By VICTORIA TILNEY McDONOUGH for the Missoulian

Reading Philip Burgess' poems is like looking at old black-and-white photographs, the sharp grays and whites sun-faded with time, and yet the clarity of the faces and images so revealing that at times you have to look away.

"Badlands Child," Burgess' collection of poems, is full of ache. Though the poems take us from rural Montana to Vietnam, across the United States, over oceans and deserts and mountains to Spain, Morocco and Normandy, and then finally back to Montana, there is a common denominator of heartbroken lives, of silent observation and numbness, of hollow loneliness. And yet, there are moments of love and appreciation so ripe that all of that pain seems justifiable, redeemed somehow, the human condition as it is meant to be.

In "Weather Report From Home," the pull between away and home is like bare skin against cold metal - it is familiar, familiar yet wholly uninvited. Sewn together with big, loopy stitches, there is guilt and sadness, regret, relief:

Curious, that when you hear the old man
loud and hollow over the party line
tell of three days rain after a long dry spell,
even though you've been thirty years gone
from that lean, dusty place
you still feel the extravagant wetness
of those first few raindrops on a sun-tender forearm.

Far from Montana, "Saigon Whore" is told from the point of view of the title character, not of the soldier. She wonders and speaks, her questions perhaps not too far from those of the soldier:

I cannot see my life before me, I cannot see love.
I come into the bar where Mick Jagger sings
of dissatisfaction and I search each soldier's heart
for stars with which to create a necklace,
a constellation of a man and woman planting rice
beneath a sky of silent blue.

Burgess' collection is enriched with a small spattering of old photographs, the majority of which are from the Burgess family archives dating back to the Civil War. Each is beautiful and stark, reinforcing the images we have read of a dance below a "guillotine moon," fence posts guarding "the border of what's left of a man's spring dreams," an old Chevrolet truck resting "in the powdery cleavage of the hills," a stag with "three legs frozen in failed leap," and the sister, in the lounge of a mental hospital, who "sways like a metronome, arms trembling across her emaciated chest." These photographs, dropped seemingly effortlessly within the text, are like poems themselves - you squint, searching for signs, for truths, for a reason why when you know there are none.

The poem "L.A. Coyote" leaves us hearing the haunting cry of this desert creature, and perhaps seeing ourselves in the reflection of his unblinking eyes:

The L.A. coyote learns to find grace in alienation,
to bless betrayal through slightly bared teeth,
and to relish the chilly decay that rides on winds
blown through the nooks and crannies of worn cadavers.

The coyote learns that all passions are temporary,
that water can be tasted only as you die of thirst,
and that true warmth is never without cold.

Burgess was raised on an isolated ranch in eastern Montana. Currently, he lives and works in Missoula.

First a disclaimer.

I know nothing about poetry. In fact, as a general rule, I'd rather read an environmental impact statement or a brief in a federal tax case than try to decipher the higher meaning hidden behind the words and phrases of the most gifted poets.

That's why I was amazed by a book of poetry mailed to me recently from Touch of Light Publishing, a Missoula company specializing in works peculiar to Montana.

Without much interest - more out of a sense of obligation to at least take a look - I opened Philip J. Burgess' Badlands Child, a collection of 80 biographical poems.

From the opening offering, "The Caretaker," I was hooked. It may have been that the imagery was so familiar - the long expanses of near-desert that stretch north and south along Highway 2 on Montana's northern tier, groves of Russian olives planted as windbreaks generations ago and the railroad when it was still the Great Northern.

According to biographical material sent with the book, Burgess grew up on an isolated Eastern Montana ranch along the Missouri, and, as with anyone who takes landscape seriously, it left its mark in all that came after.

Even the powerful impressions left by his tour in Vietnam and on his subsequent wanderings around the world are tainted by the dust of a Montana childhood. (...)

(...)

The poet lives in Missoula now, where he spent 13 years advocating for and counseling veterans. The poetry collection represents 20 years of work, a lifetime of watching the chips fall where they may.

At last! An historical novel that's interesting, amusing, and *entertaining* and so *real* you feel you need to clean your boots every time you read a piece of it. Yeah, the pictures are faded. They're *old*, dammit, *real*. These are *everybody's* folks, the way they grew up and loved and lost their limbs just so we could be here. John Sayles, *do* read these books. You'll have another "Matewan" in your hands.

