Washington University Books

John Keeble, whose writing focuses on the issues facing the American Northwest, paints a memorable picture of the Exxon Valdez oilspill and its aftermath. Asked by the Greenwich Village Voice to write an article on the spill, he travels to Alaska and observes first-hand the efforts made to restore the land and the wildlife. However, the more he observes the more he is haunted by two observations: 1) that the size of the oil companies, and the entangled relationship between the companies and the government, is enormously greater than we have suspected, and 2) that the vast amounts of money poured into the clean-up effort causes many to view that money as their goal. His investigations into the clean-up follow a theme he develops in his other works: that the intrusion of a company or government upon the land inevitably causes exploitation; and those who live in that land must invariably suffer the consequences. Torn between the desires to make money, to clear the oil, and to downplay the scope of the incident, the people involved with clean-up waste a good deal of their effort. The more damage Keeble assesses, the more in tune he becomes with the suffering of the people and animals truly hurt, and ultimately, the reader, too, feels the chill that shakes the author at each new discovery.

Newspaper stories about the oil spill created the impression that the cause of the accident was simply that the captain was drunk. This book shows that the real situation was far more complex. The captain was definitely not drunk. He did have a few drinks, which is against regulations. Even after all the analysis it is not clear what exactly went wrong. The fact that the captain had a few drinks was not the only breach of regulations. None of the officers had a six-hour off duty time in the twelve-hour period before departure. The ship was single hulled instead of double hulled as was foreseen when the oil terminal was built. When Congress granted permission to build the pipeline and the terminal one of the conditions was that there would be a state-of-the-art contingency plan for oil spills. There was nothing of the sort. A Vessel Traffic Services station was supposed to monitor the movement of the ships through the strait. Due to cost cutting measures the station was unable to monitor the movement of the ship. A major cause of inefficiency in the clean up was the lack of clarity about who was in charge, the Coast Guard or Exxon. It is not just the captain that acted irresponsibly, so did all parties concerned. This is described in one part of the book. The second part of the book describes the impact of the oil spill and especially of the clean up on the communities affected. Each of the communities split in the middle. Half of the members took the position of trying to squeeze as much money out of Exxon as possible whilst the other half did not want to have anything to do with Exxon. Exxon did not succeed in engaging the communities in a positive way. The third part describes the nature in Alaska. These descriptions are wonderful and make you want to go there. These three parts are interwoven. The advantage is that the reader gets a three dimensional understanding of what happened: the responsibility for the disaster and the clean up, the impact on different members of the community and the impact on nature. The author places the ultimate responsibility on the consumer. He writes, " the American population prefers to live in a fog and is willing to accept almost anything in return for the opportunity to keep its gas tanks topped up" (with cheap gas). The combination of corporations maximising short-term profits and consumers closing their eyes to the consequences of their behaviour makes one worried. There must be a better way.

Out of the Channel should be required reading for anyone who thinks environmentally ... not just environmentalists, but students, political and economic theorists, and most of all, writers. I had the good fortune to learn a great deal about writing from John Keeble, and reading his book is an education all by itself. As a rigorous study of the physical and human impact of the Exxon Valdez disaster, Out of the Channel is a comprehensive anatomy, a text that does not shirk any of the heavy load its vast subject demands. Without taking the easy route of righteous anger, Keeble explores every nuance of the oil spill, and he follows that tenacious blot of Prudhoe Bay crude as it seeps out of the tangible world and into the minds and spirits of the permanent and temporary inhabitants of Prince William Sound. This tenth anniversary edition, with the expanded coverage allowed by the perspective of time, is a gift that should not be overlooked.

These are well-written, provocative stories, especially those in the second and third sections (the stories in the first section are okay), where the writer explores complex and interrelated themes of race, ethnicity, sexuality and class, without compromising the emotionality of the stories. It is truly a gift to find stories that manage to be both intellectually/socially ambitious (i.e., reaching beyond the purely conventional or "domestic") and affecting. I give this a 4 only because of the stories in the first section, which are lyrical (prose-wise) and also quite complex, but just not as compelling as the other stories here. Definitely worth a look.

As a person who enjoy life in Taiwan, I am fascinated with the book, especially with the title story. It is simply amazing. Poignant and precise. Also so tasteful. Must-read for people who have loved, known, stayed in Taiwan.

