Deep River: A Novel by Karl Marlantes
This book explores the history of a few related Finnish people who came to the Pacific Northwest around the turn of the 20th century. They were primarily attracted by the logging industry. It was a tough industry with hard work and serious chances of injury and death. Men were attracted to the income with some looking at the chance of going on their own. One woman was attracted with the possibility of organizing a large union to help the loggers. The book slowly goes through their experiences and struggles with the local impacts of widespread events like wards, union activities and prohibition. At times it has interludes describing events instead of having the characters live through them. Even so, the book is quite long and it can be difficult to tell the characters apart. The historical settings can almost be identified, but even parts of that have been fictionalized. The female union organizer gets a bit too much coverage, while I would like to see more coverage of the evolution of the society from rough-and-tumble to legitimate towns.
Ancient places is a series of essays related to the Pacific Northwest. There are essays on giant meteors, the formation of landscapes, biscuit-root, ants and an amateur anthropologist. This is not a broad history, but an in-depth look at minor areas. At times the essays can be engaging, but most of the time I found myself trying skimming quickly to get to the point. (Alas, there usually wasn't one.) I enjoyed finding out a few more details of the inland Northwest, but would not spend a lot of time on the book.