Kim Fay in Conversation With Cecily Wong

Thursday, March 20 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

From Kim Fay, author of Love & Saffron, comes a bright and comforting novel that follows the surprising friendship between two young women in 1990s Seattle and Paris, illuminating the power of books to change our lives. Twentysomething Frida Rodriguez arrives in Paris in 1991, relishing the city’s butter-soaked cuisine and seeking her future as a war correspondent. But then she writes to a bookshop in Seattle, and receives more than just the book she requests. A friendship begins that will redefine the person she wants to become. Seattle bookseller Kate Fair is transformed by Frida’s free spirit, spurred to believe in herself as a writer, to kiss her handsome coworker, and to find beauty even in loss. Through the most tumultuous years of their young lives — personally and globally — Kate and Frida sustain and nourish each other as they learn the necessity of embracing joy, especially through our darkest hours. Fay’s Kate & Frida (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) is a mouthwatering oasis of a novel and a love letter to bookshops and booksellers, to the passion we bring to life in our twenties, and to the last precious years before the internet changed everything. Fay will be joined in conversation by Cecily Wong, author of Kaleidoscope.

Buy the Book

Adam Plunkett in Conversation With Seth Gannon

Friday, March 21 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

By the middle of the twentieth century, Robert Frost was the best-loved poet in America. He was our nation’s bard, simple and sincere, accompanying us on wooded roads and articulating our hopes and fears. After Frost’s death, these cliches gave way to equally broad (though opposed) portraits sketched by his biographers, chief among them Lawrance Thompson. When the critic Helen Vendler reviewed Thompson’s biography, she asked whether anyone could avoid the conclusion that Frost was a “monster.” In Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost’s Poetry (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Adam Plunkett blends biography and criticism to find the truth of Frost’s life — one that lies between the two poles of perception. Plunkett reveals a new Frost through a careful look at the poems and people he knew best, showing how the stories of his most important relationships, heretofore partly told, mirror dominant themes of Frost’s enduring poetry: withholding and disclosure, privacy and intimacy. Not least of these relationships is the fraught, intense friendship between Frost and Thompson, the major biographer whose record of Frost Plunkett seeks to set straight. Moving through Frost’s most important work and closest relationships with the attention to detail necessary to see familiar things anew, Plunkett offers an original interpretation of Frost’s poetry, tracing Frost’s distinctive achievement to an engagement with poetic tradition far deeper and more extensive than he ever let on. Frost invited his readers into a conversation like the one he sustained with his literary forebears, intimate and profound, yet Frost kept his private self at a remove. Here, Plunkett brings the two together — the poet and the poetry — and draws us back into conversation with America’s poet. Plunkett will be joined in conversation by Seth Gannon, co-founder of Speech Labs.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Sara Ryan in Conversation With Kyle Lukoff

Friday, March 21 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Sara Ryan’s Mountain Upside Down (Dutton Books for Young Readers) is a funny and heartfelt LGBTQIA+ middle grade novel set against the backdrop of family drama and a library funding campaign in a small town. Alex Eager lives in Faillin, OR with her grandmother, a retired librarian. Life should be great for Alex, since she finally worked up the courage to ask her best friend PJ if they could be more than friends and she said yes. But their new relationship will have to be long distance, because PJ is moving. On top of that, Alex is worried that something is wrong with her increasingly forgetful grandmother. And to make matters worse, Faillin is holding a referendum on library funding, and things aren’t looking good. Will anything good for Alex ever last? Mountain Upside Down is a beautifully crafted story of a thirteen-year-old girl finding her place in her family and her community. It’s a queer-positive story that doesn’t center coming out. It’s a story of a library’s role in a community that doesn’t feature book banning. And it’s a story of long-held family secrets and resentment that focuses not on final resolution but learning how to communicate again. Ryan will be joined in conversation by Kyle Lukoff, author of Too Bright to See and When Aidan Became a Brother.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Kids' Storytime With Carrie Tillotson

Saturday, March 22 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Learn all about alpacas in both North and South America in this rhyming nonfiction picture book full of these darling fluffy friends! Alpacas here, alpacas there depend on people for their care. Thousands of years ago, people living high in the Andes Mountains of South America domesticated alpacas from wild animals. Today, millions of alpacas are still raised in the Andes, but alpaca farming has also spread to North America and around the world. Find out all there is to know about the lives of alpacas, here, there, and everywhere! Alpacas Here, Alpacas There (Beach Lane Books) is the new picture book from Carrie Tillotson, author of B Is for Bananas.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Shana Targosz in Conversation With Laini Taylor

Tuesday, March 25 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Shana Targosz’s The Underwild: River of Spirits (Aladdin) is a stunning debut middle grade fantasy about a girl who gets lost in the Underworld — perfect for fans of Greenwild and Rick Riordan. Senka lives between the realm of the Living and the realm of the Dead. As ward to Charon, the Ferryer of the Underworld, Senka assists in ferrying recently departed souls across the river and into their afterlife. Although Charon has taught her many Rules about life in the Underworld, there is much he avoids telling her. Though she doesn’t understand why the Rules are so important, she listens — she must heed them in order to become an official Ferryer, just like Charon. Then a Living girl, Poppy, enters the Underworld to plead for help in finding the ghost of her brother. Poppy’s grief tugs at Senka’s heart — but helping Poppy goes against the very Rules Senka is so desperate to follow. When Poppy is yanked away by the river’s current, Senka leaps to save her, and she and Poppy are swept downriver, far from everything Senka has ever known. Lost in the Underwild, Senka and Poppy encounter malevolent spirits of lore and eccentric ghosts — and not all are willing to let souls slip through their grasp. Senka knows the Living can’t stay in the realm of the Dead for long, and if Poppy isn’t returned home soon, she will risk becoming lost to the Underworld forever. But as Senka travels deeper into the Underwild, she discovers there are secrets her guardian has kept from her, including the mystery surrounding her own existence. As Poppy and Senka dodge angry demigods, hungry wraiths, and terrifying dragon chimera, Senka gets closer to learning the truth of her own past. Soon, Senka won’t just need to save Poppy’s life — she’ll also need to save her own. Targosz will be joined in conversation by Laini Taylor, author of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Karen Finley

Wednesday, March 26 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

First performed at sold-out theaters in New York, where the Village Voice compared Karen Finley to Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, this vivid suite of poems invokes a maelstrom of feelings that will make you laugh and cry, sometimes on the same page. In COVID Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco (City Lights), Finley processes the pandemic in all its complexity — from the collective coping strategies during isolation and loss to the absurd new habits we acquired, from handwashing to wiping down groceries to decorative double masks and Zoom dance parties. The New York City hotspot echoes an earlier AIDS era; that rage and sorrow remain part of the City's DNA. During COVID, tragic historic events such as the police murder of George Floyd and the continued brutality on Black and brown bodies challenged the nation. Revolution took to the streets. The reversal of Roe v Wade and the criminalizing of trans peoples' bodies, mental health realities, houselessness, essential workers' rights, and social isolation brought desperate conditions. Finley reflects on these traumas, asking how do we employ love despite the hate, to encourage humanity despite proliferating violence? On the fifth anniversary of the pandemic lockdown, COVID Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco looks back while also looking forward, offering art as salvation, and the deep belief in the power of words, compassion, and humor to transcend the harsh realities of today.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Leah Sottile in Conversation With B. ‘Toastie’ Oaster

Thursday, March 27 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Known for deep dives into true crime, extremist ideologies, and fringe subcultures, journalist Leah Sottile turns her investigative eye toward American New Age culture. Today, tarot cards, astrology, and crystals are everywhere — from Instagram and TikTok to upscale boutiques and pricey wellness retreats. Sottile investigates how the recent surge of interest in New Age ideas speaks to a culture that is woven into the very fabric of America, and how self-professed gurus like Love Has Won's Mother God and the mysterious channeler Ramtha have built devout followings because of it. For more than a century, this pastel-colored world of love, light, and enlightenment has been built upon a foundation of conspiracies, antisemitism, nationalism, and a rejection of science. In Blazing Eye Sees All (Grand Central), Sottile seeks to understand the quest for New Age spirituality in an era of fear that has made us open to anything that claims to bring relief — from war, the climate crisis, COVID 19, or the myriad of other issues we face. At the same time, she attempts to draw a line between truly helpful, healing ideas and snake oil. The new New Age is everywhere, and Sottile helps us sort through the crystals to find true clarity. Sottile will be joined in conversation by B. ‘Toastie’ Oaster, award-winning journalist at High Country News.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Taku Kondo Meet-and-Greet

Thursday, March 27 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Whether you want to find your own food or just cook creative recipes, Coastal Harvest (DK Publishing) will teach you how to catch fish, identify and harvest mushrooms, and make delicious dishes using wild ingredients. Join adventurer Taku Kondo as he takes you on an exploration of waterways and coastal forests to connect with nature and find ingredients sourced from the great outdoors. Enjoy some of the most popular dishes from Kondo’s YouTube channel, Outdoor Chef Life, as well as recipes that he's developed over years of experience. Each recipe has been thoughtfully curated to bring out the best flavors of your harvest. If you’re not catching your own food, follow his expert recommendations on sourcing the freshest and most sustainable seafood. Kondo provides guidance on the entire catch-to-plate process, giving you the knowledge to catch and prepare your own food, including: basic tools and knowledge for the outdoor chef; fishing basics — what species to fish for, plus how and when to fish for them; coastal foraging — the best intertidal edible species to look for; mushroom foraging — identifying fungi and how to find them; and 85 incredible recipes with Asian American inspired flavors and more.

