Northwest Books

We received this cookbook as a wedding gift in 1999 and have turned to it again and again ever since. We've used it to plan dozens of meals for our regular supper club, and despite our best intentions, have yet to work our way through every recipe. (Some favorites simply demand to be revisited over and over again.) Still, without exception, everything we've tried has been simple to prepare, delicious, and well-received.

We have given this book as a gift ourselves, more than once.

I purchased this book to help me find a place to honeymoon that was cozy, not over-run by tourists. I wanted a honeymoon site that offered an authentic experience, not one marketed or comercialized. I knew there had to be out of the way places that would allow genuine exploration and discovery in which the traveler was not just another number being shuttled around to the same places to spend money with everyone else. I ended up finding a beautiful bed and breakfast on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Built in the late 1800's this inn featured a small detached bungalow on the bluffs overlooking the harbor. There is no way I would have found this place without the guide.

I am realizing the benefit of "place." The world is full of ugly concrete box hotels that all look and feel the same. Why not chance it a little and explore a small county inn off a small country road surrounded by woods and coastline? Yes, there may be a little discomfort in the lack of anonimity, but why settle for the generic?

For those who live on the west coast, or want to visit, this guide has hundreds of listings of places to stay. The author has personally visited each of them (tough job), and offers insightful recommendations. The guide thoroughly covers a broad range of geography and has something from everyone from 19th century hotels to small cabins in California's Gold Rush Country. Most of these inns are owned by families who live on the site, so you know you are supporting local economies and not some corporate interest 1,000 miles away.

Read this and then get out there and explore.

Lifetime Achievement Award-winning Canadian historian William Barr presents Arctic Hell-Ship: The Voyage of HMS Enterprise 1850-1855, the true story of Richard Collinson's sea voyage to the Arctic in search of the missing Franklin expedition. Collinson and his crew approached the Northwest Passage from the west, hoping to find and rescue the Franklin expedition; yet as time passed, relations between Collinson and his officers deteriorated so badly that three of them spent much of the voyage under arrest, though they were later exonerated of wrongful charges in the UK. A handful of color paintings by the ship's assistant surgeon, Edward Adams, illustrate this absorbing true story of bitter and unpredictable survival on the harsh arctic seas.

This first novel from author Delon Basdeo is an extremely entertaining read. It follows the adventures of a secret operative named Redbird who ventures into the frozen wasteland of the Central United States (the result of intense chemical warfare) to stop a lunatic from bringing back the war machines of the past!

The authors of this book have named some very important truths about living the life of faith in the Pacific Northwest! Growing up in Seattle, I have understood the culture at a deep level, but these authors explicate the rationale for WHY it is this way making the implicit more explicit. Very well written and thoughtful!

Trafzer and Scheuerman's Renegade Tribe is a highly informative and interesting history of the Palouse Indians of eastern Washington. The book begins with Lewis and Clark's first contact with the tribe. It then covers each major conflict that occurred between whites and the Indians over the next century. It includes the early interactions with trappers and merchants, outbreaks of disease, the Whitman killings, the Walla Walla Council, the Yakima War, the Jesuit influence, the strengthening of the Washani (Ghost Dance) faith, the Col. Steptoe boondoggle, the Col. Wright campaigns (Battle of Four Lakes, killing of the horses, hanging of Indians, etc.), the dividing of the land into reservations, the Nez Perce War, the Indians' transition into homesteading, and the final, sad outcome of the Indians being almost entirely removed from their ancestral homelands by the early 1900s.

The Palouse Indians shared a language, family ties, and frequent interaction with other neighboring tribes (Yakima, Nez Perce, Umatilla, Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, etc.). Therefore, the book also covers a lot of information about these other tribes. There's a lot of information about the lives and fates of such Indian leaders such as Kamiakin, Tilcoax (Wolf Necklace), Peopeo Moxmox (Yellow Bird), Chief Joseph, and others. There's also some discussion about internal tribal politics and the factions that cemented and divided the tribes throughout the period.

The scholarship is first-rate. It is clear that the authors have thoroughly and meticulously researched their work. The 150 page text has an additional 50 pages of footnotes that include hundreds of sources. The citations boggle the mind. These guys really dug deep to get their story, and it seems like they confirmed everything they wrote with multiple sources, including oral histories from the Indians themselves. The illustrations and 10 pages of maps are also helpful for orienting the reader and following the action. Finally, many of the footnotes provide interesting anecdotes that help paint a larger picture.

If you have an interest in Native Americans, or early Northwest history (Washington, Idaho, Oregon and western Montana), then please add this to your reading list. While it is a terribly sad story, it is a fascinating one. And it is certainly a story that deserves to be told.

A great western writer. You can't put this book down once you start! The author puts you in the seat of Dean Archer and you want to win.... A well written exciting story of the old west.

Lovely pictures of everyday activities of humans and the birds that inhabit the land with them; including gathering eggs and hanging laundry and life in a small full house and hunting and having fun. Also illustrated mythological/religious events. Nice size pictures with good color. Paintings are whimsical and are not realism, but there's a realistic feel about them. They really portray feeling and atmosphere.

This book wasn't written this year, but correlates to events happening concerning gun control at the present time. Is there a conspiracy to snuff out any part of our Bill of Rights? Why do certain politicians and groups seem intent on utilizing tragic events as a reason to destroy the second amendment? Is this truly a fictional story? Interesting! Decide for yourself.

"History is something like a river," we read in the introduction to this extraordinary book that loops and turns from the mountains all the way to the sea. Weaving myth, history, biology, the stories of salmon, Yurok, Karok, Hupa and immigrant farmers, Stephen Most tells the story of one of California's most beautiful and storied rivers. One feels the sacredness of it. If you love wilderness books and river books and if the land for you wears a beautiful face, don't miss this book. It will take you there.