This is a phenomenal book written by a phenomenal author. Her writing is mesmerizing, especially for those who've lived in similar places and experienced the grandeur and the hardships that one experiences living in the Northwest.

I was offered an opportunity at a fellowship studying Western literature under Mary Clearman Blew's tutelage a couple of summers ago. I found her insight into Western literature as a whole, man's connection to the landscape, and living in the "Real West" fascinating. She is a true storyteller and a voice for those of us who see ourselves intrinsically linked to this place we call home.

On a side note: My favorite Blew short story is "The Sow in the River," which can be found in the book _A Circle of Women_. Excellent reading!

I read Mary Clearman Blew's collection of essays over the last weekend and found it to be wonderfully descriptive of the western experience both historically and in current times! It especially describes the experience of rural western women well: their strengths and the challenges they have faced. As a social worker I found her final essay about the experience of a single mother as foster parent balancing the demands of author, educator, mother, grandmother and foster parent to be beautifully written. Ms. Clearman Blew's sense of space and the elements is moving. The reader feels she is there with the author in each of the essays.

I too have been searching for this book almost 20 years later. It's a book that you read and never forget. I could tell you the story and haven't read the book since 1985. How can such a great book be out of print?

I second the comments of the previous reviewer. I read this book as a twelve year old, and have spent the last twenty years looking for another copy. Hard to find, but well worth the search.

I can't remember the last time I read such an interesting little nonfiction book. I found it, quite by accident, in the juvenile section of my local library while researching material for an historical fiction novel. In doing so, I am developing a new appreciation of the humor and "true grit" of 19th century women. What a great little find! A real treasure trove of information.

When I took a Pacific Northwest History class at a Seattle community college with Judy Bentley (the author) I was fascinated by her excellent teaching style; now, if you or your kids want a quick introduction to the history of the Oregon Country from a feminine perspective, this is the book you should read! This book of Judy's contains many nice maps, photos and charts as well as an easy-to-read, well-organized writings. Many public libraries in the Northwest have this book in their collection -- for a good reason. This is not only for children, but also for adults who are interested in the history of the Northwest. This is definitely on my "recommended readings" list on this subject.

THE BRIGHT COUNTRY is a heartbreakingly beautiful, sad, hilarious, touching book that flows and burbles along like a favorite trout stream. I've probably bought 6-8 copies of the book over the years and loaned, given or otherwise forced it upon at least twice that number of people. It's not a perfect novel, but is easily the most honest look I've ever encountered into the heart of a guy I wish I'd had the opportunity to know. There's more than a little bit of trout fishing, but this is a book that hooks non-anglers as well.

I can't write Harry Middleton to tell him how much I admire his writing, or how much his stories and themes resonate in me. He died not long ago. And if I may quote Russell Chatham, "It hurts to know that Harry Middleton rode the back of a garbage truck every night during the wee hours to put groceries on his family's table." It's true. It's part of this story.

This is the moving, affecting story of Middleton's struggle with depression, his mother's death of brain cancer, and, most memorably, a blind trout on the South Fork of the Platte River. Like all of Middleton's books, the language is wonderful and the characters are memorable. Perhaps more so than most, this book is Middleton laying his soul bare, telling a story as it happened, cutting close to the bone.

And if flyfishing isn't the whole story here, it is part of the path to redemption.

Harry, we hardly knew you, and I wish there had been more time, and more books. But you will live on for me and for those readers who discover you. Ollie ollie oxen free.

There is so much to like about this book-the engaging voice of the author, the tidbits of history woven into the narrative, the unusual (quirky) characters Mr. Higgs worked with and met on his journey (not to mention his bizarre wife). Richard Higgs is a unique and fascinating storyteller--curious, introspective, intelligent, poetic--not to mention his high sense of irony. This book is a pleasure and a treasure.

A wonderful book about the journey from a diner in Tulsa to the wheat harvests in the heartland. This book is the author's first published effort and is worth buying, buy it in hardback it is a better deal. Let me know if you want to get it.

Penn has led me to insight into my own mixed-up family as my mother seems to have forgotten her own mixblood memory--had it not been for my grandparents, I would have never known my great-grandparents were members of the Delaware nation. Racial shame is the wrong way to bring up your children, and Penn clearly depicts the suffering it inflicts upon the entire family.

I think that good autobiography brings us to that space and place in our humanity where we must stop and rethink America's history so we do not continue to make the same mistakes again. Penn relates how American history has affected his own family from Chief Joseph to the present. What I enjoyed most was the way he wove textual criticism of other Native authors and their works into the story of his life. He is truly a gifted storyteller, and knows how to connect with his reader.

This is an amazing book. It is hard to write about one's own family and make it interesting. To go further and make it not only interesting, but relevant to others, takes a writer of rare talent. Penn is clearly such a writer, and I was very pleasantly surprised at the creative and original approach taken in this work. The author draws thought-provoking parallels and connections between his own mixblood Indian family's dreams, visions, failures and successes, and those of other families, in particular other native and mixed-blood families, including exploration of the writing of many historical native American figures. This is a creative and very original book, highly recommended.

This was an excellent book! It is a vivid, comprehensive and sweeping biography of a most important and influential man of the early American West. At the age of twenty four, Thomas Fitzpatrick started out with Ashley's expedition of 1823 as a fur trapper going up the Missouri River. The following year he discovered South Pass, then was part owner of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. After the fur trade declined, he guided the first wagon train west over the Oregon Trail, then acted as guide to Fremont, Kearny and Abert on their expeditions. Later,he was appointed as an Indian Agent for the government and in this position he was most significant in facilitating relations with the Plains Indians. Leroy Hafen's writing is to be commended. He was an excellent author/historian. This is an easy book to read, and there is so much history to this remarkable man, Thomas Fitzpatrick.

