Portland Book Events: January 16-22

From what we could find (please contact us if you have an event you would like us to add to this or future schedules), the local book events for the week of January 16, 2010 through January 22, 2010 are:

Saturday January 16-

Mother Daughter Book Club (Hillsboro Main Library, @10:00am): A book discussion group for girls in grades 3-5 and their mothers or other significant women in their lives to read and discuss great books together. The group meets the third Saturday each month at 10 a.m. at the Main Library. New members are always welcome and no registration is required!

January’s Book is The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd.  When Ted and Kat’s cousin Salim disappears from the London Eye ferris wheel, the two siblings must work together — Ted with his brain that is “wired differently” and impatient Kat — to try to solve the mystery of what happened to Salim.

The Secret Circus (Belmont Library, @11:15am): Meet Johanna Wright author and illustrator of “The Secret Circus.” Johanna will read from her book and share insights about the life of a writer.

A Boy and His Wizard (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @2:00pm): What would you do if you found yourself lost in the woods and came across a very strange wizard and five magical chests? Follow the adventure of Jamie J. Jingle as he embarks on a quest that might just change his life forever in M. A. Smith’s A Boy and His Wizard (Stonegarden.net Publishing).

Every War Has Two Losers (Holy Names Heritage Center, @3:00pm): A premier showing of the film, “Every War Has Two Losers” will be available for Portland area residents to celebrate the birthday of beloved local poet and peace activist, William Stafford.  This 30-minute film produced by Haydn Reiss features statements by Alice Walker, Robert Bly and Kim Stafford.  Hosted by Joan Maiers and Patricia Carver, board member for Friends of William Stafford.  Free and open to the public.  After the film, everyone is invited to read or share a favorite poem WRITTEN BY William Stafford. Ritz Kyoko Mori will read Japanese translations of Stafford poems.

The Case for Pluto (Powell’s Technical Books, @4:00pm): In The Case for Pluto (John Wiley & Sons), award-winning science writer Alan Boyle traces the tiny planet’s ups and downs, its strange appeal, the reasons behind its demotion, and the reasons why it should be set back in the planetary pantheon. “An engrossing voyage of discovery about not only Pluto, but about the very process of scientific discovery,” praises Alan Boss, author of The Crowded Universe.

David Huerta (First Unitarian Church, @7:00pm): From his new book, Before Saying Any of the Great Words, Huerta will read his poems in Spanish followed by his translator, Mark Schafer, reading in English. The book is a bilingual collection of poems selected from over 25 years of Huerta’s work, including excerpts from his book-length poem Incurable, which critics have called a 20th Century masterpiece. Huerta is Mexico’s leading poet and also a journalist, critic, professor and activist.

Sunday January 17-

Writer’s Mill (Cedar Mill Community Library, @1:00pm): Whether you’re hoping for publication, planning to self publish or writing just for fun, join us for a hands-on inspiring gathering of people who love to write. Newcomers welcome! We meet the 3rd Sunday of the month in the upstairs meeting room. To RSPV, contact Liza Peltola, Facilitator, randyliza[at]verizon.net.

Winter Stitch n Bitch (In Other Words Women’s Books & Resources, @6:00pm): Come hang out at In Other Words and bring along your current knitting project (or whatever you feel like doing for that matter), some tea, a friend, and your snuggie (we’ll crank the heat but it can get chilly in there)! If you don’t know how to knit, but want to learn, try to make it to the first one on the 15th so we can have some pros show you how it’s done. It is IOW, so there will be a donation jar for the event but no one will be turned away!

William Stafford Birthday Event (Writers Dojo, @7:00pm): On William Stafford’s birthday, Kim Stafford of Lewis & Clark College, and Jeffrey Selin of the Writers’ Dojo, together with William Stafford Writing Fellows Sara Guest and Jeff Coleman, will host a short writing and sharing activity, followed by an exploration of the digital resources now available at the William Stafford Archives at www.williamstaffordarchives.org. Our first goal is to share the new online resources for everyone, and our second goal is to glimpse some resources specifically for teachers.  All are welcome—readers, writers, teachers, neighbors, anyone with an interest.

Daniel H. Pink (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): Daniel H. Pink, the author of the groundbreaking bestseller A Whole New Mind, is back with Drive (Riverhead), a paradigm-changing examination of how to harness motivation to find greater satisfaction in life. This book of big ideas discusses the surest pathway to high performance, creativity, and well-being.

