The most recommended books about Portland Oregon

John Kallas has rebranded foraging from 'alternative roughage' to 'five-star dining.' No other wild foods book has this kind of in-depth text, mouth-watering recipes, or eye-popping pictures of culinary delights, such as wild spinach pizza, pickled purslane, and homemade marshmallows.

Edible Wild Plants is rich with photographs, giving the reader the tools to be successful early and often at identifying, gathering, and dining on these plants. Based on the experiences of John Kallas, a lifelong, full-time wild food researcher, teacher, and author, it catapults a novice into many early triumphs, provides plenty of new useful and practical information for the seasoned professional, and offers naturalists a resource from which to teach wild food concepts. In no time, readers go beyond just tasting to incorporating these foods into regular meals.

One of the joys of the Internet is meeting people – writers – who give the reader a kick in the ass, an unexpected journey down an alley or a dirt path where we spend time with a character who changes our opinion, our outlook on society. Meeting writer Theresa Griffin Kennedy was that kick for me. Kennedy writes non-fiction, reportage, poetry, opinion, and fiction. Burnside Field Lizard took me down back roads and introduced me to larger-than-life characters that stung me with truths and observations that felt more like a documentary. I love realism and Kennedy knows and writes about her town Portland, Oregon, like no other writer. These short stories smack of a reporter in the trenches of a foreign war zone. The characters are in battle with themselves. Kennedy is also an observant translator of sexual behavior that can, at times, be another kind of war, internal… show more.

As a follow-on from her first book, Fiona tells us of her never-ending search for love and affection and the difficulties in forging relationships. I was rooting for her to have a happy ending. If you have read This is Me: No Darkness Too Deep, then you must read this second book in Fiona's trilogy to see where her adoptee journey takes her. It's not the ending I expected!

Published in 2012, before cannabis liberation had truly begun to take hold, this is a lively look at the illicit cannabis market as it’s morphing into a legitimate industry. Irreverent and richly written, this book tells it like it is, tracing the racist roots of marijuana prohibition to its popularity among Mexican immigrants and jazz musicians and teasing out the vast implications of the US government’s attempts to eradicate it. Everyone needs to know this history, whether they enjoy cannabis or not.

This charmingly compact cookbook is a favorite of mine and never far from my kitchen.

It’s chock full of recipes for old-fashioned, seasonal fruit desserts by the owner of Portland, Oregon’s Baker & Spice. I particularly love the rustic berry crisps, wholesome cakes, and boozy bread puddings inspired by the ingredients of the Pacific Northwest.The Sour Cherry Cobbler is a delightful recipe I come back to again and again.

Organized by season for easy reference, the luscious, up-close photographs are half the appeal. But the recipes for this irresistible assortment of desserts are reliable, unfussy, and delicious, making it my favorite seasonal cookbook of the bunch.

My granddaughter likes how the girl Ryan always wants to be good and be a good friend, but is undergoing lots of changes. The family is moving to another house, is going to be in a talent show and she's afraid that no one will like her or her talent.

She is inspired by how Ryan believes she'll be fine, despite her fears.

The Time Cleanse is a fantastic book for kick-starting your life into action.

It will help you realize exactly where you are spending and wasting your time and where to apply your focus. Time precious, it is limited and it cannot be replaced. Mastering time is the key to lasting happiness and success.  

His book contains his proven system that shows you how to do more, get more, be more by changing your relationship with time, and get back wasted time every week! I personally discovered 28 hours of wasted time, no more excuses! 

Kingston Heath’s captivating book Patina of Place investigates human relationships with working-class living spaces so powerfully. Sometimes I think parts of my book would have been better as a film for capturing what it feels like to move through a neighborhood and into a house. But Heath has managed to do it on static printed paper by combining historic photographs, first-hand accounts, childhood memories, and—most importantly, his gorgeous drawings!—to convey everyday experiences in New England’s three-decker housing units. What sets this book apart are Heath’s textured stories of women rearranging their furniture to make room for another family member; a child’s-eye view of his grandmother’s upholstered sofa; and one couple’s reflections on demographic change around their apartment of 50 years. 

Robyn Harding’s secret skill is peeling back the layers of a family to expose both the love and the possible darkness hiding inside. When a “perfect” suburban family begins to be harassed by a mysterious stranger they first chalk it up to random vandals, until they begin to suspect that it’s being done for a very particular reason. 

The trick that Harding does is to give each family member a reason to be the target. She unravels the myth of perfection and kept me turning pages to determine the motivation behind the crime. I am always much more interested in the why of a mystery novel than the who—and this book delivers exactly that.

When Tai’s useless, always-high dad touches her best friend, Mila, where he shouldn’t, the girls’ friendship is challenged and changed. Tai, already ashamed of her father, wants to pretend the moment never happened. But, Mila can’t pretend because she lives every day with the fear and shame of that moment. After a summer apart, the two friends struggle to reconnect while also competing for acceptance into the same gifted-and-talented arts program. As both work to be seen for who they want to be, they must also learn to look back together at what really happened. I loved the portrayal of the girls’ friendship and the honesty of a story in which the “happy ending” doesn’t mean a return to the way things were.

