News & Author Interviews
Western Book Roundup
Denver Book Burglar Sentenced
Last year I mentioned the arrest of the Denver booknapper, Thomas Pilaar, who checked out about 1,400 books and DVDs from Denver-area libraries and attempted to sell them online. Pilaar pleaded guilty to theft and last week was sentenced to "10 years in prison and ordered to pay $53,549 of restitution," according to Tille Fong of the Rocky Mountain News. During the year between his arrest and his sentencing, it seems that the formerly moustached Pilaar took the time to further cultivate his facial hair.
I can't think of a way to segue gracefully into the non-felon portion of today's Roundup, so I guess I'll just proceed: Steven Wingate emailed to point out a new book deal for a fellow Colorado writer, Irene Vilar. Matthew Thornton of Publishers Weekly reported that Vilar recently sold her memoir Impossible Motherhood to Other Press.
Also in the Roundup: David Wroblewski's continued success and Albuquerque's Cary Herz is honored.
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Western Book Roundup
Nonprofit Bookstore Opens in Bend and New Missoula Lit Mag Launches
Idealistic optimism in the book world is not dead: David Jasper of the Bend Bulletin reported that Kilns Bookstore, a nonprofit enterprise, opened in Bend over the holiday weekend. (Via Shelf Awareness.) Jasper writes, "The opening comes just more than a month after The Book Barn, a 35-year-old shop in nearby downtown, closed due to declining sales and stiff competition from online retailers such as Amazon."
Rick Bass recently reviewed Stephen Trimble's new book, Bargaining for Eden: The Fight for the Last Open Spaces in America for the Boston Globe.
Denise Hill at the NewPages blog noted the arrival of the premier issue of a new literary magazine called The Oval, published by University of Montana undergraduates.
Also in the Roundup: the Virginia Quarterly Review publishes a new story by a Casper author, the Colorado Book Award finalists are announced, and Denver's David Sirota tours.
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New West Book Review
Lonely Hearts: Steven Wingate’s “Wifeshopping”
Wifeshopping
By Steven Wingate
Houghton Mifflin, 208 pages, $12.95
The men in Steven Wingate's engrossing, entertaining debut story collection Wifeshopping are looking not just for love, but for marriage. They're not adverse to commitment, but they are particular, seeking the ideal woman for whom to forsake their days of youthful flings. This ultimate woman never quite materializes for Wingate's protagonists, who reject their girlfriends and fiancées because they don't like used clothes or don't agree that they should get rid of a stranger's mementos found buried in the backyard. But more often, their women reject them for being too pompous, for proposing marriage too early or for trying to rush them out of their rituals of mourning for past loves. Wingate, who lives in Lafayette, Colo. and teaches at the University of Colorado, sets his stories across the country, from Denver to Thermopolis, Wyo., to Rockport, Mass., to Miami (and vividly evokes each of these varied settings), but the problems that plague his characters are the same everywhere—they're not-quite-perfect guys trying to create something lasting and meaningful with not-quite-perfect women.
Steven Wingate will discuss his book at the Tattered Cover (LoDo) on July 30 at 7:30 p.m., and at Poor Richard's Bookstore in Colorado Springs on August 7 at 5 p.m.
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New West Book Review & Interview
Carl Haywood’s Innovative Take on Explorer David Thompson
Canadian David Thompson is considered by some to be one of the shrewdest explorer-mapmakers to ever chart or trek a course. Following quickly on the heels of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, Thompson is widely credited as being the first person to set up a commercial trading post in Montana, a northwestern business venture called Saleesh House. Several opinions have always existed relating to the post’s precise location.
Shunning foregone historical conclusions, Carl Haywood, author of Sometimes Only Horses to Eat ($24.95, Stoneydale Press), has not only raised serious questions about Thompson’s travels in northwestern Montana, but he has offered new interpretations of his own that certainly command confutation.
Carl Haywood will discuss his book at David Thompson Days in Thompson Falls, Mont. on July 4-5, at the Libby Public Library in Libby, Mont. on July 14 (7 p.m.), at The Corner Bookstore in Sandpoint, Idaho on July 19 (1 p.m.), and information on his other regional appearances is available on his website.
