Today’s Featured Book Event:

central_libraryHistoric Zinesters Talking-Kevin Sampsell and Leanne Grabel (Central Library, @6:30pm): Meet some of the original creators of zines in Portland. Kevin Sampsell, of Future Tense Books and Powell’s City of Books, and Leanne Grabel, poet, performer and teacher, discuss the development of chapbooks, poetry and zines in Portland.

Other Book Events Today:

Bill Siverly and Barbara Drake (Broadway Books, @7:00pm): Two very fine teachers and poets, Bill Siverly and Barbara Drake, will be with us tonight to read from new books. Bill Siverly, originally from Idaho, has lived in Portland since 1972. He is co-editor of Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place, which features poetry of the Pacific Northwest and appears twice yearly on the equinoxes. Bill’s new book, Clearwater Way, is a journey from the Washington Coast up the Columbia, Snake, and Clearwater Rivers and into the woods of north Idaho. The journey is also back in time, to his childhood, and is inspired by the Wasco myth cycle about Coyote, who traveled the same terrain, creating land forms, resources, and cultural practices. Barbara Drake grew up at the Oregon coast. She is the author of a number of poetry chapbooks, a memoir, and a college textbook about writing poetry. Barbara’s new book is Driving 100. The major theme of this work is that the past in all of its mystery and wonder is driving relentlessly into the dark. Barbara’s strong voice and sympathetic observation create a haven in her poetry for things which are passing away, and in these poems they go on living in the light of her unique poetic reality, exquisite in line, image, memory and emotion.

Elizabeth Grossman presents Chasing Molecules (Looking Glass Bookstore, @7:00pm): Elizabeth Grossman, an acclaimed journalist who brought national attention to the contaminants hidden in computers and other high tech electronics, now tackles the hazards of ordinary consumer products. She shows that for the sake of convenience, efficiency, and short-term safety, we have created synthetic chemicals that fundamentally change, at a molecular level, the way our bodies work. The consequences range from diabetes to cancer, reproductive and neurological disorders. Yet it’s hard to imagine life without the creature comforts current materials provide—and Grossman argues we do not have to. A scientific revolution is introducing products that are “benign by design,” developing manufacturing processes that consider health impacts at every stage, and is creating new compounds that mimic rather than disrupt natural systems. Through interviews with leading researchers, Grossman gives us a first look at this radical transformation.

Elizabeth Grossman is the author of High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health, Watershed: The Undamming of America, and Adventuring Along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Her writing has appeared in Mother Jones, The Nation, Salon, The Washington Post, Orion, and other publications. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

The Failure of Public Memory: Reflections on Rhetoric and the Study of Public Remembrance (Lewis and Clark College, Howard Hall 102, @7:00pm): Author Kendall Phillips will participate in the 2009 Memory Studies Lecture Series at Lewis & Clark, directed by the Memory Studies Institute. Phillips earned his doctorate at Pennsylvania State University and has written several books, including Framing Public Memory.

Willamette Writers Meeting featuring Caroline Miller (The Old Church, @7:00pm, $10 for non-members): Caroline Miller is the author of the recently published Heart Land. Miller has also published several short stories in such magazines as Children’s Digest, Grit and Tales of the Talisman. Her short story, ‘Under the Bridge and Beneath the Moon,’ was dramatized for radio in Oregon and Washington. Miller’s second novel, Gothic Spring, was released in September. She will speak about what to do after a book contract is signed. Oregonians may be familiar with Caroline Miller’s work in local politics. She served two terms as Multnomah County Commissioner and another term as Metro Commissioner. She also headed the Portland Federation of Teachers and won Oregon’s Labor Hall of Fame.

Daniel Arnold presents Early Days in the Range of Light (Annie Bloom’s Books, @7:30pm): It’s 1873. Gore-Tex shells and aluminum climbing gear are a century away, but the high mountains still demand your attention. Imagine the stone in your hands and thousands of feet of open air below you, with only a wool jacket to weather a storm and no rope to catch a fall.

Daniel Arnold did more than imagine—he spent three years retracing the steps of his climbing forefathers, and in Early Days in the Range of Light, he tells their riveting stories. From 1864 to 1931, the Sierra Nevada witnessed some of the most audacious climbing of all time. In the spirit of his predecessors, Arnold carried only rudimentary equipment—no ropes, no harness, no specialized climbing shoes. Sometimes he left his backpack and sleeping bag behind as well, and, like John Muir, traveled for days with only a few pounds of food rolled into a sack slung over his shoulder.

In an artful blend of history, biography, nature, and adventure writing, Arnold brings to life the journeys and the terrain traveled. In the process he uncovers the motivations that drove an extraordinary group of individuals to risk so much for airy summits and close contact with bare stone and snow.

Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): Health-conscious bread-eaters need homemade options more than anyone else. A collection of healthful bread recipes, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François’s Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (Thomas Dunne) offers 100 new recipes featuring whole grain, fruits, vegetables, and gluten-free ingredients.

You can find other events on your community Libraries schedule using these links: Washington County, Multnomah County, Clackamas County.

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