Unlike many of my fellow Wyomingites, I found much to be admired in this collection of short stories and riffs (some stories are too short to be called anything BUT riffs).

Ms. Proulx captured the soul-jarring openness of the Great High Lonesome in such a way that makes THIS transplanted Wyomingite long for the prairies and rocks of her native home. It was wonderful to read those vivid and wonderful descriptions. In the scenery, I was brought home.

She is equally adept at sketching the surfaces of the people in her tales. I know many of the characters in her books well from my life on a Wyoming ranch.

However, she skated over the surface of these lives, never understanding the wonderful mix of hardheaded pragmatism, loving sentimentality, bitter practicality and blinding optimism that makes up the Wyoming character. She views these people with great cynicism and no understanding. And, to be fair to Ms. Proulx, Wyomingites are people that aren't easy to understand, much like the state itself. They show their harsh side to the world, but protect an inner beauty from casual outsiders. Ms. Proulx didn't bother to try to penetrate that harsh exterior, and given her lack of interest in staying in the state (even her bio notes admit she "lives in Wyoming" but spends most of her time away from the state), I doubt she ever will. And that's a shame.

I hope she'll take another crack at writing about Wyoming... perhaps in a novel, which is more her forte.

Annie Proulx has been my favorite author ever since I read The Shipping News for the first time back in '93. Close Range showcases her gift for language and love of landscape. "The Mud Below" and "the Bunchgrass Edge of the World" were two favorites. In Mud, the rodeo life is vividly captured, interweved with the struggle of a single mom to raise her son. In Bunchgrass, the main character, a large, big-hearted girl, is the "embarassment of the family". As the story unfolds, Proulx utilizes an interesting talking tractor (!) and that wide open Wyoming landscape to tell the story of the big girl's lonliness and struggle to find a place in the world. Other stories, such as the well-praised "The Half-Skinned Steer" and "BrokenBack Mountain" highlight diverse themes and vivid characters. Proulx's writing is funny, intense, surprising, fresh and sometimes carries underlying environmental conservation themes. I've read all of her books and short stories. The more I read of her writings, the more I appreciate her literary reach, language and content.

In some ways it's odd that Annie Proulx achieved such success with her novel The Shipping News, because she is a born short-story writer. This latest collection seems to me her finest work yet, illuminating the dark corners of human nature in language that is lucid, gripping and intense.

The stories and the characters found in them are astonishingly vivid and stay in the mind long after reading. Proulx writes about people who generally have no voice in fiction, which is clearly off-putting to some readers. But the emotional truth in her work continues to grip the reader.

I'm disappointed to note the number of Wyoming residents who seem distracted by the book's sub-title and feel it should be some kind of travel brochure for the state, and have reviewed it complete with sneers about Easterners. This is literature, not journalism!

Fans of beautifully-written, emotionally intense writing should read this book! And also enjoy it for the beautiful watercolors.

Gerry Spence's books have all been favorites of mine and I always enjoy his commentary and personna. This bio is written in his usual compelling style and I loved hearing about his childhood, family and the experiences that helped mold him into the remarkable man he became. Definitely worth the time invested to read this book and I recommend all of his books to anyone interested in the complexities of the legal system in this country.

Telling expose of what he sifts out of his life story. Indicative of his legal approach is the life changing backgournd of this interesting, now national figure.

The road to where he is today of dealing with individuals who contend against big biz and government find their roots in this Wyoming bred and based defense attorney.

Haunting him is the tragedy of his young mom committing suicide at the tender age of 20. Time sure doesn't heal any wounds, just kind of glazes them over. Revealing his comments with grandma about the unanswered prayer for a bicycle.

He asks basic questions, and gets to the core of issues quick. No wonder he's so sought after as trial lawyers are these days.

