Check out two Oregon State University Press books that have their roots in Portland:
Written for both layperson and professional, Bart King’s An Architectural Guidebook to Portland is filled with history and photos that demonstrate why this city is one of the most admired in the nation. Portland’s civic planning, historic preservation, and overall attractiveness are all explored in detailed profiles of structures ranging from 19th-century cast-iron front buildings to sleek modern skyscrapers. Updated in 2007, King’s book takes the reader on a tour through 250 spots around the city.
Portland author Brian Doyle spent a year in one Willamette Valley vineyard, chronicling a winemaker’s creative and chaotic labor. The result is The Grail: A year ambling through an Oregon vineyard in pursuit of the best pinot nor wine in the whole wide world. A self-described “wine doofus,” Doyle follows closely at the elbow of Jesse Lange, son of Lange Winery founder Don Lange, peppering the young winemaker with questions about the growing of grapes and making of wine. With dry wit and otherworldly patience, Jesse Lange offers his interlocutor a primer on pinot, describing how acres of tiny black grapes are turned into complex and superb wines.
