Back of Beyond by C.J. Box

January 8, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Corvus, 2011. 382 pgs. Library copy. Cody Hoyt returned to his hometown of Helena, Montana after washing out with the police force down in Colorado. His marriage to the woman he married while still in high school disintegrated years ago, and while he tries to be the exact opposite of his own father, his relationship with his son Justin is strained. Despite the infamy of his family’s criminal behavior in Helena, Cody still manages to get […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Crime, Fiction, Mountain West, North America, United States • Tags: C.J. Box

The Newcomers by Helen Thorpe

December 31, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Scribner, 2017. 416 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom”, Thorpe spent a year and a half in an English Language Acquisition (ELA) class at Denver’s South High School. The twenty-two students she shadowed arrived in America as refugees with little English comprehension from around the world, including Iraq via Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burma, and El Salvador. Over this period of time, these students struggled to adjust to […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Africa, Asia, Book Club, Education, Middle East, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, South America, Thailand, United States • Tags: Helen Thorpe

Fidelity by Susan Glaspell

December 26, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – print. Persephone Books, 1999. Originally published 1913. 358 pgs. Purchased. In 1900, Ruth Holland made the decision to leave her hometown of Freeport to be with the man she was in love with. Her lover, Stuart Williams, was married, and the scandal of Ruth’s actions — because women always carry the blame — divided the small Iowa town and the Holland family. “That part of her life had been cut away from her. With most lives the past […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Feminism, Fiction, Mountain West, North America, Persephone Books, United States • Tags: Susan Glaspell

American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee

February 7, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — Kindle edition. Crown, 2017. 320 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West”, Blakeslee follows the life and death of one of Yellowstone National Park’s most famous residents, a gray wolf known as O-Six.  Born in 2006 (hence the name), O-Six became the alpha female for a large portion of prime real estate in Yellowstone, a stretch known as the Lamar Valley, in part because of her unique ability to take down […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Animals, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America • Tags: Nate Blakeslee

Letters from Yellowstone by Diane Smith

August 10, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Penguin, 2000. 256 pgs. Purchased. A case of mistaken identity — or, rather fanciful wishing on the part of Professor Howard Merriam and the use of initials on the part of Alexandria Bartram — allows a young woman who dreams of becoming accomplished in the field of botany to join a field study in Yellowstone National Park during the summer of 1989. Displeased that find a woman on their team, Professor Merriam and the rest of his […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Fiction, Mountain West, North America, United States • Tags: Diane Smith

Smoke by Ellen Hopkins

August 3, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2006. 532 pgs. Library copy. Pattyn Von Stratten’s abusive father is dead, and Pattyn is on the run disguising her identity and living amongst immigrant communities who also fear the police. Only her sister Jackie knows what happened the night their father died, but Jackie is struggling to find her voice in a home where their mother clings to normalcy by allowing the truth of what happened to Jackie before her father’s death […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Chunkster, Fiction, Mountain West, North America, Poetry, United States, Young Adult • Tags: Ellen Hopkins

Last Stand by Todd Wilkinson

June 29, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — iBooks edition. Lyons Press, 2013. 392 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “Ted Turner’s Quest to Save a Troubled Planet”, Wilkinson’s biography of the creator of CNN and the twenty-four hour news cycle concentrates on his life after stepping down from the helm of CNN. Turner turned his attention to environmentalist and the plight of the American bison becoming the second largest landowner in the United States after the U.S. Government. Bison are not universally loved in the American West, and […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Todd Wilkinson

Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr

January 8, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Ballantine Books, 2013. 456 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune”, this book explores the mystery surrounding a home in Connecticut for sale that was sat unoccupied for nearly sixty years purchased by a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark with her $300 million inheritance. This incredibly reclusive woman — no photograph of her had been seen publicly since the 1930s – owned a mansion in Santa […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Chunkster, Mountain West, New York, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell Jr

Mark of the Grizzly by Scott McMillion

June 5, 2013 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Falcon Publishing, 1998. 252 pgs.  Borrowed from my mother. Subtitled “True Stories of Recent Bear Attacks and the Hard Lessons Learned”, this book examines a series of grizzly encounters (I loathe to use the word “attacks”) to provide lessons on how to behave in bear country for visitors and attempts to piece together a more in-depth explanation of bear behavior. Incidentally, however, I was quite happy to be reading this one on the plane away from bear […]

Categories: 2013 Reads, Animals, Canada, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Scott McMillion

The Yellowstone Wolves by Gary Ferguson

March 4, 2013 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Falcon, 1996. 174 pgs. Borrowed from a friend. Subtitled “The First Year”, Ferguson’s book follows the lives of the first wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park from Alberta, Canada in 1995. The process was a long time coming. A wolf recovery team was created in 1974 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but efforts to reintroduce the wolf were continually stagnated by the public, politicians, and state governments around Yellowstone. Nearly twenty years later, the reintroduction […]

Categories: 2013 Reads, Animals, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Gary Ferguson

The Price of Politics by Bob Woodward

October 16, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — Kindle edition. Simon & Schuster, 2012. 380 pgs. Borrowed from family member. Woodward’s twelfth book covers the 2011 debt ceiling crisis in the United States, a particularly partisan time in American politics where neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were willing to compromise to reach an agreement over raising the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, neither party had enough votes to ram their own bill through both the House of Representatives and the Senate since control was held by the Republicans […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Economics, Honors Project, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Bob Woodward

From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow by Mark Monmonier

August 9, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. University of Chicago Press, 2006. 215 pgs. Source: Library. Subtitled “How Maps Name, Claim, and Infame”, the title of Monmonier’s book is clearly meant to grab attention and make people stop in the middle of the bookstore. It certainly succeeded; I couldn’t put the book back on the library shelf after it caught my eye. The book is not nearly as salacious as the title might make you believe. Instead, Monmonier takes readers into the world of toponymy […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Cartography, Honors Project, Middle East, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Mark Monmonier