The Sisters Brothers. By Patrick deWitt.
New York: Ecco, 2011. 328 p.

Recommendation by:
Carolyn Petersen, CLRS Project Manager, Tumwater, WA.

In The  Sisters Brothers author Patrick deWitt has produced a darkly comic tour of the Old West. Brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters are hit men who work for an enigmatic boss.  The story begins in 1850’s Oregon City when the brothers receive orders from the “Commodore” to kill a man who is working a mining claim outside of Sacramento.

As they journey to find this man, they encounter a witch, a bear, a parlor full of drunken floozies, and a gang of murderous fur trappers.  These encounters allow deWitt to explore the human costs of the clichés of the Old West. This revisionist and subversive western tale received much critical acclaim.

ISBN-13: 978-0062041265

Available at WSL, NW 813.6 DEWITT 2011
Available in talking book or Digital Book editions.
Not available in a Braille edition.

Title contains adult themes.

Beneath Cold Seas: The Underwater Wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. By David Hall; foreword by Christopher Newbert; introduction by Sarika Cullis-Suzuki.  Vancouver: Greystone Books; Seattle: University of Washington Press, c2011. 160 p.

Sean Lanksbury, NW and Special Collections Librarian, Washington State Library

This recently released book of photography is an absorbing and rewarding read and Hall’s thoughtfully composed and beautifully executed photographs.   The images reveal a world filled with color lying just beyond the sandy shores of the oft-muted Pacific Northwest that is above sea level.  It is hard not to appreciate this glimpse into a relatively alien aquatic world.

The introductory essays compel readers to consider the effects of environmental change upon the life contained therein and to appreciate the difficulties involved in creating these hard-won images.  The vignettes interspersed throughout add to understanding these marvelous seascapes, while outline the photographer’s method, serve to remind us what our seas stand to lose, and places of this magical realm equal in investigation to the alien worlds beyond this earth.

ISBN-13: 9780295991160

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 778.73 HALL 2011
Not available as an eReader edition.
Not available as an talking book, or as a Braille edition.

Used with author's permission. Photographer: Claire Barboza

Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live Off the Land.  By Kurt Timmermeister.  New York : W W Norton, 2011. 335 p.

Recommendation by:
Carolyn Petersen, CLRS Project Manager, Tumwater, WA.

This recent memoir reads like having an interesting friend sit down to relate how he made the intriguingly insane choice to change from being a city guy on Capitol Hill who ran a successful restaurant (He didn’t even know how to drive a car, let alone own one) to establishing and running Kurtwood Farms on Vashon Island—with no previous experience whatsoever as a farmer.  Each chapter details a new challenge in his life as a farmer. (Who knew that when  dairy cows are in heat they will try to mount anything—including the farmer leading them from one pasture to the next?) Kurt Timmermeister hopes by honestly sharing his struggles to produce quality products on a small 13 acre farm that consumers will appreciate even more the local produce that comes to market.

ISBN-13: 978 0393070859

Available at the Washington State Library,  NW 630.92 TIMMERM 2011
Available as an eReader edition.
Not available as an talking book, or as a Braille edition.

Edible Gardening for Washington and Oregon: Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits & Seeds. By Marianne Binetti. (Auburn, WA : Lone Pine Publishing International, 2010. 240 p.)

Recommendation by:
Rand Simmons, Acting Washington State Librarian, Tumwater, WA.

Another in a series of books on gardening in the Pacific Northwest by gardening expert Marianne Binetti, most co-authored with Alison Beck, Edible Gardening for Washington and Oregon focuses on vegetables, herbs, fruits and seeds appropriate for Northwest gardens.

From Arbutus (Strawberry Tree) to Watermelon, the main part of the book is a detailed listing of plants arranged alphabetically by common name as opposed to botanical name. This makes this book easier to use by lay-gardeners. Each entry describes starting and growing the plants, harvesting, tips, recommendations, and problems and pests. There are numerous color photos showing the plants growing in the ground and harvested. A lengthy but interesting introduction discusses aspects of growing edible gardens in the Oregon and Washington. The book includes glossary and index.

This is a great book for public, academic and horticultural libraries as well as the home gardening library.

