Courtney Gould in Conversation With Caitlin Starling

Tuesday, December 10 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Yellowjackets meets Girl, Interrupted when a group of troubled teens in a wilderness therapy program find themselves stranded in a forest full of monsters eager to take their place. Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction — one everyone but Devin signed up for. She's shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she's dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways — and survive a 50-day hike through the wilderness — they'll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say. Devin is immediately determined to escape. She's also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there's something strange about these woods — inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn't be there flashing in the leaves — and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they'll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other — and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive. Atmospheric and sharp, Courtney Gould’s What the Woods Took (Wednesday Books) is a poignant story of transformation that explores the price of becoming someone — or some thing — new. Gould will be joined in conversation by Caitlin Starling, author of Last to Leave the Room and The Luminous Dead.

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Robin Wall Kimmerer in Conversation With Emma Marris / SOLD OUT
 

Tuesday, December 10 @ 7:30pm (PT) / Newmark Theatre

As Indigenous scientist and Braiding Sweetgrass author Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry's relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth — its abundance of sweet, juicy berries — to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, "Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency." As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is "a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world." The Serviceberry (Scribner) is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that "hoarding won't save us, all flourishing is mutual." Kimmerer will be joined in conversation by environmental writer Emma Marris, author of Wild Souls: What We Owe Animals in a Changing World.
 
Please note: Tickets for this event include admission, as well as one hardcover copy of The Serviceberry. Books distributed at event. This event is sold out.

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Kids' Storytime With Ezra Edmond

Saturday, December 14 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Ezra's friend LeVar always has a book to share. From playing in the snow, to decorating eggs, to eating pancakes with Paul Bunyan — Ezra and LeVar explore all different kinds of stories. Through imaginative play they discover new worlds, learn to be curious, and revel in reading. One day young Ezra meets LeVar Burton in real life! Soon afterward, Ezra discovers that his friends know LeVar from TV, too. Ezra Edmond’s My Friend LeVar (Charlesbridge) is a joyous celebration of the impact that LeVar Burton had on kids during his years on television, stemming from the author's real-life admiration of LeVar Burton and their chance meeting when Ezra was a child.

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Kids’ Storytime

Saturday, December 21 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join us every Saturday for kids’ storytime. Today we’re reading Santa's First Christmas by Mac Barnett.

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Holiday Story Hour with Thomas Lauderdale

Sunday, December 22 @ 1pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join us for a festive and heartwarming event. Thomas Lauderdale of the iconic Portland-based band Pink Martini will be sharing a special reading of a chapter from one of his all-time favorite books, Bambi: A Life in the Woods. After the reading, stick around for a chance to meet Thomas in person, get his autograph, and capture a memorable photo! Plus, don’t miss the opportunity to grab exclusive Pink Martini merch to round out your holiday shopping list. Treat yourself to delicious cookies from Novel Cookies, paired with hot cocoa and coffee for the perfect cozy afternoon. We can’t wait to see you there!

Kids’ Storytime

Saturday, December 28 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join us every Saturday for kids’ storytime. Today we’re reading What Can a Mess Make? by Bee Johnson.

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First Thursday: Oodles of Doodles

Thursday, January 2 @ 6:30pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join Portland-born artist Jerram Harte as he explores the depths of his unconscious mind. Through his otherworldly work, you’ll meet a cast of colorful characters like depressed extraterrestrials, dogs with a nu metal aesthetic, and maybe even his girlfriend, Abby. His exhibit “Oodles of Doodles” explores surrealist themes of psychology and spirituality done in a nostalgic cartoon style.

Paul Levy

Friday, January 3 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Explaining the world-transforming effects of quantum physics, Paul Levy shows how discoveries in this field — widely considered the greatest in the history of science — can wake us up from the disempowering spell of the reductionist, materialist worldview, thereby helping to dispel the collective madness that has befallen our species. He explains how quantum physics helps us to consciously realize our vast evolutionary potential and awaken us to the malleable, dreamlike nature of reality, a realization that unlocks the creative spirit hidden within our own minds. In a radical synthesis of quantum physics with spirituality, psychology, lucid dreaming, and alchemy, Levy contemplates the deeper philosophical and metaphysical underpinnings of quantum mechanics, exploring what it means that quantum physics has empirically proven that there is no such thing as “objective reality” and how we are active participants in creating our experience of reality, whether we realize it or not. Revealing the quantum nature of our world and ourselves, The Quantum Revelation (Inner Traditions) shows how quantum physics has become a modern-day spiritual path for awakening and expanding consciousness with particular relevance for the challenging times we are living through.

