Bookshelf: New Titles from UM Authors

New titles from authors with UM connections

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Categories: Alumni , History , Research , Arts

Compiled by Ginny Merriam

“Breaking and Entering: The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker Called ‘Alien’ ” by Jeremy N. Smith
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019, 304 pages, $28

Jeremy Smith’s third nonfiction book tells the story of Alien, a professional hacker – or, as she puts it, a “penetration tester and digital forensics specialist.” She and her team work for individuals and institutions who want to test their security or have been hacked and want to find out who did it and how. Smith, who earned an MFA in creative writing at UM, brings the reader along as he discovers her mysterious world.

 Breaking and Entering

 

“The MeatEater Fish & Game Cookbook” by Steven Rinella
Spiegel & Grau, 2018, 350 pages, $35.00

Chef, outdoorsman, writer and television and podcast personality Steven Rinella tells his readers, “Wild game represents both the first and final frontier in cooking.” His new book tells us how to field dress, prepare and cook animals from caribou to wild pigs. The recipes include Wild Goose Pastrami, The Perfect Fried Catfish Sandwich and Bullfrog Legs with Butter and Wine. The photos take us from the field to the plate. Rinella earned an MFA in Creative Writing at UM.

 

The MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook

 

“Breath” by Robert Lee
FootHills Publishing, 2018, 80 pages, $16

“We share the air/until/one by one/the ones I know and need/stop breathing,” poet Robert Lee writes in the title poem of his new book. In this collection, Lee takes on retirement, love, friends, winter and more, and he wraps up with letter poems in the Richard Hugo tradition. Lee worked his way through an MFA in poetry at UM in mid-life and teaches for the Missoula Writing Collaborative.

 

 Breath

 

“Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption” by Susan Devan Harness
University of Nebraska Press, 2018, 368 pages, $29.95

Susan Harness dedicates her book to several loved ones “And to all my families.” Born on the Flathead Indian Reservation, she was adopted by white parents at the age of 2 after a social worker removed her from her home because of “neglect.” At 15, she began asking about her birth family but didn’t begin to find answers until early adulthood. Harness explores home, belonging and the historical injustice of the American Indian’s story of assimilation. She earned her anthropology degree at UM.

 

 Bitterroot

 

“It Happened Like This: A Life in Alaska” by Adrienne Lindholm
Mountaineers Books 2018, 208 pages, $16.95

In her new book, Adrienne Lindholm is usually wearing a backpack or skis, flying in a float plane or navigating challenging waters. Bears and moose figure in the stories, as does driving rain. Such is Alaska. As so many people do, Lindholm went to Alaska for “a summer” and is still there 18 years later. Wilderness, she believes, is where we become our best selves. She earned a master’s degree in Environmental Studies at UM and works for the National Park Service.

 

 It Happened Like This: A Life in Alaska

 

“Ruby Dreams of Janis Joplin” by Mary Clearman Blew
University of Nebraska Press, 2018, 246 pages, $19.95

Mary Clearman Blew, an award-winning writer and professor emerita of English at the University of Idaho, set her new novel in the fictional Montana Hi-Line town of Versailles. Ruby Gervais buses tables two nights a week at the local bar until the Idaho Rivermen invite her to join their band. Blew explores small-town life, its dark underside and its generosity. Blew grew up outside Lewistown and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in English at UM.

 

Ruby Dreams of Janis Joplin

 

“Howl Like a Wolf!” by Kathleen Yale
Storey Publishing, 2018, 80 pages, $18.95

In her new book, Kathleen Yale teaches her readers to rattle like a rattlesnake, spray like a skunk, joke like a raven and sing like a humpback whale. Aimed at young readers, all ages can learn about the lives of 15 animals from the wild and engage in imaginative play while doing it. Yale shares her knowledge as a wildlife field biologist and freelance wrier and editor. She earned a degree in Environmental Studies at UM.

 

 Howl Like A Wolf

 

“Fear Icons” by Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel
Mad Creek Books/The Ohio State University Press, 2018, 187 pages, $19.95.

Kisha Schlegel won the Gournay Prize for a first book-length collection of essays by an emerging writer. A graduate of UM’s Environmental Studies Program and assistant professor of English at Whitman College, she explores the icons in modern American culture that frighten us, along with those that soothe. She writes of the love and wonder her young son inspires, the horror of the nightly news, a televangelist, the Dalai Lama and plaque between the teeth as she examines all the roles we each play in everyday life.

 

 

Fear Icons />

 

“Anaphora” by Kevin Goodan
Alice James Books, 2018, 62 pages, $15.95

UM alum Kevin Goodan grew up on the Flathead Indian Reservation, where his stepfather and brothers were tribal members. His collection of poems is an elegy to his cousin Jimmy, who hanged himself in the family’s woodshed at 21. The untitled poems call up the still-raw sense of shock and loss and the harsh edges of small-town, rural life alongside November rain. Goodan teaches at Lewis-Clark State College in Idaho.

 

Anaphora

 

“The Diamond Cutter: Returning to Reason and Love in Big Sky Country” by Van Blakely
Bantry Bay Publishing, 2018, 135 pages, $9.99

Van Blakely earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in business at UM and is a member of the management team at Montana Rail Link. But his new novel draws on other things: love of Montana, love for family and admiration for the classic rock of Tom Scholz. His characters are four friends growing up in western Montana in the 1970s and ’80s whose lives evolve in diverse ways.

 

The Diamond Cutter


If you are a UM alum with a recent book release, don’t forget about your alma mater. To be considered for Bookshelf, you must send a copy of the book, along with any press materials and contact information, to: Montanan, University Relations, 214 Brantly Hall, Missoula, MT 59812. Submission of materials does not guarantee that your work will be featured.

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