Oregon Books

Reading through this collection I really got the sense I was traveling with Sara through the pains and joys of these early periods of her life. There are ups and downs. Sadness and excitement. Sex, paranoia, and silliness. Everything you need for an entertaining ride.

A solid collection of poetry and a great first step for Sara. I'm looking forward to her follow-up collections. And highly recommend Roots of the Cypress Tree to anyone interested in modern, soul-baring poetry.

I had the great pleasure of meeting and working side by side with Sara. Most importantly gaining a truely remarkable and talented friend, Miss Sara Kay.
This book shows guts for one, a soul-bearing, touching and inspiring part of Sara that I have always loved about her as a person and have also shared.
This book is a journey in my opinion, a completely honest look at how most people feel day to day. Struggles we have been through in life, paths we have taken, pain we have endured. Her poetry is raw and honest and i admire her as a writer and a friend. I recommend this to anyone who has a pulse, a passion, pain, a past. I think we should strive to be as honest with ourselves as Sara Kay has portrayed.

This was one great collection of poetry, and I'm not just saying that because I'm friends with the author. I enjoyed seeing how Sara's writing progressed through all those years. Her writing has really grown into something amazing. Keep it up!

If you have an interest in this art-form then you want to do it the way it has been done for hundreds of years. This little book shows you the way of the masters down through the centuries. To recreate the beauty that has been held timeless in illuminated manuscripts, thus adding to it's number, is a fine thing thing to accomplish in a lifetime.

As a practicing medieval illuminator and historical bookbinder, I can recommend wholeheartedly Ms. Grafe's fantastic book on gilding. The book is well written and contains many valuable illustrations to accompany somewhat complicated procedures. I especially appreciate the easy to follow, clear, detailed steps for the gesso gilding process which is very time consuming (but worth every minute) and its success depends on many factors which can be a challenge to someone just starting. She gives the tips and pointers that only an experienced gilder could pass on to help with the environmental influences and other things which can stifle success. It is an excellent resource material for anyone who is fascinated in book arts but especially useful for someone who wants to improve and perfect their technique in gilding paper and parchment.

Secreta is easy to understand, well organized, and has a lot of excellent drawings and photographs of the steps involved in gilding. It also has some historical background on how gilding was used, as well as a nice little section on using the paint pigments that would have accompanied the gilding on medieval manuscripts. One of the few how-to books that I've read cover to cover, and have recommended to my friends who already do gilding or are interested in learning.

Heather Gray

Art serves many purposes both individual and collective. Compiled and with commentary by Lauren Ohlgren, "The She Project: How She Inspired A Community" is just such an example of art produced by a community of women that, taken as a whole, celebrates the lives and experiences of women who come into contact with each other in settings as diverse as bathrooms and hallways, waiting rooms and restaurants. Lauren Ohlgren founded 'The She Project' to reflect a community of women simultaneously and artistically responding to a provocative phrases (the 'She phrases') about women and their daily lives within the scope of two hours and within a size limitation of 8"x10". The artistic expressions utilized a variety and diversity of materials ranging from pens and paper, to old magazine images, to found objects, to paint and paper. The results as compiled and organized by Lauren Ohlgren within the pages of "The She Project" are unique, engaging, and as thoughtful as they are thought-provoking. "The She Project" is a very special approach to using art to express experience, and as such is strongly recommended for personal, academic, and community library American Art, Popular Culture, Sociology, and Women's Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

What a wonderful book! No matter what page you turn to, you can relate to the emotions and thoughts while marveling at the creativity of this group of warm, funny and wise women. Beautifully reproduced artwork formatted into a very attractive package, I think this book makes a wonderful present to anyone you value - yourself included!

This book has been a source of both comic relief and thoughtful reflection. It's a real gift to be invited inside the hearts and minds of other women, to feel the sense of camaraderie as I find myself relating to their musings and often wild imaginations. I have found nuggets of wisdom in many of these pictures and stories, stories from dozens of ordinary women full of life and laughter, all compiled into this one book. I look forward to another 'She Project' coming out!

