Books

In the introduction to “Down River, Deep Root: A Spokane Poetry Anthology,” Sarah Rooney, one of the anthology’s editors, wrote, “Spokane is incredibly liminal, that feeling of steering away from the pothole you’ve come to encounter every day until one day it’s filled. Still, you navigate to avoid the space and save your car’s suspension.”

Tribal police officers have been receiving more attention recently through the fictional AMC thriller series “Dark Winds.” But James “Jim” Wynecoop is offering his own, true account of being a Spokane Tribal Police officer in a book that gives a look into the work of tribal police and his life on the reservation.

The season’s latest comics include a collection of new short stories by Joe Ollmann, a bizarre story of Paris overrun by monsters and a sedate reflection on restaurant life.

A book detailing the life of Shasta Groene, the 9-year-old survivor of Coeur d’Alene’s infamous Wolf Lodge family murders, has been nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award.

Jasper and Satchel Sieniewicz can’t believe it was a one man job.

In his latest novel, “So Far Gone,” Jess Walter describes a scene where Rhys – an isolated ex-journalist who’s been estranged from his family for years – is taking his grandson Asher to a chess club because his daughter is missing.

If you go What: David Guterson will talk about his latest novel, “Evelyn in Transit,” with Jess Walter on the Northwest Passages stage. When: 7 p.m. Feb. 5 Where: Gonzaga’s Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center, Coughlin Theater Tickets: $10 general admission online at

Dean Koontz’s new novel, “The Friend of the Family,” takes the best-selling author in a new direction as the master of suspense tries his hand at historical fiction for the first time, with a tinge of magical realism.

As a child growing up in north Seattle, “Snow Falling on Cedars” author David Guterson was keeping score on a chalkboard for his brother’s junior high basketball game. When another child, Ani Sakya, disagreed with the score, Guterson made an insult about the kid’s mom. Sakya threw Guterson on the ground, and Guterson’s arm broke in the fall.

Chuck Klosterman’s “Football” is a strange book – an impassioned collection of essays about the game that would make an awkward gift for the fan in your family. Though its release is timed to the height of the NFL postseason, Klosterman often seems inclined to put you off watching the sport. He muses at length about classic players and statistics, only to lament the dead-endedness of the debates they inspire. He broods on the sport’s structural absurdities and moral questionability. He predicts its eventual decline and death. As he puts it in the introduction, “I love football, but I don’t want to take it to the prom.”

What you first notice about a Dean Koontz book is his name.

Best-selling author Dean Koontz writes often and lovingly about the dogs in his life, including three golden retrievers who retired or otherwise needed a “career change” from Canine Companions for Independence, an organization he has long supported.

“Stop the presses,” on- and off-the-record conversations, hostile editor meetings.

Music was a first love for romance author Jessica James, so it’s fitting that her books have chronicled the love lives of the members of Glitter Bats – a fictional pop punk band with a cult following and blossoming resurgence.

The story reads like something out of an adventure movie: a charismatic, self-mythologizing millionaire living out his dotage in Santa Fe, New Mexico, buries a bronze chest full of gold nuggets, gemstones and other valuables in a secret location. In 2010, the millionaire – whose very name, Forrest Fenn, evokes the great outdoors – self-publishes a memoir that includes a poem containing nine clues to the treasure’s location in the Rocky Mountains. For a decade, treasure hunters scale peaks and search canyons in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. At least five men die in their quests. Then, in June 2020, Fenn announces that the chest has been found in Wyoming; he dies soon after at age 90, his legacy secure.

Kristin Hannah has Spokane County readers firmly under her thumb.

Reading rates are declining – a recent study showed that the number of Americans who read for pleasure had almost halved in the last two decades, while average reading scores for students are plummeting, thanks in large part to the number of digital distractions competing for our limited attention. These seven podcasts will help you indulge, develop or rekindle a love of reading, offering critical analysis and recommendations alongside tips and tricks on how to break through reader’s block.

With the holiday travel season ramping up, a good book is a must-have for airport delays or to give as the perfect gift.

The entire staff was there at our first Christmas Eve office party, including our Basque contingency Santiago Saizarbitoria and his wife Maria and even Double-Tough had ventured up from our distant substation in Powder Junction to sit on the bench by the stairs of our converted Carnegie Library and covertly feed Dog cookies.