During the mediation, the officer said that while he had a slightly different memory of the exchange, his hasty words didn’t reflect what he’d meant, didn’t represent him. He wanted to tell me who he was: a father, an athlete, a coach, a 20-year member of the force, the product of an inter-racial family, a believer in justice and an admirer of Martin Luther King Jr., whose words about the content of one’s character he often re-read.

The Spokesman-Review launched Northwest Passages just over a year ago as a book club and community forum with a mission to get people reading – and talking. If anything, we underestimated the passion of our readers, as crowds packed some of the biggest venues we could find to hear writers including Craig Johnson, creator of the Longmire mysteries; Jess Walter, the best-selling Spokane novelist; and Tara Westover, debut author of a celebrated memoir about overcoming her difficult upbringing in rural Idaho.

NEW YORK – Robert Caro’s next book isn’t his fifth and final volume on Lyndon Johnson or like anything he has done before. “Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing,” to be published by Alfred A. Knopf in April, combines personal reflections and professional guidance as Caro looks back on his singular history as a writer and reporter. The book includes previous lectures and interviews, but also new material. In the introduction, the 83-year-old Caro writes that the 240-page “Working” is not a “full-length memoir,” which he still hopes to write, but a more informal gathering of “thoughts” and “experiences” behind such prize-winning books as his Johnson biography “Master of the Senate” and his classic book on municipal builder Robert Moses, “The Power Broker.”

The author of “The Thirteenth Tale” and “Bellman & Black” begins this account on a winter solstice more than 100years ago. A near-drowned stranger arrives at a rural inn, grievously injured and carrying a young girl who, to all appearances, has already died.

The holidays are here, and that means it’s the perfect time to put your Instant Pot to use – or get one if you don’t already have one.

For Spokane novelist Sherry Jones, the rich history of Josephine Baker’s extraordinary life proved irresistible.

Travel writer and television host Rick Steves was the latest author to be featured by The Spokesman Review’s Northwest Passages Book Club, held Thursday at the Bing Crosby Theater.

Her Instagram followers will recognize the Philipps who just puts herself out there, the good, the bad, the falling flat on her face (three dislocated knees). Here I am, everybody! Do you love me? LOVE ME! And it’s hard not to. (Unless all-caps bothers you. Then you may have issues with this book.)

The four books here show how many challenges – including the basic laws of gravity – were involved in space travel, as well as how much more there is to explore.

I’d decided to stop eating meat some years before she came into my life, and I had to figure out what would be OK to consume. Only plants? Nothing with a face? No one who runs away?

Plenty of Native people still celebrate the holiday, too. Everyone has the time off and no one is against gratitude. It’s complicated. And I would never condemn a Native person or family for having a meal together. The problem is deep and systemic.

The great value of travel is the opportunity it offers you to pry open your hometown blinders and broaden your perspective. And when we implement that world view as citizens of our great nation, we make travel a political act. Here are my top 10 tips for doing just that:

Although few Americans made literature out of the First World War, European writers – men who served, women who waited and people who opposed the war – produced novels, memoirs and poetry that are still almost unbearable to read for their painful evocation of the battlefield and the emotional costs of war.

Rick Steves has been guiding Americans through Europe for so many years, it’s like an old friend leading us along the ancient cobbled streets. His book, “Travel as a Political Act” urges Americans to go beyond tourist attractions and dig deeper in their travels, to engage with the people we meet and understand what makes us different – and how we are the same.

On Monday, the night before one of the most hotly contested midterm elections in recent U.S. history, Nicholas Kristof will be at Gonzaga University in Spokane talking about the state of American journalism in the era of “fake news” and President Donald Trump’s assertion that journalists are enemies of the people

“Bing Crosby: Swinging On a Star – The War Years 1940-1946,” Giddins’ second Crosby biography, hits shelves Tuesday.