Temperance Creek

In the early seventies, some of us were shot like stars from our parents' homes. This was an act of nature, bigger than ourselves. In the austere beauty and natural reality of Hell's Canyon of Eastern Oregon, one hundred miles from pavement, Pam, unable to identify with her parent's world and looking for deeper pathways has a chance encounter with returning Vietnam warrior Skip Royes. Skip, looking for a bridge from survival back to connection, introduces Pam to the vanishing culture of the wandering shepherd and together they embark on a four–year sojourn into the wilderness. From the back of a horse, Pam leads her packstring of readers from overlook to water crossing, down trails two thousand years old, and from the vantages she chooses for us, we feel the edges of our own experiences. It is a memoir of falling in love with a place and a man and the price extracted for that love. Written with deep lyricism, Temperance Creek is a work of haunting beauty, fresh and irreverent and rooted in the grit and pleasure of daily life. This is Pam's story, but the courage and truth in the telling is part of our human experience. Seen through a slower more primary mirror, one not so crowded with objectivity, Pam's memoir, is a kind of home–coming, a family reunion for shooting stars.

Elder James White and his wife, Mrs. E. G. White, enjoyed speaking and writing about how true science and the Scriptures are related to one another. Various experiences motivated them to consider questions about health and ultimately share their knowledge with others. Written in a time when the subject of health was almost wholly ignored, the articles they wrote led thousands of people to change life-long habits. They were also among the first to present the subject of hygiene in consistency with the Bible and Christian beliefs. The principles presented in this book have not only stood the test of time, but have been proven to be even more accurate over the past several years by scientific evidence. Mrs. E. G. White shared her thoughts on Christian temperance, while Elder James White wrote on the subject of Bible hygiene. This collection of their more important writings will both inspire and instruct you in temperance and hygiene from a Biblical point of view.

During the depression days of the early 1930s the Jordan family-Len Jordan (later governor of Idaho and a United States senator), his wife Grace, and their three small children-moved to an Idaho sheep ranch in the Snake River gorge just below Hell's Canyon, deepest scratch on the face of North America. "Cut off from the world for months at a time, the Jordans became virtually self-sufficient. Short of cash but long on courage, they raised and preserved their food, made their own soap, and educated their children."-Sterling North, New York World-Telegram "Home Below Hell's Canyon is valuable because it writes a little-known way of life into the national chronicle. We are put in touch with the kind of people who set the country on its feet and in the generations since have kept it there. . . . Primarily it is a book of courage and effort tempered by the warmth of those who trust in goodness and practice it."-Christian Science Monitor "The thrilling story of a modern pioneer family. . . . An intensely human account filled with fun, courage and rich family life."-Seattle Post Intelligencer

"When former marshal Oscar Schiller investigates the violent slaying of Temperance Moon, the legendary female outlaw, he rides straight into a web of jealousy, blackmail, and deceit." --Amazon.com.

A magical bloodline. A family curse. Can Connie break the spell before it shatters her future? A bewitching novel of a New England history professor who must race against time to free her family from a curse, by Katherine Howe, New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. Connie Goodwin is an expert on America’s fractured past with witchcraft. A young, tenure-track professor in Boston, she’s earned career success by studying the history of magic in colonial America—especially women’s home recipes and medicines—and by exposing society's threats against women fluent in those skills. But beyond her studies, Connie harbors a secret: She is the direct descendant of a woman tried as a witch in Salem, an ancestor whose abilities were far more magical than the historical record shows. When a hint from her mother and clues from her research lead Connie to the shocking realization that her partner’s life is in danger, she must race to solve the mystery behind a hundreds’-years-long deadly curse. Flashing back through American history to the lives of certain supernaturally gifted women, The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs affectingly reveals not only the special bond that unites one particular matriarchal line, but also explores the many challenges to women’s survival across the decades—and the risks some women are forced to take to protect what they love most.

Beth Piatote's luminous debut collection opens with a feast, grounding its stories in the landscapes and lifeworlds of the Native Northwest, exploring the inventive and unforgettable pattern of Native American life in the contemporary world Told with humor, subtlety, and spareness, the mixed–genre works of Beth Piatote’s first collection find unifying themes in the strength of kinship, the pulse of longing, and the language of return. A woman teaches her niece to make a pair of beaded earrings while ruminating on a fractured relationship. An eleven–year–old girl narrates the unfolding of the Fish Wars in the 1960s as her family is propelled to its front lines. In 1890, as tensions escalate at Wounded Knee, two young men at college—one French and the other Lakota—each contemplate a death in the family. In the final, haunting piece, a Nez Perce–Cayuse family is torn apart as they debate the fate of ancestral remains in a moving revision of the Greek tragedy Antigone. Formally inventive and filled with vibrant characters, The Beadworkers draws on Indigenous aesthetics and forms to offer a powerful, sustaining vision of Native life.

The vibrant and beloved star of Once and Again and Sisters offers a story about her journey home to recapture the magic of youth in the deep South for her children and to make peace with the death of her mother. “This is the story of a girl who grew up in a gentle town in the Deep South, cradled by family and friends, worshiping Bear Bryant on Saturday night and Jesus Christ on Sunday morning…” At a time when much of America is yearning to recapture the spirit and feelings of a more innocent era, comes this extraordinary memoir from one of our most beloved actresses: a story of reconnecting with the most important things in life. Millions of TV and film viewers know Sela Ward as the Emmy-winning star of the series Sisters and Once & Again. But before she became a successful actress, Sela was first and foremost a small-town girl, the daughter of a family that lived for generations in a Mississippi homestead they called “Homeward.” It was there, within a tightly knit community of neighbors and kin, that Sela learned ways that would remain with her through life-humble virtues, like generosity, selflessness, and respect, that are “forged in the hearth of a loving home.” Now she has woven together nostalgic reminiscences, stories from throughout her life and career, and lessons on drawing strength and wisdom from a simpler place and time, to give us Homesick: a very special book on the challenge of raising a family, maintaining perspective, and carving away time for happiness amid the challenges of modern life.

Benjamin Franklin was in his early twenties when he embarked on a "bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection," intending to master the virtues of temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. He soon gave up on perfection but continued to believe that these virtues, coupled with a generous heart and a bemused acceptance of human frailty, laid the foundation for not only a good life but also a workable society. Writer and visual artist Teresa Jordan wondered if Franklin's perhaps antiquated notions of virtue might offer guidance to a nation increasingly divided by angry righteousness. She decided to try to live his list for a year, focusing on each virtue for a week at a time and taking weekends off to attend to the seven deadly sins. The journal she kept became this collection of beautifully illustrated essays, weaving personal anecdotes with the views of theologians, philosophers, ethicists, evolutionary biologists, and a whole range of scholars and scientists within the emerging field of consciousness studies. Teresa Jordan offers a wry and intimate journey into a year in midlife devoted to the challenge of trying to live authentically.