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.

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.

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

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.

Wisdom of Elders: Traditional Food Ways of Five Tribes in Western Washington.  Recipes collected and cookbook edited by Melissa E. Christy.  (Phoenix, AZ : National Society for American Indian Elderly (NSAIE) ; Shelton, WA : South Puget Intertribal Planning Agency (SPIPA), 2008. 64 p.

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

The delight of this small book is that it provides glimpses into the history, culture, and daily living of the people of five Western Washington tribes. Reflecting the wisdom of elders from the Skokomish Tribal Nation, Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe, Squaxin Island Tribe, Confederate Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation and Nisqually Indian Tribe, this small book is chocked full of recipes, ancient and modern, photographs, and remembrances provided by tribal elders.

Readers can learn how people preserved and cooked food when there were no refrigerators, freezers, microwaves or electricity. Basic information on Lushootseed, the Puget Sound Salish language, at the back of the book includes examples of pronunciation and phrases. Sound advice can be gleaned: “Cook while you are in a good mood and love who you cook for” – Tschudub Indian Shaker Church belief. Many of the recipes can made using common pantry items: flour, sugar, baking powder eggs and oil. For other recipes, you may need assistance gathering kinnikinnick berries and salmon eggs or making tuddee from fern roots. But if you have a penchant for geoduck patties, this book will provide you with the recipe.

Colorful photographs help identify what ingredients and finish foods look like. Yes, this is a cookbook but it is so much more. This book is ideal for the cook who is collecting Pacific Northwest cookbooks, for librarians who are selecting materials on the Pacific Northwest, for school librarians who need basic information on Indians of the Pacific Northwest for their students’ curricular needs and for the generally curious reader. A joint project of the National Society for American Indian Elderly (NSAIE) and the South Puget Intertribal Planning Agency (SPIPA) Wisdom of the Elders was produced with funds granted by the Administration for Native Americans as part of its Knowledge Preservation Project. Melissa E. Christy collected the recipes, edited the cookbook, and contributed photographs.

For more information on this project and the NSAIE , visit http://nsaie.org/projects/the-wisdom-of-elders-cookbook/

Available at the Washington State Library,  NW 641.5929 WISDOM 2008
Not available as an eBook, talking book, or as a Braille edition.

Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America.  By Eric Jay Dolin. New York, N.Y. : W.W. Norton & Co., 2010. 442 p.

Recommendation submitted by Gordon Russ, Volunteer, Washington State Library, Tumwater, WA

Mr. Dolin takes us on a journey, following the fur trappers west as America grows in size and maturity.  His story starts in the late 1500s with some of the early French explorers.  The fur trade really gets going in the 1620s with the coming of the Dutch settlers and their need for income. They start a vigorous trade with the Native Americans for beaver pelts, much desired in Europe.   The French and English quickly join the Dutch as they migrate to North America in search of new lands, religious freedom, and the need for income.  They too find the need to trade for the highly valued furs in the virgin lands.  The battle for Beaver pelts stirs much unrest between the home countries of these early settlers this leads to conflicts in Europe as well.

The fur trade moves west into the Great Lakes, up the Missouri river, into the Rocky Mountains, then down the Columbia River. Dolin takes us on an adventure: introducing us to the colorful people and characters of the of the fur trade such as Henry Hudson, John “Big Belly” Printz, John Jacob Astor, Christopher Hudson “Kit” Carson, Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, “Buffalo Bill” Cody and many others are introduced.  The book becomes a good primer of American History.  Dolin ties together those stories of our past and its people into a continuous thread of how we became who we are.

While the Beaver Fur trade and the genesis of America are percolating on the East Coast, the Spanish and Russians are not forgotten as they nibble away at the West coast in search of the Sea Otter.  All parties come together for the final confrontation right here in the Pacific North West.  As the battle for dominance of this new land rages, the participants drop out one at a time.  First, the Spanish leave, then the Russians and French, which leaves only the British and Americans to confront each other on the new frontier for the furs.  They discover they both have exhausted the Beaver, the Sea Otter and the reason they were there in the first place.  This leaves the land to those who wanted it – the Native Americans and the Americans, but that is another story for another time.

So sit back and wrap yourself in your favorite buffalo robe and enjoy a good read of adventure and riches.

ISBN-13: 9780393067101

Available at WSL, NW 381.4568 DOLIN 2010
Available as an eBook.
Not available in talking book or Braille editions.

The Garden That You Are.  By Kate Gordon. Winlaw, B.C. : Sono Nis Press, c2007. 192 p.

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

This is a lovely book. Perhaps I feel that because I am a gardener. I just spent an hour (or was it more) drifting through this book. Take the photos in first before you read the text. Gardeners love to talk about gardening – to anyone – but nothing is richer than gardeners talking to gardeners.

In The Garden That You Are, Kate Gordon opens a portal to the lives of eight gardeners in British Columbia’s Slocan Valley. Here we meet Edda West, Steven Mounteer, Victoria Carleton, Rabi’a, Brenda Elder, Gail Elder, Eliza Gooderham and Pete Slevin. They tell us about their gardens and their lives and how they are intertwined. We learn about “their favorite friends” calendula, cherries, kale, potatoes, hyacinths and more and about herbal medicinal and more. The photographs are engaging. I urge you to read this book. Go down the rabbit hole.

ISBN: 1-55039-160-7

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 635.0922 GORDON 2007

To Build A Ship. By Don Berry.
Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University Press, 2004
(Copyright 1963, by Don Berry and first published by Viking Press)

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

There are only a few settlers living in the Tillamook area as this story unfolds, but already they have a real problem. There’s no way in or out. No way to get their supplies in, or their produce out. They are isolated by mountains and forest. There are no roads, just trails, suitable for a man and a horse, but not for hauling supplies or goods. The only practical way in and out is by sea. And now the one and only sea captain who has been willing to cross their perilous bar and visit them once a year, has died.

So, they decide to build their own ship. That endeavor soon captures all of them – heart, mind and soul. Except for their shipwright, a strange and tortured creature who causes trouble when he falls in love with one of the Indian women.

Through this seemingly small crack, evil manages to pry its way into the story, leading to a chilling denouement midway through, providing an unwelcome stress point near the center of the tale which functions in the novel much like the pass over the coastal mountain range, which must be surmounted whenever anyone travels from the Tillamook country into the central Oregon valley, or vice-versa. This unwelcome bit of byplay, in which the Indians naturally come out suffering the worst, only serves to emphasize even more strongly the overwhelming nature of the hold the idea of the ship has over all of them.

This is the third segment in Don Berry’s masterful trilogy exploring the early era of Oregon history, centered around Tillamook. I’ve already written about the first two, Trask and Moontrap, respectively. This is the final chapter, and what a masterpiece! This is the best yet: a more powerful or effective novel has rarely been written. Highly recommended!

ISBN: 0-87071-040-0

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 813.6 BERRY 2004
Available as a talking book on cassette.
Not available as an eBook or Braille edition.