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Title Raves : The Great Northwest
These were the books discussed at the April 2009 Title Raves program by panelists Jeff Baker, Oregonian book editor; author Lono Waiwaiole; and Dennis Stovall and Karen Brattain, publishers at PSU's Ooligan Press. Audience members were invited to share their favorite books and authors.
Panelists' favorites
- Arnaldur Indrišason
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Following an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic lake suddenly falls, revealing a skeleton that is weighed down by a heavy radio device bearing inscriptions in Russian. (Dennis Stovall)
- Cleeves, Ann
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In this second of Cleeves's Shetland Island Quartet (after Raven Black), Inspector Perez finds a murdered man, last seen causing an amnesia-induced ruckus at an art gallery. (Dennis Stovall)
- Cody, Robin
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In this coming-of-age novel, three teenagers prepare to break out of their small Oregon logging town; the star attraction is Jessie, the Indian kid who applies his own rules. (Dennis Stovall)
- Daniel, John
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"These essays include meditations and arguments on becoming a writer; on old-growth forest and the practice of clear-cutting; on the fluid dynamics and biotic diversity and mythic resonance of rivers; on the writers Ken Kesey and Wallace Stegner; on the literary genre of "creative nonfiction; on death and dying and the consolations of mortality; on the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001; and on my allegiances to the places and region and country I call home." So writes John Daniel in the introduction to his latest book of essays, The Far Corner. (Jeff Baker)
- Dickman, Matthew
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All American Poem plumbs the ecstatic nature of our daily lives. In these unhermetic poems, pop culture and the sacred go hand in hand. As Matthew Dickman said in an interview, he wants the "people from the community that I come from" — a blue-collar neighborhood in Portland — to get his poems. (Jeff Baker)
- Keeble, John
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Keeble uses the course of a construction project in the high desert of eastern Oregon as the basis for a novel with deep political, mystical, and — for its time — prescient implications: the impingement of American imperialism on its own native territory. Set in the 1980s, the project underway is to be a prison for profit, where alien captives will be incarcerated in secret. (Dennis Stovall)
- Kesey, Ken
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A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, the novel chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse. An international bestseller and the basis for a hugely successful film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was one of the defining works of the 1960s. (Lono Waiwaiole)
- Kesey, Ken
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A bitter strike is raging in a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers: Henry, the fiercely vital and overpowering patriarch; Hank, the son who has spent his life trying to live up to his father; and Viv, who fell in love with Hank's exuberant machismo but now finds it wearing thin. And then there is Leland, Henry's bookish younger son, who returns to his family on a mission of vengeance — and finds himself fulfilling it in ways he never imagined. Out of the Stamper family's rivalries and betrayals Ken Kesey has crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy. (Lono Waiwaiole)
- Larsson, Stieg
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A crusading journalist joins forces with a 24-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker to investigate a missing woman from one of the wealthiest families in Sweden. (Dennis Stovall)
- Le Guin, Ursula K.
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Join Ursula K. Le Guin as she explores a broad array of subjects, ranging from Tolstoy, Twain and Tolkien to women's shoes, beauty and family life. (Karen Brattain)
- Mapes, Jeff.
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Pedaling Revolution is essential reading for the approximately one million people who regularly ride their bike to work or on errands, for anyone engaged in transportation, urban planning, sustainability and public health — and for drivers trying to understand why they're seeing so many cyclists. Mapes is senior political reporter for The Oregonian. (Jeff Baker)
- Raymond, Jonathan
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A collection of rich, powerfully human stories from the author of The Half-Life and the movie Wendy and Lucy.(Jeff Baker)
- Rock, Peter
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Inspired by the discovery of a man and his 12-year-old daughter found living in a sophisticated camp hidden deep in Portland's Forest Park, Peter Rock wrote My Abandonment to imagine the rest of their story. Rock teaches writing at Reed College. (Jeff Baker)
- Smith, Mitchell
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In a prison of youthful hard-core criminals, a college professor convicted of killing a young girl while driving drunk teaches other inmates reading skills. A series of killings prompts officials to coerce him to track down the killer. His quest takes readers into the web of corruption that is inherent in a big state prison. Smith is a Seattle-area writer, although almost invisible these days. (Lono Waiwaiole)
- Stevenson, Janet.
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"The story of Amanda Bright, who must command a sailing ship in the Pacific — a man's job in 1851 — when her husband falls too ill and delirious to captain. Already doubting herself as a wife, she must master navigation while commanding a superstitious crew." Library Journal (Karen Brattain)
- Tagatac, Geronimo
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Son of a Filipino-immigrant father and a Russian-Jewish mother, Tagatac's life has taken an arc from fieldhand to Special Forces demolition sergeant in Vietnam to modern dancer to civil servant and literary writer. (Karen Brattain)
- Wolff, Virginia Euwer
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Virginia Euwer Wolff takes on the biggest questions — about life and love, certainly, but also about girls and women, sacrifice and compassion — and has something quite revelatory to say about them in this full house. She lives and works in Oregon City. (Jeff Baker)
Audience favorites
- Eisler, Riane
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"I appreciated the re-interpretation of history from a feminist perspective."
- Kleiner, Greg
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Where the River Meets the Sky(not in the library collection)Eighty-year-old George Castor promised he would never let his best friend Ralph die alone at the Silver Gardens Nursing Home — but Ralph passed on while George was away fishing. Distraught, guilt-stricken and seeking redemption, George buys a broken-down mansion in Looking Glass, Oregon, paints it fire-engine red, and begins searching for other old folks to share it with him.
- Lopez, Barry
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Lopez allows us to share moments of intense personal experience as man tries to come to terms with the Earth's landscape, and with his own existence.
- Lopez, Barry
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Of Wolves and Men reveals the uneasy interaction between wolves and civilization over the centuries, and the wolf's prominence in our thoughts about wild creatures.
- Nelson, Antonya
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Living to Tell (not in the library collection)"Nelson writes about the Southwest — Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico."
- Ondaatje, Michael
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"Exquisitely poetic prose."
- Poirier, Mark Jude
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"Poirier's writing gets me inside the mind of a young man."
- Winter, Ellen
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"Ellen Winter has been writing for years and publishing in literary journals."
Favorite authors: Ken Follett ("historical fiction"), Tanith Lee ("unique science fiction and fantasy"), Barry Lopez ("a true wordsmith") and Phillip Margolin.
