A.J. Jacobs, Drop Dead Healthy

Get buff or die tryin’.

Books A.J. Jacobs is a mouth breather. He has, per his own description, the body of “a python that swallowed a goat.” After coming down with pneumonia while on a tropical vacation, he decided More

Wednesday, April 25, 2012 MICHAEL LOPEZ

How To: Choose Your Best Route To Work

So much depends on avoiding as many stop signs as possible.

Culture It may seem overwhelming at first, but the decision to commute to work by bike isn’t one you’ll regret. Maybe you’ve thought about it but haven’t figured out exactly how it’d work. Well, More

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 MICHAEL LOPEZ

Crazy Enough, Storm Large

Books Storm Large is not a stranger to anyone with tenure in Portland’s music and arts scene. Her new memoir, Crazy Enough (Free Press, 288 pages, $25), painstakingly details how Large came to be the More

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 MICHAEL LOPEZ

Queen of America

A Mexican faith healer rules in the EE.UU.

Books Luis Alberto Urrea spent some 26 years on Queen of America (Little, Brown and Company, 496 pages, $25.99). The novel is understandably precious to the Mexican-American author as it borrows heavi More

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 MICHAEL LOPEZ

Chuck Palahniuk Damned

Butter rum Life Savers, and other visions of hell.

Books As the setting for a Chuck Palahniuk novel, hell seems strangely overdue. The Portland-bred novelist specializes in damaged protagonists in vile scenarios—people well deserving of eternal damnati More

Wednesday, November 2, 2011 MICHAEL LOPEZ