'Labor of love' seems inadequate in describing BEHIND THESE MOUNTAINS, authored by resident-historian, Mona Leeson Vanek. This engaging book narrates virtually every known event of significance in the region, through the use of oral tape recordings, letters, and written documentation. Beginning before the arrival of David Thompson, it contains determined homesteaders, exciting log drives down river, pioneering merchants, establishment of schools and churches, and the horrors of the 1910 forest fire. Countless stories of individuals, ranging from mildly amusing to hilarious enliven this history. Where else in a book of this sort can one find characters who vow to escape from a local jail "disguised as a bunch of radishes?" or a shingle-mill owner who closed down his mill after having to ante up compensation for too many workers' sawed-off fingers - at $1,000 per finger. BEHIND THESE MOUNTAINS stands as the definitive history of its region, the lower Clark's Fork of the Columbia River and the Bull River valley in Sanders County, Montana. The chapter on the Forest Service's arrival in the valley clearly describes the bitter struggles between pioneer ranger Augustus Ferdinand Silcox and local businessmen, led by Clifford R. Weare, who wanted to continue their unfettered exploitation of the public domain. The more than 200 photographs are positioned in the book to match and enhance the text, but reporoduction of many of them obviously is more faded and washed out than the author would have liked. The thorough index is a boon for genealogists. A complete set of end notes contain material that enhance the stories, and if readers ignore the footnotes, they'll miss some stirring accounts of vigilante activity during the 1880s. Excellent accounts of the building of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which opened the northwest area of Montana to settlement, provide vivid accounts of problems along this 'most difficult and expensive division' of the entire NPRR line. Vanek has done her community and Montana a great service

In 1864 Jim Bridger blazed a trail route through Wyoming and southern Montana that provided a shorter, faster access to the new Territory of Montana and the gold fields of Bannack and Virginia City. Jim Bridger's trail also provided safer passage for emigrant trains traveling to Montana during the turbulent decade of Plains Indian unrest, and eliminated hundreds of miles and many days of travel along the least dangerous, but circuitous route via the Oregon Trail or the longer routes by way of Fort Bridger or Salt Lake City. Historian James Lowe has assembled all available material on Jim Bridger's involvement with the trail that bears his name and dispels many of the inaccuracies and romantic assumptions that have built up over the last 130 years. A thorough background is provided on Bridger, gold discovers, federal Indian policy, variant trail routes, and other factors which precipitated the blazing of The Bridger Trail. This superbly documented, highly recommended contribution to Western Historical Studies is enhanced with numerous contemporary and historical maps, historical photographs, and portraits of several of the earliest travelers on the route, as well as tables providing a listing of the 1864 trains, the provisions and equipment used and recommended for travel, and a listing of the pioneers who used the trail in 1864.

James Lowe has captured the essence of Western History in this recent release. An accomplished author and historian, Lowe tells it like it was. He states in the preface that this text is intended for the layman or scholar alike, and though the former will find the story entertaining, the latter will reap the full benefit of his extensive research. Lowe has successfully provided the reader with an accurate overview of frontiersman, Jim Bridger, Native-American history and politics, the history of nineteenth century westward migration and United States Indian policy of the same era. In detail, he has presented a thorough and accurate account of the discovery and usage of the route known as the Bridger Trail to the gold fields of Montana, as well as compared the alternative routes of the Bozeman and Montana Trails. The reader is given countless examples from emigrant diaries of the difficulties presented these travelers in making the decision of which route to take. These diaries are extensively quoted to document the various trains, and experiences of the over 2,500 travelers who embarked on the Bridger Trail in 1864. Through Lowe's understanding of Native-American politics of that time, he also helps explain many of the fears and misconceptions of these heroic pioneers. His study includes the exacting of the location of the trail and points out both the accuracies and fallacies of many of the historic maps which are reproduced in the book. There are also several historic photographs of those who challenged the hardships of this route to become prominent citizens of Montana. This book makes both interesting and entertaining reading for anyone interested in the history of the American frontier, an excellent addition to the library of any scholar of Western History, and a must for everyone with a particular interest in Oregon Trail, Wyoming, or Montana History.

This is a masterpeice. It's beautifully done and it is a book that will be passed along from generation to generation. The author does a wonderful job and he's really an expert on this subject. And if you love this, and I know you will, you should get your hands on his newest book "Philip R. Goodwin, America's Sporting & Wildlife Artist" from the the Coeur d' Alene Art.