I liked the book very much because I am intrigued by courtrooms and defense lawyers. But I also found the man in a seminar to be engaging, quick, wise, honest. He may act like a country lawyer, but Spence is one of America's finest attorneys. His story reminds me of Horatio Alger and "From Rages to Riches." A product of the West, he walks easily in the most erudite arenas and writes as exquisitely as he speaks. So much wisdom, information, understanding, sensitivity to the lesser ones of us. Kudos, Gerry.

CAUTION! The maps in this book are terrible! You can almost read them in some areas but many spots are too dark gray to be legible.
The maps look like a bad black and white photo copy of a good color coded National Geographic map. The book's maps loose information because of the colored background in the original map.
We went on a trail walk (to fairy falls in Yellowstone) using only this book. We walked for about 1 hour then came to a junction in the trail which we couldn't figure out. As we were looking at the book another family came along and showed us they had the same book. We both were lost!
After a while using another map they had we came to the conclusion that were were about 5 miles from were we wanted to be. So we laughed and started heading back to the car.
On our way back we ran into another family using this same book heading for the same place. Obviously it was not just one's person's interpretation of the book.
I'm disappointed that we wasted about 2 1/2 hours but more importantly, it could have been dangerous had any of these families continued on their path using this book!

This book was small enough to fit in a day-pack, but contained a lot of useful hiking information. It ranked the hikes on difficulty as well as letting you know how gratifying they were. It was nice to know what to expect along the way, and what to look forward to.

This is the perfect book if you are new to Yellowstone and looking for a guide on what hikes to take the family on. Accurate reviews of the hikes with good directions and maps.

A must have.

I personally have over 125 days in the park and I found the book very helpfull in planning family hikes.

At its heart, this book is about identity: shedding identity, losing identity, finding identity, all set against a presumably shallow Hollywood backdrop. The characters are basically stereotypes -- the burned out producer, the former child model -- bumping up against each other in an attempt to create meaning.

Coupland's talent shows through here, despite the hackneyed premise of the book. He manages to invigorate many of these old stereotypes and create a novel which does redeem itself to some extent from its iffy initial premise. But I agree with a previous reviewer that this is NOT the best introduction to Coupland's work.

What he accomplishes here is a demonstration of his considerable skill, working himself into and out of corners most writers wouldn't touch. But in the end, this book is unsatisfying, leaving me dreaming of the realistic characters he gave voice to in Shampoo Planet, Microserfs, and perhaps most strikingly, Girlfriend in a Coma.

Coupland may have begun the Gen-X literary revolution, but he has dropped the ball rather obviously with "Miss Wyoming". I hope he'll find his way back on track in time for his next novel, due out this fall.

Douglas Coupland is the writer whose book, Generation X, was so smart, hip and slightly disillusioned that it coined a phrase to describe a generation of smart, hip and slightly disillusioned Americans.

This book, Miss Wyoming, follows the parallel stories of Susan Colgate and John Lodge Johnson and encompasses everything from the American beauty pageant culture to near death experiences.

Susan Colgate is a former pageant "work horse" and low-budget television star. Typical of pageant hopefuls and television aspirants, she embodies a surgically-enhanced, plastic kind of unnaturally-endowed beauty and, as would be expected, her life unfolds much like a trite and manipulative soap storyline. One racing toward a definitely unhappy end.

Susan, however, is a survivor. She has survived a manipulative and grasping stage mother, a plane crash in which she was the only survivor, and a year in which she "went along" with the story of her own apparent death.

John's life hasn't been a whole lot better. The son of a downwardly-mobile and rapidly-fading socialite and her constantly-disappearing husband, John endured a childhood filled with endless illness and depression only to come into his own as a successful maker of films.

Success for John, though, is narrowly defined and means the constant ricochet from one stimulus-induced high to another. For John, the bigger the high, the more thrilling the thrill, and no amount of money is too much to spend.

His "thrilling" lifestyle, however, comes to an abrupt crash landing when he falls prey to a particularly virulent virus and experiences an astral projection, the likes of which he has previously only dreamed.

It is when Susan and John meet that Miss Wyoming really takes off.

