NEWS

We are pleased to announce that Vacationland: Tourism and Environment in the Colorado High Country by William Philpott has been named the winner of the Western Writers of America 2014 Spur Award for Best Western Nonfiction in the contemporary category. This book was published in 2013 in the Weyerhaesuer Environmental Books series.

 

 

 

MEDIA

Kurkpatrick Dorsey, author of Whales and Nations: Environmental Diplomacy on the High Seas on New Hampshire Public Radio’s The Exchange

The Exchange takes a look at the legacy of the whaling industry. The new book Whales and Nations, by University of New Hampshire Professor Kurkpatrick Dorsey explores the history of international conservation efforts through the lens of the commercial whaling industry. They talk with him about whaling in the 20th century and why international diplomacy failed to regulate commercial whaling.

Chigusa and the Art of Tea coauthor Andrew Watsky on NPR’s The Salt

“Eight hundred years ago, tea was rare in Japan. It arrived from China in simple, ceramic storage jars. Chinese ceramists churned these jars out with little care or attention; they stuffed tea leaves into them and shipped them off. The jars were ‘the Chinese version of Tupperware,’ says Andrew Watsky, a professor of Japanese art history at Princeton.”

Read more and listen to the interview here.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Brad Evans, Return to the Land of the Head Hunters, Saturday, March 22, 2:00 p.m., Seattle Public Library with Elliott Bay Books

Roberta Brown and Patricia Killen, Selected Letters of A.M.A. Blanchet,  Thursday, March 27, 7:00 p.m., St. James Cathedral, Seattle

Robin Wright and Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, In the Spirit of the Ancestors, Friday, March 28, 7:00 p.m., Elliott Bay Books

Linda Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break their Silence: Coming Home to Hood River, Saturday, March 29, 7:00 p.m., Nisei Veterans Memorial Hall

NEW BOOKS

How to Read the American West: A Field Guide
By William Wyckoff 

From deserts to ghost towns, from national forests to California bungalows, many of the features of the western American landscape are well known to residents and travelers alike. But in How to Read the American West, William Wyckoff introduces readers anew to these familiar landscapes. A geographer and an accomplished photographer, Wyckoff offers a fresh perspective on the natural and human history of the American West and encourages readers to discover that history has shaped the places where people live, work, and visit.

Skookum Summer: A Novel of the Pacific Northwest
By Jack Hart

As Skookum Summer begins, the year is 1981, and reporter Tom Dawson slinks back to his tiny Puget Sound hometown after making a disastrous mistake at the LA Times. Working reluctantly at the local weekly, the Big Skookum Echo, Tom is drawn into investigating a powerful logger’s murder. As the mystery deepens, the murder exposes the strains on the community as pollution, development, and global change threaten traditional Northwest livelihoods. Hart weaves together a gripping and suspenseful plot with richly observed Pacific Northwest history and a vivid picture of a community on the brink of change.

My Fight for a New Taiwan: One Woman’s Journey from Prison to Power
By Lu Hsiu-lien and Ashley Esarey

Lu Hsiu-lien’s journey is the story of Taiwan. Through her successive drives for gender equality, human rights, political reform, Taiwan independence, and, currently, environmental protection, Lu has played a key role in Taiwan’s evolution from dictatorship to democracy. The election in 2000 of Democratic Progressive Party leader Chen Shui-bian to the presidency, with Lu as his vice president, ended more than fifty years of rule by the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party). Taiwan’s painful struggle for democratization is dramatized here in the life of Lu, who was imprisoned for more than five years in the 1980s. My Fight for a New Taiwan’s rich narrative gives readers an insider’s perspective on Taiwan’s unique blend of Chinese and indigenous culture and recent social transformation.