Now, go buy one of these books before they're all gone. This book costs a lot to produce and was heavily subsidized, as the price indicated, with donations and fundraising.

Charles M. Russell, Legacy has been awarded the Wrangler Award as the best western art book for the year, 2000, by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

I just bought Hillbilly Hollywood by Debbie Bull,which is a great book, and I already own a copy of Cowboy Ties which I feel is very kitchy and delightful and I would like to give the book as gifts, but it is almost impossible to find. REPRINT IT!

Not only is the photography beautiful and inspiring, but the history of the Cowboy and the evolution of his neckwear is very interesting to both the collector and the student of the American West

I think it was a mistake to bundle these two books together, even though they are the first two in a series of Montana mysteries featuring Gabriel Du Pré---and even though I saved money by not having to buy them separately. "Coyote Wind" is a definite 'five stars.' "Specimen Song" drops down to 'three stars.'

"Coyote Wind" is a darn near perfect specimen of a mixed-genre mystery cum western. Gabriel Du Pré is laconic, honorable, and wise to the ways of the Big Sky Country---a throwback to the noble cowboy-hero of Zane Grey's novels. He is a vulnerable hero, a Métis descendant of the French Voyageurs and Plains Indians. He has problems with his teenage daughter, who has shaved off part of her hair and dyed the rest of it a weird color. His mistress won't marry him because in the eyes of the Church, she is still married to the sleaze who deserted her many years past. He is plagued throughout the book by an alcoholic Métis prophet.

Du Pré's voice is unique, and perfect for this story. His dialogue is short, punchy, flicked with mordant barbs---an arrow in your heart when you are least expecting it. Two chapters into the book, found myself talking, thinking like Du Pré. Sounds like this:

"Du Pré knelt, looked, crossed himself. Some days he didn't believe in God, but he did believe in crossing himself.

"Maybe this let you sleep now," said Du Pré. He picked up the white skull, the color of the giant puffball mushrooms that came up in pastures in the wet years. The mushrooms were bigger, and startling in the green.

"'Now I got someone's head in my hands, I thinking on frying mushrooms,' Du Pré said aloud. 'Dumb bastard'."

The mystery of who killed whom in "Coyote Wind" is fairly easy to unravel once you get to know and care about the characters. It almost had to occur, considering the people involved. It becomes more important to see if Du Pré can help a friend stop drinking, rather than to figure out who murdered his friend's brother. As Du Pré keeps telling everyone who will listen: "I ain't a cop...I am a [brand inspector]."

Nevertheless, it is Du Pré who is tapped to solve a thirty-year-old murder. He goes about it in a style that is perfectly tuned to his character. Not a single false note from Du Pré or his fiddle.

"Coyote Wind" is a very satisfying read.

"Specimen Song" features the same cast of characters as its predecessor. However, their personalities are exaggerated to the point of disbelief. The Métis prophet performs magic tricks. Du Pré goes jaunting back and forth to Washington D.C. in his friend's private jet, after turning the brand inspection business over to his son-in-law. He also canoes through the Canadian taiga, following the river route of his Voyageur ancestors. All of this traveling is in search of a killer, but somehow Du Pré seems more blustery than heroic when he is removed from the land where he can read the turn of a leaf.

Or the body language of an enemy.

I very much hope that Du Pré returns to Big Sky Country in volume III.

If you enjoy character development, these are the stories for you. Gabriel Du Pre' and his cohorts are delightful---people you'd like to meet and spend time with---and you learn to know them as you get deeper into these novels. These are mystery stories written with a wonderful ear for dialogue and a wry take on life. Buy this book and enjoy these novels; you won't be disappointed.

"Coyote Wind" is a darn near perfect specimen of a mixed-genre mystery cum western. Gabriel Du Pré is laconic, honorable, and wise to the ways of the Big Sky Country---a throwback to the noble cowboy-hero of Zane Grey's novels. He is a vulnerable hero, a Métis descendant of the French Voyageurs and Plains Indians. He has problems with his teenage daughter, who has shaved off part of her hair and dyed the rest of it a weird color. His mistress won't marry him because in the eyes of the Church, she is still married to the sleaze who deserted her many years past. He is plagued throughout the book by an alcoholic Métis prophet.

Du Pré's voice is unique, and perfect for this story. His dialogue is short, punchy, flicked with mordant barbs---an arrow in your eye when you are least expecting it. Two chapters into the book, found myself talking, thinking like Du Pré.

