Dale E. Basye Presents "Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck" at Powell's Cedar Hills Crossing

Today’s Featured Book Event:

Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): When Milton escapes from Heck in a soul balloon made of old clothes, Marlo is the only Fauster child left to take the blame in Rapacia (Random House Books for Young Readers), the second volume of Dale E. Basye’s children’s series, Heck. Bea “Elsa” Bubb, the Principal of Darkness, sends Marlo straight to Rapacia, the circle where greedy kids are tormented by glimpses of a just-out-of-reach, glittering shopper’s paradise called Mallvana.

Other Book Events Today:

North Portland: From Ragtime to Our Time & Beyond (North Portland Library, @6:00pm): Lively program looking at impact of race, class, culture and progress on North Portland during era of Ragtime (1900-1917) and contemporary parallels around growth/change and community—from the Portland Realty Board’s “red-lining” to the development of the Albina Community Plan and present-day challenges. Panel discussion moderated by Judith Mowry, Office of Neighborhood Involvement’s Restorative Listening Project.  In cooperation with Portland Center Stage.

Notes From an Unlikely Author (Sellwood-Moreland Library, @6:30pm): Portlander Sami Scripter will describe her journey from writer wanna-be to full-fledged author. Sami’s book, co-authored by Sheng Yang, is titled: “Cooking from the Heart, the Hmong Kitchen in America.” It is the first mainstream book about Hmong cooking, and includes a lovely combination of Hmong recipes, photos, and beautiful stories, poems, and anecdotes about the Hmong culture in Asia and America.

Sami will talk about her 30-year involvement with the Hmong, the process of researching and writing the book, and how she found a publisher. Attendees will learn how the Hmong use herbs and vegetables in their cooking to maintain health and treat illness. There will be time for questions and samples to taste.

Diane Ackerman (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): In Dawn Light (Norton), an eye-opening sequence of personal meditations through the cycle of seasons, poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman awakens readers to the world at dawn — drawing on sources as diverse as meteorology, world religion, etymology, art history, poetry, organic farming, and beekeeping.

Karen Armstrong (First Congregational Church, @7:30pm): A significant number of people today question the value of faith or want nothing to do with God. Why has God become unbelievable? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors? In a discussion based upon her new book, The Case for God (Knopf), Armstrong answers these questions with a depth of knowledge and historical insight that has marked her as a leading voice in religious matters. She follows the lengths to which humankind has gone in order to experience a sacred reality, and argues for drawing on the insights of the past in order to build a faith that speaks to the needs of our age. Please Note: This ticketed event is presented by Literary Arts in conjuction with Powell’s Books, and takes place at the First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park Ave. Tickets, $45 for main floor seating (includes a copy of A Case for God) or $25 for balcony seating (does not include book), are available at www.literary-arts.org.

You can find other events on your community Libraries schedule using these links: Washington County, Multnomah County, Clackamas County. For other book events this week, please check the list.