Portland Book Events: May 10-14

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 May 10, 2010 through May 14, 2010 are:

Monday May 10-

Ian Graham (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): Unbillable Hours (Kaplan) is Ian Graham’s arresting personal story that offers compelling insight into the American justice system and the non-glamorous side of law-firm life.

Losing My Cool (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): Losing My Cool (Penguin) is a pitch-perfect account of how hip-hop culture drew in author Thomas Chatterton Williams, and how his father drew him out again — with love, perseverance, and 15,000 books.

Robert Leonard Reid (Powells Books on Hawthorne, @7:30pm): Every year without fail, caribou from the Yukon and Alaska set off on a 3,000-mile trek to a small corner of the Arctic Circle to give birth to their young. Arctic Circle (David R. Godine) is the memoir of Robert Leonard Reid, a 60-year-old armchair adventurer who journeyed to the Great North to follow the longest migration of any land animal on Earth.

Tuesday May 11-

Ann Hood (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): In China, there is a belief that people who are destined to be together are connected by an invisible red thread. From Ann Hood, the bestselling author of The Knitting Circle, The Red Thread (W. W. Norton), a stirring portrait of unforgettable love and yearning for a baby.

Science Fiction Book Group (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): This month we meet to discuss the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Join us!

Isabel Allende (Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, @7:30pm, $25-$45): Literary Arts and Powell’s Books are pleased to welcome Isabel Allende to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall to speak about her most recent novel, Island beneath the Sea (Harper), which chronicles the life of an unforgettable woman — a slave and concubine — from the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans. Tickets available at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts and Ticketmaster.

52 Loaves (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): An original take on a 6,000-year-old staple of life, William Alexander’s 52 Loaves (Algonquin) explores the nature of obsession, the meditative quality of ritual, and the mysterious instinct that makes every person, regardless of culture or society, respond to the aroma of baking bread.

Wednesday May 12-

Peter Buffett (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): In Life Is What You Make It (Harmony), Peter Buffett — musician, composer, and son of Warren Buffett — offers a witty, inspirational book that encourages readers to take chances while maintaining a core of strong values.

Charlaine Harris (Bagdad Theater, @7:00pm, $26 includes copy of book): Dead in the Family (Ace) is the latest book in Charlaine Harris’s bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series, the basis for HBO’s True Blood.

Kai Bird (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): In Crossing Mandelbaum Gate (Scribner), Pulitzer Prize-winner Kai Bird offers a vivid memoir of an American childhood spent in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia.

Thursday May 13-

Literary Mixtape Series (Valentine’s, @6:30pm): Presented by Fort Saint Davids and Valentine’s, the Literary Mixtape reading series is based on having people do a DJ set with words instead of music. This next installment will include book jockeys Nathan Howdeshell (of the Gossip), Kevin Sampsell (author of A Common Pornography), and painter/sculptor Josiah Jones. FREE

Jane Kirkpatrick (Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7pm): In Jane Kirkpatrick’s An Absence So Great, a teenage photographer’s life reaches a dark place when a forbidden love comes calling. Expect plenty of metaphors about light and photography and exposure.

Brady Udall (Powell’s City of Books, @7:30pm): Brady Udall’s The Lonely Polygamist is a story of a Mormon man and his increasing isolation from his immense family, told in dark comic turns.

Tin House and Disjecta (The Templeton Building, @7:30pm): Keith Lee Morris, author of Call It What You Want, and Lee Montgomery, editorial director of Tin House Books and author of The Things Between Us read tonight at the Templeton Building. Special musical guests AgesandAges will also be playing. Literary lovers will swoon, librarians will faint, and you’ll leave happy to have taken your eyes off of the TV for a night. You can get in for $7, but $20 gets you entry, a copy of both books, a Tin House tote bag, and a beer! $7-20

Friday May 14-

Matt Love (Powell’s City of Books, @ 7:30pm): Matt Love was tired of Portland—or, rather, he was tired of teaching and trying to become a writer in Portland. So he bailed and set up a life on the Oregon Coast, and Gimme Refuge details his experience as caretaker of the 600-acre Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

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

Image credit Zorger.