Montana Books

One of my all time favorites! I've written graduate essays on the book and always list it as being a major influence on my own writing. Joy Williams is one of the few authors who can describe the world's craziness and how we live in it.

I picked up this book quite by accident, having been recommended to another Williams, or, perhaps, another Joy. Frustrated, I glanced at the first page, and, finding it not repellent, read a bit more. The next thing I knew, I was immersed in something extraordinary and rare. It's amazing--and depressing--that a book like this can exist, no longer heralded, buried on a shelf in a bookstore where a handful of people might discover it by accident. About the book there is little to say that can adequately describe what it's like, except that it's like plunging into the soul of a very particular young woman.

This novel is truly a find. I echo the below review: how can such an unassuming piece of genius sit and languish on the shelf for so many years without ever garnering the readership it deserves? Suffice to say, State of Grace is like no other novel I've ever read, and I'm a PhD student in literature. It is lyrical and baffling, insightful and obscure. Perhaps the best corollary I can think of is Marilynne Robinson-- if Robinson surrendered herself to her ecstatic, mystic impulses. The story of a precious young woman and her will-less surge through the world is something to curl up with and devour. Treat yourself. Read it.

Walter Coburn, author of "Old Yeller," tells of his summer as a 14-year-old boy in northern Montana, working on his father's ranch. It is a huge spread of open range, with a large outfit of cowboys. Coburn remembers in vivid detail the incidents of that summer, devoting a large part of his book to the fall roundup, where despite his age and his size (stirrup high) he makes every effort to earn the respect of the other men as a hand. Unlike some books of this kind, Coburn is especially good at bringing to life the personalities of each of the men, from Brewster the range boss to Humpy Jack the nighthawk (horse wrangler) and George L. the cook. He is expert at developing suspense as well, while details of weather, landscape, meals, horses, clothing and gear are also well described.

At fourteen, a boy's feelings run close to the surface, and Coburn shares often the excitement, the anxieties, sorrows, embarrassments, and small triumphs of his days. Besides riding roundup, helping herd cattle across the Missouri River, and enduring a furious electrical storm and flood, he rides with his father in a thrilling cross-country harness race, and he gets to feel like an outlaw when he encounters bank robbers Kid Curry and his Wild Bunch. Nicely touching is saying goodbye to a young friend from another outfit who is returning to his home in Texas. Enjoyable reading for any age. Thanks to the University of Nebraska Press for keeping this fine book in print. Also recommended: "The Home Ranch" by Ralph Moody.

I absolutely love this book. As a girl, I was raised reading Walt's books as he's my grandfather's cousin. Must support family, you know, but this book taught me to love Walt's work and the genre. Grandfather told me that this book is spot-on for anyone interested in knowing what it was like growing up on the frontier in the late 1800's. This is far more than a simple story, this his Walt's history. Hell, it's OUR history. Bravo!

You never say you read an exciting western story without trying out this hit from Walt. He knew about the west well enough to be able to portray it in writing, and this is truely where he showed it in.

This was John Moore's first book for me. It introduced me to an entire world of not just the old west brought alive today, but true spirituality within the context of grass roots family living. Especially father-son relationships. I've recommended this book to well over hundred persons. A great gift for graduation! Both encouraging and sad. Encouraging that there are still folks like John and his family. Sad what is happening to our country with the loss of direct experience with life. Too much of our lives is lived through the media and PC--2nd hand living. This book will grab you with life on life's terms.

This book has been such an inspiration to my family and friends. We so believe that the lessons taught in Mr. Moore's letters to his son should be shared with young parents, we have given away over 75 books. We highly recommend this book to anyone whose responsibility it is to raise children to become adults of good character and strong faith.

John Moore writes this book from a spirit that lives within all of us. This book emodies the true value that books can bring us. John Moore has spent his lifetime to this point learning some immense lessons that we can be privy to and digest in the scope of an evening or two. I am writing a review of this book as I have come to send a copy to a friend. I would venture to say that anyone who reads this book, especially a man, who does not have parts of his soul stirred, is not wholly alive. And as a parent, it is great wisdom. I shared passage after passage with my wife, who had great appreciation for the human insight Mr. Moore shared. I now have a great desire to visit the ranch and man from which this book was birthed.

Made in Montana-and made for each other!

Clint Andrews has come to Broken Bow, Montana-to his uncle's ranch-on doctor's orders. A stressful career, an ugly divorce and a family-three kids [Justin, Brad, Megan] he adores but isn't sure he knows how to parent-have taken their toll. Now, and for the next few months, he's traded his suit and tie for jeans and cowboy boots, he's spending time with his children and he's helping out on a neighboring farm, because that's what people do in places like this.