Please note: This event is a meet-and-greet and will include a photo op and booksigning.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Carl Zimmer in Conversation With Ferris Jabr

Friday, March 28 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air — and thousands of living things. From the ground to the stratosphere, the air teems with invisible life. This last great biological frontier remains so mysterious that it took over two years for scientists to finally agree that the Covid pandemic was caused by an airborne virus. In Air-Borne (Dutton), award-winning New York Times columnist and author Carl Zimmer leads us on an odyssey through the living atmosphere and through the history of its discovery. We travel to the tops of mountain glaciers, where Louis Pasteur caught germs from the air, and follow Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh above the clouds, where they conducted groundbreaking experiments. We meet the long-forgotten pioneers of aerobiology including William and Mildred Wells, who tried for decades to warn the world about airborne infections, only to die in obscurity. Air-Borne chronicles the dark side of aerobiology with gripping accounts of how the United States and the Soviet Union clandestinely built arsenals of airborne biological weapons designed to spread anthrax, smallpox, and an array of other pathogens. Air-Borne also leaves readers looking at the world with new eyes — as a place where the oceans and forests loft trillions of cells into the air, where microbes eat clouds, and where life soars thousands of miles on the wind. Weaving together gripping history with the latest reporting on Covid and other threats to global health, Air-Borne surprises us on every page as it reveals the hidden world of the air. Zimmer will be joined in conversation by Ferris Jabr, author of Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Kids’ Storytime

Saturday, March 29 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join us every Saturday for kids' storytime. Today we're reading Saturdays at Harlem Grown by Tony Hillery.

Buy the Book

Sam Tallent

Saturday, March 29 @ 3pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Running the Light (Random House) is a bona fide “instant classic” (Doug Stanhope) novel that tells the story of a road comic crashing and burning by acclaimed comedian Sam Tallent. Billy Ray Schafer stepped off the plane in Amarillo, Texas, with twenty-six hundred dollars tucked down the leg of his black ostrich-skin cowboy boot. He walked to baggage claim slowly, jelly-legged and nearing lucidity, coming out from under the Xanax he snorted before the flight. Debauched, divorced, and courting death, Billy Ray Schafer is a comedian who has forgotten how to laugh. Over the course of seven spun-out days across the American Southwest, he travels from hell gig to hell gig in search of a reason to keep living in this bleak and violent glimpse into the psyche of a thoroughly ruined man. Ex-inmate, ex-husband, ex-father — comedian is the only title Schafer has left. Trapped in the wreckage of his wasted career, Billy Ray knows the answer to the question: What happens when opportunity doesn't come — or worse — it comes and goes? “In vivid, electric sentences that read like cinematic tracking shots,” (Denver Post) Tallent hurls you into an absolute mess of a man’s life as we search for the mercy he does not want.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Eric Puchner in Conversation With Peter Rock

Sunday, March 30 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her future in-laws’ lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a young doctor with a brilliant life ahead of him. Charlie has asked Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate the ceremony, though Cece can’t imagine anyone more ill-suited for the task — an airport baggage handler haunted by a tragedy from his and Charlie’s shared past. But as Cece spends time with Garrett, his gruff mask slips, and she grows increasingly uncertain about her future. And why does Garrett, after meeting Cece, begin to feel, well, human again? As a contagious stomach flu threatens to scuttle the wedding, and Charlie and Garrett’s friendship is put to the ultimate test, Cece must decide between the life she’s dreamed of and a life she’s never imagined. The events of that summer have long-lasting repercussions, not only on the three friends caught in its shadow but also on their children, who struggle to escape their parents’ story. Spanning fifty years and set against the backdrop of a rapidly warming Montana, Eric Puchner’s Dream State (Doubleday) explores what it means to live with the mistakes of the past — both our own and the ones we’ve inherited. Written with humor, precision, and enormous heart, both a love letter and an elegy to the American West, Dream State is a thrillingly ambitious ode to the power of friendship, the weird weather of marriage, and the beauty of impermanence. Puchner will be joined in conversation by Peter Rock, author of The Night Swimmers.

Buy the Book

Emma Pattee in Conversation With Margaret Malone

Monday, March 31 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Last night, you and I were safe. Last night, in another universe, your father and I stood fighting in the kitchen. Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, there's nothing to do but walk. Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. If she can just make it home, she's determined to change her life. A propulsive debut, Emma Pattee’s Tilt (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books) is a primal scream of a novel about the disappointments and desires we all carry, and what each of us will do for the people we love. Pattee will be joined in conversation by Margaret Malone, author of People Like You.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Laura Stanfill in Conversation With Armin Tolentino

Tuesday, April 1 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

If you want to get your manuscript published, read this book. There's no secret handshake or golden key in these pages, but Imagine a Door (Forest Avenue Press) offers a more equitable and empowering prize: information delivered with gentleness. Author and publisher Laura Stanfill started working on this project in 2016, ultimately interviewing more than seventy-five authors and industry experts, including Wendy Chin-Tanner, Tove Danovich, Omar El Akkad, Erin Harris, Ari Honarvar, Juhea Kim, Dan Lazar, Fonda Lee, Emme Lund, Daniel A. Olivas, Rosanne Parry, Keith Rosson, Amy Stewart, Sonja Thomas, Addie Tsai, and Lidia Yuknavitch. Is a writing routine worthwhile? How do you pinpoint the why behind your storytelling? What exactly is distribution? Can we reframe success in a less capitalistic way than defining it by sales numbers? While prioritizing genuine community over platform building, Imagine a Door intersperses case studies, sidebars, and checklists with personal stories about writing, revising, and the emotional complexities of sending your work into the world. Stanfill will be joined in conversation by Armin Tolentino, former poet laureate for Clark County, Washington and author of We Meant to Bring It Home Alive.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Vanessa Priya Daniel in Conversation With Se-ah-dom Edmo

Wednesday, April 2 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

In the U.S., many of the most significant social justice victories of our time have been spearheaded by women of color leaders. From the streets, to the ballot box, to elected office, no other demographic group stands up more consistently and unequivocally for human rights, democracy, and the planet. Remarkably, they’ve accomplished this despite conditions — in their fields and organizations — that make leadership uniquely treacherous for them. For women of color leaders, the game is rigged. How much more could humanity be winning if we unrigged it? What might be possible, in this clutch moment of history, with so much on the line, if movements stopped benching our best in ways that negatively impact the scoreboard for everybody? Unrig the Game (Random House) equips us to support effective women of color leaders so we can all win. A former community and union organizer who started one of the largest foundations to resource women of color-led organizing, Vanessa Priya Daniel draws on candid interviews with forty-five prominent women of color movement leaders, along with her own experience at the helm of an organization, to offer an on-the-ground perspective of the obstacles leaders face, how they navigate them, and how allies can show up. Daniel highlights the unique strengths and “superpowers” these leaders bring to the fight for social change, while debunking the myth that identity alone makes a transformative leader. For women of color leaders, this book is a balm, a sister circle, and a master class. For everyone, it is an essential tool to realize the world we all deserve. Daniel will be joined in conversation by Se-ah-dom Edmo, Executive Director at Seeding Justice.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Alwyn Hamilton in Conversation With Tori Bazurto

Thursday, April 3 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Alwyn Hamilton, author of Rebel of the Sands, is back with The Notorious Virtues (Viking Books for Young Readers), a glittering fantasy thriller about a glamorous media darling, a surprise heiress, and the magical competition of a lifetime. At sixteen, Honora "Nora" Holtzfall is the daughter of the most powerful heiress in all of Walstad. Her family controls all the money — and all the magic — in the entire country. But despite being the center of attention, Nora has always felt like an outsider. When her mother is found dead in an alley, the family throne and fortune are suddenly up for grabs, and Nora will be pitted against her cousins in the Veritaz, the ultimate magical competition for power that determines the one family heir. But there's a surprise contestant this time: Lotte, the illegitimate daughter of Nora's aunt. When Lotte's absent mother retrieves her from the rural convent she'd abandoned her to, Lotte goes from being an orphan to surrounded by family. Unfortunately, most of them want her dead. And soon, Nora discovers that her mother's death wasn't random — it was murder. And the only person she can trust to uncover the truth of what happened is a rakish young reporter who despises everything Nora and her family stand for. While the dangers of the Veritaz competition threaten each of the Holtzfall girls, and the stark class differences turn political outrage to terrifying violence, the new cousins must fight to stay alive, no matter what. Incredible tests, impossible choices, and deadly odds await both girls. But there can only be one winner. Hamilton will be joined in conversation by BookToker Tori Bazurto (@forced_proximity).

