Five Eugeneans Are Oregon Book Awards Finalists

Literary Arts has announced the finalists for the 2009 Oregon Book Awards, and five of them are particularly local: Miriam Gershow, Debra Gwartney, Bonnie Henderson, Barbara Pope and Leslie What are all among the finalists for this year’s awards. (Perennial finalist Deborah Hopkinson of Corvallis has already won; her book is the only contender in the children’s category.) Continue reading 

Missives from Pickathon, Part 2

The circus is gone. The kids that remain are crawling the ground under the apple trees for green fruit, which they toss up onto the shading, stretched fabric. It’s at an angle, so the fruit always bounces back down. Every so often, a cry of “APPLE!” goes up. I haven’t figured out the rules of the game. Continue reading 

Once More, with Spoilers (and Nitpicking): ‘Star Trek’

Let me gush a second: I pretty much loved Star Trek. It did a lot of things right, and it looked gorgeous, especially to eyes disappointed by the terrible effects in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I loved Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy the best of all, but John Cho is a respectable Sulu, Sylar Zachary Quinto a perfect Spock (I really only thought of Sylar once, when he glares at the council) and Zoë Saldana a whip-smart Uhura. The bad guy was a little stock, but the time-split really thing works for me. Continue reading 

Buy Indie Day

May 1, I hear, is Buy Indie Day. The idea, as described at Indiebound, is simple: “Buy one book — paperback, hardcover, audiobook, whatever you want! — at an independent bookstore near you.” (Those of you on Facebook can check out the movement’s Facebook page, too.) Continue reading