She's Tricky Like Coyote: Annie Miner Peterson, An Oregon Coast Indian Woman by Lionel Youst (an independent scholar specializing in the history and anthropology of the Pacific Northwest) is the story of Annie Miner Peterson's remarkable life. An impressive biography showcasing Annie's hardships, determined endeavors and many accomplishments, She's Tricky Like Coyote carries the reader through the remarkable story of her 79 years of life as related through interviews with relatives, revealed in anthropological studies, and drawing upon a short autobiography, all of which combine in creating a unique story of a very special Native American woman of her times. Volume 224 in "The Civilization of the American Indian" series and a welcome contribution to academic library Native American Studies and Women's Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists, She's Tricky Like Coyote is very highly recommended reading, especially for students of the Western coastal region's Native American tribal history and culture.

This book was wonderful and we need more like it. The Indian tales of Oregon and Northern California are mostly unknown by peoples outside of anthropology and archaeology, and these stories need to be told. It must have been incredibly hard to be an Indian during those times and we all should question our own history. The book is worth buying and was inspirational.

Thanks to Lionel Youst, Annie Miner Peterson's life story has been preserved. One of the last of the Coos Indians, she lived for 79 years in western Oregon and witnessed the demise of her culture. This remarkable narrative captures some of who she was and how she lived, enabling Annie to pass along some of the accumulated experiences of generations of her ancestors.

Reading the stories in SKID ROW BEAT is like eating potato chips: you can't stop after just one. I was moved emotionally, sickened and then forced to laugh out loud. Read this book. It's a winner

A two word phrase can sum up my opinion of Loren Christensen's book, Reality Check. This book's look at what life is like on skid row is an in your face description of what some people have to go through each and every day. At times I found myself laughing out loud, and others weeping out loud, all with the realization that this was not fiction, it was truth. In Christensen's classic literary genius, he was able to not only capture my attention and mind, but my heart as well.

I loved this book and so has everyone I have lent it to. I laughed, was moved and disgusted all in the same story. It's an incredible revelation of the human condition. The anecdotes, which range from one to four pages long, chronicle events from the 70's and 80's, as well as a few recent incidents, in an area one officer in the book called, "A place forgotten by God."

Policing was indeed different back then, and if you've been around long enough, this curb side look at skid row will have you laughing and saying to yourself, "Oh yea, I remember that." Like any good story teller, Christensen has woven some tales together and modified some he could not other wise have told.

While Loren lived most of these stories, other officers contributed a few. Some of the anecdotes are so disgusting that you will have to put the book down, though a short time later you will want to pick it up and resume where you left off. There are four chapters: Characters, Sex, Violence and Bodily Excretions, and Loren says there are several stories that could have fit into all of them. He says that Skid Row Beat is not for the easily offended, the overly politically correct, or those who view community policing as a religious experience. The tales run the gamut from absolutely hilarious, to stomach-turning gross, to poignant. One story will offend, another will move you, and another you will retell to your friends. Skid Row Beat is a quick read and I suspect more than one copy will find its way into the "library" next to the porcelain throne where one can read a story or two, put the book down and pick it up the next time you are making a visit.

This book reflects a time before "politically correct" was even a thought, much less a phrase. Times were different, and after reading the book you can only reflect that we have come a long way since the days when it was still a crime to be drunk in public, and the beat cop was expected to "take care of business" on his district. Many of the skid row beat cops were street monsters who were tough as nails on the outside, but with hearts bigger than all of outdoors.

Being an expert sledder, I always scoffed at snowshoers as those hippy-skippys who couldn't afford a snowmobile. Until one fateful day, while waiting for the dentist to remove my first and last wisdom tooth, I browsed through this book by Andersen and became immediately enchanted. Not one to judge a book by its cover, I tried out three different routes as outlined by Andersen and found that he did a masterful job guiding me through the mountains, around the crags and over the criks. The route finding and subsequent snowshoe up (and sled down) of Tumulo mountain will always remain as one of the most special and beautiful day hikes I have done. I felt as if he were but a hundred yards ahead beating a trail through the wilderness for me, not too close but never too far. I loved this book enough to buy my six copies, give them out to fellow sledbums and return the other to the dentist. All told, a great inspirational and practical guidebook, would that there were more like it!

