SUNDAY 11/26

Benefit for North by Northeast Community Health Center
Earlier this year, two women—one a doctor, the other a pastor—combined their resources and founded the North by Northeast Community Health Center. The center is open once a week to provide health services at zero cost to underprivileged citizens without health care. This Sunday night, from 5-7 pm, Broadway Books is donating 20% of all their sales to the Center, which is a great thing for many self-evident reasons. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726, 5-7 pm

MONDAY 11/27

Lucy Fur
Lucy Fur (no relation to cartoon classic Kissyfur) is billed as "young and buxom," which certainly helps you get your foot in the door of the publishing world. Her new book, Room With a View, contains 60 self-portraits of the burlesque queen in sleazy motel rooms around the country. Powell's City of Books, 1005 W Burnside, 228-4651, 7:30 pm, free

TUESDAY 11/28

Barbara Sjoholm
Seal Press co-founder Barbara Sjoholm swings through Broadway to read from Incognito Street: How Travel Made Me a Writer, a memoir of her coming of age as an American expatriate in Norway, Spain, and England in the early '70s. Absorbing everything from Borges to the sexual revolution, the experience was centrally formative in transforming Sjoholm into a writer, and it's all chronicled here. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726, 7 pm, free

Lee Montgomery and Diana Abu-Jaber
See My What a Busy Week! pg. 19. Kennedy School, 5736 NE 33rd, 249-3983, 7 pm, free

Nick Bantock
Bantock, creator of the wildly popular Griffin and Sabine illustrated novels (not graphic novels, but conventional stories accompanied by sorta cool, sorta Pier 1-y collages), returns with Windflower, a story whose synopsis includes the phrases "self-discovery" and "one woman's journey." And yes, Wildflower sports over 200 collages, making it a perfect Christmas gift for your stepmother. Powell's at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills, Beaverton, 228-4651, 7 pm, free

WEDNESDAY 11/29

Christopher Kimball
Before I discovered Cooks Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen, my typical domestic cuisine consisted of mac and cheese and Frosted Mini Wheats. But Christopher Kimball and the rest of the Test Kitchen crew provide hundreds of amazing, reliable, and fairly simple recipes in every book they publish. Their Family Cookbook is a massive affair with over 1,500 color photographs and nearly as many terrific recipes. If I had to recommend just one cookbook for any house, this would be it. Powell's at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills, Beaverton, 228-4651, 7 pm, free