Bondi: My New Favorite Helper

Whenever I use my cell phone in my car -- infrequently, because I think it's better to stay focused as I'm swearing at the other drivers -- I always use my bluetooth, because I want to be sure I'm within the rules of the law. My bluetooth (I call her Phyllis) tends to be a bit controlling and bossy, but other than that we get along well.

The problem I was having, however, was what to do with my phone. If I held it on my lap it would invariably slide off on to the floor, which isn't safe. And if I put it on the seat next to me it also slid around, often falling between the passenger seat and the far door, clearly out of reach. I often have a coffee mug and bottle of water in my cup holders, so that rules them out as cell phone holders. But then, Bondi came into my life.

Bondi -- mine is blue, but Bondi comes in many colors -- hangs from my rear-view mirror and holds my phone for me. It's out of the way, so I can stay focused on the road, but I can also easily see the screen for incoming calls (because Phyllis sometimes declines to announce the name of the caller, for whatever reason), while keeping my eyes facing up and forward. And now my phone doesn't slide down into that space between the driver's seat and the console, which always used to bug me.

I love my Bondi so much that I wanted to be able to share the experience with our customers, so we now have it for sale at the store. Bondi is $15 and comes in a variety of colors, including green, orange, purple, yellow, white, and black. And it's not just about using your cell phone in your car. Bondi's arms move, and the "head" twists and turns however you need it to be.You can use it to hold your iPod, or a memo pad. You can hang it on the charger plug in the wall as your phone is charging, or on the side of your computer screen. I have an extra one that I hang on an AC cord in my back room so I can easily find my phone while it's charging. You can even use it to pull back a curtain or hold a book open. Believe me, Bondi will become your new best friend -- friends, I should say, because you'll want more than one!

Strayed, Stafford, and Love - What a Lineup!

After coming off the high of our exciting 20th anniversary celebration, it's back to business at Broadway Books, and boy oh boy do we have an exciting line-up of events for everyone this week!

Tomorrow night (Tuesday) at 7, Cheryl Strayed joins us to read from and talk about her bestselling memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. Wild is sitting pretty on The New York Times bestseller list, and it's receiving rave reviews everywhere. Seriously. You have to have been living in a cave not to have heard about Cheryl Strayed and her wonderful new memoir. But beyond the rave and the hype, I'm happy to tell you that it's the real deal. It's moving and powerful, an engrossing story well told and beautifully written.

Her mother, with whom Cheryl was very close, died of cancer when Cheryl was twenty-two. To say it shattered her world would be an understatement. Cheryl's life went into a downward spiral. She trashed her marriage and tried to obliterate her grief with drinking, drugs, and sex. But then she decided that she needed to find a way to become the girl that she had once been. The one her mother raised. So she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert to the Oregon/Washington border. Eleven hundred miles. Alone. This decision from a woman who hadn't backpacked a day in her life.

She went into the trip thinking it would be sort of a rejuvenating trek through the outdoors, giving her an opportunity to commune with nature and think transcendent thoughts. Of course, it was anything but. Carrying -- or attempting to -- an overloaded backpack she nicknamed Monster, Cheryl faced bears, snakes, hunger, loneliness, intense heat and record snowfalls, and a physical pounding that included feet that had essentially turned to pulp by the end of her journey.

But despite the pain and obstacles and her fears, she persevered. Because her only other option was to quit. And she refused to take that option. On the trail or in life.

The book is heartbreaking but never maudlin, told with gut-wrenching candor.  One of my favorite of the many reviews of this book is the one by Dwight Garner of The New York Times, who said the book "pretty much obliterated me." He went on to describe Wild as a book "as loose and sexy and dark as an early Lucinda Williams song. It’s got a punk spirit and makes an earthy and American sound."

On Thursday we have another spectacular evening for you as we welcome back our monthly Comma Reading Series, curated by Kirsten Rian. This month Comma offers you Kim Stafford and Matt Love.

Kim Stafford is a writer and teacher living in Portland. He is the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College and is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose. He teaches frequently at the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology and the Fishtrap Gathering. His book 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: A Memoir, is forthcoming from Trinity University Press. At our reading on Thursday he'll be reading from his poetry book Prairie Prescription, published by Limberlost Press.

Matt Love grew up in Oregon City and is the publisher of Nestucca Spit Press and the author/editor of eight books about Oregon. He is the winner of the Oregon Literary Arts' Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award for his contributions to Oregon history and literature. He teaches English, photography, creative writing, and journalism at Newport High School. On Thursday Matt will be presenting his newly published book, Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel, about the filming of Kesey's book Sometimes a Great Notion in the central Oregon coast region in 1970. Besides telling the story of the filming and the interactions with the local community, the book presents more than a hundred photographs.

