Reviews (1)

Small Town American life by a rare and gifted storyteller
Reading John Quick is true pleasure. He is a natural storyteller. He puts me in mind of men of my grandfathers generation. Laughing, cursing and loving their life and memories they spoke from the center of their beings and and knew they had drawn us closer. It is a delight to find John Quick can both tell a story and share it with us through his gifted writing. ... Read more

Book Description

This is the true story of "Uncle" Nick Wilson.He was a man who not only lived part of his life with the Shoshone Indians but rode for the Pony Express.Wilson, Wyoming is named after him.This book contains many photos and is illustrated with drawings by F. N. Wilson. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

A Grade School Memory
This story was read to me in 4th grade in a small 4 room school
house in Wyoming, just about 60 miles South of the town of Wilson in Star Valley, Wyoming. My teacher read to the class for about 1/2 hour after the lunch recess to calm us down. I have never forgotten this book and at age 60 now am recommending it to a book group of women friends, most I have know for more than 30 years. We will go from the Bay Area of California, to Wyoming near where these events actually happened and review the book. We will go to Wilson, to the little town named after the author.

The book fascinated me as a child and as I have re-read it recently, I know it stirs my imagination and wonder again about the real experiences of this young boy with incredible courage and good luck. At his age I would have loved nothing more than to have done just as he did. Knowing the experiences he had, so very well expressed, I can imagine any child or adult with an active imagination for a life in the "Old West" will dream to have been this "white" Indian Boy. I recommend it as a gift for both young girls and boys to see the past from the perspective of a boy who really did go to another culture and had an incredible adventure. I wish it could of been me!

A great way to explore western history
This book is about my great uncle. Growing up in South east Idaho, it really gave me a lot of insight on my heritage and the area. It is very interesting. Most of the time history books are boring, but not in this case. This book is a real page turner. Reading it seems so real that you can actually laugh out loud and imagine yourself in the great old west! I recommend this book to everyone, not only is it real history, but a great story too!

The book I remember and loved the most from my childhood..
When I was a child in elementary school, 60 plus years ago, one of my favorite teachers used to read to my class for approximately 15 minutes a day out of the book, The White Indian Boy. This only occurred, however, if we were good boys and girls and did all of our work first. It was a great incentive for all of us to do our very best. I remember vividly looking forward to that magical time with great anticipation, as did the rest of the boys and girls in my class.

It was a thrilling depiction of a boy and his adventures with the Shoshone Indians, whom he eventually grew to love. It was a revealing, wonderful story of what life was actually like living among the Indians in that day, and made them, as a people, seem far less fearful to me, as a child, than I had always been lead to believe. I remember being very happy that the young boy eventually made the decision to leave his Indian friends and return to his own family in Utah.

The book that helped me grow up. A wonderful story for boys
While growing up in northern Michigan I would stay on the farm with my grandmother in the summer. We had only kerosene lamps but I would read this book over and over. Every boy dreams of running away from home and this book helped me do it in an imaginary way. How excited I was as I turned each page to see what adventure was in store for "Yagaiki" next.

Wonderfully historical with a sense of storytelling
Elijah Nicholas Wilson was my grandfather and I love to read his book over and over again. His sense of storytelling teaches the person reading about life and history without making it boring. I read this book to my children and I love to recommend it to my friends. We are so very proud of him to this day. I'm proud to call him my grandfather, and my mother instilled the sense of tradition and respect that was so alive in those days, and that we miss so much today. ... Read more

Book Description

"FRANK BARR is an entertaining tale of the exploits of one of Alaska's diminishing population of bush pilots. It is a refreshing look at the not-so-distant past and a pleasant read for a winter's evening." --Tundra Times ... Read more

Reviews (1)

More Than Petticoats - Remarkable Idaho Women
From Sacajawea to silent films, Idaho women have played many unique roles in the development of the Gem State. This volume includes: Sacajawea, Lewis and Clark's Shoshone interpreter, Jo Monaghan, who lived as a man for nearly forty years, Nell Shipman, actress, writer and early filmmaker, along with the stories of ten other Idaho pioneer women.

Sacajawea
Eliza Hart Spalding
Eliza Spalding Warren
Louise Siuwheem
Jo Monaghan
Jane Timothy Silcott
Polly Bemis
Kitty Wilkins
May Arkwright Hutton
Emma Russell Yearian
Dr. Minnie Howard
Margaret Cobb Ailshie
Nell Shipman ... Read more

Reviews (15)

Good Book
Teresa Jordan's Riding the White Horse Home is appropriately subtitled A western Family Album. Her book explicitly describes life on her family's cattle ranch and her experiences growing up in Iron Mountain Wyoming. Through her book and family's experiences, I was able to understand and know my own ancestors better. I have been on Wyoming cattle ranches but no experience I have had at the family reunions on dad's cousin's ranch in Evanston compares to the stories Teresa Jordan tells. My father was born and lived in Wyoming until moved to Midvale Utah as a teenager. Riding the White Horse Home has special meaning for me because it helped me visualize and understand what it is that my father has been telling me about the hard work done on a ranch in Wyoming. I now understand the work my ancestors did. My great grandparents were ranchers in Wyoming. I have relatives that still call the cattle ranches of Wyoming home. These relatives raise cattle on land that has been in my family for generations just as Teresa Jordan lived on the land her great grandfather originally owned. The book was as entertaining as it was informative. The life of a rancher is revealed and understood as Jordan tells her behind the scenes story of this dying American subculture. Ranching is for people who love being outside and caring for animals. Satisfaction is what drives a ranchers life, ranchers don't get rich quick but they do love their work. The book is the memories and experiences of the author and her life growing up as a cattle rancher's daughter in Wyoming. It begins with her earliest memories of ranch life, to her wedding, which was held in the community house in town. She tells about the shameful feelings she had of the ranchers life when she moved into town to begin elementary school. As well as the pride she felt recalling the lives and accomplishments of her grandparents and especially her mother the ranchers wife. Jordan dedicates each chapter to telling the story of a different relative or other significant person in her life and the influences they had. She pays a special tribute to her great-grandmother Nana in the opening lines of the book and recalls the lessons she learned from her. She walked with young Teresa picking up Indian relics and teaching her how to look for them. Jordan's book in many ways is the story of my life and your life. There is nothing extraordinary about her story, just that it is hers, everyone has something to say, the difference is that Teresa tells her story better then most. She successfully intertwines the lives of the people with the land surrounding them and what the sum of these influences has done to her. She is unique in her honesty and clarity. She tells her family's story of survival and day to day life. For me the story was real. It is the history of a dying people and the cowboy culture. The death of Teresa Jordan's mother caused great sorrow to enter her life and sent her in to a long period of mourning and soul searching. Teresa was away at college when she died, her death triggered a sort of return to her old way of life. She left school for a period of time in which she worked on the ranch she grew up on. In her youth, her experiences with the ranch were observational. Often times she became part of the stories she had heard, but hearing them so many times they became her own. As an adult, she returned to live the experiences she heard so much about. She returned to work on a friend's ranch during calving season, because that is when the real work is done. This was to be therapy for her broken heart and a way to prove to herself that she could do it. Her mother played an integral part of her life, it was a part that she did not fully recognize until it was missing. She grew closer to the father she loved as they helped each other through the pain of death and healing process. This is the white horse home she rode home. She went home to land she loved and is now telling its story.

