The fish-out-of-water stories of Northern Exposure and Doc Martin meet the rough-and-rugged setting of The Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People in Thomas J. Sims’s On Call in the Arctic, where the author relates his incredible experience saving lives in one of the most remote outposts in North America.

 Imagine a young doctor, trained in the latest medical knowledge and state-of-the-art equipment, suddenly transported back to one of the world’s most isolated and unforgiving environments―Nome, Alaska. Dr. Sims’ plans to become a pediatric surgeon drastically changed when, on the eve of being drafted into the Army to serve as a M.A.S.H. surgeon in Vietnam, he was offered a commission in the U.S. Public Health for assignment in Anchorage, Alaska.

 In Anchorage, Dr. Sims was scheduled to act as Chief of Pediatrics at the Alaska Native Medical Center. Life changed, along with his military orders, when he learned he was being transferred from Anchorage to work as the only physician in Nome.  There, he would have the awesome responsibility of rendering medical care under archaic conditions to the population of this frontier town plus thirteen Eskimo villages in the surrounding Norton Sound area. And he would do it alone with little help and support. All the while, he was pegged as both an “outsider” and an employee of the much-derided federal government.

Justice in Plain Sight is the story of a hometown newspaper in Riverside, California, that set out to do its job: tell readers about shocking crimes in their own backyard. But when judges slammed the courtroom door on the public, including the press, it became impossible to tell the whole story. Pinning its hopes on business lawyer Jim Ward, whom Press-Enterprise editor Tim Hays had come to know and trust, the newspaper took two cases to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s. Hays was convinced that the public—including the press—needed to have these rights and needed to bear witness to justice because healing in the aftermath of a horrible crime could not occur with- out community catharsis. The newspaper won both cases and established First Amendment rights that significantly broadened public access to the judicial system, including the right for the public to witness jury selection and preliminary hearings.

Justice in Plain Sight is a unique story that, for the first time, details two improbable journeys to the Supreme Court in which the stakes were as high as they could possibly be (and still are): the public’s trust in its own government.

Dan Bernstein is a retired reporter, editorial writer, and general interest columnist for the Press-Enterprise newspaper in Riverside, California. He has won various state and national awards for column writing and is the author of two children’s books.

Beth Wood is no stranger to Sisters, OR. The Texas-born, Portland-based singer-songwriter and poet has been hosting the Sunday Community Celebration at the Sisters Folk Festival for the last eight years. On Friday, August 9, Beth will read poems from her two poetry books, Ladder to the Light, and Kazoo Symphonies at Paulina Springs Books. She may even weave in a song or two.

            The response to Wood’s second book of poetry, Ladder to the Light, has been overwhelming. Inspired by an image from a Jane Hirshfield poem ‘Mule Heart’ in which grief and joy are carried in “two waiting baskets,” Wood seeks to find balance again and regain footing after heartbreaking loss. Ladder to the Light chronicles her journey from grief to gratitude to believing in love again—poetry as a ladder toward the light. Ladder to the Light is the winner of the 2019 Oregon Book Awards Readers’ Choice Award and was chosen as a finalist for the 2019 Oregon Book Awards – Stafford/Hall prize for poetry.

Join us as we host NYT bestselling author Marie Bostwick for an in store signing of her books, including her newest, Hope on the Inside, which was released on March 26th, 2019. Marie was born and raised in the northwest. In the three decades since her marriage, Marie and her family have moved frequently, living in eight different states at eighteen different addresses. These experiences have given Marie a unique perspective that enables her to write about people from all walks of life and corners of the country with insight and authenticity. Marie currently resides in Portland, where she enjoys writing, spending time with family, gardening, collecting fabric, and stitching quilts. Visit her at www.mariebostwick.com

In 1911, Carrie Strahorn wrote a memoir entitled Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, which shared some of the most exciting events of twenty-five years of traveling and shaping the West with her husband, Robert Strahorn, a railroad promoter, investor, and writer. Everything She Didn’t Say imagines Carrie nearly ten years later as she decides to write down what was really on her mind during those adventurous nomadic years. Kirkpatrick’s masterful, rich imagination draws out the emotions of living—the laughter and pain, the love and loss—to give readers a window not only into the past but into their own conflicted hearts. Booklist states “Kirkpatrick is an unwavering pillar in historical fiction, showcasing the power of her meticulously researched and richly rendered details.” Everything She Didn’t Say is a testament to these words.

