Winter 2020
Do No Harm
A medical thriller by James B. Cohoon ’76 Biol. » More ...
Fiction
Fall 2020
Briefly noted
Horseracing in America: A Novel
Sid Gustafson ’76, ’79 DVM
Sleipnir Publishing: 2020
Bozeman novelist and equine veterinarian Sid Gustafson writes what he knows: horses, Montana, and ethical issues in American horseracing. His fourth novel follows a female veterinarian from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation to Upstate New York for a temporary job at a racetrack. Her journey—both philosophical and personal—delves into animal welfare concerns and uncovers family secrets. Gustafson draws from his own experiences to craft his characters, inform his storylines, and shape his settings. While the genre is quite specific, his prose is approachable and often poetic.
Summer 2020
Briefly noted
Brief reviews of books by Washington State University alumni and WSU Press » More ...
Spring 2020
Mao’s Kisses: A novel of June 4, 1989
Alex Kuo
Redbat Books, 2019
Deng Xiaoping learned to play bridge in the early 1950s. Little did he realize that appropriating state transportation to take him and his team to tournaments would result in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and his being transported far from Beijing for reeducation through manual labor.
But Deng wasn’t just a Goren Prize-winning bridge player. He was, after his rehabilitation, China’s paramount leader during a time of civil crisis. The spring of 1989 brought … » More …
Spring 2020
Briefly noted
Brief reviews of books by Washington State University alumni » More ...
Winter 2018
Briefly noted
Freedom’s Racial Frontier: African Americans in the Twentieth-Century West
Edited by Herbert G. Ruffin II and Dwayne A. Mack ’02 PhD History
University of Oklahoma Press: 2018
Between 1940 and 2010, the black population of the American West grew from 710,400 to 7 million. With that explosive growth has come a burgeoning interest in the history of the African American West—an interest reflected in the range and depth of the works collected in Freedom’s Racial Frontier that link past, current, and future generations of African American West scholarship. The West is revealed as a place where black Americans have fought—and continue to fight—to make … » More …
Summer 2018
Briefly noted
A Day in the Life of a Country Vet
Fred Newschwander ’74 DVM
2018
Mostly true stories, anecdotes, and illustrations about the animals and people from the life and career of a retired mixed animal veterinarian.
Notes in the Category of C: Reflections on Laboratory Animal Care and Use
Steven Niemi ’82 DVM
Academic Press: 2017
Niemi’s professional analysis and experience informs ways to improve laboratory animal care and use. His book characterizes the current state of the industry and speculates on its long-term future. Niemi, director of the Office of Animal Resources at Harvard University, has spent a lot of time in … » More …
Fall 2017
Where the trouble began
“Fiction is a document of trouble,” says novelist James Thayer ’71. The trouble began for Thayer as a teenager reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula on his father’s wheat farm in Almira.
“The narrator sees the Count leap to a window frame—and then crawl down the exterior of the castle wall like a lizard!” Thayer exclaims. “That scene scared me to death! It was a revelation as to the power of fiction.”
Now, decades later, the Seattle-based author of 14 novels teaches fiction writing through the University of Washington’s continuing education program.
“The main thing that keeps people from writing a novel is that it … » More …
Fall 2017
The accidental novelist
What began as a way to avoid going stir crazy while recuperating from a nearly fatal equestrian accident has become an award-winning western genre trilogy that blends suspenseful mystery and the allure of lost fortunes with good old-fashioned frontier fortitude.
Landscape architect STEPHEN B. SMART ’75 calls himself an unlikely novelist. He’s spent most of his life outdoors, designing everything from elaborate gardens and water features to a driveway gate cleverly concealed to appear as a fallen ponderosa pine. And in his free time, he’s more likely to be found atop a favorite mule exploring the Pacific Northwest backcountry than sitting at a keyboard … » More …
Spring 2017
Swift Dam
Sid Gustafson ’77, ’79 DVM
Open Books: 2016
Swift Dam pulls you in, drags you practically, sweeping you over the western landscape until you are ankle deep in Sid Gustafson’s world. The writing flows through the reader’s mind like water and entrenches the reader in the story. With each passing chapter, it becomes harder to discern if you are reading a published novel or a form of the author’s diary.
The story follows … » More …