Plume: Poems. By Kathleen Flenniken. Seattle : University of Washington Press, 2012. 70 p.

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

Kathleen Flenniken grew up in Richland, Washington during the Cold War. Richland’s neighbor and reason for existence was the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Trained as a civil engineer, Flenniken spent eight years working as an engineer and hydrologist, three of those at Hanford.

The poems in Plume trace Flenniken’s perceptions about Hanford from young girl to professional woman. She writes, “every father I knew disappeared to fuel the bomb.” By the 1980s the effect of exposure to radiation was known. Assurance by officials of safety and security of Hanford workers and people in the surrounding area began to unravel. Flenniken narrates the story of Hanford by telling us about her life and that of her childhood friend, Carolyn. The poems are often haunting.

Carolyn’s father died of radiation-induced illness. Flenniken reveals the betrayal of the American public by government and the suppression of the truth. “As a child of ‘Atomic City,’ Kathleen Flenniken brings to this tragedy the knowing perspective of an insider coupled with the art of a precise, unflinching, gifted poet.”

ISBN-13: 978-0295991535

Kathleen Flenniken is the 2012 Washington State Poet Laureate.

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 811.6 FLENNIK 2012
Available as a Screen Readable Digital Book, and as a Braille edition for readers who are unable to read standard print material.
Not avaialble as an eReader edition

Join Washington State Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken, and West Region National Student Poet Miles Hewitt, as they share their talents in an evening of conversation and poetry sponsored by the Washington State Library.

https://blogs.sos.wa.gov/library/index.php/2012/11/state-library-to-host-poet-meets-poet-event-nov-29/

Good fish: Sustainable Seafood Recipes from the Pacific Coast. By Becky Selengut. Seattle, Wash. : Sasquatch Books, 2011. 255 p.

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

For those who love to eat fish and seafood; for those who love to cook; and for those who are interested in sustainable harvesting and farming of fish and seafood, Good Fish: Sustainable Seafood Recipes is a must read.

Chef Becky Selengut has written a book that appeals to a broad audience. Now a resident of Seattle, Selengut, a native of New Jersey, journals her life that led to becoming an advocate for sustainability of fish and seafood. She writes that her most formative culinary experience was cooking at the Herbfarm Restaurant in Woodinville, Washington.

Good fish is filled with definitions, information about harvesting seasons, buying tips, questions to ask before you pay, caring for good fish, farming, harvesting and wonderful vignettes. The major sections of the book are shellfish (clams, mussels, oysters, Dungeness crab, shrimp and scallops), finfish (wild salmon, Pacific halibut, black cod, rainbow trout, albacore tuna, and Arctic char), and littlefish & eggs (sardines, squid, and sustainable caviar).

Don’t expect this to be a quick read. While the text is easily read, the richness of the book will take a while to plough through. This is a great home reference.

ISBN-13: 978 1570616624

Available at the Washington State Library,  NW 641.692 SELENGU 2011
Available in an eBook edition
Not available as a talking book, or as a Braille edition.

Envy: An Empty Coffin Novel (Book 1). By Gregg Olsen. New York : Splinter, 2011. 285 p.

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

It begins with a suicide. A young girl, Katelyn, depressed and lonely, slips into a tub of water. Or, was it murder?
Katelyn’s childhood friends, Hayley and Taylor Ryan suspect the latter and set about to prove it so. The twins are the children of a true crime writer and a psychiatric nurse. But, they have gifts beyond those they have learned from dinner table conversation.

Set in Port Gamble, Washington author Gregg Olsen explores the dark side of this company town. The first in Olsen’s Empty Coffin series this is a good read for teens, especially girls ages 15-16. It may well appeal to a wider audience of murder mystery lovers.

Once you’ve read Envy you will hunger for the next in the series, Betrayal.

Editor’s Note: This book was selected by the Washington State Library for the 2012 National Book Festival, held in Washington D. C.

ISBN-10: 1402789572

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 813.6 OLSEN 2011
Available as an eReader edition and as a downloadable talking book.
Not available as a Braille edition.

Hutch: Baseball’s Fred Hutchinson and a Legacy of Courage. Written by Mike Shannon; Illustrated by Scott Hannig. (Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., 2011. 216 p.)

