Books & Talks

Bookshelf

Karen Russell on Her Witchy Dust Bowl Epic, The Antidote

The Portland author and Pulitzer finalist follows Swamplandia! with a magical realist test of wills.

03/11/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

Book Review

Omar El Akkad Returns to Nonfiction to Undress American Mythology

Spurred by the war in Gaza, the celebrated American War novelist tests propaganda against the sanctity of human life.

02/19/2025 By Diana Abu-Jaber

Long Story Short

Lidia Yuknavitch, Kristen Stewart, and an Ocean Outside of Time

As The Chronology of Water becomes a movie, its author revisits her past in a new memoir, Reading the Waves.

02/04/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

reading ahead

The Most Anticipated Book Events in Portland This Winter

The season promises new books from local stars Karen Russell and Lidia Yuknavitch and visits from Masha Gessen and Neko Case, among many others.

01/06/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

Books

A Guide to Loving Trash

A new memoir collects trash—as a class, artistic medium, and societal nuisance—into a manual for empathy.

11/08/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Reading Ahead

The Most Anticipated Book Events in Portland Fall 2024

Ta-Nehisi Coates is coming, the Portland Book Festival is almost here, and the city’s small presses are printing the next generation’s debuts.

10/15/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Photobook

Protest City Photographer Rian Dundon’s Next Project Is a Quieter Ride

Post-divorce and post-COVID, the intimate photos in Dundon’s Passenger distill Portland’s normalized strife.

09/25/2024 By Matthew Trueherz Photography by Rian Dundon

Booktopia

With New HQ, the City’s Literary Heart (Finally) Finds a Permanent Physical Form

Literary Arts’ expansive Southeast building will house a bookstore, café and bar, and all-ages community resources.

09/18/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Q&A

Mostly True Stories: Chelsea Bieker on Her Novel ‘Madwoman’

“I wanted to write this zany book about motherhood and wellness powders,” she says. “And then it turned into this much deeper thing.”

09/17/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Author Events

Portland Book Festival Announces 2024 Lineup

Richard Powers, Renée Watson, Ani DiFranco, and Danez Smith are among this year’s 80+ authors.

09/12/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Picture Book

Carson Ellis Finds Her Past in an Old Portland Warehouse

New paintings illustrate a 20-year-old diary in the artist’s latest book, recounting her first week in town, falling in love, and reading Dylan Thomas aloud.

09/10/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Memoir

Breaking Bread and Capitalism with Lola Milholland

The Umi Organic founder’s memoir challenges the nuclear family model with food.

08/01/2024 Photography by Jason Hill By Matthew Trueherz

Book Review

You’re Safe Here, A Sci-Fi Novel Set In 2060, Reads Eerily Current

Author of the popular Substack newsletter Morning Person, Leslie Stephens takes aim at the wellness industrial complex in her debut novel.

06/27/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Drinks for Thought

Jim Meehan’s Deep Dive into the Cocktail Kitchen

The award-winning mixologist’s third book, focused on culinary ingredients, shifted his sense of self.

06/11/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Reading Ahead

3 Upcoming Books by Portland Authors

Does your nightstand need a genre-bending food memoir, a wellness-obsessed sci-fi novel, and a first-person report of an adult autism diagnosis? Of course it does.

05/22/2024 By Matthew Trueherz