In the previous edition of the Citizen, readers were given some suggestions of good books to curl up with on these cold winter days. Here’s part two of that list with suggestions from the Cloud and Leaf bookstore staff of Jody and Mark Frochen, Glenna Gray, Ryan Pederson and Elia Seely, and Peg Miller. of Ekahni Books.

“Strange Piece of Paradise”

by Terri Jentz

In 1977, while sleeping in a tent with a friend in the desert of Central Oregon, a man deliberately runs over the tent with a pickup truck and attacked Terri Jentz and her friend with an ax. Since this man was never found, Jentz returns to investigate the crime and bring the attacker to justice, only to find that the statute of limitations has expired.

Her book comprises investigative journalism, a memoir, a study of the victim and the perpetrator, and an inquiry into how a single act of violence affected a whole community.

“The Inheritance of Loss’

by Kiran Desai

Set in the 1980’s, this book tells the story of a judge living out a disenchanted retirement in Kalimppong, a hill station in the Himalayan foothills, and his relationship with his granddaughter Sai, and the encroachment on their lives by a band of Nepalese insurgents.

“The Accidental”

by Ali Smith

This is the story about a girl, a stranger named Amber, who turns up at the door of an English country house and the enormous impact that her arrival has upon the family therein. Departing from traditional narrative, Ali Smith eschews such conventions as sentence structure and quotation makers in the creation of a groundbreaking novel that is currently rivaling the best British offerings of 2005 for the Man Booker Prize.

“My Life in France”

by Julia Child

Written in the last few years of her life with the assistance of her grandnephew, writer Alex Prud’Homme, Julia focuses on her years in France, where she discovered her life’s passion, years she considered ‘among the best in my life.’ Based in a large part on the letters Julia and Paul, her husband, wrote to her friends and family, we get to know Paul, a photographer, artist, poet, a diplomat and the crucial role he played in her life and career. Also of interest are the details of the work that went into writing and then trying to get published, her classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, where every recipe was adapted for American ingredients and kitchens, tested and refined until perfect.

“They Marched into Sunlight”

by David Maraniss

An epic story of Vietnam and the sixties, told through the events of a few tumultuous days in October 1967. Maraniss weaves together three very different worlds of that time: the death and heroism of soldiers in Vietnam, the anger and anxiety of antiwar students and the confusion and obfuscating behavior of officials in Washington. Based on thousands of primary documents and 180 on-the-record interviews, the story unfolds day by day, hour by hour and at times, minute by minute, with a rich cast of characters, moving toward battles that forever shaped their lives and evoked cultural and political conflicts that reverberate still.

“Bad Land”

by Jonathan Raban

Jonathan Raban recaptures the unique ninety-year history of the Montana plains in a book that is part memoir and part history. The first settlers believed the pamphlets the railroads distributed to promote this arid land, and Raban re-creates the lives of people moving west, people who had read the propaganda and came to eastern Montana to live out their dream. However, after a few successful years, the normal weather of inadequate rainfall and subzero winters, returned and drove the settlers west.

Raban also traces the 1990s when the Unabomber and the Montana Freemen made headlines in the latter part of the decade. He links the first homesteading failure with the anger and frustration of contemporary middle America.

All of the aforementioned

books are available at Cloud

and Leaf bookstore.

Peg Miller offers an idiosyncratic selection, and offers an extensive collection of local titles. Some of her recommendations:

“At the Foot of the Mountain”

by Jane Comerford

An early history of Manzanita and Neah-Kah-Nie, uses historic photographs to tell the history from the mid-1800s to the mid-1940s.

“Neah-Kah-Nie Mountain:

a 1909 Journey to the

Oregon Coast”

W/ photos by Benjamin Gifford

First published in 1910 as the sales brochure for the “new” development now known as Neahkahnie.

“The Physics of Qi”

by Tom Bender

A 100 minute DVD which accompanies his Silence Song and Shadows, Building with the Breath of Life, and The Economics of Wholeness.

“Trask” and “To Build a Ship”

by Don Berry

Set in 1848 on the wild edge of the continent, in the rain forests and rugged headlands of the Oregon coast, Trask follows a mountain man’s quest for new opportunities and new land to settle.

“Till Broad Daylight: a History of Early Settlement in Oregon’s Tillamook County”

by Warren N. Vaughn

Wedged between the Coast Range and the Pacific Ocean, the Tillamook country of Oregon’s north coast was once days away by either boat or foot from the nearest settlement, a land of isolation and ruggedness in which families faced a life of hardship on the edge of a wilderness. Now the new book, Till Broad Daylight: A History of Early Settlement in Oregon’s Tillamook County, derived from a manuscript written more than a century ago, describes life on this remote frontier.

There you have it. For even more ideas, stop by either bookstore and browse the shelves.