During the two years of pandemic isolation, authors in Oregon had time to write many interesting new books. Many of these books are in time for this year's holiday. Here are some of my favorites—and, shamelessly, a new book of my own.

In the next two weeks, all the author's books I have shown will appear in the Eugene Book Signing Event. The Authors & Artists Fair will host 39 authors at the Lane Activity Center from 10 am to 5 pm on Saturday, December 11. Admission is free. Part of the book sale was donated to the Lane Library Consortium, a non-profit volunteer organization that recently raised $12,000 to help rebuild the burnt-down Blue River library. The event will also exhibit the works of nine local artists.

The following weekend, nine local writers will work in the alleys of the Fifth Street Market Alley in downtown Eugene from noon to 6 pm on Saturday, December 18.

"It's a fact, even if it didn't happen": This is the memoir just published by Ken Babbs "Close Friends: With Ken Casey, Neil Cassadi, the Happy Prankster, and the Grateful Dead" The beginning of "Adventure Together". All memoirs should probably be classified as "factions," and this is nonsense, telling a prank about the long-term friendship between Babs and Ken Kesey. Did Babs really expropriate a tricycle at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, crash it into a pond, and create a prank creed? Babs’ highly readable memories follow the complete arc of the countercultural movement that two literary Kens helped initiate in the 1960s.

Related: Ed McLanahan, "Happy Prank" and Kentucky writer, aged 89

David Wagner may be the most important moss expert in the country, but most of us know that he is an interesting naturalist who published the Oregon Nature Calendar and Eugene Weekly’s "Time Is Up" column. Now, he has collected his books in the Lane County Yearbook, which includes gardening tips, bird watching advice, essays, and scientific observations about the seasons. This book is beautifully illustrated with flowers, ferns, birds, frogs, mushrooms and, yes, moss that he drew with pen.  

Marli Miller, the Eugene geologist who wrote the book "Roadside Geology in Oregon," is back. This time, she has a more readable popular science book, "Oregon Rocks! A Guide to 60 Amazing Geological Sites." This new book is equipped with a large number of color photos and color geological maps, and delves into the prehistory of Spencer Butte, Cape Perpetua, McKenzie Pass and other places.

Crime may not be rewarded, but two dozen novels by Eugene writer LJ Sellers prove that crime writing is possible. This year, her beloved Detective Eugene Jackson faces a puzzling new case that reflects real events. Sellers explained: “When I went to Costa Rica to visit my grandchildren, I finally rescued them from the dangerous cult and walked through the jungle from the hands of armed men. These children live in a terrible environment. Formed the background of the characters in my new thriller "Black Pill"."

Remember the red-haired mother Val in Jan Eliot's "Stone Soup" cartoon? Elliott based this role on a very real Eugene writer Valerie Brooks (Valerie Brooks). Brooks recently published the second part of the mystery thriller trilogy, which tells the story of Angeline Porter, a criminal lawyer who clashed with a Boston mob and hid in Kauai. If the series seems to be numbered in reverse order, don’t be confused. The "Vengeance Trilogy" ranked first, and "Blotted Age 2" is the latest.

With two degrees in environmental studies, Francesca Varela's new novel "Blue Mar" is classified as "cli fi"-not surprisingly, climate novels. This genre sounds frustrating, but Varela is such a talented writer that you will fall for her role. These two lively Latin sisters in the dusty California town will only Gradually realize how dystopian their climate change world is. One of them escaped to Blue Mar, a plastic artificial island located in the Great Trash Belt of the Pacific Ocean, while the other tried his luck in El Salvador, the "paradise" of their grandfather. This book is likely to win more awards than Varela’s last "Sea of ​​Far Stars". In that novel, a girl was kidnapped by aliens and grew up on another planet. When she came back, she found that the earth looked strange.

Former Eugene Register-Guard columnist Bob Welch turned his storytelling skills to biographies of interesting characters - the pole vaulter, the nurse who lost his life in the D-Day invasion, and now in Stevens The famous World War II paratrooper brothers in Steven Spielberg's HBO miniseries "The Band". During an interview with Sergeant. In Dan Malaki in Salem, Welch discovered a turning point in the story. Malaki later established an important friendship with a German soldier in the same battle. The result was " Save my enemy", where we relived the Battle of the Bulge and learned what happened afterwards.

