Washington Books

Phillip Kurata's vivid prose style and deep sociopolitical insight capture the essential conflict of post-colonial Tunisia; but more than that this spectacular literary debut speaks to an eternal question confronted by every man and woman: How do I live truthfully and what price do I pay for compromising my integrity? Kurata makes these costs explicit through richly drawn characters and the consequences their actions bring about. This novel succeeds because, unlike so much contemporary fiction, it possesses a moral center that pulls the reader into the lives and locale of a distant yet all too familiar place. It is fair to compare "The Reluctant Agent" to works by Lampedusa, Hemingway, Koestler and Solzhenitsyn. I hope there will be an encore performance.

Anyone who ever spent time in a third world country in the post colonial cold war era will recognize the characters and settings in Phillip Kurata's The Reluctant Agent. The country is Tunisia shortly after its independence and Habib Ben Hamed is caught between his own world and that of the former French colonizer. Unfortunately Habib is at home in neither and becomes caught up in a postcolonial drama he cannot fully comprehend nor control. The political rhetoric is of socialism and progress but the reality is that of power and domination as the world of the colonizer gives way to that of the local ruling class.

Reminiscent of Graeme Green's best work Kurata draws the reader into a rich psychological world of men and women caught up in historical forces that sweep them along to inevitable endings. The exotic settings of North Africa, colorfully described in clean declarative prose, amplify the inner turmoil of a hapless Habib caught between his heart's desire and the cruel reality that denies it.

My own postcolonial third world experience was in Somalia at the end of the cold war but the settings and characters differed little from those described in Kurata's novel. I saw many Somalis draw sustenance from their former colonizer's culture even as they moved quickly to their own destruction crushed between the early socialist rhetoric of their postcolonial freedom and the twin barbarisms of dictatorship and cold war politics. Many of today's headlines stem from the cold war and postcolonial issues still unfolding in developing countries. Thus, Habib's dilemma is as relevant today as it was twenty to twenty-five years ago. Kurata, who lived in Tunis, saw to the core and created a world that allows the rest of us to see it too.

I'm an occasional reader of fiction spending much of my time scanning newspaper articles and opinion pieces dealing with U.S. foreign policy and world affairs. So Phillip Kurata's first novel, The Reluctant Agent, though set in the '60's of a turbulent Tunisia, was a real find as it addresses contemporary issues of cultural and political conflict in a repressive Islamic society. Ben Hamed is the protagonist, an unlikely hero, an Arabic 'everyman' who just wants the good things in life but finds himself caught up in an escalating spiral of intrigue and danger in order to survive. Kurata has an artist's eye for background detail and character development. The story builds and carries the reader forward to what becomes an extremely powerful ending.

"The Reluctant Agent" is Phillip Kurata's first novel, but in its lean, evocative writing and uncluttered structure, you'd never guess it was the work of a first-timer. In leading Habib ben Hamed, a feckless Tunisian intellectual, to his inexorable fate during the political unrest of the 1960s, Kurata brings home two major truths: that in times of injustice, the war between conscience and personal safety is usually unwinnable; and that revolutions eat not only their young, but anyone in their paths. Kurata has been compared with Graham Greene and Albert Camus; in his detailed insight into how dictatorships work, he obviously knows his Orwell and Arthur Koestler as well. In its persuasive portrayal of the collision between modernism and traditional Islam, "The Reluctant Agent" is urgently pertinent reading in 2002. The deceptively simple yet compelling story keeps you turning the pages to the final paragraph, which is breathtaking in its lethal spareness. "The Reluctant Agent" is a must-read for anyone interested in the literature of revolution and politics.

Coburn has produced a heartfelt, tightly paced first novel in which two childhood friends must confront their past after a decade apart. Shifting back-and-forth in time and locales (the South, Seattle), "Remembering Jody" examines such powerful plot themes as love and friendship, guilt and responsibility, madness and family.

