Oregon Book and Author Fair AND The Ashland Public Library Annual Holiday Book Sale and Silent Auction

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Ed Battistella
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Next weekend southern Oregonians will have a chance to check out the new Oregon Book and Author Fair, the event formerly known (when it was help at the Ashland Springs Hotel) as the Southern Oregon Book and Author Fair. The location at the Jackson County Expo Park in Central Point and new format is exciting and ambitious.

There will be local authors and two headliners—Oregon’s Poet Laureate Paulann Peterson and Shakespeare scholar Dr. Mary Maher.

The 2011 Oregon Book and Author Fair is open from 10 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 5th.

And before or after you go, check out the Annual Holiday Book Sale and Silent Auction at the Ashland Branch of the Jackson County Public Library. The books are like-new and there’s a silent auction of assorted book-related gift baskets which you can check out in advance. It starts on Saturday, November 5, at 12 noon (till 4 p.m.) resumes on Sunday, November 6 at noon (till 3 p.m, with bidding closed at 2).

Two good causes and an opportunity to get a jump on your holiday shopping. What’s on your holiday book wish list?

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Time to Hop on the Bookwagon

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Ed Battistella
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A lot of the book stores seem to concentrate in downtown Ashland. Let’s take a quick break from the chaos of theater, tourists and extravagant dining and visit a bookstore on the opposite side of town. Around the corner from the Ashland Street Cinema, in the plaza with the Wendy’s and the Dollar Tree is the Bookwagon. It is a smaller space tucked in next to the laundromat, filled with a vast array of used books.

The Bookwagon has been around for ten years, originally starting in a garage. It went through a few upgrades and then downsizes. I met with Carl, the owner, one afternoon in early September. I had never been in the Bookwagon before, which now seems so silly since it seemed like a promising bookstore. A few years back, half way through my college career, once I had moved out of my house with a washer and dryer, I discovered the Bookwagon’s location as I waited for my laundry to finish. The late night times I chose to wash my clothes never matched the day time hours of the shop, so I never went in.

The Bookwagon carries used fiction, mysteries and romance paperbacks. They also carry best sellers, new books and can special order books. Carl enjoys the book business because of constant surprises in various genres, books and authors that seem to pop up time and time again. Carl’s genre of choice when he finds time to read are creative non fiction books and mysteries.

I valued Carl’s perspective on the future of physical books. He believes there is always a market for books, even with the advance of literary technology. Certain people, myself included, don’t want an electronic version and want physical books. I would miss the smell of pages and paper books too much. Carl also explains the value in used books. People can always trade or re-sell used books; you can’t re-sell a Kindle or the books purchased online for the Kindle.

Don’t make the mistake that I did and wait five years to visit this quiet, cute bookstore. It is not overrun by tourists and noisy people. You can take the time to scout out what book you really want without being rushed by a sales clerks or obnoxious shoppers. While waiting for your laundry or a movie, visit the Bookwagon and enjoy the literary experience you can’t find anywhere else.

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The Week in Review

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Ed Battistella
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It’s been a busy week in Literary Ashland. First off, congratulations to Ashland’s Jennifer Margulis, who’s been awarded a prestigious Senior Fellowship at Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University.

This week featured an SOU Emergent Forms reading by poet Nick Demske, which I sadly missed, and a Chautauqua Poets & Writers visit by poet Eavan Boland, who I didn’t miss. Boland gave a fine reading and two workshops, one for teachers and one for students. According to my napkined notes from the teachers’ workshop, she cautioned teachers to help students find their inner critics as writers but not to make them too superstitious of perfectionistic about writing. And she reminded us that teaching is one of the lucky jobs where you learn something every time you go to work.

And there was a provocative Friday Science seminar on art and science—Alissa Arp took us from C. P. Snow to E. O. Wilson. The discussion afterwards raised the idea (via Kasey Mohammad, but my paraphrase) that scientific revolutions overturn while artistic revolutions add on. I need to think about that some more. And an exchange between Bill Gholson and Peter Wu also got me to thinking of another dichotomy—that science seeks to understand what is out there while the arts seek to understand what is in here (so the Hubble telescope versus Tehching Hsieh, the performance artist who lived in solitary confinement for a year). The dichotomy I was thinking of seems overly simple, since cognitive science, for example, seems to try to do both, but this too needs more puzzling.

And tomorrow’s New York Times magazine features Sam Anderson’s article on Haruki Murakami. Don’t miss it.

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County Line

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Ed Battistella
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I stayed up late last night reading Bill Cameron’s excellent noir tale County Line, which relies on his trademarked story within a story structure. The book features his Skin Kadash and Peter McKrall and explains the mysterious history of Ruby Jane Whittaker. Here a clip from Ashland Mystery in which Cameron talks about his characters:

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