Washington Books

A great summer read! Lovable, unforgettable characters who soon become like old friends. Descriptions that allow you to feel, smell and taste the streets of New Orleans. Interesting premise of a search for a fictional character, Blanche DuBois. Although a sequel, it is skillfully written to stand alone. New readers will quickly "catch up" without having read Looking for Blanche (although they'll no doubt want to after getting ro know Belle and friends in this fun and fast-moving sequel). Take it to the beach.

The Spirit in Washington Square by Mary Kay RemickFor those of you who met Belle Reve and followed her search for Blanche DeBois of STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE fame, you will be glad to know that Belle is back, along with her big, rumply bearlike man, Art Barkoff, the taxi driver. For those readers not familiar with Remick's Blanche, it's the story of how a young innocent woman pursues her quest to find Blanche DeBois, made famous by Tennessee Williams.In Remick's second story, not only has Belle left the halfway house, but she's also found romance withArt Barkoff. Some of the gang from Hope Haven also play a prominent part of the story.The novel continues with how people cope with serious conflicts and medical problems as well as a dilemma or two.But it's really a love story as well.Find out whether Belle finds Blanche, but especially enjoy the flavor and exitement of New Orleans in this delightful Southern novel.

I am a graduate student at WSU in Pullman. This text is an excellent resource for those wishing to deepen their understanding and appreciation for Northwest Native American culture. The accompanying CD is the only one that I could locate which has authentic Northwest tribal music; most Native American music available through retail outlets today are the melodic flute tunes of Southwestern tribes.

Book includes information on instruments, dance regalia, as well as histories about musical traditions.

Tribes included in the CD include the Makah, Quileute, Yakama, Chinook, Skokomish, Tulalip, Lummi, Okanogan, Spokane, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Colville.
I would recommend this book to anyone!

Native American Music Traditions of Washington State. This book & accompanying compact disk offer a rare glimpse into the NorthWest Native American's sacred traditions of song & dance.

Arising from a unique exhibit & live performance at the Northwest Folklife Festival, Spirit of the First People is a collection of personal narratives, stories & essays on the music of the First People in the region that now encampasses Washington State. From tribe to tribe & reservation to reservation across the state, a wide range of musical genres & individual styles have developed, including social dance songs, game songs & hymns.

It takes time to re-tune our ears from listening to the artificial & steroidal music we're used to. Listening to both the CD & reading the stories is like hearing the thunder in a gorge, a hawk on the wind, snow-muffled footsteps, water rushing to the sea. The voices of the People of the Earth whose ears have heard its heartbeats & remember the stories.

Tucked into the many memories of boarding school, singing the songs to life, berry gathering & potlatches is a gallery of exquisite black & white archival photos as well has full color ones of today's families, ceremonial regalia & drums.

A rare treat & an inspired gift for someone you know who favors music of a First People. A treasure! For my full review do check out: [my website].

What do you do when the foundation of your existence is not only annihilated, but lost and forgotten? Carly Sachs has produced a stunning account of an individual putting together an irrational, criminal and inhuman event in the life of the narrator, which cannot be repaired in any other way. Her sparce and barren language reflects the basis with which the narrator must reacquaint herself with one word at a time. Instead of a confessional tale of being lost in an abyss, the symbols within this book give the reader an objective foothold in finding a way out. If you like Louise Gluck and Elizabeth Bishop, The Steam Sequence too reaches for the elements. It does not only have to be read in the historical context of the holocaust, but provides a story of anyone, anywhere, at any time, who has faced the destruction of reality.

How difficult a topic to tackle is The Holocaust and how many angles the approach towards it--and yet Carly Sachs attempts it again with what could have only been a solid certainty of the riskiest, most urgent art. The challenge in the politically and moreso within the trafficked-political, is to make what is already so charged feel as aesthetically high in voltage as it is in its terrible truth. The Steam Sequence comes to us already vaporized, with words lightly (and lit) hung in the air of its pages the way of dust and ghosts. It seems deeply right with a genuine grief that is not exploited or exclaimed but rather strung across the horizontal layout of the page. The poems are full of space and the language is spare. This is a beautiful photograph of an unspeakable image that has been shot again and again but never from this angle and rarely so right.

