Part 1: Colorado, Idaho, Montana and New Mexico

Best Western Books of 2008

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.

NEW WEST BOOKs

Excerpt: Famous Firearms of the Old West, by Hal Herring

Simply put, Hal Herring's new book, Famous Firearms of the Old West (Hardcover, TwoDot, $24.95) is a collection of stories about 12 guns that shaped the history of a region.

But while the firearms, owned by the likes of Geronimo, Wild Bill Hickock and Western gunman Tom Horn, are the fulcrum of the book, the masterful storytelling -- of the hands that held them, the battles that revolved around them and the historical context in which they fired -- is what makes the book sing.

As Herring, a NewWest.Net contributor, writes himself in the preface, the guns "exist now as windows into the men and women who fought -- righteously or not -- and died, or were willing to die, with them. What they conjure up can be a powerful magic."

That "powerful magic," captured by one of the region's best storytellers, is what sets this book apart.

In the following excerpt, Chapter 9, Herring tells the story of Tom Horn, one of the West's most famous bounty hunters, and his Winchester Model 1894 rifle. -Courtney Lowery

WESTERN BOOK ROUNDUP

Eating - and Reading - Locally

Thanksgiving is a good time to eat, and it’s a good time to think about what and how we eat. Books on our food culture have almost become a genre in and of itself in recent years. Several excellent books have peeked into the back of the cupboard to see some of the dark corners we’d rather not see. Others have looked for another approach to food.

Here are a few, by Western authors, that are worth a Thanksgiving Day read by the woodstove before you drift off on a tryptophan cloud.

WESTERN BOOK ROUNDUP

National Outdoor Book Awards Announced

This years National Outdoor Book Awards honor crusaders to save the American chestnut tree, Grand Canyon explorers and the widow of mountaineer Alex Lowe, rebuilding her life after the death of her husband in a Himalayan mountaineering accident.

“What a year it was,” says Ron Watters, professor emeritus at Idaho State University. “The writing in the outdoor field has always been good, but it just keeps getting better – and this year it was outstanding.”

WESTERN BOOK ROUNDUP

Western Books, Authors Land on Amazon List

Amazon.com has come out with its Best Books of 2008 list, and, not surprisingly, it features several books from and about the West.

Coming in at No. 5 is Westminster, Colo., author David Wroblewski’s blockbuster The Story of Edward Sawtelle. It’s been a good year for Wroblewski. His tale, a twist on Hamlet set in rural Wisconsin, is the current pick of Oprah’s Book Club, a dream for just about any author, let alone a debut novelist. (Read his NewWest.Net interview here.)

Western Book Roundup

Westerners Among Whiting Winners

Last week the 2008 Whiting Writers Award for emerging writers was announced, and among the ten winners of $50,000 each were a couple of Western writers, Oregon native fiction writer Benjamin Percy (whom we featured here), and fiction writer Manuel Muñoz, who currently lives in Tucson and teaches at the University of Arizona. (There were also two California-based honorees, fiction writer Lysley Tenorio and poet Douglas Kearney.)

Oregon's Barry Lopez presented the awards, and Galleycat shared this video interview with him, shot at the event. Lopez said of the honorees, "The world's problems are not theirs to solve—they're the ones who will provide us the structure in which to think about how to address these things."

Also in the Roundup: The Center of the American West features immigration as the topic of this year's "Words to Stir the Soul," and the Wasatch Journal extends its story contest deadline.

New West Author Interview

An Interview with Erin Hogan

Erin Hogan's first book, The Spiral Jetta, is an entertaining account of the road trip she took through the American West in her Volkswagon Jetta, seeking the greatest hits of land art, including Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty and Michael Heizer’s Double Negative in Utah and Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field in New Mexico. Hogan, the director of public affairs at the Art Institute of Chicago, recently answered some questions via email about why these artists were drawn to the West to create their works, how her perceptions changed over the course of the journey, and the fate of her Jetta.

New West: What first gave you the idea to embark on a land art road trip through the West? Did you plan to write a book about it from the beginning?

Erin Hogan: I had actually wanted to take a trip like this for a while. I mentioned it to an editor friend of mine who said, “Absolutely! You should do this, and then you should write a book about it!” I wasn’t sure I could make a book out of it, but I did think I could write an article or two about the experience. So while I was on the trip I took a lot of notes and pictures and recorded people at these various sites. When I sat down later to start writing, well, I guess I had more to say than I thought I would, and it just grew into the book.

Western Book Roundup

Tony Hillerman Dies at 83 and Western Books for Politicians

New Mexico novelist Tony Hillerman died Saturday in Albuquerque of pulmonary failure at the age of 83. Hillerman wrote a well-loved series of mystery novels featuring Navajo characters, and the New York Times ran a lengthy profile of his career. Galleycat pointed to a touching essay about Hillerman by Deanne Stillman (whose recent book we excerpted here). Stillman wrote for LA Observed about how HIllerman was her teacher in journalism school in New Mexico, and how he helped her and others find the confidence to write.

The long presidential campaign will finally conclude next Tuesday—or whenever the ballots are tallied. Although many of us are thoroughly sick of anything pertaining to politics at this point, I thought I'd share the results of a book survey I participated in a few months ago. Jeff Lee of the Tattered Cover's Rocky Mountain Land Library asked a bunch of writers and bookish people in the region to put together a "reading list for the President-Elect: A Western States Primer for the Next Administration." High Country News published some of the responses last month, including those from Rick Bass, Barry Lopez, Laura Pritchett, Teresa Jordan, and Aaron Abeyta.

Also in the Roundup: My recommended Western books for the next President, Annie Proulx says she wants to leave Wyoming, while Edward P. Jones and Philip Gourevitch get ready to settle into Laramie.

Western Book Roundup

Montana Festival of the Book Begins and Sheeler Named NBA Finalist

The big news this week is the announcement that Colorado author and journalist Jim Sheeler's Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives is a finalist for the National Book Award in the nonfiction category. Sheeler previously won a Pulitzer Prize for the articles upon which the book is based.

The Montana Festival of the Book opens tomorrow in Missoula with a "Celebrity Define-A-Thon" to benefit the festival (Wilma Theatre, 7 p.m.). Missoula mayor Mayor John Engen and journalist Ian Marquand among others will participate in what organizers promise will be a "fun and cutthroat" event.

Friday and Saturday's schedules are jam packed with readings, panels, film screenings and poetry slams. Many of the writers we've featured on NewWest.Net/Books will participate.

Also in the Roundup: A preview of the Montana Festival of the Book and event hits and misses at the Boulder Book Store.