Made In China, Justin Wadland
Feb 2016
Made In China, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
A review of Finding Them Gone : Visiting China’s Poets of the Past by Bill Porter / Red Pine
Which One Was Truly Radical, Justin Wadland
May 2015
Which One Was Truly Radical, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
A review of David Gessner's All the Wild that Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West
A True Son Of Anarchy, Justin Wadland
Dec 2014
A True Son Of Anarchy, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
"As he walked the sodden planks of the Municipal Dock, his eyes wandered from overcoats to leather shoes, across roped bollards to steam rising off the mills. He sighed a lungful of cigarette smoke. Tacoma’s dreary, wet weather could not compare to the glorious blue skies of Los Angeles. Drizzle saturated everything here, but in California the wind rustling the palms reminded a man of the nearby ocean, even when the views were framed by hotel and automobile windows, or caught in the short walks to and from a courthouse. It felt good to be alone, though, not shadowed by a …
A Wilderness Guide To Grief: An Interview With Gary Ferguson, Justin Wadland
Nov 2014
A Wilderness Guide To Grief: An Interview With Gary Ferguson, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
A conversation with Gary Ferguson about his book The Carry Home.
Trying Home Book Talk: University Bookstore Reading, Justin Wadland
Oct 2014
Trying Home Book Talk: University Bookstore Reading, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
A recording of a book talk given at the University Bookstore on October 10, 2014. Video produced by TalkingStickTV.
Library In The Future Tense, Justin Wadland
Aug 2014
Library In The Future Tense, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
A review of three recent books about the past, present, and future of libraries: "The Library Beyond the Book" by Mathew Battles and Jeffrey Schnapp, "The Public Library: A Photographic Essay" by Robert Dawson, and "The Library: A World History," by Will Pryce and James Campbell.
Review Of "The Mountain Poems Of Stonehouse" Translated By Red Pine And "Yellow River Odyssey" By Bill Porter, Justin Wadland
Dec 2013
Review Of "The Mountain Poems Of Stonehouse" Translated By Red Pine And "Yellow River Odyssey" By Bill Porter, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
"The translator known as Red Pine thinks of translating in terms of dancing ... Over a career spanning three decades, Red Pine has danced with many classical Chinese poets and important works of Taoist and Buddhist literature, including the poet Han-Shan (or Cold Mountain), the Tao Te Ching, and the Heart Sutra. Informed by his own Buddhist practice and travels in Asia, Red Pine’s work is consistently characterized by a generosity of spirit that opens up these challenging texts to the English-speaking world." -- From the opening paragraph.
Trying Home: The Rise And Fall Of An Anarchist Utopia On Puget Sound, Justin Wadland
Dec 2013
Trying Home: The Rise And Fall Of An Anarchist Utopia On Puget Sound, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
Trying Home traces the history of the anarchist colony of Home, Washington, from its founding in 1896 on a remote Puget Sound peninsula to its dissolution amid bitter infighting in 1921.
As a practical experiment in anarchism, Home offered its participants a rare degree of freedom and tolerance in the Gilded Age, but the community also became notorious to the outside world for its open rejection of contemporary values. Using a series of linked narratives, Trying Home reveals the stories of the iconoclastic individuals who lived in …
The Anarchists Must Go, Justin Wadland
Feb 2013
The Anarchists Must Go, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
In the wake of a president’s assassination, a community newspaper with a circulation of seven hundred and a section focused largely on steamer schedules and tomato yields found itself defending the right to free speech while an angry mob formed a raiding party.
Review Of "Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life And Poetry Of Zen Master Ryokan" By Kazuaki Tanahashi, Justin Wadland
Dec 2012
Review Of "Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life And Poetry Of Zen Master Ryokan" By Kazuaki Tanahashi, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
"Children flocked around Ryokan when he came on his begging rounds through the village near his home. To them, he was the monk who joined into their play as if he himself was a child..." -- From the opening paragraph.
