Moontrap. By Don Berry.
Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University Press, 2004
(Copyright 1962, by Don Berry and first published by Viking Press)

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

In Moontrap, the second book in author Don Berry’s trilogy depicting the early history of Oregon, we encounter two mountain men, Johnson “Jaybird” Monday and Webster W. Webster, “Webb” to his friends or compatriots. Monday is trying to settle down, staking a farming claim on land along the Willamette, just across from Oregon City, the first important Oregon settlement. Just as he’s beginning to think that maybe he can learn how to fit into “normal” society, along comes old Webb, riding his equally old and bony horse, still living his mountain man lifestyle, camping along the edges of society, with no use for towns, or any of the other trappings of civilization.

That Monday lives with his common-law wife, Mary, a Shoshone Indian woman, who is about to bear his first child only adds to his difficulties integrating into “civilized” society. Her presence does not sit well with powerful and bigoted men who apparently control the destiny of the region. When Monday discovers that the judge won’t record the name of his son as Webster Monday, but insists on writing out the birth certificate as:

Father: Johnson Monday, White.
Mother: Mary Deer Walking, Shoshone Indian.
Child: Webster, son of Mary Deer Walking. Shoshone Indian. Bastard.

He knows that nothing can ever change: once a mountain man, always a mountain man.

In these first two books of the trilogy, Trask and Moontrap, Berry wrestles with the question of what happens to the mountain men when they reach the final frontier. Once the Oregon territory is settled, and the United States reaches to the Pacific, what is left of the old way? The old way that saw the mountain men living with the same freedom as the red man is finished, done for, obsolete.  Just as you cannot trap the reflection of the moon in a moving pool of water, so you cannot preserve the freedom of the old ways.

ISBN: 0-87071-039-7

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

Essential wines and wineries of the Pacific Northwest : a guide to the wine countries of Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and Idaho. By Cole Danehower ; photography by Andrea Johnson. Portland, Or. : Timber Press, 2010. 308 p.

Review submitted by:
Rand Simmons, Acting Washington State Librarian, Tumwater, WA

Whether you’re simply curious, an aspiring wine connoisseur, or an aficionado, you will be charmed by this book. It is a solid book, 308 pages, and worth a first reading for the photographs and captions alone. It is a travelogue through the wine countries of Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Idaho. It is a curriculum on the geography, geology climatology and edaphology of the Pacific Northwest and yet it is not academic.

The text is readable and interesting. Articles such as “Surviving Disaster Together” (p. 52), “Sustainable Viticulture,” (p. 143) and “Biodynamic Wine” (p. 134-135) tell the story of growing grapes and making wine in our corner of the world. Each state or province section begins with a wine country at a glance section for ready reference and each wine country (DVA or designated viticultural area) has the same. “Wineries and Wines to Sample” provides the stories of 160 wineries of the more that 1,000 wineries of the Pacific Northwest.

As a reference source, the book includes a glossary, list of wine grape varieties grown in the Pacific Northwest, a bibliography and an index. Missing from the index are references to towns and cities to which the wineries are attached. The book is not a hardback but is pleasingly flexible and easy to handle. At $24.95 this is a good choice both for libraries and the individual reader.
ISBN-13: 978-0881929669

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 641.2209 DANEHOW 2010
Not available in Braille, Talking Book or eReader editions.

The Big Burn : Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America. By Timothy Egan.
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. 324 p.

Recommendation by:
Carleen Jackson, Director, Heritage Center, Olympia, WA.

I recommend this wonderful history of a huge fire that destroyed much of the newly designated National Forest land in 1910.  Equally fascinating is the story of how the US Forest Service got its beginnings through the work of Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot.  Although most of the fire destroyed lands in Idaho and Montana, Washington State also figures prominently in the story.

The best thing about the book is that it reads almost like a novel, although it is historically correct.  Egan tells the story through the true-life characters: Familiar names such as Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft.  He also includes the lesser-known people:  railroad tycoons, brothel and tavern keepers, newly minted forest rangers, and men and women who fought the fire.  This fire set the precedent for the long-standing policy of the Forest Service to aggressively fight fires, rather than manage them as the Native Americans did.

Timothy Egan is also the author of The Worst Hard Times about the dustbowl in the Midwest, and The Good Rain about his travels around Washington State.

ISBN-13: 978-0618968411

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 973.911 EGAN 2009.
Also available in talking book and eBook editions.
Not available as a Braille edition.

Walking Dead (Walker Papers, Book 4) By C.E. Murphy.
Luna, 2009. 376p.

Recommendation submitted by:
Jill Merritt, Library Associate, Washington State Library Branch Services, Tumwater, WA.

Joanne Walker is coming to terms with her life as a shaman and newly minted police detective in Seattle.  However, the calm is broken by the arrival of unexpected ghosts at a Halloween party full of police.  Soon Joanne is dealing with zombies and a magic caldron that has a long history of death. Crisscrossing Seattle, Joanne follows the dark trail left by the cauldron, picking up a few hitchhiking ghosts along the way, including one very dear to the her partner’s heart.