Not only is this book a beauty, but it’s also a great way to discover new pairings for your favorite seasonal pizza toppings. Many of my favorite pizza recipes have been adapted from combinations of ingredients found in recipes for salads, casseroles, fancy meals, sandwiches, and more. If you’re a farmers’ market fiend and a homemade pizzamaker, you need more books like this one.

I had to put this book in because sometimes it gives me great Joy to get lost in a good story, especially one where women come out victorious.

This is set in Seattle, where I currently live, which also was fun and literally I turned page to page and lost track of time. It’s been a long time since I’ve read fiction and reading this was pure Joy. At the end, I wanted it to keep going and am secretly hoping for a sequel!

Years ago, I met Gigi Pandian at a mystery conference. She is a gifted and spiritual woman. I adore her writing.

In this book, Zoe Faust, an alchemist, moves to the Northwest and discovers a stowaway in her luggage—a live gargoyle named Dorian who can cook French cuisine! Oh, man, wouldn’t you love to have a “familiar” that cooks?

Zoe moved, hoping to put her old life behind her, but she can’t when she discovers her new friend Dorian is turning to stone and only she can save him. 

This story is clever beyond words. FYI, Gigi is a gargoyle expert! If you meet her, ask to see her collection of photographs.

Out of all my recommendations, this one is a true mafia romance in the Hotter Than Hell series. But make no mistake, this isn’t the typical mafia romance where the hot/rich/dangerous guy comes in and sweeps the virgin/young/beautiful girl off her feet into a glamourous life where she’s pampered, but never loses her “I’m just a down-to-earth kinda gal” personality. I’ve met Ms. Roberts personally, and know she’s worked as a sex crime detective in real life, which has enabled her to bring some of those experiences to her books. While she never shies away from the hard stuff, she also never glorifies violence, and instead focuses on the emotional aftermath of trauma and the message that love really can conquer all.

There’s a leaf-collecting hedgehog in Fletcher and the Falling Leaves, and Say Hi to Hedgehogs! teaches you more about these wonderful animals, following a hedgehog’s story through the seasons. I love everything about this book – the illustrations are beautiful, with a ridiculously cute hedgehog family, magical night scenes, and cosy autumn and winter pages; I learnt some fascinating hedgehog facts from the notes scattered through the story; and the book even includes tips for making your home hedgehog-friendly.

David Halberstam's classic, a chronicle of the Portland Trailblazers during the 1979-80 season. Three years removed from a stunning run to the NBA title, and with their mercurial superstar, Bill Walton, injured and then traded, the Blazers scuffled through the long slog of the season, trying in vain to recapture old glory. The book isn't just a chronicle of a team of interesting characters, though. It's an unflinching look at the cold financial calculus of professional sports and what it means when athletes know that they are, in the end, high-priced and expendable commodities. The book also captures the NBA at a critical inflection point in its history. It became a predominantly black league in the 1970s and its popularity declined to the point that the finals were televised on tape delay. Halberstam, the players and management are acutely aware of the tightrope the sport was compelled to walk as… show more.

And speaking of, who better than Le Guin to inspire sci-fi and fantasy stories that are truly unexpected? Dispatches from Anarres, edited by Susan DeFreitas, is an anthology of stories by Northwest authors, all inspired by and in tribute to Le Guin, and the offerings are rich and unique. Like Michelle Ruiz Keil’s poetic war cry of ghost cats in “The Kingdom of the Belly,” Jason LaPier’s fascinating tale of the life of a bee colony—with some of the coolest names I’ve encountered in fantasy—in “Bee, Keeper,” and Stevan Allred’s clever Ib and Nib folk-story interludes. I read much of this book in an ER waiting room as my husband was being examined and then treated for a scary collapsed lung, and the uniqueness of these stories kept me beautifully distracted.

In Orange World, Karen Russell guides readers expertly through a multitude of weird worlds, but in her hands the weird becomes familiar as we enter her characters’ inner lives.

The title story—about a mother striking a deal with the devil to protect her child, only this deal involves breastfeeding the devil himself—struck a chord with me, as my collection also focuses on motherhood, and I wrote many of the stories while in the throes of taking care of my young child.

Other standouts in Russell’s collection are “Bog Girl,” a love story between an ordinary teenage boy and a two-thousand-year-old bog girl; and “The Prospectors” a Depression-era ghost story. I’m inspired by Russell’s level of inventiveness and empathy, her richness of language, and her wide-ranging settings. 

When I read Werner's Effortless Mastery, the first thing that happened was that my style of piano playing and composing transformed. What was once very methodical became free-flowing. Secondly, whatever I learned at the piano, then seemed to transfer to my writing and other projects. An absolute unsung hero of both mastery and productivity, Werner does a fantastic job of describing the work of getting your mind into that state of play where learning and creating happen best. 

Although this is, strictly speaking, a Young Adult level book, it belongs here in my cadre of stories that have woven a measure of magic through my being. I first read this as a young girl, and loved it so much I saved my pennies to buy my own copy (I still have it). Sally Watson showed me how to create a real, believable, and magical heroine. One with flaws, and fears, and a call to be other than those who surround her. Other than those who surround her. The story also takes place in the Scottish Highlands, a place very dear to my heart, and presents a wealth of actual historical characters who come to life between the pages. This one will forever have a place in my heart.