Our monthly book club meets Tuesday night--don't miss it!

My Stroke of Insight
by Jill Bolte Taylor

No experience or membership necessary: first-timers always welcome!

Tuesday, February 2nd, 6:30pm
In the cozy Grass Roots Loft.

In 1996, 37-year-old neuroanatomist Taylor experienced a massive stroke that erased her abilities to walk, talk, do mathematics, read, or remember details. Her remarkable story details her slow recovery of those abilities (and the cultivation of new ones) and recounts exactly what happened with her brain. This is a fascinating memoir of the brain's remarkable resiliency and of one woman's determination to regain her faculties and recount her experience for the benefit of others. Taylor repeatedly describes her "stroke of insight"-a tremendous gratitude for, and connection with, the cells of her body and of every living thing-and says that although she is fully recovered, she is not the same driven, type-A scientist that she was before the stroke. Her holistic approach to healing will be valuable to stroke survivors and their caregivers, who can pick up suggestions from Taylor's moving accounts of how her mother faithfully loved her back to life.

Paperback, $15.00
On sale for 15% off through February 2nd.

We hope to see you there!

Don't miss our Monday night event with author David Kirkpatrick

David Kirkpatrick presents his book In Praise of Strong Women: A Psychiatrist's Memoir.



Monday, Feb. 1st 7:00pm
Grass Roots Books and Music

In Praise of Strong Women: A Psychiatrist’s Memoir is a book that joyously celebrates the strong women that have influenced and benefited the author, David Kirkpatrick, during his life. With insight from his practice, especially as a couple’s counselor, David offers well-earned advice to others living with, loving and losing strong women. He reflects on the experiences of his grandmother, mother and early teachers; of his third-grade sweetheart; of his first wife, Betsy, and their daughter, Mindy; of school friends and professional colleagues; of elderly aunts; and finally of Clair, his wife since 1997 and a psychologist herself. Woven between his memories and anecdotes is a discerning narrative about strong women in general and how to appreciate, enjoy and benefit from their special gifts.

A psychotherapist and psychiatrist for over thirty years, David Kirkpatrick, MA, MD, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Following studies, work and specialty training in Ohio, Georgia, California, Alaska and British Columbia, he opened a practice in Ashland, Oregon and then in Vancouver, BC. He now enjoys a balance between community mental health (including ten years on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside) and a private psychotherapy practice where he uses a family orientation approach with individuals, couples, families in West Vancouver and on BC’S Sunshine Coast. Since 1973, David has published numerous health care and humor articles.

Naseem Rakha is speaking in Corvallis tomorrow!

Oregon author Naseem Rakha will be reading from her new book, The Crying Tree, Oregon's 2010 PNBA Book Award Winner for Fiction.

Monday, January 25th, 7:00pm
Corvallis Public Library
645 NW Monroe Ave
Corvallis OR 97330

Naseem Rakha is an award-winning journalist whose stories have been heard on NPR’s All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Marketplace Radio, Christian Science Monitor, and Living on Earth. She lives in Oregon with her husband, son, and many animals.

About The Crying Tree:
Irene and Nate Stanley are living a quiet and contented life with their two children, Bliss and Shep, on their family farm in southern Illinois when Nate suddenly announces he's been offered a job as a deputy sheriff in Oregon. Irene fights her husband. She does not want to uproot her family and has deep misgivings about the move. Nevertheless, the family leaves, and they are just settling into their life in Oregon's high desert when the unthinkable happens. Fifteen-year-old Shep is shot and killed during an apparent robbery in their home. The murderer, a young mechanic with a history of assault, robbery, and drug-related offenses, is caught and sentenced to death.

Shep's murder sends the Stanley family into a tailspin, with each member attempting to cope with the tragedy in his or her own way. Irene's approach is to live, week after week, waiting for Daniel Robbin's execution and the justice she feels she and her family deserve. Those weeks turn into months and then years. Ultimately, faced with a growing sense that Robbin's death will not stop her pain, Irene takes the extraordinary and clandestine step of reaching out to her son's killer. The two forge an unlikely connection that remains a secret from her family and friends.