Preorder a Signed Edition

Kids' Storytime With Brook M. Thompson

Saturday, April 5 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Growing up in the Yurok and Karuk Tribes, Brook M. Thompson learned to care for the fish that nurtured her and her family. She knew that along the Klamath River in Northern California, salmon and lampreys are a needed part of life. But she also saw how these fish were in danger. People had built dams along the Klamath River, making it very hard for salmon and lampreys to live. Tribal people and their friends organized to have four of the dams removed, and they won. In I Love Salmon and Lampreys (Heyday Books), Thompson tells this inspiring tale, and she shares how it motivated her to become a scientist. Featuring adorable illustrations by Anastasia Khmelevska, as well as fun facts about salmon and lampreys, this is a stirring story about stewarding nature for the generations to come.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Daryl Gregory in Conversation With Lilah Sturges

Monday, April 7 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

From multiple award-winning author Daryl Gregory comes a madcap adventure following two friends on a cross-country bus tour through the mind-boggling glitches in their simulated world as they grapple with love, family, secrets, and the very nature of reality in a simulation. JP and Dulin have been the best of friends for decades. When JP finds out his cancer has aggressively returned, Dulin decides it’s the perfect time for one last adventure: a week-long bus tour of North America’s Impossibles, the physics-defying glitches and geographic miracles that started cropping up seven years earlier — right after the Announcement that revealed our world to be merely a digital simulacrum. The outing, courtesy of Canterbury Trails Tours, promises the trip of a (not completely real) lifetime in a (not completely deluxe) coach. Their fellow passengers are 21st-century pilgrims, each of them on the tour for their own reasons. There’s a nun hunting for an absent God, a pregnant influencer determined to make her child too famous to be deleted, a crew of horny octogenarians living each day like it’s their last, and a professor on the run from leather-clad sociopaths who take The Matrix as scripture. Each stop on this trip is stranger than the last — a Tunnel outside of time, a zero gravity Geyser, the compound of a motivational-speaking avatar — with everyone barreling toward the tour’s iconic final stop, Ghost City, where unbeknownst to our travelers the answer to who is running the simulation may await. When We Were Real (S&S/Saga Press) is a tour-de-force and exploration of what really matters, even in an artificial world. Gregory will be joined in conversation by Lilah Sturges, author of Girl Haven.

Buy the Book

Sarah Kendzior in Conversation With Omar El Akkad

Tuesday, April 8 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Sarah Kendzior, author of The View from Flyover Country, navigates a changing America as she and her family embark on a series of road trips, in a book that is part memoir, part history, and wholly unique. It is one thing to study the fall of democracy, another to have it hit your homeland — and yet another to raise children as it happens. The Last American Road Trip (Flatiron) is one family’s journey to the most beautiful, fascinating, and bizarre places in the US during one of its most tumultuous eras. As Kendzior works as a journalist chronicling political turmoil, she becomes determined that her young children see America before it’s too late. So Kendzior, her husband, and the kids hit the road — again and again. Starting from Missouri, the family drives across America in every direction as cataclysmic events — the rise of autocracy, political and technological chaos, and the pandemic — reshape American life. They explore Route 66, national parks, historical sites, and Americana icons as Kendzior contemplates love for country in a broken heartland. Together, the family watches the landscape of the United States — physical, environmental, social, political — transform through the car window. Part memoir, part political history, The Last American Road Trip is one mother’s promise to her children that their country will be there for them in the future — even though at times she struggles to believe it herself. Kendzior will be joined in conversation by Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Amy Mason Doan in Conversation With Whitney Otto

Wednesday, April 9 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Malibu Rising meets The Great Alone in Amy Mason Doan’s The California Dreamers (Graydon House): A group of siblings captured in an iconic beach nostalgia photo reunite as adults on a sunny California island to celebrate their late father, only to be forced to face the fallout of their unconventional upbringing — and a secret that has been simmering for decades... It’s 1980s California, and everyone’s dreaming of the endless summer: sun-drenched beaches, infinite waves, and most of all, beautiful, beautiful freedom. For the Merrick siblings, this idyllic vision is their reality, as they travel up and down the coast with their parents in a van year-round, surfing and swimming their days away. But when a photographer secretly snaps a stunning photo of the family with their boards in the sand, and the image ripples across the country, the only life they’ve ever known is put at risk. Decades after, the now-distant siblings gather on a gorgeous, wild island to honor their late father. But their reunion is complicated when a journalist, eager for the truth behind the iconic photo, discovers their identity and tracks them down. As the siblings reckon with the possibility that more of their lives could be shared, a revelation about their past forces them to confront long-held heartaches. Together, they’ll have to decide whether to let the same tensions rip them apart again — or if telling their story on their own terms might just be the way to recapture the family magic. Doan will be joined in conversation by Whitney Otto, author of How to Make an American Quilt.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Jon Hickey in Conversation With Joe Wilkins

Thursday, April 10 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

There, There meets The Night Watchman in a gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past. Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe’s Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack’s reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack’s estranged sister and Mitch’s former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go — and what they will sacrifice — to win it all. But when an accident claims the life of Mitch’s mentor, a power broker in the reservation’s political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation’s descent into violence. Thrilling and timely, Jon Hickey’s Big Chief (Simon & Schuster) is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging — to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance. Hickey will be joined in conversation by Joe Wilkins, author of The Entire Sky.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Ray Nayler in Conversation With Jeff VanderMeer

Friday, April 11 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Where the Axe Is Buried (MCD) is a high-tech thriller about a crew of rebel spies and scientists on a mission to thwart a tyrannical autocrat — from the author of The Mountain in the Sea. All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end. In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world. As the Federation and the West both start to crumble, Lilia, the brilliant scientist whose invention may be central to bringing down the seemingly immortal President, goes on the run, trying to break away from a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo. Each of them must navigate seemingly insurmountable dangers and threats to remain free and, ultimately, put humanity’s future back into its own hands. A cybernetic novel of political intrigue, Ray Nayler's Where the Axe Is Buried combines the story of a near-impossible revolutionary operation with a blistering indictment of the many forms of authoritarianism that suffocate human freedom. Nayler will be joined in conversation by Jeff VanderMeer, author of the Southern Reach series.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Laura Munson in Conversation With Sheila Hamilton

Sunday, April 13 @ 3pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

For fans of Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly, Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, Laura Munson’s The Wild Why (She Writes Press) is an illuminating self-help tool and the perfect book for anyone who yearns to rekindle their own voice. What is wonder? Wonder is curiosity and awe put together. We are born with our wonder intact. Why? What? How? Wow! Look at that rainbow! What makes a rainbow? Wonder is what we need to survive and thrive, not just as individuals but also as a civilization. It’s what’s lauded and honored by our society in young children. Until it isn’t. The Wild Why calls for an illuminating end to this endemic crisis of self, and a return to what we know at birth and need to reclaim. This is a book of teaching, and teaching-spirited stories, all centered on how to find our true self-expression and the wonder that spawns it. Munson will be joined in conversation by Sheila Hamilton, Emmy Award-winning journalist and author of All the Things We Never Knew.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Rebecca N. Thompson, MD w/ Wendy Davis, PhD, PMH-C, Dafna Lohr, MD, Kelly Burke & Anna David

Sunday, April 13 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Seventeen years ago, when Rebecca Thompson endured a string of life-threatening pregnancy losses and rare medical conditions, her training as a physician didn’t protect her from feeling isolated and overwhelmed. What she longed for was a community of women — or even one encouraging story — to reassure her that she wasn’t alone. Deciding to create the community she couldn’t find in her own time of need, Dr. Thompson reached out to friends, patients, and medical colleagues and asked them to share the stories of their personal journeys to parenthood, as well as stories of how their families grew and changed and thrived as they faced challenges beyond those early years. Held Together (HarperOne) explores the intersections of these brave, resilient women’s lives with Dr. Thompson’s own as they encounter a vast range of unexpected turns and obstacles, including fertility issues, adoption, fostering, surrogacy, multiples, abortion, step-parenthood, chronic disease, mental illness, the death of a child, the death of a spouse, and so many moments where grief may threaten to consume us — until joy sometimes surprises us. The extraordinary stories of ordinary women reveal that, while our individual circumstances may be unique, our experiences are universal in so many ways: we are creating life, raising children, and sustaining families, even as we search for reassurance that we are not alone in our struggles. Held Together offers a place of healing that welcomes every kind of family, a refuge where we make meaning out of our stories and embrace the belief that life can be beautiful in spite of — and sometimes because of — all its complexities and imperfections. Our foundations may not always be strong, but together, we are. Dr. Thompson will be joined in conversation by Dr. Wendy Davis of Postpartum Support International, as well as three of Held Together’s collaborators: Dr. Thompson’s obstetrician, Dafna (Devorah) Lohr, MD, and two of her own patients, Kelly Burke and Anna David.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Jennifer Hahn

