April Events on the Website

Check out our website to see what's happening at Broadway Books in April -- besides a whole bunch of great books, of course! We've got fun and thoughtful and entertaining and possibly even a little provocative on the menu. Come see us whenever you can. We love to see your smiling faces.

Books from Mitchell and Egan in Paperback

Almost every day here at Broadway Books we chortle with glee (seriously, we chortle; come see for yourself) as we pull open boxes of new books that make it seem like our birthday or some other fabulous gift-giving holiday almost every day of the week. It's particularly exciting when hot books arrive in their gleaming, newly published, trade paperback format, because that is the most popular format with our customers and with book clubs.

This week a couple of treasures arrived in paperback form: Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad and David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet.

A Visit from the Goon Squad recently won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and it made the longlist for the 2011 Orange Prize (the winner will be announced June 8th). It was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the LA Times Book Prize and was named to numerous publications' "best of" lists for 2010.

The imaginative and intricately crafted novel is a collection of carefully arranged interlocking stories that move back and forth in time from the 1970s to a point in the near future, with time as a goon that inflicts its damage. The stories feature kleptomaniac Sasha; her boss Bennie, punk rocker turned music producer; and his sleazy mentor Lou.

Ron Charles of The Washington Post calls it a "deeply humane story about growing up and growing old in a culture corroded by technology and marketing." Janet Maslin of The New York Times says that Egan is "such a piercingly acute storyteller that the exhilaration of reading her outweighs the bleak destinies she describes.

Egan was born in Chicago and raised in San Francisco. Her previous books include The Invisible Circus, Look at Me, and The Keep.

Mitchell's epic novel centers on an earnest young clerk, Jacob de Zoet, who arrives in Japan in the summer of 1799 to make his fortune and return to Holland to wed his fiance. But his plans are shaken when he meets the daughter of a Samurai. Set in Dejima, an artificial island created as a trading outpost in Nagasaki Harbor and designed to keep the West at bay, the novel tackles intercultural relations, trust and betrayal, racial and gender boundaries, the search for identity, and finding unexpected love in a changing world. 

Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Dave Eggers called the book "An achingly romantic story of forbidden love...a novel of ideas, of longing, of good and evil and those who fall somewhere in between [that] confirms Mitchell as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive." Publishers Weekly described it as "dense and satisfying" with "literary brawn and stylistic panache." The book was awarded a 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize and was named one of the best novels of the year by numerous publications.

Mitchell, who lives in Ireland, is the author of the novels Ghostwritten, Number9 Dream, Cloud Atlas, and Black Swan Green.

We've got oodles more great new books on our tables -- the bowing table legs and our frequent chortling are evidence of that! Come and see. We're open every day of the week!

Sarah Vowell's Take on Hawaii

Fans of Sarah Vowell and her "nerd civics lessons" can rejoice in today's publication of her latest book: Unfamiliar Fishes (Riverhead Books), in which Vowell  tells the the story of Hawaii’s Americanization – from the first American immigrants in 1820 to the annexation of Hawaii in 1898. New England missionaries started arriving in 1820 to Christianize the local "heathen," worrying natives that they might "pray them all to death."  Some might question whether this was an improvement over existing conditions.

In her characteristic wry combination of erudition and humor, Vowell tells the story of our fiftieth state, the birthplace of our current president. And just because I think it helps to have Sarah Vowell's voice in your head when you read her books, here's a video clip of her telling Hawaii's story through plate lunches. Yes, you heard me: plate lunches.

VoiceCatcher Reading will be in May

Last week The Oregonian listed a VoiceCatcher reading at Broadway Books this Saturday, March 26. That event is actually being held at the Multnomah County Central Library (801 SW 10th), in the US Bank Room, from 2 to 3 pm.

The VoiceCatcher event at Broadway Books is scheduled for Thursday, May 26th, at 7pm. We apologize for any confusion. You can check for other forthcoming VoiceCatcher events at their website, and of course you can check ours to see what's happening at Broadway Books!

Maisie Dobbs and Precious Ramotswe Return!

It's a great day for mystery lovers! Two of our most popular series have new books out in hardcover this week: Jacqueline Winspear with her Maisie Dobbs series and Alexander McCall Smith with his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

In A Lesson in Secrets, Maisie Dobbs accepts an undercover assignment from Scotland Yard and Britain's Secret Service, posing as a junior lecturer at a private college in Cambridge to monitor any activities "not in the interests of His Majesty's government." Shortly thereafter, the college's controversial pacifist founder and principal, Greville Liddicote, is murdered. To solve this mystery, Maisie must overcome a reluctant Secret Service, discover shameful hidden truths about Britain's conduct during the Great War, and face off against the rising powers of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei -- the Nazi Party -- in Britain.

