Books

From the HilltopToni Jensen179 pages, softcover: $19.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2010. In From the Hilltop, her first short story collection, Toni Jensen relies on her Métis heritage (a mixed Indian and European cultural group from Canada and the Northern U.S.) to explore contemporary Indian life off the reservation. It is not surprising that her writing […]

Walking Home: A Traveler in the Alaskan Wilderness, a Journey into the Human HeartLynn Schooler272 pages, hardcover: $25.Bloomsbury, 2010. Hoping to gain perspective on his troubled marriage, the deaths of friends, and the vagaries of male middle age, Lynn Schooler (author of The Blue Bear) embarks on a walkabout along one of the wildest stretches […]

Work SongIvan Doig288 pages, hardcover: $25.95.Riverhead Books, 2010. “My train journey had brought me across the Montana everyone thinks of, mile upon hypnotic mile of rolling prairie with snowcapped peaks in the distance, and here, as sudden and surprising as a lost city of legendary times, was a metropolis of nowhere. …” In his latest […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Drowning TucsonAaron Michael Morales330 pages,  softcover: $15.95.Coffee House Press, 2010. “He’d felt safer in the desert than he ever had in his life, as if some outside force were protecting him. But now, in the bowels of the city, he was a stationary target.” That’s Tucson in the 1980s, a city of snowbirds, developers and […]

Then Came the EveningBrian Hart272 pages, hardcover: $25.Bloomsbury USA, 2010. In Brian Hart’s debut novel, a Vietnam veteran, believing his wife died in the fire that destroyed their cabin, goes crazy with rage and remorse, and commits a crime that makes the reader gasp. Bandy, who’s also half-drunk at the time, ends up in jail, […]

War DancesSherman Alexie209 pages, hardcover, $23.Grove Press, 2009. In the title story of War Dances, a World War II veteran tries — and fails — to glorify the dying moments of a fellow soldier. “I was thinking about making up something as beautiful as I could,” he tells the dead soldier’s grandson. “But I couldn’t […]

Going Through GhostsMary Sojourner296 pages, softcover: $25.University of Nevada Press, 2010. Shadows inhabit every corner of Mary Sojourner’s newest novel, Going Through Ghosts — spirits of ancestors and deceased friends, fragments of characters’ souls. The settings — casino coffee shops, riverside benches, buses — are places a Westerner will recognize as haunts of the lonely […]

Another Waythe River Has:Taut True Talesfrom the NorthwestRobin Cody208 pages, softcover: $18.95.Oregon State University Press, 2010. Robin Cody inspired me to buy a kayak. A confirmed landlubber, it didn’t occur to me to become familiar with my local waterways until I read Cody’s eclectic collection of essays, Another Way the River Has: Taut True Tales […]

Imagination in PlaceWendell Berry196 pages, hardcover, $24.Counterpoint, 2010. Wendell Berry, the author of 50 books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, is a farmer who has lived his life in service to “local geography and local culture.” By chance and choice, he tells us in his new collection of essays, Imagination in Place, he has lived […]

The Light In High Places: A Naturalist Looks at Wyoming Wilderness, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, Cowboys, and Other Rare SpeciesJoe Hutto256 pages, hardcover: $24.95.Skyhorse Publishing, 2009. To Joe Hutto, a “romantic scientist,” it seemed that the vast grandeur of Wyoming’s Wind River Range existed “in spite of us,” that “human civilization and technology had proven […]

Voices of the American WestCorinne Platt and Meredith Ogilby; foreword by William Kittredge280 pages, hardcover: $29.95.Fulcrum Publishing, 2009.   A chance conversation at a conference in 2004 launched photographer Meredith Ogilby and writer Corinne Platt on an ambitious journey. They resolved to photograph and speak with 49 “heavy lifters” from across the West, people of […]

Dreaming the Biosphere: The Theater of All PossibilitiesRebecca Reider310 pages, hardcover, $39.95.University of New Mexico Press, 2009. The American West has long been home to grand engineering schemes, with planners and boosters eager to manipulate nature to suit their own purposes. Rebecca Reider’s new book, Dreaming the Biosphere: The Theater of All Possibilities, reveals one […]