Monday, April 14 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Pacific Harvest (Mountaineers Books), written by expert forager and guide Jennifer Hahn, introduces both novice and more experienced foragers to the Pacific Coast's ample and diverse edible species. Recognizing your local edible berries, flowers, greens, roots, tree parts, mushrooms, seaweeds, beach vegetables, and shellfish is a passport to a comforting sense of place. Hahn shares immersive descriptions of her foraging adventures as well as full-color photos to make identifying these species easy and enjoyable. Each featured food listing includes common names, taxonomy, primary location, description, harvesting details, and culinary tips for transition from the wild to the kitchen table. Select listings call out notable nutrition and wellness benefits, along with contemporary research on conservation status. This coastal foraging guide highlights authentic Indigenous harvesting practices including profiles of Indigenous leaders in the traditional foods movement. Hahn emphasizes a sustainable approach to foraging, reminding readers what other beings also depend on these plants and animals as food and shelter sources. Pacific Harvest includes dozens of recipes featuring foraged foods, ranging from no-fuss delights like Salal Berry Scones and Kelp-Wrapped Salmon to comfort foods like Fiddlehead Quiche and Horse Clam Stir-Fry.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Nathan H. Lents

Tuesday, April 15 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Evolutionary biologist Nathan H. Lents knows what makes humans unique — and it’s most definitely not our sexual diversity. A professor at John Jay College, Lents has spent his career studying what makes us, well, us, and contrary to what the culture warriors want people to believe, diverse sexual behavior is not a new development, or even a human one. It didn’t just emerge from a progressive culture; it’s the product of billions of years of evolutionary experimentation throughout the animal kingdom. It’s not a modern story, a Florida story, or even a human story. It’s a biological story. In The Sexual Evolution (Mariner Books), Lents takes readers on a journey through the animal world, from insects to apes, revealing what the incredible array of sexual diversity can teach us about our own diverse beauty. Nature, it turns out, has made a lot of space for diverse genders and sexual behaviors. And why? Because when it comes to evolution — diversity wins. This is not just a political or social message, instead it’s rooted in science and cultivated from understanding the full breadth of sexuality that exists throughout the world. With shades of both Frans de Waal and Esther Perel, Lents’s storytelling is as fascinating as it is topical, offering eye-opening stories about the diversity of animal life, while relating it to our own sexual journey as a species. At once a forceful rebuttal to bigotry and a captivating dive into the secret sex lives of animals, The Sexual Evolution is the rare book of pop science that leans into the controversy. Sex, the reactionaries say, should only be for procreation between a man and a woman; anything else goes against nature. Well, nature would like a word with them.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Matt Kepnes

Wednesday, April 16 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

You don’t need to spend a ton of money to have life-changing travel experiences. As the travel industry rebounds, prices fluctuate, and more and more people long for travel experiences that go beyond packaged tours and overpriced hotels, all readers can benefit from this practical, detailed, exhaustively researched travel advice. Travel expert Matt Kepnes has been a world traveler for over a decade, sharing his expertise and insights with countless globetrotters on his blog and in print. But the travel world has changed so much in recent years that this new, updated edition of How to Travel the World couldn’t be more timely. Ready to get away? Pack your bags as Kepnes shares: step-by-step instructions for planning your dream trip; money-saving tips and travel hacks to make the most of your budget and avoid overpaying; expert recommendations for getting off the beaten path so you can really see and understand the places and people you visit; and detailed guidance on everything from packing lists to vaccinations to travel companies, as well as region-specific advice for accommodations, transportation, activities, and more. Bursting with new material and vetted by the author’s own experiences, How to Travel the World on $75 a Day (BenBella Books) provides all the info you need to organize and implement the trips you’ve always fantasized about... without breaking the bank.

Preorder a Signed Edition

J. M. Hirsch in Conversation With Claire Lower

Wednesday, April 16 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Discover the real techniques, ingredients, and stories behind the Italian dishes you know and love — and the ones you've yet to try — with 175 delicious recipes that bring simplicity back to Italian cooking, from the James Beard Award-winning team at Milk Street. Forget everything you thought you knew about Italian food. In Italy, cooks throw away their garlic, they don't stir their polenta, and they never labor over pans of risotto. But they do make enormous meatballs that are tender and light, and they occasionally break all the rules when making pasta. The editors at Milk Street have spent years scouring small eateries, local markets, farms, and home kitchens from Lombardy to Calabria and from Sardinia to Sicily in search of fresh takes on classic recipes as well as little-known regional favorites that never crossed the Atlantic. On our travels we found new ways with pasta, from foolproof cacio e pepe in Rome to Puglia's olive oil-crisped fettuccine with chickpeas and a lemony pesto from Amalfi, where the pasta itself is enriched with citrus. Plus some surprising tomato sauces, including spaghetti all'assassina from Bari — spicy, charred, and made in one skillet. We visited a Neapolitan trattoria where five sisters serenade diners with opera and serve an eggplant Parmesan that's rich, but never fried. In Northern Italy, we made meatball-like bread dumplings simmered in chicken broth. And in Sardinia, a hearty herb soup studded with pancetta, beans, and tiny nuggets of pasta. Milk Street Backroads Italy (Voracious) gives you a seat at the table with Italian cooks sharing the food they love, handed down from generation to generation. Co-author J. M. Hirsch will be joined in conversation by Claire Lower, Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball's Milk Street.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Matthew Sullivan in Conversation With Karen Thompson Walker

Thursday, April 17 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

When Abigail agreed to move to Soap Lake, Washington, for her husband’s research, she expected old growth forests and craft beer, folksy neighbors and the World’s Largest Lava Lamp. Instead, after her husband jets off to Poland for a research trip, she finds herself alone, in a town surrounded by desert and haunted by its own urban legends. But when a young boy runs through the desert into Abigail’s arms, her life becomes entwined with his and the questions surrounding his mother Esme’s death. In Abigail’s search for answers, she enlists the help of a recovering addict-turned-librarian, a grieving brother, a broken motel owner, and a mentally shattered conspiracy theorist to unearth Esme’s tragic past, the town’s violent history, and the secret magic locked in the lake her husband was sent there to study. As she gets closer to the answers, past and present crimes begin to collide, and Abigail finds herself gaining the unwelcome attention of the town’s unofficial mascot, the rubber-suited orchard stalker known as TreeTop, a specter who seems to be lurking in every dark shadow and around every shady corner. A sweeping, decade-spanning mystery brimming with quirky characters and puzzle-hunt scenarios, Midnight in Soap Lake (Hanover Square Press) is a modern-day Twin Peaks from Matthew Sullivan, author of Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. Sullivan will be joined in conversation by Karen Thompson Walker, author of The Strange Case of Jane O. and The Age of Miracles.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Alexandra Tanner in Conversation With Lydia Kiesling

Friday, April 18 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

A “dryly witty” (The New Yorker) and “fabulously revealing” (The New York Times Book Review) debut that follows two sisters-turned-roommates navigating an absurd world on the verge of calamity — a Seinfeldian novel for readers of Ottessa Moshfegh and Sally Rooney. It’s March of 2019, and twenty-eight-year-old Jules Gold — anxious, artistically frustrated, and internet-obsessed — has been living alone in the apartment she once shared with the man she thought she’d marry when her younger sister Poppy comes to crash. Indefinitely. Poppy, a year and a half out from a suicide attempt only Jules knows about, searches for work and meaning in Brooklyn while Jules spends her days hate-scrolling the feeds of Mormon mommy bloggers and waiting for life to happen. Then the hives that’ve plagued Poppy since childhood flare up. Jules’s uterus turns against her. Poppy brings home a maladjusted rescue dog named Amy Klobuchar. The girls’ mother, a newly devout Messianic Jew, starts falling for the same deep-state conspiracy theories as Jules’s online mommies. Jules, halfheartedly struggling to scrape her way to the source of her ennui, slowly and cruelly comes to blame Poppy for her own insufficiencies as a friend, a writer, and a sister. And Amy Klobuchar might have rabies. As the year shambles on and a new decade looms near, a disastrous trip home to Florida forces Jules and Poppy — comrades, competitors, constant fixtures in each other’s lives — to ask themselves what they want their futures to look like, and whether they’ll spend them together or apart. “A tragicomic portrait of urban millennial life” (Shelf Awareness), Alexandra Tanner’s Worry (Scribner) is a “riotously funny and wryly existential” (Harper’s Bazaar) novel of sisterhood from a nervy new voice in contemporary fiction. Tanner will be joined in conversation by Lydia Kiesling, author of Mobility and The Golden State.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Kids’ Storytime

Saturday, April 19 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join us every Saturday for kids’ storytime. Today we’re reading Let’s Be Bees by Shawn Harris.

