Reading About Washington

Washington: My once home state.

How about Chris Crutcher? He's a young adult author based in Spokane, WA.

Coupland is a Canadian author, but Microserfs is set in Seattle, and quite an enjoyable novel.

I enjoyed Atomic Farmgirl, about a childhood spent near Hanford. I'm drawing a blank for a recommendation from western Washington (it's a completely different state on this side!) but I'm sure it'll come to me.

The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald is a classic.

Oh dear. I live in Lynnwood, just 15 miles north of Seattle ... and truly wish Washington didn't have to claim Betty McDonald. I'm also a Native American. Have you re-read that book any time lately?

It might just make you squirm.

I did read it recently. Those passages are there; readers can make of them as they wish.

Well, her own vivid description of someone she portrayed as a "dirty Indian" defiling her kitchen by his very presence ... the man seemed to be a fisherman who had been out working. Not quite sure what there is to make of that other than blatant, unapologetic racism. To be polite, she was a young woman who definitely had not yet lived an examined life.

The book was, admittedly, a sign of the times. It was written in the 50s, I believe.

The fact that she was able to write it AND have a movie made of it with not even a whimper from society at large ... well, that's institutionalized racism in a nutshell.

There's a reason why a Civil Rights movement has been necessary in this country. It's just a shame that some were able to get rich peddling this stuff.

A long time ago, I read The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, which is a collection of short stories about the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Native Americans on the Spokane Indian Reservation. I remember the stories as poignant, sometimes sad, but exceptionally well written, and several stories have stuck with me through the years. It's by Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie is great! I've read all his books ... some are not as good, but I have to tell you, as a Native American, he captures the modern NA way of life/experience spot on!

And he is incredibly funny. For awhile he was doing stand-up comedy here in Seattle. I haven't heard alot from him lately, though ....

Wanted to add Jo Dereske as a WA author. Her Miss Zukas series set in a fictionalized Bellingham (Bellehaven), WA - her latest one Bookmarked to Die even featured a pair of twins named Lewis and Clark!

Edited to mention that this list is pretty much nonfiction (except possibly some literary license in the first two titles). Also to fix the touchstone for 100 Hikes.

Skid Road An Informal Portrait of Seattle
Sons of the Profits
Where Wagons Could Go: Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding

"Whistle Punks and Geoducks" (can't get a touchstone to load for this one) by Ron Strickland
Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest
James J Hill and the Opening of the Northwest

Washington has LOTS of mountains.
Mount St Helens the Eruption and Recovery of a Volcano
Sunrise to Paradise The Story of Mount Rainier National Park
100 Hikes in Washingtons North Cascades National Park
For a more scholarly read, try Fire and Ice the Cascade Volcanoes

And waterfalls.
Waterfall Lovers Guide Pacific Northwest

Did I mention that it rains often?
The Good Rain by Timothy Egan
Rains all the Time A Connoisseurs History of Weather in the Pacific Northwest

In the Pacific Northwest we seem to have more than our share of serial killers. Try these if you like true crime:
Starvation Heights (Victorian fasting diet goes wrong)
The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule (Young Republican activist turns serial killer)
Gary Ridgway The Green River Killer

The other famous local inhabitants:
Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide by Robert Michael Pyle
Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science by Jeff Meldrum

General travel guide
Moon Handbooks Washington

And for climbers, the 3-volume Cascade Alpine Guide by Fred Beckey

John Okada's No No Boy, James G. Swan's The northwest coast; or, Three years' residence in Washington territory, and Richard Hugo's Run of Jacks are all great Washington books. As mentioned, The Good Rain by Timothy Egan is right up there.

Fiction--Bread Alone by Judith R Hendricks--a divorced woman moves to Seattle and works in a bakery making bread

Does anyone know of any historical fiction appropriate for an 8th grade girl, set in Washington, Oregon or Idaho? I have a reluctant reader who is also struggling with Washington State History.

Thanks for any brain drain you can dump here for us.

Take a look at most all of Lucile Saunders McDonald books. Probably availabe in the local library. Stormy Year and Pigtail Pioneer would be good choices.

Another possibility is Blazing the way; or, True stories, songs and sketches of Puget Sound by Emily Inez Denny because it was writen by one of the first girls to grow up in Seattle.(not fiction though...)

Maybe Annie Jordan: a Novel of Seattle

I just started to read The 13th Reality: The Journal of the Curious Letters by James Dashner. The main character Tick lives in Deer Park, Washington

The Art of Racing in the Rain is definitely a Washington book. Here's more authors and books frmo the state.

http://avidreader25.blogspot.com/2012/11/reading-states-washington.html

Can't believe no one has mentioned Jess Walter, a great writer and Spokane native with several stories set there.