A reminiscence about a Jewish girl's coming of age in America's Deep South narrated by witty wordsmith Marsha Rose: "I work part-time in a bookstore. I still don't have a Jewish boyfriend, but while this seems to bother Aunt Eileen, my mother takes the tack of treating Jimbo [the unapproved boyfriend] as if he's a style I will eventually outgrow." The narrator is called "Mashie" by her childhood chum Jody Lurrey, a paranoid schizophrenic who invades Marsha's adult life in Seattle, re-surfacing from semi-happy childhood days to heap heavy guilt upon the narrator's writerly shoulders thereby launching two trips that form the zigzag double helix spine of the book: Trip One is the real-time airplane return to mythical Sparta, the Deep South landscape which triggers Trip Two -- a series of memory dives into the narrator's past, where Marsha/Mashie relives indelible moments of personal history with her eccentric childhood buddy: horseback riding, swimming, smoking marijuana, climbing into bed, having sex, flipping out. Remembering Jody is a solid first-novel debut for Coburn, a free-lance journalist and screenwriter.

Coburn has written a dense first novel about time and memory and the disjunction between past and present, between reality and memory. At its heart, Remembering Jody is a tale of a lost Eden before the eruption of guilt. Dr. Thrailkill, the psychiatrist who treats Jody in Seattle implies the loss of innocence when he remarks to Marsha: "If you mean will he [Jody] ever be who he was before he became ill...." The Diaspora and assimilation form two of the subtextual threads binding this novel together. Almost Biblical in its examination of human weakness, Coburn's work tackles the hard questions of family, duty, love, sex, and belonging. Marsha Rose, the narrator, wants desperately for Jody, her childhood friend and onetime lover to belong, to be home, but the powerful split between past and present can't be overcome so she creates her own Jody in her head: "I told him anyway, in my head, where I could address a grown-up Jody of my own invention: I've lived there a long time, but it's not really home, either..." As with all Odysseys, Remembering Jody, tells two stories. The narrator's inner journey of discovery is wrapped within the physical journey of a road story. The near-fusion of the protagonist, Marsha, and her catalyst, Jody, could not be clearer: "I'm holding his hand because at this moment, he hardly seems separate from me at all." Because Jody doesn't know where he belongs, Marsha escorts him home. In an allegorical passage that speaks to the inner and the outer journeys, Jody tells Marsha the story of the boy, Richard, who stowed away on a plane in Australia so that he might get to Paris: "The coolest thing is that he'd never been to Paris before in his life, but he knew that was where he belonged." Here the author's technique at blending the inner and the outer tales is unmatched. At the conclusion of the novel, Jody returns to his safe haven, but not without having an effect on those around him: "...his reentry into our lives over the next few days made us all seem kind of inside-out, seams showing and threads unraveling in ways that were, for a change, fairly obvious."

As a librarian who reads hundreds of pre-publication first novels, I was extremely impressed with this absorbing book. In the space of very few pages, Coburn ably handles several major characters, drawing the reader into their lives. Best of all, the portrait of Southern Jews in a small city is true-to-life. Having spent time in the Jewish community of a place very much like the fictional Sparta, this book made me feel I was back there again. Readers who enjoy reading Kaye Gibbons, Ann Hood or Anna Quindlen will savor this story of relationships. I'm eagerly looking forward to Coburn's next novel.

I love this book.After sending it to the wrong address, Amazon mailed a new copy to me very fast and free of charge ! I did appreciate this and I will look at Amazon.com first when I will be looking for a book.Thanks!

I gave this book to my Dad as a gift and he loves it, as do I. It's a trip down memory lane with lots of nice historic pictures and descriptive writing. I especially am interested in the Celilo Falls and saddened to see what a treasure was destroyed by dams.

The Columbia is by no means the biggest, the longest or just any other 'est of the rivers in North America. Well maybe it's the roughest. At the bar where the Columbia enters the Pacific Ocean is quite possibly the consistently roughest water in the country. It's called the 'Graveyard of the Pacific,' having claimed over two thousand ships. That's why the Coast Guard located their small boat school in Astoria, Oregon, just inland from the bar.