For readers like myself who have searched out literary quarterlies published in the United States over the last fifteen years, it was a great joy to discover the appearance of this long overdue collection of short stories by Russell Charles Leong. While living in San Francisco in the early `90s, I discovered Leong's writing in a literary quarterly. That story altered the way I viewed the suburban landscape of Los Angeles. It was also one of the finest stories I had read on the experience of lost love. Therefore, I was thrilled to find it as the second story in this collection. The story is "Geography One." Not only is it a must read, it is also an indicator of one of the themes, in this case loss, that underlies this collection. The title story "Phoenix Eyes," equally pungent, also explores the silent devastation of loss. In this case, a loss that can't be properly expressed as a result of cultural constraints imposed by the main character's former lover's family. The emotional scope of these stories is to broad to be forced cleanly into any ethnic or sexual niche. These are stories written by an important and long under-recognized American writer. And as such, one who deserves a wider readership. While this is his first collection of fiction, I can only hope it is not the last. As this collection affirms his talent, this reader hopes Mr Leong follows it with an equally long-overdue memoir or novel.

Okay, so she's one of my best friends BUT EVEN SO, I never knew she could write this well. Her memory is sharp, her observations hard and clear, and her insights are not for the polite or faint of heart. Koskela's early life in the harsh world of Idaho farming country is told with wit and clarity. It may not be gracious but it is REAL and you will find yourself laughing, tsk, tsking and looking back with a new vision on your own childhood. I've known Alice for over 20 years--she's incapable of telling even the most innocent of white lies and so understandably she has written a book of truths. This will by MY Christmas gift this year!

I thoroughly enjoyed this graceful, sweet, honest and sometimes heart wrenching memoir. As the illustrator, I was honored to be a part of it.

A beautiful intimate story of a young girl growing up in rugged Idaho.This is not a story full of sweetness, but of the tough life small farmers and their family encoutered in their fight for survival. I loved it from beginning to end

Ten delightful stories, not just of the Raven, but also of the First Men, Bear Mother, Mouse Woman and other early tales from the times of myth. The stories are full of humor, love, speaking animals and bawdy scenes of lust. Boy, does the Raven get into trouble. This version of the book is a tiny, pocket size, edition. Great for carrying on a bus, car, train, plane, and so on.

I brought this book on a trip to Vancouver and Victoria and read it in the evenings after returning to my hotels. As a European American, I found it indispensable to understanding much of the art I saw on vacation (especially Totem Poles). This book relates many of the best known Haida stories, including those of the noble, tragic Bear; the intrepid, versatile human fisherman-hunter Nanasigmit and above all the amoral but always fascinating Raven. Almost all the stories are simple, yet strike a deep chord. Add this to "Looking at Totem Poles" and "Kwakuitl Legends", both also reasonably priced, and you'll be well on your way to understanding the basics of First Nations culture.

I grew up in the pacific north-west and experienced many of these stories as a child. This was a wonderful book to bring back most of those memories. It is well written. Simple yet engaging. Once I started I couldn't put it down. I've since used it as a teaching resourse in social studies and will be ordering other copies for fellow teachers I've shown it to and were equally impressed. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in native legends or mythology.

"Sanshiro" is a coming-of-age novel, Meiji Japan style. This is definitely not one of Soseki's better known novels, especially in the United States, but it still has an appeal and sharpness that transcends time and cultural barriers.

"Sanshiro" is in many ways both different and yet similar to Soseki's most famous work, "Kokoro." Both include tales of heartbreak and tragedy, along with social commentary on Japanese society. For whatever reason, Sanshiro struck me as a much more "modern" book than Kokoro. Using the word modern on a book written 100 years ago may seem odd, but reading Soseki's comments on Japanese society at the time (end of the 19th/beginning of 20th century Japan), then considering the ultimate result of the Meiji cultural "revolution" (the emphasis on Western science and Eastern philosophy which led to militaristic ultranationalism), and then again the state of Japan today and it is clear that Soseki's comments are not outdated.

