Oregon Books

NEVER SALUTE WITH A BROKEN GARTER" is a collection of Peggy Lutz's
memories between the years of 1944 and 1946, primarily recounting life
of a young woman doing her part for the War effort as a US Navy WAVE.
Women Accepted for Volunteer Service, or WAVES, was a fully pledged and
uniformed auxiliary attached to the US Navy only during WWII. They
performed most of the same stateside assignments as their male
counterparts.

Because very little has been written about these women in uniform Lutz
explains that her hope is that "NEVER SALUTE WITH A BROKEN GARTER" will
shed some light on "all the little threads that made up the fabric of military life for a woman between 1944 and 1946.

I almost didn't buy this book because of the low customer reviews, but then I used the "look inside" feature and liked what I saw. I did order the book and I'm very glad I did. I teach creative writing at the college level and will recommend this book to my students. I find the tellings to be very clear and also very poetic. As a writer, I turn to myths to help me find my own stories--this book, I know, will pull many stories out of my unconscious, where they now are hidden "in the depths of the Earth; the void." I also find the author's introduction informative and useful in explaining why myths are important. I love this book.

Sean Gillihan's poetry represents, as William Kittredge writes on the back cover, "a vivid and accurate, true new voice in the American West. He's been down the roads, worked the crops, fed the cattle--he knows the drills, and dignifies each quiet thing he talks about." Indeed, Gillihan's poems have a quiet yet confident strength and a calm yet powerful quality of vision that cannot be denied. Though often hailed as a new and strong emerging voice of the American West, Gillihan's poetry owes as much to an Eastern sensibility as a Western one--a quality reminiscent of Jim Harrison's poetry. But Gillihan's voice is all his own, and from these poems it is clear he has full command of that voice; his poetry is masterful, beautiful, and imbued with powerful and honest meaning.

There are lots of fishing guides but few about fishing in the salt water of the Pacific Northwest. He writes good naturedly about tactics and lures most attractive to the Northwestern fish. He all modes of saltwater fishing, mooching, jigging and trolling. It is both the most complete guide as well as the shortest and most detailed book available on the subject. This book is a real "catch"whether you are relocating or lived here forever and think you have "heard it all"! pelican on Whidbey Island, an avid fisherman.

I had the pleasure of learning from Ron Lansing for three years at law school. He is an amazing mind, and one of the finest story tellers I have ever encountered. Since most of us can't travel to Oregon to hear him lecture on the law, do yourself a favor and get this book.

The author is very knowledgeable about 19th century photographs and his knowledge is evident in this "labor of love." Not only did I learn about the photographers in Portland, Oregon before 1900 I also learned how to date old photographs. This information has been very useful for me as I research my family history.

NORTH BANK explores the patterns and the feelings of recreating a home place. After the author and his wife buy a home beside the Rogue River, he sets about discovering the locale--the hillsides, the neighbors, the rivers, the fly-fishing riffles. What began as strange landscape gradually takes on a familiar and valued quality. This book engages the process of rediscovery that we all experience, in some form, when we move from one place to another and set about putting down new roots. Because the author loves rivers and flyfishing, his particular process has much to do with the rivers and smaller coastal streams of the region. But there is more than fishing here. A wonderful read.

This is an excellent guide to paddling in the northwest. It is up to date and concise, and includes all the things you want to know when going on a paddling vacation with the family.

"What disregards man does man good," wrote Stafford in one of his better known and often anthologized poems, one about sightseers on the astonishing Oregon seacoast.
I purchased this special edition of Northwest Review when it was new and required reading for Professor Glen Love's terrific course in Literature of the Pacific Northwest, at the University of Oregon. Now I seem to have misplaced it and am desperate to find a replacement copy. If anyone happens to have one available, I am willing to pay handsomely for it.

What a great find. We were visiting a friends B&B and she had this book sitting on the coffee table so I started flipping through the pages looking at all the houses, and then I turned the page and there was our house! The William G White house in Olympia, WA It is now the Swantown Inn Bed & Breakfast. The book is a great resource of local Victorian homes, and has come in handy while we look at paint schemes for when we repaint, knowing that the house was yellow at one point and what it looked like is just a plus!