Archive for the 'Books' Category

Hal Holbrook meets the Twain again

Friday, January 27th, 2012

By Bob Hicks
Hal Holbrook’s back in town on Saturday, riding the horse of his magnificent one-man show Mark Twain Tonight!, and even as Holbrook noses up on 87 years old it’s bound to be a helluva show.
A couple of weeks ago I chatted on the phone for about an hour with him (Holbrook, not Twain, [...]

Link: On mad hatters and picture books

Friday, January 13th, 2012

By Bob Hicks
In Down the rabbit hole: Melody Owen makes a book, which is new on Oregon Arts Watch, I tell the tale of … well, of Melody Owen making a book. Actually, it’s more about the publication party for the Portland artist’s new book, Looking Glass Book, at Publication Studio, in a tuckaway corner [...]

From our stove to yours: small bites

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

By Bob Hicks
What’s been cooking lately in the Scatter kitchen? Well, a lovely baked dressing made up mostly of mushrooms, celery, onions and leftover bread slices (Mrs. Scatter’s clean-out-the-fridge creation). And another batch of baklazhannia ikra, or “poor man’s caviar,” an addictive eggplant/tomato/onion/pepper relish that William Grimes discovered recently in one of those great old [...]

The time-traveler’s tale: reading in 2011

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

“By and large, time moves with merciful slowness in the old-fashioned world of writing. … (T)he rhythms of readers are leisurely. They spread recommendations by word of mouth and ‘get around’ to titles and authors years after making a mental note of them. … A movie has a few weeks to find an audience, and [...]

Riddley’s last trek: Russell Hoban, 86

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

By Bob Hicks
Someone called Singlet, responding online to the obituary in The Guardian for the novelist and children’s writer Russell Hoban, had this to say: “A few comments that Hoban’s other novels don’t come close to Riddley Walker make me think of what Joseph Heller reportedly said when asked, ‘Why have you never written anything [...]

Pickle swaps, hedgehogs & applesauce

Friday, November 11th, 2011

By Laura Grimes
Book Club was great fun.
After I wrote my last post, a book clubber discovered it and broadcast it to the rest of the group. Then the email trail went eerily quiet. This is not a quiet email group. It’s not overly communicative, but the stillness was … worrisome. Were [...]

Hedgehogging our bets on book club

Monday, November 7th, 2011

By Laura Grimes
Book Club is coming. Book Club is coming.
And it’s coming to my house.
I never thought I was a Book Club person. I love the idea of a gathering of people for the primary reason of discussing a book, but I chafe at the thought of being told what to read, spending [...]

In his old age: Deemer at 3:17 a.m.

Saturday, October 29th, 2011

By Bob Hicks
So this is the way it gets.
Lying in bed awake
at 3:17 a.m.
my wife’s heavy breathing
the weight of the dog on my leg

I am visited by the ghosts
of past mistakes
and dance to a symphony
of regrets

I wouldn’t change a thing

This is who I am
counting my blessings
in the dark morning
That’s Portland writer Charles Deemer’s poem The [...]

Neon Panic: Crime of the symphony

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

By Martha Ullman West
I have had an addiction to detective stories (and coffee, I confess) since I was fourteen years old, when I read Agatha Christie late into the night, using a flashlight, in my dormitory room at the Quaker boarding school I loved.
We sometimes had interesting vespers speakers on Sunday [...]

PDX weekend: embarrassment of riches

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

25 candles for First Thursday
BodyVox leans horizontally
William Hurt and Harold Pinter duke it out
Wordstock throws a bookapalooza
Oregon Arts Watch puts on a show (times three)

A double feature at Oregon Ballet Theatre
Portland Open Studios’ peek behind the scenes

By Bob Hicks
Good lord, what a weekend. Used to be, a person who really tried could actually keep up [...]

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