Monday January 18-

Naseem Rakha (Tigard Public Library, @7:00pm): Join us for an evening of discussion and reading with Oregon author Naseem Rakha.  Rakha’s critically acclaimed book The Crying Tree deals with justice, compassion and forgiveness in the face of violent tragedy.  Rakha, who is also an award-winning journalist, will read selections from the novel and participate in a discussion of the book.

Margaret Killjoy with Ursula K. Le Guin (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): In Mythmakers and Lawbreakers (AK Press), edited by Margaret Killjoy, sci-fi powerhouses Ursula K. Le Guin, Alan Moore, Michael Moorcock, and Lewis Shiner join activist authors and a variety of other up-and-coming young writers in a series of interviews that explore fiction’s deeply political roots.

Winter Hikes of Western Washington (Powells Books on Hawthorne, @7:30pm): Featuring author Craig Romano’s recommended trails for winter hiking throughout Western Washington, Winter Hikes of Western Washington Deck (Mountaineers Books) is a versatile pack of outdoor options, from low-land routes and rainforest rambles to coastal tramps and protected peaks.

Tuesday January 19-

Randall Kennedy (Lewis & Clark College, Legal Research Center, Student Lounge, @5:30pm): Join us in welcoming Randall Kennedy when he presents his lecture, “Is The Election of Barack Obama The Fulfillment of Dr. King’s Dream?”  Randall Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he joined the faculty in 1984. Professor Kennedy’s research focuses on racial conflict as it relates to legal institutions in American life.  His 80+ publications include four single-authored books, one of which – Race, Crime, and the Law – won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1988.

Peter Rock (Tualatin Public Library, @7:00pm): Not too long ago a man and his daughter were found living in Forest Park. Authorities recognized the care the father gave to his daughter and located a safe place for them to live. After just a few days, they disappeared, and no one knows where they went.  Portland author Peter Rock has written a novel which takes this story and gives it completion. My Abandonment is a book that will remain in your thoughts for a long time.  This is a wonderful opportunity to hear how an author takes a story and makes it into an unforgettable book.

Laura Foster (Lake Oswego Public Library, @7:00pm): The Lake Oswego Library is pleased to present author Laura Foster for its First Tuesday Author Series. This talk is the first of many of the Library’s events celebrating the City’s Centennial Year. Foster will discuss her latest work, Lake Oswego, part of the Images of America Series. Many of the photographs in the book are from the collection of the Lake Oswego Library.

Raj Patel (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): Economics is about choices, but who gets to make them? In The Value of Nothing (Picador), Raj Patel shows how free-market fundamentalism has distorted how consumers value their world. “[A] shrewd and absorbing discussion,” hails Publishers Weekly (starred review).

Wednesday January 20-

Free Puppet Show (Green Bean Books, @4:00pm): Come see a free puppet show based on the book The Mitten and performed by the talented Yvonne De Maat of Heart in Hand Preschool.  The show is appropriate for kids ages 3-7 years old and will be limited to the first 15 who arrive.

Simple Handmade Books (Albina Library, @5:30pm): Artist Dawn Grunwald will show you how to bind your own books using the ancient technique of Japanese stab binding. Each student will make sample journals from reclaimed paper to practice several styles.

William Stafford Memorial Reading (100th Monkey Studio, @7:00pm): As part of the world-wide celebration of William Stafford’s birthday, Don Colburn and Heidi Schulman Greenwald will read their favorite Stafford poems and their own work.  We also invite open mic. readers to read their favorite Stafford poem and one of their own (two page max for open mic. readers).  Hosted by Steve Williams and Constance Hall.

KMO and Neil Kramer (Lucky Lab Beer Hall, @7:00pm, $10 suggested donation): Join alternative journalist bloggers KMO and Neil Kramer at the Lucky Lab Beer Hall for conversation covering a lot of ground n the spheres of independent media, consciousness, transitioning communities, alternative thinking and the creative arts.

Mountain Writers presents Jim Kopp (The Press Club, @7:30pm): Jim Kopp is Director of the Aubrey R. Watzek Library at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University and other graduate degrees in history and library science. His undergraduate degree in history and English is from the University of Oregon. His book, Eden Within Eden: Oregon’s Utopian Heritage (OSU Press, 2009) surveys nearly three hundred communal groups attempted or planned in Oregon over the past 150 years. He has written and presented on several aspects of utopian studies in both its literary and communal manifestations. His extensive private collection on the works by and about Edward Bellamy and of American utopian literature is described in a book published last fall by Berberis Press at Lewis & Clark. He lives with his wife, Sue, appropriately in Aurora, Oregon, which was the earliest communal settlement in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to his varied scholarly pursuits, Jim is completing a children’s book on Aurora Keil the daughter of the founder of the Aurora Colony and for whom the colony was named who died of smallpox in 1862 at the age of thirteen.

