M Artin l uther K ing J r .
January 16, 2019
Page 33
2019 special edition
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has won acclaim as an author, poet, playwright and speaker. Her books
are the focus of Multnomah County Library’s 17th annual community reading project Everybody
Reads.
About Our Culture and Ourselves
Library’s
community
reading project
kicks off
Multnomah County Library’s
community reading project Every-
body Reads 2019 began this month
with the distribution of free copies
of two books by award-winning
author Chimamanda Ngozi Adi-
chie, Americanah (for adults) and
We Should All Be Feminists (for
high school students).
The goal of the 17th annual
project is to engage deeply around
the themes of a book, and convene
meaningful conversations around
difficult issues.
Thanks to The Library Founda-
tion, 4,500 copies of Americanah
are available to pick up at librar-
ies across Multnomah County.
An additional 4,900 copies of We
Should All Be Feminists are being
distributed to high school students
who are studying Adichie’s essay
in the winter term.
The library encourages read-
ers to pass those copies along
to friends and neighbors once
they’ve finished the book. For the
first time, readers can instantly
access unlimited downloadable
audiobook copies of Americanah
through the RBdigital platform.
E-book copies are available
through Overdrive.
Community members are invit-
ed to attend the many Everybody
Reads discussions and related pro-
grams taking place at libraries and
elsewhere in the county, including
a talk on the history of black fem-
inism, an overview on how to run
for office and many others.
Adichie will speak on Thurs-
day, March 14 at 7:30 p.m. at the
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
The event is sold out.
A Nigerian-born artist whose
influence spans continents and
genres, Adichie has received ac-
Stock up on Books
Thousands of books of all
shapes, sizes, and genres will
be up for sale at bargain pric-
es during the “Bookapalooza”
book sale in Vancouver this
week hosted by and benefiting
the Fort Vancouver Regional
Library Foundation.
From art, biographies, chil-
dren’s picture books, classics,
graphic novels, health, history,
humor, craft and more, books
will be bargain priced at just $1
for most hardbacks and paper-
backs, 50 cents for mass-mar-
ket adult fiction paperbacks,
and $1 for CDs and DVDs.
The event will begin Thurs-
day, Jan. 17 and continue
through Saturday, Jan. 19,
from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., each day,
downstairs from Library Hall,
the library district’s operations
center at 1007 E. Mill Plain
Blvd. You’re asked to bring
your own box or bag.
claim as an author, poet, play-
wright and speaker. She was a
recipient of a MacArthur Founda-
tion Fellowship and her work has
been recognized with the O. Hen-
ry Prize, the National Book Crit-
ics Circle Award (fiction) and the
PEN Pinter Prize, among many
other distinctions.
“Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s
writing is simply beautiful, but
it also plumbs deep truths within
and around us,” said Director of
Libraries Vailey Oehlke. “With
these two works, she offers us
vehicles for important and con-
structive conversations about our
culture and ourselves.”
Everybody Reads, a communi-
ty reading project of Multnomah
County Library, is made possible
in part by gifts to The Library
Foundation with the author ap-
pearance made possible by Liter-
ary Arts. Programming support is
also made possible in part by Port-
land State University and Portland
Community College.
Before Oprah and before Arsenio, there was show Mr. Soul!
The Northwest Film Center kicks off its annual Reel Music film
festival on Friday, Jan. 18 with ‘Mr. Soul,’ a new documentary
about the now legendary public television show that aired from
1968 to 1973 centering on black life in America.
Mr. Soul Opens
Reel Music Fest
The now legendary public
television show “Mr. Soul!”
which centered on black life
in America and aired from
1968 to 1973 on PBS, is the
subject of a new documenta-
ry of the same title and will
be screening this week when
the Northwest Film Center’s
kicks off its 36th annual “Reel
Music” film festival.
Mr. Soul! was named in hon-
or of the show’s producer Ellis
Haizlip and featured a myriad
of incendiary interviews with
and performances by the likes
of Wilson Pickett, Donny Ha-
thaway, Al Green, Maya Ange-
lou, Sidney Poitier, Harry Be-
lafonte, James Baldwin, Stevie
Wonder, and Muhammad Ali,
among many others
‘Mr. Soul” will screen on Fri-
day, Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. in Whit-
sell Auditorium at the Portland
Art Museum, the first of the
month long series of “Reel Mu-
sic” films celebrating great art-
ists, sound and image, connect-
ing music and culture through
Feb. 16.
Admission is $10. For a com-
plete “Reel Music” film festival
lineup, visit nwfilm.org.