ISBN-13: 978 9766500481

Available at the Washington State Library,  NW 635.0979 BINETTI 2010
Not available as an eBook, talking book, or as a Braille edition.

Breach of Duty: A J.P. Beaumont Mystery. By J.A. Jance. (New York: Avon Books, 1999. 384 p.)

Recommendation submitted by:
Will Stuivenga, Cooperative Projects Manager, Washington State Library, Tumwater, WA.

This is mystery writer J.A. Jance’s 14th Seattle-based J.P. Beaumont police procedural. In it, Beaumont is investigating the arson murder of a woman whose death would not have been particularly noteworthy, if $300,000 had not been found hidden in an old refrigerator in her garage.

Meanwhile, a Native American woman, who happens to be a professor of physics at the University of Washington, shows up and warns Beaumont and his partner of a powerful curse. It seems that someone has stolen the bones of an important shaman and bad things start happening to those who handle them, as predicted.

Meantime the chief of police retires, and his replacement is a co-worker of Beaumont whose dislike for him is heartily reciprocated. Oh, and did I mention that Beaumont’s current partner, Sue Danielson by name, divorced mother of two, is worried because her deadbeat ex is coming to town?

Talk about a plot with lots of complications and disparate story lines! Jance weaves all of these lines together throughout various seedy locations of the greater Seattle area. For those who enjoy well-written – if slightly superficial – police-procedural style mysteries set in Seattle, J.A. Jance and J.P. Beaumont could easily become a habit!

ISBN: 0-380-97406-1

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 813.6 JANCE 1999.
Available in eReader, Braille, Large Type and Audiobook (Cassette, Digital Book) editions

Richard Bennett. Untitled, ca. 1940s, tempera on paper. MOHAI, 2006.38.1

The Art of Richard Bennett. By David F. Martin. Seattle, WA : Museum of History & Industry: University of Washington Press, ©2010. 80p.

Recommendation by:
Rand Simmons, Acting Washington State Librarian, Tumwater, WA.

For those unfamiliar with Richard Bennett, Martin’s book  gives a quick introduction to the artist’s life and contribution to Pacific Northwest art. The book was published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of History & Industry in Seattle that ran August 28, 2010 to March 27, 2011.

The biography is easily read and tells the story of this painter, printmaker, author and illustrator who began his life in southern County Cork, Ireland, later hobnobbed with New York City artists, and became one of the nation’s leading illustrators of children’s book. He authored seven books including children’s books such as Skookum and Sandy (1935) and Shawneen and the Gander (1937). Bennett illustrated over 200 books, including several by bestselling and noted writers.

The Art of Richard Bennett includes 30 pages of plates of Bennett’s works. The section on publications and illustrations may be of interest to researchers. Sadly, the book is not indexed.  Bennett was born in 1899 and died in 1971.

ISBN-13: 978-0939806072

Available at WSL, NW 760.092 MARTIN 2010
Not available as an eBook.
Not available in talking book or Braille editions.

The Clear Cut Future. Edited by Clear Cut Press (Astoria, Oregon: Clear Cut Press, 2003. 528 p.)

Recommendation submitted by:
Will Stuivenga, Cooperative Projects Manager, Washington State Library, Tumwater, WA.

This is a most peculiar book, to misquote singer songwriter Paul Simon. First off, there’s its unusual size: 5 ¾ inches by 4 inches, and about an inch thick. Second, the contents. The book is a wild mélange of essays, criticism, short stories, excerpts from novels, poetry, photo essays, and the like by a variety of authors, whose only commonality appears to be that they are mostly from the Pacific Northwest, although that is never stated, and may not even be true. But many of the items contained in the book have NW settings, themes, or connections.

The quality of the various components arbitrarily concatenated here also varies wildly. The most entertaining and thought provoking include the title piece, which is a photo essay by Robert Adams, Corrina Wycoff’s short story “The Adjunct” and Pravin Jain’s essay “Capitalism Inside an Organization.” The latter provides an insightful glimpse into the workings of the Enron Corporation and some of its NW connections. “The Adjunct” describes the nightmarish existence of an instructor of first-year college writing courses who has to shuttle from campus to campus with never enough hours to complete her work, all to earn a barely subsistence-level “living.” The “Clear Cuts” photography consists of photos depicting exactly what the title says.

