July
And to be honest, there's a lot about Hemingway to criticize, especially in his later years. He fawned over bullfighters, bragged about shooting gaggles of game in Africa, drank more than any dozen Wazoo freshmen, bullied F. Scott Fitzgerald and others shamelessly and wrote books - 1950's "Across the River and Into the Trees," for example - that were pale reflections of his best work. Even the more complex works that have come to light since his 1961 suicide, "Islands in the Stream" or "The Garden of Eden," have done little more than make some Hemingway critics accuse the writer of literary/thematic/emotional clumsiness. But what most of Hemingway's critics seem to forget - or conveniently ignore - is that when he emerged, Hemingway hit the literary scene as hard as anyone ever has. His mastery was that, at his best, his prose cut to the heart of whatever emotions he was trying to convey. And the influence he had on American letters was both profound and enduring. Which is why we've chosen Hemingway's first full collection of short stories, "In Our Time," as the July read for The Spokesman-Review Book Club.
  Dan Webster writes about the author

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2002
Oct: Kent Haruf
Nov: David James Duncan
Dec: Tim Egan

2003
Jan: Marilynne Robinson
Feb: Ivan Doig
Mar: Sherman Alexie
Apr: Ursula Hegi
May: Duff Wilson
Jun: Mary Clearman Blew
Jul: Chuck Palahniuk
Aug: Rebecca Wells
Sep: David Guterson
Oct: Linda Lawrence Hunt
Nov: Moritz Thomsen
Dec: Larry Colton

2004
Jan: Jayne Ann Krentz
Feb: Gregory Spatz
Mar: Andrea Vogt
Apr: Jess Walter
May: Debra Magpie Earling
Jun: Ken Kesey
Jul: Kim Barnes
Sep: Mitch Finley
Dec: Jon Krakauer

2005
Jan: Michael Dibdin
Feb: Pete Fromm
Mar: Raymond Carver and Pam Houston
Apr: Natalie Kusz
May: J.A. Jance
Jun: Andrew Vachss
Jul: Charles Johnson
Aug: Jonathan Raban
Sep: David Long
Oct: Carl Hiaasen
Nov: John Keeble
Dec: James Welch

2006
Jan: Robert Clark
Feb: Kathleen Tyau
Mar: Terry Davis
Apr: John Saul
May: Annick Smith
Jun: Norman Maclean
Jul: Kathleen Alcalá
Aug:
Sep: Alex Kuo
Oct: Rebecca Brown
Nov: Gregg Olsen
Dec: Peter Chilson

2007
Jan: Deirdre McNamer
Feb: Erik Larson
Mar: Ursula K. Le Guin
Apr: Lydia Yuri Minatoya
May: Patrick F. McManus
June: Robert Wrigley
July: April Christofferson
August: Thom Jones
September: Chris Crutcher
October: Peter Chilson
November: Valerie Trueblood
November: Jack Nisbet

2008
Jan: Denis Johnson
Feb: Nancy Owens Barnes
March: James Crumley
May: James Lee Burke
June: Claire Rudolf Murphy
July: Ernest Hemingway