Anyway, now the Columbia is tamed to a great extent by a series of dams that regulate the flow of water. No longer are there the hundred-foot waves breaking along the bar. This book, though is composed of pre-dam pictures of the river that remain only as memories.

The book is organized in an interesting manner. Just inside the front is a map of the first 200.5 miles of the river. Along the track of the river are a series of numbers. These reflect the page numbers of the pictures that follow. The first number is 5, and the picture on page 5 shows the bar, along with a note that it's 1,243 miles to the source of the river. The pictures range from the mid 1800's to current.

Further into the book are more maps, more pictures. To the old-timer of the area, here will be a collection of memories. To the rest of us, here is simply a spectacular set of photographs of a place that is no more.

The River is a bueaty today but yesterday - WOW! This is a beautiful work on a great river!

This is the ultimate account of a corporate whistleblower whose life was torn to shreds as a consequence. Not only did the European Commission successfully prosecute HLR as a result of Adams' information, but they stood by as both his and his family's lives were systematically destroyed. I read this book seven years ago and I still grit my teeth at any thought of Roche, the EC, and especially those god awful Swiss.

You MUST read this book. The more people who know the story, the better. Pharmaceutical cartels aren't as sexy as Big Tobacco, but Stanley Adams' ordeal blows even the dramatised Hollywood account of Big Tobacco's "Insider" completely out of the water.

This book has left a mark on my life and despite reading it over ten years ago I can still remember the tale in some detail. I recommend it to anyone who wishes to understand the true power of the multinnational

A most distrurbing tale of what happened to an executive of a Swiss pharmaceutical company after he had left the organisation.

Doing what he felt was right for the good of consumers and the EC, he passed cartel and shady dealing information to the European Parliament.

His subsequent arrest, the 'suicide' of his wife, and his ensuing struggle for freedom will bring a genuine tear to the eye of even the hardest reader.

I have tried to contact Stanley Adams and John Prescott (who assisted him in his plight) but to no avail.

All in all a gripping read - at times you will not beleive it is NON-fiction.

I read the book more than three years ago. Even though I have forgotten most of the details of Mr Adams's story, I am deeply impressed by this man's courage and ability of not showing even the slightest sign of grudge agaisnt those who have played him out. This shows that he is a very forgiving and loving guy. I admire him for the way in which he reacted to the whole incident. It's a very touching story, undeniably. May he live in peace and happiness forever.

Being a Northwest native, I truly appreciate the recipes from the 'locals'! I am constantly referring to this wonderful book, and reminscing about my childhood in Anacortes, Washington. When is the new San Juan Classics II coming out? I saw it advertised at the new Guemes Island country store last week! How can I get this new cookbook; as I have been "transplanted" to the East Coast for a few years...........Sad but true!

I have used many cookbooks in my time. After wasting much time, I now only use The Joy of Cooking and San Juan Classics. Also, I heard that they are coming out with another one!

Wonderful recipes. Every recipe a winner. A must have book for everyday and fine cuisine. Our family highly reccommends it

The delicious recipes in this book are beyond compare. You will find mouth watering and nutritous entrees, salads and desserts. A varitable cornucopia of the very best from the Northwest and from around the world.

good chronological account of Early's 1864 campaign many interesting side notes to a little studied Confederate actio

Mr. Judge does history a great justice by writing the history of the Invasion of Washington from its inception. He covers the early phase from a confederate defeat at Cloyds Mountain in Pulaski County just south of Blacksburg (VA. Tech), takes you to Lynchburg and Early's arrival and the subsequent journey to Washington D.C. Gives the reader the complete field of study of the campaign. Wonderful description of future Baltimore Police Chief Harry Gilmore who was a colorful confederate calavary leader as well as a vivid description of the hidden valley of the Shennodoah, Fort Valley.

This book is must reading for anyone interested in Civil War history or who lives in the areas between Monocacy Junction and Washington, D. C. where this action occurred. The book provides a detailed synopsis of the action and is loaded with details of the local history, much of which remains intact for anyone interested in retracing the course of Early's raid.

