Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Review

We Gotta Get out of this place
Fall 2016

We Gotta Get Out of this Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War

We Gotta Get out of this place

Doug Bradley ’74 and Craig Werner

University of Massachusetts Press: 2015

Music is embodied, a word that means it grabs you by the guts until you do something: dance, weep, make love … something. Music is visceral in another way, too: We connect the dots of our personal histories based on the tunes we were listening to at the time.

For a veteran, that might be more than she … » More …

Pardon My French
Fall 2016

Pardon My French: How a Grumpy American Fell in Love with France

Pardon My French

Allen Johnson ’85 PhD

Yucca Publishing: 2015

Funny, sexy, smart. If I only had three words in which to tell you about the pleasures of Allen Johnson’s Pardon My French, those’d be the ones.

Johnson spent a year in France with his wife, Nita, and Pardon My French relates their adventures in short vignettes arranged thematically.

One of the themes is that the French are not like us: They have their own special … » More …

Dave Hagelganz
Fall 2016

Dave Hagelganz

Dave Hagelganz

Dave Hagelganz, Saxophone; Dru Heller, drums; Scott Steed, bass; Brian Ward, piano

WSU Recordings: 2014

Tenor saxophonist Dave Hagelganz leads a quartet of highly compatible musicians in this overdue self-titled debut album, joined by fellow professors Brian Ward (Washington State University) and Scott Steed (Eastern Washington University, Whitworth University), as well as young lion Dru Heller from Spokane. On the surface, this album appears as a humble offering to today’s jazz scene. What can … » More …

Book - Briefly Noted
Fall 2016

Briefly noted

 

Conversations: Jury Selection

David L. Crump ’81

A glimpse into the minds of prospective jurors through 50 conversations, this book written for trial lawyers teaches about juror biases and prejudices, and how to connect with potential jurors. Crump is a 1981 political science graduate and successful Pacific Northwest trial lawyer.

 

The Labyrinth House

Mark Rollins ’94

Luthando Coeur: 2014

Rollins’s fantasy novel follows architect Bradley Jensen through a door in a tree and into a mysterious mansion, which he and the other denizens can’t leave.

 

Angel’s Bounty

Directed by Lee Fleming ’07

2015

A dark, gritty comedy shot on the Palouse and … » More …

Summer 2015

The Awakening

The Awakening

Allen Johnson ’85 PhD
Skyhorse Publishing, 2014

The Awakening weaves effortlessly through time, from the battle-scarred streets of Spain in 1936 to nearly 60 years later as it tells the life story of Diego Garcia and his descendants.

In this unconventional romance novel, Diego Garcia dropped everything to be with the Moroccan beauty of his dreams, Lupe. The two newlyweds headed to Granada, Spain, to start a life of their own in the 1930s. The two loved each other immensely, and where there is love there is compassion. The story leaps forward almost 60 years … » More …

Summer 2015

Key to My Cage

Key to my cage

Michael Kirkpatrick ’01
2014

The human voice is our oldest acoustic instrument and it’s still one of the most captivating. Add a few well struck strings—just a few chords even—and you have a remarkable symphony of bass, harmony, lyrics, and emotion.

This is the beguiling formula of Michael Kirkpatrick ’01. He’s a troubadour, both self-described and according to the 2014 Telluride Troubadour Competition, which he won. Performing some 150 dates a year from his Fort Collins, Colorado, base, he writes his own tunes and for the most part plays all the … » More …

Summer 2015

Coal Wars: Unions, Strikes, and Violence in Depression-Era Central Washington

Coal Wars
David Bullock ’85 MA
WSU Press, 2014

There was a time, it’s been recalled, when each home in Roslyn had three pictures on its wall: of Jesus, FDR, and John L. Lewis, the powerful head of the United Mine Workers of America, or UMW. But labor conflicts in the coal-mining town during the 1930s would severely strain and replace the loyalties reflected by the latter two. In Coal Wars, David Bullock recounts the bitter struggle in 1933-34 between the UMW and the more radical Western Miners Union in the mining communities of Roslyn, Cle … » More …

Summer 2015

In the Path of Destruction: Eyewitness Chronicles of Mount St. Helens

In the Path of Destruction: Eyewitness Chronicles of Mount St. Helens

Richard Waitt
WSU Press, 2014

Like the eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, the personal stories of campers, loggers, airline pilots, Forest Service workers, and geologists came pouring out before, during, and after the cataclysm. One of those geologists, Richard Waitt, gathered anecdotes and recollections of the volcanic eruption over the course of three decades, now compiled in this tome.

Waitt blends his own scientific expertise as a researcher who had been on the mountain since its early rumblings with hundreds of eyewitness … » More …

New and Noteworthy
Spring 2015

New and noteworthy

 

Digitized Lives: Culture, Power, and Social Change in the Internet Era

T.V. Reed

Routledge, 2014

T.V. Reed, a WSU English and American studies professor, examines the impact of digital communication and the Internet on how we live.

 

Whole in the Clouds

Kristine Kibbee ’00

The Zharmae Publishing Press, 2014

Cora Catlin, the unhappy orphan protagonist in Kibbee’s debut novel, and her dog Motley discover the meaning of friendship and a magical world in the clouds.

 

Two Bits and Odd Days

Thomas A. Springer ’86

2014

Springer, a Tacoma high school teacher and creative writer, offers a selection of his poems from the … » More …

Slow Regard cover
Spring 2015

The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Slow Regard

 

Patrick Rothfuss ’02 MA

DAW Books, 2014

 

A darling of the sci-fi/fantasy set, Pat Rothfuss has diverted from the long-awaited third part of his bestselling Kingkiller trilogy and, instead, taken the time to explore the story of lovely, lonely Auri, one of the secondary Kingkiller characters.

Warning his readers that this book may not be for them, not even for the most serious fans of his first two meaty novels The Name of the Wind and Wise Man’s Fear, Rothfuss nonetheless draws them in to this bittersweet tale of the fair-haired mysterious woman who … » More …