Libraries Unbound: 2007 Authors (Literary Voices)

This collection of Greg Bear's major short fiction ably demonstrates why Bear is one of science fiction's most popular authors. The multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner offers here a feast of his most famous stories and novellas, accompanied by thoughtful introductions and afterwords that provide insight into the writer and his process.This collection contains Bear's earliest published fiction from the late 1960s and early 1970s as well his remarkable award-winning work from the 1980s and 1990s-stories like the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novella-length version of "Blood Music" and the Hugo and Nebula Award-winner "Tangents." Also included are The Wind from a Burning Woman," in which despair and anger inspire a young woman's terrible act of vengeance; "The White Horse Child," a loving look at the nascence of the creative impulse; "Dead Run," in which the road to hell is paved with concrete, and not all intentions are good; and over twenty others.

Michael Biggins is North America’s most widely published translator of contemporary Slovenian literature into English. His translations of novels by Vladimir Bartol (Scala House Press, 2004) and Drago Jancar (Northwestern University Press, 1998 and 2001), collections of poetry by Tomaz Šalamun (White Pine Press, 1997; Twisted Spoon Press, 2001; and Saturnalia Press, 2004), and a Holocaust memoir by Slovene Italian author Boris Pahor (Harcourt, 1995; Scala House Press, forthcoming in 2007) have met with critical praise, including a rare starred review in Publishers’ Weekly. Since 1994 he has been Slavic and East European studies librarian at the University of Washington Libraries, while also teaching part-time in the UW Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

In the Seattle of 1948 legislative hearings were called to investigate Communism in Washington State. The inquisition became an early, effective example of American politics at midcentury when Cold War anxiety escalated into hysteria, feeding what was to become known on a national level as the McCarthy era. The Canwell Committee, as it was popularly called, made a frontal assault on unsanctioned political thought and activism. Suspected Communists teaching at the University of Washington were fired, careers and reputations were smashed, a highly acclaimed theatre company was forced out of existence, livelihoods were lost and lives shattered. All Powers Necessary and Convenient, first performed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the hearings, brings tolife personal and political dramas of several participants central to these events. The play blends dialogue drawn verbatim from transcripts, newspaper quotes, and personal interviews with scenes of fictional conjecture to examine the limits of political discourse and actions in a democracy.

Launching a child from home is second only to child-birth in its impact on a family. Parents can end up reeling with the empty-nest blues, while teens find their powers of self-reliance stretched to the breaking point. During the time of upheaval that begins senior year of high school with the nerve-wracking college application process and continues into the first year of life away from home, The Launching Years is a trusted resource for keeping every member of the family sane. From weathering the emotional onslaught of impending separation to effectively parenting from afar, from avoiding the slump of “senioritis” to handling the newfound independence and the experimentation with alcohol and sexuality that college often involves, The Launching Years provides both parents and teens with well-written, down-to-earth advice for staying on an even keel throughout this exciting, discomforting, and challenging time.

Essays on the formation of Israeli state and society during the twentieth century.

Dirt, soil, call it what you want--it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are--and have long been--using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil--as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.

Seattle's growth has been remarkable; from a population of only 3,500 in 1880 the city grew to over 500,000 in 1990, and the Puget Sound region exploded to a population of nearly three million. This book focuses on those whose design shaped the physical form of the city and region. Forty-five generously illustrated profiles of architects and firms provide an overview of Seattle's architectural history as well as a hand reference guide to the life and work of these designers. Jeffrey Ochsner's introductory chapter summarizes the main currents of Seattle's architectural history, relating it both to the city's history and to national and international trends in architecture. Three special essays, focusing on the region's Native American architecture; on the impact of pattern books, plan books, and periodicals; and on "vernacular" and "popular" architecture--ordinary structures often built without the participation of professional designers--are valuable additions to the book. Only architects no longer actively practicing are included in the individual profiles, but an appendix providing over eighty thumbnail sketches of additional significant Seattle architects and the works for which they are most noted does include recent AIA-Seattle Medal winners. Non-Seattle architects who designed major Seattle structures are listed separately. Another appendix lists the extant buildings mentioned in the text, along with their current names and addresses, including buildings across the Northwest and elsewhere. Sections on sources of information and on researching Seattle architecture provide suggestions for finding out more about a particular architect, building, or project. Among those architects and firms featured are Mother Joseph (Esther Pariseau), Elmer Fisher, John Parkinson, Kirtland Cutter, Ellsworth Storey, Arthur Loveless, Robert C. Reamer, Lionel Pries, Elizabeth Ayer, Fred Anhalt, Paul Thiry, Paul Kirk, Roland Terry, and Victor Steinbrueck. Certificate of Recognition awarded by AKCHO, Association of King County Historical Organizations, May 1995 Award of Merit presented by Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, October 1995