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Kids’ Storytime

Saturday, January 4 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join us every Saturday for kids' storytime. Today we're reading Cookie Time by Jessie Sima.

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Matt Fraction in Conversation With Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson

Saturday, January 4 @ 3pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Blending high-octane pulp action, low-flying dirigibles, and more art-deco rayguns than you could shake a walking stick at, Matt Fraction's Adventureman is a high-flying, senses-obliterating, imagination-quaking adventure for the whole family! Where his story ended… her story begins. Everyone knows the story of how Adventureman, the greatest pulp hero of all time, ended in a heartbreaking cliffhanger with our hero facing his very execution. Now, learn the startling truth about how, 80 years after his seeming demise, single mother Claire and her Adventurefan son Tommy light the spark of resurrection! Can these inheritors of the Adventureman legacy rise up to face down the evil that bested the original? Adventureman Volume 1: The End and Everything After (Image Comics) collects Adventureman #1-5. Fraction will be joined in conversation by Adventureman artist Terry Dodson and Adventureman inker Rachel Dodson.

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Megan Lally in Conversation With Courtney Gould

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

Some secrets just won’t stay hidden in No Place Left to Hide (Sourcebooks Fire), the twisty new thriller from Megan Lally, author of That’s Not My Name. To Brooke, image is everything. She works hard to maintain perfect grades, perfect looks, a perfect life — especially after “the incident” that threatened it all. Getting into her dream university puts her that much closer to a fresh start. How can she say no to celebrating with all her classmates? Hanging out with her crush by the bonfire is the perfect end to the night. Except it isn’t the end. An old truck starts aggressively tailing Brooke and her best friend on the isolated road toward home. Someone thinks they know the truth about “the incident,” and they won’t stop until it’s all out in the open. This terrifying drive is about to bring out Brooke’s worst fears… if she survives it. Lally will be joined in conversation by Courtney Gould, author of What the Woods Took.

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Shannon Lee & Fonda Lee in Conversation With Jenn Reese

Wednesday, January 8 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Sixteen-year-old Jun dreams of proving his worth as a warrior in the elite Guardian’s Tournament, held every six years to entrust the magical Scroll of Heaven to a new protector. Eager to prove his skills, Jun hopes that a win will restore his father’s pride — righting a horrible mistake that caused their banishment from his home, mother, and twin brother. But Jun’s father strictly forbids him from participating. He believes there is no future in Jun honing his skills as a warrior, especially considering Jun is not breathmarked, born with a patch of dragon scales and blessed with special abilities like his twin. Determined to be the next Guardian, Jun stows away in the wagon of Chang and his daughter, Ren, performers on their way to the capital where the tournament will take place. As Jun competes, he quickly realizes he may be fighting for not just a better life, but the fate of the country itself and the very survival of everyone he cares about. Breath of the Dragon (Wednesday Books) is the first novel in Shannon Lee and Fonda Lee’s sweeping YA fantasy duology based on characters and teachings created by Bruce Lee. Shannon Lee and Fonda Lee will be joined in conversation by Jenn Reese, author of Puzzleheart.

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M. L. Herring

Thursday, January 9 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

If you live on a rapidly changing planet, you’d be wise to learn how it works. The giant old forests on a skinny stretch of land on the far west coast of North America have a lot to say about living in a twitchy world. In her engaging book, Born of Fire and Rain (Yale University Press), science writer M. L. Herring takes readers into the Pacific temperate rainforest at the tumultuous edge of a shifting continent in a precarious moment of time. Readers peek behind the magnificent scenery into a forest of ancient trees, exploding mountains, disappearing owls, tsunamis, megafires, and ten million people to learn what it means to be a forest in a world of upheavals. Through Herring’s words and pictures, readers drift into the canopy through masses of ferns and lichens, burrow into soil through hair-thin threads of fungi, and plunge headlong through a watershed flushed with rain and snowmelt. Readers experience the temperate rainforest through science and art as it faces a shifting climate and the shifting priorities of a constantly changing society. Born of Fire and Rain journeys beyond the grid of latitude and longitude and into places only one’s imagination can fit, to discover what it means to be human in an ecological world.

