Pacific Northwest Good Reads: Home

A story of growing up in turmoil, Rough House recounts a childhood divided between a charming, mercurial, abusive father in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and a mother struggling with poverty in The Dalles. It is also a story of generational trauma, especially for the women - a story of violent men and societal restrictions, of children not always chosen, and frequently raised alone. Tracing her childhood through the working class towns and forests of Washington and Oregon, Ontiveros explores themes of love and loss, parents and children, and her own journey to a different kind of adulthood

This collection of autobiographical essays centers the experiences of the Pinoy generation that grew up in Seattle's multiethnic neighborhoods from the 1950s to 1970s; from intimate moments of everyday life to vivid stories of defiance and activism. Sharing a life inextricably connected to his community and the generation that came before him, this memoir is a tribute to Filipino Seattle.

This book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. It traces the story of the team that defeated elite rivals at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics, sharing the experiences of their enigmatic coach, a visionary boat builder, and a homeless teen rower.

Edward Curtis was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his great idea: He would try to capture on film the Native American nation before it disappeared. At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, Egan's book tells the remarkable untold story behind Curtis's iconic photographs, following him throughout Indian country from desert to rainforest as he struggled to document the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes.

A tribute to the Pacific Northwest's grunge genre draws on the observations of individuals at the forefront of the movement from Soundgarden and the Melvins to Nirvana and Pearl Jam, citing such influences as the rise of Seattle's Sub Pop record label and the death of Kurt Cobain.

Tells the story of Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard, who ran a sanatorium in Seattle where a British heiress died of starvation in 1911.

Retraces the 1853 journey of Theodore Winthrop through Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, offering a narrative of a land caught between conservations and development and its people.

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she is a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she is a disgrace; to design mavens, she is a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears...
A comedy mocking the Seattle way of life, this book is being adapted into a movie, slated for release October 2018.

Kabuo Miyomoto is a Japanese-American fisherman accused of murdering Carl Heine. The prosecution charges the murder was committed as revenge for the Heine family taking Miyomoto's land at the outbreak of World War II and the novel traces the different reaction of the two communities.

Based on an actual incident in 1853, four indentured servants escape their Russian Alaska work camp in a stolen canoe, only to face a harrowing journey down the Pacific Northwest coast. Battling unrelenting high seas and fierce weather from New Archangel, Alaska, to Astoria, Oregon, the men struggle to avoid hostile Tlingit Indians, to fend off starvation and exhaustion, and to endure their own doubt and distrust.

At the turn of the 20th century in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest, a gentle solitary orchardist, Talmadge, tends to apples and apricots. Then two feral, pregnant girls and armed gunmen set Talmadge on an irrevocable course not only to save and protect but to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past.

Set in the ethnic neighborhoods of Seattle during World War II and Japanese American internment camps of the era, this debut novel tells the heartwarming story of widower Henry Lee, his father, and his first love Keiko Okabe.

Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience and above all the ability to heal that chronicles Sasha's struggles navigating a collapsing marriage while answering the call to greater purpose. Set against a backdrop of tour vans and the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land and imbued with the universal spirit of punk--an ethos that challenges us to reclaim what's rightfully ours: our histories, our power, our traditions, and our truths--Red Paint is ultimately a story of the ways we learn to heal while fighting for our right to a place to call home.

A literary memoir of poems, essays, and intimate family photos that reflect on the author's complicated relationship with his mother and his disadvantaged childhood on the Spokane Indian Reservation.

In the Two Medicine Territory of Montana, the Lone Eaters, a small band of Blackfeet Indians, are living their immemorial life. The men hunt and mount the occasional horse-taking raid or war party against the enemy Crow. But the year is 1870, and the whites are moving into their land. Fools Crow, a young warrior and medicine man, has seen the future and knows that the newcomers will punish resistance with swift retribution. First published to broad acclaim in 1986, Fools Crow is James Welch's stunningly evocative portrait of his people's bygone way of life.

Cecelia Eagle Capture, a promising 30-year-old law student at UC Berkeley, is being held in jail for drunk driving and welfare fraud. As she awaits her fate, Capture reflects on the tumultuous events in her life.