Buy the Book

Cathy Whims in Conversation With Jim Dixon

Saturday, April 19 @ 3pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

From six-time James Beard nominee for best chef, recipes to transport you to the full, bright flavors of sun-drenched summers in Italy. For a culinary tour of Italy, or a master class in creating the nation’s many regional gems in your home kitchen, you couldn’t ask for a better tour guide than Cathy Whims. In her debut cookbook, The Italian Summer Kitchen (Countryman Press), Whims brings together dishes from Italy’s many and varied regions, united by her masterful interpretation of cucina povera — literally “food of the poor,” which means fresh produce, local meats, handmade pasta and pizza, and simple cooking methods. These recipes for drinks, appetizers, pasta, pizza, risottos, meat and fish, and desserts are united not by region but by feeling: everything is authentically Italian yet easy for the home cook to create no matter where they live. Step-by-step instructions demystify essential skills like how to make fresh pasta, cook a perfect risotto, and craft heavenly, light-as-a-cloud gnocchi. Readers will find tips and techniques from professional chefs and everyday home cooks, seasoned with Whims’s always-engaging wit and reflections on history and on food, life, travel, and more. Whims will be joined in conversation by food writer Jim Dixon.

Buy the Book

Marie Bostwick in Conversation With Kristina McMorris

Monday, April 21 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

By 1960s standards, Margaret Ryan is living the American woman's dream. She has a husband, three children, a station wagon, and a home in Concordia — one of Northern Virginia's most exclusive and picturesque suburbs. She has a standing invitation to the neighborhood coffee klatch, and now, thanks to her husband, a new subscription to A Woman's Place — a magazine that tells housewives like Margaret exactly who to be and what to buy. On paper, she has it all. So why doesn't that feel like enough? Margaret is thrown for a loop when she first meets Charlotte Gustafson, Concordia's newest and most intriguing resident. As an excuse to be in the mysterious Charlotte's orbit, Margaret concocts a book club get-together and invites two other neighborhood women — Bitsy and Viv — to the inaugural meeting. As the women share secrets, cocktails, and their honest reactions to the controversial bestseller The Feminine Mystique, they begin to discover that the American dream they'd been sold isn't all roses and sunshine — and that their secret longing for more is something they share. Nicknaming themselves the Bettys, after Betty Friedan, these four friends have no idea their impromptu club and the books they read together will become the glue that helps them hold fast through tears, triumphs, angst, and arguments — and what will prove to be the most consequential and freeing year of their lives. Marie Bostwick’s The Book Club for Troublesome Women (Harper Muse) is a humorous, thought-provoking, and nostalgic romp through one pivotal and tumultuous American year — as well as an ode to self-discovery, persistence, and the power of sisterhood. Bostwick will be joined in conversation by Kristina McMorris, author of The Ways We Hide.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Robert Crumb & Dan Nadel / TICKETED EVENT / CANCELLED  

Monday, April 21 @ 7:30pm (PT) / Revolution Hall

We are sorry to report that this event has been cancelled due to health reasons.
 
Robert Crumb is often credited with single-handedly transforming the comics medium into a place for adult expression, in the process pioneering the underground comic book industry, and transforming the vernacular language of 20th-century America into an instantly recognizable and popular aesthetic, as iconic as Walt Disney or Charles Schulz. Now, for the first time, Dan Nadel, a curator and writer specializing in comics and art, shares how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact. More than just a biography of an iconic cartoonist, Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life (Scribner) is the story of a richly complex life at the forefront of both the underground and popular cultures of post-war America. Crumb spans the pressures of 1950s suburban America and Crumb’s highly dysfunctional early family life; the history of comics and graphic satire; 20th century popular music; the world of the counterculture; the birth of underground comic books in 1960s San Francisco with Crumb’s Zap Comix; the economic challenges and dissolution of the hippie dream; and the path Robert Crumb blazed through it all. Written with Crumb’s cooperation, this fascinating, rollicking book takes in seven decades of Crumb’s iconic works, including Fritz the Cat, Weirdo, and his final book-length comic of The Book of Genesis; capturing, in the process, the essence of an extraordinary artist and his times.

Please note: We'll be hosting Dan Nadel, in conversation with filmmaker Lance Bangs, at our Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing location on Tuesday, April 22 for a free in-store event.

Buy the Book

Nikki Grimes in Conversation With Renée Watson

Tuesday, April 22 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

From award-winning author Nikki Grimes comes A Cup of Quiet (Bloomsbury), a beautiful picture book about the special bond between a child and grandparent, perfect for fans of Thank You, Omu! and Fry Bread. When loud sounds of a busy day fill the air, Grandma gets thirsty for a cup of quiet. “That's silly, Grandma,” her granddaughter says. “Quiet can't fit in a cup, and you can't drink it.” But together, they venture into the garden to collect the gentler sounds of nature in their cup of quiet. The buzz of a bee, the crackling of a dried leaf, the wind through the trees — until raindrops tap dance on the roof. By “refilling their cups” together, they bring joy and peace to their day. This imaginative and beautifully poetic story reminds readers that slowing down and sitting in the quiet is an essential part of life. Grimes will be joined in conversation by Renée Watson, author of All the Blues in the Sky and skin & bones.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Dan Nadel in Conversation With Lance Bangs

Tuesday, April 22 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Robert Crumb is often credited with single-handedly transforming the comics medium into a place for adult expression, in the process pioneering the underground comic book industry, and transforming the vernacular language of 20th-century America into an instantly recognizable and popular aesthetic, as iconic as Walt Disney or Charles Schulz. Now, for the first time, Dan Nadel, a curator and writer specializing in comics and art, shares how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact. More than just a biography of an iconic cartoonist, Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life (Scribner) is the story of a richly complex life at the forefront of both the underground and popular cultures of post-war America. Crumb spans the pressures of 1950s suburban America and Crumb’s highly dysfunctional early family life; the history of comics and graphic satire; 20th century popular music; the world of the counterculture; the birth of underground comic books in 1960s San Francisco with Crumb’s Zap Comix; the economic challenges and dissolution of the hippie dream; and the path Robert Crumb blazed through it all. Written with Crumb’s cooperation, this fascinating, rollicking book takes in seven decades of Crumb’s iconic works, including Fritz the Cat, Weirdo, and his final book-length comic of The Book of Genesis; capturing, in the process, the essence of an extraordinary artist and his times. Crumb will be joined in conversation by filmmaker Lance Bangs.

Please note: Robert Crumb will not be in attendance at this event.

Buy the Book

Mamrie Hart in Conversation With Delia Tethong

Wednesday, April 23 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Mamrie Hart, author, comedian, podcast host, and vegetarian, has whipped up robust plant-based meals and snacks for years on her various platforms, from YouTube to TikTok. Her millions of fans and followers have been clamoring for her recipes, and she now delivers just that and more with this unique, larger-than-life vegetarian cookbook. Organized by themed menus, Hart's new book features more than 100 mouthwatering dishes including Twist ‘n’ Sprout Brussels, That Butternut Be Bone Marrow, and cocktails like Kiss from a Rose Mojito and, for the spirited, Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Drunker. All I Think About Is Food (Countryman Press) promises to be the life of the party, giving readers confidence to share these exceptional recipes with their loved ones. The luscious, clever design and photographs, paired with Hart’s humor and familiar tone, come together in a must-have collection for every campy home cook’s shelf. Hart will be joined in conversation by Delia Tethong, founder of House of Commons.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Classical Up Close

Thursday, April 24 @ 12pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Musicians from the Oregon Symphony return to Powell’s for their 12th appearance as part of the Classical Up Close music festival of free concerts. Come hear world-class musicians perform works of their choosing and learn about their lives, their instruments, and the music they love.

