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Contents 3
Fiction
16 Biography 21 History 25 Nonfiction 35 Poetry
“Stories of life and bureaucracy intertwine in the wake of historic disasters, from the western wildfires to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Murray’s stories feature the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education, and the lives of regular people caught up in the all-too-familiar dystopian currents of the day.” —The Millions
“Murray makes it impossible for readers to maintain the shelter of distance from politics, forcing us beyond quote-unquote neutral reporting and into the humanity that exists in its omissions. It is absolutely essential reading.” —BuzzFeed News
This biting collection of short stories exposes a nation grappling with moral corruption and environmental devastation.
What does it mean for a Latina and a Latinx trans man to participate in the Miss USA pageant? How do a Trump-supporting father-in-law and his Latina daughter-in-law come together to survive a raging wildfire? What does a college-bound eighteen-year-old girl do when she becomes pregnant in a state where she doesn’t have access to abortion? How does a law professor, herself a victim of sexual assault, write a letter of recommendation for a student to work for a judge accused of sexual misconduct? How does an EPA employee dedicated to the fight for environmental protections navigate a workplace where she’s now expected to find rationales to reverse regulations? Murray’s stories are fueled by the heat of the current political moment and magnify the hidden dialogue of many Americans struggling within a fractured country. A writer as witness. The gripping, thought-provoking stories in Yxta Maya Murray’s latest collection find their inspiration in the headlines. Here, ordinary people negotiate tentative paths through wildfire, mass shootings, bureaucratic incompetence, and heedless government policies with vicious impacts on the innocent and helpless. A nurse volunteers to serve in catastrophe-stricken Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and discovers that her skill and compassion are useless in the face of stubborn governmental inertia. An Environmental Protection Agency employee, whose agricultural-worker parents died after long exposure to a deadly pesticide, finds herself forced to find justifications for reversing regulations that had earlier banned the chemical. A Department of Education employee in a dystopic future America visits a highly praised charter school and discovers the horrific consequences of academic failure. A transgender trainer of beauty pageant contestants takes on a beautiful Latina for the Miss USA pageant and brings her to perfection and the brink of victory, only to discover that she has a fatal secret. The characters in these stories grapple with the consequences of frightening attitudes and policies pervasive in the United States today. The stories explore not only our distressing human capacity for moral numbness in the face of evil, but also reveal our surprising stores of compassion and forgiveness. These brilliantly conceived and beautifully written stories are troubling yet irresistible mirrors of our time.
The World Doesn’t Work That Way, but It Could Stories Yxta Maya Murray $26.00 $15.60 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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“Anchor & Knife” The first time I met you I fought your father in the driveway. He fisted a tire iron, but he’d been drinking and he only clipped my forearm with his looping swing. That’s really where my scar comes from. The afternoon had been nice, your mother made kabobs, but you wouldn’t touch the green peppers, and you wouldn’t speak to me, so your mom brought the soccer ball out and we kicked at it in the small backyard and I pretended to know something about Pelé, and she made you hug me before I left out the front door, running into your dad, who had spied our embrace. You’re ten. You stood in front of our autumn oak, your white-casted right arm at your side above the rocky ground that shattered your elbow on your fall from the old tree. I warned you about climbing the dead branches, and still I ran to you when I heard your animal groan, your dangling lower arm, inverted, twisting, and I waited to take you to the hospital and belted you first because you never listened to me, a stepfather, and it felt good to whip that leather at your lower back, to hear sharpness in the air, and see your body quiet and stiffen. Sometimes you’d crawl into our bed and curl into your mother. You looked just like her, and I’d imagine you seeping back into her womb, breathing her liquid, splitting into cells, into her egg, his sperm, but when I’d slip into half sleep I’d feel your fingers on my anchor-and-knife tattoo, tracing the shapes. You tried me two times when you were sixteen, and each time I let you get the first jab in, just so you thought you had a chance. I remember the living room: the worn gray carpet,
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little bay window; I remember choosing where to land the next blow, then wrestling you down to the floor, lying on top of you, your mother pulling, yelping, pleading as I took your arms above your head and locked them with one of my hands, feeling your helpless slither underneath me, knowing none of it mattered because you weren’t mine. You’re twenty. You lifted your sleeve at the dinner table, unveiling your mother’s name on your bicep after your first tour in Iraq. When she asked you if you’d killed anyone, your mouth was full of mashed potatoes and you said I’d go back. And when you volunteered to go your mother refused to see you off, but I was there, standing and cursing you in the midday heat, watching the C-17 take you away, staying until they began folding up the plastic chairs. When you called before the battle at al-Qai’m you asked for your mother, and she sobbed and shoved the phone at me, so I took it, and you told me you loved me. You thanked me for the fishing trips on the Truckee River, for sitting in the stands at miserable band performances, for toughening you up for the Marines. And after the battle you told me you’d lied, that you didn’t love me, that my belt and fist still filled your dreams, and fearing death had made you say things you thought God wanted to hear. Your mother and I were pulling weeds in the front yard when the chaplain’s clean blue sedan edged up to the curb. He asked us to step inside, but your mother wouldn’t budge; she took the news on the sidewalk with a fistful of crabgrass. I drove through a lightning storm to the green bridge
we used to fish below. It’s where I taught you to smack trout heads against the large black rocks before slicing the guts out. Once, we tried to catch them with our hands, and I showed you how to reach into the water and rub their soft bellies, lulling them for a moment before the surprise clench and lift. I told you I’d caught hundreds of trout this way, and that my scar was from wrestling a twenty-pounder on the rocks. For all I could tell you believed me. Your mother fell apart. She locked herself in our darkened bedroom, taking small meals there. She didn’t talk to anyone, but on the third day she came to me: Tell his father, she said. I waited a couple of hours, and after cursing and circling town, I drove to his place by the lumber mill. My hand gripped the car door handle, but I couldn’t pull the damn thing, and I sat there for twenty minutes, his dog barking the whole time. Finally, your father emerged and slowly approached my rusting Ford. He carried a baseball bat in his strong hand. I didn’t fancy up the news. He’s dead, I said, and drove away. I drove until I ran out of gas on a dirt road out by where we shot at clay pigeons. I walked the eight miles back to town. When I arrived home, your father’s truck rested in our driveway. As I passed the truck I looked inside the cab on the chance that he had just arrived, that maybe he was sitting in the driver’s seat, buying time, but it was empty. I walked up the steps you helped me build and stood at the threshold with an overwhelming urge to knock at my own door.
...
Raw and revealing, these short stories highlight the voices of America’s forever wars.
