In Ben Ehrenreich’s ‘Desert Notebooks,’ a fragmented style attempts to change the way we think, and write, about the Anthropocene.
Books
Posted inAugust 1, 2020: Infectious Ideologies
‘One hell of a testimony’ about mothers and daughters
Debut novelist Kelli Jo Ford writes a lyrical tale of faith and family.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2020: The Next West
Rudolfo Anaya defined the West like no one else
The writer showed us magic, mystery and where Manifest Destiny failed.
Posted inAugust 1, 2020: Infectious Ideologies
Reimagining nature poetry
Benjamin Garcia’s ‘Thrown in the Throat’ uses plants and landscapes to think past oppressive structures.
Posted inJuly 1, 2020: 'I am here fighting for my life and future children'
A pandemic of both feminism and despair
In Lauren Beukes’ ‘Afterland,’ only women survive. Can they rebuild?
Posted inJune 1, 2020: Dissent at a Distance
When the ‘war on terror’ comes home
‘Acceleration Hours’ is an honest, rare look at American militarism.
Posted inArticles
Go on a literary road trip through the Golden State
From California dreaming to California realities, here are five books to escape with when you’re stuck at home.
Posted inArticles
‘Being in the middle of a story is a really hard place’
Rebecca Solnit on disasters, hope and the chance to reshape the future.
Posted inJune 1, 2020: Dissent at a Distance
The U.S. is closing its doors to asylum seekers
‘The Dispossessed’ follows a family’s harrowing search for safety, and asks what new policies say about the nation’s long-standing ideals.
Posted inJune 1, 2020: Dissent at a Distance
American violence in the time of coronavirus
Author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz puts armed ‘reopen’ protests in their historical context.
Posted inArticles
Perpetual ‘manifest destiny’ on the shores of Santa Monica
A photographer examines westward expansion in tourist-saturated California.
Posted inMay 1, 2020: Lives on Lockdown
Amidst North Dakota’s fracking boom, people keep disappearing
Journalist Sierra Crane Murdoch documents Lissa Yellow Bird’s search for the missing.
Posted inArticles
How Mormon history helps explain today’s public-land fights
Betsy Gaines Quammen’s new book looks at the Bundy family and religion’s connection to the Western landscape.
Posted inApril 1, 2020: Land-Grab Universities
Fighting and winning with Louise Erdrich
The author opens up to Tommy Orange about family, her new novel and the third wave of Indigenous writing.
Posted inArticles
Gift and theft in the far North
‘Floating Coast,’ the first comprehensive history of the Bering Strait, offers a lesson in ecological economics.
Posted inApril 1, 2020: Land-Grab Universities
The endless search for Charles Bowden
A longtime Bowden reader remembers the complicated author through two new books.
Posted inMarch 1, 2020: Predator (Mis)perceptions
Billionaires are changing communities and the wild in Wyoming
Sociologist Justin Farrell explores the ways wealth shapes Teton County and the Western U.S.
Posted inMarch 1, 2020: Predator (Mis)perceptions
The poet on the garbage crew
In ‘Vantage,’ Taneum Bambrick digs for refuse along the Columbia River.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2020: How One Woman Took a Stand Against Tribal Disenrollment and Paid For It
A particular kind of immigrant journey
Tope Folarin’s coming-of-age story recounts the transformations of a Nigerian-American family in Utah.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2020: How One Woman Took a Stand Against Tribal Disenrollment and Paid For It
How Andy Warhol painted the West
The artist challenged ideas of masculinity but fell short of addressing racism.