Matt Lemay Elliott Smith’s XO (33 1/3)

Deconstructing the myth behind the white suit.

Books Elliott Smith was not a guitar-toting troubadour. Or really that much of a sad sack. A longtime Portland resident, Smith was one of the best songwriters of the ’90s before he tragically died in ...   More

 

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 MICHAEL MANNHEIMER

Kirstin Downey The Woman Behind The New Deal

Frances Perkins designed the New Deal. But first she had to win the right to vote.

Books Any of this sound familiar? “An era of rampant speculation had come to an end…wages were falling; tens of thousands were homeless. Real estate prices had plummeted, and millions of homeow ...   More

 

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 HENRY STERN

Katherine Dunn One Ring Circus

A Portland legend captures the bittersweet science.

Books It’s not exactly a paradox, but still. The sports that offer the least to the uninitiated spectator often inspire the best writing. This is true of baseball, and it is also true of boxing. For a ...   More

 

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 MATTHEW KORFHAGE

Shawn Levy Paul Newman: A Life

A local critic toasts a screen icon—with Coors, of course.

Books “There’s nothing that makes you feel more like a piece of meat,” Paul Newman once complained. “It’s like saying to a woman, ‘Open your blouse, I want to see your ti ...   More

 

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 KELLY CLARKE

Female Force: Michelle Obama (Bluewater)

The amazing true adventures of America’s first lady!

Books Vancouver, Wash.-based publisher Bluewater Productions has garnered a lot of attention from CNN and Fox News for its Female Force series, featuring women like Hillary Clinton. So it’s no surpris ...   More

 

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 Adrienne So

Book Reviews: Oonagh O’Hagan and Gordon Kerr

Books Oonagh O’Hagan I Lick My CheeseSphere, 218 pages, $15.95.An alarmingly thorough compendium of that monument to passive-aggression, the roommate note, this 218-page gallery sits somewhere between ...   More

 

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 AARON MESH

Michio Kaku Physics of the Impossible

Books Scientists have become the deus ex machina of TV dramas. Today’s specialized fields have become so inaccessible to even the interested layman that the forensic scientists of CSI or the mathemati ...   More

 

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 MATTHEW KORFHAGE

Jeff Mapes Pedaling Revolution.

Books Jeff Mapes has good timing. When the veteran Oregonian political reporter began researching his new book on the resurgence of bicycles, he couldn’t have predicted that within months, gas price ...   More

 

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 BRETT CAMPBELL

Patrick deWitt Ablutions

A local author writes what he knows—booze.

Books Patrick deWitt’s debut novel, Ablutions (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 164 pages, $23), perches at the back of a pitiful bartender’s mind as he observes his wretched regulars and struggles ag ...   More

 

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 CHRIS STAMM

Debra Gwartney Live Through This

About a girl—and her mother.

Books As you page through Debra Gwartney’s new memoir, Live Through This: A Mother’s Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love (Houghton Mifflin, 224 pages, $24), there are times when you t ...   More

 

Wednesday, March 4, 2009 Adrienne So