If you've ever been to Portland, OR and not visited Powell's City of Books, you have done yourself a great disservice.  Powell's is easily considered one of the greatest bookstores in North America and, like many authors, it just so happens to be one of Chuck Palahniuk's favorites.  Therefore, Chuck has agreed to not only stop by for their upcoming 41st birthday event this Saturday, but will be bringing some goodies to give away and sign.

Here are the details, straight from Chuck's mouth:

A heads up...  Next Saturday, August 25th, the Powell's bookstore is throwing itself a huge 40-something birthday party.  They'll be blocking off streets around the building on West Burnside, in downtown Portland.  There will be games, author appeaances, live music, etc.  They've asked me to come speak, and I proposed bringing gifts for my readers.  Several years ago I recorded a two-disk CD collection of the best stories I'd read on past book tours.  Including "Guts" and the as-yet-unpublished story "Cold Calling."  The studio produced them beautifully, but they've never been for sale.  I've only ever given them to readers who wrote to me.  I'd like to bring 200 sets to the Powell's birthday event and inscribe them for whoever comes to say hello.  It's a chance to get something rare and not otherwise available.

And then here are a few more details:

I'll be at the street fair party, behind the downtown Powell's from 2:30 PM until 5:30 pm, Saturday, August 25th, signing books and giving away 300 sets of the "Tour Stories" CD's.  The store plans to close two blocks of NW Couch Street for the party.  I'll be in a tent designated for book signing.  I'm excited about giving the stories to people, and happy to inscribe them. 

Chuck will be in the tent designated for book signing from 230p until 530p on Saturday, the 25th.  I assume this is first come first serve.  

For more information about the big Powell's event, check out their site.

Within Chuck Palahniuk's 2005 collection Haunted, many fans count The Nightmare Box as their favorite story.  The story is about a box people look into, that always shows the same image, yet drives the viewers insane and to commit suicide.

This story (maybe even more so than Guts) also seems to inspire the most creativity from fans, as evidenced by the slew of YouTube shorts online.  (here, here and here, to show a few) But now someone has taken this obsession up a notch with this amazing portrait.

The above work was painting by Mike Flinn.  Check out his website here.  And here are some words about the work, from the man himself: read more »

In keeping with our trend of profiling some of Chuck's international book covers, this week we look at Poland.  You decide: are these covers ugly, or works of art?  Click each image to be brought to its Gallery page, then rate them and leave your comments.

To see the rest of our Book Covers, check out our Gallery.  And if you have some that are not represented there, send them to submissions@ chuckpalahniuk. net.

Props to MrMarv for sending thse along.

Dayuuuuuuum, Brazil ain't got NOTHING on the Czech Republic.  These are some of the coolest international Palahniuk covers I've seen in a while.

Props to 'Petra' for these ones.  Check out more of these in our Book Covers Gallery, and if you have some that you don't see represented on our site, send them to us at submissions @ chuckpalahniuk. net.

I don't know about you, but that's one of the most different Invisible Monsters covers I've seen yet.  Props to 'Odio' for sending these along.

Check out more of these in our Book Covers Gallery.  And as always, if you have a great international book cover for one of Chuck's books that you don't see on our site already, send them our way at Submissions @ chuckpalahniuk.net.

Check out this short film for the short story Product Placement. This story was featured in Chuck Palahniuk's 2006 novel Haunted.

Link here: http://vimeo.com/17851904

The short was directed and shot by Cailin Yatsko and stars Stewart Kenneth Moore.

Ever wonder what Chuck's books look like in Romania? Wonder no more!

Props to Claudiu Carbunaru for sending these along.

Remember, if you don't see a specific book cover represented in our Foreign Books Gallery, email it to us at submissions@ chuckpalahniuk. net. read more »

It's taken us a little while to officially report on this story, and for that we apologize.  It's a big story that a couple of reporters have already tried to call and contact me about.  The site has no comment on this matter at this time except to say that you can show your support for this issue by joining this Group:

Save Mr. V. Group On Facebook

To recap, about 2 weeks ago, a popular high school English teacher named Greg Van Voorhis was suspended for handing out copies of Chuck Palahniuk's ground-breaking short story Guts out to his 11th grade students.   According to the Gothamist:

That didn't go over so well with school administrators at the Bronx School of Law and Finance in Marble Hill, where the seven-year veteran was quickly reassigned from his classroom duties while the Department of Education investigates.

As most of you know, Guts is a short story which was featured in the March 2004 issue of Playboy and is included as a chapter in Chuck's best-selling novel Haunted.  The story was read live on Chuck's 2003-2004 tours and is so far responsible causing over 75 people worldwide to faint.  We featured such an incident in our 2003 documentary on Chuck Postcards From The Future, and you can read the full story of Guts here.

To read the full article on Mr. V's suspension, go here.

And if you'd like to show your support, check out the Save Mr. V. Group On Facebook. read more »

I'm not sure what took me so long to post something about this.  People have been discussing it on our message board, and it's popping up all over our Twitter page.  In the new 3D horror movie The Final Destination, there is a scene where one of the characters gets his ass stuck to a pool drain.  Obviously, this is very reminiscent of the infamous story Chuck Palahniuk wrote for his 2005 short story novel Haunted, entitled Guts.  

Now, I have not yet seen The Final Destination, but I seriously want to.  I have friends who have checked it out that say it's goofy yes, but thoroughly entertaining and delivers on all its 3D gags.  Yet, even though I haven't seen it, you may be surprised to hear that I actually worked on it in some capacity -- if you count doing a 4 month internship for the production company that produced it, manning the desk and screwing up phone banking, then yes... I guess I worked on it.  Lol.  

During that time, I read the script through a few drafts and incarnations.  So unless they changed something last minute... I know how this scene turns out... and it might surprise you.  But I won't say anymore, as I don't want to give any SPOILERS. read more »