This is the best biography for young people I've seen in a long time. I grew up loving biographies, and am always drawn to new ones on the shelves. The format is beautiful, and the writing clear, concise and entertaining. A must-have for classrooms, libraries, and the personal collections of history buffs of all ages.

The best biography I've seen on George Washington. Thoroughly researched, information-rich, yet very accessible. A stunning book complete with photographs and sidebars that kids and teachers will enjoy reading. This book would be a favorite on reading lists and library shelves!

Seven unusual, true stories set in Louisiana comprise the reissue of George Washington Cable's STRANGE TRUE STORIES OF LOUISIANA. First published in 1888, these stories are a gold mine of cultural lore and historical facts. As interesting as the stories themselves are the accounts of how Cable acquired them.

"The Young Aunt with White Hair" is set in Spanish occupied Louisiana in 1782 and describes the horrors experienced by a young woman on the long journey to New Orleans from Germany: robbed by sailors on the ship; an Indian attack near the mouth of the Mississippi River, during which her husband and baby are brutally murdered; being held captive by Indians and told she was to be the chief's dinner. Her ordeal was so great that her hair turned snow white in a matter of hours, and she never recovered from the experience.

Humor and suspense make "The Two Sisters" just plain fun to read. Two teenage girls- one a tomboy and one a demure, sweet lady- undertake a dangerous trek across the Atchafalaya swamp to North Louisiana in 1795. It's not only a good story, but the details of clothing, places and people are priceless. "Plaquemine was composed of a church, two stores, as many drinking-shops, and about fifty cabins, one of which was the courthouse. Here lived a multitude of Catalans, Acadians, Negros and Indians. ..It was at Plaquemine that we bade adieu to the old Mississippi.."

The story if "Alix de Morainville" reads like a fairy tale: the birth-deformed baby farmed out to a peasant family; the arranged marriage that turns out to be a love match; the convent stay; the marriage of dear friend Madelaine to Count Louis de la Houssaye and the couple's departure for the Louisiana colony; presentation to Queen Marie Antoinette; Aleix's grand wedding at Notre Dame Cathedral; the onset of the French Revolution; widowhood; rescue; and flight first to England and then to Louisiana.

The other stories are "Salome Muller, The White Slave," "The Haunted House in Royal Street," "Attalie Brouillard," and "War Diary of a Union Woman in the South."

As we traveled along Interstate 10 between New Orleans and "Red Baton," I mused about the girders which held the highway up out of the bayous. What must travel or life in general have been like in that part of Louisianna a century or so ago.

George Washington Cable first collected these seven stories about Louisianna and published them in 1888. He calls them true stories. They are stories from times before his own from 1782 to after the Civil War. At the same time these stories are strange to Cable because life had changed so much in Louisianna between the time that the stories occurred and his own time.

The stories start with the story of Louise who came to Louisianna and almost became the dinner of a local chief. This tragic tale is quickly followed by the "bright and happy" story of Francoise and Suzanne who travel through the "wilds" of Atchafalaya. Alix's story is next. She was once introduced to Marie Antoinette. Then the French Revolution came and Alix lost her first husband. She will be a character that I long admire but I ask you to read the story to see why. Salome Muller was a German who lost most of her family enroute to Louisianna. (Some 1200 of the 1800 who attempted to make that trip never arrived.) Salome became a slave. Yet some 20 years or so later her family took her case to the State Supreme Court to free her. The
"haunted house" is the house of Madame Lalaurie who chose to save her possessions rather than her slaves when a fire burned her house. The story of Attalie Brouillard reminds me of the con men of the movie "The Sting" with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The last story is a diary of a Union woman who lived in the South during the Civil War. To these I would like to add the story of George W Cable who begins his book by telling his readers how he got these other seven stories.