Jeanne Carstensen in Conversation With Sallie Tisdale

Thursday, April 24 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Five Days at Memorial meets Into the Raging Sea with this harrowing and moving true story of a devastating shipwreck during the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. On October 28, 2015, a boat meant for only a few dozen passengers capsized off the coast of the Greek island of Lesvos. Hundreds of refugees, forced in desperation onto the overloaded boat manned by armed smugglers, were tossed into a roiling sea. The resulting loss of life, the largest in a single day during the crisis in the Aegean, shocked the world. Now, after nearly a decade of research, interviews, and investigation, reporter Jeanne Carstensen has captured every detail of the dramatic twenty-four hours. This includes the recollections of the refugees’ lives before they left their homes and a full account of the courageous rescue efforts of the Greek islanders and volunteers rushing to help, even as their government and the EU failed to act. In this remarkable narrative feat, Carstensen brilliantly showcases the extraordinary heroism of ordinary people in extreme circumstances. In a world where forced migration is on the rise, Jeanne Carstensen’s A Greek Tragedy (Atria/One Signal) challenges us to confront our collective humanity. It’s an unforgettable testament of our times and a compassionate depiction of the lengths to which a person will go to save another human being. Carstensen will be joined in conversation by Sallie Tisdale, author of Survivor and the Endless Gaze.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Kids’ Storytime

Saturday, April 26 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join us for kids’ storytime. Today we’re reading The Boy Who Said Wow by Todd Boss.

Buy the Book

Jonathan Bach in Conversation With Brent Walth

Tuesday, April 29 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Nestled against the Cascade Mountains, former lumber town Bend, Oregon, entices residents who long to live in a wonderland of sagebrush and forests. But like so many other communities across the West, Bend has too few homes for everyone clambering for access. In High Desert, Higher Costs (Oregon State University Press), Jonathan Bach takes a closer look at the housing crisis in this mid-sized city that is both the population center for rural Central Oregon and a major recreation area. Bach uses Bend as a lens into the growing housing crisis in the region, where residents and tourists alike prize access to outdoor recreation, and housing issues have been brewing for decades. Like other cities in Montana, Idaho, and Colorado, Bend serves as a gateway to popular natural areas while also experiencing a limited amount of new housing, increasing populations, amenity migrants in the age of remote work, depressed or stagnating wages, and a widening gulf between homeowners and renters. High Desert, Higher Costs introduces us to regular people — from the former political candidate evicted during COVID-19 to the nonprofit worker hoping to build apartments for the houseless — who struggle to call Bend home. Bach explores the causes of these issues and the political, legal, economic, and cultural factors influencing them, and also offers potential solutions for current and future residents to build their lives now, and in the years to come, in Bend and throughout the American West. Bach will be joined in conversation by Brent Walth, associate professor of journalism at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication and author of Fire at Eden’s Gate: Tom McCall and the Oregon Story.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Jeanne Theoharis in Conversation With Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

Wednesday, April 30 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

The Martin Luther King Jr. of popular memory vanquished Jim Crow in the South. But in her myth-shattering new book, award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis argues that King’s time in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago — outside Dixie — was at the heart of his campaign for racial justice. King of the North (New Press) follows King as he crisscrosses the country from the Northeast to the West Coast, challenging school segregation, police brutality, housing segregation, and job discrimination. For these efforts, he was relentlessly attacked by white liberals, the media, and the federal government. In this bold retelling, King emerges as someone who not only led a movement but who showed up for other people’s struggles; a charismatic speaker who also listened and learned; a Black man who experienced police brutality; a minister who lived with and organized alongside the poor; and a husband who — despite his flaws — depended on Coretta Scott King as an intellectual and political guide in the national fight against racism, poverty, and war. King of the North speaks directly to our struggles over racial inequality today. Just as she restored Rosa Parks’s central place in modern American history, so Theoharis radically expands our understanding of King’s life and work — a vision of justice unfulfilled in the present. Theoharis will be joined in conversation by public school teacher Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Maggie Nelson in Conversation With Leni Zumas

Friday, May 2 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Like Love (Graywolf) is a momentous, raucous collection of essays drawn from twenty years of Maggie Nelson’s brilliant work. These profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes, and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols, bring to life Nelson’s passion for dialogue and dissent. The range of subjects is wide — from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Matthew Barney to Lhasa de Sela to Kara Walker — but certain themes recur: intergenerational exchange; love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time; subversion, transgression, and perversity; the roles of the critic and of language in relation to visual and performance arts; forces that feed or impede certain bodies and creators; and the fruits and follies of a life spent devoted to making. Arranged chronologically, Like Love shows the writing, thinking, feeling, reading, looking, and conversing that occupied Nelson while writing iconic books such as Bluets and The Argonauts. As such, it is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson’s own development, and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists. Nelson’s Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth (Wave) is an experiment in interiority written in the pandemic studio. Something of a companion piece to 2009’s Bluets, Pathemata merges a pain diary chronicling a decade of jaw pain with dreams and dailies, eventually blurring the lines between embodied, unconscious, and everyday life. In scrupulously distilled prose, Pathemata offers a tragicomic portrait of a particularly unnerving and isolating moment in recent history, as well as an abiding account of how it feels to inhabit a mortal body in struggle to connect with others. Formally inspired by Hervé Guibert’s The Mausoleum of Lovers, and conceptually guided by Gilles Deleuze’s notion of artist as symptomologist, Pathemata is yet another urgent innovation from Maggie Nelson in the art of life-writing. Nelson will be joined in conversation by Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks.

Preorder a Signed Edition (Like Love)

Preorder a Signed Edition (Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth)

Kids' Storytime With Tessa B.H. Ruiz

Saturday, May 3 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Claudie lives in a house in the oldest part of New Orleans, a city where Mardi Gras beads dance in the breeze and every corner is steeped in history. Her home is a treasure trove of a hundred years’ worth of stories, some of which we cannot see, but only feel. Join Claudie as we explore each room through her creative eye — and that of a certain spirit, who Claudie believes may have decorated the home long before her. Written by New Orleans enthusiast Tessa B.H. Ruiz, The House, the Ghost, and Me / La casa, la fantasma y yo (Lil’ Libros) is the perfect book for little ones with a curious mind for interior design. This bilingual picture book will serve as an introduction to historic preservation and empower readers to express their creativity — interior design with a not-so-spooky twist.

Buy the Book

Christopher Van Tilburg

Sunday, May 4 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

In Crisis on Mount Hood (Mountaineers Books), author and emergency room doctor Christopher Van Tilburg looks at the history of America's oldest all-volunteer mountain rescue team, the Hood River Crag Rats, and his own three-decade commitment to search and rescue. Centered on Oregon's iconic 11,249-foot-high Mount Hood, considered by many to be the world's most-climbed glaciated peak, this dramatic narrative leads readers through a century of life-and-death challenges. Covering the past, present, and future of Mount Hood, Van Tilburg highlights the titans of mountain rescue, the ways that outdoor recreation has changed over time, the challenging effects of climate change, and, most of all, the unwavering passion of search and rescue volunteers.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Lynda V. Mapes

Monday, May 5 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books on Hawthorne

Ancient and carbon-rich, old-growth forests play an irreplaceable role in the environment. Their complex ecosystems clean the air, purify the water, cool the planet, and teem with life. In a time of climate catastrophe, old-growth and other natural forests face existential threats caused by humans — and their survival is crucial to ours. In a bicoastal journey, environmental journalist Lynda V. Mapes connects the present and future of Pacific Northwest forests to the hard-logged legacy forests of the northeastern United States. Beginning in Oregon and Washington, where old growth supports, and is supported by, the region’s salmon, we meet Jerry Franklin, who led scientists in recognizing and studying the distinctiveness of these majestic spaces. From there, we journey to Vancouver Island, where Indigenous activists and scientists strive to preserve the health of Nuu-chah-nulth traditional homelands amid continued clearcutting. On the East Coast, we see the corduroy patterns of lands that have been logged for generations, leaving industrial carnage along formerly life-filled waterways. Mapes interviews Penobscot elders and scientists whose new practices are restoring the fish runs, as well as loggers using new technologies to harvest more sustainably. With vibrant storytelling supported by science and traditional ecological knowledge, Mapes invites readers to understand the world where trees are kin, not commodities. The Trees Are Speaking (University of Washington Press) is essential reading for those with a deep interest in environmental stewardship, Indigenous land rights, and the urgent challenges posed by climate change.