Learning to See
Riding the White Horse Home is appropriately subtitled "A Western Family Album." In it, Teresa Jordan explores her family's history as cattle ranchers in the late nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth. She compares the life she has lived to the land from which she originated through anecdotal snippets of her ancestors' lives, searching out the "unconformities" in her history and linking herself to her family's past. Jordan grew up surrounded by generations of family living together on a ranch in Wyoming. She begins the book by describing her experiences walking with her great- grandmother on the rugged land, awestruck by her almost magical ability to find arrowheads and crinoids: "It's was a matter of looking, she said, of learning to see." By writing the history of her forebears, Jordan looks into her own life, learning to see who she is. She speaks of a troubled time when she was sorely in need of reviewing her life, "It was then, I suppose, that I first started trying to excavate the unconformities of my life that connect my heritage with who I am now, that I began to learn how to see." Her great-grandfather J.L. came to the land from the eastern Untied States to carve out a place for his family in the temperamental Western soil. From him sprang a procession of proud cattle-ranchers whose indomitable spirit helped them break the land like a stubborn colt is broken for riding. Jordan describes the curious, continuous war between the necessity for self-sufficiency in such an isolated setting and the people's need for community. Early in her life she strove for the same independence her grandfather did: "'I kill my own snakes,' Sunny was wont to say, 'and bury my own dead.'" So, too, she describes the other men of her family: "I believe it comes directly from the primitivist urge that glorifies man alone and makes him believe he should be able to succeed entirely by himself." Jordan boarded with relatives in the city when she was young, and there was introduced to the urban prejudice against being from a rural community. She struggled with this for years, trying to become her own individual, distinct from the provincial taint of her upbringing and yet at the same time like her mother, who "had chosen to be fully herself. Early on, she had decided not to make sacrifices she couldn't make willingly; from that authentic core she was able to marry and mother free of martyrdom and guilt." Midway through her college career her mother passed away, and with that extra support gone, she writes, "Now I have to confront how scared I am to go on alone." She took a semester off college and worked on her senior project studying the history of the American West and found the sense of community and belonging that she had been searching for, right back where she had started: "My mother was dead and the ranch was for sale, but in the study of the American West, I had found a way to come home." Later in life she returned to the wilds of her home for her wedding, and the everyone in the entire area lent a hand to make the event possible, from digging the barbecue pit to hanging the decorations. She comments, "For a hundred years, the community worked because its people had been tied by land and labor and shared destiny. . . . I left Iron Mountain half by choice and half by necessity. I returned because I needed healing." She found the healing that she needed in the land that she loved. That sense of welcome hominess colors all of Jordan's writings about her family. They seem as familiar as the uncle at one's family reunion who puts whoopee cushions on Grandma's chair or the cousin who hides in the corner reading a book. Her ancestors have the same commonalities and quirks that everyone does. Her writing gives the West an enchanting and realistic immediacy, like her description of the calving season: "We come in each evening splattered with mud and milk and manure, stained with blood and amniotic fluid, stinking of afterbirth. It's hard to convey the sheer satisfaction of it all." She holds back nothing from her past, recording even her prayers for a broken bone so that she could prove her strength and immortality like the rest of her family. Riding the White Horse Home is a charming and thoughtful piece of writing: a bouncy pickup ride through the years of a young woman's life in rural Wyoming.

Great book with a deeper meaning
Jordan's book was much more than ranching and her life, she tells us about her feelings and thoughts that are associated with her life events. The reader becomes indulged in her feelings are can feel empathy for her. This book is a down to earth, real life story that is worthy of reading by most people.

It's a great read and good therapy all in one.
I thought, "This will be a nice distraction." Boy, did I underestimate this book. Ms. Jordan takes you with her through her life and her relatives' lives. You feel the draw of the west and the power of the Wyoming wind. Getting caught up in the struggles of the various generations, and Ms. Jordan's, sheds light on your own life. As Ms. Jordan heals, the opportunity to resolve one's own conflicts seems more possible. This is a wonderful escape and marvelous therapy all rolled into one.

A great book about the west, focusing on women's experiences
I have really enjoyed this book. It's rare to get such an intimate view of ranch life, and especially of the women who made/make their lives out West. Teresa Jordan is a terrific writer. I admire her spare, evocative prose. This book should not be overlooked in the current craze for memoirs. ... Read more

Book Description

In 1987, John Rember returned home to Sawtooth Valley, where he had been brought up. He returned out of a homing instinct: the same forty acres that had sustained his family’s horses had sustained a vision of a place where he belonged in the world, a life where he could get up in the morning, step out the door, and catch dinner from the Salmon River. But to his surprise, he found that what was once familiar was now unfamiliar. Everything might have looked the same to the horses that spring, but to Rember this was no longer home.

