Murder & Mayhem in Portland, Oregon


J.D. Chandler - 2013
    The brutal Ardenwald axe murders. The retribution killings by Chinatown tongs. The fiendish acts of the Dark Strangler. In this compelling account, author JD Chandler chronicles the coverups, the false confessions, the miscarriages of justice and the investigative twists and turns of Portland's infamous crimes while providing valuable historical perspective. From the untimely end of the Black Mackintosh Bandit to the convoluted hunt for the Milwaukie Monster, join Chandler as he unveils the shadowy heart of the city, acknowledges the officers who sought justice and remembers the individuals whose lives were claimed by violence.

The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast


Bonnie Henderson - 2014
    The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast is the gripping story of the geological discoveries—and the scientists who uncovered them—that signal the imminence of a catastrophic tsunami on the Northwest Coast.

Sorrow Arrow


Emily Kendal Frey - 2014
    Wily, witty and weird, often haunting, sometimes heartbreaking, [Frey's] poems…dive deep, for all their individual brevity.

Dead Reckoning: Navigating a Life on the Last Frontier, Courting Tragedy on Its High Seas


Dave Atcheson - 2014
    It’s a story of a world peopled by those who often live on the frayed edges of society, who shun the world in which most people thrive. It’s a story in which college students and “fish hippies” work in canneries alongside survivalists, rednecks, religious freaks, and deckhands with damning secrets in dangerous waters, driven by the need to feed an insatiable appetite for adventure.This is the heart of the world Atcheson found himself in at the age of eighteen. Having never even seen the ocean, he took his first job on the Lancer with Darwin Wood, a man so confounding, so complex and so frightening, that it’s hard to believe Atcheson walked away from that job unscathed. Forced to buddy up with a murderer in order to cope, Atcheson began to question his deeply ingrained ideas of success and status. The resulting conflict would finally resolve itself fifteen years later, in the least likely of places: on the Bering Sea, aboard a boat in peril, during a night of terror that would reshape the lives of everyone involved.Reminiscent of The Perfect Storm and Into the Wild, Dead Reckoning is not only an intimate look at life at sea, but also an insider’s view into one of Alaska’s small communities, and the myriad of upstarts, dropouts, and rogues that color its landscape.

Grand Canyon: The Complete Guide: Grand Canyon National Park


James Kaiser - 2006
    This guide divides the attractions into sections—the North Rim, South Rim, Colorado River, and Havasu Falls—with lodging, dining, and camping information given for each. Outfitters for hiking, backpacking, mule rides, and rafting adventures are listed, and carefully researched chapters about the park's history, geology, and wildlife encourage leisurely study of the area's unmatched natural beauty. This book is the winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award for best full-color travel guide and the Independent Publisher Award for best travel guide. About The Complete Guides:With a large number of beautiful, high-quality color photographs, these guides are as browsable as the best coffee table books but also supply travelers with maps, travel tips, and extensive listings for lodging, camping, and sightseeing.

Zinester's Guide to Portland: A Low/No Budget Guide to Living In and Visiting Portland, OR


Shawn Granton - 2005
    (lots of etc.). The newly overhauled and illustrated fifth edition gets shoulder-deep into the history and local lore, providing a well-rounded argument as to why (fill in the blank) deserves your time. It also demystifies the TriMet public transportation system, bike events and culture, outdoorsy stuff, the public libraries—basically anything you need to know as the new kid in town. To the wrong eyes the book's title might imply a guide to Portland zine culture, but as editor Shawn Granton says in the introduction, the Zinester's Guide is not just for zinesters, that "It's always been about sharing the interesting and unique things that make Stumptown great, and also helping people get by that aren't swimming in scads of money." For those of us that can't so much as dogpaddle most days, this is "community" at its mightiest.

In Name Only


Carol Kilgore - 2012
    No family. No place to hide. For Summer Newcombe, that's only the beginning.The night Summer escapes from a burning Padre Island eatery and discovers the arsonist is stalking her, is the same night she meets Fire Captain Gabriel Duran. As much as she's attracted to Gabe, five years in the Federal Witness Security Program because of her father's testimony against a mob boss have taught her the importance of being alone and invisible.No matter how much she yearns for a real home, Summer relinquished that option the night she killed the man who murdered her father. But Gabe breaks down her guard and places both of them in danger. Summer has vowed never to kill again, but she's frantic she'll cost Gabe his life unless she stops running and fights for the future she wants with the man she loves.

Madison House


Peter Donahue - 2005
    Maddie Ingram, owner of Madison House, and her quirky and endearing boarders find their lives inextricably linked when the city decides to re-grade Denny Hill and the fate of Madison House hangs in the balance. Clyde Hunssler, Maddie’s albino handyman and furtive love interest; James Colter, a muckraking black journalist who owns and publishes the Seattle Sentry newspaper; and Chiridah Simpson, an aspiring stage actress forced into prostitution and morphine addiction while working in the city’s corrupt vaudeville theater, all call Madison House home. Had E.L. Doctorow and Charles Dickens met on the streets of Seattle, they couldn’t have created a better book.

Cripple Creek Days


Mabel Barbee Lee - 1958
    She speaks with authority because she arrived there as a child in 1892, and with wide-eyed wonder saw the whole place turn to gold.With his divining rod, Mabel's father tapped gold ore on Beacon Hill but missed becoming a millionaire by selling his claim short. Nonetheless, life was rich for young Mabel in a booming town with points of interest like Poverty Gulch, the Continental Hotel, and a fantastic house called Finn's Folly; with characters around like the promoter Windy Joe and (seen from a distance) the madam Pearl De Vere; with something always going on, whether a celebration or a disastrous fire or train wreck or a no-nonsense miners' strike.Mabel Lee's book brings back a time and place with affection. The foreword is by Lowell Thomas, who was her pupil when she was a young schoolmarm in Cripple Creek.