Review Of "Horizon's Lens: My Time On The Turning World" By Elizabeth Dodd, Justin Wadland
Dec 2012
Review Of "Horizon's Lens: My Time On The Turning World" By Elizabeth Dodd, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
"In Horizon's Lens, Elizabeth Dodd visits prehistoric sites that bear traces of human attempts to align with the cosmos: the etched and painted rocks of Chaco Canyon, a medicine wheel high in the mountains of Montana, the megaliths and burrows on the Orkney Islands, Mayan temples on the Yucatan Peninsula. Often timing her visits with solstices, equinoxes, and lunar events, she seeks to circumscribe the consciousness that once inhabited these landscapes..." -- From the opening paragraph.
Homesick For The Past: An Interview With Rebecca Mcclanahan, Justin Wadland
Dec 2012
Homesick For The Past: An Interview With Rebecca Mcclanahan, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
A conversation with Rebecca McClanahan about her book The Tribal Knot: A Memoir of Family, Community, and a Century of Change.
Review Of "Core Samples From The World" By Forrest Gander, Justin Wadland
Dec 2011
Review Of "Core Samples From The World" By Forrest Gander, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
"Climatologists drill core samples from rock, soil, and ice, seeking evidence of the most fleeting of natural phenomena: ancient weather. Perhaps it is no coincidence, then, that each of the four sections in Forrest Gander’s Core Samples from the World opens with a poem titled “Evaporation” that simultaneously orients and disorients the reader to what follows." -- From the opening paragraph.
Review Of "Red Plenty" By Francis Spufford, Justin Wadland
Dec 2011
Review Of "Red Plenty" By Francis Spufford, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
"The difference between utopia and dystopia is awfully — some might say, fatally — thin. Often the difference is only a matter of perspective. Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty contains many instances of double vision that capture both the aspirations and horrors of the Soviet Union..." -- From the opening paragraph.
Review Of "The Strangest Tribe: How A Group Of Seattle Rock Bands Invented Grunge" By Stephen Tow And "Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History Of Grunge" By Mark Yarm, Justin Wadland
Dec 2011
Review Of "The Strangest Tribe: How A Group Of Seattle Rock Bands Invented Grunge" By Stephen Tow And "Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History Of Grunge" By Mark Yarm, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
"Eddie Vedder tore apart a hotel room when he found out Kurt Cobain had killed himself. “Then I just kind of sat in the rubble, which somehow felt right . . . like my world at the moment,” he later told a reporter. Pearl Jam happened to have a visit to the White House scheduled the following day, so on April 9, 1994, Vedder dusted himself off and appeared in the Oval Office. Fearing a rash of copycat suicides, President Clinton pulled the lead singer aside and asked whether he should address the nation. Vedder wisely counseled against it: such …
Review Of "Swimming Studies" By Leanne Shapton, Justin Wadland
Dec 2011
Review Of "Swimming Studies" By Leanne Shapton, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
"Swimming has appeared from time to time in Western literature, often as a test of manly endurance. Odysseus swam for two days in the wine-dark sea, while Beowulf made it for seven, wearing a suit of armor and battling sea monsters along the way. Ben Franklin stripped down, leapt into the Thames, and demonstrated his aquatic expertise all the way from Chelsea to Blackfryars ... Yet Swimming Studies may be the first literary book entirely devoted to the grueling agonies and occasional ecstasies of competitive swimming." -- From the opening paragraph.
Review Of "Wonderful Investigations: Essays, Meditations, Tales" By Dan Beachy-Quick, Justin Wadland
Dec 2011
Review Of "Wonderful Investigations: Essays, Meditations, Tales" By Dan Beachy-Quick, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
"''There is then creative reading," wrote Emerson in 'The American Scholar." Poet and essayist Dan Beachy-Quick admits that this dictum is "the touchstone of his creative life," and it shows in his new prose collection Wonderful Investigations..." -- From the opening paragraph.
Review Of "Potluck: Community On The Edge Of Wilderness" By Anna Maria Spagna, Justin Wadland
Dec 2010
Review Of "Potluck: Community On The Edge Of Wilderness" By Anna Maria Spagna, Justin Wadland
Justin Wadland
"Ever notice how people are more likely to say hi on a backwoods trail than on the city sidewalk? And why do folks seem more likely to stop and chat for a while the farther the trail-head is from an urban center?" -- From the opening paragraph.