In Traplines, Rember recounts his experiences of growing up in a time when the fish were wild in the rivers, horses were brought into the valley each spring from their winter pasture, and electric light still seemed magical. Today those same experiences no longer seem to possess the authenticity they once did. In his journey home, Rember discovers how the West, both as a place in which to live and as a terrain of the imagination, has been transformed. And he wonders whether his recollections of what once was prevent him from understanding his past and appreciating what he found when he returned home. In Traplines, Rember excavates the hidden desires that color memory and shows us how, once revealed, they can allow us to understand anew the stories we tell ourselves. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The world changes, and the world changes us
Reading this book, you get a sense of wonder at the great distance we've managed to carve between ourselves and the natural world. Traplines re-invests significance in the things we take for granted -- from the smallest gestures to the extinction of whole species. It is breathtaking, sad, funny, angry and peaceful, all at once. This is the story of how we got here today, and how we will reckon with that in the future.

A Trustworthy Narrator
I am awestruck at Rember's ability to seamlessly string together opposing topics and events of his life. Traplines gives the reader a violent shove out of his or her comfort zone immediately, challenging any preconceived ideas and providing new insight about subjects such as death and nuclear war. It's not often that I read a memoir that teaches, while maintaining the trustworthiness characterized by the style.

No matter where you live...
...you should read this book. The setting is Idaho's Sawtooth Valley, but the lessons are universal. It's about finding a place in the world and making it your own...about how place affects who we are...and about finding peace of mind in a world that is all too transitory. On top of all that, the book is beautifully written. Rember is one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking authors you'll ever encounter. Do yourself a favor and read this book. You'll find it a welcome respite from today's headlines. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

First rate account of an extraordinary life.
Jo Ann Roe has written a magnificent book, adding considerable information and insight on Ranald MacDonald. In addition to the biographical content, she added valuable scope by describing and explaining the context, forinstance the Japanese forces at play at the time of MacDonald's arrival,the gold rush in Australia and British Columbia, etc. Thanks to her livelystyle, Ranald MacDonald becomes very present to the reader. It is aremarkable historical research. ... Read more

Book Description

Sandra Tsing Loh, a self-described neurotic, nonachieving, downwardly mobile “Dumpy,” has started to come out of denial over the fact that she does not live in Provence. Not only does she not live in Provence, she doesn’t even live in a nice part of Los Angeles. This upper-lower-middle-class suburb in the sun-swept grid of the San Fernando Valley, consistently ranked one of the worst places to live in America, whose night sky is flamed by a million fast-food neon signs and whose streets are chockablock with carnicerias, taquerias, and pupuserias, will, she’s pretty sure, never be Provence.

In A Year in Van Nuys, we find Sandra, an obscure writer, blocked at page 100 of her Great American Novel — the one that, when finished, will bring her fame, fortune, and the requisite country house in Provence. She’s 35 and she has eyebags like Bert Lahr, a too-rich, too-thin sister who torments her about her lack of initiative, and a $300-an-hour Malibu therapist. She writes for a failing women’s website — Amelia.com — makes a disastrous appearance on CNN, entertains a network’s idea about making a sitcom of her life, especially her eyebags, and watches new and old acquaintances alike succeed wildly at various pursuits. And this is merely the tip of the iceberg of a year in Sandra’s life. Divided by season — The Winter of Our Discontent, Spring Without Bending Your Knees, Summer Where We Winter, and Fall of Our Dearest Expectations — Sandra’s narrative charts a hilarious course through the anti-Hollywood, a morbid inferno that none other than Robert Redford called a “furnace that could destroy any creative thought that managed to creep into your brain.”

The result of this journey? Not thinner thighs, smoother skin, or a kind of space-age Zen Buddhist acceptance. (Notwithstanding the fact that a wise [gay] man notes that even Madonna has an inner Van Nuys.) No, the true grail turns out to be, unbelievably enough, Maturity. Which coincides, sadly, with the official end of Youth. Which, after a brief mourning period, turns out to be an odd relief for Sandra. After all, when one is no longer burdened by Youth, or Promise, or Potential, or even worldly Interest, a writer finally finds . . . the rush is over. Sandra has all the time in the world. And on a sunny blue-sky morning, a story begins to occur to her — of a 35-year-old, with Bert Lahr eyebags, who was blocked in the course of a Great American Novel in a colorful, tattered little outpost called Van Nuys . . . ... Read more

Reviews (29)

Sandra's Really Having A Bad Day......................
Sandra's really having a Bad Day, in fact, she's having a Bad Year! Sandra's just turned 36 years old, has eye bags, and is no longer Young, Hip, and Fresh. If she feels this bad at 36, I wonder what's she going to be like if she makes it to 46 years old. Sandra's a writer trying to write that great American novel, but she's got writer's block. She also writes for a failing women's website, and has a TV sitcom based on her life that's due out soon but it looks like it's a failure already. She's neurotic, a mess and quickly becoming a non-achiever. She hopes to make "Haggard" an admired term of endearment in LA.

Well, reading this book is like an adrenaline rush. Most of this book was very entertaining. There were some very funny chapters I could easily relate to. Sandra has a lot to say, and where she gets all this information & ideas from, I don't know. It's amazing! I found myself caught up with her and rushing right along with her to the end of the book. She looks at life in a crazy, and different sort of way.

I think Sandra has only begun to express herself, and there's lots more to come in print from her. Let's hope so. She's funny, crazy, and a delight to spend an evening with. Recommended!

