High Country News

'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 brief, interpretive look at the Indian Wars

Michael Blake’s new nonfiction book, Indian Yell, fails to live up to its ambitious subtitle, “The Heart of an American Insurgency,” with its quick tour of 12 battles between the U.S. Cavalry and American Indians.

by Jared Blackley, Apr 30, 2007
A celebration of Cascadia: A review of Open Spaces: Voices from the Northwest

Open Spaces: Voices from the Northwest doesn't quite work as an anthology, but it features some intimate and thoughtful writing about the Pacific Northwest.

by Gretchen Legler, Dec 11, 2011
A life in the wild

Carter Niemeyer's memoir Wolfer is the entertaining story of a government trapper who loves wildlife - especially serious predators like wolves.

by Hal Herring, Aug 21, 2011
A life measured in cordwood: A review of Into the Heat: My Love Affair with Trees, Fire, Saws and Men

Cindy Bellinger's memoir, Into the Heat: My Love Affair with Trees, Fire, Saws and Men, introduces us to a determined, 60-something, chainsaw-wielding Western woman.

by Gussie Fauntleroy, Feb 19, 2012
A once and future abundance

In The Living Shore, food writer Rowan Jacobsen’s interest in the vanishing Olympia oyster leads him to a consuming fascination with threatened coastal ecosystems.

by A.E. Smith, Apr 11, 2010
A parent lost and found: A review of Descanso for My Father: Fragments of a Life

Harrrison Candelaria Fletcher tries to trace his family history -- particularly the life of his father, who died when he was almost two, in his new book.

by Jenny Shank, Sep 02, 2012
A scientist's view of change

In Of Rock and Rivers, Ellen Wohl, a geomorphologist, reads the story behind the Western landscape.

by Valerie Rapp, Nov 22, 2009
A tale of shame and glory in the Southwest

Hampton Sides’ new book, Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West, follows Kit Carson through the bloody history of the 19th century Southwest.

by Jared Blackley, Feb 05, 2007
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