Feb 13 - Powell's

This was my first visit to Powell's Books, and I was staggered. I made a point of visiting twice before buying anything, but honestly, I wound up wandering around with a full basket, putting one thing back and picking up two more -- hardly a good way of staying within budget, but what do you expect from a bookstore with roughly a MILLION volumes? So, here's the big haul, from the first purchase run, some new, some used, and some discounted new:
  • David Landis Barnhill, ed., At Home on the Earth: Becoming Native to Our Place: A Multicultural Anthology ($11.95)
  • Rick Bass, The Book of Yaak ($8.95)
  • Daniel Botkin, Our Natural History: The Lessons of Lewis and Clark ($5)
  • Lawrence Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination ($19.95)
  • Grace L. Dillon, ed, Hive of Dreams: Contemporary Science Fiction from the Pacific Northwest ($7.98)
  • William Kittredge, Owning It All ($5.95)
  • David Peterson del Mar, Oregon's Promise: An Interpretive History ($6.95)
  • Laurie Ricou, The Arbutus/Madrone Files: Reading the Pacific Northwest ($8.95)
  • James P. Ronda, Lewis and Clark among the Indians ($11.95)
  • Richard J. Schneider, ed., Thoreau's Sense of Place: Essays in American Environmental Writing ($12.50)
God. What a nerd. I gotta start casting the ol' net a little wider.

Comments

jo(e) said…
Rick Bass' _Book of Yaak_ is one of my favourites ....
richard said…
Wow, impressively careful reading of the list, jo(e)!

I've been meaning to get to The Book of Yaak for a while now. Over the last couple of weeks I worked through most of Scott Slovic's Getting Away to Think, and he talked really sensibly there about Bass's project in this book being to balance between artist and activist. The last few weeks have been occupied with working on a paper about West Coast environmental memoirs, so the ideas were much on my mind.

But my goodness, not much compares to Scott's essay "Be Prepared for the Worst." Have you read it? I was staggered by it, genuinely moved.
Anonymous said…
And I've always loved Kittredge's Owning it All. An elegy, in a way, to a lost world, one which he doesn't exactly romaticise but records in loving detail.
Theresa Kishkan
richard said…
Thanks for the tip, Theresa. I picked it up because of a line I saw quoted in large print at the Oregon Historical Museum, from the title essay. It's not going to disappoint, clearly, thought I'm not sure when on earth I'll get through all the reading I'd like to do!
Anonymous said…
The first five essays in the collection are just wonderful, Richard -- an evocation of the last best west...And life is long (usually) so just pile the books by your bed and read your way through!
tk
richard said…
Yep, I'm counting on life being long, Theresa, for all kinds of reasons. Kittredge, I'll still get to sooner rather than later!

And Bass, too, if jo(e) is reading these comments....
Anonymous said…
Yes, Rick Bass is worth having in that pile too. And when you're reading those first essays in Owning it All, keep Ian Tyson's MC horses in mind...
richard said…
Ian Tyson is never far from my mind, Theresa. His "Summertime" keeps popping in there these days for some reason....
Anonymous said…
Well, rumour is that summer's just around the corner. If I'm remembering correctly (and my brain feels like a sieve these days), Kittredge's grandfather owned the MC Ranch in southern Oregon, one of the mythic operations of the early 20th c. It's beautiful country -- Klamath, Baker, etc.

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