Alongside writing poems and short stories, I am a clinical psychologist focusing on the psychology of men. People echo the vastness of the stellar expanse in which only 1% is matter like the planets and stars, our bodies, days in which we love and hate, moments we embody healthy intimacy or enact violence, the light that gives the face radiance. 19% of the universe is dark energy, and 80% dark matter-- less than 1% is light, and yet light is the foundation of life. "God is light," the ancient text intones, and though the words resound, what that light means in the despair of this world is a beloved mystery.
The title story of this collection is a miracle of human relations, ecstatic prose cut to perfection, and the multivalent understandings that arise when we give ourselves freely, openly, and yes brokenly to the will to love. There is nothing so sweet as the kind of development and shaping of humanity found in Davis’ short stories. An author whose work has appeared inBest American Short Storiesand won a Pushcart Prize, Davis is an author who has not received the kind of national following she deserves.
Claire Davis's novels have won acclaim from reviewers, readers, and booksellers alike. In "Labors of the Heart", she offers a stunning first collection of stories, some of which have been honoured by the Pushcart and Best American Short Stories anthologies. Adultery presents the quandary of a middle-aged man whose mother is cheating on her husband by keeping company with her ex-husband. In Grounded, a mother follows her teenage son as he attempts to run away along Montana's highways. And in Labors of the Heart, a lonely man - enormous and virginal - is literally struck by love for a woman…
A Chicago street in bright sunshine. A young woman, struggling on crutches. He offers her a steadying arm.
And turns to see a handgun aimed at his stomach.
Chained in a dark van racing across America, Reacher doesn't know why they've been kidnapped. The woman claims to be FBI. She's certainly tough enough. But at their remote destination, will raw courage be enough to overcome the hopeless odds?
I’ve always had a passion for history and the American West in particular. From a young age, my reading reflected my passion, with a few mysteries in the mix. I didn’t read many romance novels until one day I was flying to another city and I forgot to pack a book. My assistant drove me to the airport and she pulled a historical romance novel from her handbag. It was her favorite and she was an expert on romance novels. Before my plane landed, I was hooked—and I’m still hooked. That started my career as a historical romance novelist.
Of course, I must include a novel set in the American West. How could I not? And oh, so many to choose from—a difficult task. This is another recommendation based on strong, intriguing characters. The heroine is determined to save her family from financial ruin and she faces the hardships of the West. Lindsey has written two very passionate, headstrong individuals, and you will have some laughs and some tears reading this one.
An enticing new historical romance from No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Johanna Lindsey. Marry Me By Sundown takes you on a captivating adventure in 1880s Montana where passions and gold fever run high as an American heiress turns to a rugged mountain man to help her locate her father's fortune. Perfect for fans of Julia Quinn's Bridgerton.
Summoned back to Philadelphia from the social whirl in London, Violet Mitchell never expected to find her brothers living on the edge of financial ruin while their father seeks new wealth in Montana's gold fields. With the family's home and social…
Writing a mystery novel is no small task. You have to craft a clever plot, stay true to your characters, and bewilder, but ultimately satisfy, your readers, all the while not mixing up your theirs and your there’s. Maybe that’s why we writers like to saddle our heroes with even heavier burdens, forcing them to sort through complex webs of deceit, and fight against deeply rooted cultures full of corruption. When they win, we share their victories… even more so because it means we’ve finished writing the darn book! Enjoy this list of detectives facing long odds, and let it inspire you in whatever creative endeavors are closest to your heart.
Detective CW Sughrue was working the topless bar scene well before Jack Reacher wandered across the literary landscape. But unlike Reacher, Sughrue carries the sins of mankind on his own shoulders, just as likely to solve a crime as to curl up in a cheap motel with a bottle of whisky.
He begins the book looking for a trouble author (is there any other kind?), but once he finds him, things get really messy…
The first time I saw a Coen Brothers’ movie I felt like I was already familiar with their style. It’s probably because I had already read Crumley’s novels with their existential sadness and brutal violence just-barely-buoyed by clever plotting and pitch-black humor.
'As sweetly profane a poet as American noir could have asked for' Ian Rankin
'A friggin' masterpiece' Dennis Lehane
'The stunner that reinvigorated the genre and jacked up a generation of future crime novelists' George Pelecanos
Meet Private Detective C. W. Sughrue.
Private detectives are supposed to find missing persons and solve crimes. But more often than not Sughrue is the one committing the crimes - everything from grand theft auto to criminal stupidity. All washed down with a hearty dose of whiskey and regret.
At the end of a three-week hunt for a runaway bestselling author, Sughrue winds up…
I set out to write my novel, a magical realism western, despite knowing nothing about magical realism or Westerns. I had to quickly get myself versed in both, and I was somewhat surprised to discover that, even in the 21st century, the Westerns that are often held up as the best feature a lot of tired stereotypes about brave white men, lawless people of color (when they are mentioned at all), women without agency, and a wild land that requires taming. I believe that my novel upends some of these Western tropes, and I am happy to report that many other novels in recent years have done the same.
This sweeping novel moves from the Caribbean to the American West and follows Rosa Rendón, a free Black woman, as she flees her home in Trinidad when it changes from Spanish to British rule.
Uncertain about whether she will be allowed to remain free under the new government, she travels to the United States, where she falls in with the Crow people of Montana. Beautifully researched and masterfully told, this is a fabulous read for anyone interested in the history of Black men and women in the West.
Ambitious and masterfully-wrought, Lauren Francis-Sharma's Book of the Little Axe is an incredible journey, spanning decades and oceans from Trinidad to the American West during the tumultuous days of warring colonial powers and westward expansion.