Season of Fire proves to be a well written and well researched book on Confederacy's last effort to do something meaningful by trying to attacked Washington DC. Led by General Jubal Early, the Confederate forces came pretty close to success and the authors were correct in saying that even if the occupation of Union capitol would only be momentary, the political and morale cost would be devastating for the north. While hindsight make this campaign almost a sideshow, the book revealed how close it really was to being a main event.

Folks, this is a fun guide that can aid native Seattleites and visitors alike. I've used it many times to get a good, reasonably (or dirt cheap) bite to eat in an often expensive town.
The cool thing is, you can look in the index for categories of food (say, Barbecue or Breakfast), restaurant names, or even better, neighborhoods. That makes it a fun "let's check out this neighborhood" guide also!
A worthy purchase. I've worn mine out!

I visit Seattle enough that I needed to know where I could get decent food at a decent price - this really fits the bill. Some of these places have nondescript exteriors, and so you would expect run-of-the-mill eats - but I tried four suggestions and found them all to be places with good food, fast food, and reasonably priced. Easily saved enough in two days to pay for the book.

This book is very comprehensive as far as cheap Seattle eats. I have yet to discover a restaurant in the book that is below average. Bon appetite!

My wife and I always kept the first edition of this wonderful restaurant guide in the car, and we are just as happy with this newer addition.

Although I grew up in Seattle, we've lived about 45 minutes out of town for over 20 years, and it's hard to keep up with the restaruant scene when we return "home" sporadically. We're the kind of people who prefer to avoid fast food joints and chains, and being school teachers, we're always looking for a good deal. On top of that, we're always open for something off the beaten path. This guide has never failed to tip us off to a satisfying dining experience.

We recently attended a performance in West Seattle, and checked out "Cheap Eats" for some family-friendly restaurants in that area, since we had three kids along with us. We had it narrowed down to three possibilities, but the kids decided on a delightful Italian restaurant. Good food, good price, and great atmosphere for all of us.

Fortunately, many of our favorites from the first edtion survived in the new book. One of them is The Sunlight Cafe in the Roosevelt area, where we can always count on a tasteful vegetarian meal.

This guide has two helpful indexes in the back, one for the type of cuisine--whether it be Japanese, Thai, or Italian--and the other for listings by Seattle neighborhoods. The main body of the book has the restaurant reviews listed alphabetically. The reviews do a helpful job of describing the menu, what's good and what's not, the atmosphere, hours, whether or not credit cards and checks are accepted, and if live music is available.

If you're in Seattle, get this one and keep it in the car!

I am a zookeeper in an accredited zoological institution and this book is a must read as we care for captive animals. A comprehensive enrichment program is critical for wild animals in captive environments as these programs provide the animals with choices, complexities, and change. The guiding principle for enrichment is based on the animal's natural history. This book very appropriately emphasizes the requirement of enrichment for the animal's well being. Read this book and it will give you hope.

A book that had to be written. This book is a good and basic guide for people working or interested in environmental enrichment. Several aspects are covered by the book, from theoretical bases to the implications to use enrichment for the conservation and welfare of wild animals. However, although it gives a lots of examples on mammals and some on reptiles, it forgets birds.

I bought "Ethics on the Ark" at the same time as this book, and was disappointed with that book. This book, however, was a very nice surprise. I felt it gave a unbiased view of captive animal enrichment, and the ethics behind keeping animals in captivity. I appreciated the completeness of this book, starting from a historical perspective, straight through to modern reasoning. I would say this is a must have for anyone working with animals in a captive environment.

This is my must have book (bible) for my research on environmental enrichment. If you work with animals in a captive situation, you need to read this book. The book also deals with stereotypy. A lot of excellent information on enrichment and its implications for captive animals. If you are at all interested in environmental enrichment or currently implement an enrichment program for your animals, do yourself a favor and read this book.

awesome story, characterizations and description. Grabs you and doesn't let you go until the end... thanks!