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Seanan McGuire

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

Nadya had three mothers: the one who bore her, the country that poisoned her, and the one who adopted her. Nadya never considered herself less than whole, not until her adoptive parents fitted her with a prosthetic arm against her will, seeking to replace the one she'd been missing from birth. It was cumbersome; it was uncomfortable; it was wrong. It wasn't her. Frustrated and unable to express why, Nadya began to wander, until the day she fell through a door into Belyyreka, the Land Beneath the Lake — and found herself in a world of water, filled with child-eating amphibians, majestic giant turtles, and impossible ships that sailed as happily beneath the surface as on top. In Belyyreka, she found herself understood for who she was: a Drowned Girl, who had made her way to her real home, accepted by the river and its people. But even in Belyyreka, there are dangers, and trials, and Nadya would soon find herself fighting to keep hold of everything she had come to treasure. Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Tordotcom) is the latest in the bestselling Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire.

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Kids’ Storytime

Saturday, January 11 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join us every Saturday for kids' storytime. Today we're reading The Man Who Didn't Like Animals by Deborah Underwood.

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Quynh Nguyen

Saturday, January 11 @ 3pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Learn how to craft a blossoming garden of vibrant crepe paper flowers with 30+ detailed tutorials from master artist Quynh Nguyen. Delve into the enchanting art of lifelike floral design with The New Art of Paper Flowers (Blue Star Press). Whether you're a novice looking to discover a gratifying new hobby or a seasoned crafter seeking inspiration, this all-inclusive handbook will equip you to cultivate lush, long-lasting blooms using colorful crepe paper. Journey through every stage of the artistic process — from choosing materials to mastering the intricate techniques that breathe life into your arrangements. With Nguyen's detailed guidance and striking photography, let your creativity flourish as you bring more handmade beauty into your life and home.

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Bruce Fulton

Wednesday, January 15 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

An eclectic, moving, and wonderfully enjoyable collection, The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories (Penguin Classics) is the essential introduction to Korean literature. Journeying through Korea's dramatic twentieth century, from the Japanese occupation and colonial era to the devastating war between North and South and the rapid, disorienting urbanization of later decades, The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories captures a hundred years of Korea's vibrant short-story tradition. Here are peddlers and donkeys traveling across moonlit fields; artists drinking and debating in the tea-houses of 1920s Seoul; soldiers fighting for survival; exiles from the war who can never go home again; and lonely men and women searching for connection in the dizzying modern city. The collection features stories by some of Korea's greatest writers, including Pak Wanso, O Chonghui, and Cho Chongnae, as well as many brilliant contemporary voices, such as P'yon Hyeyong, Han Yujoo, and Kim Aeran. Curated by Bruce Fulton, this is a volume that will surprise, unsettle, and delight.

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Kids’ Storytime

Saturday, January 18 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join us every Saturday for kids' storytime. Today we're reading My Book and Me by Linda Sue Park.

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Dean Spade in Conversation With Walidah Imarisha & Demian DinéYazhi'

Sunday, January 19 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Lifelong activist and educator Dean Spade dares us to decide that our interpersonal actions are not separate from our politics of liberation and resistance. Many activist projects and resistance groups fall apart because people treat each other poorly, trying desperately to live out the cultural myths about dating and relationships that we are fed from an early age. How do we divest from the idea that one romantic partner will be the solution to all our problems? How do we bring our best thinking about freedom and justice into step with our desires for healing and connection? Love in a F*cked-Up World (Algonquin) is a resounding call to action and a practical manifesto for how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands, preparing us for the work of changing the world. Spade will be joined in conversation by Walidah Imarisha, author of Angels with Dirty Faces; and Indigenous artist Demian DinéYazhi'.

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Kids’ Storytime

Saturday, January 25 @ 10:30am (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Join us every Saturday for kids' storytime. Today we're reading The Band in Our Basement by Kelly J. Baptist.

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Michael N. McGregor in Conversation With Brian Lindstrom

Tuesday, January 28 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

American tour guide Joe Newhouse wants nothing more than to reach Venice. Since moving to Munich after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he’s watched his business fail, his wife leave him, and his love for Europe diminish. Now he faces one last ten-day tour with a surly group that doesn’t want to be there. As he leads them through the mythic lands of Europe’s Romantic past, he grows increasingly disturbed by their stories of earlier lives, puzzled by their desire to be with a man who doesn’t arrive, and entangled in an illicit affair that promises to either save him or plunge his tour — and his life — into madness. Soaked in the Romantic atmosphere and dark deeds of old Europe — as well as the freedoms and hopes of a new era — Michael N. McGregor’s The Last Grand Tour (Korza Books) takes us on a perilous journey through Hitler’s Berchtesgaden, Mozart’s Salzburg, and Mad King Ludwig’s Bavarian fantasyland before reaching its stunning climax in the murky waters of Venice. Along the way, it explores the often-shifting lines between fidelity and freedom, illusion and reality, regret and desire. McGregor will be joined in conversation by filmmaker Brian Lindstrom.