"The response to Nancy Pearl's surprise bestseller Book Lust was astounding- the Seattle librarian even became the model for the now-famous Librarian Action Figure. Readers everywhere welcomed Pearl's encyclopedic but discerning filter on books worth reading, and her Rule of 50 (give a book 50 pages before deciding whether to continue; but readers over 50 must read the same number of pages as their age) became a standard MO."

Fiction. VOICES FROM THE BLUE HOTEL is a collection of ten stories told by narrators troubled by difficult emotions. The characters explore these sensations in a way that is intense and achingly human. "VOICES FROM THE BLUE HOTEL is a concept album, a whole much greater than the sum of its (superb) parts, a bildungsroman-in-stories. Wanting what we don't want becomes wanting what we do want. Depressed blue becomes sky blue, sexy blue. An impressively hard-won joy winds up animating this precise, beautiful, serious, and substantial book." - David Shields.

The first commercially available collection of poetry from American-born poet, painter, and polymath, A. Sea Herndon.

This is an unusual book, combining as it does papers on astrobiology, history of astronomy and sundials, but--after all--Woody Sullivan is an unusual man. In late 2003 I spent two fruitful and enjoyable months in the Astronomy Department at the University of Washington (UW) working on archival material accumulated over the decades by Woody, for a book we will co-author with Jessica Chapman on the early development of Australian astronomy. The only serious intellectual distraction I faced during this period was planning for an IAU colloquium on transits of Venus scheduled for June 2004 in England, where I was down to present the 'Cook' paper. I knew Woody was also interested in transits (and, indeed, anything remotely connected with shadows--see his paper on page 3), and in discussing the Preston meeting with him it transpired that his 60th birthday was timed to occur just one week later. This was where the seed of 'Woodfest' began to germinate. Why not invite friends and colleagues to join Woody in Seattle and celebrate this proud event? I put the idea to Woody and others at UW, they liked it, and 'Woodfest' was born.

As a child, Solveig Torvik heard stories of a lost, mysterious great-grandfather who left Finland for America to make his fortune - leaving Torvik's great-grandmother and his unborn daughter behind. As a reporter, Torvik determined to discover the fate of the man who followed his dreams to Oregon. She uncovered not only the story of one man, but also the saga of an entire family. In Nikolai's Fortune, a tale of Scandinavian women, the journalist turns fact into fiction and shares the tales of her ancestors as she imagines they would have told them. Nikolai's Fortune is a heartbreaking, multigenerational epic, chronicling family secrets and sufferings against the backdrop of Scandinavian history and culture. Blending memoir and historical fiction, grandmother, mother, and daughter each share their own story: Kaisa, of her mother's love for Nikolai and her own 500-mile trek at the age of twelve from impoverished Finland across the snowy mountains of Lapland; Berit, of child slavery and an obsession with seeking out her grandfather's fortune for her mother; and Hannah, the voice of Torvik, of her childhood during the Nazi occupation of Norway and her family's emigration to Idaho. Through detailed historical research into census, church, and weather records, as well as academic and museum sources, Torvik recaptures a dramatic story nearly lost to memory and inherits something worth more than a fortune in riches - a sense of her family history, ethnic background, and the generations of remarkable women who came before her. Norwegian-born Solveig Torvik was a reporter, editor, and columnist at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for thirty years. She was also a reporter for United Press International in Salt Lake City and for the San Francisco Chronicle, and an editor at the San Jose Mercury News.

By continually discovering what's new in each day without forgetting yesterday's surprises, David Wagoner has succeeded in constantly expanding his range in a career that spans more than fifty years. In Good Morning and Good Night, this range includes his usual rich forays into nature and personalities, and poetry for all ages, young and old, amidst a vivid array of memories and explorations. Readers will find homages to the poets that have inspired him, as well as the bountiful lyricism that has made Wagoner's poetry one of our most enduring sources of delight and joy.   Good Morning and Good Night features poems previously published in American Poetry Review, The American Scholar,  Atlantic Monthly,  Hudson Review, The Kenyon Review, New Letters, The New Republic, Poetry, Shenandoah, Southern Review, The Yale Review, and other leading literary journals.