“Acceleration Hours is a live-wire collection full of characters who aren’t afraid to bare their souls. With a deft hand, Goolsby carries us through their struggles at home and away, cementing himself as a powerful new talent in the process.” —Sara Nović, author of Girl at War
“Jesse Goolsby’s stories cut like knives: brutal and bloody, shocking and thrilling, they profane by telling the truth. Goolsby’s thoroughly American characters run from war at home to war abroad; they (we?) are realists and pessimists, the disillusioned and a few of the dangerously deluded. Acceleration Hours should haunt a nation that has for a generation now sent the least among us around the globe to dominate and humiliate the least among Them—all in service of an empire estranged from its ideals. This collection should wake us up; it has the power to change us..” —Dan O’Brien, author of War Reporter and The Body of an American
From the author of the critically-acclaimed novel, I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them, Jesse Goolsby’s Acceleration Hours is a haunting collection of narratives about families, life, and loss during America’s twenty-first-century forever wars. Set across the mountain west of the United States, these fierce, original, and compelling stories illuminate the personal search for human connection and intimacy. From a stepfather’s grief to an AWOL soldier and her journey of reconciliation to a meditation on children, violence, and hope, Acceleration Hours is an intense and necessary portrayal of the many voices living in a time of perpetual war.
Acceleration Hours Stories Jesse Goolsby $24.00 $14.40 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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Enjoy a perfect mix of medical mysteries, scenic landscapes, and unexpected romance in book 1 of the Dr. Abby Wilmore series!
Book 1
The Dr. Abby Wilmore Series “Part Grey’s Anatomy, part modern western romance, Miller’s enjoyable story marries unexpected diagnoses with the promise of a happily-ever-after and will please fans of Jojo Moyes.” —Publishers Weekly
“As a former family physician, Miller is able to write what she knows in such a way that readers will feel at home not just with the descriptions but also with the characters. Abby’s experiences providing rural medicine offer readers glimpses into the reasoning behind the decisions people make (and fail to make) about their health and into how being a doctor is about more than just diagnosis and prescriptions. The Color of Rock is a brilliant novella, a mix of local color and subtle literary merit.” —Seattle Book Review
A young physician, Dr. Abby Wilmore, attempts to escape her past by starting over at the Grand Canyon Clinic. Silently battling her own health issues, Abby struggles with adjusting to the demands of this unique rural location. She encounters everything from squirrel bites to suicides to an office plagued by strong personalities. While tending to unprepared tourists, under-served locals, and her own mental trials, Abby finds herself entangled in an unexpected romance and trapped amidst a danger even more treacherous than the foreboding desert landscape. Sandra Cavallo Miller’s debut novel transports readers to the beautiful depths of Arizona and weaves an adventurous and heartwarming tale of the courage and strength it takes to overcome personal demons and to find love.
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The Color of Rock A Novel Sandra Cavallo Miller $24.95 $14.79 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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Mysteries abound as Dr. Abby travels to Yellowstone National Park in Book 2.
Book 2
“Those interested in a view of life in a scenic national park will be best pleased.” —Publishers Weekly
Dr. Abby Wilmore has accepted the directorship of a summer clinic in Yellowstone National Park where she hopes to expand her medical skills. She arrives to find herself working above the increasingly restless Yellowstone supervolcano, treating visitors, staff, and locals, all while evading the advances of a lecherous concession manager and maintaining a long-distance relationship with her partner who stays at the Grand Canyon Clinic. As tremors in the park escalate and the lakes seethe with bubbling gases, Abby learns that some-one is mysteriously killing the bison. What follows is an engrossing mystery unfolding in a spectacular setting with rich, quirky, and endearing characters and unexpected plot turns. While an overworked Abby makes new friends among her clinic staff and patients, tension builds as the volcano seems to be moving closer to a major eruption and the bison killings become more frequent. Soon, Abby finds herself in mortal danger as the story races to a thrilling and unexpected conclusion. Sandra Cavallo Miller demonstrated in The Color of Rock that she is a gifted storyteller. Where Light Comes and Goes deftly combines a gripping mystery set in the accurately depicted routine of a busy medical practice amid the wonders of Yellowstone’s magnificent scenery and wildlife. This is entertaining reading at its best.
Where Light Comes and Goes A Novel Sandra Cavallo Miller $24.95 $14.79 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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Book 3 coming Spring 2021!
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New characters and new medical conundrums in this riveting third novel!
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“My life stopped for two days while I read this novel. The Brightest Place in the World accomplishes what only our best art attempts. In these pages, David Philip Mullins tracks the vagaries and desires of people we recognize as they deal with the unthinkable: illicit sex, crazy scams, betrayals, loneliness. This book is a love letter to Las Vegas, the western desert, and, most of all, the mysteries of the human heart.” —Charles Bock, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Children and Alice & Oliver
“The Brightest Place in the World portrays how tragedy and grief upend us and turn us reckless. Mullins writes with grace, and with tenderness for his characters. Through his storytelling, a nuanced and intimate Las Vegas—a town full of both heartache and love—comes alive.” —Edan Lepucki, New York Times bestselling author of California and Woman No. 17
“Carefully written in beautiful prose, The Brightest Place in the World is a moving and stunning novel from a natural writer.” —Chris Offutt, author of My Father, the Pornographer and Country Dark
“Mullins’s sentences shimmer and shine, dazzling the reader like the lights of the Las Vegas Strip. But there’s so much beyond the beauty of the writing. As these characters navigate the horrific aftermath of a tragedy, we witness the full spectrum of human strengths and failings. The Brightest Place in the World is an extraordinary novel, full of turns and revelations, of humanity and compassion.” —Ian Stansel, author of The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo
A deadly explosion at a Las Vegas chemical plant forces an afflicted cast of characters to re-evaluate their lives in this debut novel.
“A traumatic explosion reverberates beyond the physical in this remarkable debut novel from David Philip Mullins. . . . Las Vegas itself emerges as a character in this finely wrought and keenly observed story, which shines a brilliant light on the fragile ties that bind us.” —Allison Amend, author of A Nearly Perfect Copy and Enchanted Islands
“In The Brightest Place in the World, David Philip Mullins deftly incorporates a ferocious chemical plant explosion outside Las Vegas in a narrative about the shocks and emotional resonance of loss, exploring how four expertly delineated characters try to reconstruct their lives in the aftermath. It’s a book as intriguing as it is artfully made.” —Ron Hansen, author of Mariette in Ecstasy and Atticus
Inspired by true events, The Brightest Place in the World traces the lives of four characters haunted by an industrial disaster. On an ordinary sunny morning in 2012, a series of explosions level a chemical plant on the outskirts of Las Vegas. The shock waves are felt as far away as Fremont Street. Homes and businesses suffer broken windows and caved-in roofs. Hundreds are injured, and eight employees of the plant are unaccounted for, presumed dead. One of the missing is maintenance technician Andrew Huntley, a husband and father who is an orbital force in the novel as those who loved him grapple with his loss. Andrew’s best friend, Russell Martin—an anxiety-plagued bartender who calms his nerves with a steady inflow of weed—misses him more than he might a brother. Meanwhile Emma, Russell’s wife—a blackjack dealer at a downtown casino—tries to keep her years-long affair with Andrew hidden. Simon Addison, a manager at the plant who could have saved Andrew’s life, is afflicted by daily remorse, combined with a debilitating knowledge of his own cowardice. And then there’s Maddie, Andrew’s only child, a model highschool student whose response to the tragedy is to experiment with shoplifting and other deviant behavior. Against the sordid backdrop of Las Vegas—and inspired by the PEPCON disaster of May 4, 1988—this engaging novel is a story of grief and regret, disloyalty and atonement, infatuation and love.
