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The Year of Reading Dangerously
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January 2015 Staff Reviews, Readings, Psychology, and More! |
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We're
kicking off the new year with some great readings. Plus, find out which
new books indie booksellers across the country are loving. And read
about the latest Mysteries. Drop by and see us on First Friday!
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Staff Reviews
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Here are three new reviews from the staff of Annie Bloom's:
The Year of Reading Dangerously
by Andy Miller
reviewed by Sandy
Part memoir, part literary criticism, this book is an account of a man
on a soul-searching journey. Although Andy Miller has a loving family
and a good job, he feels something is missing in his life, so he
determines to read 50 books in one year and in so doing try to find
himself. He tells of his struggles in trying to get through some of the
books on his list and of his delight in reading others, similar to the
struggles and various delights in his life. His observations on all lead
him and the reader along the path of discovery. He weaves his
discussion of various books into his experiences as a bookseller, book
editor, blogger, member of a book group, and writer. This is a love song
to books, one every bibliophile can relate to and read with enjoyment.
It's fun. It's humorous. And it sports a great cover.
The Girl on the Train
by Paula Hawkins reviewed by Bobby
What a wild ride! I would not have thought I would be so caught up in
the entangled lives of a group of 30ish Londoners. Most reviews cite
comparisons to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn for its
unpredictability and gripping narrative. However, Ms. Hawkins has upped
the ante with a whole cast of unreliable characters and hidden agendas.
Told from the point of view of three female narrators within a shifting
timeline that brilliantly reveals their interconnectedness, The Girl on the Train is a fascinating and breath-taking psychological thriller that is both smart and magically engrossing.
The First Bad Man
by Miranda July
reviewed by Michael
July is a master of mining uncomfortable moments, both for laughs and
for poignant revelations of character. Well, poor Cheryl Glickman's life
is one long, uncomfortable moment. So, when her bosses
coerce shy, awkward middle-aged Cheryl into housing their obnoxious
Amazonian twenty-something daughter, Miranda July revels in the
opportunity to explore all the weird, murky, turbulent depths off this
female "Odd Couple." Venturing way beyond petty jealousies and cat
fights, this is no-holds-barred storytelling. Brutal, funny, unsettling,
sweet. The First Bad Man is a novel unlike any other.
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Upcoming Readings
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Late January and Early February Readings at Annie Blooms:
William Stafford Centennial Celebration
Wednesday, January 21, 7pm
 Susan McKee Reese, Friends of William Stafford
Board member, will host an evening of readings to honor the former
Oregon Poet Laureate's birthday. Featured readers will be Susan
DeFreitas, Barbara Drake, Lisa Galloway, Tom Hogan, Sulima Malzin and
Shelley Reece. All in attendance are invited to share a favorite Stafford poem with the group, please. Birthday cake will be served!
Cindy Brown presents Macdeath
at O'Connor's "The Vault"
Thursday, January 22, 7pm
 
Like every actor, Ivy Meadows knows that Macbeth is
cursed. But she's finally scored her big break, cast as an acrobatic
witch in a circus-themed production of Macbeth in Phoenix, Arizona. And
though it may not be Broadway, nothing can dampen her enthusiasm--not
her flying cauldron, too-tight leotard, or carrot-wielding dictator of a
director. But when one of the cast dies on opening night, Ivy is sure
the seeming accident is "murder most foul" and that she's the perfect
person to solve the crime (after all, she does work part-time in her
uncle's detective agency). Undeterred by a poisoned Big Gulp, the
threat of being blackballed, and the suddenly too-real curse, Ivy
pursues the truth at the risk of her hard-won career--and her life.
Luna Jaffe presents Wild Money
Monday, January 26, 7pm
 
What
would you be doing right now if you had a loving relationship with
money that was free of guilt and shame? Luna Jaffe weaves her life
experiences as a professional artist and dancer with her training in
depth psychology and financial planning to create a beautiful,
compassionate sanctuary for exploring money. If you are looking for a
sassy, expressive, intuitive, creative guide through your own financial
wilderness, you have come to the right place! Join Luna Jaffe,
Certified Financial Planner™, visual artist, and author as she presents
her book Wild Money™: A Creative Journey to Financial Wisdom.