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Lauren E. Oakes in Conversation With Daniel Mathews

Thursday, January 30 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

In recent years, planting a tree has become a catchall to represent “doing something good for the planet.” Many companies commit to planting a tree with every purchase. But who plants those trees and where? Will they flourish and offer the benefits that people expect? Can all the individual efforts around the world help remedy the ever-looming climate crisis? In Treekeepers (Basic Books), Lauren E. Oakes takes us on a poetic and practical journey from the Scottish Highlands to the Panamanian jungle to meet the scientists, innovators, and local citizens who each offer part of the answer. Their work isn’t just about planting lots of trees, but also about understanding what it takes to grow or regrow a forest and to protect what remains. Throughout, Oakes shows the complex roles of forests in the fight against climate change, and of the people who are giving trees a chance with hope for our mutual survival. Timely, meticulously reported, and ultimately optimistic, Treekeepers teaches us how to live with a sense of urgency in our warming world, to find beauty in the present for ourselves and our children, and to take action big or small. Oakes will be joined in conversation by Daniel Mathews, author of Cascadia Revealed: A Guide to the Plants, Animals, and Geology of the Pacific Northwest Mountains.

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Lidia Yuknavitch in Conversation With Rene Denfeld

Tuesday, February 4 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

“I believe our bodies are carriers of experience,” Lidia Yuknavitch writes in her provocative new memoir, Reading the Waves (Riverhead). “I mean to ask if there is a way to read my own past differently, using what I have learned from literature: how stories repeat and reverberate and release us from the tyranny of our mistakes, our traumas, and our confusions.” Drawing on her background — her father's abuse, her complicated dynamic with her disabled mother, the death of her child, her sexual relationships with men and women — and her creative life as an author and teacher, Yuknavitch has come to understand that by using the power of literature and storytelling to reframe her memories, she can loosen the bonds that have enslaved her emotional growth. Armed with this insight, she allows herself to look with the eye of an artist at the wounds she suffered and come to understand the transformational power this has to restore her soul. By turns candid and lyrical, stoic and forgiving, blunt and evocative, Reading the Waves reframes memory to show how crucial this process can be to gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves. Yuknavitch will be joined in conversation by Rene Denfeld, author of Sleeping Giants.

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Neko Case in Conversation With Tucker Martine / TICKETED EVENT

Thursday, February 6 @ 7:30pm (PT) / Revolution Hall

Neko Case has long been revered as one of music’s most influential artists, whose authenticity, lyrical storytelling, and sly wit have endeared her to a legion of critics, musicians, and lifelong fans. In The Harder I Fight the More I Love You (Grand Central Publishing), Case brings her trademark candor and precision to a memoir that traces her evolution from an invisible girl “raised by two dogs and a space heater” in rural Washington state to her improbable emergence as an internationally acclaimed talent. In luminous, sharp-edged prose, Case shows readers what it’s like to be left alone for hours and hours as a child, to take refuge in the woods around her home, and to channel the monotony and loneliness and joy that comes from music, camaraderie, and shared experience into art. The Harder I Fight the More I Love You is a rebellious meditation on identity and corruption, and a manifesto on how to make space for ourselves in this world, despite the obstacles we face. Case will be joined in conversation by record producer Tucker Martine.

Please note: Tickets for this event are $40 (before service charges) and include admission, as well as one hardcover copy of Case’s The Harder I Fight the More I Love You. Books distributed at event.

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Willi Galloway

Saturday, February 8 @ 3pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

From sinking a seed into the soil to enjoying a meal made with produce harvested right outside your door, Grow Cook Eat (Sasquatch Books) is filled with practical, useful information for both novices and seasoned gardeners alike. This gorgeous kitchen gardening book will inspire people who already buy seasonal, local, and organic food to grow the fruits and vegetables they love to eat — even if they live in a city. Dynamic, young gardening expert Willi Galloway reveals the ins and outs of growing your own food, sharing need-to-know information such as profiles on how to plant, grow, and prepare common vegetables, herbs, and small fruits; specific instructions on how to harvest all edible parts of a plant; advice on storing your harvest in a way that maximizes flavor; basic food preparation techniques, including tips for unusual foods like radish greens and garlic scapes; and delicious recipes that'll make the most of your at-home harvest. With 140 beautiful color photographs throughout, Grow Cook Eat is the ultimate guide to refining your gardening skills and cultivating gourmet quality food — from your very own backyard.