The Brightest Place in the World A Novel David Philip Mullins $24.95 $14.79 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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A sobering collection of war stories on the front line in Iraq and the home front in Nevada.
“Desert Mementos succeeds with the development of raw characters and an unpretentious description of deployed life during the early years of the Iraq War while connecting these characters to Nevada in creative ways. This literary accomplishment provides a collection of short stories appealing to anyone drawn to literature of both war and Nevada.” —Nevada Appeal
“Desert Mementos is gritty. Cage writes in the style of hard-boiled realism. His descriptions and dialogue are terse, yet he draws complex emotions from his characters. He doesn’t moralize or glorify the war. He shows its effects up close and personal.” —Trampset
Desert Mementos is a collection of loosely connected short stories set during the early stages of the Iraq War (2004 and 2005). The stories rotate from battles with insurgents and the drudgery of the war machine in Iraq to Nevada, where characters are either preparing for war, escaping it during their leave, or returning home having seen what they’ve seen. Cage captures similarities in the respective desert landscapes of both Iraq and Nevada, but it is not just a study in contrasting landscapes. The inter-connected stories explore similarities and differences in human needs from the perspectives of vastly different cultures. Specifically, the stories deftly capture the overlap in the respective desert landscapes of each region, the contrasting cultures and worldviews, and the common need for hope. Taken together, the stories represent the arc of a year-long deployment by young soldiers. Cage’s stories are bound together by the soldier’s searing experiences in the desert, bookended by leaving and returning home to Nevada, which in many ways can be just as disorienting as patrolling the Iraq desert.
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Desert Mementos Stories of Iraq and Nevada Caleb Cage $22.95 $13.77 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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A vast historical novel that features love, camels, and the search for meaning in the nineteenth-century American West.
“A historical love story about the American West and the need for human connections . . . Most appealing for the scenery it captures, the book devotes paragraphs to the magnificence of the Nevada countryside. It captures big skies and scorching deserts as its characters wage an unwinnable struggle against nature. A subplot related to the real-life introduction of Arabian camels to the American Southwest involves considerable detail about how the plan worked—and didn’t.” —Foreword Reviews
The Desert Between Us is a sweeping, multi-layered novel based on the U.S. government’s decision to open more routes to California during the Gold Rush. To help navigate this waterless, largely unexplored territory, the War Department imported seventy-five camels from the Middle East to help traverse the brutal terrain that was murderous on other livestock. Geoffrey Scott, one of the roadbuilders, decides to venture north to discover new opportunities in the opening of the American West when he—and the camels—are no longer needed. Geoffrey arrives in St. Thomas, Nevada, a polygamous settlement caught up in territorial fights over boundaries and new taxation. There, he falls in love with Sophia Hughes, a hatmaker obsessed with beauty and the third wife of a polygamist. Geoffrey believes Sophia wants to be free of polygamy and go away with him to a better life, but Sophia’s motivations are not so easily understood. She had become committed to Mormon beliefs in England and had moved to Utah Territory to assuage her spiritual needs. The death of Sophia’s child and her illicit relationship with Geoffrey generate a complex nexus where her new love for Geoffrey competes with societal expectations and a rugged West seeking domesticity. When faced with the opportunity to move away from her polygamist husband and her tumultuous life in St. Thomas, Sophia becomes tormented by a life-changing decision she must face alone.
The Desert Between Us A Novel Phyllis Barber $27.95 $16.77 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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“Questions of faith and absolution fuel this evocative collection of meticulously crafted stories, all set in the contemporary American Southwest.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A collection of nine superbly crafted short stories, this third book by Waters set in the Southwest reminds us that this is not the old Southwest of pioneers and gunfighters but an updated view of broken neighborhoods and rundown lives.” —Library Journal
“Don Waters’s third short-story collection, The Saints of Rattlesnake Mountain, is a literary exploration of what survives in the shadow of the Valley of Death. These nine stories take place in locations throughout the Southwest and explore the wasted, sometimes austere emotions of people who are trying to survive inner landscapes as harsh as those without.” —Foreword Reviews
Find vivid narratives of down-and-out, hardscrabble characters in this collection of short stories.
“With The Saints of Rattlesnake Mountain, Don Waters once again shows us why he’s one of the most original and exciting voices to come out of the West.” —Willy Vlautin, author of The Motel Life and The Free
Master storyteller Don Waters returns to the desert in his third book set in the American Southwest. With the gothic sensibility of Flannery O’Connor and emotional delicacy of Raymond Carver, these nine contemporary stories deftly explore the lives of characters losing or clinging to a fleeting faith and struggling to find something meaningful to believe in beneath overpowering desert skies. Soldiers, seekers, priests, prisoners, and surfers pursue their fate amid bizarre, sometimes overwhelming circumstances. In “La Luz de Jesús,” a gutless Los Angeles screenwriter, a believer in nothing but the god of Hollywood, must reorient after he encounters a group of penitents in New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The decorated soldier in “Española” faces more chaos back home than he did during his tour in Iraq. And “The Saints of Rattlesnake Mountain” pairs a “trustee” prison inmate and a wild mustang horse, both wards of the state of Nevada, as they fumble toward a spiritual truth. These stories capture the spirit of a region and its people. Once again Waters assembles an unconventional cast of characters, capturing their foibles and imperfections, and always rendering them with compassion as these modern-day martyrs and spiritually haunted survivors strive for some kind of redemption. Ingenious, sometimes forbidding, often absurd, and altogether original, The Saints of Rattlesnake Mountain is a stirring tribute to the lives, loves, and hopes of the faithful and the dispossessed.
The Saints of Rattlesnake Mountain Stories Don Waters $25.95 $15.57 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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“Sprightly yet elegant prose propels this first-rate debut mystery from Kranes. . . . All the characters, whether major players or walk-ons, are full of life and disarmingly human. Kranes explores not only the enigma of how and why Mark vanished but also the greater mystery of what identity is. Along the way, he treats the reader to a gritty, glossy, sometimes glamorous and always witty view of Las Vegas and its inhabitants.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Kranes’ touch is so deft that the reader never gets lost in the multiple twists and turns that follow. He impeccably balances Goodson and Leno; Elko Wells and his associates—one of whom might or might not be Shaquille O’Neal; and the hapless Billy Spence, impersonator and identity thief who finds himself trapped by just how good he is at his act—and how careless. Reading ‘Abracadabra’ is like hurtling through a beautifully designed, sometimes scary, but always intriguing carnival fun house ride.” —Southwest Book Review
Mysterious disappearances, eccentric characters, and a wild ride await in this novel from David Kranes.