Marilyn Sewell presents Raw Faith
Thursday, January 29, 7pm
 
Marilyn
writes about a universal longing--the longing for love and acceptance,
the longing for home. The origin of her own angst is mother loss.
Marilyn loses her mother at age 9 when her father snatches her and takes
her to live with his parents in a small town in North Louisiana. She
doesn't get reacquainted with her mother until she is 33, when her
mother is dying of cancer. Having grown up with no real home, she looks
for home in the arms of men, in schools and churches, and in marriage.
These places serve as a temporary refuge, but for the most part, home
eludes her. She is sustained throughout her journey by her faith and her
understanding that she is held by something larger than herself. Her
wandering teaches her at last that home is not a place, not even with
people she loves and who love her, but is rather a condition of the
spirit. Home is always available, as she puts it, "if I can quiet my
scared heart."
Portland Poets: Frances Payne Adler, Donna Prinzmetal, Willa Schneberg
Tuesday, February 3, 7pm
  
Adler
is the author of five books: two poetry collections and three
collaborative poetry-photography books and exhibitions. She also
co-edited Fire and Ink: An Anthology of Social Action Writing. Her current work is Dare I Call You Cousin, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a collaboration with Israeli artists. Prinzmetal's Snow White, When No One Was Looking
is a collection of persona poetry, re-visions the original fairy tale.
The poems investigate the relationship between Snow White's inner and
outer world as she reflects on her journey and tells us her secrets. Schneberg's Rending the Garment
is a narrative tapestry encompassing persona poems, prose poems, flash
fiction, imagined meetings with historical figures, ancestral
appearances, and ephemera.
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New in Psychology
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Check out these new books from our Psychology and Self-Help Section:
How We Learn
by Benedict Carey
Science reporter Benedict Carey sifts through decades of education
research and landmark studies to uncover the truth about how our brains
absorb and retain information. What he discovers is that, from the
moment we are born, we are all learning quickly, efficiently, and
automatically; but in our zeal to systematize the process we have
ignored valuable, naturally enjoyable learning tools like forgetting,
sleeping, and daydreaming. If the brain is a learning machine, then it
is an eccentric one. In How We Learn, Carey shows us how to exploit its quirks to our advantage.
10% Happier
by Dan Harris
After having a nationally televised panic attack, Dan Harris knew he
had to make some changes. He realized that the source of his problems
was the very thing he always thought was his greatest asset: the
incessant, insatiable voice in his head. Harris stumbled upon an
effective way to rein in that voice, something he always assumed to be
either impossible or useless: meditation, a tool that research suggests
can do everything from lower your blood pressure to essentially rewire
your brain. 10% Happier takes readers on a ride from the
outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to
the bizarre fringes of America's spiritual scene, and leaves them with a
takeaway that could actually change their lives.
Think Forward to Thrive
by Jennice Vilhauer
As psychologist Vilhauer worked with patients, she was often
frustrated that the tools she'd been taught didn't help her clients
more, that even after unearthing their pasts and understanding their
patterns many still felt stuck. This led Vilhauer to discover a body of
scientific work showing that it is the future that motivates us most.
Crucial to this process is our sense that we have the ability to create
positive outcomes. Over years of working with people in ten-week
workshops, Vilhauer developed the step-by-step tools she outlines here.
Assignments and exercises quickly but realistically build skills,
including the abilities to redirect thoughts, use the conscious observer
through mindfulness and meditation, and cultivate consistency and
commitment. The result is a groundbreaking direction in therapy and,
more importantly, a transformative tool for readers.
How We Are
by Vincent Deary
 The first book in the monumental How to Live trilogy, How We Are
explores the power of habit and the difficulty of change. As Deary
shows us, we live most of our lives automatically, in small worlds of
comfortable routine. Drawing on his own personal experience and a
staggering range of literary, philosophical, and cultural sources,
Deary has produced a mesmerizing and universal portrait of the human
condition. Part psychologist, part philosopher, part novelist, Deary
helps us to see how we can resist being habit machines, and make our
acts and our lives more fully our own.
