War Dances
Sherman Alexie ’94
Grove Press, 2009
On the heels of his National Book Award winning young adult novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Alexie offers a collection of short stories and poems. The title piece “War Dances” ran in the New Yorker in August 2009. The first person account deals with the narrator’s sudden loss of hearing and sense of mortality that takes place when his wife is away. The piece ties in with the illness (from alcoholism and diabetes) and death of the narrator’s father. A brief summary here won’t capture the layers and nuance of the title piece and others in the book. Alexie, again, has produced something different and provocative.
Environmentalism in Popular Culture
Noël Sturgeon, WSU Faculty
University of Arizona Press, 2009
The author looks at how American popular culture shapes ideas about the environment and what is “natural” and how that reinforces social inequities based on race, gender, and sexuality.
My 70s Book
Darryll Sherman ’88
Dog Ear Publishing, 2008
A reminiscence of a suburban childhood in a time of banana bicycle seats, Etch a Sketch, and disco.
Making the Grade/Plucky Schoolmarms of Kittitas Country
Barb Owen
WSU Press, 2009
A collection of first-hand accounts of women who taught in Kittitas County’s rural schools between 1914 and 1942.