10 Books Set In The Pacific Northwest You Need To Read Now

This round of Required Reading, Powell's Books employees sound off on their favorite books about the place we call home: the great Pacific Northwest. Check out the full list, including 30 more must-read titles, on our blog.

Mink River by Brian Doyle

portlandmercury.com

Mink River is Pacific Northwest fiction at its finest. Doyle plunges us head first into the lives of the residents of a soggy, fictional Oregon coast town, Neawanaka. Rich with both Native American and Irish storytelling, Mink River lets us inside the raw, honest lives of ordinary people and makes us see the extraordinary in them. Long after you have read this novel, you will find yourself wondering what the characters are doing now and hoping that all is well in the fictional little town you've come to love.

–Koa

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

Via wired.com

The Northwest's very own SFWA Grand Master writes a philosophical novel set in Portland, Oregon. George Orr goes to sleep and awakes in the world of his dreams — still Portland, but... different. Now anytime he goes to sleep, the world is capable of shifting, and no one seems to notice. What is the true world? How does one bear such a gigantic responsibility? Big-idea sci-fi at its finest.

–Kaila

Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan

Via blindflaneur.com

In this slim little cult classic, published in 1967, Brautigan takes us on a wild ride all over the Pacific Northwest (and on down to San Francisco). Overflowing with energy, humor, and insight, Trout Fishing in America is a pastiche of stories and fragmented reflections. If you haven't read this book, pick it up now; this is indeed required reading for anyone with an open mind and a love for literature.

–Tate

Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins

Via blog.storybird.com

In this funny, rambling tale about a pair of counterculture roadside attraction operators, Robbins asks: What if Jesus wasn't really resurrected? True to form, his first novel explores spirituality while questioning organized religion and social mores through philosophical parables and clever prose.

–Genevieve A.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

Via sentra.ischool.utexas.edu

This collection of interconnected stories explore the dreams, passions, contradictions, and heartbreak of being Indian in contemporary America. Bittersweet, poignantly ironic, and at times profoundly humorous, Alexie's writing is passionate and vivid. This is the work of a tremendous literary talent expertly telling the stories of a Northwest too many people refuse to acknowledge. Essential reading.

–Brian S.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

Via media.npr.org

The Binewskis are just the typical Portland family: Traveling carnies Al and Lil Binewski breed their own carnival oddities through drug experimentation and radiation. Their children include a boy-fish, conjoined twins, a hunchbacked albino dwarf, and one son without any such talents. Well, the siblings fight, the carnival becomes a cult, and things spiral out of control... then we end up in Portland for an emotional and empowering ending. Okay, maybe it's not all set in the Northwest, but it certainly packs a punch.

–Jordan G.

Ricochet River by Robin Cody

Via ooligan.pdx.edu

I'm usually not drawn to "coming-of-age stories," but this one stuck with me. Set in the 1960s in the fictional Oregon town of Calamus, it follows three high school kids as they struggle with small-town life. I grew up in a small, rural logging town, and Cody nailed the type of people and places with which I was raised. The whole novel resonated with and reflected my own adolescent experiences.

–Shauna

The Jump-Off Creek by Molly Gloss

Via images.amazon.com

Set in the brutal Oregon high country in the 1890s, The Jump-Off Creek tells the story of the widow Lydia Sanderson and her struggles to settle in an unforgiving land. Gloss did her research, drawing on pioneer journals and hand-me-down stories, and she writes with a quiet restraint that respects the characters and their vast surroundings. Anyone interested in what life was actually like for Oregon's pioneers will love this book. It's the real deal.

–Abby

This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff

Via mookseandgripes.com

Wolff's memoir retells his hardscrabble childhood in a dysfunctional family, but rather than inspire sympathy or pity, he evokes laughter. Wolff's teenage years, spent in Skagit County, Washington, are filled with the desperation of enormous creativity trapped in a midcentury small town, which left me rooting for young Tobias's escape through whatever dubious means necessary. I read this in a memoir-writing class, and for me it exemplifies the fusion of humor and hardship.

–Ariel B.

The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley by Opal Whiteley and Benjamin Hoff

Via d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net

The nature diaries of Opal Whiteley are amazing for their magical, wide-eyed descriptions of forest and farm life. Raised on a Willamette Valley settlement in the early 20th century, Whiteley claimed to write this diary on scraps of paper at the age of six. Though her claims were disputed both in her lifetime and after, her writing is a unique window into our relationship with the natural world.

–Sandra G.