The mystery of who killed whom in "Coyote Wind" is fairly easy to unravel once you get to know and care about the characters. It almost had to occur, considering the people involved. It becomes more important to see if Du Pré can help a friend stop drinking, rather than to figure out who murdered his friend's brother. As Du Pré keeps telling everyone who will listen: "I ain't a cop...I am a [brand inspector]."

Nevertheless, it is Du Pré who is tapped to solve a thirty-year-old murder. He goes about it in a style that is perfectly tuned to his character. Not a single false note from Du Pré or his fiddle.

"Coyote Wind" is a very satisfying read.

I'm hooked, Peter Bowen has made the characters real for me, he's given them life. He shares his knowledge of what it is like to live in rural Montana, the lifestyle, the love of the land, the selfish way the locals take care of their own and the country.

It's brief, rich, flavory, cheery, and mind alerting.

Stewart Lee Allen takes you along a wonderful trip around the world. In light and easy prose, you get all the information you want on the history of coffee and coffeecentric theories gathered from real serious research. But he takes away the seriousness and the graveness and actually makes you smile all the way.

Believe it or not while I was reading this book I was completely transfered into another world,into another time.Thanks to the writers talent I was enjoying being there and learn the story of coffee and so many others things.I have tried my best to read this book as slowly as I could but that was impossible as I have finished it just in one day.God,it was such a pleasant read and that was amazing because I found it hard to believe that there is a non-fiction book to be finished just in a few hours. Reading this book is magic - Having this book in your bookshelf is having an expensive souvenir and you must know that if this book weights 200 grams is worth 200 billion dollars! Because it is a story of something that is part of the life and that's of course COFFEE that we use three or more times a day. Isn't it a shame to drink Coffee and not knowing its history???

Digging Dinosaurs written by John R. Horner et.al. is a book that covers the search that unraveled the mystery of baby dinosaurs. Honer has dedication, insight, and a sharp eye, but good luck is always nice to have when searching for the past in Western Montana on the Eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

At the time of writing this book Horner had spent six years digging at Egg Mountain and the surrounding area. His finds are rocking the knowledge base for nestings, babies and herd research.Whether you like to read about dinosaurs or are a dinosaur buff, reding this book gives you an appreciation for being a paleontologist. Also, you get to read about and see how they reexamine their venerable theeories.

The remarkable discoveries found in this book are interesting and they are advancing new hypotheses about dinosaur behavior and ecology... also, how did dinosaurs interact between species is new ground covered within these pages. Clever detective work while uncovering the past bodes well for future knowledge obtained.

Some of that knowledge coming from this large find of dinosaur remains is that duckbills probably moved like birds, with their heads bobbing forward and back. They did not look like the dinosaurs that have their tails dragging on the ground; the tails of most dinosaurs, not only duckbilld but also the sauropods,were held out straight behind them. The duckbills' tails were reinforced by rigid, ossified tendons that we can still see in many fossil skeletons.

Bipedal dinosaurs were built the same way, when a duckbill walked it bobbed its neck to get a fluid gait. Duckbills lived in herds and one of their major defenses against predators was their running ability, herding instinct, and a solid kick with the hind legs.

Reading this book was a delight as the narrative was engrossing and kept my interest. Horner has a easy-going style that will captivate the reader and the next thing you know you've reached the end and you what to know more about these denizens of the past. An interesting book that questions conventional interpretations, making for an enjoyable, educational read.

Digging Dinosaurs, by John Horner, is a firsthand account of the discovery of fossilized Dinosaur eggs that led to extensive discoveries of nesting sites in Montana. The book describes the geology of the area, the discovery of the nesting sites, their excavation, and the changes in paleontology that ensued. The book was made all the more fascinating by the fact that you can visit the actual site, called egg mountain. The Museum of the Rockies, in Choteau, Montana sponsors tours. On a recent trip to Montana, my wife and I took the tour and met John Horner, digging up more dinosaurs.

"Digging Dinosaurs" is far more than the continueing search for traces of these vanished beasts. It is a glimpse into the mind and lives of the people who have dedicated their lives to understanding this fascinating topic. Co-authored by Jack Horner, probably the most influential paleontologist alive today, the book reads at times more like a novel than a scholarly research. Fast paced, often humerous, this is a great read for anyone interested in our world's far ancient past.

Digging Dinosaurs really gave a clear and interesting spin on the work that goes behind finding fossils. I loved it!