GlorylandShelton Johnson278 pages, hardcover: $25.Sierra Club Books, 2009. Like its protagonist, Gloryland is a medley. In a novel that is part memoir, part historical fiction, and part poetry, Shelton Johnson tells the story of Elijah Yancy, a young man with African, Seminole and Cherokee bloodlines. Born in South Carolina on Emancipation Day, 1863, Yancy is […]
Books
Posted inFebruary 1, 2010: 'The environment ... is where we live'
How the West was really won
Savages & Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America’s Road to Empire through Indian TerritoryPaul VanDevelder 352 pages, hardcover: $26.Yale University Press, 2009. Paul VanDevelder, author of Coyote Warrior, digs deeper into the rotten core of the American experience in his new book, Savages & Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America’s Road to Empire through Indian […]
Posted inJanuary 11, 2010: Breakdown
The genesis of the West
Douglas Brinkley’s new biography tells the story of TR
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
A search for meaning in the Pacific Northwest
LivabilityJon Raymond272 pages,softcover: $15.Bloomsbury USA, 2009. If you’ve ever imagined that your search for meaning might finally end at an organic farm in Oregon, or on a summer gig at an Alaskan fishery, or with the sale of your first screenplay, you’ll recognize the characters in Jon Raymond’s short-story collection Livability. Livability is a menagerie […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Creating a precedent for forgiveness
The Crying TreeNaseem Rakha368 pages, hardcover: $22.95.Broadway Books, 2009. The word “forgiveness” conjures up images of long, damp hugs, sobbing and weakness. Our movie theaters, television screens and books are filled with heroes who violently punish evildoers, not people forgiving each other. In real life, our justice system steers clear of reconciliation and dispenses vengeance […]
Posted inDecember 7, 2009: Dueling Claims
Birders without borders
Border SongsJim Lynch291 pages, hardcover: $25.95.Knopf, 2009. “In war, truth is the first casualty.” It’s a quote attributed to the Greek playwright Aeschylus from the fifth century B.C., back when wars were wars, fought on actual battlefields by men in helmets who wielded swords and spears. Novelist Jim Lynch understands this adage, and he also […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
A scientist’s view of change
Of Rock and Rivers: Seeking a Sense of Place in the American WestEllen Wohl267 pages, hardcover, $24.95.University of California Press, 2009. Ellen Wohl shudders when she sees houses built on gently sloping benches at the mouths of mountain clefts. She knows that such sites, with their incredible views, were created by past landslides, and hence […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
The wild home of hope
Rock Water Wild: An Alaskan LifeNancy Lord248 pages,hardcover: $24.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Alaska writer laureate Nancy Lord’s infatuation with that state dates back to a fourth-grade school project. Like so many transplants, she moved to the Far North to reinvent herself. Alaska’s remoteness, its low population density, natural wealth and often-harsh living conditions recall […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
For farmers, small is beautiful
Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of AgribusinessLisa M. Hamilton309 pages, hardcover: $25.Counterpoint, 2009. Few of the authors behind the recent glut of information on — and the impassioned opinions about — our modern food system have done the obvious: Spend time with farmers. But in her new book, Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
‘Yes’ to desire and an end to fear
Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing: Living in the FutureCharles Bowden243 pages, hardcover, $24.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. But as a desert man, I can only say yes to rain. — Charles Bowden Mulling over decades spent reporting on everything from border crimes to environmental destruction to post-Katrina New Orleans, journalist Charles Bowden declares an […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
Still riding the edge
Riding the Edge of an Era: Growing Up Cowboy on the Outlaw TrailDiana Allen Kouris254 pages, softcover: $17.95.High Plains Press, 2009. Diana Allen Kouris grew up on a ranch, riding horseback with her siblings in untamed country surrounded by the ghosts of Indians, mountain men and outlaws. “It could have been a hard way of […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
The diplomacy of water
Water and the West: The Colorado River Compact and the Politics of Water in the American West (Second Edition)Norris Hundley Jr.433 pages, softcover: $24.95; hardcover: $60.University of California Press, 2009. Norris Hundley’s book Water and the West has long stood as the classic account of the epic negotiations to divide up the Colorado River’s water. […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
A life unwound
Blame By Michelle Huneven 304 pages, hardcover: $25.Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Patsy MacLemoore is a hard-partying 28-year-old who managed to earn a Ph.D. from Berkeley but drank herself out of the running for the most prestigious jobs, landing at a middling college in Pasadena, Calif. It’s the spring of 1981 in Michelle Huneven’s latest […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Bordering on injustice
A Glass of WaterJimmy Santiago Baca240 pages, hardcover: $23.Grove Press, 2009. The largest kindnesses sometimes come in the smallest forms. The title of Jimmy Santiago Baca’s first novel, A Glass of Water, is a nod to one such kindness. “Thirst (is) master,” he writes of the parching conditions migrant farmworkers endure. Baca, an Apache/Chicano memoirist, […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Confronting life’s essentials
Every so often, I long to relocate to a metropolis far from my sleepy Oregon hometown and my third of an acre of Douglas firs and screech owls. “Oh, Melissa,” chides a friend used to these yearnings. “Just take a vacation and move your couch.” The desire for change entices us. Those who live in […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Why some men are the way they are
Nine Ten AgainPhil Condon200 pages, softcover: $17.Elixir Press, 2009. Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want ItMaile Meloy240 pages, hardcover: $25.95.Riverhead, 2009. Where The Money WentKevin Canty208 pages, hardcover: $25.Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2009. Three recent books of short stories feature complex but credible characters in relationships tingling with tension. Even as they play on […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
As the crow flies
Crow Planet — Essential Wisdom from the Urban WildernessLyanda Lynn Haupt230 pages, hardcover: $23.99. Little, Brown and Company. 2009. Even though crows are unusually smart, make attentive parents, use tools, can learn to speak and are notoriously playful, they can’t seem to shake their bad reputation. They’re far more “loud, large, and conspicuous” than most […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
Writers of the Native American Renaissance
In Beauty I Walk: The Literary Roots of Native American WritingEdited by Jarod Ramsey and Lori Burlingame395 pages, softcover: $27.95.University of New Mexico Press, 2008. “Appreciation” is a slippery word, especially when applied to culture. More shallow than understanding, but deeper than mere pleasure, you might describe it as knowledge lite. Perhaps that’s why In […]
Posted inAugust 17, 2009: From Corn to Cabernet
Desperate people
The Mechanics of Falling and Other StoriesCatherine Brady227 pages, hardcover: $25.University of Nevada Press, 2009. In 11 deftly rendered short stories, Catherine Brady’s latest book, The Mechanics of Falling, introduces us to fragile people whose precarious lives are unraveling. Most of the book takes place in California, especially in and around San Francisco with its […]