Coupland is one of those rare authors whose subject matter suits his writing style perfectly. Yes, much of it is "mind candy" but it is mind candy written with such an infectious joyousness that it is difficult for even the most jaded reader to resist its allure. His characters are victims of the too-much-too-often, freeze-dried, quick-fix excess, yet they are never trite and never fail to amuse.

The plot ricochets from one event to another, much like the characters, and they do their best to struggle and survive and even, at times, connect.

Miss Wyoming is definitely satire and it is modern satire of the highest order. Surprisingly so. The patron saint of satire, Oscar Wilde, defined the genre as being not only witty, succinct and accurate, but also imbued with a love of humanity and all its quirks. Coupland's writing shows this same generosity and love of his fellow man and it is this quality, more than any other, that pulls Miss Wyoming far above other novels in the genre.

What could be more ripe for criticism than the youth-and-beauty-worshiping, celebrity-obsessed, consumerist culture of America today? Yet, Coupland embraces this culture with a sweetness that brings his flawed and failing but always-hanging-in-there characters to life.

Our priorities, says Coupland, are genuinely laughable, but we can and sometimes do, transcend them. While lampooning the excesses of America today, Coupland still manages to cherish his fellow man, quirks and all. It is this very innocence and love that, in the end, make Miss Wyoming a very hip, very smart and very compassionate book to read.

Miss Wyoming, Susan Colgate, has had enough of fame and not quite enough of fortune. This non-linear novel by Douglas Coupland tells her story, from her childhood as a beauty pageant contestant to her young adulthood as the star of hot 1980s sitcom, to her late 20s as a has-been -- though not in that order. Coupland loops her story in and around John's -- a Hollywood director who bears remarkable similarity in lifestyle to infamous Tinseltown badboy Don Simpson -- life story. Filled with references to pop culture, Miss Wyoming leads the reader through several lives. Coupland captures the lack of purpose in late twentieth century America, and lets his characters show the struggle of existing in a world where tragedy is not tragic but is new, but is hot news, where children are in the express lane to adulthood, and consumption is the supreme goal. The picture he paints of society is not pretty, yet it is optimistic. Much like in his earlier novels Microserfs, Shampoo Planet, or Girlfriend in a Coma, Coupland's characters find the stuff in life that makes it worth living -- despite society's lack of interest in love, friendship, and sincerity. The ironic words spoken by Susan and John are only fronts for their craving for something more.

What an amazing accomplishment is this book. It is simultaneously funny and sad, familiar yet very strange, and it moves along with a predictable rhythm while never actually going where you expect. Ever.

Lethem has written some of the most inventive novels I've ever read -- "Girl in Landscape," "As She Climbed Across The Table," "Motherless Brooklyn" -- and he's just as creative here. His characters and the situations he puts them in ride the knife-edge between absolute believability and (some kind of) science fiction outlandishness, but it's to Lethem's credit that you never lose your attachments to his cast.

The twists in this book -- which if you've read it you know about, and if not I couldn't BEGIN to explain them to you -- rank it right up with "Girl" for audacity. I was reminded of the movie "Being John Malkovich" or some of Fellini's work perhaps. Definitely the work of a major talent, both in scope and skill. His writing is so good it gave me vertigo.

It seems like most people out there are reading back from Motherless Brooklyn. IE: Going from a great lush semi-realistic tale to an earlier very lush dreamlike tale. Doesn't seem like people started from the beginning...I loved Amnesia Moon and have read it 3 times over the last few years (Gun I did like more, I reread it about once every year). There is an esence in Lethem's writing that does not escape you from book to book. It's hard to explain. A comfort level between writer style to reader. And his writing style is beyond top notch. These one stars perplex me... I felt the climax in this tale was better than Gun With Occasional Music. Any climax with a talking Banzai tree and grandfather clock that leaves you on the edge of your seat is a book to be reckoned with. If you are looking for a book to hit you over the head with all of the answers to all of it's secrets, then you might be better off looking for Dainelle Steele's or Stephen King's newest.