Buy the Book

Viet Thanh Nguyen in Conversation With Lois Leveen

Tuesday, May 6 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

From Viet Thanh Nguyen, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer, comes a moving and unflinchingly personal meditation on the literary forms of otherness and a bold call for expansive political solidarity. Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose, California, where the author grew up, attending UC Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans. The essays in To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other (Belknap Press), delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures, proffer a new answer to a classic literary question: What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Over the course of six captivating and moving chapters, Nguyen explores the idea of being an outsider through lenses that are, by turns, literary, historical, political, and familial. Each piece moves between writers who influenced Nguyen’s craft and weaves in the haunting story of his late mother’s mental illness. Nguyen unfolds the novels and nonfiction of Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, William Carlos Williams, and Maxine Hong Kingston, until aesthetic theories give way to pressing concerns raised by war and politics. What is a writer’s responsibility in a time of violence? Should we celebrate fiction that gives voice to the voiceless — or do we confront the forces that render millions voiceless in the first place? What are the burdens and pleasures of the “minor” writer in any society? Unsatisfied with the modest inclusion accorded to “model minorities” such as Asian Americans, Nguyen sets the agenda for a more radical and disquieting solidarity with those whose lives have been devastated by imperialism and forever wars. Nguyen will be joined in conversation by Lois Leveen, author of Juliet’s Nurse.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Eileen Garvin in Conversation With Gabriel Urza

Friday, May 9 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Eileen Garvin, author of The Music of Bees, returns with a moving story of hope, healing, and unexpected friendship set amidst the wild natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Frankie O’Neill and Anne Ryan would seem to have nothing in common. Frankie is a lonely ornithologist struggling to salvage her dissertation on the spotted owl following a rift with her advisor. Anne is an Irish musician far from home and family, raising her five-year-old son, Aiden, who refuses to speak. At Beauty Bay, a community of summer homes nestled on the shores of June Lake, in the remote foothills of Mount Adams, it’s off-season with most houses shuttered for the fall. But Frankie, adrift, returns to the rundown caretaker’s cottage that has been in the hardworking O'Neill family for generations — a beloved place and a constant reminder of the family she has lost. And Anne, in the wake of a tragedy that has disrupted her career and silenced her music, has fled to the neighboring house, a showy summer home owned by her husband's wealthy family. When Frankie finds an injured baby crow in the forest, little does she realize that the charming bird will bring all three lost souls — Frankie, Anne, and Aiden — together on a journey toward hope, healing, and rediscovering joy. Crow Talk (Dutton) is an achingly beautiful story of love, grief, friendship, and the healing power of nature in the darkest of times. Garvin will be joined in conversation by Gabriel Urza, author of The White Death.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Shelby Van Pelt in Conversation With Eileen Garvin

Tuesday, May 13 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors — until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late. Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures (Ecco) is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible. Van Pelt will be joined in conversation by Eileen Garvin, author of Crow Talk.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Matt Dinniman

Tuesday, May 13 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Carl and Princess Donut journey into insanity in The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Ace Books), the wildly entertaining sixth book in the bestselling Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman — now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition! Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, have survived longer and leveled up higher than anyone ever thought they could in the galaxy’s most popular reality show, but after the shocking conclusion of the seventh level, it’s now anyone’s game. A pantheon of forgotten gods. An old grudge between a talk show host, an heiress, and the man they shattered along the way. A rapidly deteriorating AI system. An inconvenient tiara upon the head of a friend. It is bedlam on the eighth floor. The crawlers are given a new task: find and capture six monsters, each of which will be turned into a card. The stronger, the deadlier, the better. At the end of the floor, the bad guys will also have decks, made of some of the most powerful cards available. So it’s crucial for crawlers to assemble the toughest squad possible. But, like always, there is a catch. There’s always a catch. If Carl and Donut want a winning hand, they’ll have to capture the deadliest, most terrifying monster of them all. Shi Maria. She was once married to a now-missing God. Her special attack is known to drive one insane. They call her the Bedlam Bride. But even if Carl and Donut can capture her, they know all too well that just because someone has been captured, it doesn’t mean they have been tamed. Welcome, Crawlers. Welcome to the eighth floor of the dungeon. Dinniman will also present the fourth and fifth books in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series: The Gate of the Feral Gods and The Butcher's Masquerade.

Please note: This event is free to attend and is not a ticketed event.

Preorder a Signed Edition (The Eye of the Bedlam Bride)

Preorder a Signed Edition (The Butcher's Masquerade)

Preorder a Signed Edition (The Gate of the Feral Gods)

Rebecca Solnit in Conversation With Lidia Yuknavitch / TICKETED EVENT

Tuesday, May 13 @ 7:30pm (PT) / Revolution Hall

In the spirit of her bestselling book, Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit explores how our actions can shape the future and the liberatory possibilities of embracing uncertainty. Beginning with an essay about a three-hundred-year-old violin and what it can tell us about forests, abundance, and climate, and ending with an essay about ice in seven long sentences, No Straight Road Takes You There (Haymarket) deftly bridges the political and the literary, offering unique insights, nuanced understanding, and inspiration for the challenging work ahead. In her latest essay collection, the award-winning author explores climate change, feminism, democracy, hope, and power and its abuse. Throughout she asks us to heed the stories we tell or have been told, and the ways those stories can be, or should be, changed. Solnit offers a reappraisal of the value of indirect consequences, an embrace of unpredictability, slowness, and imperfection in the politics of how to change the world. “I've tried to find other ways of seeing and to prize the migratory routes ideas take,” Solnit writes in the introduction, “the way that hope is most often grounded in memory, because you can't see the future but you can understand the patterns and possibilities if you know the past.” Solnit will be joined in conversation by Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Reading the Waves and The Chronology of Water.

Please note: Tickets for this event are $26.95 (before service charges) and include admission, as well as one paperback copy of Solnit’s No Straight Road Takes You There. Books distributed at event.

Buy Tickets

Christopher Moore

Wednesday, May 14 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

From bestselling author Christopher Moore comes a hilariously deranged tale of a mad scientist, a famous painter, and an undead woman’s electrifying journey of self-discovery. Vienna, 1911. Gustav Klimt, the most famous painter in the Austrian Empire, the darling of Viennese society, spots a woman’s nude body in the Danube canal. He knows he should summon a policeman, but he can’t resist stopping to make a sketch first. And as he draws, the woman coughs. She’s alive! Back at his studio, Klimt and his model-turned-muse Wally tend to the formerly-drowned girl. She’s nearly feral and doesn’t remember who she is, or how she came to be floating in the canal. Klimt names her Judith, after one of his most famous paintings, and resolves to help her find her memory. With a little help from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Judith recalls being stranded in the arctic one hundred years ago, locked in a crate by a man named Victor Frankenstein, and visiting the Underworld. So how did she get here? And why are so many people chasing her, including Geoff, the giant croissant-eating devil dog of the North? Poor Things meets Bride of Frankenstein in Anima Rising (William Morrow), Moore’s most ingenious (and probably most hilarious) novel yet.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Patrycja Humienik in Conversation With Gabrielle Bates

Thursday, May 15 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

To whom do we belong, and at what cost? Patrycja Humienik’s debut poetry collection, We Contain Landscapes (Tin House), is haunted by questions of desire, borders, and the illusion of national belonging. Bringing music and rich sensory detail to the page, these poems attend to the inextricable link between our bodies and the land. Over six ruminative and lush sections, they survey place and memory, both intergenerationally and through emotional bonds with other immigrant daughters. Weaving in letters, innovative forms, and meditations on devotion, sexuality, and self-deceit, We Contain Landscapes introduces a speaker who “will not turn away from the ache of this world.” For every reader who also harbors a voracious longing to encounter infinite landscapes and ways of being, this incisive collection dreams toward a more expansive idea of kinship — of becoming beloved to one another and ourselves. Humienik will be joined in conversation by Gabrielle Bates, author of Judas Goat.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Daniel Tam-Claiborne in Conversation With Omar El Akkad

Friday, May 16 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Daniel Tam-Claiborne’s Transplants (Regalo Press) is a harrowing and poignant novel following two young women in pursuit of kinship and self-discovery who yearn to survive in a world that doesn’t know where either of them belong. On a university campus in rural Qixian, Lin and Liz make an improbable pair: Lin, a Chinese student closer to her menagerie of pets than to her peers, and Liz, a Chinese American teacher grieving her mother’s sudden death. They’re each met with hostility — Lin by her classmates, who mock her for dating a white foreigner; Liz by her fellow English teachers, who exploit their privilege — and forge an unlikely friendship. After a startling betrayal that results in Lin’s expulsion, they swap places. Lin becomes convinced to pursue her degree at a community college near Liz’s Ohio hometown, while Liz searches for answers as to what drove her parents to leave China before she was born. But when a global catastrophe deepens the fissures between modern-day China and an increasingly fractured United States, Lin and Liz — far from home and estranged from themselves — are forced to confront both the familiar and the strange in each other. Unspooling over the course of a single extraordinary year in our not-yet-distant past and in small towns from Dandong to Deadwood, Transplants is a piercing story of migration, belonging, and the parts of ourselves that get lost in translation. Alternating between Liz and Lin’s perspectives, it is a lyrical and moving exploration of race, love, power, and freedom that illuminates the limits and possibilities of what can happen when we open ourselves to the unknown and reveals how even our fiercest differences may bring us closer than we might ever imagine. Tam-Claiborne will be joined in conversation by Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Jason Tanamor in Conversation With Kate Ristau

