Tara Westover grew up in a survivalist family on an Idaho mountain. She watched the school bus roll past, but never joined the local kids at school. She never saw a doctor. She didn’t have a birth certificate to pinpoint her birthday.
Best-selling author J.A. Jance, the latest author to be featured by The Spokesman-Review’s Northwest Passages Book Club, is the author of 56 novels, spanning series featuring such characters as Arizona Sheriff Joanna Bradley, Seattle homicide detective J.P. Beaumont, former television anchor turned sleuth Ali Reynolds and Tucson’s Walker family.
In response to strong reader interest, the Northwest Passages Book Club has added a second book talk and signing with bestselling mystery author J.A. Jance. Tickets are available for the author’s Mystery Matinee event, which starts at 3 p.m. Wednesday at The Spokesman-Review building. General admission tickets are available at www.spokane7tickets.com.
Tara Westover was raised without a birth certificate, medical care or a formal education. “Educated,” the gripping story of Westover’s self-invention after a brutally hard upbringing, is winning acclaim across the literary world, riding high on nonfiction best-seller lists.
The Spokesman-Review’s Northwest Passages Book Club and Community Forum has a fresh lineup for spring, including outgoing state poet laureate Tod Marshall and best-selling authors J.A. Jance and Jess Walter.
The $10,000 award honors nonfiction books of both literary quality and social impact, and nominees include Nate Blakeslee, whose “American Wolf” was the December book of the Northwest Passages Book Club.
Super librarian Nancy Pearl never expected to write a novel. “It was never on my bucket list,” she said, speaking before an audience of nearly 170 people Saturday in the West Chronicle Room of The Spokesman-Review. “I never would have written anything down, except I came to one of those points in my life that I think as readers we all sometimes get to ... where we just can’t find the right book to read.”
We’re off to the library tonight. Not looking for books. Not checking out DVDs. Not planning to Google stuff on the computer. Not seeking to check out another installment of “Captain Underpants” for the kid or a Margaret Atwood title for us parents or a copy of a Bon Appetit magazine from last March with that one special recipe.
Reviewing lists of top checkouts from both the Spokane Puiblic Library and the Spokane County Library District reveals patterns and trends about what Spokane read or listened to last year.
