Reading Portland: The City in Prose

by John Trombold (editor), Peter Donahue (Editor)

Reading Portland is a literary exploration of the city's past and present. In over eighty selections, Portland is revealed through histories, memoirs, autobiographies, short stories, novels, and news reports. This single volume gives voice to women and men; the colonizers and the colonized; white, Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Indian storytellers; and lower, middle, and upper classes.

In his introduction, John Trombold considers the history of writing about a place that has nourished a provocative and errant literary tradition for over 150 years. In the preface, Peter Donahue considers the influence of region--particularly Portland's urbanity and its hybrid population--on literature.

Included here are the voices of Carl Abbott, Kathryn Hall Bogle, Beverly Cleary, Robin Cody, Lawson Fusao Inada, Rudyard Kipling, Ursula K. Le Guin, Joaquin Miller, Sandy Polishuk, Gary Snyder, Kim Stafford, Elizabeth Woody, and many more.

Genres: Short Stories, Nonfiction

608 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2007

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthologies can be difficult to rate. I liked the premise of taking excerpts from books or essays about Portland. It was nice that most were relatively short and this was a thick book so there were many. I felt like there was a focus on the "seedier" side of Portland. But then maybe that's all people write about.

[Leif Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's actually an anthology of all things literary Portland. Mostly anyway. Doubt I'll read all the entries so now I'll have to decide if I can say I've read something I haven't finished.

I decided I can do whatever I want with my own damn profile and yes, I have read this. Pretty good too. Loved the 19th cent accounts of booze halls in the North End.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a delightful book. All of its entries deal in some way with Portland, Oregon--a section of an essay, a short story, a newspaper account.