Tonight 3-2: Schoenfeldt Writers Series presents Paul Theroux at University of Portland

Today’s Featured Book Event:

Schoenfeldt Writers Series presents Paul Theroux (University of Portland, Buckley Center Auditorium, @7:00pm): Paul Theroux, one of the world’s finest travel writers, is also a prolific novelist whose works have been made into several films. Among his best-known works of travel are The Great Railway Bazaar,Sailing Through China, and The Pillars of Hercules; among his notable novels are The Mosquito Coast, Half Moon Street, and Picture Palace, which won the UK’s Whitbread Prize. “A large, lively, outrageous talent, without peer as the merciless obituarist of colonialism,” says Nobel Prizewinner Nadine Gordimer.

Other Book Events Today:

Steven Johnson: The Ghost Map and The Future of Cities (Portland State, Smith Memorial Center Ballroom, @11:00am): Author Steven Johnson will talk about how The Ghost Map’s 19th-century cholera epidemic can help us understand the future of our cities: the power of neighborhoods to solve problems, new forms of digital mapping and information sharing, and the challenges facing mega-cities in the developing world.

Author Talk: Scott Burns (West Linn Library, @6:30pm): Scott Burns will speak about his book Cataclysms on the Columbia: The Great Missoula Floods.  Dr. Scott F. Burns is chair of the Department of Geology at Portland State University where he just finished his 19th year. He has been teaching for a total of 39 years, with past positions in Switzerland, New Zealand, Washington, Colorado and Lousisana. Scott specializes in environmental and engineering geology, geomorphology, soils, and Quaternary geology.

Willamette Writers Meeting (Old Church, @7:00, $5-$10): F.I. Goldhaber will speak to our Portland meeting about “What Prose Writers Can Learn from Poetry.” She is the author of Pair of Poems.  Poetry does not require rhyme, complicated structure, or esoteric language and imagery. At its best, poetry distills narrative and imagery down to the fewest, strongest words possible. By embracing poetry, prose writers can learn how to find the core essence of their stories, allowing them to condense their narration into fewer, more powerful words.

R. Gregory Nokes (Broadway Books, @7:00pm): Journalist R. Gregory Nokes will be here to read from his recently published book, Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon (OSU Press). In 1887, more than thirty Chinese gold miners were massacred on the Oregon side of Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America. This book is the first authoritative account of the unsolved crime. It unearths the evidence that points to an improbable gang of seven rustlers and schoolboys, one only fifteen, as the killers. This book traces the author’s long personal journey to expose details of the massacre and its aftermath, and to understand how one of the worst of the many crimes committed by whites against Chinese laborers in the American West was for so long lost to history.

Horton (Fairview-Columbia Library, @7:00pm): The magical words of Dr. Seuss will come to life through Emily Alexander of Tears of Joy Theatre. Emily gives voice and body to Horton, the elephant who was faithful one hundred per cent, and that good for nothing bird, run away Mazie. This story also includes an inventive circus with monkeys, and a tight rope walker.

Steven Johnson: The Ghost Map and The Future of Cities (Bagdad Theater, @7:00pm): Author Steven Johnson will talk about how The Ghost Map’s 19th-century cholera epidemic can help us understand the future of our cities: the power of neighborhoods to solve problems, new forms of digital mapping and information sharing, and the challenges facing mega-cities in the developing world.

Gabriel Thompson (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): Gabriel Thompson’s Working in the Shadows (Nation Books) shines a bright light on the underside of the American economy, exposing harsh working conditions, union busting, and lax government enforcement — while telling the stories of workers, undocumented immigrants, and desperate U.S. citizens alike, forced to live with chronic pain in the pursuit of eight dollars an hour.

You can find other events on your community Libraries schedule using these links: Washington County, Multnomah County, Clackamas County, and the rest of this weeks Portland book events here.

Image credit Peregrina Cultural.