100 Oregon Books

A few weeks ago, the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission issued a list of 100 books of Oregon. The books "speak to the quality of our literary community over time, our rich culture, and the influence of our amazing landscape," according to the commission's president, David Milholland.

It's the diversity of the list that's so astonishing - from the original journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club.

(Incidentally, a BlueOregon note. Our very own Kim Stafford made the list with Having Everything Right: Essays of Place)

So, here's the entire list of 100...

What books have meant something to you? What books would you suggest for the second 100 Oregon Books?

  • Kevin Hayden (unverified)
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    A good list, though I would have liked to see something about Abigail Scott Duniway and women's suffrage, the KKK, as well as some about figures in the past half century: Wayne Morse, Tom McCall, Mark Hatfield, Jim Weaver, just to name a few.

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    Not to go off-topic, but didn't Kari just recently state that the new policy was no one posts anonymously?

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    Um, Kevin? Abigail Scott Duniway made the list. And she might be pretty darn thrilled that her brother, Harvey Scott, the longtime Oregonian editor and anti-suffragist who wrote a history of Oregon, didn't make the cut. So go taunt his statue in Mt. Tabor Park on Abby's behalf. :)

    If you're looking for good books on some of the other topics mentioned, try David Horowitz's Inside the Klavern: The Secret History of a Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s; Brent Walth's Fire At Eden's Gate: Tom McCall and the Oregon Story; and Mason Drukman's Wayne Morse: A Political Biography.

    As to b!X's point, I think "open discussion" postings come directly from our fearless editors, and are therefore not anonymous.

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    I think their selections of some of the "bigs"--Kesey, LeGuin, Carver--are weird (Notion over Cuckoo, Lathe over Left Hand, Please over Cathedral?) and I'd argue that limiting either to a single selection reflects dubious process at best. If this were California, would Steinbeck rate a single title?

    But of course, these things are always only about creating discussion, and I can't think of anything better to discuss than books.

  • Eric Berg (unverified)
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    For what it''s worth, my sugesstions for other books centered in Oregon by Oregon writers.:

    Craig Lesley's "River Song" and "Sky Fisherman". Ken Kesey's "Last Go Round".

    If you like anyting by by Lesley or David James Duncan, read everything else they write. I think "Sky Fisherman" is Lesley's best story. Duncan's "The Brothers K" centers around Camas, Washington, just across the Columbia River from Oregon and involves a Portland Pacific Coast League AAA baseball team.

    For Pacific Northwest political history junkies, I suggest "They Never Go Back to Pocatello: Selected Essays of Richard Neuberger". Neuberger was a US senator from Oregon.

    BTW, by entering Powell's website through www.powellsunion.com, 10 percent of your sale goes to the workers profit-sharing plan.

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    Bix... "Not to go off-topic, but didn't Kari just recently state that the new policy was no one posts anonymously?"

    Yes, you're right. That's true - but your BlueOregon co-editors (Jeff, Jesse, and me) will continue to post stuff under open discussion, breaking news, and blueoregon admin. We've got our own rules for that stuff; basically that it's neutrally written stuff: "This happened. Discuss."

    We've actually flipped a few items from 'open discussion' to a commentary by the author when it appeared to head down the road of opinion commentary.

    Thanks for asking.

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    Rachel, you're right - I just noticed that Fire at Eden's Gate didn't make the list. That's a real omission - it's the best biography of our most dominant 20th Century political leader.

  • kara (unverified)
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    I didn't know Richard Brautigan was from Oregon. Kewl!

  • Eric Berg (unverified)
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    Today's Sunday Oregonian ArtsWeek section has the list and an essay about it by Robin Cody, whose "Richochet River" made the cut. A Big O copy editor probably wrote the headlne, "Variations on a man-in-nature theme", but Cody uses a phrase in the second paragraph that would have served better, 'The Oregonness of it". Or perhaps simply, "Oregonness".

  • LT (unverified)
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    "For Pacific Northwest political history junkies, I suggest "They Never Go Back to Pocatello: Selected Essays of Richard Neuberger". Neuberger was a US senator from Oregon......"

    For that matter, anything by Steve Neal (who I think had a role in Never Go Back). Neal is the late great writer of a McNary biography and a graduate of McNary High School.

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