It is spring, folks, and new things are rumbling in the breezes. Bears are coming out of hibernation, and with them, this new book on Colorado bears by the talented writer Laura Pritchett.

Laura just wrote the first endorsement for my novel Tributary, thereby cutting off all fears that not one soul on the planet would really enjoy it. Ridiculous fears run like freak windstorms through the publishing process. And here is Laura's loverly blurb:

"This is a gorgeous novel. This book does what art should do, which is to show us our lives with renewed clarity and better insight. Tributary takes the incomplete history and mythos of the West to task, and instead shows us some of the far more interesting and unexplored stories of American West – Mormonism, racism, women who don’t need marriage or men. Beautifully written and engaging, this is a story of one woman and her refusal to cave into societal norms in order to seek her own difficult and inspired path."

--Laura Pritchett, author of Sky Bridge and Hell’s Bottom, Colorado

Deepest thanks to her for the smashing Tributary endorsement.

Pritchett turns from powerful fiction writer to stellar storyteller in her newest book, a collection of historical, geographical, sorrowful, heart-pounding tales about the bears who did and do exist in the wilds of Colorado. I can’t wait to read it. And neither can my significant other who loves all things bear.

Great Colorado Bear Stories comes out this week, so check it out at online booksellers, or ask at your nearest dearest bookstore. Laura’s website features all of her other award-winning books. In fact, how can one author win so many awards—PEN USA, Milkweed National Fiction Prize, Colorado Book Award, WILLA Literary Award—and not be in her dotage?! I’ll ask her when she comes to read in Boulder, April 17.

From strangers to colleagues in two days flat. Life is good.

And if you have a minute, listen to dear young Amos Lee sing “Shout Out Loud.” (Hit mute for the noisy advertisement at the start!)

_ Authors have spilled their sweat and inky blood for you. It’s time you paid them back.

We count on online reviews to spread the word and promote our titles. Luckily, an online book review can take just a few minutes. So challenge yourself to review the best ten books you’ve read in the last year. And then do it every year. Contribute reviews to help boost your favorite authors and keep their books from going out of print!

It's simple. Here's how:

On any of the following bookseller sites, enter the title of the book you’d like to review. Then, once you’re on that book’s page . . .

_ Scroll down past the professional reviews and the “Product Details” to “Customer Reviews.” On the right hand side of the page, there’s a button called “Create your own review.”

_ You’ll be given the opportunity to create your reviewer name and password. Then you can 1) rate the book with stars, from one to five 2) enter the title for your review 3) type in a written review of at least 20 words. You can then preview your review and post it, once it says what you like.

_ Similar to Amazon, scroll down to “Customer Reviews.” Click on the “Write and Review” button on the right hand side of the page. Create an account for your reviewer self, and then proceed to rate with stars and a written review. You can choose to show your pen name or write an anonymous review.

_ On this site, you can only enter a star rating, so it is fast and easy!

All of these booksellers give you the chance to post your review to Facebook or Tweet it or email it to friends. It’s up to you, how far and how wide you’d like your review to spread its wings.
_

This is a great website for book fanatics. You can meet other folks with your reading tastes, read reviews by your "friends," write reviews of your favorite and unfavorite books, and win free books on giveaways. It really is a fine way to keep a journal of all you’ve read.

You won't be alone! Goodreads has 6,700,000 members who've added more than 230,000,000 books to their online "shelves."Click here for a pitch from one devoted fan. Or just join the conversation.

It’s easy to sign up on Goodreads. Once you have an identity, you get your own reviewer page. You can enter the name of any book, and it pops up cover and all. You can then read existing reviews, say whether you’re reading it or have already read it, and give it a star rating and/or add a written review.

When you sign up for favorite reviewers, you'll get updates on books they’ve read. You can join groups of like-minded readers. You can also visit author pages, to read blogs and watch book trailers.

Goodreads will send you handy suggestions for titles you may love and a monthly newsletter of what's new in your favorite genres.

Better still, you can go to authors' pages, and leave encouraging words. If they're active Goodreads members, you will be able to find out what they're reading and reviewing. Wouldn't you love to know what's on your favorite author's nightstand?

*NEWSWEEK reports that one way to get smarter and "Buff Your Brain" is to WRITE REVIEWS ONLINE. I quote: "Anyone can be a critic on the Internet—and you should too. When you like or hate something, review it on Amazon, Yelp, whatever. Typing out your opinion will help you to better understand your own thinking." (Sadly, the online version does not list the 31 ways to get smarter faster. But it does have a link to a great article on meditation and brain happiness by Amy Gross, former editor of O Magazine.)

* spoiler alert * this book review tells all *

Jesus was not an intellectual. The narrator of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, the Reverend John Ames, is. His discourses on things Christian explore the subtleties of grace and love and God’s light, but he himself cannot act to save his godson, the lying, selfish, devious, no-account son of Ames’ best friend the Reverend Boughton. When the prodigal son Jack Boughton returns home to Gilead, Iowa, he receives precisely no help in his attempt at starting a new life. He receives a cold reception, a pointedly critical sermon, unflinching attention to long-held gospel principles and, in the end, one blessing.  

I would not call this Christian behavior.

For the first illegitimate child Jack Boughton abandoned, early in his life, the Reverends Ames and Boughton expended great efforts to assist the mother and child. But for the second illegitimate child, which Jack fathered in mid-life with his black common-law wife—a woman and child he loves and longs to support and live with—nothing. His elderly father cannot be told about the mixed-race couple for fear the news will kill him. He is dying, and in the year 1956 miscegenation is a scandalous thing. The Reverend Ames, also in failing health, does nothing with the knowledge but assess and bury it.