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PNBA Award Winners
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The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association has announced its six winners for 2015:
All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr
 Twelve-year-old Marie-Laure
is the blind daughter of a Parisian locksmith. When the Nazi occupation
begins, father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo,
where Marie-Laure's reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the
sea. With them they carry what might be the museum's most valuable and
dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner becomes
an expert at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a
place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment
to track the resistance. Werner travels through the heart of the war
and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure's
converge. Deftly interweaving the lives of his characters, Doerr
illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one
another.
A Boat, a Whale & a Walrus
by Renee Erickson
One of the country's most acclaimed chefs, Erickson is a James-Beard
nominated chef and the owner of several Seattle restaurants: The Whale
Wins, Boat Street Café, The Walrus and the Carpenter, and Barnacle.
This luscious cookbook is perfect for anyone who loves the fresh
seasonal food of the Pacific Northwest. Defined by the bounty of the
Puget Sound region, as well as by French cuisine, this cookbook is
filled with seasonal, personal menus like Renee's Fourth of July Crab
Feast, Wild Foods Dinner, and a fall pickling party. Home cooks will
cherish Erickson's simple yet elegant recipes such as Roasted Chicken
with Fried Capers and Preserved Lemons, Harissa-Rubbed Roasted Lamb,
and Molasses Spice Cake. Renee Erickson's food, casual style, and
appreciation of simple beauty is an inspiration to readers and eaters in
the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
If Not for This
by Pete Fromm
After meeting at a boatman's bash on the Snake River, river runners
Maddy and Dalt embark on a lifelong love affair. Forced by the economics
of tourism to leave Wyoming, they start a new adventure, opening their
own river business in Ashland, Oregon. They prosper there, leading
rafting trips and guiding fishermen into the wilds of Mongolia and
Russia. But when Maddy both discovers she is pregnant and is diagnosed
with multiple sclerosis, they realize their adventure is just
beginning. Navigating hazards that dwarf any of the rapids they've faced
together, Maddy narrates her life with Dalt the way she lives it:
undaunted, courageous, in the present tense. Driven by her irresistible
voice, full of wit and humor and defiance, If Not For This is a love story like no other.
Falling from Horses
by Molly Gloss
In 1938, nineteen-year-old ranch hand Bud Frazer sets out for
Hollywood, setting his sights on becoming a stunt rider in the
movies--and rubbing shoulders with the great screen cowboys of his
youth. On the long bus ride south, Bud meets a young woman who also
harbors dreams of making it in the movies, though not as a starlet but
as a writer, a "real" writer. Lily Shaw is bold and outspoken,
confident in ways out of proportion with her small frame and bookish
looks. But the two strike up an unlikely kinship that will carry them
through their tumultuous days in Hollywood--and, as it happens, for the
rest of their lives.
Jackaby
by William Ritter
Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a
job, Abigail Rook meets R. F. Jackaby, an investigator of the
unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary--including the
ability to see supernatural beings. Abigail has a gift for noticing
ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the
position of Jackaby's assistant. On her first day, Abigail finds
herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer is on the
loose. The police are convinced it's an ordinary villain, but Jackaby
is certain it's a nonhuman creature, whose existence the police--with
the exception of a handsome young detective named Charlie Cane--deny.
Doctor Who meets Sherlock in a debut novel, the first in a series,
brimming with cheeky humor and a dose of the macabre.
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
by Leslye Walton
Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous
forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava--in all other
ways a normal girl--is born with the wings of a bird. In a quest to
understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with
her peers, sixteen-year-old Ava ventures into the wider world,
ill-prepared for what she might discover and naive to the twisted
motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes
Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of
the summer solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain
and feathers fill the air, and Ava's quest and her family's saga build
to a devastating crescendo. First-time author Leslye Walton has
constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to
be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.
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Browse our new Theme section for titles featured in Andy Miller's book (see our Staff Review).