Similarly, Sanshiro's Mineko is a much more modern, "Western" young lady than her counterpart in Kokoro. Unlike Kokoro's Ojosan, who didn't seem to have a thought of her own, Mineko is beautiful, intelligent, slightly haughty, and has a mysterious appeal about her. She is not some trophy to be captured, but a person to be respected in her own right. I found myself verbally assaulting the annoyingly clumsy Sanshiro when he missed opportunity after opportunity to get to know Mineko better. Of course, when he finally develops some guts it's too late. The blame for this unhappy end falls on Mineko as well, as she is one of Sanshiro and Yojiro's generation's "unconscious hypocrites" in the words of Soseki. Mineko knows that she has found a fellow stray sheep in Sanshiro, yet she ultimately abandons him.

Soseki's writing is again a joy to read. Every time you encounter a passage that seems to start getting a little monotonous, he throws in a paragraph that seems absolutely brilliant. The characters are similarly memorable. I liked Kokoro a bit better, but Sanshiro is still an excellent book that has aged well.

Soseki's first attempt at a serious (as opposed to Botchan), full-length novel is a wonderful story of a country boy, Sanshiro, in his first year at Tokyo University studying literature. During the year he falls in love and unwittingly gets involved in university politics.
Set in the early 1900's, the book examines Japanese society moving into the modern world. Sanshiro is trapped between the traditional Japan of his home, the modern world of Tokyo, and the academic world of the University. He falls in love with a modern woman, but has difficulty relating to her because he has little experience with woman and because of his traditional upbringing.
My droll description by no means does the novel justice. As a coming-of-age story, it is superior to Western classics such as This Side of Paradise and The Catcher in the Rye. It is an utterly charming novel that shows Soseki's fine sense of humor as well as his skill and insight in critiquing Japanese society and man entering a modern world. Soseki's simple, elegant writing style survives even through translation. It serves well as an introduction to Soseki's works, which later are darker psychological analyses.

I rate this irony laden story on par with Soseki's most important novel, 'Kokoro.' Joseph Conrad's novels had to travel to Africa and the East Indies to establish the parameters within which the Japanese lived their daily lives as they grappled with the effects of Western Rationalism upon a nonindustrial society. Fortunately for world literature, Soseki Natsume was up to the task of documenting this transitional period with grace, wit, and sensitivity. Soseki's books generally are either serious ('Kokoro') or satiric ('Botchan,' 'I Am A Cat'), 'Sanshiro' is both and it is the better for it.
After graduating from a provincial school Sanshiro enters Japan's greatest university and encounters a number of Tokyo sophisticates, among them westernized girls, famed artists and writers, jaded academicians, dedicated scientists and his best friend Yojiro a lovable, well-meaning scoundrel who constantly throws his shy and self-effacing compatriot into the thick of things. Because there are so many elements that make up this heady mix, the reader has the choice of processing the story on many different levels. At the very simplest level it is about first love and disappointment, but it is also a commentary upon the effects of the new on the old, East meets West, the city vs. the countryside, the traditional and untraditional, youthful idealism and middle-aged disappointment. This probably sounds as though it might be tedious or pedantic, but really Soseki's treatment of the themes is gentle and a delight to read. For instance, when one of Sanshiro's heroes is disgraced by a well-meaning plan that goes awry, Soseki blunts the pain by riffng on the inscrutability of the 'philosophical smoke' streaming through his victim-hero's nostrils as he puffs on his pipe. A stream of smoke by which Sanshiro's roguish friend claims to read emotions. Also, when Soseki lampoons the intellectual conceits of his characters, he does it in a way that the reader must seriously consider each proposition before the joke becomes apparent. As to the pain of disappointment in love, this is always sad and heartfelt yet Soseki is able to ameliorate it by leaving the subject and the object of the heartbreak ambiguous as if either side may have been responsible.
This is imagined, but one begins to suspect that Haruki Murakami was influenced by this novel and even appropriates some of the themes found in it for his own: mysterious and alluring women who flit in and out of the story, odd scientific and philosophical theories as props, central character as passive witness. It is fun to imagine this and one begins to find other coincidences too. Anyway, it is just a thought, perhaps brought on by the coincidence that Jay Rubin, the translator who does an excellent job of bringing this text to life, also translates for Haruki Murakami.
Readers, this is one of the finer Japanese novels that I have encountered. The author often had me smiling, laughing, cringing, sighing and rooting for the various characters in this well told story.

