http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/main/C104/L104/ New West Network: The Voice of the Rocky Mountains en info@newwest.net Copyright 2009 Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:41:39 MST Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:41:39 MST This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/EkHmIs2bfx8/ Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:01:03 MST Wisdom of the Last Farmer by David Mas Masumoto Simon & Schuster, 238 pages, $25 David Mas Masumoto's Wisdom of the Last Farmer will make you want to go out and pay a farmer more than the asking price for his produce at a market.  Masumoto grows organic peaches, nectarines, and grapes on his farm in California's central valley, carrying on in the tradition of his family.  His grandparents emigrated from Japan over a hundred years ago with the dream of buying land.  Because they weren't native born Americans, laws forbade them from purchasing land, so instead they worked in other people's fields and suffered through internment in the Arizona desert during World War II.  But they persevered and eventually their sons established the 80-acre farm that Masumoto now runs with his wife and children.  Masumoto is on a mission to preserve flavorful heirloom peaches that his family has grown for decades, varieties most farmers have abandoned because of supermarkets' demands for harder, redder peaches with longer shelf life and transport durability.  Masumoto wants people to experience the "Sun Crest peach, a fat and juicy gem with a stunning, honeyed flavor." If people could try it, he thinks, they probably wouldn't settle for the fruit that's sold as peaches today. In Wisdom of the Last Farmer, Masumoto, a columnist for the Fresno Bee and the award-winning author of several previous books, discusses his father's decline in the wake of a stroke, and how their hard work in pursuit of a perfect peach breaks their bodies and spirits down.  "Organic farming is not simple or easy," Masumoto writes.  "It's easy to want to be environmentally responsible, but it's a damned hard thing to achieve.  I cannot replace tedious labor with faster technology or equipment when things go wrong." David Mas Masumoto will be in Utah to present his book in Salt Lake City at the King's English Bookshop on Thursday, October 22 (5:30 p.m.).  On October 23 and 24, he will participate in the Moab Confluence "Eating the West" literary festival, and on October 25 he will visit Denver's Tattered Cover (Colfax, 2 p.m.) as a part of the Rocky Mountain Land Library reading series. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/david_mas_masmuto_pays_the_price_for_perfect_peaches/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/Fk7KIqJmX8M/ Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:00:41 MST One of my fellow ex-Rocky Mountain News book reviewers, Dan Danbom, recently wrote in an email, "Now, instead of reviewing books, I've decided that a fast route to famine is to try to sell them." Along with his business partner, Nancy Stevens, this week the intrepid Danbom opened a new bookstore in Denver, Printed Page Bookshop, at 1416 S. Broadway. The shop is in a Victorian house, and features contemporary and vintage books. Printed Page's tagline: "Ask about our books on paper." Danbom notes that they will be "defiant and antiquated to the very end!" To celebrate its opening, Printed Page will display a special exhibit of 50 banned books, and they invite patrons to guess which book among them has "never been the target of censorship on political, religious, social or sexual grounds." Four people who guess the right answer will win a shopping spree at the bookshop. Christopher Cokinos, Utah State University professor and author of The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars, recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in honor of the annual Perseid meteor shower. In "Dust in the (Cosmic) Wind," he writes explains that "meteor showers are really comet dust" and that tiny particles of space dust filtering down to earth add a little extra crunch to everyone's vegetables: "As Donald Brownlee, an astronomer at the University of Washington who studies cosmic dust particles, has noted, 'If you had lettuce for lunch, you probably ate a few.'" Also in the Roundup: Events for Margot Mifflin and David Knibb, a new Reading the West selection, and New West's Books & Writers page is now available on the Kindle. (Is it "the" Kindle?) http://www.newwest.net/city/article/printed_page_bookshop_opens_in_denver_and_regional_writers_get_around/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/oIzO_gfdxyI/ Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:00:05 MST Reading Christopher Cokinos's new book, The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars (Tarcher/Penguin, 528 pages, $27.95), is like taking an adventurous romp into the realm of meteorites and their hunters. Passion, science, dreams, and desire are all brought together in this book, which makes it an exciting study of the human psyche as well as an in-depth exploration of nature and science. Cokinos currently lives with his partner Kathe Lison along the Blacksmith Fork River in Northern Utah's Cache Valley. He teaches creative writing at Utah State University, where he has appointments in English and Natural Resources. I recently caught up with Christopher Cokinos to get the scoop on where this book took him (Greenland! Antarctica!), how it gave him a deeper love of his Utah home, and why--despite the far-flung research he conducted for this book--he still considers himself a "reluctant adventurer." He will read from The Fallen Sky in Salt Lake City on August 27 at King's English Bookstore (7 p.m.). New West: You say that your new book, The Fallen Sky, is "an intimate history of shooting stars." What do you mean by that? Christopher Cokinos: Well, it's a way to indicate that this is not traditional science writing or natural history. The book has a strong memoir thread--much stronger than I had anticipated--because as I was researching the passions, the lives, the successes and heartbreaks of meteorite hunters, I was in the midst of a new love, a divorce, a parent's death, a move across the country, and more. