Our annual Portland Arts & Lectures series brings world-famous authors to town to engage with our local community. In addition to live lectures that are later broadcast statewide on The Archive Project on OPB radio, the program connects renowned authors with readers and writers of all ages through classroom visits and writing workshops.
During each event, we ask the visiting author to recommend a list of books. Here are the recommendations from our 2018/2019 Portland Arts & Lectures authors:
Jacqueline Woodson’s Recommended Readings:
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Ghost by Jason Reynolds
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (out June 4, 2019)
Jennifer Egan’s Recommended Readings:
House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
When Rap Spoke Straight to Go by Erica Dawson
The Lost Weekend by Charles R. Jackson
Tayari Jones’s Recommended Reading:
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Circe by Madeline Miller
The Street by Ann Petry
What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arima
The World According to Fannie Davis by Bridget Davis
Tara Westover’s Recommended Readings:
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor
What are We Doing by Marilynne Robinson
Jill Lepore’s Recommended Readings:
The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