Kozloff's book is a classic and a bible for anyone who studies intertidal and coastal organisms in the Pacific Northwest. Professor Sean used this book when he took Kozloff's Marine Biology class at the University of Washington and it has been one of his favorites ever since. Kozloff's insights and anecdotes on marine organisms, accompanied by his encyclopedic knowledge, blend to create an outstanding book for identifying and learning more about marine life. If you simply want to know the names of the organisms, there are plenty of cheap field books out there. But if you want to truly know and understand marine organisms and the role they play in the ocean, then this is the book for you.

This book is really geared more toward the academic. I would not find it useful as a field guide, though it makes for fairly interesting biological reading. It is not laid out in a "field guide" fashion, with species listed and illustrations for each provided. It would be frustrating to take the kids to the beach at low tide and attempt to use this unless you are very well acquainted with your marine taxonomy. Most species are not identified by a common name, and the color plates and illustrations are not necessarily near the species text.
This book reads as a textbook for students rather than a useful tool for laymen who just need to know what critter they just found under a rock, and want the information before the tide comes back in.

Though published in the early 1980s, this book does a wonderful job of introducing the active naturalist to the nearshore marine life of the Pacific Northwest. This book includes good illustrations and photographs, descriptions of where marine flora and fauna live and what they do there. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to go the seashore of the Pacific Northwest and figure out what they are looking at. Kozloff has been there and seen everything he's writing about. I use this book as my primary text when I take students to Puget Sound, Washington, for my marine ecology field course. A top notch field guide!

Dr. Roberts has written a beautifully written and compellingly factual and detailed view of how the supply siders came into "power" and began to dominate economic policy formulation in Washington DC. If you want to know you must read his first hand account. However, I tried to follow up and get his more recent views to answer questions I had that he would not reply to (I know he's a busy man). I found disappointly that he's gone off the deep end politically so God only knows what his positions are today except anti-Bush and anti-American hegemony (his own myth). Too bad.

I read this book because I was studying the economic changes brought about by the Reagan victory in 1980. I've seen many favorable and unfavorable mentions of the "supply-side" theory, so I was looking for an account from a true supply-sider. This book fits that need. It desribes the immediate intellectual origins of the policy (but not the fundamental long-term origins). It then describes the political battles that went on in the legislative and executive branches from 1978 to about the end of 1981. I enjoyed reading how the free-market Republicans, Keynesian Republicans and liberals fought it out behind the scenes. These battles shaped the relatively vague "supply-side" theory into a specific government policy. This book is a good view into those years and provides perspective to the more recent government tax and spending issues.

Don't buy this book if you just want to know the history of supply-side economics -- it is so much more than that. If you want to know how economic policy making REALLY happens inside the beltway (including even the most boring parts, the ugliest warts, and more!), this book gives it to you straight.

What will you learn from this book? How both good and bad economic policies are distorted by the media and propagandized by politicians. The bottom line -- why DC politicians continue to produce economic failure after failure.

What a terrific book! The pictures and informations are great,
well-organized, and make the monuments easily accessible. Every
student of the Civil War living in the DC/Northern Virginia/Maryland area should have a copy of this book. The photos alone are really worth the cost of the book. Wonderful!

As a resident of Capitol Hill, I found this book useful and informative. I, for one, had no idea that the Congressional Cemetery just a few blocks from my home contained the first Civil War era monument erected. Nor did I know that the first major Lincoln Memorial was right here on the hill.

The book is fascinating and can provide either a brief, or detailed, look at the monuments.

The only thing the book is lacking is a MAP to help the unitiated into the world of DC's complicated streets.

As a citizen working in the District of Columbia, and an avid walker, I have been fascinated with the vast array of statues present virtually everywhere in the city. I have been searching for a source of information that could help me with learning about the history of the pieces. While I was looking for something a little less specific - or I should say, more far reaching (there's a lot, a whole lot of statues in D.C.) than the subject of this book - what is here is fascinating and very informative. I have spoken with some tour guides that visit the statues with tourists, and some of the information that they share about the statues and sites differs slightly than what is written here - but I am so confident in the thoroughness of Ms. Jacobs' research - I am sure these guides are speaking the embellishment of popular myth. I would love to share some of this elaboration with the author to confirm this notion.