In 1796 Trinidad, young Rosa Rendon quietly but purposefully rebels against the life others expect her to lead. Bright, competitive, and opinionated, Rosa sees no reason she should learn to cook and keep house, for it is obvious her talents lie in running the farm she, alone, views as her birthright. But when her homeland changes from…
Not only have I been a comic book editor for sixteen years and obsessed with indie comics for much longer, I’m also an avid camper who co-created and co-wrote a comic book series that exalts in the unique feeling of sleeping under the stars. As such, excellent comics about outdoor adventures have a particularly tender spot in my heart.
The immediacy of Whit Taylor’s work and its accessible, urgent symbology is especially poignant in this diary of her Montana road trip with her husband.
Diary comics are one of my favorite genres of graphic storytelling for reasons exemplified here: you are engaging with Whit’s experience with this sprawling, beautiful land and its brutal history alongside her. Big sky, to her pen, to your eyes. It’s an intimate experience, one that comics do best.
2021 Ignatz Award Nominee for Outstanding Minicomic 2021 PW Graphic Novel Critics Poll – Honorable Mention
Cartoonist Whit Taylor (The Nib, Fizzle) documents her road trip across Montana in this diary mini-comic, combining millennial humor with resonant observations about the state’s complicated history.
As she and her husband travel through semi-arid flatlands and sub-alpine mountains, Taylor reflects both on Montana’s breathtaking beauty and the enduring toll of Manifest Destiny on its land and people.
Balancing funny road trip anecdotes with thoughts on melting glaciers and the worrying prevalence of white nationalists, Montana Diary tells a slice of America’s story, knowing…
I have spent over twenty years over (fifteen in Texas) recommending crime fiction as a bookseller in a couple of prominent stores. Texas and its writers have always fascinated me. Now that I get to call myself one, I am connected more to the genre literature of my adopted state and have an insider's view as both writer and resident.
Crumley used his PI Milo Milodragovich to look at the state “with more guns than cows” in all its colorful insanity.
The search for a runaway pool shark wife puts Milo in the middle of plot involving firearms, drugs, and crimes in various forms as Crumley draws from two of his favorite writers, Raymond Chandler and Warren Zevon.
I got to know Jim near the end of his life and see his broad, loving, cynical personality, and the feelings of his birth state when I read this.
It's business as usual for Milo Milodragovitch, watching a relationship go sour and running a bar whose real business is cleaning some dirty money, until he gets sent off to hunt a drug dealer’s killer. Prodded by the twin motivations of his prickly conscience and his tight finances, Milo sets off on a trip to find the promised land. The end of the road will be where he first began: Montana, where a beautiful woman, a dangerous man, and a motherlode of truth are waiting for their favorite son to come home—bringing with him…
I am a son of the contemporary American West—born near the Pacific Coast, raised in Texas, and an inveterate traveler of its byways and odd corners. Through the duality of my upbringing, as the son of a well-traveled mother, a suburban sportswriter stepfather, and a father who worked in extractive industries, I’ve seen up close both harmony and dissonance. The work I’m drawn to, whether on the creation end or the consumptive end, goes deep into the lives that play out in these places.
Sometimes the compelling central character of a book is the author. So it is with this one, by the current poet laureate of Montana. Page after page, I was mesmerized by what La Tray could weave out of a single, seemingly simple thought that, it turned out, contained galaxies of complexity and nuance.
I think La Tray is a true original in Western letters, a man of deep conviction, conscience, humor, righteousness, and love. His talents are on full display here.
"La Tray is a perimeter man, seeing the reality in wildness yet dealing the best he can at
rec onciling truth in nature." - Barry Babcock author of Teachers in the Forest
This book is a collection of poems and essays from the writer's experiences of travelling through landscapes both wild and civilized. They speak with delicate simplicities ranging from the death of a favorite pickup truck, to the joy of hitting the trail with a four-legged companion. There are…
I love to read
about animals and Fox and I moved me deeply.
Raven, a young biologist,
lives alone in an isolated cabin. One afternoon, Fox appears mysteriously.
Delighted, she reads to him from The Little Prince, which also features a
fox. After that, Fox joins her each day at the same time.
In the course of their
magical and touching relationship Fox helps Bell feel at home in the world and
appreciate the power of friendship.
Having lived in many countries, I, too, can
feel homeless and would appreciate a Fox by my side and, in a way, through this
book, I do have one.
Winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award * 2022 Nautilus Book Awards Gold Winner * Shortlisted for the John Burroughs Medal * Finalist for the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize * Shortlisted for a Reading the West Book Award
A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year * 2021 Summer Reading Pick by BUZZFEED * NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW * KIRKUS * TIME MAGAZINE * GOOD MORNING AMERICA * PEOPLE MAGAZINE * THE WASHINGTON POST
“The book everyone will be talking about … full of tenderness and understanding.”―The New York…
I am a novelist and an academic. My own writing often evokes both the Gothic and the supernatural, and I enjoy the pleasures of plot: mystery, intrigue, and suspense. The popular literature of a particular culture will often tell you more about what that culture fears than the complex high art written at the same time. But where the project becomes really interesting is the moment when a writer exploits the literature of terror to investigate the human psyche and the dark side of the mind. All these tales are also award-winning films. In every case the book is more frightening.
I read the novel when I saw that Jane Campion had chosen to adapt the book for her latest film. I have nerves of cast iron. But I found this book truly terrifying. The subject is human evil – the sadistic, twisted cruelty of which men are capable, both to animals, and other human beings. The descriptive writing is extraordinary: the ranch, the mountains, and the wild lands of Montana appear before your eyes. The family is almost destroyed by the predatory, violent brother Phil. He is like a Shakespearean villain: magnetic, charismatic, spellbinding, brilliant, and vicious.
Campion softens the edges of the story at every step in her wonderful film. And I can understand why. Had she filmed the book the movie would be banned. Read the book.