We hope you can join us on Tuesday for Cheryl and on Thursday for Kim and Matt -- two marvelous evenings.

A Treasure Trove of New Books!

Unpacking boxes of books is a daily ritual when you work in a bookstore. Sometimes it's a chore; other times it's a joy -- a little like Christmas morning. Yesterday was one of the latter types, a ginormously wonderful collection of hot-off-the-press just-released eagerly awaited books. Here's just a taste of the new books that went on sale yesterday:

• Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama, the new graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel of Fun Home and Dykes to Watch Out For fame. Her newest explores her complicated relationship with her mother.
• The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, the fourth volume in the fascinating and meticulous series of Johnson biographies by Pulitzer-Prize winning author Robert Caro.
• Just out in paperback is Then Again, by Diane Keaton, her unforgettable memoir about her mother and herself. [Hmmm, isn't Mother's Day just around the corner???]
• Also just out in paperback is In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson's take on an American family living in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich. The book is both harrowing and gripping, "like slipping slowly into a nightmare."
• I was thrilled to unpack the new novel from Simon Mawer, author of the Booker-shortlisted (and one of my favorites) novel The Glass Room. His newest is Trapeze, a blend of fact and fiction that tells the story of a young woman trained as a spy during WWII.
• Not to leave out the younger readers, it was a big day as the newest from Rick Riordan hit the shelves: Serpents Shadow, Book Three in The Kane Chronicles, with Carter and Sade Kane exploring the world of Egyptian gods and mythology.
• Another favorite for the younger readers (say, 8 to 12) are the Big Nate books. Big Nate: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? published in paperback yesterday.

Many more terrific books hit our shelves yesterday. Come in and see for yourself! We've also got a table with ideas for Mother's Day (May 13th) and for graduates, as well as cards for both.

NW Authors on Shortlist for Major Prize

Two northwest authors of bestselling novels have made the shortlist for the 2012 IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award: Karl Marlantes (who grew up in Seaside and now lives in Western Washington) for his Vietnam-era novel Matterhorn and Willy Vlautin (who lives just outside of Portland) for his Oregon-Book-Award-winning novel at the racetrack, Lean on Pete.

Karl and Willy join Jennifer Egan (for A Visit from the Goon Squad) to represent the US. A total of ten books are on the shortlist, representing a variety of countries, including Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Israel, Sierra Leone, and Scotland. Titles were nominated by public libraries in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, Russia, The Netherlands, and the United States. The five-member international judging panel will select one winner, who will be announced in June

The award is the world’s most valuable annual literary award for a single work of fiction published in English. Previous winners include Colum McCann, Michael Thomas, and Per Petterson. Congratulations to all of the shortlisted authors, but especially to Karl and Willy! Here's a little video clip of Willy talking about his book.

Gift Idea for the Teachers in Your Life

Usually in the spring/summer months we see an uptick in our sales of Broadway Books Gift Certificates (which never expire, by the way, and can be purchased in the store or online), as many of our thoughtful and generous customers buy end-of-the-year gifts for their children's schoolteachers. And really, who wouldn't want to get a gift certificate for a wonderful book-browsing-and-shopping experience??

This year we have a recommendation for a terrific little book into which you can slide those gift certificates that you pass along to the educators in your life: What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World, by Taylor Mali.

My sister, who teaches at a middle school in Walla Walla, turned me on to Mr. Mali several years ago. He is a poet and former teacher who is a huge advocate for teachers and for the nobility of teaching. Through his New Teacher Project, he has a goal of creating 1,000 new teachers through “poetry, persuasion, and perseverance.” Mali is formerly the president of Poetry Slam, Inc., the non-profit organization that oversees all poetry slams in North America, and is the author of two books of poetry and four spoken word CDs. In 2001 he received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant to develop Teacher! Teacher!  --  a one-man show about poetry, teaching, and math which won the jury prize for best solo performance at the 2001Comedy Arts Festival.

In his new book, Mali pays tribute to the joys of teaching -- with a sharp, funny perceptive looks at life in the classroom -- and explains why teachers are so vital to our society. The poem that made him famous, "What Teachers Make," is a passionate and unforgettable response to an arrogant young lawyer at a New Year's Eve party who insulted Mali and the entire teaching profession. The poem, which leads off this book, went viral in its various YouTube iterations. I've pasted one version below -- I dare you to watch it and not get goosebumps; I do every time.