A great book discussing the gold fields in Montana and the difficulties of getting supplies to and from. Great book to read before crossing the Magruder Corridor.

"This Bloody Deed" is a well researched look at Idaho's first murder trial. Hamilton relates the known facts with a novelist's license for imagined dialouge and motivation. While historians may shudder, this makes the book highly readable.

Three thugs from Sheriff Henry Plummer's gang befriend and then murder packer Lloyd Magruder and party as they are crossing the Bitterroot Mountains from Bannack( now western Montana,then Idaho Territory) to Lewiston Idaho. Magruder's true friend Hill Beachy tracks the killers to San Francisco and returns them to Lewiston to face Idaho's first murder trial, if he can keep them from being lynched.

I grew up with this story as a folktale and as good as the narrative is the best parts of the book are Hamilton's asides into everyday life on the Idaho frontier, boom-bust economics of mining and territorial politics.

My only historical quibble is that my family always accepted that the prosecution's chief witness was also a Plummer gang intimate.

A solid picture of the frontier as it probably was.

Ladd Hamilton puts to paper one of the most compelling stories of the old west. His writing keeps you glued to the pages by vividly describing how life was 130 years ago. This murder mystery that takes you from the Bitterroot Mountains of the Idaho territory to the city of San Francisco and back is a must read for all.

Wayne C. MacGregor Jr. is a decorated veteran of the U.S. Army 77th infantry division. Through These Portals: A Pacific War Saga is MacGregor's personal memoir of service in the U.S. Army during the Pacific campaigns, where he fought alongside the Navy and Marine Corps. Informative remembrances of the dire hardships of the Great Depression, background the values, attitudes, and morals that sustained the American troops who were thrust into lethal confrontation with the highly trained, combat savvy, ideologically fanatical, and sometimes suicidal Japanese soldiers. Also available in a hardcover edition, and a very highly recommended addition to World War II Military History collections, Through These Portals vividly captures both dramatic events and the grind of daily life as American soldiers struggled and often forfeited their lives in a war in the Pacific Theatre.

Wayne MacGregor was a US Army rifleman in the Pacific during World War Two who fought on Guam, the Phillipines and Okinawa. Through These Portals is a memoir of his childhood and war experiences. The battle descriptions are as descriptive of the horrors of war as any book ever written. The difference in this book is that he tries to place his experiences in the context of the war at large. For those with an intimate knowledge of the war this may seem redundant but for those who aren't as knowledgable of the war this extra information is helpful. The author also tends to moralize a bit but he is merely voicing common views of his generation. This book is definitely a must read and a good first memoir to read on the war in the Pacific.

I was assigned to read Through These Portals in my WWII in the Pacific Class about a year ago at WSU. As a history major I enjoyed reading it and had a few things to say about this book.

When boys signed up for the service in WWII and even WWI they were expecting a "great adventure" where they would get to punch some "Jap" or "Jerry" however once they got their first taste of combat their attitudes changed from adventurous to survival. The title "Through These Portals" perfectly identifies with the coming of age in wartime conditions.

They go in as beach boys from all over the US, and they come out battle hardened men who have seen death multiple times and in many cases were the instrument of death. MacGregor perfectly captures this in his thesis about the transformation of boys to men. MacGregor's experience at Okinawa, Leyte, the Philippines and Guam really illustrated his own philosphes.

Which brings me to my next point, the imagry was nice, since this is an explicit memoir of MacGregor's experience he got to tell us every detail he could remember from the run-down boots he was forced to wear, to the horrible conditions of being in a foxhole to the Japanese fighting spirit that casted hell on our boys in the Pacific.

The only bone I have to pick is the first two chapters (56 pages) where he talks about himself growing up in the depression torn Pacific Northwest. This portion of the book REALLY dragged on and on and on till I had to skip that portion of the book. There were some dragging parts in between battles during the war portion of the book that also dragged however that could not be helped, however, the intro COULD have been better.

I personally met MacGregor a year ago and got to talk to him about why he included that section in his book, he said it was mostly just him recolecting his experience so yes, it could've been left completely out or maybe just a few pages.

Overall, a great book for history buffs like myself. However for general reading I would think twice. A great book for both would be With the Old Breed by EB Sledge.