Archive for May, 2009

Happens Every Day

Posted in Books, Opinion with tags , on 10 May, 2009 by S&Co.

Happens Every Day, by Isabel GilliesI don’t usually go out of my way to promote memoirs, but this one is, I think, exceptional: Happens Every Day, by Isabel Gillies. It is a stunner. I defy you — whether you are male or female — to pick up this book and not finish it in one or two sittings. And then you will want to pass it on to six of your friends. If you are in a book group, you will want to pick it, because you will want to talk about it, and because everyone in the group will thank you for picking it. This book is, in an odd way, a work of literature. I was floored by it. Three weeks after finishing it, I am still shaking my head over how good it is. It is tough to imagine anyone doing this kind of book better than it has been done here by Isabel Gillies, who confesses early in the book that she is not a writer. (If she had extensive help from editors, it does not show.) Go on, read the reviews. There are many, many good ones. Don’t miss this book. Read it RIGHT NOW.

IN STOCK.

Lake Overturn

Posted in Books with tags , on 7 May, 2009 by S&Co.

Lake Overturn, by Vestal McIntyreJenny Shank at NewWest reviews Vestal McIntyre’s excellent Lake Overturn. Also, Missoula writer Catherine Jones interviews Vestal.

I’ve been a fan of Vestal’s stuff since reading You Are Not the One, his collection of stories, several years ago; I devoured Lake Overturn. It gives us as good a portrait as we’re likely to get of small town life in the American West. It is extraordinarily sensitive. Vestal’s descriptions of the characters and landscape are masterful. I highly recommend this book, and indeed anything by Vestal McIntyre.

IN STOCK.

New Arrivals

Posted in Books on 6 May, 2009 by Jenna

sunny3 fallada1 natures1

Layout 1 tolkein3 pygmy marquez4

Betsy Cohen Quoting Larry Swanson

Posted in Opinion on 3 May, 2009 by S&Co.

Betsy Cohen quotes Larry Swanson, a Missoula economist, on the health of the Missoula economy: “We are all entitled to our own opinion. We are not entitled to our own facts.”

See, what a load of horseshit. I cannot tell you how much, as a business owner, this kind of ignorant pronouncement angers me.

All right then — whose facts are we entitled to? LARRY SWANSON’S FACTS?

How goddamn condescending he is. He talks to us like we’re a bunch of children.

I guess people go to “seminars” and eat this shit up. Larry Swanson gets everyone in a lather about how we’re falling behind economically and the Missoulian prints seven articles about it, including two or three pre-event articles, an day-of-event-article, and then a post-event follow-up article. All about a guy who tells us we aren’t entitled to our own facts.

Wow. It really makes my head spin. Honestly.

[Swanson was one of the ones who wanted, and still wants, I must assume, a performing arts center. I said no to that. A money pit. And we have enough arts going on. My suggestion was to pitch for something like a National Museum of, let's say, North American Wildlife. Go get 60 million of federal money and build it here. Well, if we'd have gone that route, there's a good chance we'd have that money by now. Baucus and Tester would have gone and gotten it for us. The federal government is in a spending mood.]

In Honor of Brewfest

Posted in Books, Excerpts on 1 May, 2009 by Jenna

“What makes it bitter, Uncle Moe?”

“Well, it’s made from hops.”

Gracie made another face.  “You mean them jumpy bugs that…?”  beer

“No, pumpkin, beer isn’t extracted from grasshoppers.  Nor hop toads, either.  A hop is some funky vegetable that even vegans won’t eat.  Farmers dry the flowers of this plant and call them ‘hops.’  I should mention that only the female hop plants are used in making beer, which may be why men are so attracted to it.  It’s a mating instinct.”

“Moe!”

The uncle ignored Gracie’s father.  “In any event,” he went on, “when brewers combine hops with yeast and grain and water, and allow the mixture to ferment—to rot—it magically produces an elixir so gassy with blue-collar cheer, so regal with glints of gold, so titillating with potential mischief, so triumphantly refreshing, that it seizes the soul and thrusts it toward the ethereal plateau where, to paraphrase Baudelaire, all human whimsies float and merge.”

“Don’t be talking that crap to her.  She’s five years old.”

“Almost six,” chimed Gracie.

-B Is for Beer: A Children’s Book for Grown-ups, A Grown-up Book for Children, by Tom Robbins (Ecco, $17.95)

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