Gail Wheeler's father's illness has brought her home to the family ranch, and she's thankful Clint is giving her parents a hand. But she's having a hard time fighting her other feelings about him-feelings that have nothing to do with gratitude. Because, although she loves having his kids around-especially four-year-old Megan, Gail knows she can never be a stepmother again.

A wonderfully moving story of two people with a change to start over...this time, together.

"This Montana Home" is a really good book. I would encourage any one who likes to read about two people just getting out of a really bad relationship and starting a new life with someone they have been looking for, to read it. No other book that I have picked up kept me wanting to read until I have finished it, but this one has. I enjoyed reading it because it made me feel as if I was a character in it. If you like to be kept on the edge of your seat until the end than you should pick this one book up and read it. Even if you don't like to read but pick it up I can almost promise you that you wont want to put this book down.

Sherry Lewis writes a story that touches the very core of your heart. Clint and Gail both have reasons not to get involved - reasons their heads keep reminding them of - reasons their hearts are ignoring. Circumstances have brought them together, but it will take something more to make their relationship work - it will take a whole lot of love.

I understand Sherry has a new book out soon, and I can tell you it won't be soon enough for me!

Having been mightily impressed with Margaret Guenther's The Practice of Prayer, I was eager to read more from this wise, articulate, and highly compassionate woman.

This is not just a book for senior citizens, as the title might suggest. Indeed, as far as I am concerned, the second half of life is everything after that point when you wake up and realize that you are indeed getting older and that you cannot hold onto your youth, and you begin to question what is really important in life. Margaret Guenther shows us many ways of seeing and sifting, and getting to the core of what it is to be human and Christian. Although she is an ordained Episcopal priest, I think this book will speak to everyone of the Christian faith as they are growing older, and let's face it, who isn't?

Highly recommended.

In "Toward Holy Ground", spiritual director and theologian Margaret Guenther discusses the effect of mortality and aging on spirituality. Although the title suggests this book refers to those approaching or into mid or later life, Reverend Guenther suggests that the "second half of life" can occur at any age - it is a mindset and a change in focus, rather than an arrival at any specific age.

Wonderfully written, this book speaks about spiritual direction, craft, shifts in perspective and life; as well as discussing aging, both as one who will eventually age, and one who has ministered to the aged. Her insights are sensitive and helpful, and the suggestions for ministry practical and compassionate. Her sections on spiritual direction do tend toward a mainline Christian focus, not surprisingly, as Ms. Guenther is an Episcopal priest. An excellent, helpful book.

Adjusting to the aging process is every bit as challenging as the passage from childhood to adolescence. When you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and see your mother, it's time read Toward Holy Ground. The author is an Episcopal priest, no longer young herself, whose wisdom and insight into the aging process make this gently written, easily read book invaluable for those of us in the second half of life. Reading it is similar to having a conversation with a friend, about many things we share, the things that make aging wonderful and difficult. The author has written several books, including The Practice of Prayer, and Holy Listening.

This little book (only 126 pages) does many different things, all very well, and most better than books many times its size. Hedren has chosen 54 specific historical sites relating to the Great Sioux War and arranged them chronologically, with site 1 being the Grattan Battlefield in Wyoming (commemorating an 1854 incident which helped set the stage for later events) and site 54 being Sitting Bull's grave in South Dakota (he died in 1890). In addition to these 54 "official" sites, Hedren identifies and directs readers to many other related locations nearby.

Each site gets a number (which is also pin-pointed on a map), a brief description of the its significance, and directions to it (also whether it's on private property or not); then follows a longer historical account of the site's role in the War and a number of photographs indicating what a visitor to the site would see. It's a magnificent tool for anyone touring the area (most sites are in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska), but it's just as valuable (and exciting) for anyone interested in the Sioux War who can't leave his livingroom. A great book. Highly recommended.

