Idaho Commission for Libraries

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Categories & Titles | Theme Essays

Categories and Titles in the Tough Paradise Theme:

Annotations by Susan Swetnam, Professor of English, Idaho State University.

I. Oral/Folk/Family Traditions

• The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
• Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
• Sheep May Safely Graze by Louie Attebery
• Stories that Make the World: An Introduction to the Oral Literature and Storytelling of the Indian Peoples of the Inland Northwest by Rodney Frey
• Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native Daughter by Janet Campbell Hale
• Sweet Promised Land by Robert Laxalt
• Journal of a Trapper by Osborne Russell
• Lives of the Saints in Southeast Idaho: An Introduction to Mormon Pioneer Life Story Writing by Susan H. Swetnam
• Myths of the Idaho Indians by Deward Walker

II. Pioneer Encounters with Idaho and the Intermountain West, 1865-1940

• Buffalo Coat by Carol Ririe Brink
• Honey in the Horn by H.L. Davis
• Stump Ranch Pioneer by Nelle Portrey Davis
• Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher
• A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West by Mary Hallock Foote
• We Sagebrush Folks by Annie Pike Greenwood
• Home Below Hell's Canyon by Grace Jordan
• Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
• Passages West: Nineteen Stories of Youth and Identity edited by Hugh Nichols

III. Contemporary Voices

• Where the Morning Light's Still Blue: Personal Essays about Idaho edited by Rick Ardinger and William Studebaker
• Balsamroot by Mary Clearman Blew
• Heart of a Western Woman by Leslie Leek
• Hole in the Sky by William Kittredge
• Idaho's Poetry: A Centennial Anthology edited by Ron McFarland and William Studebaker
• Cheerleaders from Gomorrah: Tales from the Lycra Archipelago by John Rember
• Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
• Near the Postcard Beautiful by Gino Sky
• Far Away Places by Tom Spanbauer
• Lochsa Road by Kim Stafford
• Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams
  

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Theme Essays:

Western Memoir by Susan Swetnam - Featured books include: Alderson, Nannie T. A Bride Goes West; Blew, Mary Clearman. Balsamroot: A Memoir; Nelle Portrey Davis, Stump Ranch Pioneer; Doig, Ivan. This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind; Foote, Mary Hallock. A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West; Greenwood, Annie Pike. We Sagebrush Folks; Hale, Janet Campbell. Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native Daughter; Jordan, Grace. Home Below Hell’s Canyon; Kittredge, William. Hole in the Sky: A Memoir; Laxalt, Robert. Sweet Promised Land; Tanner, Annie Clarke. A Mormon Mother; and Uchida, Yoshiko. Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family.

"Who Is I?" by Ron McFarland - General Overview of the Themes for Tough Paradise

"Emigration, Folklore, and Sense of Place" by Louie Attebery - Featured book: Sheep May Safely Graze by Louie Attebery

"Three Victorian Women Encounter Idaho and Live" by David Barber - Featured books: A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West by Mary Hallock Foote; We Sagebrush Folks by Annie Pike Greenwood

"Idaho as a Place of Redemption in the Works of LDS Pioneers, Nelle Portrey Davis, and Grace Jordan" by Susan Swetnam - Featured books: Lives of the Saints in Southeast Idaho by Susan Swetnam; Stump Ranch Pioneer by Nelle Portrey Davis; and Home Below Hell's Canyon by Grace Jordan.

"Writing Close to Home" by William Studebaker - Featured books: Cheerleaders from Gomorrah by John Rember; Near the Postcard Beautiful by Gino Sky; and Faraway Places by Tom Spanbauer.

"Stories that Make the World" by Rodney Frey - Featured books: Stories that Make the World: An Introduction to the Oral Literature and Storytelling of the Indian Peoples of the Inland Northwest by Rodney Frey; and Myths of the Idaho Indians by Deward Walker.

"The Place of Janet Campbell Hale and Sherman Alexie in American Indian Literature" by Dennis Walsh - Featured books: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Alexie Sherman; Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native Daughter by Janet Campbell Hale

"Vardis Fisher" by Barbara Meldrum - Featured book: Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher

"Nature and Culture in Idaho's Poetry" by Ford Swetnam - Featured book: Idaho's Poetry: A Centennial Anthology edited by Ron McFarland and William Studebaker

"Having Roots and Being Windblown: Contemporary Writers in the Western Landscape" by Janne Goldbeck - Featured books: Hole in the Sky by William Kittredge; Where the Morning Light's Still Blue edited by Rick Ardinger and William Studebaker; Balsamroot by Mary Clearman Blew; and Lochsa Road by Kim Stafford

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