Deadline Man


Jon Talton - 2010
    It’s all about to be violently upended when he goes out on what seems like the most mundane of assignments, looking into a staid company that “never makes news.”But from the moment one of his sources takes a dive off a downtown skyscraper, the columnist is plunged into a harrowing maze of murder, intrigue and secrets that powerful forces intend to keep hidden at all costs. All he has to go on is a corporate world where nothing is as it seems, increasingly menacing encounters with mysterious federal agents and the unsettling meme “eleven/eleven.” Meanwhile, the paper itself is dying. The columnist joins with an aggressive young reporter to see if one explosive story can save a newspaper – and much more. They’re running to make the deadline of their lives and failure will bring lethal consequences.Deadline Man is Jon Talton at his best, a novel that is both electrifying and intelligent, capturing the romance and harsh reality of newspaper journalism while raising important questions that will haunt readers long after the fast-paced action ends.

The Other Side of the Ice: One Family's Treacherous Journey Negotiating the Northwest Passage


Sprague Theobald - 2012
    Since Roald Amundsen completed the first successful crossing of the fabled Northwest Passage in 1906, only twenty-four pleasure craft have followed in his wake. Many more people have gone into space than have traversed the Passage, and a staggering number have died trying. From his home port of Newport, Rhode Island, through the Passage and around Alaska to Seattle, it would be an 8,500-mile trek filled with constant danger from ice, polar bears, and severe weather. What Theobald couldn't have known was just how life-changing his journey through the Passage would be. Reuniting his children and stepchildren after a bad divorce more than fifteen years earlier, the family embarks with unanswered questions, untold hurts, and unspoken mistrusts hanging over their heads. Unrelenting cold, hungry polar bears, and a haunting landscape littered with sobering artifacts from the tragic Franklin Expedition of 1845, as well as personality clashes that threaten to tear the crew apart, make The Other Side of the Ice a harrowing story of survival, adventure, and, ultimately, redemption.TO WATCH THE OFFICIAL HD TEASER FOR "The Other Side of The Ice" (book and documentary) PLEASE GO TO SPRAGUETHEOBALD.COM50 color illustrations

Secret Seattle


Susanna Ryan - 2021
    In Secret Seattle, Ryan explores the weird and wonderful hidden history behind some of the city's most overlooked places, architecture, and infrastructure, from coal chutes in Capitol Hill, to the last remainder of Seattle's original Chinatown in Pioneer Square, to the best places in town to find century-old sidewalks. Discover pocket parks, beautiful boulevards, and great public gardens while learning offbeat facts that will make you see the Emerald City in a whole new way. Perfect for both the local history buff who never leaves a favorite armchair to a walking enthusiast looking for offbeat and off-the-beaten-path scavenger hunts.

I Pick You


Eryn Scott - 2021
    Magnolia Parker loves botany, but became a professor mostly to make her parents happy. When she’s passed up for tenure, Maggie decides it’s time to make a change. Escaping the city, she finds herself in the idyllic town of Plumb Creek staring at a For Sale sign in a flower shop that shares her name. It must be destiny. Maggie goes all in. Being a florist should be easy for a professor of botany. Right? Boy, is she wrong. Before she even opens shop, she’s angered half the town. After her first customer leaves in a huff, she realizes a botany degree isn’t going to cut it. Enter Grant Sommers, hot local entrepreneur who has the town in his back pocket. He’s willing to help turn the shop around, if Maggie will listen. As much as she wants this to work, she fears she’ll never be able to loosen the town’s tight-knit roots enough to be accepted.It’s time for Maggie to pick her own path, even if it means disappointing everyone else.

Rogue River Feud


Zane Grey - 1929
    the wild make this novel one of his best. There is a deep emotional feeling for nature in the raw, for the great salmon runs, and for the clashes of men fighting for gold.Along the notorious Rogue River, gold seekers, crazed by the discovery of nuggets that made them rich overnight, are at war with one another. The river itself swarms with salmon, bringing along with them another kind of wealth and violent fighting between fishermen and the fish-packing monopoly. Into this scene comes Keven Bell, returning to face life after being handicapped by a disfiguring wound he received in World War I. Keven teams up with a broken-down fisherman and boatbuilder. When they try to buck the salmon-packing monopoly, they encounter violence and trickery; their boat is sunk and they are left to swim for their lives.Keven is tended to by Beryl, the daughter of a gold miner. His convalescence is slow, but the autumn days, fishing and camping, make a woodland dream of romance. But no sooner has an operation straightened out Keven’s injuries than he is framed on a charge of murder in the salmon-packing war. Keven must carry on as best he can, along with what help Beryl and her old father can give, to clear his name and ensure his and Beryl’s safety on the turbulent Rogue.This text refers to an alternate edition.

Forty Years in the Wilderness


Dolly Faulkner - 2013
    It was so close I could reach out and touch its shaggy bronze fur."Dolly Faulkner has many heart-stopping moments of terror and anxiety, living much of the time truly along in the Alaskan wilderness. But she is not lonely, as the awesome space and beauty of the mountains fill her with appreciation of all things of nature.Dolly Faulkner came to Alaska as a young woman with the dream of living in the wilderness. This, her first book, is a true reality of carving out a homestead in the Kilbuck Mountains near a minor hotsprings that the regional Native corporation in now trying to claim. She is now a senior citizen, still living in the wilderness after the death of her husband. Her struggles and adventures continue, so she has many more stories to tell.