fallen priest who works with the men, and the kindly warden who ushers men to their deaths. The novel has garnered numerous accolades and awards, including a French Prix for best foreign novel, and was named a finalist for the Flaherty First Novel Prize and the #1 Northwest book of the year by The Oregonian.
Wednesday, April 29th, 7 pm: The "Just Now" Poets
Portland Poets Ron Jeidy, Shelly Peters, and Barbara Surovell will read from the newly published collection of poems ,Just Now. The poets are Mountain Writers Workshop students of Peter Sears, Oregon's seventh Poet Laureate. Seventeen other poets are included in the anthology.
Ron Jeidy has written been writing poetry for more than twenty years, amid other pursuits including business, path-carving, rock-wall building, and metal sculpture.
Shelly Peters works as a case manager in Vancouver, Washington. She's had poems published online in The Ghazal Page, Quill, and Parchment.
Barbara Surovell taught literature and writing in Oregon and Japan for many years. Her work has been published in Cloudbank.
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Celebrating Poetry in April
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April marks the return of National Poetry Month, and we're joining in the celebration. During the month of April, you can purchase one book of poetry at full price and get a second book of poetry for half price. If you purchase two books, you can get two for half price. What a great way to stock your shelves with wonderful poets and share some of your favorites with your friends. Each time you take advantage of this offer you will also be able to select one chapbook for free from a selection of chapbooks -- while they last.
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OBA People's Choice Award
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Don't miss the opportunity to vote for your favorite from among the many wonderful finalists for this year's Oregon Book Award. You can select your favorite book from any of the categories. The finalist with the most votes will receive the Readers' Choice Award at the ceremony on Monday, April 13th. You can find a list of finalists as well as a link to vote for your pick on the Literary Arts website. The Readers' Choice Award was instituted in 2011, when it was won by Willy Vlautin (who is also in the running this year) for Lean on Pete. Subsequent winners were Lidia Yuknavitch (for The Chronology of Water), Cheryl Strayed (for Wild), and Amanda Coplin (for The Orchardist).
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 Erik Larson has given us several page-turning books of narrative nonfiction, including The Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts.
In his most recent book he tackles the story of the Lusitania, on the 100th anniversary of its sinking by a German U-boat during WWII. The British luxury ocean liner was traveling from New York to Liverpool in May 2015 and was considered unsinkable both because of its speed and because people believed that the "rules" of warfare would keep civilian ships safe from attack.
Switching between the hunted ship and the hunter, the German U-boat captain who brought it down, Larson paints a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era, bringing to life a full cast of characters, including President Woodrow Wilson and many of the passengers aboard the ship -- including one young woman from Oregon. |
 From the author of the bestselling book Turn Right at Machu Picchu comes an exploration of the truth behind the lost city of Atlantis -- is it fact or is it fiction?
A few years ago, Adams discovered that amateur explorers around the world are still searching for the site of the fabled sunken city, with all of the clues forming the foundation of those searches coming from one man: the Greek philosopher Plato. Adams decides to track down these people and determine why they believe it's possible to find the world's most famous lost city and whether any of their theories could prove or disprove its existence.
Meet Me in Atlantis is both an often humorous travelogue and an enthralling account of an attempt to solve one of history's greatest mysteries, taking readers to fascinating locations to meet irresistible characters.
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The winner of both a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting and a MacArthur Genius Grant, Addario is an American photojournalist whose work appears regularly in The New York Times, National Geographic, and Time magazine.
She has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Darfur, and the Congo, fighting her way into a boy's club of a profession. Yet she does not deny the importance of gender and how being a woman has impacted every aspect of her personal and professional lives.
Addario displays humor, humanity, and empathy while presenting a memoir both inspiring and horrific. Despite well-justified fear -- she's been kidnapped and nearly killed -- she is committed to chronicling through her lens the injustice and human suffering that results from war. She uses her fear to create empathy with her subjects, and when she becomes a mother she understands even more intimately the fragility of life. |
 Bestselling author Harlan Coben returns with a stand-alone book, one of his most shocking thrillers yet.
Adam Price seems to have all of the trappings of the American Dream: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two wonderful sons, a big house, and a good job. But then he learns a devastating secret about his wife from "The Stranger" and finds himself tangled in a dark conspiracy with the potential to ruin lives -- and perhaps even end them. |
 Packer follows the secrets and desires, the wounds and struggles of one California family over the course of five decades. Opening in 1954 in three wooded acres in a rustic community south of San Francisco -- long before anyone would refer to this area as Silicone Valley -- the novel tells the story of the Blair family, Bill and Penny and their four children. Their individual narratives are interwoven with portraits of the family at crucial points in their history.
Packer has written two previous bestselling novels (Songs Without Words and The Dive from Clausen's Pier) and two collections of short fiction (Swim Back to Me and Mendocino and Other Stories). [Note: This book will publish on April 7th.] |
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Saturday, May 2nd, is
National Independent Bookstore Day!
We will be offering special items created just for this event. And good times and merriment. Details to follow in our May newsletter.
We invite you to join us in the celebration!
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Contact Information
Sally McPherson or Kim Bissell Broadway Books (503) 284-1726 bookbroads@qwestoffice.net |
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