“Abracadabra is like an act of Cirque du Soleil—all the characters and their doubles and the actors and twins and the betrayed and betrayers and call ladies and johns and waitresses and pit bosses and clairvoyants and magicians and, by hell, even Dennis Rodman (the real Dennis Rodman) all spewed out in a big neon Bellagio fountain Mirage volcano splendor that could only happen in Vegas. And in the wake of Elko Wells. And Kranes pulls it off beautifully, like a sleight-of-hand swindle right there in your fingers as you turn the final pages and find a soft rabbit in your lap. No mirrors. No smoke. Just smart storytelling.” —Utah’s Art Magazine
Abracadabra is a fantastical and inventive addition to the tradition of noir writing, which not only delights and surprises at every turn but also raises important questions about identity, the human condition, the nature of evil, and the state of the union. The novel begins with a mystery, when Mark Goodson, a seemingly well-adjusted married man, disappears during a magic act, precipitating a series of events, encounters, and seemingly inexplicable occurrences, which it falls to a former professional football player, Elko Wells, to weave together into a story that is at once compelling and true. The concussion that ended Wells’ playing career left him open to hearing voices and discerning patterns of meaning helpful to his work as the owner of a missingpersons agency. He also owns a celebrity look-alike agency, which complicates matters in humorous ways, and his reliance on a string of cocktail waitresses called the Bloody Marys who are on the lookout for various people adds another level of intrigue. Magicians and misdirection, gambling, down-on-one’sluck, the crazed sense of possibility and impossibility, mistaken identity, impersonators and body doubles, people acting bizarrely with all sorts of chaos, collisions, and overlaps thrown in for good measure. Again and again the reader is swept into treacherous waters, always confident that the writer is in control of his material. Because the many twists and turns the plot takes are all but impossible to anticipate, the experience of reading Abracadabra is deliciously magical.
Abracadabra A Novel David Kranes $19.95 $11.97 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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Page 15
This engaging biography highlights the life and accomplishments of Stewart Udall, a pioneer of the environmental movement.
“This carefully researched, absorbing biography documents the remarkable environmental legacy of Stewart Udall. . . . a relevant biographical study of a significant American environmentalist.” —Foreword Reviews
“With Distance in His Eyes describes a truly amazing record of effort on behalf of the American people to conserve and protect public resources and care for their needs as they were served by the vast reach of the Department of Interior. This ‘small’ 280-page book is a summary of Udall’s efforts on behalf of the environment from 1960-’68 and beyond.” —National Parks Traveler
One of America’s most significant architects of conservation and the environment, Stewart Udall, comes to life in this environmental biography. Perhaps no other public official or secretary of the interior has ever had as much success in environmental protection, natural resource conservation, and outdoor recreation opportunity creation as Udall. A progressive Mormon, born and raised in rural Arizona, Udall served as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior under the presidential cabinets of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson from 1961-1969. During these eight years, he established dozens of new national park units and national wildlife refuges, wrote the Endangered Species Preservation Act, lobbied for unpolluted water, and offered ways to beautify urban spaces and bring the impoverished out of poverty. Later in life, he continued as an advocate for conservation and the environment, specifically by proposing solutions to the challenges associated with global warming and the widespread use of oil. What can we learn from this farsighted individual? In a day and age of partisan politics, poor congressional approval ratings, and global warming and climate change, this captivating biography offers a profound and historical record into Udall’s life-long devotion to environmental issues he cared about most deeply—issues more relevant today than they were then. Intimate moments include Udall’s learning of the Kennedy assassination, his push for civil rights for African Americans, his meeting in the U.S.S.R. with Nikita Khrushchev—the first Kennedy cabinet member to do so—and his warnings about global warming 50 years prior to Al Gore’s Nobel Prize-winning film. Page 16
With Distance in His Eyes The Environmental Life and Legacy of Stewart Udall Scott Raymond Einberger $34.95 $20.97 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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A fascinating double biography that tells the story of two of history’s most dedicated post-Civil War advocates for Native Americans.
“Historian Gretchen Eick has employed biography to write a brilliant history of the US genocidal policy of elimination or assimilation as the choice presented to Indigenous Peoples of the United States. . . . This is a gripping text exploring the nadir of Native American nations’ existence from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century.” —Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
“With rich social and political context and a sympathetic biographical flair, They Met at Wounded Knee brilliantly tells the story of one of the most intriguing couples in American history.” —Philip J. Deloria, professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies, Harvard University
When Charles Ohiyesa Eastman, a degreed Dakota physician with an East Coast university education, met Elaine Goodale, a teacher and supervisor of education among the Sioux, they were about to witness one of the worst massacres in U.S. history: the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre. As Charles and Elaine witnessed the horror, they formed a bond that would carry them across the United States as they become advocates for Native Americans, whistle-blowing the corruption and racism of the nation’s Native American policies. In this double biography, social and political history combine to paint vivid pictures of the time. Gretchen Cassel Eick deftly connects the experiences and responses of Native Americans with those of African Americans and white progressives during the period from the Civil War to World War II. In addition, tensions between the Eastmans mirror the dilemmas of gender, cultural pluralism, and the ethnic differences that Charles and Elaine faced as they worked to make a nation care about Native American impoverishment. The Eastmans’ story is a national story, but it is also intensely personal. It reveals the price American reformers paid for their activism and the cost exacted for American citizenship. This thoughtful book brings a bleak chapter in American history alive and will cause readers to think about the connections between Charles and Elaine’s time and ours.
They Met at Wounded Knee The Eastmans’ Story Gretchen Cassel Eick $45.00 $27.00 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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Page 17
The inspiring story of an American husband-and-wife team who volunteered to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
“A priceless addition to Spanish Civil War literature.” —The New York Times
“A poignant love story.” —Los Angeles Times
“It is a striking portrait of an intellectual who displayed in dangerous action not only exemplary courage but a talent for command.” —The Washington Post Book World
First released in 1986 to critical acclaim, American Commander in Spain tells the story of a remarkable man, Robert Hale Merriman, who combined his idealism with life-risking action to fight fascism threatening Europe. Although most Western nations embraced a neutrality pact during the Spanish Civil War, individual volunteers from around the world, including the United States, made their way to Spain to support the Republican cause. Robert, a scholar who had been studying international economics, and his wife, Marion, joined volunteers from fifty-four countries in the International Brigades. Robert became the first commander of the Americans’ Abraham Lincoln Battalion and a leader among the International Brigades. This extraordinary story is based on Robert’s and Marion’s diaries and personal correspondence, Marion’s vivid first-hand accountof service in Spain, as well as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Warren Lerude’s extensive research and interviews with people who knew Robert and Marion, government records, and contemporary news reports. Today, new generations face a resurgence in fascist ideas across the globe, and idealism and dissent are needed just as they were in Spain leading up to World War II. American Commander in Spain salutes the courage of all who fought for freedom, then, as well as those who stand for it in today’s dangerously eruptive world.
