Montana rodeo rider focus of biography
As residents of the West, we live in a land steeped by the legacy of cowboys.
Not just the cowboys of fiction, as portrayed by everyone from Zane Grey to Annie Proulx, but those real-life characters who ride for business, for pleasure and for the kinds of prizes that come from sitting atop a bucking animal for the required eight seconds.
Take Bill Smith, for example. The native of Bearcreek, Mont., is the focus of a biography titled “Horses That Buck: The Story of Champion Bronc Rider Bill Smith” (University of Oklahoma Press, 194 pages, $24.95), written by first-time Seattle author Margot Kahn,
Kahn, who spent eight years researching and writing her book, will read from it at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Auntie’s Bookstore.
“The book is the biography of Smith, a Wyoming cowboy who came up from nothing to win 13 trips to the National Finals rodeo and three gold buckles in the 1960s-70s,” Kahn explained in an e-mail. “It’s as much about rodeo as it is about the icon of the cowboy, passion, determination and the changing American West.”
Besides being a writer, Kahn serves as the youth programs manager at Richard Hugo House, the Seattle-based literary arts center ( www.hugohouse.org).
For further information about Kahn and her book, go online at www.margotkahn.com.
Go Idaho
One way to experience a state is to simply get up and go there. Or you could be like the rest of us and consult a book first.
And if what you want to explore happens to be Idaho, then you might want to pick up a copy of “Idaho: An Explorer’s Guide” (Countryman Press, 384 pages, $21.95 paper) by Wendy J. Pabich, an environmental scientist with a Ph.D. who lives in Hailey, Idaho.
As she says in her prologue, Pabich hopes to “point you in the direction of the coolest spots around – showing you where to play, eat and sleep.”
For more information about Pabich’s book, part of Countryman Press’ “Explorer” series (which includes similar guides for Washington, Oregon and Hawaii), go online at www.countrymanpress.com.
The way West
Not to give anything away, but readers of “Valley of the Shadow,” the novel by John Soennichsen that we are publishing online, can breathe easier. Seems as if most of the characters we have been following for some 30 chapters have passed their latest crisis.
There are several great things about an online publishing venture. One, it costs you nothing more than the time it takes to register on the S-R Web site. Two, you can read at your own speed (the first 30 chapters are just sitting there online, waiting for you). Three, you can comment as you read, telling author Soennichsen what you think (and he’s been good at responding to all comments posted so far).
There are 20 chapters to go, and we’ll be releasing them on a weekly basis over the next few months. By then, Soennichsen’s new book, the nonfiction study “Bretz’s Flood: The Remarkable Story of a Rebel Geologist and the World’s Greatest Flood” (Sasquatch Books, 320 pages, $21.95) should be out in actual print (it’s due for an Oct. 1 release).
To access “Valley of the Shadow,” go online at www.spokesmanreview.com/ blogs/shadow.
Book talk
•Gay & Lesbian Book Group (“Call Me by Your Name: A Novel,” by Andre Aciman), 7 p.m. Tuesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•Spokane Authors and Self-Publishers, 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Old Country Buffet, 5504 N. Division St. Open to the public; meeting begins at noon, lunch purchase required. Call (509) 325-2072. Special guest: Spokesman-Review columnist Doug Clark.
The reader board
•Margot Kahn (“Horses That Buck: The Story of Champion Bronc Rider Bill Smith”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington. Call (509) 838-0206.
•Bill Ferguson (“The Queen Street Kids and Some Fishy Tales”), signing, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•Kathleen Flinn (“The Sharper the Knife, the Less You Cry”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•Buddy Levy (“Conquistadors: Hernan Cortez, King Montezuma and the Last of the Aztecs”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•Marilyn Newkirk (“Legacy of Yesteryear”), signing, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•Beverly Seaton Ingersoll (“4 Months of God’s Mercy”), signing, 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Auntie’s Bookstore.