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Western Book Roundup
Krakauer Delays Book, CutBank Takes on the World, and Bigfoot Field Guide is Announced
Best-selling Boulder author Jon Krakauer has withdrawn the manuscript for Hero, his book about Pat Tillman, according to Publishers Weekly (Via Slushpile.Net). Rachel Deahl writes that Doubleday had scheduled the book for an October release with a first printing of half a million copies.
Denise Hill at the always informative NewPages blog pointed out Ahmede Hussain's interview with Brian Kevin, Managing Editor of the University of Montana's CutBank. The interview ran in The Daily Star, which Hill says is "Bangladesh's largest circulating English-language newspaper." And according to Hussain, CutBank is "America's foremost literary magazine."
Also in the Roundup: Bigfoot spotted at the bookstore.
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New edition of Idaho travel guide
Idaho Off the Beaten Path
Idaho Off the Beaten Path by Boise author Julie Fanselow is part of a national guidebook series published by The Globe Pequot Press. Fanselow has written and updated the Idaho book since the first edition appeared in 1995.
The new edition’s Southwestern Idaho chapter features such additions as Boise’s Linen District, Nampa’s Belle District, Eagle Island State Park and a growing collection of murals in Mountain Home.
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Western Book Roundup
Wroblewski Rolls with “Edgar Sawtelle”
It seems that just about everyone who got his or her hands on an advance copy of Colorado writer David Wroblewski's debut novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, predicted its success (myself included—let me pause here to pat myself on the back, because that's what everyone else is doing). According to the Wall Street Journal (via Publishers Lunch), the book "has gone into its seventh printing—a total of 90,000 copies—a week after its publication." Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg of WSJ credits this development to Amazon.com, who "chose the book as one of the best books of June and aggressively hyped it."
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is definitely the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed book by a Colorado writer since Kent Haruf's Plainsong became a finalist for the National Book Award and hit the national bestseller list after its 1999 release. And Wroblewski's book has only been out for two weeks, so who knows what else is in store for it?
Also in the Roundup: A former Boulder Book Store employee returns to read from her new novel.
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New West Book Review
“Bronze Inside and Out” by Mary Strachan Scriver
Bronze Inside and Out: A Biographical Memoir of Bob Scriver
By Mary Strachan Scriver
368 pages, University of Calgary Press, $44.95
When Mary Strachan moved to Browning, Montana in August, 1961 to teach school, she didn’t imagine that one day she’d sleep with a cat, dog, gopher, badger, a few bobcats, a couple of foxes and an eccentric artist twice her age. But that’s exactly what happened when she met and married Bob Scriver who was residing and working as a bronze sculptor on the Montana Blackfeet Reservation.
“It was a mammal pile,” Mary Strachan Scriver said, happily describing the creature-lined bed where she and Bob Scriver cuddled up and slept the night away. “If Bob could have figured out how to get the eagle in the bed with us, I’m sure he would have done it.”
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Western Book Roundup
Policing Nonfiction, and Boulder Writer’s “Just Do It” takes Manhattan
Bryan Burrough recently reviewed Alexandra Fuller's The Legend of Colton H. Bryant for the New York Times Book Review. Burrough admired Fuller's poetic writing, but wasn't convinced that the book should be classified as nonfiction because so much of it consists of dialogue that she wasn't present for, and she admits in an author's note that she "juggled time" and took other "narrative liberties." Burrough writes:
"That’s not artistic license. It’s cheating. Not cheating in the sense that plagiarism is cheating. I don’t believe Fuller has committed a major literary felony here, but it’s clearly a misdemeanor, even if she comes out and admits it."
Also in the Roundup: A Denver Post reporter has sex with his wife 101 days in a row and recovers in time to write the tale.
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Western Book Roundup
Two Mystery Bookstores and Proulx’s “Tits-Up” In The New Yorker
Alicia Wallace of the Daily Camera reported this week that a mix-your-own wine store, The Blending Cellar, will move into the space on Boulder's Pearl Street recently vacated by High Crimes Mystery Bookstore, which converted to an online-only operation in February. But another regional mystery bookshop is thriving: Jeff Baker of The Oregonian reported that Portland's Murder By The Book Mystery Bookstore is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary (via Shelf Awarness).
The AP reported that the New York City Opera will adapt Annie Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain" into an opera that will debut in 2013. In other Proulx news, the June 9 New Yorker summer fiction issue features a new story called "Tits-Up in A Ditch," which, judging from the title alone, sounds as though it'd make a fine opera, too.
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