Jane Kirkpatrick is the New York Times and CBA bestselling and award-winning author of more than thirty books, including All She Left Behind, A Light in the Wilderness, The Memory Weaver, This Road We Traveled, and A Sweetness to the Soul, which won the prestigious Wrangler Award from the Western Heritage Center. Her works have won the WILLA Literary Award, USABestBooks, the Carol Award for Historical Fiction, and the 2016 Will Rogers Medallion Award. Jane lives in Central Oregon with her husband, Jerry.

Feminist historian Therese Oneill is back, to educate you on what to expect when you're expecting . . . a Victorian baby! In Ungovernable, Oneill conducts an unforgettable tour through the backwards, pseudoscientific, downright bizarre parenting fashions of the Victorians, advising us on:
- How to be sure you're not too ugly, sickly, or stupid to breed

- What positions and room decor will help you conceive a son

- How much beer, wine, cyanide and heroin to consume while pregnant

- How to select the best peasant teat for your child

- Which foods won't turn your children into sexual deviants

- And so much more

About Therese: Therese Oneill is the New York Times bestselling author of Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage and Manners.

Barnett transports readers back to the height of the Great Depression in 1933 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal offers a glimmer of hope for unemployed young men. Nate Webber is one of the many to join the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to help provide for his family, but it means leaving everything he knows behind in Brooklyn for the untamed West. Shipped off to the wilds of Yellowstone, Nate is desperate to prove himself but hides a secret that could risk everything for him.

Elsie Brookes is proud to have grown up as a ranger’s daughter, but dreams of one day being a teacher. She’s spent several of her summers slaving away as a maid in the park hotels in order to save for college tuition, and a new teaching position in the CCC camp can help her finally reach her goal. Elsie is drawn to Nate, but has a secret of her own that she keeps hidden away. As their friendship leads to romance, a string of suspicious fires casts a dark shadow over the park, and they must race to uncover the truth before losing everything they have both worked for.

About the author: Karen Barnett is the author of the Vintage National Parks Series, The Road to Paradise and Where the Fire Falls, as well as four other novels, is a former park ranger. She has worked as a ranger naturalist and outdoor educator at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park, Silver Falls State Park, and Mount Rainier National Park. When not writing, Barnett enjoys photography, hiking, and public speaking. She lives in Oregon with her family.

In the spring of 1885, Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned on the family’s remote ranch. She cuts her hair, dresses in men’s clothing, and sets off on her undersized horse to reunite with the only kin she has left--a big brother turned notorious outlaw. While wrestling with her brother's identity, and haunted by questions about her own, Jess must outmaneuver those who underestimate her to find her brother before the law does. Told in Jess's wholly original and unforgettable voice, Whiskey When We're Dry is an epic as expansive as America itself--and a reckoning with the myths that are entwined with our history. 

About the author: John Larison was born in Philomath, OR in 1979 and was a fly-fishing guide and high school English teacher before turning full-time to writing. His most recent novel, Whiskey When We’re Dry, was a Los Angeles Times Bestseller, an Indie Next Pick, and a finalist for the Ken Kesey Award. It was named a Best Book by O Magazine, Goodreads, Entertainment Weekly, Outside Magazine, Powell's, NPR's All Things Considered, and others, and is currently being developed for a feature film. He lives with his family in Bellfountain, OR.

