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Portland Monthly

Books & Talks

BOOKS FOR BASKING

The 10 Portland Books You Must Read This Summer

Whatever your tastes, we've plucked 10 newly published works for your summer reading pleasure.

05/26/2015 By Fiona McCann

POMO PICKS

Top Things to Do This Weekend: May 21–24

Grimm stars make their PDX stage debuts, Ai Weiwei opens at the Portland Art Museum, and Robert Plant hits Bend for his only Oregon summer show. We need clones, stat!

05/21/2015 By Ramona DeNies

BOOKS

The Grateful Dead's Rhythm Devil Blows Through Town

In a new memoir, drummer Bill Kreutzmann flashes back on Aldous Huxley, Janis Joplin, co-drummer Mickey Hart, and, yes, LSD.

05/20/2015 By Rene Bermudez

EDITOR'S PICKS

Top Things to Do This Weekend: May 7–10

Obama AND Bill Moyers? Very statesmanlike! Also, drunk comedians (so, so many), duct tape art, and a penal colony tale from Down Under.

05/07/2015 By Ramona DeNies

EDITOR'S PICKS

Top Things to Do This Weekend: Apr 30–May 3

Ciao, Italian Style—but hello, David Sedaris, Downton Abbey, Alex Ross, American Night, plus three more new shows. Prego, Portland!

04/30/2015 By Ramona DeNies

TALKS

Our Top Five TEDxMtHood Talkers

TEDxMtHood takes to Revolution Hall on Saturday, with a lineup of some of the city’s brightest thinkers and talkers. But if you can’t watch them all, who should you be paying attention to?

04/29/2015 By Rene Bermudez

EDITOR'S PICKS

Top Things to Do This Weekend: Apr 23–26

Saul Williams and Sylvan Esso, the Symphony rocks Led Zeppelin, plus free classical concerts across town—this spring weekend is all about making sweet, sweet music.

04/23/2015 By Ramona DeNies

High-Minded Reads

The Literary Stoner: Bringing Weed to Your Reads

Crime-fighting cannabis and budding business—a visiting author takes on the new politics of pot (plus three more reads to get you rolling).

04/23/2015 By Ramona DeNies

BOOKS

Poetry and a Proposal at the 28th Oregon Book Awards

Readers, writers, lovers, fighters—there was something for everyone at the 28th Oregon Book Awards.

04/14/2015 By Fiona McCann

EDITOR'S PICKS

Top Things to Do This Weekend: Apr 9–12

Nikki Glaser kills at Helium, Cyrano gets a slam poetry makeover (watch the nose!), Belle and Sebastian go clubby, and the dragtastic Rory ONeal pulls hats out of his act at Blackfish.

04/09/2015 By Ramona DeNies

Popular Content

    The 5 Ursula K. Le Guin Books You Need to Read, According to Her Son

    The Ursula K. Le Guin Cat Book You’ve Been Waiting For

    What We Talk About When We Talk About Hanya

    Portland’s New Yorker Cartoonist on the Important Kind of Jokes

    A Novel of an Anarchist Nursing Home Run by 1970s Punks

    Must-Visit Portland Indie Bookstores

BOOKS ON SHAME

Haven’t Yet Read These Books On Shame? Shame On You!

Two visiting authors weigh the merits of public humiliation: Jon Ronson (bad!) and Jennifer Jacquet (good!)

04/07/2015 By Ramona DeNies

BALLET

Can Oregon Ballet Theatre Take On Race?

In a talk with Darrell Grand Moultrie, OBT aims to diversify its audience and enter the national conversation about race. Should ballet be about more than beauty?

04/02/2015 By Ramona DeNies and Fiona McCann

TALL TALES

Why Do We Love Storytelling on Stage?

Portlanders are flocking to live storytelling events, with five local organizations offering them up. This month, RISK! comes to town to vie with the homegrown options for your confessional throw-downs. So what’s to gain from public humiliation?

03/26/2015 By Rene Bermudez

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

Portland's Poet David Biespiel Talks Politics and Going Viral

With National Poetry Month just around the corner, poet David Biespiel talks about Portland's poetry scene, Michael Brown as poetic subject, and the legacy of America's longest-running newspaper column on poetry

03/25/2015 By Larisa Owechko

BOOKS

Barney Frank on Why Today's Right-Wingers Are the Worst of All Time

The gay rights icon and ex-Massachusetts congressman visits Portland for some 'Frank' talk.

03/24/2015 By Zach Dundas

BOOKS AND TALKS

Children’s Author Rilla Alexander on Ideas and Inspiration

Creative Mornings puts Portland-based designer, illustrator, and children’s book writer Rilla Alexander on the stage to talk about procrastination and the creative process.

03/19/2015 By Larisa Owechko

EDITOR'S PICKS

Top Things to Do This Weekend: Mar 12–15

This weekend, it's Adam Carolla's road well traveled, rocker Juliana Hatfield's dream of the 1990s, kidnapped futures traders, Treasure Island, and Thomas Lauderdale's piano.

03/12/2015 By Ramona DeNies

PORTLAND ARTS 101

A Beginner's Guide to the Portland Literary World's Major Landmarks

Mapping the gateways to the city's writing and reading scene—from the coffee shop most frequented by writers and poets to the Portland Poetry Slam

03/02/2015 By Kevin Sampsell

EDITOR'S PICK

Top Things to Do This Weekend: Feb 26–Mar 1

The next four days bring a "triple threat" bluesman, a nettlesome monopolist, high drama from two very different feuding families, and Failure (Timmy, that is).

02/26/2015 By Ramona DeNies

INTERVIEW

Q&A: Carson Ellis is In Your House

The Decemberists' style maker and children's book artist pens a new picture book on "homes"—from beehives and birds’ nests to undersea palaces and space stations.

02/26/2015 By Ramona DeNies

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