A helicopter works the Kendrick fire, burning in Latah County, Idaho. Photo by Kai Eiselein, photographer and editor for the Latah Eagle.

See more photos on the New West Images photoblog.

Part 1: Colorado, Idaho, Montana and New Mexico

It's time for my second annual Best Western Book list, and as I did last year, I'm going to focus on books set in this region (with a few exceptions for excellent books written by writers from this region but set elsewhere), naming my favorites from each state. I managed to read 53 books this year, and these are the books from our region that most impressed me. Please add your favorites in the comments section. Today I’ll discuss Colorado, Idaho, and Montana, and New Mexico and tomorrow it’s on to Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, and other Western states.

Colorado

The biggest book story this year in Colorado, and heck, just about the whole country, is the phenomenal run of David Wroblewski's The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (Ecco, 562 pages, $25.95). Wroblewski, who lives in Westminster, Colo. discussed how he made the transition from software engineer to novelist in my interview with him this summer. Buoyed by extremely positive word of mouth among independent booksellers, book buyers, and other book industry people, as well as glowing blurbs from Richard Russo and Stephen King, Sawtelle hit the New York Times bestseller list on June 29 and has remained there since, getting an additional boost from Oprah, who selected it for her Book Club in September.

News Brief

The bi-partisan Western Governors' Association has given President-elect Barack Obama a four-page letter detailing its recommendations for the new administration's energy policy, including an "aggressive and achievable national greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal."

The letter, signed by Utah Gov. John Huntsman Jr. and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer also urges Obama to "promptly" (within the first 100 days of office) to, among other things: Propose a national mandatory system of emissions reductions through "market-based mechanisms;" Pursue a national energy efficiency program; Establish an oil import reduction goal; and spend tens of billions of dollars each year to encourage private investment in clean energy.

GUEST COMMENTARY

The first time I walked through this piece of the Lolo National Forest, smoke was still rising from the deep duff layer of the old-growth spruce-fir forest. It was a crisp, blue-bird October day five years ago and I was leading a team of University of Montana students on a monitoring trip to get a first-hand lesson in fire ecology.

It was the height of President Bush’s effort to pass his Orwellian Healthy Forest Initiative and roll-back many of our nation’s landmark environmental laws, all of which seems like a long-forgotten bad dream given our recent election.

The Thanksgiving Table

The chaotic and violent East African country of Somalia has no official government, but it has some big-time pirates. Their latest acquisition on the high seas, just last week, was a Saudi oil tanker the size of three aircraft carriers.

Not even Johnny Depp could have pulled that off, but audacity isn’t a problem for this kind of piracy, which has become a career for some Somalis. Faced with little choice in a country ravaged by warlords and combat for more than 20 years, pirates were once people who stole because of hunger, and then hunger turned to greed.

Poverty which leads to crime and violence – an ancient story unfortunately still with us.

It’s impossible for ordinary Somalis to try to organize against the warlords. “How can we do there?” asked Mali, a Somali mother newly arrived in Boise with her two daughters. “Just to step the line outside the village we are killed,” she said.

The Somali refugees in Boise know about pirates

NEWWEST.NET Exclusive

UPDATE: At the end of the article, I've posted a release I received on 11-26-08 from UFA.--Bill Schneider

Rumors of financial troubles at large outdoor retailers, including Sportsman's Warehouse, have been swirling around for months. Now, it looks like "America's Premier Outfitter" has become "North America's Premier Outfitter." The largest outdoor retailer in the New West is being purchased by Calgary-based UFA Co-operative Lld.

And it looks like UFA has the cash to do it. On its website, UFA describes itself as "a progressive, multi-billion dollar organization committed to serving rural communities."

Guest Opinion by Keith Roark, Idaho Democrats Chair

Idaho Republican Party Chairman Norm Semanko’s comments about the 2008 Idaho general election appeared recently in this space. Mr. Semanko took pains to assure everyone that his party is alive and well. The nation is bogged down in two costly wars, our economy is in the worst shape since the Great Depression and our standing with other nations reached its lowest point during the Bush years. But here in Idaho, Mr. Semanko tells us, the GOP - the party that got us where we are today - is alive and well. That’s not necessarily good news, Norm, but the future is not as dismal as your words suggest.

Democrats are still in the minority in Idaho, but the demographic trends are very much in our favor. For a sign of things to come, look no further than Caldwell High School. Not only did Barack Obama win the mock election there by more than a two-to-one margin; down ballot Democrats Walt Minnick, Larry LaRocco and state legislative candidate Mike Warwick won, too. Idaho’s young people are looking to Democrats to address the issues of the future and turning away from the shrill and negative views of an increasingly extremist Republican Party.

WE NEED THIS GUST OF FRESH AIR

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post and several bloggers are naming Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) as a "leading contender" for Obama's pick for Secretary of the Interior. This cabinet position usually goes to a westerner, and Grijalva would be an excellent choice.

He current chairs the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands and has been an outspoken advocate for protecting national parks, wilderness and wildlife habitat in the West, recently opposing the Bush Administration's plans for oil and gas leasing and coal mining in critical areas and resisting deep cuts in national park budgets.

VISITATION DECLINES SPREAD FROM NATIONAL PARKS TO FORESTS

As noted several times in this column, visitation to our national parks has been declining for years, partly because of steep increases in entrance fees and annual passes. While reading these stories, we suffered under the misperception that the problem was confined to the national parks while visitor use of our national forests continued to increase.

Now we know the truth. The wild proliferation of new and increased recreation fees has contributed to a similar if not steeper decline in the public use of public forests. With this aggressive, if not abusive, fee-charging policy, Forest Service bosses have done a stellar job of discouraging people from using their own land, the national forests.

New West Blog

Writer Lisa Selin Davis asks on Grist this week: “… if McDonald’s is seeing record profits due to inexpensive food, will green housing be the equivalent of a biodynamic, $8 a pound plum?”

Industry leaders say not so much:

“Certainly green building is not a fad, rather, it’s a trend,” James Brew, an architect with the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Built Environment Team, wrote to me. “And while this current economic situation has stalled some projects and limited the availability of capital, the trend is still there.”

Read Davis’ story here.