Readers familiar with the series will enjoy the return of previous characters helping and in some cases hindering Joanne’s fight to save Seattle from the undead. The writing and subject matter leans toward more adult themes, but might appeal to older teens. Walking Dead is one installment in the Walker Paper series by C.E. Murphy that answers a few readers questions about the shaman, but leaves more unanswered.  Interested readers will eagerly look for the next story of Joanne Walker.

ISBN-13: 978-0373803019.

Available as an eBook
Title contains adult themes.

Trask. By Don Berry.
Oregon State University Press, 2004. 348 p.
(Copyright 1960 by Don Berry and first published by Viking Press)

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

Mountain man Elbridge Trask, living in the Clatsop area in the 1840’s, has a hunger for even wilder, less settled areas. He plans a trip down the coast to the area inhabited by unfriendly natives, the “Killamooks” as Tillamook, Oregon, was typically spelled in those early years.

But the real story is Trask’s inner life, compellingly imagined by author Don Berry. Trask barely knows his own mind at times, is unsure of what he wants, at least on a conscious level, but his heart leads him inexorably onward towards his fate. While at times beset by doubts and inner turmoil, he never hesitates when making the most crucial decisions, and at times, speaks almost without thinking, yet expressing his deepest desires.

Also significant is Trask’s relationship with his partners in travel, two Clatsop Indians, one young and untested and the other, Charley Kehwa, is a tamanawis man, one who has visions or dreams of a supernatural nature. Trask is too hard-headed to believe in such things, but is affected by them all the same.

Berry followed Trask with two more novels, Moontrap and To Build a Ship.  These three tales “form a loose trilogy that tells the story of [Oregon’s] origins better than any history book”, according to the book’s introduction.  This first volume is a tour-de-force and a powerful, impressive narrative.

ISBN: 0-87071-023-0

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

D.B.: A Novel. By Elwood Reid.  New York : Doubleday, 2004.  356 p.

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

If you were alive in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970’s, doubtlessly you recall the high altitude heist of D.B. Cooper.  I lived near Camas, Washington, supposed drop point of our region’s most notorious skyjacker.  My friends and I playacted endless what-if scenarios involving Cooper that often included a Sasquatch (because what northwest kid wouldn’t add a bigfoot?) for good measure  in the forests of Southwest Washington for hours on end.

So what if “Dan Cooper” actually made off with the $150,000 that didn’t wash up on the shore of the Columbia River? D.B., by Elwood Reid, imagines the back-story and the aftermath of Cooper’s heist, from Cooper’s perspective, as a soft-boiled satire for the changing definition of gender and responsibility in the late twentieth century.  The plot follows the story from Cooper’s perspective as he plans the heist and deals with the consequences and costs of his crime and exile.  A parallel plot follows a recently retired Federal Bureau of Investigation investigator – originally assigned to the case – who now reflects on his career and evaluates his life and relationships as he heads into uncharted personal realms.

Author Reid’s tight, readable style makes for a clever piece of speculative fiction that mixes dark comedy with unsentimental reflection on modern masculinity.

ISBN-13: 978-0385497381

Available at the Washington State Library, NW 813.6 REID 2004.
Not available as an eBook, talking book, or as a Braille edition.
Title contains adult themes.

From the desk of Sean Lanksbury. PNW & Special Collections Librarian

One of the many goals that the State Library works towards is exciting Washingtonians about reading books.  Our staff gets especially excited about books that represent our state and the larger Pacific Northwest region.  We all have our favorite reads: fiction lovers get very passionate about their preferred genres and stylistic sub-genres,  non-fiction fans range from those who enjoy a wide range of popular topics to others who focus in one subject, gathering as many details as they can find. Some people just love a good read, regardless of where it falls in terms of content.

Librarians and library staff love to share their thoughts on books, and past Washington State Librarians have put out regular book recommendations over the years. We thought it might be time to play around with this idea a bit and inject some variety, so we are inviting some other enthusiastic readers to join in on the action. Next week the state library will begin regular postings of recommendations from library staff. These recommendations will feature compelling reads in fiction and non-fiction, both recent and classic titles, which feature the Pacific Northwest. These posts will contain links for locating a copy nearest you, and will provide information on availability as an electronic resource or title for visually impaired. In the next few weeks you can see these posts as part of an upgraded library blog that will be located at https://blogs.sos.wa.gov/library/ or as a standalone feature within the blog at https://blogs.sos.wa.gov/library/wareads.aspx

We will also feature other events where Washington State Library participates in literacy and reader’s advisory, such as Letters About Literature and the National Book Festival.

For the time being you may see earlier Washington Reads and other bibliographies produced by the Washington State Library at http://www.sos.wa.gov/library/bibliographies.aspx