Funny, but not overwhelmingly funny
I have taken an interest in Sandra Loh's writing for a combination of reasons, including that I met her when she was a freshman, that I took a class with her brother, and that I've heard her say some very funny things on NPR. While she can be hilarious at times, at other times her absorption in "The Valley" leaves me yawning a bit. Although a native of Southern California I was born in the other (the San Gabriel) valley, and have never lived in the San Fernando valley. Although I "get" all the local references I don't find them all raucously funny; I can imagine readers unfamiliar with Southern California being completely lost while trying to understand some of her jokes. This latest work starts off with a strong focus on "The Valley" that I didn't find very engaging. Midway through it transitions to a more universal consideration of the perils of aging and the abandonment of youthful expectations and becomes much funnier; it is also poignant at times. This book is amusing and worth reading, but don't go in with excessive expectations.

IT'S WAS FUNNY; BUT NOT i'M ROLLING, LIKE LEAD TO BELI EVE
iT IS A FUNNY TAKE ON LIFE ABOUT A 36 YEAR OLD. iT TELLS ABOUT HER LIFE AND HER CONSTANT LEAPS AT FAME(THOUGH SHE DOESN'T THINK SHE'S YOUNG ENOUGH).

A lot of fun!
I wasn't sure I would like this book when I first started it -- a bit too "self-consciously cool" for my taste. But I'm glad I read it all the way through. It was very fun, particularly for anyone from LA and/or involved with the entertainment industry or writing.

I am passing it along to my best friend (a writer and film maker), and would recommend it to anyone who doesn't take life too seriously. And anyone who has eye bags. :)

Parochial
Saying that it's parochial and esoteric and only giving four stars doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it and that I don't buy every Loh. The ideal reader, however, for whom this would be a five+++
would be a female writer who lives, or has lived, in Los Angeles, watches television, and has read Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence." Not qualifying on any of the above,I missed some of the cultural references and some brilliant satirical points were lost on me. The deficiencies are mine, not Loh's.
It does not have a plot in the usual novelistic sense, except that it describes the events of a year. Some of the essays or anecdotes, such as the account of her relationship with a WEB magazine are linked. Her relationships with her husband and sister form leitmotifs. It is a collection of self-deprecating humorous pieces of the type one reads in in syndicated newspaper columns by such people as David barry or the late Irma Bombeck.
She doesn't succeed in making Van Nuys sound all that bad. I've been there once and thought it was quite nice. ... Read more

Book Description

As America, carried along by the expanding rail system, moved westward in the nineteenth century, few occupations seemed more exciting or romantic than that of railroad engineer. And in the mountains and plains of the West, long hours, backbreaking labor, bitter temperatures, and faulty brakes were the crucible in which the best of the early railroaders were formed: only the most dedicated and skilled men passed the tests the narrow-gauge lines of Colorado meted out. In Goin' Railroading, Sam Speas tells the story of his father, Sam Speas Sr., who left Missouri in 1883 to become an engineer in Colorado, and recounts his own experiences and those of his brothers and fellow railroaders on the Colorado and Southern Railway, from the golden era of the narrow-gauge lines in South Park to the final days of steam power on the Front Range and the coming of the diesel engine. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Introduction to Hands-On Steam Railroading
This is a reprint of a Colorado and Southern engineman's life story. Although the book is very readable, you won't find much of the "romance of the rails" here - just hard work and men trying to get a job done in often dangerous circumstances.

It's a good introduction to steam-era railroading for those who are too young to remember, and it will revive memories for those who do. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Captures The Soul Of The Logger & Decline of the Industry
They say write about what you know...LeMonds knows the soul of the past and modern logger and writes with as unpretentious style as I've seen in a long time. He uses the language (always loggers...never lumberjacks) and shares with the reader the language and techniques of everything from falling, bucking, setting chokers, to trucking the logs. Furthermore, he does it based upon the real-life experiences of his family. You learn how they used to rig a spar tree and what went through the climbers mind as he accomplished this task 150-200 feet in the air. LeMonds also shares the future of forestry (hand-seeding, herbicides, fertilizer & thinning) to move the life span of high-productive crops like Douglas Firs from hundreds of years to perhaps as little as 35 years as well as what the modern equipment does now and probably into the future.. Perhaps you might find the short chronology of the work history of each of his family members in the logging business too detailed but it's more than worth the wonderful stories and perspectives that go with them. LeMonds acknowledges the scars on the landscape of the past but also the enduring scars on these tremendous men who contributed so much to this Country's development of the 20th century. I don't think one could ask for a more balanced view of this industry and have it written with such class. This is the best book I ever expect to read about this subject, which is so dear to my heart having been raised in a nearly identical community in Southern Oregon. Today I ordered a second copy to send to a dear friend still working in the woods.

Deadfall, an honest account of a changing industry
James Lemonds peels away the Bunyonesque macho image that has been falsely hung on the loggers of the Northwest and shown them as they are; broken down, disabled and discarded by the industry that exacted a terrible toll on both the workers and the forests.
Anyone wanting to research the human cost the industry extracted should start with this book. Death and disabilty rates beyond the range of nightmares were considered standard and acceptable, simply because the carnage took place outside the public view.
The hard work, honest efforts and caring that the workers brought to the job were repaid with lack of respect and now, lowering wages, no job security and disdain from the general public.
As bad as it is in Lemonds description, the list at the end of the book does not include all the co-workers of any current or former loggers that I have talked to who have read this book, nor co-workers of mine, who were killed on the job. The toll suffered by the workforce was at least equal to that suffered by the forests.
Lemonds tells the story in an even-handed, personal way through his extended family and community. This is a must-read book by any student of Northwest culture of the past century.

Sacrifices past, present and future
Logging in America's Northwest, an industry and occupation which arouses strong passions and polarizing viewpoints.

Jim LeMonds, though not neglecting the emotional and substantive areas of contention, focuses primarily on the human contribution and in some cases sacrifices of the loggers themselves.

This book should be read by anyone with even the vaguest interest in forest management and environmental issues. Although he is from a logging family, I feel that the author has been exceedingly fair in his description of todays industry and what the future holds for this industry and more importantly for logging communities.

To me the efforts and accomplishments of the people featured in this book, and the many thousands like them, are what has made our country great. It is ironic that their contibutions and in some cases sacrifices have not received the recognition that they are rightfully due.