Recommendation by:
Sean Lanksbury, NW and Special Collections Librarian, Washington State Library

Mike Shannon and Illustrator Scott Hannig’s graphic novel biography of professional baseball player and manager Fred Hutchinson is a detailed graphic novel, complete with bibliography, index, and copious notes.  The duo trace Hutch’s entire life: his family history and childhood  in Seattle’s Brighton neighborhood, his up and downs in both major and minor league baseball (including two stints with the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League), enlistment in the United States Navy for the majority of World War II, return to a mostly winning career as baseball manager, and his battle with cancer that ultimately took his life in 1964.

To many readers, Hutch’s name is synonymous with the Cancer Research Center founded in 1975 by his brother, Seattle Surgeon Dr. William Hutchinson.  Thoroughly researched and cleanly illustrated, this quick read will delight sports fans and fill in the outline for those unfamiliar with one of the Pacific Northwest’s early professional sports heroes.

ISBN-13: 978 0786446254

Another book on Hutch, Fred Hutchinson and the 1964 Cincinnati Reds, by Doug Wilson was released in 2010 and is also recommended reading.

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 796.357 SHANNON 2011
Available as an eReader edition.
Not available as an talking book, or as a Braille edition.

Little Century: A Novel. By Anna Keesey. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012. 336 p.)

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

18 year old Chicago born Esther Chambers found herself entering a different world when she accepted her cousin’s offer of help after her mother’s death.  The vast emptiness of the high desert of Oregon where her cousin’s cattle ranch is located challenges her.

Even though the year is 1900 a range war between the sheep men and the cattlemen still divides the tiny settlement of Century.  Esther finds herself drawn to two men, each on a different side of the conflict.

Anna Keesey’s debut literary novel paints a lyrical picture of the settling of Eastern Oregon.  Readers will find the characters fully realized and the story compelling.

ISBN-13: 978-0374192044

Where the Salmon Run: The Life and Legacy of Billy Frank, Jr.  By Trova Heffernan. (Olympia, Wash.: The Washington State Heritage Center Legacy Project; Seattle: in association with University of Washington Press, ©2012.)

With his father, Nisqually elder Billy Frank Jr. reaches back 10 years before statehood. The long history of Indian people in the Northwest inspired Frank to help unite the state and Indian tribes in the battle for fishing rights. Roughed up and thrown in jail for decades, Frank emerged as a visionary and a bridge builder.  At 81, Frank continues a global crusade to protect indigenous people and salmon.

Drawing from oral history interviews with Billy and those best acquainted with him, Legacy Project Director Trova Heffernan traces Billy’s development from angry young man on the banks of the Nisqually to passionate elder statesman and chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. The book is filled with photographs and contains an extensive family tree.

ISBN: 978 0295991788

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 979.7004 HEFFERN 2012
Available as a free eReader edition.
Not available in Braille or Audiobook editions.

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

Olympia (Postcard history series). By Jill Bullock. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2010. 127 p.

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

This unassuming book of black and white photos with minimal text packs an amazing amount of history in its 127 pages. The history of my adopted town, Olympia, WA, is told through images of postcards collected by author Jill Bullock. Many of the postcards are, in the collectors’ vernacular, “real photo postcards” or RPPCs. Through these images we learn about steamboats, downtown Olympia, early public schools and businesses, the Capitol of Washington, the brewery that made Tumwater famous and the history of logging.

We also learn the place of Olympia in the State’s history. The territorial capitol, Olympia struggled to retain the same role when Washington gained statehood in 1889. The first vote failed and Olympia faced a second vote in 1890. “Fate intervened in the form of the great Seattle fire that threatened to consume the city. The Olympia city fathers were quick to act. They sent the town’s fine, new steam-pumper fire engine the Silsby to stricken Seattle on the fast steamer Fleetwood. In spite of grumbling amongst the townspeople, $500 of taxpayers’ money was also given to Seattle to aid in their recovery. Seattleites, feeling indebted, showed their appreciation by supporting Olympia as the site of a permanent state capitol.”

This is the kind of history that arm-chair historians like me enjoy, a quick easy read filled with photos. Thanks is given by the author to Mary Hammer and (recently-retired) Dave Hastings of the Washington State Archive for their assistance with the book.

ISBN-13: 978 0738580364

Available at the Washington State Library,  NW 979.779 BULLOCK 2010
Not available as an eBook, talking book, or as a Braille edition.

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.