Sandy Compton published the memoir Side Trips From Cowboy: Addiction, Recovery and The Western American Myth in 2009. A lot can happen in 15 years. This new version leaves some inconsequential stuff behind and brings more relevant material to take its place. Anyone who is, loves, knows or cares for an addict will benefit by reading Side Trips From Cowboy Revisited
This compelling historical fiction thriller keeps readers on edge until the very end. It's truly a suspenseful novel in which even romance is wrapped in duplicity. Readers will wonder if this story actually happened.
In Something About Miracles, Mary Magdalene Miller, M.D. tells the stories of three patients — or maybe they are clients — who have as much affect on her life as she does on theirs. She's a psychiatrist, by the way — a psychiatrist who believes in miracles.
Tall, tough, and headstrong, Shelly Stamper from Peapatch, West Virginia has wanted to be a truck drivin’ cowgirl since she was six: “Out west, in some wild place on the prairie or in the mountains.” But tragedy intervenes and at 17 she’s dancing in a dive bar, getting drunk every night and consorting with every bottom-feeding male loser who comes along. When the dumbest of the lot offers her a shot at her dream, she grabs at it out of desperation.
Waters of Wealth by Donald Spritzer was originally published in 1979. Blue Creek Press, Libby Dam Cooperative Association and the US Army Corps of Engineers have republished it in part to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first electricity to be produced by the dam in 1975,
Sam Olson was raised in Portland, Oregon — with Northwest Montana roots. The creek he grew up on — among the myriad rivers that inhabit this book — has been stewarded since time immemorial by the Clackamas and Kalapuya peoples. Many of these poems were written in the occupied homelands of the Salish, Pend d’Oreille, Blackfeet, and Kootenai peoples. His poetry is spare and personal, based in place and experience. Sam lives in Missoula and teaches creative writing in Montana’s elementary schools and juvenile detention centers.
Dr. Mary Magdalene Miller, M.D., the self-named narrator of this series, is falling in love with two people at the same time. One is the “smart dog,” an architect who may or may not be wooing her. It’s hard to tell, sometime. The other is Lillian, a beautiful 15-year-old anorexic girl intent on starving herself to invisibility. Lillian’s parents have charged Dr. Miller with saving her life, and the doctor has concluded that maybe the only way that can be done is to get Lillian away from her parents.
“Whether the poetry is good or not is in the eye of the reader, but each one of these comes from my heart or mind, and often both. They may not all touch you, but maybe one will, and that makes it worth it.
The subject matter is disparate enough to defy generic classification, though I tried. The poems are broken into four subgroups, the last of which is ‘The Rest.’ I’ll let you discover what the other three are. I will only say that some of The Rest are some of the best.”
Sonnichsen's experience as an FBI agent adds authenticity to this account of a young woman who joins the agency after a disastrous marriage, only to find that her past follows her into her new life.
Sonnichsen’s sources for Adventures in Good Living range from the ancient Greeks through Darwin and Thoreau to Rachel Carson and A.C. Grayling. The bottom line of his shared thoughts is that each individual has the capacity to live a good life, but it is each individual’s responsibility to take action to achieve it.
Don’t let your life happen by accident. In a world full of problems and the worries that accompany them, there is much to be learned here.
Master storyteller Sandy Compton has gathered tales for decades, and from all around the world. These are 20 of his best. The Dog With His Head On Sideways is a collection years in the making.
Anyone curious about the form and sources of the formidable obstacles faced by women in their quest for equality with men — now and over the centuries — should read this book.
The book title, A Leaf in a Stream, was chosen to portray human life as a sequential series of random events over which we have minimal control. Stoics and Buddhists believe that it is useless to worry about what we cannot control in our world, so we should concentrate our energies on those things we can. Here are some ideas about how to go about that.
Dick Sonnichsen is watching what was once one of the foundation blocks of his life disintegrate before his very eyes — as well as the eyes of a watching world. The Catholic Church, in which he grew up and attended faithfully for decades, is indeed a church in peril.
In All Fish Have Bones, Dick Sonnichsen tracks his life journey from committed Catholic to skeptic, explaining in detail why he has come to be an “unbeliever” along the way and what it has done for him emotionally, mentally, and, yes, spiritually.
Jason’s Passage, originally published in 1993, reveals a secret carried from one generation to another by Jason Indreland, who witnessed as a young man the acquisition and escape of “Scarface,” a young stud horse Caleb Blascomb knew would bring his dreams for the West Fork Ranch to fruition — if he could be found and caught.
The Scenic Route appeared as a regular column in The River Journal of Idaho and Montana for over twenty years. Author Sandy Compton, who lives on the road between Hope and Paradise, sorted out what he thinks are the best of those and put them into this volume.
Archer MacClehan has dreams that lead him into dangerous places. In the second Archer MacClehan adventure — he dreams of vultures, a coral snake, a girl named Opal and Running Woman — Sara Cafferty.
In Mariam Lawton Clayton's words, "We loaded camp-kit and grub-box also a limited supply of clothing and started. We had no definite idea of distance or trail, but we planned to live in the open and take what came.”
Such was the beginning of a life-changing adventure that was also a honeymoon to Yellowstone National Park in a borrowed buckboard with a borrowed team.
Larry Longquist — world traveler, depressive, recovering addict, and freshly 60 years old — cashes his tiny 401K and engages the services of Mary Magdalene Miller, M.D. specializing in psychiatry. Object — clarity.
During a 27-year tenure as missionaries for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in India, Herman and Mildred Reynolds raised three children and made hundreds of friends, Christian, Hindu and animist alike.
They also wrote thousands of words about their adventures and the adventures of their friends– and enemies — in the crowded subcontinent. Theirs was a time of transition between the imperial rule of Great Britain and Indian independence, which, once gained, caused them to leave their Indian “House by the Side of the Road,” and return to America. These are some of their words, written during and after living there.
“Life is served raw in wild country” when a backcountry hike turns flaky. And out in the brush, just out of sight is the Hungry Now. He’s a grizzly bear, and if bears could remember things better, he would know why the Smell-among-smells troubles him so.
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