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Nonfiction Features at #PDXBookFest 2020

Mark your calendar for these events featuring some of the most exciting nonfiction books of 2020.

Be sure to register at PDXBookFest.org to catch these FREE live-streamed events, and RSVP at the event pages below.

Michele Harper and Ruth Dickey

THE BEAUTY IN BREAKING: DR. MICHELE HARPER & RUTH DICKEY

Thu, November 5 from 4:00 pm – 4:45 pm PST

Dr. Michele Harper discusses her best-selling memoir about her experiences as a female, African American emergency room physician and her own journey to self-healing with poet Ruch Dickey.

Taking on the painful topics of trauma, domestic abuse, and the ‘ubiquitous microaggressions faced by people of color,’ Harper witnesses the resilience of the human spirit of her patients and begins her own process of self-healing.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Robert Kolker and Eli Saslow

HIDDEN VALLEY ROAD: ROBERT KOLKER & ELI SASLOW

Mon, November 9 from 2:00 pm – 2:45 pm PST

Robert Kolker, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club pick Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, will be in conversation with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Eli Saslow (Rising Out of Hatred).

Hidden Valley Road is a riveting true story of an American family that reads like a medical detective journey and sheds light on a topic so many of us face: mental illness.

Oprah Winfrey

THIS IS CHANCE!: JON MOOALLEM ON OPB

Wed, November 18 from 11:00 am – 11:45 am PST

The thrilling, cinematic story of a community shattered by disaster—and the extraordinary woman who helped pull it back together. Interview by John Notarianni of OPB.

It wasn’t as though, before the quake, people in Anchorage pictured these things happening and dismissed them as impossible; they just never pictured them. They couldn’t. More to the point: Why would they? Like all of us, they looked around and registered what they saw as stable and permanent: a world that just was.

But there are moments when the world we take for granted instantaneously changes; when reality is abruptly upended and the unimaginable overwhelms real life. We don’t walk around thinking about that instability, but we know it’s always there: at random, and without warning, a kind of terrible magic can switch on and scramble our lives.

This Is Chance!

Two chances to catch Shayla Lawson at #PDXBookFest:

LIVE WIRE RADIO AT PBF: 99% INVISIBLE & SHAYLA LAWSON

Fri, November 13 from 11:30 am – 12:30 pm PST

Featuring interviews with Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt, hosts of the 99% Invisible podcast and authors of The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to Everyday Design; and with Shayla Lawson, poet and author of the new essay collection, This Is Major.

THIS IS MAJOR: SHAYLA LAWSON ON OPB

Thu, November 19 from 11:00 am – 11:45 am PST

A relevant, insightful, and riveting collection of personal essays on the richness and resilience of black girl culture. Shayla Lawson in conversation with OPB’s Tiffany Camhi.

Shayla Lawson is the real deal. There’s no way around it. Whip smart, singular, and endlessly fascinating, This Is Major is the kind of calling card even author dreams of writing, but not many are able to achieve.

Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of You Can’t Touch My Hair and Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay

CASTE: ISABEL WILKERSON & VIET THANH NGUYEN

Thu, November 19 from 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm PST

Pre-order from Powell’s by November 17 to attend.  The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions. An eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today. In conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer.

As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.

Caste

ALL BOOKS PURCHASED THROUGH FESTIVAL EVENTS, FROM ANNIE BLOOM’S BOOKSBROADWAY BOOKSGREEN BEAN BOOKS, OR POWELL’S BOOKS SUPPORT THE AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS WHO SHARE THEIR WORK AT THE FESTIVAL AND THE BOOKSELLERS WHO HAVE WORKED HARD TO KEEP THEIR BUSINESSES OPEN DURING THESE DIFFICULT TIMES. BY PURCHASING BOOKS FROM THESE BOOKSTORES YOU ARE SUPPORTING THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THE FESTIVAL.

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