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Simone Dankenbring

Saturday, February 15 @ 3pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Welcome to Neecy and Nay Nay's House of Style, a salon run by twin sisters in Simone Dankenbring’s Neecy and Nay Nay and the Tangled, Hairy Mess (Little Bee Books), a hilarious, heartwarming new chapter book series celebrating Black joy, sisterhood, family, and friendship. Neecy and Nay Nay always have the most twin-tastic ideas! Their latest is to open up a salon called Neecy and Nay Nay's House of Style. They want to style their friends' hair, paint their nails, and give them facials. But, it turns out, the twins are not as good at being stylists as they think! Can Neecy and Nay Nay work together to fix the hair-raising accidents? In Neecy and Nay Nay and the Glitter Girls (Little Bee Books), Neecy and Nay Nay are back for another adventure. Neecy and Nay Nay love being part of the Glitter Girls Club. This month, the girls are working toward earning their Make a Difference badges. The twins want to help local resident Mr. Otis by getting him a new pair of dentures so he can enjoy all his favorite foods. But raising money is not as easy as looking under couch cushions! Will Neecy and Nay Nay be able to make a difference for Mr. Otis and earn their badges?

Please note: This event will take place in the Rose Room.

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Preorder a Signed Edition (Neecy and Nay Nay and the Glitter Girls)

Kim Dower in Conversation With Karen Karbo

Wednesday, February 19 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

Following the success of her poetry collection I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom: Poems on Motherhood, Kim Dower delivers What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria (Red Hen Press) — turning her keen eye, vibrant imagination, trademark insight, and humor to the intensity of obsessive love. These steamy and provocative poems, combining humor and heartache, run through the four phases of Limerence, the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person: Infatuation, Crystallization, Deterioration, and Ecstatic Release. From the opening poem, “She’ll do anything for food,” to the sexy title poem, “What She Wants,” the painfully funny, “His Other Girlfriend,” to the longing in “Visiting Baudelaire,” and the sad, sweet final poem, “Fish’s Lament,” Dower captures the essence of what it means to be stuck on someone — even on a squirrel! Her eclectic, growing readership will savor these poems that can be read in one sitting, like a story with an arc, or separately, each one recalling the moment of falling in or out of love, the moment our hearts skipped a beat. Dower will be joined in conversation by Karen Karbo, author of Julia Child Rules and In Praise of Difficult Women.

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Courtney Carver in Conversation With Bailey Carver

Sunday, February 23 @ 3pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

From an expert on simplicity and minimalism comes a collection of 30 practices to overcome chronic overwhelm, cultivate self-compassion, and find permission to do less — perfect for readers of Rest is Resistance and Wintering. Being Gentle is about being grounded in self-compassion and a fierce commitment to less — becoming the Gentle You isn’t about taking the easy road. Organized into three parts — Rest, Less, and Rise — Courtney Carver's Gentle (Balance) provides simple challenges and practices that will help readers radically and gently shift their pace, headspace, and heart. Becoming the Gentle You is a practice of real self-care that, over time, will soothe your nervous system and strengthen your relationships. Gentle is the “don’t do it all” self-help book that promotes less stress and more joy by standing in your light and honoring the person you are. Carver will be joined in conversation by Bailey Carver, co-host of the Soul & Wit podcast.

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Leyna Krow in Conversation With Megan Kruse

Monday, February 24 @ 7pm (PT) / Powell’s City of Books

What do we owe our family and friends in times of wild uncertainty? That’s the question the women of Leyna Krow’s beguiling, darkly fabulist story collection grapple with as they strive to be good mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, wives, and companions in a world that is constantly shifting around them. Set in the Pacific Northwest, these stories blend high-concept magic with the sometimes subtle, other times glaring, realities of climate change. As protagonists contend with doppelgänger babies, hordes of time travelers, mysterious portals, and supernatural siblings, there lurks in the background the effects of the region’s rapidly shifting environment. There are wildfires, wind storms, unrelenting heat, disrupted butterfly migration patterns, a new plague, and a catastrophe on the slopes of Mount Rainier that reverberates through three generations of a single family over the course of a half dozen linked stories. With Krow’s signature blend of sardonic whimsy and unsettling insight, Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids (Penguin) imagines the rules to be broken, choices to be made, and even crimes to be had for the sake of the people, and places, we love. Krow will be joined in conversation by Megan Kruse, author of Call Me Home.

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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.

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