I have recently read both of Clausens books and am thrilled to have found a new writer that I can eagerly watch and wait for the next book. I have lived in Seattle all my life and he made it come alive for me. The city has changed now but at that time I knew those places and some of the other recesses of downtown in those days. I could picture easily where they were and what was going on. Lets have some more.

Officer Clausen's second book is just as good as his first, "First Avenue," but in a different way. Here he writes not one, not two, but THREE very sympathetic and believable female characters (rare for a man). He also devotes a few chapters to the interior monologues of Daniel, the 8-year old central character of this story, and these are rendered with sensitivity and insight without condescension. He even creates a character who is homeless-by-choice, whom he neither vilifies nor glorifies. These are difficult tightropes to walk, and Clausen dances fearlessly across the rope.

The Seattle locations are so accurate that I recognized most of them immediately before he even named them. I think I've even met some of the background characters who work there!

The story is a tough, gritty crime novel which has at its center some crimes which are not easy to watch transpire, so this is not a lightweight or casual book. It is, however, a very well-crafted novel which is at least as good as his first.

That's high praise indeed.

Two female cops patrol the distinctive Ballard Avenue neighborhood in Seattle, and they do it mostly on foot. They become involved in the murders of two children, who've both been found in places where people dump trash.

I want to meet the characters that inhabit this neighborhood again and again. (Please take the hint, Mr. Clausen!)

Clausen is not a typical shoot-em-up author, although he writes action extremely well, thank you.

However, characters and their relationships to one another provide the bedrock of his story. Many of his scenes are quiet and filled with description and emotion. He is one of the most thoughtful, intelligent mystery writers at the game today.

He created a place that I did not want to leave. While he was at it, he spun a very fine, enjoyable mystery yarn. One of the things I really appreciate about this book is that every single scene was real and believable. It all might actually have happened.

I think discerning readers like those who love Barbara Hambly, Elizabeth George and Peter Robinson would enjoy Lowen Clausen. Fans who read only the scream-ride books by James Patterson and Harlan Coben might not! I'm not a snob - I read Coben myself. But it's Clausen's next book that I'm looking forward to most.

I may be a bit prejudiced (because I co-wrote one of the essays in this collection), but once I got the book (and finished re-reading my own), I turned to the front and read each essay from cover to cover in one sitting! I couldn't put it down, curious to see how I could or couldn't relate to the various stories, picking out my favorites, and finding some shocking surprises. Some are hilarious, some are so so sad, all are compelling. Just as I'll give my future kids Doug Coupland's "Shampoo Planet" if they want to know what it was like to be a new college grad in the early-90s, I'll give my future kids (especially the daughters) "Sex and Sensibility" (not "Sex and the City" reruns) if they want to know what it was like to be thirty-ish and single at the turn of the century.

Most women's sex lives fall in the cracks between those four Sex and the City stereotypes. The way we live and love -- and especially, the way we lose love -- is more nuanced than any TV character could convey. This book is an amazing collection of stories, all of them located in these cracks, and all of them beautifully nuanced... they're funny, heart-wrenching, but best of all, true. And Lisa Gabriele's hilarious "How to Be Alone" is worth the cover price of the book on its own. Buy this book for your best friend or make your book club read it... you'll be talking about its stories for hours. You can even do that over Cosmos for all I care!

This is a great collection of female voices writing about what it is like to be single today. Tales of bawdiness and naughtiness, balanced with less experimental approaches to dating, and all laced with the humor one needs as a single woman - anywhere. The variety of stories is matched by the variety of styles of writing in this collection of 'true romances" and one is sure to find a silver lining in them all. A great read one should share with all their girlfriends!

Recently single, I took this book with me for airplane reading on a weekend trip. In these essays and the spaces between, I remembered both the power and blissful stillness of being alone and the enchanting buzz of dating around, both of which I had found before my last relationship. Beautifully edited, funny, sharp and sensually delightful, this book is a collection of thoughtful, vulnerable power. I read all weekend, and found myself, on the last pages of the book, after my plane had landed back in New York, straining to read in what I realized was a dark cab. I reluctantly put the book down and have returned to re-read several times since.