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American Commander in Spain Robert Hale Merriman and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Marion Merriman & Warren Lerude $30.00 $18.00 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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This intense behind-the-scenes biography delves into the life of the complex and intriguing icon who helped reshape aviation, Hollywood, and Las Vegas.
“Schumacher draws upon research from other books, interviews, and a lifetime of covering his native city to produce an entertaining volume about a relentlessly fascinating character.” —Publishers Weekly, praise for the first edition
This newly revised and expanded edition of Howard Hughes chronicles the life and legacies of one of the most intriguing and accomplished Americans of the twentieth century. Hughes, born into wealth thanks to his father’s innovative drill bit that transformed the oil industry, put his inheritance to work in multiple ways, from producing big-budget Hollywood movies to building the world’s fastest and largest airplanes. Hughes set air speed records and traveled around the world in record time, earning ticker-tape parades in three cities in 1938. Later, he moved to Las Vegas and invested heavily in casinos. He bought seven resorts, in each case helping to loosen organized crime’s grip on Nevada’s lifeblood industry. Although the public viewed Hughes as a heroic and independent-minded trailblazer, behind closed doors he suffered from germophobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and an addiction to painkillers. He became paranoid and reclusive, surrounding himself with a small cadre of loyal caretakers. As executives battled each other over his empire, Hughes’ physical and mental health deteriorated to the point where he lost control of his business affairs. This second edition includes more insider details on Hughes’ personal interactions with actresses, journalists, and employees. New chapters provide insights into Hughes’s involvement with the mob, his ownership and struggles as the majority shareholder of TWA and the wide-ranging activities of Hughes Aircraft Company, Hughes’s critical role in the Glomar Explorer CIA project (a deep-sea drillship platform built to recover the Soviet submarine K-129), and more. Based on in-depth interviews with individuals who knew and worked with Hughes, this fascinating biography provides a colorful and comprehensive look at Hughes—from his life and career to his final years and lasting influence. This penetrating depiction of the man behind the curtain demonstrates Hughes’s legacy, and enduring impact on popular culture.
Howard Hughes Power, Paranoia, and Palace Intrigue (Revised and Expanded) Geoff Schumacher $29.95 $19.97 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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“The Powell Expedition is a thought-provoking, nuanced work that reads at times like a detective story, and it should offer much fodder for historians.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Lago examines many theories about the fate of three members of Powell’s expedition who left the river before the end of the journey and were never seen again. While the true fate of these explorers may never be known, there are enough leads in this account to entertain Colorado River rafters around campfires for years. Grand Canyon enthusiasts will find much to consider in this book.” —Library Journal
“This is no straightforward river adventure, but rather a collection of multiple intriguing theories about various disputed facts, making for excellent campfire stories after a long day on the river.” —Publishers Weekly
“Lago is a storyteller, and his accessible, sprightly writing style makes what could be a mind-numbing collection of facts read like an adventure yarn.” —New York Journal of Books
Ride along for the history of Powell’s expedition.
“Written in a refreshingly transparent first-person style, Lago demythologizes Powell, corrects past libels and properly puts the focus on his crew. This book will be of interest to historians and river rats alike.” —True West Magazine
“Offering many intriguing new ideas and directions for further research, Lago’s The Powell Expedition will be of great interest to scholars of Powell’s survey. For anyone with an interest in Colorado River history, Lago’s book will be enjoyable reading.” —Western Historical Quarterly
John Wesley Powell’s 1869 expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers and through the Grand Canyon continues to be one of the most celebrated adventures in American history, ranking with the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Apollo landings on the moon. For nearly twenty years Lago has researched the Powell expedition from new angles, traveled to thirteen states, and looked into archives and other sources no one else has searched. He has come up with many important new documents that change and expand our basic understanding of the expedition by looking into Powell’s crewmembers, some of whom have been almost entirely ignored by Powell historians. Historians tended to assume that Powell was the whole story and that his crewmembers were irrelevant. More seriously, because several crew members made critical comments about Powell and his leadership, historians who admired Powell were eager to ignore and discredit them. Lago offers a feast of new and important material about the river trip, and it will significantly rewrite the story of Powell’s famous expedition. This book is not only a major work on the Powell expedition, but on the history of American exploration of the West.
The Powell Expedition New Discoveries About John Wesley Powell’s 1869 River Journey Don Lago $29.95 $17.97 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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“This book is a compelling read fashioned with a skilled writer’s ability to weave facts and colorful tales into an epic story.” —Wine Spectator
“Crush is a hopeful saga, with the forces of oenophilia winning out in the end as California wines enter the pantheon of the world’s fine wines. It’s a tale written with panache and wry opinions, and is a smooth introduction to five centuries of California history, as seen through the curved lens of a wine glass.” —Foreword Reviews
“Essential history for wine aficionados.” —Kirkus
“Delivers a comprehensive history and fascinating read; it is a true celebration of the persistence of the California vignerons throughout the ages, their battles with adversity to make the region’s wines some of the best in the world today. Highly recommended!” —The Columbia Review
An essential read for wine lovers.
“The history in this book pops right off the page. . . For those who are passionate about food culture in America or the history of California, the character and detail in this book is something that can’t be missed.” —The US Review of Books Winner, TopShelf Magazine Book Awards, Historical Nonfiction Finalist, Northern California Book Awards, General Nonfiction
Look. Smell. Taste. Judge. Crush is the 200-year story of the heady dream that wines as good as the greatest of France could be made in California. A dream dashed four times in merciless succession until it was ultimately realized in a stunning blind tasting in Paris. In that tasting, in the year of America’s bicentennial, California wines took their place as the leading wines of the world. For the first time, Briscoe tells the complete and dramatic story of the ascendancy of California wine in vivid detail. He also profiles the larger story of California itself by looking at it from an entirely innovative perspective, the state seen through its singular wine history. With dramatic flair and verve, Briscoe not only recounts the history of wine and winemaking in California, he encompasses a multidimensional approach that takes into account an array of social, political, cultural, legal, and winemaking sources. Elements of this history have plot lines that seem scripted by a Sophocles, or Shakespeare. It is a fusion of wine, personal histories, cultural, and socioeconomic aspects. Crush is the story of how wine from California finally gained its global due. Briscoe recounts wine’s often fickle affair with California, now several centuries old, from the first harvest and vintage, through the four overwhelming catastrophes, to its amazing triumph in Paris.
Crush The Triumph of California Wine John Briscoe $34.95 $20.97 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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“Day-to-day life in immigrant communities is described with refreshing clarity and heart . . . an unusually accessible primer on immigration law and a valuable guide to the ways it currently works to perpetuate an excluded immigrant underclass with diminished rights.” —The New York Review of Books
“Kagan’s narrative and personal style adds to the immigration law literature what so many other books lack: compassion. Kagan shows us that immigration law is ultimately about the neighbors who disappear and the inhumane system of immigration laws that makes it possible.” —William D. Lopez, author of Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid
“The Battle to Stay in America provides a compelling set of narratives and combines these stories with accessible explanations as to the legal underpinnings behind them. . . . An excellent book!” —Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, author of Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump
“Converts headlines into personal tales of struggles to circumvent and survive immigration policing in the modern era. . . . That’s a story that should be told, and Kagan does it remarkably well.” —César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, author of Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants
A lawyer’s personal look at the cruelties of immigration policies and how a community tries to respond.
