Since its release in July, Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman has taken the literary world by storm. Fifty-years after the release of the iconic To Kill a Mockingbird, Watchman sold 1.1 million copies its first week (making it the fastest selling book in HarperCollins publishing history) and rocketed to the top of the New […]
Christie Hinrichs
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A Girl and a Gun
Phillip Margolin’s latest thriller muses on a six-shooter
Portland author Phillip Margolin has made a name for himself in the world of noir fiction, with a particular emphasis on the legal aspects of the genre. His historical drama Worthy Brown’s Daughter is a heartbreaking story of slavery and murder set in 19th-century Oregon. “Writing Worthy Brown’s Daughter,” he explained, “was a huge challenge […]
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Black, White, and Read All Over
T. Geronimo Johnson’s latest takes on race, class, and Berkeley
The first chapter of Welcome to Braggsville seethes with the barely-restrained energy of a young man standing on the threshold of his own life. D’Aron Davenport rattles off his many nicknames as a way of piecing together a childhood spent as a white, working class know-it-all in the quirky depths of the Georgian South. In […]
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From Athens to Paris to, of course, Bend
Greek-American-Bend Poet Stephanos Papadopoulos kicks off poetry month
For Greek-American and Bend-based writer Stephanos Papadopoulos, the poems collected in his recent book The Black Sea embody the “inherited memories” of his ancestors. His grandfather, a tobacco merchant who was born in Samsounda, recounted to his grandchildren the trials of the Pontic Greeks of The Black Sea, and the Asia Minor Catastrophe of the […]
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Keeping Books Alive
Ann Patchett writes—and sells—books
In 2011, the last bookstore in Nashville closed its doors. The book was dead, they said. Who needs bookstores when you can download the most popular titles straight to your preferred device—or better yet, wait for the film adaptation to hit theaters? But Ann Patchett, a lifelong Nashvillian and bestselling author, was having none of […]
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Modern Day Ghosts
Best seller Garth Stein talks about his Pacific Northwest book
Imagine you’re walking through a pristine old growth forest, dense with splayed ferns and greened by waves of coastal mist. The air is cool beneath the thick canopy; you can smell muddy bark where it meets emerald moss and the tang of pine. In A Sudden Light, Garth Stein‘s new novel about a timber baron’s […]
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Smithy and the Hendersons
A wintertime review of “Fourth of July Creek”
In this stunning debut novel from Portland author Smith Henderson, “Fourth of July Creek” takes readers into the shadow of the Rockies, where social worker Pete Snow tries desperately to help a family who has lost itself in the wilds of rural Montana. The epigraph, a quote from Henry David Thoreau, reads, “If I knew […]
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Who Am I In This World?
An interview with U.S. Inaugural Poet, Richard Blanco
Richard Blanco was catapulted into the national spotlight when President Obama selected him as the fifth Inaugural Poet of the United States, following in the footsteps of such great writers as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou. Blanco wrote “One Today,” which he read at Obama’s Inauguration in January of 2013. Not only was Blanco the […]
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Top 5 Books of the Year
“The Painter,” by Peter Heller An amazing novel that masterfully connects fly-fishing, high art, murder, revenge, and unimaginable loss into one breathless read. Heller’s powerful descriptions are bleakly beautiful, and illuminate the nature of art, and the art of nature. Great read for the modern western man, and the women who put up with them. […]
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Grumpy Crumpet
Santaland at Volcanic Theatre Pub…
If you’re an NPR listener, you’ll know the story well. After all, they run it every single holiday season without fail. Ever since it was first broadcast on Morning Edition in 1992, David Sedaris’ classic Christmas misadventure, The Santaland Diaries, has become a public radio classic, and helped launch the writer’s career. The tale, which […]