Buy this book, regardless of your political viewpoint on the logging industry, and celebrate the spirit that has enabled all of us to enjoy the many privledges of being Americans. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

"Prisons are hard places to get into and harder yet to get out of," writes Robert Ellis Gordon as he takes you on a remarkable eight-year journey into the Washington State corrections system.

As a writing teacher, Gordon had the unique experience of gaining access to the darkest realms of Washington prisons while still being free to walk away from penitentiary confines at the end of the day. His account is aided by essays and stories contributed by six extraordinary prison students - works that give this book an unforgettable edge. Together, Gordon and his students provide revealing glimpses of this vast secret-laden subculture of incarcerated individuals, which nationwide comprises more than two million U.S. citizens.

Here is a gallery of portraits of prison life, from the female guard who tantalizes male inmates with her sexuality to the terrified young fish trying to stave off other prisoners. These stories are jarring, harsh, compelling. The Funhouse Mirror provides an inside look at the prison system we often ignore, yet only at society's peril. This uncommon book is a significant addition to the literature on American penitentiaries. It is destined to help alter the terms of the debate about one of the great national problems of our time.

"In this memoir about teaching writing in prisons, we get a strong whiff of the fear, degradation, and violence that characterize daily life inside these institutions. What sneaks up on us is the character of Robert Gordon. The author's sustained act of charity, his years' long act of hope, is as striking as the honesty and bravery behind his report." --Barry Lopez, National Book Award Winner ... Read more

Reviews (25)

A Gripping Collection of Prison Stories
The Funhouse Mirror, Robert Gordon's second book, is searing, funny, bitter, passionate and brilliant - a gripping read. Gordon, who taught writing in Washington State prisons for almost a decade, has collected a half dozen works of fiction and non-fiction by his students - including murderers and rapists - and interspersed his own commentary and stories. The inmates' work is stunning on two levels: the technical proficiency of their writing and the combination of brutality and humanity that they contain. The quality of their prose is presumably a tribute to Gordon's skill as a teacher and writer, which is reflected as well in his own essays and fiction. But it is the stories themselves that hold the reader's attention: stories of the countless gross and petty brutalities of prison, told with a clarity and insight that many more accomplished writers lack. Yet these stories brilliantly demonstrate the remarkable survival of basic human instincts in a dehumanizing institution. Gordon's book is ultimately but subtly political: he references only in passing the fact that the educational program that brought him into the prisons was eliminated as part of prison "reform." This is a short book, but one that will haunt you with the profound questions it raises about our prison system.

A Terrific Collection of Prison Writing
I started reading The Funhouse Mirror up while I was waiting for a connection in an airport. I got so absorbed in it that I almost missed my plane. It is a collection of stories by prisoners in Washington State. Their pieces are remarkable, but what really makes the book are the interspersed commentaries and stories by the editor, Robert Ellis Gordon. Gordon spent several years working in the prison system as a writing teacher, and the prisoners who wrote these stories were his students. While the prisoners' stories are good, Gordon himself is a far more accomplished and vivid writer. Reading Gordon's own pieces really brought home to me the hell that is our prison system, and the difficult moral and emotional problems that it poses. This is a wonderful, gripping, depressing book that I recommend to anyone who wants to learn about what our prisons are really like.

A Daring Refelction
Unlike most books I read, I was able to meet with the author of The Funhouse Mirror, Robert Ellis Gordon, on a few occasions. He had published his book through Washington State University Press, and a friend of mine was trying top help him distribute it to a wider academic audience. Knowledgeable, soft spoken and generous, Robert gave me a stack of his books on the promise that I would speak to colleagues and instructors in the Massachusetts area while on a 5 week seminar at Amherst College.

It went over well with fellow teachers at the seminar, which happened to be entitled "Crime, Punishment and Politics" and was led by Professor Austin Sarat. The book contains stories and essays by Gordon reflecting on his years spent as a teacher of creative writing in the Washington State prison system. Several other portions of the book contain the writings of his students in that setting as well.

The book is pure honesty. Sometime brutally so. Prison is not a fairy tale, and there is virtually no way the reader cannot be shocked and moved by the straightforward manner in which prisoners discuss their life there. Prison rape, the way in which sex offenders are treated by both other criminals and the state, and the peculiar pecking order society that has formed behind those prison walls, all of which is largely invisible to the rest of us, Gordon and friends make visible in the most meaningful way.

When I recommended it to one of my high school students, I was very clear about what the book entailed, and, though she had been a victim of violent crime, she decided she wanted to read it anyway. It was painful. She had to stop reading it several times to refocus and adjust. But when she had finished, she wrote one of the most brilliantly cathartic journal entries I had ever read. That's the kind of the power this book contains.

We are largely a throwaway society, in material goods, and sometimes, in human beings, and the 2 million Americans currently behind bars get very little consideration from the public at large when it comes to their conditions or future. The Funhouse Mirror doesn't let us forget that. It's not that Gordon is overly sympathetic towards prisoners. As he has publicly admitted, there are many who, quite simply, have to be there; he doesn't want them on the outside with the rest of us. But at the same time, I don't think he believes that prisoners have nothing to contribute to society, or that their ideas aren't worth noting and thinking about. And in that manner, he is one of the few authors who has dared to give them something of a voice outside the walls of thir imprisonment.

We've gone to great pains and expense as a society to incarcerate these individuals, and in the course of our daily lives, not much opportunity or desire to think about them. Robert Gordon's The Funhouse Mirror is that opportunity.

Merging Reflections
This book allows the reader to enter the worlds found in prisons in ways not encountered in other books on the topic. It is truly extraordinary to have the voices of this diverse group all somehow merge together to reflect aspects of our common humanity. I believe this quality in the writing by the prisoners could only happen with the wise guidance of an immensely skilled teacher and understanding person. Robert Gordon must be someone who sees and cares about the lives of others yet does not fall into the trap of becoming overly sentimental about the ironies and cruelties encountered in learning about and working with this group. Gordon manages
to lead the readers on a compelling journey that will expand their knowledge and continue to influence their thinking.

