Regional writers worth reading
If you’ve read today’s IN Life cover story, then you’ll already know that there are many good books to read this summer. Most, if not all, are by writers from out of the area. But what about our regional writers? What do they have worth reading?
For example, King County Sheriff David Reichert’s nonfiction study “My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer” (Little, Brown, 320 pages, $24.95) was supposed to have come out in October. But the publisher, apparently hoping to appeal to the beach-read crowd, decided to bring the book out in July.
Here are a few other recommendations:
“ “Ten Little Indians” (Grove Press, 256 pages, $13 paper) by Sherman Alexie: The Wellpinit, Wash.-born writer’s just-reissued-in-paperback collection of short stories explores what Publishers Weekly calls the world of “love, both romantic and familial.”
“ “Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh” (Daw Books, 400 pages, $23.95) and “Forge of Heaven” (Eos, 416 pages, $24.95) by C. J. Cherryh: Cherryh (who reads at Auntie’s Bookstore on Wednesday) is more than just a nationally known science-fiction writer. The two-time Hugo Award-winning novelist (1982, ‘89), who also won a Hugo for Best Short Story (“Cassandra”) in 1979, shows the full range of her talents. “Forge of Heaven,” a sequel to 2001’s “Hammerfall,” involves what happens when someone suspects “illicit nanotechnology” is being exported from a bombed-out, slowly recovering planet.
“ “The Second Coming” (Baen Books, 400 pages, $24) by John Dalmas: Another Spokane-based sci-fi writer, Dalmas has written his first hardback novel. It tells the story of an America, mired in a depression, facing a messiah who comes in the shape of a black Canadian software guru.
“ “Pyro” (Ballantine Books, 352 pages, $24.95) by Earl Emerson: Departing from his two major mystery series, Seattle firefighter Emerson explores the world of a firefighter in search of the arsonist who may have killed his father.
“ “Matrix Dreams & Other Stories” (F&W Publications, 228 pages, $17.99) by James C. Glass: Yet another Spokane-based sci-fi writer, Glass (“Shanji,” “Empress of Light”) offers up his first collection of short fiction.
“ “Day of the Dead” (William Morrow, 384 pages, $23.95) by J.A. Jance: The popular mystery writer, who splits her time between Seattle and Arizona, returns with this third in her Brandon Walker series.
“ “Black Creek Crossing” (Ballantine Books, 368 pages, $25.95) by John Saul: The horror specialist turns to witchcraft and haunted houses in this tale about a 14-year-old girl and her friend trying to discover the evil secret of the old house that her troubled parents have just bought.
“ “My Lady Housekeeper” (Zebra Books, 256 pages, $4.99) by Jeanne Savery: No reading list would be complete without at least one romance novel. The choice here is Spokane-based writer Savery’s story about an heiress, trying to break her father’s will, who meets up with the hunk of an earl who once captured her heart.
Go forth. And read.
Caxton comes through
The news that the University of Idaho was closing its press came, if not exactly as a shock, at least as a disappointment to many people inside and outside the university. Many of the most disappointed were the authors whose books the press holds the rights to.
So it’s good news — especially to those authors — that the UI has entered into a deal whereby Caxton Press, of Caldwell, Idaho, is now distributing the 85 titles published by the school’s former press. Chief among the books are “Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America,” the award-winning work of nonfiction by Spokane writer Linda Lawrence Hunt, and “Common Courage: Bill Wassmuth, Human Rights and Small-Town Activism” by former Spokesman-Review staff writer Andrea Vogt.
The deal, which was announced Wednesday, is being called a “joint operation” of the UI Press and Caxton. But since the UI Press fired its publisher and isn’t acquiring any new titles, the distinction is mostly academic.
The only exceptions to the agreement involve the Hemingway Review and Steinbeck Studies, literary journals that will be “handled” by the UI Department of English, and the Native Plants Journal, which is edited by forestry expert Kasten Dumroese.
Caxton Printers, a family-owned business that has operated in Caldwell for more than a century, runs Caxton Press, which specializes in Western history. It can be reached at (800) 657-6465 or through the company Web site, www.caxtonpress.com.
Found, not lost
Davy Rothbart, author of “Found: The Best Lost, Tossed and Forgotten Items from Around the World” (Fireside, 252 pages, $14 paper), will appear at the Coeur d’Alene Borders Books on Tuesday (see below) as part of his Slapdance Across America Tour 2004.
“Found” the book is the result of “Found” the photocopied magazine that Rothbart began putting together from found items — “love letters, birthday cards, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on bar napkins, doodles, etc.” — that he found in places as diverse as city buses or prison yards. Rothbart has been profiled in The New Yorker and Chicago Tribune, his magazine has been the subject of stories in USA Today and Penthouse magazine, and he has appeared on “Late Night With David Letterman.”
Rothbart lives in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is a contributor to Public Radio International’s “This American Life.”
Book talk
“ Science and Nature Book Group (“The Seven Daughters of Eve,” by Bryan Sykes), 7 p.m. Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington (838-0206).
“ Auntie’s Youth Book Group (“Molly Moon Stops the World,” by Georgia Byng), 2 p.m. Saturday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
The reader board
“ Gene Del Vecchio (“The Pearl of Anton”), signing, 1 to 3 p.m. today, Valley Hastings, 15312 E. Sprague Ave. (924-0667); 5 to 8 p.m. today, Coeur d’Alene Hastings, 101 Best Ave. (208-664-0464).
“ John Gaetano (“America the Beautiful”), signing, 4 p.m. today, North Division Hastings, 7706 N. Division St. (483-2154).
“ Barry Lopez (“Resistance”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Monday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
“ Eileen Delehanty Pearkes (“The Geography of Memory”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
“ Davy Rothbart (“Found: The Best Lost, Tossed and Forgotten Items from Around the World”), performance/signing, 7 p.m. Tuesday, Coeur d’Alene Borders Books, 450 W. Wilbur, Coeur d’Alene (208-664-0464).
“ C.J. Cherryh (“Forge of Heaven”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
“ Gary Ferguson (“The Great Divide: The Rocky Mountains in the American Mind”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Auntie’s Bookstore.