This book is fabulous in that in that it not only charts the tour sites of the Great Sioux was with excellent maps, directions and fantastic pictures but also provides excellent mini-histories on what occurred at each site including bios on the main participants. Just reading this book gives you a good historical perspective for the great plains war with chapters that categorize the historical sites by period starting with the Gratten marker in Wyoming. The Gratten monument was for a Lt. and his company that threatened Conquering Bear's village over the alleged theft of a cow resulting in his death and his companies (1856). This book proceeds with sites and histories flowing the Red Cloud War of 1866, through the Little Bighorn Campaign period and aftermath, the summer and winter campaigns. Also includes historical sites after 1877 such as sitting Bull's Canadian sites with descriptions of the sites and pictures. Hedren covers every major historical site from old forts, some of which have been reconstructed and some have actual structures that he describes and has pictures of. You can virtually follow the expeditions of the army or find exact locations of significant village sites. This book adds an extra dimension to any trip as Hedren shows you additional sites, some obscure, right next door to the more publicized sites. A great example is Little Bighorn, just 30 miles away is the pristine Rosebud Battlefield site where Crook encountered the Sioux and Cheyenne in a desperate and critical battle a week before Custer. In addition, the Powder River Battlefield where Crook's forces struck first but lost the initiative in March is just further west of the Rosebud Battlefield. This book provides so much information and easy directions including those that are on private property (includes caution to seek permission) that an adventurous traveler can seemingly so it all in a long week but perhaps two. The book's pictures are better than many books that are dedicated to a specific battle. The pictures of the massive Bear Butte Mountain are incredible as its mass is seen along a flat plain. The also book includes pictures of the main participants and their places of rest. A book that Walter Camp would be proud of as he documented many of these sites almost 100 years ago before they were lost to obscurity. I wish I had this book when I visited the Little Bighorn two years ago; however, there is so much great information I would have had to stay west another week.

Superb volume; spent happy hours reading about places we've been lucky enough to visit and reviewing ones still to come if we can ever cross the Atlantic again. Amazon is a fantastic storehouse for books on our favourite subjects.This one is a must as an aide memoire and a forward planner.

To say that the Travers Corners books are stories about fishing would be like saying that going to college was about classes. While the philosophy of fishing flows through all of the stories, they are about all of life - growing, dying, arrogant people, good people. I could scarcely sum up the book better than a writer of Fly Rod & Reel:

"Waldie also manages a paradox, demonstrating that the decent, more-or-less ordinary people in this pretty nice place live lives of consequence, knit to one another by community, history, affection, or animus. They matter"

While each story or chapter could stand on its own as a story, Waldie manages to weave them together and bring the stories of three books together to a conclusion that, while not unexpected or plot-twisting, is immensely gratifying to read. While the stories are based on a real town, the way that the arrogant always get their come-up-ins and the good people always end up adhead is a little Hollywood at times, but it is not overdone and comes across as believable.

All three of these books left me each night feeling calm and peaceful and I am sad to finish the series, but I will definitely read it again someday.

Reserve a couple of hours, you won't be putting this one down once you pick it up. Waldie tells stories that ring true in any town, any country, any soul; and he does it in a way that brings us a full range of emotion. It's certainly not necessary to fly-fish to feel the life that flows through Waldie's prose, or to get hooked on the characters in his imagination. This is just wonderful stuff.

My favorite author has done it again. These stories take you to a place that we all yearn for with friends and family to match. If the town of Traver's Corners truly existed, my wife and I would pull up stakes and move there immediately. Fortunately, the books exist and anytime we want to visit it's quick to get there. We've read these stories time and again. They age well. Do yourself a favor and take the time to visit Traver's Corners yourself. You won't be disappointed.

This is a model of how to write about tribal politics today. It is sympathetic yet balanced, and devoid of ideological posturing. The authors are a political scientist, a historian, and a lawyer, and they bring their combined backgrounds to the study of government on Montana's seven Indian reservations.

They find success stories such as Fort Peck and Flathead, and failures of governance coexisting with potential wealth, such as the Crow. Rocky Boy's and Fort Belknap represent the all-too-common depressing story of a community trapped in a cycle of poverty. The Northern Cheyenne case is particularly interesting because they argue that politics reflects a choice between two values (economic development versus traditional values), and the tribe has legitimately decided against development.

The focus throughout the book is squarely on politics on the reservation. Outsiders-- whether natural resources corporations, the State of Montana, or the Bureau of Indian Affairs-appear in the book when they interfere in reservation affairs, but the authors emphasize the choices that Native Americans make (or fail to make) for themselves. Though they do not say so directly, the authors' guiding light is really the Federalist Papers: constitutionalism, a separation of powers, legitimacy and effective leadership are all important in governance. One might criticize this stance as a form of intellectual imperialism, though when one sees the failures of the Crow reservation in particular, it's clear that a greater concern for these institutional rules would be useful regardless of culture.

The reservations have 2000-7000 resident members each, making them the size of small towns in population terms. One might ask whether the conventional categories of municipal government (mayor and council, town administrator, etc.) would be useful models for revised tribal constitutions, making due allowance for tribal sovereignty and cultural distinctiveness.

