High Country News

"To feel at home, stay at home."

This essays and book reviews in this special issue of High Country News revolve around the question: What does it mean to be at home in the West?

by Jodi Peterson, Sep 13, 2009
'Yes' to desire and an end to fear

Charles Bowden's new book, Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing, reiterates the bad news of today but declares that times are changing.

by Laura Paskus, Nov 08, 2009
A land of subtle beauty: A review of Llano Estacado

The photos and essays gathered in this collection of photographs and essays celebrate the austere beauty of a vast dry landscape.

by Kurt Caswell, Jun 26, 2011
A thin, dry border between heaven and hell

In his anthology, God’s Country or Devil’s Playground, editor Barney Nelson gathers together an eclectic mix of the best nature writing from the Big Bend of Texas

by Jessica Toubman, Sep 13, 2004
A view of the West from on high

In his essay collection Dragons in Paradise, George Sibley reminisces about his years in the funky mountain ski town of Crested Butte, Colorado

by Matt Jenkins, May 30, 2005
An example and an antidote

In Imagination in Place, his new collection of essays, writer/farmer/poet Wendell Berry shares some of his honest wisdom and sharp-eyed observations.

by Kurt Caswell, Jul 13, 2010
Between the body and the world

The creepy glamour of the scientific exhibit Body Worlds 2 – which showcases actual preserved sections of human bodies – never answers the question of how – and where– these people lived

by Michelle Nijhuis, May 29, 2006
Big yellow taxi — in Duke City

Yellow Cab is anthropology professor Robert Leonard’s poetic account of his after-dark journeys as a cab driver in Albuquerque

by N.P. Thompson, Oct 02, 2006
Bucking the stereotypes: A review of West of 98

The anthology West of 98: Living and Writing the New American West assembles the thoughts of 67 Western writers.

by Charles Finn, Feb 20, 2012
California chronicles: A review of New California Writing: 2011

Editor Gayle Wattawa has assembled an anthology of essays in New California Writing: 2011 that should intrigue even people outside the Golden State.

by Tara Rae Miner, Dec 11, 2011