Elvis fan’s book earns ticket to Memphis

Judy Palmer Bendewald, local Elvis fan, collector and photographer, is heading off to Memphis this week to sign copies of her just-published book, “My Treasured Memories of Elvis” (Memphis Explorations Publishing, $45).

Bendewald is not only the biggest Elvis fan in Spokane, she may well be one of the biggest Elvis fans on Earth.

As we reported in a 2003 profile, Bendewald has three Elvis scarves; countless Elvis autographs (including one on a sympathy card he sent when her mother died); and has been kissed by the King four times (strictly from the stage, you understand).

She also has hundreds of outstanding photographs, taken from 1965 on, many of which became legendary in the Elvis fan and collector communities. For decades, people told her she should publish them in a book and finally get credit for them.

Now, that’s exactly what she has done. The book contains dozens of photos, including many candid shots she took during her visits to Graceland. There are pictures of Elvis riding horses and posing in front of Graceland’s Nativity scene.

It also contains Bendewald’s accounts of how the pictures came about, and the story of her lifelong Elvis devotion.

She’ll be presenting the book in Memphis at Elvis Week 2009, which runs through the 32nd anniversary of Presley’s death next Sunday.

You should be able to find it at local bookstores or Amazon.com, or from the publisher at www.mikesmemphistours.com.

A new McManus mystery

Add Patrick J. McManus to the list of nationally known Spokane authors who have new books coming out this fall.

“The Double-Jack Murders” (Simon & Schuster), the latest in McManus’ popular Sheriff Bo Tully comedy-mystery series, will be hitting the bookshelves in October.

Tully will once again be on the trail of killers in fictional Blight County, Idaho, a place that sounds comically familiar to those of us in the Inland Northwest.

What other Spokane-connected authors have books coming out this fall? Only Sherman Alexie, Jess Walter, Timothy Egan and Jack Nisbet.

In other words, you’ll have plenty of local choices for Christmas giving this year.

‘Lost in Wyoming’

A new hardback just crossed the transom which ought to appeal to Inland Northwest fly-fishers: “Lost in Wyoming,” (Barclay Creek Press, $24.95) by Hood River, Ore., writer Scott Sadil.

It’s a collection of beautifully written fictional stories about fishing, not just in Wyoming, but in the rest of the Northwest. John Gierach, the dean of American fishing writers, calls Sadil “the real thing” and I agree.

You can find the book at local and online bookstores or at www.scottsadil.com.