Oregon Public Broadcasting

Here's another round of staff picks for the week—a look at what we've had on our minds while at our desks and at our homes.

Sarah Rothenfluch (Executive Producer): I spent last weekend in-and-around Newport and, while there, I found a favorite new spot: Yaquina Head. Pay the $7 to drive your car out to the lighthouse and take a tour through the historic building. But also make sure to walk down the many steps to the rocky beach below the lighthouse. I was there on a particularly stormy day and was blown away (almost literally) by the beauty of the huge ocean waves crashing on the rocks around me.

Dave Miller (Host): Dexter's done, for now. On to The Good Wife, from the beginning. I'm six or seven episodes in, and Juliana Margulies still hasn't lost a case. How long can a legal winning streak last? On the top of the ever-growing pile of books on my beside table right now: Jane Goodall: 50 Years at Gombe (she'll be on the show on October 6), and Shards, by the Bosnian-American Portlander Ismet Prcic, who hopefully will be on the show later in the month.

Allison Frost (Senior Producer): This week I listened to what may be the best live jazz I have ever heard. New Orleans native Tim Laughlin is a renown jazz clarinetist and plays once a week or so at Fritzel's in the heart of the French Quarter. During the daytime, I went to back-to-back journalism workshops and tweeted a heck of a lot of the trip!

Julie Sabatier (Producer): I've been absent from the staff picks thus far because I was in Baltimore attending the Public Radio Program Directors Conference, which was a lot more fun than the title suggests! I got to meet some of my radio heroes there, including Brooke Gladstone, co-host of "On the Media." I also got a copy of her book The Influencing Machine from the NPR booth and I've been devouring. It's a graphic novel-style walk through Brooke's views on media history and the elusive nature of objectivity. Needless to say, it's awesome. And I like to think my copy is even more awesome because she indulged my nerdy request to sign it.

Dave Blanchard (Producer): I'm reading a fantastic book by Aimee Bender. She's a brilliant short-story writer (take a listen to her story "The Rememberer" on this Selected Shorts episode—it starts around 43:00), but her first novel left me cold. Her new one, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, however, is fantastic. It's about a young girl who begins to "taste" the emotions of the people who make her food. I thought that was a totally unique concept, until several people told me it's basically the same idea as Like Water for Chocolate. Ah well. Original or not, it's carried off poignantly in Bender's new book, as a nine-year-old girl deals with the overwhelming emotions of the adults in her life long before she's ready for them.

Alex Johnson (Associate Producer): Here's a polar opposite for you: Glee, the Fox television show now in it's third season, and The Prophet, a collection of poetic essays published in 1923 by Kahlil Gibran. I've been enjoying both this week for entirely different reasons. Glee because of the on-screen chemistry between Jane Lynch and Matthew Morrison, and The Prophet because it's like a bible for me, and I try to read it every year. My favorite line is this: "Work is love made visible." Amen.

John Rosman (New Media Intern): After Friday's great segment with Patrick deWitt, I started reading his new novel The Sisters' Brothers. It's both a gripping suspense and an honest portrait of the relationship between brothers. I can't put it down. Between this novel and the segment we are producing on two brothers this Friday, I keep thinking of my own family. Here's a clip from an old standard in our house. This scene used to scare the bejesus out of my older brother, ah the memories.

Kayla Anchell (Intern): I watched my favorite movie for what's probably the millionth time this week. I'm talking about none other than the greatest comedy/romance/action/drama movie of all time: The Princess Bride. It got me thinking about Halloween costumes, strangely enough. Would anyone know who I was if I bought an orange, tarp-looking dress and long blonde hair extensions and went as Princess Buttercup? Probably not. I might do it anyway.