Author Peter Nathaniel Malae lives in rural Yamhill County, some 642 miles from the brutal streets where he grew up in California. Malae often writes about brutality, about damaged and forgotten people ...
Reviews (More)
Book: The Last Ballad
Wiley Cash’s highly readable novel about an impoverished cotton mill worker who becomes a labor organizer is based on the life of a real woman with the same name as the character, Ella May Wiggins. The ...
Book: At the Edge of the Orchard
The family at the center of “At the Edge of the Orchard” is named Goodenough. But their life in 1830s Ohio isn’t very good at all. The parents, James and Sadie, moved from well-established ...
Book: My Beloved World
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor offers an interesting and powerful story in “My Beloved World,” her 2013 memoir. Her book starts with her childhood in an economically poor but culturally ...
Book: Don't You Ever
When Adria Bishop delivered her firstborn to a reformatory, where he would get an eduction and learn work skills, she told him in no uncertain terms, “Don’t you ever call me Mother.” Adria ...
Book review If We Had Known
At what point do we label other people’s behavior as disturbing, or potentially harmful to society? Where does the right to privacy end and the need for public safety begin? Who is responsible ...
Book: Crime & Punctuation
Michelle "Mikki" Lincoln hadn't seen her hometown or her high school classmates for decades. Then the retired English teacher learned that her childhood home was on the market. A recent widow, she bought ...
Book: Sisters Like Us
Sisters Harper and Stacey are almost polar opposites — Harper can bake, decorate and celebrate with ease every holiday from Christmas to National Recliner Day; Stacey is a brilliant medical researcher ...
Book: Until Proven Guilty
J.A. Jance finds a way to make a nearly implausible situation plausible in “Until Proven Guilty,” the first in her J.P. Beaumont series of suspense novels. The books are set in Seattle and ...
Book: The Third Victim
We read suspense and mystery novels to exercise our minds as we solve clues and to raise our blood pressure as we wonder whodunit and why. So it was a good thing, wasn’t it, when I misplaced my ...
Book: Every Other Weekend
Set in 1988, Zulema Renee Summerfield’s “Every Other Weekend” focuses on a third-grader, Nenny, who has serious fears, both reasonable and comic. For example, she worries about burglars ...
Features
Author takes unflinching look at grim realities
Author Peter Nathaniel Malae lives in rural Yamhill County, some 642 miles from the brutal streets where he grew up in California. Malae often writes about brutality, about damaged and forgotten people ...
'God Game' offers food for thought
It’s become mandatory for political candidates to play the religion card when they run for office — publicly attending church services, claiming the Bible is their favorite book, quoting from ...
Offbeat Oregon: Smugglers buddies staged audacious midnight jailbreak
Around 10 p.m. on the night of Saturday, March 19, 1932 — just a few months before Prohibition was ended — four vehicles rolled furtively into the little Coast Range town of Toledo. A ...
Whaddya mean, it's almost Halloween?
Numerous Halloween-related events are planned in Yamhill County this month. They include: History and Halloween: The Yamhill County Historical Society will host two free “Halloween and History” ...
Rohse: Possible catastrophes warrant consideration
The minute I saw the title of the book I knew I wanted to read it: “What Remains to Be Discovered?” by John Maddox. I wasn’t disappointed — though a bit alarmed. Straightaway, ...
Carlson: No-kill shelters strive to help animals thrive
I am a relatively new subscriber to Dogster magazine. I can’t even remember how I came across it, but I’ve come to look forward to my next issue. It’s light-hearted, always has a national ...
Stopping By: Doing his part to keep history alive
Gary Sohn loves people, talking and telling stories, especially those that delve deeper than well-known tales. “My wife complains that I would talk to a blank wall if I had to,” Sohn quipped. While ...
Check it out
Is there something strange in your neighborhood? Is there something weird, and it don’t look good? Who ya gonna call? The Newberg Public Library! Yes, among the library’s collection of literature, ...
Stopping By: Hard work, luck make a happy life
A lifelong McMinnville resident, Tom Miller can tell you who owned what, who did what, where and when it happened, and numerous other details of local life over the past 70-plus years. How cold was the ...
Linfield College event celebrates Hispanic heritage
Linfield College will celebrate Hispanic heritage and culture during its Hispanic Heritage Celebración on Saturday, Oct. 20. The free event will run from 1–5 p.m. in the Rutschman Field House ...
Truth, faith and politics
Moderately conservative Sen. Tom Trevor is on the short list to become the running mate of a right-wing presidential candidate in “The God Game,” which opens Friday, Oct. 12, ...
Ships to Roam celebrates album release
The phrase “Boxing the Compass,” the newest album by local band Ships To Roam, is a nautical term for calling out all the points of a compass. Musically, says frontman Jerome Blankenship, ...
Rohse: Zip-lining is the thrill of a lifetime
If you are an adrenaline junkie, I have the perfect prescription for you: the Cloudscraper Zip Line. My son and I can attest to its effectiveness. It is the highest zip-line in America — more than ...
Savvy Senior: Resources to help with Medicare decisions
Dear Savvy Senior, I’m considering making changes in my Medicare coverage during the open-enrollment period. Can you recommend any free resources that can help with my choices? — Swapping ...
Dome improvement
At 99, Betty Younker rarely takes long trips away from her home at McMinnville’s Hillside Retirement Community. Last month, however, she visited the Yaquina Head Lighthouse in Newport, Haystack ...
Now they're cooking
WILLAMINA — Lynne Shore positioned four bowls of whole bell peppers on a table for 11 fourth- and fifth-grade students to slice and dice in her “Let’s Cook!” class at Willamina ...
Offbeat Oregon: Liquor smugglers’ luck ran dry in Whale Cove
In the pitchy darkness after midnight on a blustery February morning just off the Oregon Coast, the 36-foot powerboat Sea Island was in big trouble. The Sea Island was a Canadian rumrunner out ...
YC Heritage Center to host new history series
The Yamhill County Historical Society will host a new series of history programs, “Secrets of the Past.” The first two sessions are scheduled Tuesday, Oct. 9, and Tuesday, Nov. 13. Each will ...
Soaking up the scenery
Artist Evonne Cramer likes to set up her easel, paper and watercolors in a scenic spot — a practice called plein air painting. But she doesn’t just paint the scene in front of her; she has ...
Racking up a tradition
Some guys will “accidentally” shoot the cue ball right off the table. Then these would-be hustlers will slyly evoke obscure rules from the Billiard Congress of America or American Poolplayers ...