In the study of contemporary Aboriginal peoples, this book is a breath of fresh air. I am a second year Native Studies and Canadian Studies double-major at Trent University in Canada. Most books dealing with tribal government and modern native people talk about Native conflicts with the European colonizers and the US government. While this is certainly a worthy topic and one that needs to be brought to attention of far more people throughout the world, this book answers a question that has been left untouched: "Do these tribal governments promote soverignty and do they respresent their people in a positive way?" I find this book, which focused specifically on the Montana Reservations, invaluable for three reasons. The first is that it makes important distinctions between the different tribes and forms of government, thus dispelling the myth that all Native tribes and people think alike and/or face the same circumstances. Second, the book talks about the phenomenon of conflict within tribes, as well as conflict between tribal governments and their members. It does not ignore the effect that outside policies and peoples have had on tribal governments, but it is not the main focus of the text. This has largely been ignored in academic scholarship, and this reveals how complex contemporary Native society is and also a good starting point for other explorations, such as Native activism that deals specifically with their tribal governments. Finally, the book is humble in its demeanor, which is unfortunately, becoming more uncommon in academic scholarship today(i.e. Ward Churchill). The authors are non-Native, and admit that they are NOT trying to provide a definitive answer or conclusion for tribes, but are simply trying to provoke further examination and discussion on the topic. They never claim to hold an academic or intellectual monopoly or superiority over others. Overall, this book a refreshing view of Native peoples, their contemporary governments, and the issues that plague Indian Country. It is also interesting for myself in seeing what the future might hold for Canadian Native tribes, who are still struggling to obtain soverignty and self-government.

This compilation provides students and professionals with a fine overview of 20th century politics in Montana. Recommended for upper-level undergrads, graduate students, and those seeking a deeper understanding of a legacy of injustice. A must!

Fantastic from first word to last!! A must read!

A good read. Characters come to life and demand that you remember them as if they had lived next door. Leaves you wanting another hundred pages. Buy it now.

After reading the Baynes Clan by McCord, I ordered his next book as soon as I knew of it. Walking Hawk is an excellent book. McCord's ability to bring the reader into his story is incredible. Anyone who likes Louis L'Lamour will love McCord's books. Walking Hawk is another example of the...can't put it down...books that Mccord writes. This story has is all...love of family...struggles...mystery...turmoil...survival.A must read for western lovers. I am eagerly awaiting McCord's next western book.~Bev. Bozman~

I have always wanted to be a frontier woman, but was born too late!!. I wanted to tame the wild and unknown, but cant shoot a gun!! From the safety of my armchair, my fire cracking in the hearth, Jack with his words, and Sheryl with her paintbox, I was right there, the frigid water splashing on my face, the rush as the fish hits the line. I felt like I was yet again a child in England, my Grandfather beside me, guiding me to land that one that would never be the one that got away. Looking at the light hitting the water, the waves and shadows, so wonderfully frozen in that moment of an eyes blink, Sheryl had me right there, I could feel the colours of the leaves as the sun shot over them. I saw the rainbow etched over the scales of the fish as the water droplets plonked back in to the river.
Thank you Jack and Sheryl, reading this wonderful book gave me escape, took this country girl right back, even if I have never ventured so far as the Home Counties of Southern England. Between the two of you, you had me feeling like a Laura Ingles Wilder, and for that I thank you both.

This book is a gem - a joy to give, a must to keep. I've only been fishing once, many years ago but this book of poetry takes me back to that place- the woods, the stream, the campfire - and all that was there to delight and sustain. I haven't read it all the way through; it isn't really a book to do that with, at least to me. I keep it close by and open it at random, each time transported to places that beckon through the radiance of the paintings and the wild call of the poems. Reading it is bittersweet - at once longing for the road not taken, and luxuriating in the chunk of it served up here.

The visually impressive artwork of Sheryl Getman offers a welcome counterpoint to the original poetry comprising Jack B. Jelinski's Water Like The Soul Of An Angel: Memoirs Of A Fisherman. Jelinski's verse celebrates an enjoyment and appreciation of the outdoors, and for the solitude and peace of mind to be found there. While Casting For Trout: The delicate, white-feather legs of a thistle seed/run upstream with the wind./The fragile physics of a miniature tumbleweed ballet/make it magically spin/against the weight of mountains/while standing still/until/this exquisite balance fails/and must wait to find its moment again/downstream from where you brace our feet/against the current's will.