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/an_interview_with_christopher_cokinos_writer_star_seeker_and_author_of_the_/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/m-sFJ76BWuc/ Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:00:05 MST I came across a funny passage in "Real Romance," Lauren Collins' profile of Nora Roberts for the June 22 issue of The New Yorker: "She never makes an outline, and she does most of her research on Google. Before she wrote 'Montana Sky,' her editor suggested that she go to Montana. 'Why would I want to go to Montana?' Roberts said." Perhaps it's for the best--Montana might not have room for another writer. Last year I noticed a curious lull in the literary output from Montana--usually half the books on my year-end best of the region list are connected to the state in some way. But last year there were more books set in Colorado. Now I realize why there weren't more Montana books--all the writers were preparing them for publication this July. This week I reviewed a new book by Montana man of letters and woods, Rick Bass, The Wild Marsh, which is my favorite of his nonfiction books...so far. Up for next week, a new collection of short stories by Maile Meloy, who grew up in Helena and has made a name for herself as one of the best young writers working today. Granta listed her in its "Best Young American Novelists" issue in 2007. Next, I'm looking forward to reading the new short story collection by Kevin Canty, who teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Montana. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/july_brings_abundant_montana_books/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/RHQMp8gyEiY/ Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:00:50 MST A few weeks ago I wrote about some creative ideas people are coming up with to support books in the midst of this changing media landscape. In keeping with that theme, the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association recently launched the Reading the West program, with the goal of helping bookstores promote books that are set in the West or those written by Western authors. The first featured books are New Mexico writer Rick Collignon's Madewell Brown and Austin-based Jaqueline Kelly's The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. I spoke to MPIBA executive director Lisa Knudsen this week on the phone from her office in Fort Collins about the program. Knudsen said that the MPIBA started the Reading the West program because "in these troubled economic times, we were looking for projects and programs that are free to our member booksellers and are a potential win win win--for the publisher, bookseller, and author." "I shamelessly copied from my fellow regional bookseller associations," Knudsen said, noting that the Midwest and Great Lakes Bookseller associations sponsor similar programs. The Reading the West program makes advance copies of the featured books available to booksellers, as well as materials to use in their display and promotion. The authors are also available for readings at regional stores. The MPIBA board hopes publishers will begin to send them information about relevant forthcoming books to be considered for the program, but for the first selections, the members discussed among themselves what good books of regional interest they knew were coming out. "Rick Collignon is very popular in our region," Knudsen said, "and the committee was enthusiastic about his latest book. We also wanted to do what we could to promote independent publishers." Madewell Brown is published by Unbridled Books, an independent publisher based in Colorado. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/reading_the_west_gets_the_word_out_about_regional_books/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/q_UN9jLEfb0/ Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:25:39 MST Beetle hysteria has raised its head again, and I am not talking about the Fab four. A prominent article in the New York Times titled "Tiny Beetle Adds New Dynamic to Forest Fire Control Efforts" quotes many foresters and others who suggest that beetle-kill trees across the West will create larger wildfires and by implications are "destroying" our forests. For instance, Montana's State Forester Bob Harrington said as much at conference recently, as in the article. While it may seem "intuitively obvious" that dead trees will lead to more fires, there is little scientific evidence to support the contention that beetle-killed trees substantially increases risk of large blazes. In fact, there is evidence to suggest otherwise. At the heart of this and many other media reports are flawed assumptions about fires, what constitutes a healthy forest, and the options available to humans in face of natural processes that are inconvenient and get in the way of our designs. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/beetle_hysteria_again/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/YoBlZIUoMNA/ Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:00:18 MST Falconer on the Edge: A Man, His Birds, and the Vanishing Landscape of the American West by Rachel Dickinson Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 220 pages, $24 In Falconer on the Edge, Rachel Dickinson gives readers an in-depth look at a subculture that many people may not be aware existed. Falconers are an intense, passionate, tight-knit group of bird-loving hunters, and they subdivide themselves according to the type of bird they fly, from those who favor hunting sage grouse with gyrfalcon-peregrine hybrids ("an überbird [with] stamina and speed and beauty") to those who fly hawks to catch squirrels and jackrabbits. The falconers Dickinson depicts remind me of a more athletic and outdoorsy version of Trekkies, with their conventions, cliques, private jargon derived from Norman French, and the way they are often misunderstood by outsiders. Although falconry ("a loose term [that] refers to flying any kind of raptor or bird of prey") originated perhaps 3,500 years ago in the Middle East, spread through Asia and Europe, and didn't catch on in North America until the twentieth century, it seems a pastime tailor-made for the American West, as it requires a lot of open space and abundant game. With all the care and training that a bird of prey demands, not to mention the need for the falconer to be in top condition to run through fields after his bird, it might be the most labor and time-intensive variety of hunting, which is why so few practice it. Dickinson writes, "Today there are approximately forty-five hundred licensed falconers in the United States, and two to three thousand of them belong to [the North American Falconers Association]." Judging from the portraits in Dickinson's book, there are no casual falconers. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/birdman_rachel_dickinsons_falconer_on_the_edge/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/uNLzluAi0u8/ Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:00:02 MST Utah native Ron Carlson has been publishing acclaimed novels and short stories for over three decades, and in recent years he's hit a stride, with two novels, Five Skies and the new The Signal back-to-back. Carlson directed the Creative Writing program at Arizona State University for many years and three years ago became the Creative Writing program director at the University of California at Irvine. The Signal, which Carlson wrote at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, is the action-packed tale of a divorced couple who go backpacking in the Wind River Mountains and run into all sorts of trouble, including some unfriendly meth-runners who poach elk on the side. I recently spoke with Carlson about his new novel, which he started because he "wanted to stand up behind [his] goddamn pickup truck again," and about how "camping is essentially about when things go wrong." New West: Is The Signal just an elaborate way for you to scare other potential campers off of your favorite hiking trail? Ron Carlson: You know, it has that. I didn't mean to scare everybody. NW: In the front of the book, you advise people, "If I was going to go into the Wind Rivers today, I would use the Bears Ears trailhead and I would go before September 10." But after reading about all the perils that Mack and Vonnie face, nobody is going to want to go on this trail. RC: I just wanted to make sure that no one went after then, because you can run into snow. NW: I think I'd rather run into snow than some of the things that Mack and Vonnie run into. RC: I don't want anybody to get snowed in the way I did, and I've written about that. What I really wanted to do was have my vicarious experience and write a little love letter to the mountains, which I'm not in enough. I just got on fire for that and wrote this outdoor book. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/an_interview_with_ron_carlson_about_the_signal/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/rVui0sTsths/ Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:51:41 MST Why should towns in the West change the way they grow? And why should planners design healthier, greener communities? Because if they don't, they'll suffer and fail. Dire as that answer sounds, it's sparked something worth celebrating: a planning revolution and a move to sustainability across the West, according to land-use and green planning expert Christopher Duerksen. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/adjusted_development_saving_the_world_with_sustainable_growth/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/Ye-ttAyxGB8/ Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:00:43 MST Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World by Tom Zoellner Viking, 337 pages, $26.95 In his new book Uranium, Tom Zoellner follows the trail of an element that was considered useless until less than a century ago, when scientists discovered how to unleash its power, and is now one of the most coveted and feared substances in the world. In the course of telling the story of uranium, Zoellner travels across the globe, visiting mining operations in the Congo, the Czech Republic, and the American West, and investigating how this rock has influenced people's behavior in Japan, Australia, the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere. The result is a detailed, alternately entertaining and frightening account of how uranium has affected the world to date, and how it is shaping the future. Zoellner writes that he became interested in researching uranium when he was camping at Temple Mountain mesa in Utah and discovered mine entrances there: "The valley floor had that ragged and hard-used look common to many other pieces of wilderness in the American West that had been rich in gold or silver in the nineteenth century. A braiding of trails was etched into the dirt, and the slabs of an abandoned stone cabin and shattered lengths of metal pipe were down there, too, now almost obscured in the dust. The place had been devoured quickly and then spat out, with a midden of antique garbage left behind." He discovered that during World War II, uranium for nuclear weapons had been mined there. Tom Zoellner will discuss his book in Tucson at Antigone Books on Friday, April 17 (7 p.m.) and he will give the keynote address at the U2009 Conference in Keystone, Colo. on May 10 (12 p.m.) http://www.newwest.net/city/article/the_mightiest_rock_tom_zoellners_uranium/C104/L104/