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CORVALLIS, Ore. - Award-winning Portland author Brian Doyle has written a new book that explores encounters with astounding animals and humans through a series of short vignettes that feature sons and daughters, inebriated robins, Charles Darwin and roasting squirrels, among others.

His book, "Children and Other Wild Animals," has been published by the Oregon State University Press. It is available in bookstores, or may be ordered online at www.osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/children-and-other-wild-animals, or by calling 1-800-426-3797.

Doyle will read from his new book on Tuesday, Oct. 21, at OSU's Valley Library Rotunda. The reading, which is free and open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. The event kicks off the 2014-15 OSU Presss Authors Across Oregon reading series. For more information on the series, visit www.osupress.oregonstate.edu/AuthorsAcrossOregon

Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland. He is the author more than books, including "Mink River, "The Plover" and "The Grail," with its lengthy but descriptive subtitle, "A year rambling & shambling through an Oregon vineyard in pursuit of the best pinot noir wine in the whole wild world" (OSU Press, 2006). His essays have been published in Best American Essays and Best American Spiritual Writing anthologies.

"Children and Other Wild Animals" combines previously unpublished works with vignettes that have appeared in Orion, The Sun, Utne Reader, and other publications. Doyle's trademark, quirky prose has been described as "at once lyrical, daring and refreshing; his essays are poignant but not pap, sharp but not sermons, and revelatory at every turn."

One essay in the new book is "The Creature Beyond the Mountain," which won the John Burroughs Award for outstanding nature essay. It is, Doyle says, his tribute to all things "sturgeonness."

"Sometimes you want to see the forest and not the trees. Sometimes you find yourself starving for what's true, and not about a person but about all people. This is how religion and fascism were born, but it's also why music is the greatest of arts, and why stories matter, and why we all cannot help staring at fires and great waters."