I found Snowshoe Routes of Oregon to be a great resource as my interest in snow shoeing has grown. The book offers a range of routes for varying levels of skill and/or physical fitness. THe author obviously knows the country he is writting about as well as he knows snowshoeing. The book is both an excellent guide and a great introduction to the budding snowshoe enthusiast.

Bountiful deep snow
With Shea's book on Cascade slopes
Snowshoe peace beckons...

In short (to the Haiku challenged), this book rocks! If you're a Cascadian geek who loves the winter, the book will undoubtedly treat you well.

I'll be honest, the reason that I purchased "Up All Night" was that a chapter featured a former coworker of mine. The author, Martha Gies, successfully captured the personality of my former coworker. I enjoyed reading about my friend and I learned more about her in the process. It was also a pleasant surprise that there were another 22 chapters on other night workers in Portland that were equally interesting. I worked nights for a six month period and from this first hand experience, I can say that the author captures the atmosphere of the graveyard shift. A wide variety of professions are featured in the book. Martha Gies was able to mix time spent on the job with each person and off the job interviews into stories rich in details. This book shines a light on the world of people who work when it is dark out. Nights never seemed so colorful.

Reviewed by John A. Mangarella for Small Spiral Notebook

There's a powerful piston in American engine that often goes unnoticed until night covers the land. We see the tip of this iceberg in the face of the convenience store clerk or the gas station attendant battling boredom between customers. Martha Gies' Up All Night is a solid book that takes a peek behind night time's curtain at all those people who choose to live their lives after the sun goes down.

The night worker. The female cabby slicing through the toughest neighborhoods. The cop whose sirens punctuate the darkness. The EMT crew rushing toward the emergency room. The nude dancer. The longshoreman. And countless others who eat lunch at midnight and supper at dawn while living on a river of industrial strength coffee. Gies utilizes their distinct voices to draw us into the dark hours when graveyard America punches a nocturnal time clock and goes to work.

Up All Night is different even from the first story concerning Sativa, the nude dancer. It's certainly not about the "glamour" of nude dancing but more about a woman that happens to work in the nude for a living. The elements of Sativa's life that deliver her to the naked stage are the depth Ms. Gies wants us to examine. And each story- story being such an inadequate word as it implies fiction- possesses the same verbal power giving each page a soundtrack. You can hear the background noise, or quiet, of Portland after hours.

The night people posses a strength that differs from their rigidly structured daytime counterparts. For example, there's an interesting similarity of devotion between Emma Bosco who oversees the perpetual adoration of the Eucharist at St. Agatha's Church and longshoreman Bruce Lyngstad who drives a massive crane on the Portland docks. Emma's religious devotion is every bit as tenacious as Bruce's adept handling of the crane as he swings huge containers high above other dockworkers whose lives are always at risk.

We spend time with the computer genius who peels back the mystery of late night tech support while leaving the mystique. The phone tech's story is timely because thousands of those jobs are being outsourced to overseas locations. In a sense, you can almost hear the clock ticking on that job and Ms. Gies has managed to capture his voice before politics and economy extinguishes it. She brings us into the oncology ward where the charge nurse has the heartbreakingly hopeful job of caring for children with cancer. The twenty-two year old manager of the all night pool hall might not be "The Hustler" but his fervent reverence for pool as a game as well as a way of life is every bit as distinctive as a reverberating break shot. We go from hospital to truck stop to taxi cab to police car to radio station to a host of places where there's light in the darkness and people spend those hours bringing the grave yard shift to life.

Martha Gies is a savvy writer whose sophisticated eye for detail allows Up All Night to become an oral history rather than a volume of overnight anecdotes.