“Michael Kagan has written one of the most straightforward guidebooks to our complicated, illogical, and often cruel immigration system I’ve read. Drawing from his deep personal experience as the director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Kagan offers readers an upclose view of immigration enforcement and the progressive political response in the Trump era.” —Roque Planas, senior reporter, HuffPost
The national debate over American immigration policy has obsessed politicians and disrupted the lives of millions of people for decades. The Battle to Stay in America focuses on Las Vegas, Nevada–a city where more than one in five residents was born in a foreign country, and where the community is struggling to defend itself against the federal government’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Told through the eyes of an immigration lawyer on the front lines of that battle, this book offers an accessible, intensely personal introduction to a broken legal system. It is also a raw, honest story of exhaustion, perseverance, and solidarity. Michael Kagan describes how current immigration law affects real people’s lives and introduces us to some remarkable individuals—immigrants and activists— who grapple with its complications every day. He explains how American immigration law often gives good people no recourse. He shows how under President Trump the complex bureaucracies that administer immigration law have been re-engineered to carry out a relentless but often invisible attack against people and families who are integral to American communities. Kagan tells the stories of people desperate to escape unspeakable violence in their homeland, children separated from their families and trapped in a tangle of administrative regulations, and hardworking long-time residents suddenly ripped from their productive lives when they fall unwittingly into the clutches of the immigration enforcement system. He considers how the crackdown on immigrants negatively impacts the national economy and offers a deeply considered assessment of the future of immigration policy in the United States. Kagan also captures the psychological costs exacted by fear of deportation and by increasingly overt expressions of hatred against immigrants.
The Battle to Stay in American Immigration’s Hidden Front Line Michael Kagan $27.95 $16.77 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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A beautiful tribute to the night sky, replete with essays, poems, and stories.
“Those who care about dark skies will certainly be engaged, delighted, and inspired by Let There Be Night, but the book deserves an audience far beyond already-committed enthusiasts. It will have every reader longing to head out, look up, and revel in the quiet wonder of a truly dark night.” —Nightscape, the magazine of the International Dark Sky Association
“Down here in the trenches, the battle against light pollution often gets mired in lumen caps, emission angles, lighting zones, and horizontal illuminance. So it’s always uplifting to be reminded what we’re fighting for, and this collection of 29 short essays does just that.” —Sky & Telescope
The development of the modern world has brought with it rampant light pollution, destroying the ancient mystery of night and exacting a terrible price—wasted energy, damage to human health, and the sometimes fatal interruption of the life patterns of many species of wildlife. In Let There Be Night, twenty-nine writers, scientists, poets, and scholars share their personal experiences of night and help us to understand what we miss when dark skies and nocturnal wildness vanish. They also propose ways by which we might restore the beneficence of true night skies to our cities and our culture. Let There Be Night is an engaging examination, both intimate and enlightening, of a precious aspect of the natural world. The diverse voices and perceptions gathered here provide a statement of hope that he ancient magic of night can be returned to our lives.
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Let There Be Night Testimony on Behalf of the Dark Edited by Paul Bogard $21.95 $13.17 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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A human connection to the universe is at the core of this fascinating exploration of the sky and Earth in the Southwest.
“Flagstaff author Don Lago sets out to discover how this area also has deeper connections to the cosmos— with essays that deftly and beautifully blend the lyrical and the scientific.” —Arizona Daily Sun
“The writing is personal, thoughtful, and emotional, but it is also clear that Lago conducted extensive research on the topics, whether through books and primary sources or simply his own experiences. His love of and appreciation for nature are evident, and his examination of humanity’s connection to nature on many different scales is enlightening. Readers will learn about historical events and people of the Southwest, but they will also come away with a deeper understanding of themselves and their place in the cosmos.” —The Journal of Arizona History
The landscapes of the American Southwest—the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, the Sedona red rocks—have long filled humans with wonder about nature. This is the home of Lowell Observatory, where astronomers first discovered evidence that the universe is expanding; Meteor Crater, where Apollo astronauts trained for the moon; and Native American tribes with their own ancient, rich ways of relating to the cosmos. With the personal, poetic style of the very best literary nature writing, Don Lago explores how these landscapes have offered humans a deeper sense of connection with the universe. While most nature writing never leaves the ground, Lago is one of the few writers who has applied it to the universe, seeking ties between humans and the astronomical forces that gave us birth. Nowhere else in the world is the link between earth and sky so powerful. Lago witnesses a solar eclipse over the Grand Canyon, climbs primeval volcanos, and sees the universe in tree rings. Through ageless Native American ceremonies, modern telescopes, and even dreams of flying saucers, Lago, who is not only a poet but a true philosopher of science, strives to find order and meaning in the world and brings out the Southwest’s beauty and mystery.
Where the Sky Touched the Earth The Cosmological Landscapes of the Southwest Don Lago $24.95 $14.97 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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“This handsomely crafted publication spotlights an extraordinary assemblage of women who make art in the region known as the Great Basin—a mystery of landscape in the West filled with mountains and desert, big sky and isolation, rural and urban life. Opening their studios and sharing their lives with readers, scholars, and perhaps, one day, collectors, each artist reveals how this place of infinite bounty provides inspiration, challenge and material for their creative exploration.” —Susan Boskoff, former executive director, Nevada Arts Council
“Fulkerson and Mantle set out to discover and communicate the rich stories of each artist’s life journey, as well as their journey to or within the Great Basin, and how each of those journeys influenced both the practice and the products of artistic vision. They present a range of methods and creative expression as well as a diversity of truth.” —Patricia A. Atkinson, Nevada Arts Council
“This book is unique and makes a significant contribution to our understanding of modern woman artists in this part of the USA and in woman’s art in general.” —Jane P. Davidson, author of Patrons of Paleontology: How Government Support Shaped a Science
A magnificent coffee table book featuring incredible women and their art.