This book is the result of a historian's dissertation on this little known now, but once well-known figure in the expansion of the west. Fitzpatrick discovered the Southern Pass, mentored Kit Carson, and is buried in the Congressional Cemetary in Washington DC. I'm not a fan of historical novels, or much of a student of history. But, this book described the way of life of the great western explorers of the 19th century in fascinating detail. Chock full of facts that I never learned in school history, this book sheds light on a poorly represented but important part of US history by tracing Fitzpatrick's life as reconstructed from historical documents and interviews with surviving ancestors. I highly recommend this book.

Mr. Jacobs captures the lies and deceit that Nation states engage in when resource control is the objective. In this case..oil. The sad part is that the material costs in human lives is unforgivable.

We tend to remember Vietnam as the defining event of the late 60's and early 70's, but Biafra was and is ultimately more heartbreaking to contemplate, because it is nearly forgotten, even though millions died. Jacobs tells a story of valor and treachery, of relief pilots and aid workers who risked death everyday so that they could bring medicine and food into the oil-rich Biafran separatist enclave, which was completely surrounded by a huge and vengeful, British-backed Nigerian military machine bent on the Biafrans' extinction.

The book is detailed but doesn't plod, and we follow along as an ethnic pogrom festers into a civil war, and ultimately a holocaust. Along the way, all the vaunted fail-safes of our modern world, from the U.N., to the Red Cross, to the liberal governments of the U.S. and the U.K., actually aid and abet the Nigerians, and exacerbate the Biafrans' plight and prolong their agony. The U.S.S.R., long falsely seen as an anti-imperialist engine for African liberation, cynically plays its hand as cruelly as anyone else, providing military and technical assistance to the Federal Government of Nigeria whenever the West loses their stomach for it.

When millions are dead, and so many are culpable, one feels it's unfair to assign blame to any single party, but blame must be assigned. Everyone's responsible, all the way back to the imperialists who so ineptly drew the borders of what were to emerge as completely unworkable national entities. Perhaps "state failure" in Africa will ultimately be the force which credibly redraws the boundaries, but in Nigeria's case, that will only happen when the oil runs out. And Lord how high the cost will be.

Gloria Mackay's book, The Bubbles Go Up, is absolutely wonderful! The brilliant images in her essays evoke so many feelings, from lovely and half-forgotten memories of childhood, to a passion for chocolate, to trolling in Puget Sound. Her topics are far more vast than that, but the topics themselves are not the important thing about this book. It's the images that jump right off the page at the reader. In "Salt is More Than a Seasoning," Mackay writes, "I need to meet up with a gust of wind that has a little spunk, that dares deposit smells of salt and seaweed and touches of sand on my skin and in my hair and up my nose." Later, she writes of "raindrops so heavy they bruised your arm." From "'Tis the Season," an essay on Christmas baking, she writes of being willing, one more time, to "stir up pots of fickle fudge and inhale the heavy scent of butter cookies, as short as sin, cooling their bottoms in smelly old tins." As an author myself, I seldom find time to read these days. But "The Bubbles Go Up" is a book I can keep by my chair and explore in frequent spurts. It's a book I can "inhale," to lift my spirits and remind me that writing can be more than a craft. It can be--and in Gloria Mackay's hands, is--a gift.

The Bubbles Go Up delighted my sensibilities. Gloria MacKay shares her unique view of the world, wrapping life's lessons and wisdom in wry humor. Fun, delightful reading.

What a terrific combination, Paul Schullery and Bud Lilly! Schullery adds the literary polish but the words are all Bud's. A native Montanan, Bud Lilly was in the right place at the right time, West Yellowstone during the late sixties. His fly shop became an icon for the fly fishing fraternity during the decade the sport exploded in popularity. No trip to the West Yellowstone area was complete without a stop at Bud Lilly's Trout Shop. Known and unknown, master or novice, we all passed through those doors.

In "Guide", Bud recalls those halcyon days of the 70's with a wit and knack for story telling that makes you feel like he's talking to you personally. His stories are more than just good tales, he teaches through example. The other half of the book is good practical advice, the "How To, Where To" of any quality guidebook. Bud's style is very congenial, never condescending. You feel like you're talking with him one-on-one in his shop, getting straight answers to your questions. "Guide" is well illustrated with excellent color plates of popular western flies and lots of fishing photos relative to the text. Unfortunately there are a number of typos and some text missing, but this doesn't detract from what is otherwise an excellent work.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone considering a fly fishing trip to the west or any fly fisher who remembers the good old days of thirty years ago and wants a fun jog down memory lane.

Bud Lilly's Guide To Fly Fishing The New West represents the distilled wisdom of a lifetime's experience with fly fishing the waters of the American west. Featured are proven techniques and seasonal approaches to successfully fishing big rivers, small streams, spring creeks, and high-country lakes. Also included are proven fly patterns, tactical tricks for presenting flies to difficult fish; locating fish in unfamiliar waters; gear; choosing the right guide; successful year-round angling; fishing from a boat or raft; and much more. Bud Lilly's Guide To Fly Fishing The New West is highly recommended and informative reading for all fly fishing enthusiasts.