Saturday, May 17 @ 3pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

POW! BANG! WHAM! Victor, a superhero-obsessed teen, might work for Portland's newest vigilante. As he grapples with bullying and isolation, a social studies project becomes Victor's path to self-discovery, acceptance, and pride in his Filipino heritage. Between a tsinelas-wielding superhero, a major social studies project, and take-out boxes of adobo and lumpia, seventeen-year-old Filipino American Victor Dela Cruz isn't sure how to get through high school without the help of a radioactive spider. Despite his attempts to assimilate into his mostly white Portland high school, Victor has always felt like an outsider. He likes to think high school is his superhero origin story, and all he needs now are some superpowers. His very own supervillain, Clint Robertson, Cleveland High's golden boy, and a major project about his ancestry make Victor wish he had the power of invisibility. But when he witnesses his boss at the food truck slinging his trusty tsinelas to stop a thief in his tracks, Victor sees his chance to find the acceptance he's always craved. He believes he's found a hometown superhero, and he plans to convince his peers that the owner of Filipino Feast is secretly an undercover vigilante. From Jason Tanamor — author of Love, Dance & Egg Rolls — The Legend of Sensei Tsinelas (Ooligan Press) is a testament to resilience, reminding us that true strength and pride are found in embracing the rich tapestry of our own identities. Tanamor will be joined in conversation by Kate Ristau, President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), Executive Director of Willamette Writers, and author of Clockbreakers.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Garrett Felber in Conversation With Dean Spade

Wednesday, May 21 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Garrett Felber’s A Continuous Struggle (AK Press) is a political biography of one of the most important — if since forgotten — revolutionary figures of the twentieth century in the United States. Martin Sostre (1923–2015) was a Black Puerto Rican from East Harlem who became a politicized prisoner and jailhouse lawyer, winning cases in the early 1960s that helped secure the constitutional rights of incarcerated people. He opened one of the country’s first radical Black bookstores and was scapegoated and framed by police and the FBI following the Buffalo rebellion of 1967. He was sentenced by an all-white jury to thirty-one to forty-one years. Throughout his nine-year imprisonment, Sostre transformed himself and the revolutionary movements he was a part of, eventually identifying as a revolutionary anarchist and laying the foundation for contemporary Black anarchism. During that time, he engaged in principled resistance to strip frisks for which he was beaten eleven times, raising awareness about the routinized sexual assault of imprisoned people. The decade-long Free Martin Sostre movement was one of the greatest and most improbable defense campaign victories of the Black Power era, alongside those to liberate Angela Davis and Huey Newton. Although Sostre receded from public view after his release in 1976, he lived another four decades of committed struggle as a tenant organizer and youth mentor in New York and New Jersey. Throughout his long life, Sostre was a jailhouse lawyer, revolutionary bookseller, yogi, mentor and teacher, anti-rape organizer, housing justice activist, and original political thinker. The variety of strategies he used and terrains on which he struggled emphasize the necessity and possibility of multi-faceted and continuous struggle against all forms of oppression in pursuit of an egalitarian society founded on the principles of “maximum human freedom, spirituality, and love.” Felber will be joined in conversation by Dean Spade, author of Love in a F*cked-Up World.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Hannah Zeavin in Conversation With Lydia Kiesling

Thursday, May 22 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

From the nursery to the prison, from the clinic to the commune, Mother Media (MIT Press) tells the story of how we arrived at our contemporary understanding of what a mother is and how understandings of “bad” mothering formed our contemporary panics about “bad” media. In this book, leading historian of psychology Hannah Zeavin examines twentieth-century pediatric, psychological, educational, industrial, and economic norms around mediated mothering and technologized parenting. Zeavin’s book charts the crisis of the family across the twentieth century and the many ingenious attempts to remediate nursemaid and mother via speculative technologies and screen media. Growing out of her previous book, The Distance Cure, which considered technologized care, the book lays bare the contradictions of techno-parenting and how it relates to conceptions of “maternal fitness,” medical redlining, and surveillance of children, parents, and other caregivers. Zeavin offers narratives of parenting in its extremity (for example, Shaken Baby Syndrome) and its ostensible banality (for example, the Nanny Cam) and how the two are often intertwined. Ultimately, Zeavin grapples with a simple contradiction: technology is seen and judged as harmful in domestic and educational spaces, even as it is a saving grace in the unending labor of raising a family. Zeavin will be joined in conversation by Lydia Kiesling, author of Mobility and The Golden State.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Catherine Newman

Wednesday, May 28 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

From Catherine Newman, beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, comes Sandwich (Harper Perennial), a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go. For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family's yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and — thanks to the cottage's ancient plumbing — septic too. This year's vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past — except, perhaps, for Rocky's hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing — her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers. It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family's history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Alison Bechdel / TICKETED EVENT

Thursday, May 29 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

The celebrated and beloved author of the modern classic Fun Home presents Spent (Mariner Books), a laugh-out-loud, brilliant, and passionately political work of autofiction. In Alison Bechdel’s hilariously skewering and gloriously cast new comic novel confection, a cartoonist named Alison Bechdel, running a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont, is existentially irked by a climate-challenged world and a citizenry on the brink of civil war. She wonders: Can she pull humanity out of its death spiral by writing a scathingly self-critical memoir about her own greed and privilege? Meanwhile, Alison’s first graphic memoir about growing up with her father, a taxidermist who specialized in replicas of Victorian animal displays, has been adapted into a highly successful TV series. It’s a phenomenon that makes Alison, formerly on the cultural margins, the envy of her friend group (recognizable as characters, now middle-aged and living communally in Vermont, from Bechdel’s beloved comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For). As the TV show Death and Taxidermy racks up Emmy after Emmy — and when Alison’s Pauline Bunyanesque partner Holly posts an instructional wood-chopping video that goes viral — Alison’s own envy spirals. Why couldn’t she be the writer for a critically lauded and wildly popular reality TV show… like Queer Eye… showing people how to free themselves from consumer capitalism and live a more ethical life?!! Spent’s rollicking and masterful denouement — making the case for seizing what’s true about life in the world at this moment, before it’s too late — once again proves that “nobody does it better” (New York Times Book Review) than the real Alison Bechdel.

Please note: This is a ticketed event. Tickets include admission, as well as one hardcover copy of Spent. Books distributed at event.

Purchase Tickets

Preorder a Signed Edition

Moira Macdonald

Friday, May 30 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

April, a smart and lonely tech worker, worries work from home has gotten out of hand: She’s left an anonymous note in a book for Westley, the clerk at her Seattle neighborhood bookstore who has a gentle smile and looks great in flannel. But thanks to fate, Laura — a busy single mom who had given up on love — buys the book, finds the note, and thinks Westley has left it for her. A handsome man who loves books seems like just the plot twist she has been looking for. Meanwhile, Westley — not the most perceptive — is too distracted by the movie filming at the store and the ambition it’s unlocked in him to notice either of the two women. But as April and Laura’s anonymous correspondence continues back and forth, their mundane routines are challenged, sparking a glimmer of hope. Is a happy ending in the cards for them? A hilarious and intricate web of mistaken identities and serendipitous encounters, Moira Macdonald’s Storybook Ending (Dutton) is a playful tribute to romance, friendship, and bookstores, and to the objects — from a forgotten slip of paper to someone’s heart — left between the pages of books we loved.

Preorder a Signed Edition

Caroline Fraser in Conversation With Leah Sottile

Friday, June 13 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Prairie Fires comes a terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond — a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence. Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and ’80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing? As Murderland (Penguin Press) indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem — the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson — Fraser’s Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy’s Tacoma stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was hardly unique in the West. As Fraser’s investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of these smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives but also warped young minds, including some who grew up to become serial killers. A propulsive nonfiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk. Fraser will be joined in conversation by Leah Sottile, author of Blazing Eye Sees All.

Preorder a Signed Edition

B. Dylan Hollis

Wednesday, June 18 @ 6pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Join B. Dylan Hollis, bestselling author of Baking Yesteryear, on a cross-country culinary journey with 100 uniquely American recipes. From the deserts of the Southwest to the shining Atlantic Coast, the USA is as sweet as it gets. In this tour de food, Hollis takes you on a delicious road trip to taste everything from the coffee-crazed creations of the Pacific Northwest to the larger-than-life sheet cakes of Texas. You’ll be hitting the pavement in vintage style as you journey with Hollis through the culture capitals of America to savor the very best bakes the nation has to offer. His retro recipes span the decades from the 1900s to the 2000s and feature famous (and forgotten) desserts from every state. With his signature wry humor, Hollis explores the US and uncovers the history of nostalgic local favorites, including Boston Cream Pie on the cobbled streets of Beantown, Beignets in the sultry heat of jazzy New Orleans, and Date Cream scooped up poolside in Palm Springs. Baking Across America (DK Publishing) is the highly anticipated successor to Baking Yesteryear and delivers 100 wild, wacky, and wonderful recipes from every star-spangled corner of the good ol’ US of A.

Buy the Book