#26-- July 2026

So What's Ted Been Reading in the New Year?

If you've gotten this far, you're curious or you have too much time on your hands, but it has been a profitable 6 months of reading. Proceeding alphabetically, as a librarian would-- I'll begin with a wonderful anthology entitled A River Dream: the Writing and Art of Russell Chatham's Clark City Press.  Russell Chatham (October 27, 1939 – November 10, 2019) was an essayist, flyfisherman and artist based in Livingston MT where he established his press and attracted a who's who of authors, friends many of who contributed to this collection edited by Jamie Harrison. Besides his art and essays, this collection includes work from Thomas McGuane, William Hjortsberg, Rick Bass, Jim Harrison, Barry Gifford, Richard Hugo, and James Crumley. Beautiful!

Next up is an old timer, Fredric Brown's The Fabulous Clipjoint, first published in 1947 and reissued by Mysterious Press (2024) publisher Otto Penzler with an introduction by Lawrence Block- you know these two know Mysteries. The book introduces 18 year old Ed Hunter whose father is murdered in an alley in Chicago and his step-mother and her daughter don't seem very concerned. Ed hitchhikes to link up with his uncle Ambrose who runs a traveling carnival game and Am wants justice for his dead brother. They return to late 1940s Chicago to explore the gang gunmen and molls with wonderful noir dialog in this EDGAR awardwinner for Best First Novel of 1948. 

A new series by crime-writing boss, Michael Connelly, is always worth a read. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell is exiled by office politics to Catalina Island to deal with petty crime but the discovery of a decomposed body--Nightshade-- in a canvas bag tied to an anchor in the bay really gets him going. A run in with a local bigwig involved with land development and a bison beheading finds him again going off line as he breaks all the rules with his mainland bosses while working both cases.

Walter Moseley returns to 1970s LA in his 17th Easy Rawlins novel, Gray Dawn. Easy has grown his detective agency, hiring his first female detective and now living in luxury up in the hills above the grit of a wild LA. But his latest case to discover the whereabouts of a housekeeper Lutisha leads Easy into a fearsome personality, murders and his past in 1940s Houston which could lead to his demise now.

Ethnobotanist and widely regarded desert explorer Gary Paul Nabhan has produced his memoir Water in the Desert: A Pilgrimage. And what a journey it is from his youth in a large Lebanese family living in the Dunes area of the south end of Lake Michigan near Gary, Indiana. His life and mine were close, not only chronologically, geographically, but also ethnically, economically and socially. His difficulties in school led him to focus almost exclusively on nature in the sand dunes which served him well as he made his way to Arizona and his career in exploration, writing and teaching. And the guy can really write! 

The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants by Robert Suits presents a slice of American history that bears review--climate change matched with industrial change. Beginning with steam power through petroleum based power, migrant workers have found jobs in agriculture, the timber industry and mining. And as weather changed-- the Dust Bowl years-- steam power on trains provided the mechanism for moving around America to find work. Never well paid, almost always cross wise with the law, hobos moved east to west and central up north as crops came in and work was available. The arrival of petroleum power in tractors, trucks and other equipment played out the hobo life but the book covers the social, political and economic aspects very well.

And finally last, but not least, is ETNA: A Novel by Paul Yoon, an extraordinary read, IMHO. ETNA tells his story as a young puppy taken from his farm and turned into an US Army working dog, clearing mine fields in an unnamed country until an accident takes his partner's life and leaves him seriously damaged. ETNA resolves to leave the Army and travel back home. His story is a revelation of life in a dangerous environment as experienced and told through a dog's eyes and voice. This one is not to be missed!

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