In this eclectic collection of essays, Rullman explores the tangled landscapes of a culture in rapid transition. From our complicated relationship with emerging technologies to the bombing of Nagasaki, from a skydive to honor the life of a Native American Chief to a solo hike for solace in the remote Sierra backcountry, he invites us to examine the truths swept under the American rug, and to question our role in perpetuating the contradictions, humorous conundrums, and retail pathologies of our evolving world. Gritty, vulnerable and often hilarious, Rullman's writing is born in the borderlands and draws widely from history to remind us that--even in an era of widespread uncertainty--poetry still matters, beauty is found where we pause to embrace it, and in the long arc of human experience our questions outlive the answers.

About Craig Rullman: Craig Rullman is an award-winning journalist and weekly columnist for The Nugget Newspaper in Sisters, Oregon. A former police detective and veteran of the United States Marine Corps, Mr. Rullman is a graduate of the University of Nevada, and holds an M.A. from Northern Arizona University. For several years he was a working cowboy on the deserts of Arizona, California, and Nevada. He lives with his wife on the Figure 8 Ranch, in the shadow of the Oregon Cascades.

Wendell Newman, a young ranch hand in Montana, has recently lost his mother, leaving him an orphan. His bank account holds less than a hundred dollars, and he owes back taxes on what remains of the land his parents owned, as well as money for the surgeries that failed to save his mother's life. An unexpected deliverance arrives in the form of seven-year-old Rowdy Burns, the mute and traumatized son of Wendell's incarcerated cousin. When Rowdy is put under his care, what begins as an ordeal for Wendell turns into a powerful bond, as he comes to love the boy more than he ever thought possible. That bond will be stretched to the breaking point during the first legal wolf hunt in Montana in more than thirty years, when a murder ignites a desperate chase. Caught on the wrong side of a disaffected fringe group, Wendell is determined both to protect Rowdy and to avoid the same violent fate that claimed his own father. A story set in a fractured and misunderstood community, Fall Back Down When I Die is a haunting and unforgettable tale of sacrificial love.

About Joe Wilkins: Joe Wilkins’s memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers, won the GLCA New Writers Award for nonfiction, and his work has appeared in the Georgia Review, the Harvard Review, Slate, and elsewhere. Wilkins lives with his wife and two children in western Oregon, where he teaches writing at Linfield College.

Board game night will return in the fall!

“A Deadly Wind: The 1962 Columbus Day Storm” is a non-fiction account of the strongest windstorm in West Coast recorded history. The storm killed dozens, injured hundreds, damaged more than 50,000 homes and leveled enough trees to build a million homes. The unrivalled cyclone gave birth to the Asian log export market and the Oregon wine industry. In A Deadly Wind, veteran journalist John Dodge weaves a compelling story spiced with human drama, Cold War implications, Pacific Northwest history and the science of severe weather.

About the author: John Dodge was a columnist, editorial page writer and investigative reporter for The Olympian prior to retiring in 2015 from an award-winning career that spanned 40 years. He and his wife, Barbara Digman live in the Olympia area and enjoy gardening, bird-watching, hiking, reading and traveling".

By age 25, Heather Anderson had hiked what is known as the "Triple Crown" of backpacking: the Appalachian Trail (AT), Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and Continental Divide Trail (CDT)―a combined distance of 7,900 miles with a vertical gain of more than one million feet. A few years later, she left her job, her marriage, and a dissatisfied life and walked back into those mountains.

In her new memoir, Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home, Heather, whose trail name is "Anish," conveys not only her athleticism and wilderness adventures, but also shares her distinct message of courage--her willingness to turn away from the predictability of a more traditional life in an effort to seek out what most fulfills her. Amid the rigors of the trail--pain, fear, loneliness, and dangers--she discovers the greater rewards of community and of self, conquering her doubts and building confidence. Ultimately, she realizes that records are merely a catalyst, giving her purpose, focus, and a goal to strive toward.

The updated Fifth Edition of this classic guide includes a dozen new hikes and 32 pages of color photos, with travel tips for visiting the Bend area, Eugene, and Salem, as well as a guide to hot springs, campgrounds, cabin rentals, and wildflowers.