Art & Coffee Table
Lost Apples
The search for rare and heritage apples in the Pacific Northwest
By David Benscoter & Linda Hackbarth
Nonfiction, 288 pages
Hardbound 7.5″ x 10.5″, color
Retail $38.00
From the 1600s, when the first colonists brought apples from Europe, up through the early 1900s, an estimated 17,000 named varieties of apples were cultivated in North America. Most of those apples are lost and possibly extinct today.
This is the account of apple historians and enthusiasts who canvass old orchards and forgotten homesteads of the Inland Northwest in search of the rare and heritage apples that still survive. It’s a quest that combines diligent detective work with fascinating historical and horticultural research—and a passion for apples.
So far these apple detectives have tracked down and documented nearly 30 formerly lost apple cultivars, or varieties. Lost Apples dips deep into regional history and tell of the continuing search and the successes so far. It is beautifully illustrated with over 50 classic color apple portraits painted by artists for the United States Department of Agriculture Division of Pomology from the late 1800s to early 1900s. It also includes an appendix of more than 1,600 known cultivars documented in historical records of the region.
The quest continues … discoveries await!
Aloha Friday
By Brooks Tessier
Fiction, 110 pages, 5.5″ x 8.5″
Softcover
Published in association with Keokee Co. Publishing, Inc.
A resident of Maui for decades, in “Aloha Friday” author Brooks Tessier captures the rhythms and flavors of island life with a story that tells how living the dream can get rather complicated when relationships begin to overlap. Other stories in this collection of vignettes tell of a karmic interlude with a traveling yogi, of riding scooters and waves, and of finding treasure (of a sort) at the scrap metal place.
When not in Hawaii, Brooks Tessier and his wife Amy decamp seasonally to their second home on northern Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille. He is the author of several other books, with tales set in locales taken from his own life, ranging from the South Pacific to the Caribbean to Sandpoint and the Mountain West.
*Not available for retailer discount
Sandpoint’s Early History
A story of how pioneers carved this city out of a wilderness
By Gary L. Pietsch
Nonfiction, 165 pages, 8 1/2 x 11
Softcover
ISBN: 978-1697677539
Aptly titled, “Sandpoint’s Early History” begins at the beginning, with the ice age floods of Glacial Lake Missoula, which had their genesis with the giant ice dam that formed at the mouth of the Clark Fork River at current-day Lake Pend Oreille more than 10,000 years ago.
The story quickly progresses to the history of the native peoples and the first white explorer and surveyor David Thompson in 1809. The bulk of the book is devoted to the varied stories of ensuing waves of settlement sparked by miners and ferryboat operators in the early 1800s, steamboat lines in the 1860s, the completion of the first railroad line through here in 1883, platting the original Sandpoint townsite, “stump farmers” and loggers of the early 1900s, up to the blossoming of community with the construction of the City Beach park in the 1950s.
It’s a wide sweep of Sandpoint’s history and – surprisingly – the first book to tell the town history. Author Gary Pietsch is well qualified to tell the story. Former editor and publisher of the Sandpoint News Bulletin, he subsequently was the proprietor of Selkirk Press and now retired. When he isn’t playing golf, he volunteers his time helping at the Bonner County Historical Museum.
Proceeds from the sale of “Sandpoint’s Early History” benefit the museum and historical society.
*Not available for retailer discount
The Blues
Natural history of the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington
By Robert J. Carson
208 pages, 11″ x 8.5″; coffee-table format
Hardcover, fullcolor photographs, maps, and illustrations
ISBN 978-1-879628-54-0
The Blue Mountains, stretching south of Walla Walla into central Oregon, are one of the Pacific Northwest’s iconic mountain ranges. Formed by successive periods of volcanic activity, home to diverse forest and grassland ecosystems, and rich in wildlife, the Blues have long held a special fascination for all who live in and recreate in the range’s embrace.
Now the Blues’ unique natural history is the subject of this new book – the first volume ever to take its readers deep into the story of the range’s creation and history.
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Selkirks Spectacular
A journey on the International Selkirk Loop
By Jerry Pavia and Tim Cady with Ross Klatte
Nonfiction, 180 pages, 11″ x 8.5″
Softcover, full color with more than 300 photographs
ISBN 978-1-879628-44-1
A photographic journey encircling the spectacular Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho, eastern Washington and southeastern British Columbia, Selkirks Spectacular features amazing images by photographers Jerry Pavia and Tim Cady. More than 300 images along with chapters by Canadian Ross Klatte on the history, geology, communities, natural features, attractions, and the flora and fauna showcase this beautiful corner of the earth.
East of Yellowstone
Geology of Clarks Fork Valley and the nearby Beartooth and Absaroka Mountains
By Bob Carson
Foreword by Don Snow; photography by Duane Scroggins
Nonfiction, 184 pages, 11″ x 8.5″
Softcover, road logs, bibliographic references, full color with 138 illustrations including photos and maps
ISBN 978-1-879628-38-0
East of Yellowstone invites the curious into the dramatic geologic beauty of the Clarks Fork Valley just east of the world’s first national park, as guided by geologist and professor Bob Carson. Featuring beautiful images by photographer Duane Scroggins, this book is essential to exploring the geology along roads and trails outside Yellowstone National Park.
Where the Great River Bends
A natural and human history of the Columbia at Wallula
Edited by Robert J. Carson
Nonfiction, 240 pages, 11″ x 8.5″
Softcover, full color, 264 illustrations including historic photographs and paintings, index, road log and bibliographic references
ISBN 978-1-879628-32-8
In Where the Great River Bends, Bob Carson and his colleagues tell a fascinating story through the prism of Wallula, the historic gateway to the Columbia Plateau – a striking land where the forces of geology worked on a spectacular scale, of a desert oasis where Native Americans, explorers, fur traders, promoters and entrepreneurs, and modern-day agriculturalists and wind farmers have all made their mark. Wallula Gap and its signature geologic feature, the Twin Sisters, are notable features left behind by colossal Ice Age floods.