Gordon's own writing a bit clumsy, but noteworthy book
It is extraordinary the way American prisons are run - 'inhumane' is only the first word to come to mind. Although this book is essentially Gordon gesturing towards himself as somehow offering the saving grace of creative writing to those unlucky enough to be incarcerated, there is still plenty here to interest even those who are only rarely interested in the subject of prison life. It is clear that convicted felons do better when they are permitted to get themselves an education they can use when they are released, while those who aren't going to be released can nevertheless gain a great deal just by being treated as thinking human beings. I just wish the author weren't constantly trying to make us *look* at himself, as he is a bit pretentious and sounds like a thoroughly tiresome teacher. Whereas the people around him were so very interesting, and reading about them, their own words, makes for a compelling experience. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Testosterone + teen angst + massive psychedelics = messed up
Kids will do these things. I did some, but as my dad said, "You had at least half the sense god gave celery." so I stopped when it got stupid and bizarre. Just kicked it. That whole Deadhead scene, all the concert thing - wasn't real. Bunch of people going nowhere, amusing themselves to death too literally. Oh, I liked the music, some of it.

Thing is, that 15-21 are crucial years for forming character, patterns of action, belief systems and personality for most. Adolescence is hard enough. Taking massive amounts of hallucinogenic drugs during that time is going to have serious effects.

Psychedelics can be useful. It's true what Norberg says about them at the end. But they can really weird people into orbit too. That includes some of those who researched them. Check out John Lilly, Mr. "Center of the Cyclone" did he turn into a blastoff boy or what? I've met and known well some of those Grof worked with or taught at some point. They vary a lot.

Anyway - I know that kids will always be kids and do stupid things. It's their nature. This book is pretty accurate about what to expect.

Me? Strangest thing for me was to love Mozart when I listened to it on LSD. Just wonderful.

Brutally honest, a real sleeper book
Really great book, which made me laugh, cringe and think. It has been many years since my year of living dangerously at 17. I was less into mellowing agents than he, never liked pot or hash which dulled my mind too much. But I loved LSD, peyote and psylocibin. Yes, I did. Had some wonderful experiences from dying and becoming one with the light being-ness to seriously spicing up dinner and Christmas with my family. Quite a thing to see my heavy-duty dad get up from the table, hop and scream for joy at the ceiling from a pure contact high. I never dared to suggest we do it together, but we probably could have.

I also had some stellar bad times that seared my soul, never to return to what I was before. I too wonder what I might have been. But I don't regret. No, I don't.

Altogether it left me aching for the perfection of the wonder at the peak. The myth of Tantalus speaks fairly well for me. My life since has always been colored by the knowing that I can never slake that thirst, nor can I ever feel I may not drown someday should I try to drink of that spring or that I might not drown if I do not. As Maharaj Ji (Ram Dass' guru) said, LSD can take you to the room with god for a short time, but then you must leave.

Reading his book, it is hard to imagine someone intentionally returning to the level of paranoia which he did, and which it seems so many others did also. My lord what dedication! That's one thing that got me. After my first 6 months, things got tres` weird and I didn't like that anxious feeling at all. I kept at it through habit, and because it can be so goddam FUN and profound, then just stopped when I left home on my motorcycle and never did it again.

Psychedelics often massively inflate ones sense of self importance in a peculiar way, which Sheldon is honest enough to speak of in his book. Few former heads do. Most simply animate their inflation instead, making those around them subtly or not so subtly uneasy with them, particularly when they combine it with addle-pated notions. I have known, since my teens, quite a few who blew out on that course. I won't bore you with those I have known who didn't make it so well, some dead, some flipped, but they are there. I will say though, that far more people went down from unsafe sex, or stupid violence untouched by drugs, or from alcohol than from LSD or pot.

I still meet people, 28 years later who want to trip with me. People still know, after all these years. They can sense it if they get close to me. I consider it once in a great while.

Most of those I deal with now never have used such things and never will. They are, many of them, stellar people whom I respect greatly. But it is hard to never speak about such things, and I cannot do so with them usually.

Good book, and an unusual one in this time. So, thanks to Mr. Norberg for writing it. A surprise, really worth reading.

Entertaining, educating, and thought-provoking
Confessions is a worthwhile read for anyone interested themes of spiritual awareness, social acceptance, dysfunctional families, and the process of becoming a self-supporting adult. In 352 entertaining yet sometimes repetitive pages, Norberg describes in detail his journey from a gifted yet angry young man to a full-time drug dealer to a substance-free meditation practitioner. He loosely ties the phases of his life, beginning with early childhood, to seven principles of Chinese philosophy and medicine (wood, fire, earth, metal, water, and yin and yang). The autobiography then concludes with two short chapters written from the perspective of someone who has tested the limits of society and themselves and wishes to share their wisdom

Confessions of a Dope Dealer is as much of a cautionary tale as it is a drug user's manual. The moral of this tale is that drugs are a seductive yet short-lived and harmful path to self-awareness. A great summer read for anyone with an open or curious mind.

Aims to Spark Dialogue
This isn't normally the type of book that I choose to read, but after seeing the author's one-man theatrical performance of this autobiographical piece I decided to check it out. The book tells the story of a young man coming of age in the drug-culture of the late 70's and early 80's. The story is fun, engaging, and at times ultimately disturbing. At the end of the book the author reflects on his experiences, choices, and [mess] ups, and how they affected his life. It is not until the end that you get the impression that this book is meant to be a jumping-off point for discussion of our current drug-policy, and how it affects society as a whole. The author makes some keen observations, and I appreciate his approach to this discussion by bringing the subject matter into literary and theatrical formats. The one-man show is followed by a brief question and answer period which is a great way to spark a dialogue on this subject matter. Although some might perceive this book as a glorification of drug-dealing, it is ultimately an honest look at one man's experiences, one which left me with no illusions about the realities of this illicit profession.