The Death and Life of American Journalism (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): Journalism is not just threatened; it’s in meltdown. In The Death and Life of American Journalism (Nation Books), Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols explore whether the government should intervene to save newspapers — and, more importantly, journalism — from corporate cutbacks and closures.

William Stafford Memorial Reading (Annie Blooms Books, @7:30pm): Join Annie Bloom’s and the Friends of William Stafford in celebrating the birthday of Oregon’s great Poet Laureate. As your gift, please bring along a favorite Stafford poem to read. The celebration will be open to those in the audience who wish to participate.

Hosted by local poet Jess Lamb, the evening’s scheduled readers are: Kirsten McAteer, Kirsten Rian, Endi Bogue Hartigan, Ger Killeen, and FWS Board member & Chair Shelley Reece.

Thursday January 21-

Charity Night for In Other Words Books (Lucy’s Table, 5pm-9pm): Go to Lucy’s Table; sit in the dining room; tell them you are there for the charity night for In Other Words; 10% of your dinner tab will be donated to IOW! So go eat a great meal at a nice restaurant AND donate to a very worthy cause at the same time!

William Stafford Birthday Celebration (Lake Oswego Public Library, @7:00pm): The Friends of William Stafford and the Lake Oswego Public Library invites you to the annual William Stafford Birthday Celebration. This year the event, “The Intersection of Poetry and Popular Culture, in the Spirit of William Stafford” will be hosted by Lake Oswego resident and Friends of William Stafford Board Member, Scot Siegel, and will feature Michael Chasar, David Filer, Deb Stone, and FWS Board Member Patricia Carver.

William Stafford was born in Kansas in 1914. In 1948, he moved to Oregon to teach at Lewis and Clark College. His first major collection of poems, Traveling Through the Dark, was published when Stafford was 48, and it won the National Book Award in 1963. From 1970 to 1971, Stafford was Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Stafford published numerous volumes of poetry and prose during his lifetime and won numerous additional awards.

William Stafford Memorial Reading (University of Portland, The Terrace Room, @7:00): William Stafford’s birthday is celebrated with readings from Bryan Beck, Sarah Brant, Rita Ott Ramstad, Andrew Michael Roberts, B.T. Shaw, and FWS Board Member Tim Barnes. Hosted by Herman Asarnow.

Kim Stafford performs from Pilgrim at Home (Looking Glass Bookstore, @7:00pm): Following the release of Kim Stafford’s “Wheel Made of Wind: Thirteen Songs of the Oregon Country” in 1998, “Pilgrim at Home” features new songs that celebrate encounters by the road—with a witness in New Orleans, a lonesome woman at the Kaupo Store, the family of three lost boys in Rasharkin, a homeless saint in Portland, and other precious strangers.

The new CD is part of an on-going project by Portland songwriter Kim Stafford to record the experience of a pilgrim in search of the story-telling stranger, the healing spring, the “thin place” of revelation, the vagabond with a gift of witness.

Sid Miller (Powells Books on Hawthorne, @7:30pm): Sid Miller, editor of the Burnside Review, explores seven routes from the coast to the mountains, from inner-city Portland to the Idaho border. Dot-to-Dot, Oregon (Ooligan Press), a collection of 50 poems, travels through the cities, towns, and monuments of Oregon.

Douglas Brinkley (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): In his groundbreaking biography The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (Harper) Douglas Brinkley draws on never-before-published materials to offer a penetrating and colorful look at Roosevelt’s naturalist achievements, a legacy now more important than ever as we face the problems of global warming, overpopulation, and sustainable land management.

Friday January 22-

William Stafford Memorial Reading (First Unitarian Church, @7:00pm): Hosted by Stephen Pearce. Featuring Jonathan Merritt and FWS Board Member Leah Stenson. This year’s event features Portlandís Flash Choir performing “Strangers Together,” a musical interpretation derived from Stafford’s book, Passwords, and composed by the choir’s director Sarah Dougher. Audience members will also have an opportunity to read aloud one of their favorite poems by William Stafford following the performance.

Randal O’Toole (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): Americans are the most mobile society in history, yet our transportation system is on the verge of collapse. In Gridlock (Cato Institute), Randal O’Toole explains how the nation got itself into such a mess and offers solutions for improving methods of transportation that will benefit everyone.

For further events check out the links to the community calendars for Tri-County area Libraries: Washington County, Multnomah County, Clackamas County.