Women Artists of the Great Basin Mary Lee Fulkerson with Susan E. Mantle $49.95 Winner, WILLA Literary Awards, Creative Nonfiction
Thirty-two women artists scattered over 200,000 square miles introduce a powerhouse of three-dimensional art in Women Artists of the Great Basin. A wave of women’s art has begun to paint the land with a giant brush, and nowhere have the winds of change been more evident than in the Great Basin, where a sense of freedom and rugged individualism has swept across the playas and through cities and towns. This book is a stunning visual rendering of a wide range of visionary women artists of all ages and backgrounds, and readers will discover their dynamic works and get to know them on a personal level. Sculptors, painters, fabric artists, glassblowers, marble and stone workers, and even a renowned Twinkie artist are represented here, all producing artwork that is jam-packed with originality. Fulkerson and Mantle, longtime artists and residents of the Great Basin themselves, offer a behind-the-scenes intimate glimpse into these women’s lives and artwork—showing not only what they create, but why they create it. Too often overlooked, the women covered here prove there is much richness, life, and creativity in what has often been dismissed as a barren desert. Their stories of overcoming great obstacles unfold right alongside images of their art. Many circle outside the conventional world of galleries, museums, and art publications and have created varied paths to their success. They are indeed true originals, rooted in a land of unique geography, a stew of cultures, and stories like no other.
$29.97 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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“The book paints a sharp picture of the natural and historical aspects of the Presidio, which acts as platform that inspires broader consideration of the environment. . . . There is a certain beauty and elegance in Roberts’s words and the rhythm and cadence of her writing. All the while, her text exudes a deep love and respect for the world around her. Simply put, Here Is Where I Walk is a breath of fresh air.” —Foreword Reviews
“Roberts expertly crafts a narrative both of the places she’s traveled and the events that have shaped her own emotional terrain.” —Library Journal
“A wonderful combination of scientific thought and poetic expression.” —Seattle Book Review
Take a walk around the world in this thoughtful eco-memoir.
“Some books teach you how to think, some teach you how to live. Did you know that coyotes are heavy sleepers and can be crept up on, or that a trailblazing female scientist changed our understanding of Northern Californian plant life, at a time when botanical classification was a male-dominated bloodsport? The joy of reading Leslie Roberts’ terrific Here is Where I Walk is to have her brain and spirit and poet’s command of language, as your companion. I found myself seeing the world differently after finishing this book, asking more questions, and experiencing more of its mysteries and beauty.” —Tom Barbash, author of The Dakota Winters
It is in the Presidio of San Francisco, California, that Leslie Carol Roberts walks. The Presidio, America’s only residential national park tucked wholly into an urban setting, is a fading historic forest. Here is where Leslie’s memories of other places, people, and travels emerge. Here is where the author’s home has been for more than a decade, and here is the place she raised her two children as a single mother. In layered stories of her life and travels, Leslie turns her daily walks into revelations of deeper meaning. From Maryland to Iowa to Tasmania, we follow a fierce and keenly observant walker through places of exquisite beauty and complexity. Her daily walks inspire Leslie to accept the invitation of the beckoning trees where she finds herself colliding with the urban coyote, the peculiar banana slug, and the manzanita. She also notes both ridiculous and poignant aspects of human ecosystems in pursuit of what it means to live a life of creativity and creation from scientistactivists battling to save environments to the tragic realities of ordinary life. In this finely crafted eco-memoir, each place provides Leslie with exactly the scaffolding needed to survive, with nature serving as the tonic. Here is Where I Walk provides a vivid answer to how we can find our place, not only in nature but within ourselves and the world we walk.
Here Is Where I Walk Episodes from a Life in the Forest Leslie Carol Roberts $17.95 $10.77 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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“Smart, funny, and well-written. With a deceptively light touch, Corbett shows us a myriad of small ways out of our modern conundrum of consumerism and waste. Saving the earth and ourselves, she suggests, might simply be a matter of changing our minds about what it means to live with and in nature—and what it means, finally, to be natural creatures ourselves.” —NewPages
“Throughout this well-crafted, contemplative collection, Corbett writes eloquently about the environmental conundrums she faces. . .” —Foreword Reviews
“The book has tremendous value. . . as a tool for teachers in the environmental humanities, as an excellent example of how personal narrative can be wedded to journalism and scholarship to create a readable, accessible picture of the current planetary environmental situation, and simply as a good read.” —ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
“This heartfelt, intelligent, and continuously deepening book is a model of reflective environmental practice, full of insight, wisdom, struggle, and hope.” —Western American Literature
Nature lovers will enjoy these essays as they explore the inherent contradictions of what it means to be environmentally-aware.
“An engaging, accessible, beautifully written celebration of our frayed relationship with the morethan-human world and the animals who are our kin. . . Julia Corbett explores the richness of nearby nature, reminding us that nurturing our bond with local landscapes is essential to the survival of the natural world and key to our own health and happiness.” —Michael P. Branch, author of Rants from the Hill and How to Cuss in Western
Winner, Reading the West Book Awards, Nonfiction
Have you ever wondered about society’s desire to cultivate the perfect lawn, why we view some animals as “good” and some as “bad,” or even thought about the bits of nature inside everyday items–toothbrushes, cell phones, and coffee mugs? In this fresh and introspective collection of essays, Julia Corbett examines nature in our lives with all of its ironies and contradictions by seamlessly integrating personal narratives with morsels of highly digestible science and research. Each story delves into an overlooked aspect of our relationship with nature—insects, garbage, backyards, noise, open doors, animals, and language— and how we cover our tracks. With a keen sense of irony and humor and an awareness of the miraculous in the mundane, Julia recognizes the contradictions of contemporary life. She confronts the owner of a high-end market who insists on keeping his doors open in all temperatures. Takes us on a trip to a new mall with a replica of a trout stream that once flowed nearby. The phrase “out of the woods” guides us through layers of meaning to a contemplation of grief, remembrance, and resilience. Out of the Woods leads to surprising insights into the products, practices, and phrases we take for granted in our everyday encounters with nature and encourages us all to consider how we might re-value or reimagine our relationships with nature in our everyday lives.
Out of the Woods Seeing Nature in the Everyday Julia Corbett $17.95 $10.77 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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A meaningful collection of essays that will appeal to poetry lovers and nonfiction readers alike.
“Griffin’s lyrical essays reveal the complexities and spirit of poets and poems.” —Publishers Weekly
“Griffin emerges from these pages as an unpretentious ambassador for the art of poetry, generous in service to other poets, to the inmates who attend his workshops, and to his northern Nevada neighbors.” —Western American Literature
“Think of a man walking in the desert,” writes Griffin, “looking for the path to its summit, looking for the observatory that may, at last, shed light on what’s below.” In this luminous and moving book of essays, award-winning author Shaun Griffin weaves together a poetic meditation on living meaningfully in this world. Anchored in the American West but reaching well beyond, he recounts his discoveries as a poet and devoted reader of poetry, a teacher of the disadvantaged, a friend of poets and artists, and a responsible member of the human family. Always grounded in place, be it Nevada, South Africa, North Dakota, Spain, Zimbabwe, or Mexico, Griffin confronts the world with an openness that allows him to learn and grow from the people he meets. This is a meditation on how all of us can confront our own influences to achieve wholeness in our lives. Along with Griffin, readers will reflect on how they might respond to a homeless man walking through central Nevada, viewing the open desert as Thoreau might have viewed Walden, seeing the US-Mexico border as a region of lost identity, reconciling how poets who live west of the Hudson River find anonymity to be their laurel, and experiencing how writing poetry in prison becomes lifesaving. Whether poets or places in the West or beyond, experiences with other cultures, or an acute awareness that poetry is the refuge of redress—all have influenced Griffin’s writing and thinking as a poet and activist in the Great Basin.
