The pull of instinct, season and desire
The Western Lit Blues
I’m-a-gettin’ tired of living up to my fictional counterpart
The Second Second City
A native Chicagoan who now lives in Montana discovers New Chicago, Mont.
What was and what is
Joan Kane’s work aims to bridge the gap between past and present
Environmental law, Euro-style
Eric Jantz makes some important points in his opinion piece (HCN, 8/16/10). The legal/regulatory framework surrounding our environmental laws truly is “dense and arcane,” and it is difficult for individuals to participate. The deference courts give to agency expertise is sometimes unfounded, and local experience should not be ignored. But Jantz’s suggestion to reduce scientific…
Wait until darkness
The WildingBenjamin Percy272 pages, hardcover: $23.Graywolf Press, October. In his debut novel, The Wilding, award-winning writer Benjamin Percy returns to familiar ground — rural Oregon. After publishing two collections of bold, piercing short stories about the mountain towns and mossy woods of his native state, Percy finds space in The Wilding to fully develop his…
Fall books, from steampunk to conservation science
Here on Colorado’s Western Slope, the nights have become crisper, the days shorter. As summer wanes, there’s finally less hoeing and mowing and weeding to do, and more time to read. A slew of new books await, by Western authors both famous and less well-known. We’ve listed some recent and upcoming picks below, alphabetically by…
How we got to this place
Driving on the RimThomas McGuane320 pages, hardcover: $24.95.Knopf, October. It’s a bit like finessing the knots out of tangled fishing line or fitting numbers into a Sudoku puzzle: Your goal is to see the whole thing in its proper order. But that’s just one reason to keep reading to the end of Driving on the…
Nature and cities in context
Cities and Nature in the American WestEdited by Char Miller288 pages, softcover: $34.95.University of Nevada Press, 2010. In Cities and Nature in the American West, leading environmental historians dissect the relationship between the region’s urban areas and the landscapes in which they are set. In the introductory essay, editor Char Miller, director of the environmental…
Not all doom and gloom
Since I was in the midst of reading Bill McKibben’s Eaarth, I immediately turned to Ray Ring’s article on Tom Bell in your Aug. 30 issue. You included quotes from the “Doomsday Chorus,” including Eaarth. Yes, the first two parts of McKibben’s book are pretty grim, according to his own analysis. He explains very clearly…
Of history and home
The Turquoise Ledge: A MemoirLeslie Marmon Silko336 pages, hardcover: $25.95.Viking, October. The big arroyo has no attachment to the way things are. The arroyo is the space the water and the boulders and other debris pass through in floods, the space that desert animals and I move through. The space that is the arroyo changes…
On the wing
Eerie, whirring calls fill the air on a chilly April morning. Hundreds of sandhill cranes congregate along the edges of Fruitgrowers Reservoir, on the southern flank of western Colorado’s Grand Mesa. Tucked amid cropland and sage-dotted pastures, the reservoir is a crucial rest stop on the birds’ long spring migration from New Mexico north to…
Skipped issue
A heads-up: HCN staffers will be taking a much needed two-week publishing break after this issue to catch up on work and R&R. Look for your next issue on Oct. 11. We’re always flattered by how many folks decide to stop by our Paonia office, but Kim and Mark Schultz of Colorado Springs positively made…
Still Cranish After All These Years
Homo sapiens, evolution and becoming a crane
Taking stock
The Etiquette of Freedom: Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison and The Practice of the WildEdited by Paul Ebenkamp160 pages, hardcover/DVD: $28.Counterpoint, October 2010. Bird CloudAnnie Proulx256 pages, hardcover: $26. Scribner, January 2011. Two Pulitzer Prize-winning Western authors have books coming out in the next few months. Both Annie Proulx and Gary Snyder are taking stock these…
An immigrant is not an immigrant is not an immigrant
Your story on kids who are in the country illegally points out the need for serious reform of our immigration laws (HCN, 8/16/10). I would support a change to citizenship requirements for babies born here, agreeing that the child be granted citizenship only if one of the parents already has it, if for no other…
The sins of the father shall be visited upon the son?
I am always puzzled when HCN‘s feature article (“Young, All-American, Illegal,” 8/16/10) takes up a cause from a humanistic heartfelt perspective while completely ignoring all other perspectives. In doing so, our status as a society dedicated to the rule of law is undermined, ignored and trivialized. As a sensitive and humane person, I am of…
Beyond beefalo
By the end of the 19th century, North America’s many millions of bison were reduced to just a few hundred. They’ve since recovered to around a half million, most raised as livestock and crossbred with cattle. Now conservationists manage over 60 herds, such as the one at the American Prairie Reserve in Montana, to restore…
Daniel Orozco is out of the office
Orozco’s darkly funny short stories flirt with the macabre
Lumbering along, barely
Linking beetle-killed trees to viable markets proves difficult
Road warrior
Ted Conover talks about the West, wanderlust and the ethics of travel
The Terrain of This Ambition
Claiming a place on the literary map of Utah