These are true stories from people who lived in Creole Louisianna, a time strange to us now.

This book is the most incredible collection of random scribbling I will ever find. This, Roethke's 'Collected Poems' and Camus' 'Lyrical & Critical Essays' comprise my collection of most sacred books. The outstanding feature of Straw for the Fire is that the scribblings are so overwhelming emotionally. Roethke is one of the most underrated poets to ever exist, and his talent is so obvious by this book of spur the moment thoughts and unfinished poems. If you love Roethke's work -- any or all of it -- this is a must-have. It says so much about him as a poet, a human being, someone whose confusion and awe of life are so charismatic. His weakness and strength shows plainly and beautifully in this incredible collection.

i first saw this book in the hands of a boy who admired the brevity and stark reality of these words. these lingering tangents are for readers who sometimes admire just the leaves rather than the whole tree.

I have listened to Shari Rush talk as well as I have read her book and meet her. She is unbelivebly inspirational, just hearing everything she has been through showed me how bad people have it and how much we need to be there for them.

I had the unique opportunity to hear Shari Rusch speak at a high school graduation ceremony, and then I read her book. Everyone who has ever known anyone with learning disabilities should read this book. It was heart-warming and very inspiring. My problems seem very small in comparison to hers, and anytime I am discouraged, I will try and remember what she accomplished even with all those strikes against her.

They Dream, They Cry, They Sing is an outstanding anthology of Spanish/English bilingual poems that will please students and adults wanting to hone their linguistic skills and enjoy the wonderful word-play in both languages that this superb collection offers. Moonrise: When the moon comes up/bells fade away/and hidden pathways/return./When the moon comes up/the sea covers the earth/and your heart seems/an island in space./No one eats oranges/beneath the full moon./You have to eat green and icy fruit./When the moon comes up/with a hundred identical faces/silver coins/in your pockets sob. (Federico Garcia Lorca)

They Dream, They Cry, They Sing is an outstanding anthology of Spanish/English bilingual poems that will please students and adults wanting to hone their linguistic skills and enjoy the wonderful word-play in both languages that this superb collection offers. Moonrise: When the moon comes up/bells fade away/and hidden pathways/return./When the moon comes up/the sea covers the earth/and your heart seems/an island in space./No one eats oranges/beneath the full moon./You have to eat green and icy fruit./When the moon comes up/with a hundred identical faces/silver coins/in your pockets sob. (Federico Garcia Lorca)

This book shows the history of Mount Rainier National Park, from Sunset to Paradise. The photos are great and the paragraphs are informative and don't run on. The book also goes into the history of the 14,411 foot Stratovolcano, and how 5,600 years ago, the peak was at 16,500 feet, but a major eruption caused a massive collapse and created the peak we know, love and cherish today.

The Sleeping Giant... The Mountain...Mount Rainier...

Years ago I hiked at Mt. Rainier, took pictures in its flower meadows, and slid in its summer snow. I thought someday I'd climb its glaciers to the summit, 14, 410 feet. That never happened. But this book brings back all the old impressions and delights-and adds to them. Lots of photos (280!). Lot of information, most of it new to me. Richard P. Kratz, M.D. Clinical Professor, Ophthalmology Univ. California, Irvine

As one who grew up just a block from No 26th & Proctor St's I highly recommend this wonderful historical review of this neighborhood shopping district during the 20th century. The pictures tell it like it was and they cover almost everything of any importance that went on there.

A great read for anyone who is interested in Tacoma. Lots of key photograps on the fire station, Washington school, bowling alley and many other landmarks including the building where the NW shop is now.

Seeing the historical buildings through the years in this small neighborhood is pretty amazing.

Thanks for writing this book Bill.