Also rich in NW verismo is Casey Sanchez’s “As Bad as It Comes, as Good as It Gets: Canning Salmon in Alaska,” which describes the social and economic phenomena, as well as the actual day to day rigors of traveling to the north country and working in a fish packing plant. The least readable, for me personally, were the academically absurdist writings of The Office for Soft Architecture.
If you are a fan of anything and everything NW, or if you like experimental writing and the good old fashioned avant-garde, you’ll definitely want to check out this book. Otherwise, you needn’t bother.

ISBN: 0-9723234-1-4

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 813.5408 CLEAR C 2003
Not available in eReader, Braille, or Audiobook editions

View other works by Clear Cut Press

When you visit the local history museums, do you find yourself wishing you knew more about those mysterious chipped points under the glass? Perhaps you are a collector, but are not entirely sure where or who certain parts of your collection came from. If so, then the State Library has added a new reference that will pique your interest.

Stone Projectile Points Of The Pacific Northwest: An Arrowhead Collector’s Guide To Type Identification. By E. Scott Crawford (Carrollton, Tex.: Black Rock Publishing, ©2010. 130 p.)

This work is the lifelong achievement of the author, an expert collector who began his journey in 1962.  It identifies 62 different arrowhead, dart, and lance points, with full descriptions and illustrations to help you learn more about these historic indigenous hunting tools.  It covers the geographic regions now occupied by the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, with northern portions of California and Nevada, and western portions of Montana and Wyoming.

This book contains an introduction to identifying points and a glossary of terms.  It then proceeds to a discussion of the geographic features and the lithic (stone or rock) resources for each of the four Pacific Northwest regions named in the book.  The chronological and temporal location of the point types are wonderfully illustrated in the following section, and then an entire section is dedicated to describing the manufacture of projectile points. The index of projectile points are organized by general shape, then by primary characteristics.  This is an essential guide to both the hobbyist and the casual collector, and a fascinating read for those curious.

ISBN-10: 1453798471

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 979 CRAWFOR 2010
Available as an eReader edition.
Not available in Braille or Audiobook editions

Slade Gorton: A Half  Century in Politics.  By John C. Hughes.  (Olympia, Wash.: Washington State Legacy Project, Washington Secretary of State, 2011)

As a state legislator, attorney general and U.S. senator, his 50-year career in public service put him on the front lines of a host of controversial issues—from redistricting to fishing rights disputes, the battle over the spotted owl and dam breaching. His service on the 9/11 Commission revealed his tenacity to find the truth. Often characterized as an icy intellectual, Gorton emerges as a complex, thoughtful man.

Read more at the Legacy Project’s Oral History site.

Some reviews have already started pouring in.  Consider this one from John Dodge, Environment Reporter for The Olympian.

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 979.7043 HUGHES 2011
Available as a free eReader edition.
Not available in Braille or Audiobook editions.

Lean on Pete.  By Willy Vlautin. New York : Harper Perennial, c2010. 277 p.

Recommendation by:
Carolyn Petersen, CLRS Project Manager, Tumwater, WA.

Vivid character development distinguishs this latest book from novelist Willy Vlautin.  15 year old Charley Thompson just wants the normal life of a teenager.  He longs for the opportunity to play football and go to high school.  When his father moves him from Spokane to Portland, he hopes for better luck than his down and out dad has had previously.

After Charley’s dad more or less abandons him, Charley lands a job working with horses at a nearby racetrack.  There he develops a strong bond with a broken down racehorse with the improbable name of Lean on Pete.   When Lean on Pete is threatened with destruction, Charley decides to save both of them.

He and Lean on Pete will travel to Charley’s only living relative in Wyoming.  Individuals who appreciate a spare and intense writing style will find it in this book.  As one critic puts it “Willy Vlautin plumbs the depths of despair but finally rewards you with redemption.”

ISBN-13: 9780061456534

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 813.6 VLAUTIN 2010
Available as an eReader edition.
Not available in Braille or Audiobook editions.