What does survival look like if it comes at the expense of freedom? How can we build safe places in an increasingly unstable world? These questions are at the heart of two new books by authors Leni Zumas and Cleyvis Natera. Zumas’s book “Wolf Bells” tells the story of an intergenerational group home determined to make a space for people who fall through capitalism’s cracks. Natera’s book “The Grand Paloma Resort” tells the story of staff at an exclusive Caribbean resort as they navigate class, race and colonialism. OPB’s Allison Frost spoke to Leni Zumas and Cleyvis Natera at the 2025 Portland Book Festival.

Irish-Canadian author Emma Donoghue is perhaps best known for her novel “Room,” told from the perspective of a 5-year-old boy held captive with his mother. Most of Donoghue’s work, however, is rooted in historical fiction. She frequently writes about characters and perspectives that are often erased from history. Her latest novel, “The Paris Express,” tells the story of a fateful disaster on a French train in 1895. Donoghue spoke to OPB’s Crystal Ligori in front of an audience at the 2025 Portland Book Festival.

The Owyhee Canyonlands area encompasses millions of acres along the Owyhee River on the borders of Oregon, Idaho and Nevada. The land is rugged and remote and beautiful, and efforts to to protect it in some way have dragged out for years. There were pushes for the last two Democratic presidents to designate the area a national monument and most recently, a bill to protect over 1 million acres of the land as wilderness failed in Congress at the end of last year. We traveled to the area and talked to people about the land and the efforts to protect it.

We stopped in Jordan Valley and talked to Mindy Kershner, a lifelong Jordan Valley resident, rancher, and owner of the Ranch Hand Hardware & Mercantile. Then we travelled down to Birch Creek Historic Ranch on the edge of the river to talk to Tim Davis, executive director of Friends of the Owyhee. We spoke to rancher Elias Eiguren on his family’s land in Arock. And then we talked to Reginald Sope, an elder of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes who lives near the head of the canyon in Nevada.