This might very well be the most original, head scrathing novel I've ever read. It's a bit like shifting randomly between a set of twilight zone episodes. You know something is quiet abnormal, but you don't get to sit still long enough to figure it all out. I'll just say that if when you were young you asked yourself, "what if I'm just imagining the whole world", and then went on to think, "hmm, what if someone else is just imagining me", then this is the book for you.

Very few of these recipies were actually usefull. this book focuses more on the authors observations of the outdoors than actual cooking. Most of the recipies involved lots of fishy tasting ingredients that you would not want to find out that you were stuck eating miles away from any re-supply areas. Good if you REALLY like lots of salty fishy flavors.

This book focuses on backcountry cooking en masse for a group of 4 or more. I travel either by myself or with small groups, in which each member brings his own food and does his own cooking. This book was not very helpful to me.

This book changed my life for the better! It was an incredible metphore for the human condition and a path to enlightenment!It was a religeous experience to read. Unbleiveable...it has "Pulitzer" written all over it.

As reviewer Joe Pickett said, this book is well-written and enjoyable. My personal preference is for single state travel books, because they are more exhaustive in their coverage, and thus more useful when traveling. The reason for this review is my amusement at finding an earlier review of this book from 2000 written by Joe Pickett. Joe Pickett is the name of the fictional hero of author C.J. Box's excellent mystery series set in Wyoming, and these books started appearing in 2001, after this review, with the award winning Open Season. I love these books, a perfect blend of mystery and western. So what say you, Mr. Box? Did you write the 2000 review for this book? I also can't help but wonder if C.J. Box is your real name. Perhaps you are a relative of Edgar Box, Gore Vidal's famous pseudonym.

i thought this book was an excellent primer...i was able to gain an understanding of each area of the states covered: what each has to offer sporting-wise, weather-wise, lodging- and food-wise. of course it is not as in depth as a single state guide book would be, but for those of us looking to explore all three, it provided a solid foundation from which to begin charting our course. enjoyable writing, as well. i had never read 'travel smart' books...getting another today because i was so pleased.

This book is not exhaustive...and isn't intended to be. It's the lowdown on the best places to go and stay and visit. It's written in a breezy, informed style that is fun to read and, from what I can tell, extremely accurate. Judging from the places I've been able to visit recently (Jackson Hole, Bozeman, Yellowstone) the author is right on. I'd recommend this book highly to anyone traveling into this region.

Did I miss something? Heavy on the mood; plot was hard to follow; couldn't figure out why the characters did most of what they did. I wanted to like Blue, but I didn't understand him. At least Sam's story made some sense. Gilbert seemed much more like a poor plot device than a character. And I have no idea what happened at the end.

Henderson joins the ranks of Jim Grimsley, et al, who write in the self-conscious literary style of the immediate present tense; rather than showing the reader what happened, such writers show the reader what IS happening. In a sense this literary device makes reading Native like entering a dream, and at times what is happening is unclear, as dreams are vague and disquieting. But still, I grew to like Blue as he discovers himself and his relationship with Sam, though I was disturbed when Blue just leaves Sam to live or die without explanation--like dreams. --Ronald L. Donaghe, author of Common Sons

Henderson's writing is reminiscent of Faulkner. His story of Blue takes you completely into a journey where landscape, emotion, physicality and spirituality are woven together with an artistry that is both delicate and powerful in the same dimension. This is not a novel to think your way through. Rather it is a shamanic journey you must abandon yourself to.