Sheldon Norberg speaks the word
I really enjoyed reading Confessions of a Dope Dealer. I picked it up and finished it in only two days. I had been looking for a good memoir about growing up as a drug dealer, and with a title like this, how could I go wrong? What I found was a curiously honest book about a young man growing up in the aftermath of the sixties, under the shadow of Raygunomics. A wonderfull read for anyone interested in dope, dealing, the Dead, or the eighties. ... Read more

Book Description

The First Ranger is history, told by the men who lived it.It is the simply stated, often humorous accounts of honorable men and rugged living when job training consisted of "Go to it and good luck."The First Ranger is the biographies of Frank Liebig and his comrade Fred Herrig.Frank was the first ranger in the land that became Glacier National Park. He tells of his adventures as a ranger in that magnificent country when it was being settled. Fred Herrig was among the first rangers in Montana's Flathead Forest Reserve of 1897 and in the Kootenai Forest, and as colorful a character as ever roamed the west.He was also a lifelong friend of Theodore Roosevelt.He tells about his times as a wrangler and hunting guide for Roosevelt in the Dakota Badlands and as a Roosevelt Rough Rider.The book was written from the journals of Frank Liebig and Fred Herrig and the accounts of events as passed on to their descendants.It includes a well-researched history of life in the American Northwest. It contains photographs of rangers at work at the turn of the century, seven letters signed by Theodore Roosevelt and pen and ink sketches by E.R. Jenne.A fun, informative read. ... Read more

Book Description

Imagine a place where you wait for caribou to cross the path so you can continue your commute to work, where you must start your airplane at thirty below to return from a weekend at your cabin, and where you must unravel mixed communications across language and cultural barriers.This lighthearted collection of personal experiences of life in rural Alaska transports you to a place that, while in many ways beyond imagination, is startlingly real. In a place where just getting the mail becomes a challenge against weather and tides, where going to the grocery store means taking an airplane or boat, and a school closet is the best available housing alternative, the author lived and flourished for nine years. Intriguing stories, delicious meals, and real-life challenges make up these Alaskan adventures, and readers will find themselves being drawn in to make these experiences their own. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Recipe for adventure
In just 141 pages the author shares her life in a remote section of Alaska.In this space the situations are exciting, sometimes life threatening or in several cases humorous and she manages to add recipes to fit each episode!The book moves quickly and is very readable.When I finished reading Recipe for Adventure I wished to know more about life in Alaska and especially about the life of this adventurous woman.I highly recommend reading it.

Excellent Read
I thought this book was great. It was exciting. My mother-in-law has lived in Alaska for several years and always has great stories. I'm glad that someone took the time to let others know about it. It was easy to read. I didn't put it down until I was done.

Exciting!
From the time I opened the cover, I found this book to be exciting and humorous. I couldn't put it down. The descriptions of the adventures made me feel like I was there sharing it with the author. The book keeps you at a high and exciting emotional level. I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes adventure, or who would like some insight into life in Alaska. ... Read more

Book Description

Page Lambert's story is a particular account of how she and her husband and their two small children moved from Colorado to Sundance, Wyoming. In superbly crafted writing, Lambert speaks of ranching traditions and of the cycles of life and death so elemental to ranchers. She explores Native American beliefs that go back generations and examines her own kinship to the wisdom of the western landscape. A universal story of the modern search for roots and traditions, In Search of Kinship offers a deep initiation into the process of connection to place and the resilience that rootedness offers. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Lyrical
Another writer who weaves words the way artists weave blankets: with knowledge and love.
The book is beyond wonderful and worth reading more than once!

It is a rare privilege to read such writing
In Search Of Kinship is an achingly luminous epiphany to read. A series of essays by an award winning Western author who honors her sacred connections to the earth through life and literature, In Search of Kinship draws on Native American sacred writings and traditions as well as others. It becomes a rich rainbow fusion seen through a filtering prism of light.

Unself-conscious in form and style, vivid in natural, daily detail, it is a series of testaments to a deeply felt faith in the land and creatures, human and non-human, who people the land set in Wyoming on the visionary back doorstep of the Black Hills near Sundance Mountain, Lambert draws upon numerous rich traditional literary sources, including Black Elk Speaks by John Niehardt, Buffalo Woman Comes Singing, by Brooke Medicine Eagle, and Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions by John Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, to name a few. She weaves a rich blanket of hope, addressed to the land itself. In the epilogue,'Song of Songs Which is Wyoming's,' she writes of her aging horse, Romie: "Memories cloak and comfort. Time has, for each of us, a different measure. Your decline in many ways frees me to become a new woman whose past is just beginning to catch up with the future.

Actually, it is you , Wyoming, and not Redy, who has taken over Romie's role in my life. Our affair began despite my grudging nature, despite my loyalty to Colorado - land of my youth. At first, these gentle black hills hid their power from me. I compared your eastern edges to the Rockies of my childhood and thought them not worthy of my devotion.

I recoiled from your red-slashed buttes, scoffed at those who called them mountains; these mere places where your face wrinkled with age. I was, at first, deaf to the ancient whispers of those who had found shelter within your arms. I trod the ancient paths but saw only my own footsteps(pp.239-240)."

She goes on to describe the land as an ancestor, even a jealous lover.

"It was not fair of you to tease me with your elusive antelope, to flaunt your whitetail deer before my modern human eyes. You seduced me with the perfume of your summer sage, kindled memories of other women, dark-skinned and light.

But then, when I dreamt of home, of innocent days unburdened by painful truths, of running like the wind upon Romie's back in pursuit of the mythical buffalo, you pulled tight your sovereign rein and let loose the fury of your winter. You taught me that the true mythology of the buffalo, like the words of the Bible, must not be taken lightly. 'Ask the beasts,' it is written in Job. 'Speak to the earth, and let it teach you.'

Your storm raged around me, the vibration of your anger reaching deep chords. When I dared to open my eyes, you offered me a crystalline world, frosted brilliance glittering from every branch, a chance to start anew.

Like a reprimanded child, I pushed thoughts of former places from my consciousness and let you stake your claim on my no-longer-innocent soul.