Valarie Anderson tells a different World War II story in her new book "The Last Warning of Pearl Harbor". She has always known that her grandfather ran a radiography office in Honolulu during the Japanese attack. After his death, she found a suitcase in his house full of original documents-including coded information that could prevent the disaster. Years of additional research allowed her to write a complete story surrounding the plot, code, chaos, and personality of what we now call Pearl Harbor Day.

Leigh Anne Jasheway, former Eugene Slug Queen and long-time Eugene Register-Guard humor columnist, has written two dozen funny books on dogs, feminism, politics and table tennis. Her latest "Please forgive me for yelling!" is a series of epidemic blogs focusing on "loud and interesting ideas", mainly about feminism and politics. When she replaces the word "book" with "chest" in a famous quote, you will laugh, as Jorge Luis Borges wrote: "Unless I am surrounded by books , Otherwise I cannot sleep."

For years, you have sneered at Jesse Springer's political cartoons in The Register-Guard, but have you saved them all? Just in time for the holidays, he published "Only in Oregon", a collection of 250 comics from the past 14 years. Springer wisely added comments to each question, so we can accurately recall how confusing these questions are. In retrospect, it is amazing that he was cautious in the cultural wars of timber, taxation, and politicians, and found humor that everyone can appreciate.

There are now more than 6,000 beer bars and craft breweries in the United States. People are so interested in this amazing bitter ingredient hops that Kenneth L. Helphand, professor emeritus of landscape architecture at the University of Oregon, can use a whole book to introduce history. Photo "Jumping Landscape" in Oregon. From 1902 to 1940, Oregon was the country's major grape producer, including Seavey Farm outside Springfield. Every August, thousands of hop pickers—children, women, immigrants, Native Americans—populate the tent cities. Hops is a gorgeous picture book that shows these people in the charming geometric figures of an 18-foot-tall grid.

After serving the Peace Corps in Ghana, West Africa, Dorothy Brown Soper was so fascinated by the people of the Akan tribe that she taught African culture and history in elementary school. Now, she has compiled this knowledge into the middle school student’s epic novel "We Are Akan: Our People and Our Kingdom in the Rainforest: Ghana, 1807". This book tells the daily life of a chief's son and a slave's son who grew up in an era when the declining slave trade in Europe was still a very real threat.

Compared with the tasks undertaken by local Eugene Thomas Warner, keeping Eugene weird is just a small goal. He traveled all over the country, looking for weird places with interesting stories. He described his findings in a light-hearted new book "You Have Been to the Blue Earth in Minnesota: An Alternative Guide to Fifty States." What secret did he reveal about Oregon? The high desert town of Plush is named after the gambling Paiute, who does not pronounce the poker term "flush".

As for myself (William Sullivan), you would think that I will always be busy updating my hiking guide because of the local forest fires. I am, but the pandemic has also given me enough time to complete the third part of my historical novel series about the Vikings. My wife's background is Danish, so I have been writing books about ships unearthed in Scandinavia. The first two involve Norway and Denmark. The latest "Ship in the Woods" tells the story of the Swedish Vikings conquering Russia and besieging Constantinople. This is one of many local books for Merry Christmas.

"Dune" in Oregon: The sci-fi classic "Dune", now on the big screen, inspired by Florence, Oregon

39 authors will sign their books at the Writers and Artists Fair at the Lane Event Center from 10 am to 5 pm on December 11th (Saturday). The following is a complete list, in alphabetical order.

The nine artists will also exhibit their work at an exposition at the Lane Event Center from 10 am to 5 pm on December 11.

$250,000 gift: Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library expands to more Lane County kids

William L. Sullivan is the author of 22 books, including "The Ship in the Woods" and Oregon's updated "100 Hikes" series. Learn more on oregonhiking.com. Want more stories like this? Subscribe to get unlimited access and support local news.