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Because the Light Will Not Forgive Me Essays from a Poet Shaun T. Griffin $27.95 $16.77 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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These powerful poems explore the nature of trauma and recovery.
“Dew is an exciting and complex new voice in contemporary poetry.” —Publishers Weekly
The beautifully crafted poems in Riddle Field explore two parallel themes, the impact of the impending destruction of a dam on a small town and the trauma of sexual abuse and eventual recovery from it. This work focuses on the environment, human and physical, in which the loss of nature and innocence is born and calls attention to the many ways we create both intimacy and distance when trauma is hidden or denied. Derek Thomas Dew’s language is harsh, honest, and sometimes heartbreaking. His poems capture the confusion and fatigue that must be navigated for a victim of abuse to piece himself back together and the internal strife that comes with carrying a traumatic secret that can no longer be ignored. Rich with unforgettable images and the quiet strength of hard-won survival, Riddle Field tackles the complex process of achieving self-awareness and recovery in the wake of profound trauma.
Riddle Field Poems Derek Thomas Dew $17.00 $10.20 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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Page 35
“Fall Reckoning” You say these glowing trees are a lantern to see November by — its hanging strings and thin places held up to the light and exposed. We wrap ourselves in the afternoon’s weave and cloak, its tangled overgrowth a catalog of the late season’s ripeness: dried berries on the stem like outstretched palms, so open and indifferent. We cross the threadbare mountain wearing regret on our shoulders like tattered coats. The forest shivers, aspen leaves loosened until they glaze the dark path that led us here in gold.
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These breathtaking poems reflect a conversation about identity and place in a time of ecological crisis.
“Refugia captures the losses, the quiet rage, and the constant, near-overwhelming wonder of life on this very particular planet in this very particular moment, somehow also managing to make amends with the arriving of our almost certainly unfamiliar future.” —World Literature Today
“Quietly political. . . Loving, unsparing visions of Bello’s native and family environments make Refugia both a lament and a song of praise. The poems are arranged in a direct way and are rife with detail, their lines both visceral and accessible.” —Foreword Reviews
“In Bello’s tender debut, mothers and children tend to a resilient Earth, even as anxiety about climate change overwhelms the landscape.” —Publishers Weekly
Refugia Poems Kyce Bello
Winner, New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards, New Mexico Poetry
Refugia is a bright and hopeful voice in the current conversation about climate change. Kyce Bello’s stunning debut ponders what it means to inhabit a particular place at a time of enormous disruption, witnessing a beloved landscape as it gives way to, as Bello writes, “something other and unknown, growing beyond us.” Ultimately an exploration of resilience, Refugia brings to life the author’s home ground in Northern New Mexico and carefully observes the seasons in parallel with personal cycles of renewal and loss. These vivid poems touch upon history, inheritance, drought, and most of all, trees—be they Western conifers succumbing to warming temperatures, ramshackle orchards along the Rio Grande, or family trees reaching simultaneously into the past and future. Like any wilderness, Refugia creates a terrain that is grounded in image and yet many-layered and complex. These poems write us back into an ecological language of place crucial to our survival in this time of environmental crisis.
$14.95 $8.97 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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Page 37
“Diner” Our special today is pancakes served with maple-flavored corn syrup and decorated with maraschino cherries and pineapple rings, which we can arrange into the shape of a smiley face if you would like that. I’ll have the eggs. Today we also have the blueberry blintzes, which come rolled up on a plate like little dolls in blankets the way you wish your mother used to make them but never did because she was always too hung-over on Saturday mornings to get out of bed and your dad had moved to another state. Just the eggs, please. Or perhaps you’d like the dieter’s special: fruit cocktail and a scoop of low-fat cottage cheese, whose scientific relationship to weight loss is nonexistent, but eating it might make you feel virtuous and in control. Bring me the eggs already, yes, yes, battery cages, beaks sawed off, and a cup of coffee, I know, endangered species’ habitats wrecked by my daily addiction to caffeine. Or, never mind the coffee—I’ll take a glass of water. Our water has been treated for your dining safety with fluoride and chlorine to protect you from dysentery. Would you like ice and a straw? I feel a bit sick, actually. I’ll just have some dry toast. Perhaps you would like my Purelled hand laid on your clammy forehead. What I would like is the very tip of your tongue held against my closed lips until our bodies become the same temperature. I could also crawl across this table and let you peel me out of this cheap polyester uniform without any reference to the ensuing tableau’s visual likeness to last month’s photo-spread in Hustler. Could I get that with a paper napkin blindfold and a side of skin sticking to melamine? Yes, but it’s extra. In that case I’ll just have the toast, but with a pat of butter soaking through its gold aluminum wrapper like the sun going down over a major metropolitan city in America. I’ll bring you the check, folded into a white origami crane.
The wry, compassionate, and deftly observed poetry in this collection contemplate how we might live wisely amidst a time of planetary change.
“Sarah P. Strong is a nimble explorer of visible and invisible boundaries, and each of their poems is part of a quest toward wonder and re-envisioning, a quest to go beyond, as the best poems do, the ‘edge of thinking.’” —Mary Szybist, author of Incarnadine, winner of the National Book Award
“The themes of environmental ruin and the effect and plight of humans on this planet feel urgent rather than gloomy in these poems, a feat Strong pulls off by getting past and present and disparate places and experiences to resonate and chime. There’s something idealistic in this, an alertness and interconnectedness that reads in a sense as hope. The Mouth of Earth is impressive work—coherent and varied, thoughtful and full of lovely things.” —Daisy Fried, author of My Brother is Getting Arrested Again, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award
In this timely and moving collection of poems, Sarah P. Strong explores what it means to live in a world undergoing an irrevocable transformation, the magnitude of which we barely comprehend. A broad range of perspectives shows us different times and places on Earth while unfolding the cyclical nature of human denial and response. A series of linked persona poems about the Dust Bowl recounts the destruction of the Great Plains and how human dreams of plenty destroyed the ancient fertility and stability of the land, how heartbreak and denial contended with bureaucratic insolence. In an imagined view of our planet as it might appear millennia from now, the Earth is “a worry stone / in the pocket of space, or a mood ring / on the finger of a newly minted / god.” The Mouth of Earth serves as both a survival guide for those seeking connection with our planet and one another as well as a compassionate tribute to what we have lost or are losing—the human consequences of such destruction in a time of climate crisis and lost connectivity. Strong’s powerful poems offer us, if not consolation, at least a way toward comprehension in an age of loss, revealing both our ongoing denial of our planet’s fragility and the compelling urgency of our hunger for connection with all life.
The Mouth of Earth Poems Sarah P. Strong $14.95 $8.97 with promo code HOLIDAY2020
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