Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Big Happenings on NE Broadway This Weekend!

Excitement abounds on Northeast Broadway this weekend!!! We're holding the weather forecasters' feet to the fire to make good on their promises of gorgeous sunny -- but not too hot -- days all weekend. The Irvington Farmers Market will be open Sunday from 11 to 3 to tantalize us with all sorts of goodies. Best of all, for three days it's the NE Broadway Summer Super Sale!!!!

Yes, that's right. From Friday the 16th through Sunday the 18th, you'll find great deals up and down the street. You'll also finds bands playing throughout the weekend and free frozen treats (I've heard the word "sno-cone" being bandied about) courtesy of Umpqua Bank.

At Broadway Books we'll be offering 20% off all gardening books and cookbooks. Yeehaw!! We will also be selling selected titles for $4 each or 3 for $10. We'll be open from 10 to 7 on Friday and Saturday and from noon to 5 on Sunday. Come early and often for the best selections -- at our store and at all the other wonderful merchants on Broadway. Click on http://www.nebroadway.com/ to learn the specifics about other sales taking place over the weekend.

Besides the sale items, we've got lots of other delicious items to choose from, including fully stocked sale and used book sections, the 2010-2011 August to August calendars in six cheerful new colors, a great selection of audiobooks to accompany you on your next road trip, and a whole passel of books both entertaining and thought-provoking. Hope you can come see us!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Author of The Crying Tree to Read at BB

Please join us Tuesday, July 13, at 7 pm to hear Salem author Naseem Rakha read from her debut novel The Crying Tree, just recently out in paperback (it was published in hardcover last summer). The book won a 2010 Book Award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association.

The Crying Tree tells the story of Irene and Nate Stanley and their two children, Bliss and Shep, who have just relocated to the tiny town of Blaine, Oregon, where Nate is the new deputy sheriff. Just as the family is settling in, a horrible tragedy occurs. Fifteen-year-old Shep is brutally shot to death in the family home. The aftermath of this murder is the bulk of the story. Nate retreats into a brooding silence, Irene finds comfort in alcohol, and Bliss is left to raise herself. In a desperate move to heal her grief, Irene writes an angry letter to Shep’s killer, Daniel Robbins, who is spending his entire adult life on death row. To her surprise, he answers her letter and the two begin a secret correspondence that will last years and become the sustaining force in Irene’s life. But as the day of Robbins’s execution draws near, all of the shocking secrets that the Stanley family have been living with for years come out. This is a novel that exposes the fault lines and cracks that appear when unthinkable tragedy turns a family upside down. It is also an original and unforgettable story of forgiveness, redemption, and the transformative power of love.

Naseem Rakha is an award-winning author and broadcast journalist whose stories have been heard on NPR’s All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Marketplace Radio, Christian Science Monitor, and Living on Earth. In 1996 she was assigned to cover Oregon’s first execution in more than thirty years. The condemned man was convicted of  killing three homeless men and a child, among other crimes.

That experience led to years of research and interviews. Rakha spoke with inmates, crime victims, prosecutors, defense attorneys, exonerated death row inmates, and Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking.

"The murder of a child dredges up the most painful emotions. There is no justice in it, no justification, and no way to find solace. Remorse and vengeance become inseparable from the souls of the people left behind. Yet, somehow there are inspirational stories of those who have come to forgiveness.


"I found this baffling situation as a reporter covering an execution for public radio and then later in interviews with the parents of murder victims. I wanted to understand how an individual can move from one place to another – hate to forgiveness, despondency to hope – what that road looks like, and what toll it must exact."


Rakha lives in Oregon's Willamette Valley with her husband, son, and many animals. When she isn’t writing, she’s likely to be reading, knitting, hiking, or gardening. Some of her favorite authors to read include Kent Haruf, Wendell Berry, Ken Kesey, Ernest Gaines, Richard Russo, E.M. Forster, and Truman Capote.

We hope you can join us!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Sandra Dorr to Read New Poems

We invite you to join us Wednesday, July 7, at 7 pm to hear Sandra Dorr read from her new collection of poetry, Desert Water (Lithic Press). Sandra has encouraged and inspired writers for 25 years, as a passion and a calling. She worked as an editor and writer in New York in the 1980s before moving to Colorado, where she completed an MA in creative writing and began teaching at universities in the West: Lewis & Clark College, Linfield College, Portland State University, Pacific College, and the University of Wyoming. In the 1990s Sandra directed the writing program at WSU-Vancouver.

She has been an NPR commentator and has written two books on women's health and travel. Her short stories, essays, and poems have appeared in Ms, the Denver Post, Open Spaces, American Fiction, and other journals. She also leads wilderness writing workshops each year. Sandra lives with her husband and children in western Colorado in a house they built on the edge of canyon wilderness. She is currently at work on a novel, Girl in the Sea.

Desert Water was several years in the making and includes several different forms. /She considers her new collection as “rhythmical meditations on living in the desert": “I like the Buddhist idea that everything that has ever happened up to now, everything that exists, is contained in this moment. Then it falls away, and there's another moment. A poem is whole, in that way; in its stillness, it contains everything.” She  also notes that "a poem doesn't happen all in one moment....You can get an image, some lines, language, and then you have to wait for it."

Please join us!