Years later, Irene receives the notice that she had craved for so long--Daniel Robbin has stopped his appeals and will be executed within a month. This announcement shakes the very core of the Stanley family. Irene, it turns out, isn't the only one with a shocking secret to hide. As the execution date nears, the Stanleys must face difficult truths and find a way to come to terms with the past.

Dramatic, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting, " The Crying Tree" is an unforgettable story of love and redemption, the unbreakable bonds of family, and the transformative power of forgiveness.

Storytime with Grass Roots Staff!

2010 ALA Awards

The 2010 American Library Association awards were announced in Boston this morning. Here are some highlights:

Newbery Award winner: "When You Reach Me" by Rebecca Stead

Randolph Caldecott Medal: "The Lion & the Mouse" by Jerry Pinkney

Printz Award winner: "Going Bovine" by Libba Bray

Belpre Award for Text: "Return to Sender" by Julia Alvarez

Batchelder Award: "A Faraway Island" by Annika Thor

Coretta Scott King – Author Honor Award: "Mare’s War" by Tanita Davis

Four Newbery Honor Books were named:
"Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice" by Phillip Hoose
"The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
"Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" by Grace Lin
"The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg" by Rodman Philbrick

Two Caldecott Honor Books were named:
"All the World" illustrated by Marla Frazee, written by Liz Garton Scanlon
"Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors" illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, written by Joyce Sidman

Alex Award Winners
The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing.
"The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope" by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
"The Bride’s Farewell" by Meg Rosoff
"Everything Matters!" by Ron Currie, Jr.
"The Good Soldiers" by David Finkel
"The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir" by Diana Welch and Liz Welch with Amanda Welch and Dan Welch
"The Magicians" by Lev Grossman
"My Abandonment" by Peter Rock
"Soulless: An Alexia Tarabotti Novel" by Gail Carriger
"Stitches: A Memoir" by David Small
"Tunneling to the Center of the Earth" by Kevin Wilson

For a complete list of winners, Click Here.

Rainy Days are a Reader's Best Friend

Not that we don't all enjoy reading on the beach, beneath shady trees, on park benches, in hammocks, or anywhere else in fine weather. But reading is one of the rainy season's particular pleasures. The ground is too wet and cold and still for gardening; the mules would rather stand quietly than move; and dark creeps into the day early and lingers late in the mornings.

So brew some tea or melt some chocolate for milk, light some wicks on the periphery, and cuddle in for some reading time (preferably near a window so you can gaze periodically at the soaking outdoors and feel even more dry, warm, and comfortable).

Novels, picture books, short stories, adventure tales, photography collections, illustrated children's books, recipe books, histories, philosophies... anything suits an afternoon or evening of calm.

So, please, enjoy your Sunday. Go outside just long enough for the rain to soak through your sweater: move some things around the yard until your fingers start to feel a little raw and then warm again, straighten up a bit, observe the compost pile, visit the chickens, cluck and brood, give them some dry straw, and then come back inside, put some soup on to heat, settle in, and set sail in a book.

The University Book Store, of Seattle Washington, invited 110 authors, poets, and graphic novelists to contribute 110 words each in honor of the bookstore's 110th anniversary (Sunday, January 10th). These pieces have been compiled into a book called 110/110. Today, we recieved an email with an excerpt from the 110/110 collection...

This poem is written by Molly Gloss, who lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. Her most recent novel is "The Hearts of Horses."

What We Will Do On Our Last Day

We'll gather at a table, all of us,
a table laid with fragile china plates,
old silver handed down on someone's wedding day,
yellow iris in a painted vase
brought back from Mexico or France.
There will be summer salad,
tomatoes warm from someone's garden,
ice cream we've cranked by hand.
We'll raise a glass to friends already gone,
speak of books we ought to have read twice,
say again the poems that bespoke our lives.
And as the dusk begins to deepen,
the candles stuttering in their cups of beveled glass,
we'll lean in to one another, our shoulders touching,
and none of us will face the dark alone.

For another wonderful poem, visit The Writer's Almanac and look up today's date in the archives to read Julie Cadwallader-Staub's poem, "Guinea Pig."