As a long-time Trevanian fan I felt this book to be as satisfying as any of his other works but with a much simpler story line. Don't let the western theme of the story discourage you from reading the book--I have no interest in novels of the old west yet this turned out to be one of the most satisfying, impactful books I have ever read. The story is simple, direct and fleshed as only Trevanian's--in his own word, "sesquipedalian" style--can. Particular attention to the epilogue and prologue is important to reap the rewards of this novel. It will be unlike any book you have ever read. As one flies through the pages the story itself holds your interest keenly but actually climaxes in the extremely satisfying epilogue. As is mentioned in other reviews, I too experienced a chill of satisfaction upon reading the final paragraph. This is a book that will stay with you for months after the reading. HINT: especially satisfying for those having an interest in the colorful history of Seattle, WA (although the story takes place in Wyoming).

Trevanian, that one-named author that dazzled us with The Eiger Sanction and Shibumi, has returned from a fifteen year hiatus with a powerful novel set in the American West. One can hardly call this a typical western, however. The protagonist is a youth with a lying tongue and a secret past. The villain is a psychotic serial killer with megalomaniacal tendencies. Neither plays with a full deck, and as both wander into the long decayed town of Twenty- Mile, you know it's not big enough for the both of them. Every townsman is warped in some way, or they would have left long before, and the air of menace in Trevanian's writing foreshadows the violence that finally explodes, leaving nobody unscathed. The ending is almost Shake- spearian in its slaughter. Yet, that eternal trickster, the writer who hides behind the moniker, Trevanian, still has a few tricks up his sleeve. Don't miss the epilogue to this story. A real page turner, deserving a pot of coffee, an all-nighter, and a call-in sick the next morning. What more do you want?

One part Western, one part thriller, all parts enjoyable. This is the only way I can begin to describe this book. Incident at Twenty Mile is the first story set in the old west that I have ever read. While not a fan of the Western genre, Trevanian blends the right mixture of action-infused thriller with the charm of the old west.

Characters galore grace the pages of this book, and even the most minute of them jumps off the pages and onto the canvas of imagination.

A dying mining town witnesses the arrival of a 'natural born con' named Matthew, and the story sets in motion, as Matthew ingratiates himself into the townspeoples' lives and employment. The town finds itself under seige by an escaped criminal, and Matthew reluctantly becomes the hero he always imagined himself while reading the pages of his favorite writer and trying to invoke the style and ideals of his favorite character, The Ringo Kid.

The book has many sad moments, as the criminal, Lieder, claims a number of victims, before justice is served. The story, setting, and characters are all very well developed and realized.

I read the last half of this book in one sitting, finding myself unable to put it down, even as the hours ticked by. This is a very entertaining read, highly recommended.

I purchased two guides for my trip to Yellowstone: this one and Moon Publications. I'm glad I did. Moon offered more in the way of maps and color photos. This book was a much more entertaining read, contained much information about the history of early settlers, interesting wildlife information, and the formation of features within Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park. If I had to buy one guide it would have to be this one: There are tons of heplful and free information available from the park service if you want lots of colorful photos. Pick up the free stuff and bring along this book for a deeper study of the area.

A personal and detailed account of Yellowstone and Grant Teton National Parks that not only describes the beautiful scenery and where to find the wildlife, but also informs you how this area evolved thousands of years ago. The writer also offers a distance and difficulty rating of each of the trails listed. While the trail descriptions are brief, we weren't concerned since it was noted in the book that these are some of the more popular and senic trails that the park has to offer, though not a comprehensive listing by any means. For that I would reccommend "Hiking the Yellowstone Back Country" as a supplement to this guide. This book will give any first time visitor a great idea what Yellowstone, Grand Teton and the town of Jackson has to offer!

It's obvious that the writer has spent considerable time in this part of the country. We hiked three trails that the book recommended. The directions to the trails, the descriptions and the level of difficulty were highly accurate. Best of all, we found dozens of insider tips. For instance: a certain upscale restaurant offers 20% off the price of your meal between 6-6:30. We learned the best place in the park for glimpsing a grizzly bear. The book told us where to find the cheapest bike rentals. You'll certainly find all the other information; where to stay, what to see, maps and other services. But what we found most helpful were all the tips that can only come from someone who actually lives in this area.