The tastiest bits of the novel involve Ames’ grandfather, an abolitionist preacher who harbored John Brown in his Kansas church and used his ministry to end slavery and save the United States’ soul, violently. Whereas our Reverend Ames refuses to forgive Jack Boughton for abandoning his first child, for squandering fatherhood “as if it were nothing,” and cannot be stirred to assist the older, humbler Jack whose mixed-race family needs a decent place to spend their days together. Jack comes to lay his burden down—could he and his wife and child find a place to live in Gilead? To me that is the central question of this book. But Robinson’s Gilead is a “hill of testimony,” pages and pages of delicate reflection on a spiritual life, so there is no place for Jack.

Jesus spent his ministry with sinners, prostitutes, the poor, the weary and outcasts. John Ames does not even feel the lack of Christlike care offered to Jack Boughton. He uses Jack as a tool for self-examination, a theological sticking point. The only warmly compassionate person portrayed in this novel is Ames’ uneducated wife Lila, who says, “A person can change. Everything can change.”

If religion is not effective in relieving suffering and opening closed doors into grace, why is it worth our attention? For all Ames’ artistry of thought and expression, I would rather have read the life of Ames’ wife. Or his driven grandfather. I’m with the Bible on this one: To him who asks, give.

P.S.
Poking around in the history and life of John Brown, I found he created an anti-slavery group called The League of Gileadites. I doubt this is an accidental link. Brown said at the founding of the League, “Nothing so charmes the American people as personal bravery.” Wikipedia explains that “In the Bible, Mount Gilead was the place where only the bravest of Israelites would gather together to face an invading enemy.” Robinson’s town of Gilead, like the aging failing Ames, is the opposite of this. I hope she intended the irony.

What was great about this summer? I stumbled on a few fine reads, herewith shared.

Lilies of the Field—William E. Barrett

Bold simple tale of a man who finds his calling with a flock of German nuns.

The Wild Birds—Wendell Berry

Strikingly true agrarian views of life, delivered by the lawyer of a rural town in Kentucky.

Stargirl—Jerry Spinelli

Ever want to be a free spirit? Remember anyone in high school who ever dared? Stargirl shows you how.

The Beast in the Jungle—Henry James

You may think nothing happens in this novella, until the work explodes inside you the next day.


Cranford—Elizabeth Gaskell

Doilies and tea in a small English town, simpler days and ways. I confess, I enjoyed the BBC series more than the book. (Dame Judi Dench always delivers!) The dramatic ardency of Gaskell’s novel North and South gives way to gentle portraits of country women at home and in company.

IBS Cookbook—Heather Van Vorous

This woman knows great food. Amazing fallen chocolate soufflé with raspberry sauce. Scrumptious orange flower bread. Zesty fresh mango salsa on grilled shrimp. Delectable roasted cauliflower soup. I cook from this book all of the time for guests, who never guess the dishes are low fat. Unless the recipe says it’s from Van Vorous’ mother or grandmother, it will likely be delicious. Van Vorous' recipes are pure food love.

Tattoos on the Heart—Father Gregory Boyle

An oasis of human caring, Boyle works with fatherless young men in East L.A. To quote a friend, Father Boyle “is a fascinating human being, doing more positive good than all the government agencies combined." Bask in compassion. Read his book.

And treat yourself to another compassionate hard-working man, Sydney Poitier in Lilies of the Field. The first words from the Mother's mouth when he hops out of his dusty car,

Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday, I sang—heaven help me—“Rocky Mountain High." I pondered a Henry James novella I’d just read, “The Beast in the Jungle.” Because I wore brown-tinted sunglasses, the beetle-kill pines stood out on every slope, and I could not feel anything but implicated in and convinced of our changed planet.

In James’ story, the hero John Marcher misses the event of his lifetime. He feels chosen by an obscure destiny, waiting as if anointed for some beast to leap onto him and render his life profound. May Bartram, the only friend who knows of his obsession, stands beside him for decades, waiting, but Marcher’s self-absorption is so complete he only realizes when flinging himself on May’s grave that he has missed out on her love. That was his unrecognized beast.

The twists and turns of James’ syntax far exceed plot points, and I dismissed “The Beast in the Jungle” as a windy staid study in the human ego; profound—the beast is within not without us—and a dated sleeper written by a man who spent all his time indoors.

But as I hiked the thousand feet up toward Lake Helene, surrounded by vast browning slopes, the power of his novella came at me from an unexpected quarter, haunting my climb. James’ protagonist fit perfectly our environmental dilemma: we cannot really love the earth, though it offers itself, so we use it and simultaneously feel cut off from it, valuing our self-importance more than the opportunity to genuinely live, which makes us unable to stop pillaging, unable to stop missing the point, and we're just about to throw ourselves on its grave in misery and cowardice, like James' hero. Empty, when what is offered us is so full.

I have found no good way to face such a grand-scale environmental demise. Which leaves me in the Jungle with John Marcher.

Whatever you can do to plunge into this love, do it now.

I just received my second royalty check for GUEST HOUSE. The checks come every six months in a large white folder packed with info and joy. I sold 213 copies between December and May. In many circles, those are small potatoes. The way I figure it, "I am a few miles luckier, a few clouds wealthier, a few shoes humbler," and the small potatoes are the sweet ones. With red jackets!

So it's time to say thank you to everyone who has purchased a book, atttended a reading or cheered from the sidelines. I am grateful to you all.

If the fates are kind, another novel will emerge from the potato patch. Right now it's rooty research and dreams...