Books Don’t worry, there aren’t any beanbag chairs, and these books of stories don’t have any pretty pictures. Lunch Pail Tales: A Story Hour for Grown-ups is exactly what it sounds like: an adult   More

Books As the 50th anniversary of the John F. Kennedy assassination nears, in 2013, two out of three Americans still believe Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in murdering the president. Judyth Vary    More

Arts & Books Sellwood's the Woods will host This! Fest, a new literature and music festival, this Friday and Saturday, Sept. 9-10, with readings from more than 26 prominent Portland writers and 18 musical performances. (Read more about the festival in this week's Headout.)Jeremy Hadley, the festival's official organizer, says the idea was spawned by himself and three friends: Wilson Vediner (of local band Point ...   More

Arts & Books The day booksellers have been dreading is here. Amazon announced in a statement yesterday that it now sells more e-books than print books. For every 100 print books sold since April 1, Amazon has sold 105 Kindle e-books. ---So if e-books are the way of the future, what does the news mean for Portland's booksellers? In February this year, Powell's Books made national news when it laid off 31 workers, ...   More

Retailtherapist Retail Therapist was out scouting this afternoon and found this lovely tome of interior design porn. Etcetera: Creating Beautiful Interiors With The Things You Love, $35, is chock-full of inspiring photos of home interiors, decorated with homeowners' personal collections and obsessions. Author and stylist Sibella Court is the creative force behind the book—a lovely piece of design in itself, ...   More

Retailtherapist Portland artist Kate Bingaman-Burt's Obsessive Consumption (the book) is here. Kate makes art by illustrating her daily purchases, receipts and credit card bills. Out of that came her blog—also called Obsessive Consumption—and finally this book, which is a collection of years of these illustrations. Retail Therapist could make some kind of trenchant socioeconomic observation about the ...   More

News Don't you publishers ever get sick of sex? Another month or two has gone by and once again, the Willamette Week office is filling up with review copies of new and soon to be published dirty books. Seriously, I trip on bare backing manuals and kinky niche erotica collections every time I leave my desk to get a cup of coffee. As I explained last time we did this, in February, we're just too tired ...   More

News Local writer/blogger/reading series mistress/Tweet-addict Melissa Lion is launching "What the Shit: A Dramatic Twitter Reading Series" this Friday, May 22, at Green Dragon. That's right—get drunk and shout out your 140 character brilliance...or somebody else's brilliance. There's really no rules yet. Here's Lion's explanation (she's been Tweetin' about the damn thing all day, naturally): Welcome ...   More

News Books, books and more books: a corner of the Willamette Week office is literally swimming (one might say drowning) in these erstwhile vehicles of information and delight. What is a put-upon reporter to do when faced with a mountain of text such as this? Choose a book like one would cereal—whatever's cheapest, most sugary, and probably colorful. Here follows the top three book covers from this ...   More

News “I love being a public servant” Oregon Attorney General John Kroger drawled at Monday night's Oregon Book Awards ceremony, as he was picking up his award for Creative Nonfiction, “but what I really wanted to be growing up is a writer. It's a precious thing to have a book published.” Precious indeed, and, these days, a even more rare thing. Although Convictions, Kroger's ...   More