Northwest Passages Book Club

"Lilac Girls," the 1.5-million-copy bestselling novel by Martha Hall Kelly, introduced readers to Caroline Ferriday, an American philanthropist who helped young girls released from Ravensbruck concentration camp. Now, in "Sunflower Sisters," Kelly tells the story of her ancestor Georgeanna Woolsey, a Union nurse who joins the war effort during the Civil War, and how her calling leads her to cross...

Author Adrienne Kisner joined a virtual gathering of the Northwest Passages Book Club to discuss her novel, “Six Angry Girls,” with Kristi Burns of the Spokesman-Review. Adulthood is overrated!

Sarah Gailey, author of “The Echo Wife,” joined Northwest Passages Book Club just hours after Deadline announced that Annapurna Productions had successfully optioned the book for film adaptation. Here’s the premise: “Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award-winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she would never be. An...

Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman wrote "Girls with Bright Futures" the fictional account of angst and stress of parents trying to get their children into the right universities and they talk about it with Kristi Burns of the Northwest Passages Book Club Thursday, Feb. 19, 2021 on a livestream broadcast. Books mentioned during the conversation include: Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari Daring Greatly b...

Kim Johnson’s THIS IS MY AMERICA delves into racial injustice within the U.S. legal system . This powerful book holds a strong relatable message for our current social climate. The book discussion is lead by Kiantha Duncan, president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP.

Award winning freelance journalist and podcaster Leah Sottile talks about her work writing about the anti-government and militia movements in the western states, which she has covered for many publications. She has also produced a podcast called "Bundyville" where she digs deeper into the topic. Shawn Vestal of The Spokesman-Review interviewed Sottile on the Northwest Passages Community Forum live...

John Bryant, owner of No-Li Brewhouse in Spokane, talks with The Spokesman-Review Features Editor Don Chareunsy on Tuesday night about the Spokane beer scene, the recognition that Spokane beers, including No-Li beers, are getting across the country and how his company is faring under COVID-19 restrictions. Bryant is optimistic about the future of brewing and beer when COVID-19 restrictions end.

Sarah Elmeligi has been working with bears for nearly 20 years. After completing her Masters research examining the impacts of bear-viewing tourism on bear behaviour in the K’tzim-a-deen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary on the northern tip of the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, she completed her PhD studying grizzly bear habitat use of hiking trails in the Canadian Rocky Mountain national parks....

Author Edward Humes talks with Nick Deshais about his 2012 book "Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash." Humes showed how recycling, at least as done by most people, barely makes a dent in the volume of trash produced and that people should strive for a less disposable lifestyle.

As the former Outdoors Editor of The Spokesman-Review, Rich Landers has spent more than four decades exploring the region, and the world, as he hiked, fished, skiied, hunted and explored. He has a handful of hiking and paddling books about the Northwest and recently published "Urban Trails: Spokane and Coeur d'Alene." He speaks with current Outdoors Editor Eli Francovich about the book on the Nort...

Spokane author Jess Walter releases his latest book, "The Cold Millions", in a live interview streamed from Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, Washington Monday, Oct. 26, 2020. Spokesman-Review Senior Editor Carolyn Lamberson interviews Jess about his new book and about writing in general, fielding many questions from readers.

Burn Out Comes to Book Club - Author Anne Helen Petersen (who grew up in Lewiston) and her new book, "Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation, is presented in the Northwest Passages livestream with Spokesman-Review writer Arielle Dreher posing the questions.

Author and historian Jim Kershner talks about his recently completed book, "The Sound of Spokane - The history of the Spokane Symphony" with Spokesman-Review writer Stephanie Hammett on the Northwest Passages Book Club livestream from Spokane, Washington. Principal trumpet Larry Jess joins the conversation to talk about his more than 50 years with the orchestra. Purchase the book: https://secure.f...

A wildly original, cross-country novel that subverts a long tradition of family narratives and casts new light on the mythologies--national, individual, and collective--that drive and define us. VANESSA VESELKA is the author of the novel Zazen, which won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize.

The New Chardonnay tells the unbelievable story of pot’s astonishing rebranding, pulling back the curtain to show how a drug that was once the subject of “Just Say No” warnings managed to shed its unsavory image and land at the center of a booming and surprisingly upstanding industry. Heather Cabot is an author, award-winning journalist, keynote speaker and former ABC News correspondent and anchor...

Max Brooks, author of "World War Z", "The Harlem Hellfighters," "The Zombie Survival Guide" and his newest, "Devolution," is interviewed by Spokesman-Review Senior Editor Carolyn Lamberson about his books, his craft, and even a little about his famous parents, Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks. This is part of the Northwest Passages Book Club Virtual Forum series, sponsored by the Innovia Foundation, A...

Authors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West talk with Spokesman-Review columnist Shawn Vestal about their book "Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World" on the live-stream of the Northwest Passages Book Club. This program was made possible by generous grants from Avista, Numerica Credit Union, The Innovia Foundation, and listeners like you! Thank you for your support!

Longtime newspaper editor and author Margaret Sullivan, who started at her hometown newspaper, the Buffalo News and rose to become Editor, then became an editor at the New York Times and now a columnist at the The Washington Post, talks with Editor Rob Curley of The Spokesman-Review about the decline of newspapers and how today's citizens get their news. This is part of the Northwest Passages Comm...

Writer and humorist Sandra Tsing Loh headlines this Northwest Passages Book Club virtual event and her friend and comedian Julia Sweeney does the interviewing via livestream. This program was made possible by generous grants from Avista, Numerica Credit Union, The Innovia Foundation, and listeners like you! Thank you for your support!

Stephan Pastis, creator of the comic strip "Pearls Before Swine" and the kids book series "Timmy Failure", talks with Spokesman-Review Editor Rob Curley on the Northwest Passages Book Club livestream Thursday, June 11, 2020.

The many names and titles of Olivia Hawker

Ben Goldfarb visits with Eli Francovich, The Spokesman-Review's Outdoors editor. In “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,” environmental journalist Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America’s lakes and rivers.

Conversation between Non Sequitur creator Wiley Miller and Spokesman-Review editor Rob Curley at The Bing Crosby Theater on August 5 2019

Spark Central's Brooke Matson speaks with Nicole Chung, author of "All You Can Ever Know" before her Northwest Passages Book Club event.

Columnist and author Shawn Vestal speaks with Pam Houston about her new book "Deep Creek". Her new book is an elegy to the disappearing wild places on Earth, like her 120-acre ranch, where cellphone towers are banned and the pantry is always stocked against the next three-day snowstorm. An English professor at the University of California–Davis, Houston also is the author of “Cowboys are My Weakne...