It would have been easier had I not sifted your red earth through my fingers - had I not breathed in the musky odor of your mountain asters. I should have turned away from your hideless tipi rings, from your bouquets of dried weeds turned to silver sage, and from the shadows of your buffalo bones before it was too late. But I did not.

And now you will not let me go. You demand an enlightened future - whose very hope lies in the lessons of the past - a past that all our ancestors bequeath to all of us (.pp.240-41)."

It is a rare privilege to read such writing. In Search Of Kinship is to be kept, treasured, and returned to, for the glints and patina reflected in it are soul-enlightening.

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

A rare richness of spirit
This beautiful book of reflections about rural life, family values, and Wyoming, is a gem. Page Lambert brings grace and wisdom to her pages, as well as an understanding of what it means to live in the rural West. This is a book about love and courage. Both men and women will treasure this book and this author.

Moving, Extrodinary, Unique!!!!!!
This book is wonderful! Mrs. Lambert artfully weaves the fabrications of her willful imagination and vivid life into a stunning masterpiece. I would reccomend it to any reader who likes to feel the emotional pulling of heartstrings. Read it! ... Read more

Book Description

In a beautifully written--at times heartbreaking--memoir, Kittredge tells stories of his grandfather and father and recounts his own struggle as he progressed from farmer to writer. An honest reckoning of an American myth, rendered with enormous eloquence and visionary sweep. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Lost on the range
Kittredge's excellent, thoughtful, and well-written book is a memoir of growing up on a ranch in southeastern Oregon. This is arid country where spring runoff from the mountains gathers in lakes and swamps used for millennia as a stopover by migrating waterbirds. Enter the enterprising Kittredge family, and during the 20th century thousands of acres here were transformed into a vast irrigated ranch, its chief output evolving from cattle to grain to hay to feed milling and feedlots. More to the point, they built an agricultural empire and became wealthy.

The author, born into this world in the 1930s, looks back from the vantage point of 1992, long after leaving the ranch behind and settling in Montana. What he sees is the wreckage of three generations blighted by ambition, greed, arrogance, and no small amount of alcohol. Kittredge talks often about how personal stories illuminate and ground people's lives, yet he and so many of the people around him are directionless and unmoored. His book is a story in which words like "reckless," "hapless," and "heedless" are often used to describe actions.

It is a painful book because there is so much heartache in it, so much confusion, shame, isolation, and fear. There are betrayals, infidelities, friendships and marriages ended, deaths from accidents and mishaps. In all of it, from earliest memories to those of a man on the verge of middle-age, the author describes a deep uncertainty about his own worth and his purpose in life. For many years, it seems to be only the grueling hard work of the ranch, which he only half understands, that keeps him distracted from a sense that nothing is real. (Steady consumption of alcohol and extramarital sex also figure into the mix.)

The book is something of a coming-of-age story about a young man whose manhood continually seems to elude him, well into his thirties. He can go through the motions in the hardworking environment of seasoned cowboys and field hands (an episode in which he takes the place of an injured hay stacker is an example), but he remains unsure of himself, wanting the security of the family ranch, while hating himself for not pursuing the writing career he believes is his real vocation. It's a wonderfully (and frustratingly) complex picture of a young man self-destructing. And in his seeming indifference to his own children, you sense a repetition of the same indifferent parenting that has led him into this emotional cul-de-sac. Significantly, he remarks often about the lack of a guiding hand to show him the way to be a man.

As a kind of confessional, it is a compelling book, and the impact of the story is underscored by the vast Western landscape against which it plays out. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the West and ranch life, cowboys, family sagas, and coming-of-age memoirs. As a companion volume, I'd also suggest Judy Blunt's ranch memoir "Breaking Clean" for its similar themes of emotional dislocation.

Not a bad read.
Never heard of Mr. Kittredge. I borrowed the book from a neighbor - picked it up, opened it in the middle, read a paragraph and said to myself, 'OK, this guy can write.'

It was a pretty good read. Between chunks of self-obsessed, mawkish ranting, there are some wonderful descriptions of eastern Oregon, and many short, vivid character studies.

I'll take a chance on his fiction when and if I run across any. Whether it'll be good or not, I can't tell from this memoir. But I'm sure it'll be well written.

And if I'm ever in Montana, I'll bang on his door and get him out for a round of golf.

The frontier we all can imagine
William Kittridge's autobiography, A HOLE IN THE SKY begins in the wilderness around the foothills of southeastern Oregon and retells, in lucid detail, the events of his childhood leading up to his time in the Air Force, to his many marriages, to his emergence as a writer who writes in a prophetic voice with a great sense of prose.
Looking back to his childhood years, Kittridge aims to return to that innocent age and allow the reader to engage in his coming of age...to the point where your feet are engulfed in the wet grass of early morning dew, and you imagine the grandeur of taking care of 8,000 acres of open territory.

In the end, he claims that: "We are a part of what is sacred. That is our main defense against craziness, our solace, the source of our best policies, and our only chance at paradise." Thus, we are open to the realities that life, growing up on the western plains, was not an American historical fairy tale, but rather a true test of ones self-worth and distinction.
A wonderful read...I highly recommend!

Dispelling the romantic myth of the American West
I read this book to gain a better understanding of my cowboy neighbors in Eastern Oregon, but I gained so much more. Anyone with a passion for southeastern Oregon will love this book. At times, Kittredge's descriptions of the land are poetic. I found myself driving through Kittredge's Oregon recently, and so much of what he wrote kept leaping to the forefront of my consciousness, stimulating my own fresh perspective of this open country and those who call it home.

Read once and then again
I'm going to read this book again. The first time was to find out what it's about and who Kittredge is and what happens. The second time will be for the pleasure of reading his writing and the enjoyment of how his mind works. The conclusions he is making about life are true and gracious, out of a chaotic and sometimes miserable past. (But he doesn't moan about that--don't worry.) I'm so glad he recognized himself as a writer. ... Read more