This sweet little book is delightfully packaged and, at only $19.95, will make a wonderful vessel for your thoughtful gift certificates. It will be welcomed and treasured by every teacher and everybody who has ever loved or learned from one.

Let's All Have Some Pie

"You will find my story is a lot like pie, a strawberry-rhubarb pie. It's bitter. It's messy. It's got some sweetness, too. Sometimes the ingredients get added in the wrong order, but it has substance, it will warm your insides, and even though it isn't perfect, it still turns out okay in the end."

These words are from the prologue of Beth Howard's memoir Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie. Howard joins us Monday (4/9) at 7 pm with Kim Carlson, editorial director of Culinate, in a conversation about grief and the healing power of pie.

Howard was married to her husband Marcus for seven and a half years, during which time they lived in Germany and Mexico and Portland. But because of his work they spent much of their time apart. She asked for a divorce in a cry for attention -- spend more time with me, in an equal partnership, and less time with your job -- and seven hours before he was to sign the divorce papers he died of a ruptured aorta. His heart broke. And so did hers.

In an effort to heal her heart, Howard packed up the RV he left behind and hit the highways, using pie as a way to connect to people and find purpose in life. Eventually she returned to her Iowa roots and moved into the American Gothic House made famous by Grant Wood's painting, where she now lives and sells pies at the Pitchfork Pie Stand and teaches others how to bake pie.

Her mother's banana cream pie led her father to propose to her mother. Her own heaping-with-fruit apple pie prompted Marcus to propose to her. Pie led to her creation and to her happiness, and it helped her heal from her grief. This open and moving memoir is about the journey of healing and recovery, about the role of fate and second chances, and about the strength found in community. And in pie. Learn more about Howard's book in this interview from The Oregonian and in this article about her story in the Portland Tribune.

We hope you can join us Monday night at 7 when we will learn about Beth Howard's journey and enjoy ourselves a little pie as well.

Broadway Books Celebrates 20 Fabulous Years

 

We think surviving twenty years as a small independent bookseller is a big deal. And we owe a lot to all of you for helping us to ride the waves that have carried us up and down over the years. We promised you a big celebration, and we’re going to deliver: a party, lots of prizes, and specials all year long -- and of course there will be cake. Here are some of the highlights:

 

Party Day

·         On Sunday, May 6^th, we’ll party in the store from noon until 7pm, and we’ll have cake and bubbly.

·         From noon to 4 pm we’ll have a photobooth. Yes, you heard us right. A photobooth so you can have your photo taken holding one of your favorite books – and you can take the photo strip with you!

·         The first ten customers to spend $50 or more on that day will win a free Broadway Books Twentieth Anniversary Book Bag.

·         On party day, we’ll be gathering email addresses from all of our customers who are willing to give them to us. From those names, we’ll draw one person’s name who will win a Nook Simple Touch eReader.

·         But here’s the real kicker: On that day and that day only, you can get double value for one full pink card. So, if you have a completed pink card that’s worth, say, $15, on that Sunday you can cash your card in for $30 toward the purchase of anything in the store. Word to the wise: make sure you fill up a pink card between now and May 6^th! [One per customer, and the card must be cashed in all at once – no store credits will be issued.]

Celebrate All Year

·         Our good friend Brian Doyle has written a beautiful piece about the store that has been made even more beautiful by the wonderful folks at Letterary Press, who have turned it into a gorgeous broadside. If you’ve seen their greeting cards (and we just got in a new supply), you know what great work they do. Thanks to the donated efforts of Brian and Marty at Letterary Press, these broadsides are available free to customers upon request until the supply runs out.

·         From now through the end of May 2012, if you “like” us on Facebook and wish us a happy anniversary on FB (or just the wishing part, if you already “like” us), you will be entered into a drawing to win a Nook Simple Touch eReader.

·         From June 2012 through May 2013, we’re going to give away five $20 Broadway Books Gift Certificates each month. Here’s how you get entered in those drawings: starting in June 2012, each time you cash in a completed pink card, write your name and phone number on the back. Each month we’ll draw five winners from those pink cards.

·         From June 2012 through May 2013, we’ll highlight one book each month on the home page of our website. For one week each month that book will be available for 20% off (no additional discounts or pink cards can be applied). Check our website each month to see what that month’s book is! Some will be new hot reads and some will be staff favorites, new or old.