I loved this book. I admit I'm from Portland, but even if I weren't I would appreciate the opportunity to experience vicariously the world of night time workers, the folks who keep things going for the rest of us while we sleep. Gies has a delicious ability to balance the nuts and bolts of her own clear description of how things work, with space that allows workers speak for themselves. This is a masterpiece - her first book, and I look forward to the next ones.

Very comprehensive guide for those of us who love to haunt used bookstores in CA (et al). Useful information such as inventory sizes, specialities, phone numbers, special services, and more. Organized by state, city, and also several indices.

An invaluable take-along tote for any who consider a used book store visit an essential part of the trip. Choose the revised, expanded Used Book Lover's Guide To The Pacific Coast States if traveling in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska or Hawaii: it includes number of volumes, store specialty, and candid comments if the store was visited.

This newly updated and expanded addition of The Used Book Lover's Guide To The Pacific Coast States continues to insure its preeminence as the most comprehensive and important guide to the used bookstores and dealers in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii. Featured are 1,500 used book dealers conveniently grouped by location and category; a Specialty Index to help locate dealers specializing in a particular area of interest; easy to follow travel directions for getting where you want to go; twenty-four city, regional and state maps to aid in planning book hunting trips; and practical comments about shops based on the David and Susan Siegal's personal visits. If you are a true bibliophile or antiquarian book dealer traveling the area, don't leave home without your copy of The Used Book Lover's Guide To The Pacific Coast States!

Great book, we had never been in these areas and were able to find everything very easily.

Used this book exclusively on my recent "waterfall tour" of Oregon and Washington. I wanted to make the most of day hikes to areas that had waterfalls. This book allowed me to plan my day-to-day itineraries and cram the most into the trip. Invaluable for a true waterfall lover. Waterfalls listed by geographical areas. Descriptions of some trailheads hard to follow, but maps were good. Decribes the difficulty to reach each fall (easy to need to be a bushwacking expert).

My only disappointment is the newly built bridge near Elowah Falls that ruins the natural beauty of the falls... (not the author's fault).

This is an amazing book on locating the beautiful waterfalls of the Pacific Northwest. I own 2 of these books, 2nd and 3rd edition, and let me tell you, it has never let me down.

The book gives great detail and levels of the waterfalls quality, difficultly of the hike and much more. It even teaches you on how to determine the type of waterfall that you are viewing.

Mr. Plumb is the ultimate Mountaineer, and shows it through this amazing book. I call it my, "Waterfall Bible".

I highly recommend it for all your searches for waterfalls, and even some that you didn't know existed -- great for picinics, extremists, photographers, and for those just in awe of their beauty!

Don't pass this up, and at such a great price!

Senator Morse is one of our country's great historical figures. Mr. Drukman conveys the fascinating history of a man who was at the center of the cold war and foresaw a great many of the tragedies that unfolded in american foreign policy during the 1960's- most notably Vietnam. He was an outstanding politician- they just don't make em like this anymore.

Drukman explores nearly every facet of this incredible leader. Further, he does so with clear, thoughtful writing which illuminates the fascinating figures in every chapter. After researching Wayne Morse for three years myself (for a documentary film), I can honestly say that he is the only politician I know of who never once strayed from principle or betrayed the public trust. Indeed he sought to save America from those who did.

I was a student and the University of Oregon in the 60's and had many opportunities to see Wayne Morse on campus and around town.

He was truly one of the twentieth century's great politicians.

It is sad to look back to the Vietnam era and realize he was (nearly) the lone voice of descent in the Government. All of those lost friends who died for no good reason.

Wayne Morse is the perfect example of the politican who approached issues from a common sense point of view instead of a partisan point of view. He was such a good labor negotiator because he approached each negotiation from a reasoned point of view. He knew when either labor or management was full of B.S. and he told them so.

This is also why he changed parties. Didn't have time for partisan politics when his party was not doing the right thing. The other great politician of the twentieth century who changed parties was Winston Churchill, who shared a balanced vision of the political world.

Hopefully we'll see another Wayne Morse one of these days, but not likley in the current enviornment