A Lesson in Secrets is the eighth installment of the Maisie Dobbs series, following The Mapping of Love and Death, now available in paperback. Winspear was born in the UK; she currently lives in the Bay Area. You can read more about her background -- and what inspired her to write about this period of time in the world -- at her website. I know Jacqueline from a previous life, and I can tell you from personal experience that she is a most delightful person. Her books are both well researched and well loved.

The Twelfth (!!) installment of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, follows on the heels of The Double Comfort Safari Club (now out in paperback). As associate detective Grace Makutsi prepares to tie the knot with furniture saleman Phuti Radiphuti, Mma Precious Ramotswe tackles several challenges: an ill-advised candidate for the Botswana Parliament, a runaway father of twins, and mysterious sightings of Ramotswe's beloved white van, which her husband sold for parts.

Alexander McCall Smith is an amazingly prolific author (more than 60 books!), with five series underway currently: The No. 1 Ladies' Detectve Agency series, The Isabel Dalhousie series, The Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, The 44 Scotland Street series, and the newly started Corduroy Mansions series. Like Maisie Dobbs, Precious Ramotswe is a dearly loved character, and her fans eagerly pounce on the newest installment each time. Smith was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and taught law at the University of Botswana. He currently lives in Scotland. You can read more about him and about his myriad other books at his website.

Irvington Cats Featured on Greeting Cards

Broadway Books has a reputation for being a dog-friendly place, with treats for our four-legged buddies and lots of ooooohing and ahhhhing -- especially when Roberta is here. But we're also big fans of our feline four-legged buddies. And now we have a card line to prove it! Kim Miller, photographer extraordinaire, and her husband Chris (our very own Broadway Books book bro) have developed a line of greeting cards featuring Irvington cats -- and quite handsome cats, if we do say so ourselves! Come see for yourself what great cards -- and what adorable cats -- these are!

We Think Women Rock!

The Orange Prize for Fiction is the UK's only annual book award for fiction written by a woman. The prize was established in 1996 to celebrate fiction by women throughout the world and to promote it to the widest range of readers possible. It is awarded for the best novel of the year written by a woman in the English language, regardless of her nationality.


The long list for the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction was announced today, and it includes nine debut novels. The list includes the author of the newly released hot novel, The Tiger's Wife (Tea Obrecht) and the winner of the just-announced National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction (Jennifer Egan). Here are all the authors on the long list:


•Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - Sudanese; 3rd Novel
•Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch (Canongate) - British; 10th Novel
•Room by Emma Donoghue (Picador) - Irish; 7th Novel
•The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi (Bloomsbury) - Indian; 1st Novel
•Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty (Faber and Faber) - British; 6th Novel
•A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Corsair) - American; 4th Novel
•The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury) - British/Sierra Leonean; 2nd Novel
•The London Train by Tessa Hadley (Jonathan Cape) - British; 4th Novel
•Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson (Sceptre) - British; 1st Novel
•The Seas by Samantha Hunt (Corsair) - American; 1st Novel
•The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna (Faber and Faber) - British; 2nd Novel
•Great House by Nicole Krauss (Viking) - American; 3rd Novel
•The Road to Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone (Chatto & Windus) - American; 3rd Novel
•The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - Serbian/American; 1st Novel
•The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Viking) - American; 1st Novel
•Repeat it Today with Tears by Anne Peile (Serpent's Tail) - British; 1st Novel
•Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (Chatto & Windus) - American; 1st Novel
•The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin (Serpent's Tail) - British/Nigerian; 1st Novel
•The Swimmer by Roma Tearne (Harper Press) - British; 4th Novel
•Annabel by Kathleen Winter (Jonathan Cape) - Canadian; 1st Novel

This year's five-person judging panel includes the novelist Tracy Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring, etc). The short list will be announced on April 12, with the awards ceremony to be held on June 8. Bettany Hughes, Chair of Judges, said "It was a huge tussle to get the list down to twenty, but what we have is a gorgeous, widely varied longlist - we'll certainly enjoy re-reading each and every one as we make tough choices to select the Orange Prize shortlist for 2011."


Last year's winner of the Orange Prize was Barbara Kingsolver, for her novel The Lacuna. Previous winners of the prize are Marilynne Robinson, Rose Tremain, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, Zadie Smith, Lionel Shriver, Andrea Levy, Ann Patchett, Valerie Martin, Kate Grenville, Linda Grant, Suzanne Berne, Carol Shields, Anne Michaels, and Helen Dunmore.

The UK-based Guardian offers jacket covers (European), descriptions, and reviews of all of the books on the Orange Prize long list.

PS: We hope you get a chance to check out our window display this month in honor of March being National Women's History Month -- with this year's theme being "Our history is our strength."