books

Five Books by Indigenous Authors to Read This Week

Here Are the Five Most Anticipated Book Releases for November

As it happens, Margaret Atwood was a poet before she was a novelist. Her first collection, Double Persephone, was published in 1961 with just over 200 copies handset by Atwood herself, and it tends to be overlooked in conversations about her legacy and literary stardom. Dearly may just throw Atwood back into the pecking order of the genre, with writing that flits from interest to interest—the nature of zombies, the nature of aging, the nature of nature. Each is written with an internal clarity that belies Atwood’s decades in the spotlight.

This Portland Professor Spent the Pandemic Studying a 500-Year-Old Witch Hunting Guide

That the college obtained the book—which actually consists of two texts bound together, the other being a “history of the world” first published in 1490—from an antique bookseller in Paris makes the backstory sound even more like the premise of a Sam Raimi film.

Want to Smell Like a Bookstore for Some Reason? Powell’s Is Releasing Its Own Fragrance. Yes, Really.

For a limited time beginning in November, the store is going to be selling its own fragrance called (wait for it) Powell’s by Powell’s. According a press release, it “captures the scent of books with subtle hints of wood and violet,” and will be sold in a 1-ounce bottle contained inside a book-shaped box.

A Portland Illustrator’s New Book Is About an Orange Menace Being Destroyed by Democracy. Sounds Familiar.

In the first few pages of Portland author and illustrator Cat Champion’s latest picture book, Scorpion Saves the Night, a maniacal orange lion who has burnt half the world to a crisp confesses his ultimate desire: “I wish to be the most powerful, most feared and most dangerous king the world has ever seen.”

Five Recommended Reads From the National Book Awards Longlists

When men are sent on quests, it’s usually not for owls.

Portland Poet David Biespiel Reflects on Judaism and Texas in “A Place of Exodus”

This is not his first memoir, or his first book––in fact, it is his 12th––but it is Biespiel’s first effort to make something out of the spiritual arc of his childhood, a cinematic story of devotion, conflict and exile.

Five Upcoming Books You Should Read Immediately

From Tiny Nightmares to a “gay slacker dramedy.”

Portland-Based “Puncture” Magazine Upped the Game for Punk Rock Zines. A New Anthology Shows How.

On the outside, the first issues of Puncture looked like the dozens of other roughly constructed zines covering punk and post-punk culture in the 1980s: hand-folded and stapled with cut-and-paste cover art. What set it apart was the content on the inside.

Portland Author Vanessa Veselka’s New Novel Shows That the “Hero’s Journey” Isn’t Exclusive to the Wealthy, or Men

For eight years, Portland author Vanessa Veselka has been working on an unsentimental love letter to America.

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