Owning it All, by William Kittredge

Essays

https://www.questia.com/library/80861024/owning-it-all-essays

A terrific and eminently readable collection of essays, mostly about the American West. Kittredge writes about southeastern Oregon, specifically the Malheur Lake area--coincidentally the area that was recently in the news due to the occupation of a federal building by some right-wing extremists. He also writes about Montana, especially Missoula and the nearby area.

This is not only nature and geography writing, though those topics are included. It is also concerned with the life of a writer becoming a writer, as he moves away from the life of a rancher to a life of letters. Kittredge has much to say about what humans have done to the once-pristine land of the West. He writes quite a bit about how agriculture transformed the Malheur area, how that has affected the bird life there.

The Subprimes, by Karl Taro Greenfeld

New York Times review.



It's dystopian near-future fiction. America has become almost completely de-regulated, practically everything privatized. There's an enormous population of unemployed homeless, the "Subprimes" of the title, who wander the country, working as temporary labor--especially at fracking sites--and squatting in foreclosed, uninhabited housing developments. The environment has deteriorated quite a bit from the way it is now: summer has become a long, hellish season with temperatures routinely climbing into the 130s. A major character is a kind of Bernie Madoff who may be rehabilitated by a televangelist who characterizes him as a victim of progressives who wish to stymie the "job-creators." One of the skillful things that Greenfeld has done is to make this world very, very close to the one we are in. Many current cultural references are made: it's not that far in the future.


Unfortunately, I didn't much like the ending. It seemed contrived, a sort of deus ex machina thing that says, "I didn't know what to do with this plot so I did this." To me, anyway. The book was still worth reading for its dire predictions and the caution that it should raise.