James D Houston Books In Order

Novels

  1. Continental Drift (1978)
  2. Love Life (1985)
  3. Gig (1988)
  4. The Last Paradise (1998)
  5. Snow Mountain Passage (2001)
  6. Bird of Another Heaven (2007)
  7. A Queen’s Journey (2011)

Collections

  1. Gasoline (1980)
  2. Where Light takes its Color From the Sea (2008)

Chapbooks

  1. An Occurrence At Norman’s Burger Castle (1972)
  2. Three Songs for My Father (1974)
  3. One Can Think About Life After the Fish Is in the Canoe (1985)

Anthologies edited

  1. California Heartland (1978)
  2. Writing Home (1999)

Non fiction

  1. Surfing (1966)
  2. Open Field (1974)
  3. Farewell to Manzanar (1974)
  4. Californians (1982)
  5. The Men in My Life (1987)
  6. In the Ring of Fire (1997)
  7. Hawaiian Son (2004)

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James D Houston Books Overview

Continental Drift

The San Andreas Fault is both a real and a metaphorical player in this novel of northern California in the early 70s. Set on a ranch near Monterey Bay, it explores relationships in a family jarred by the return of a son from Vietnam, almost whole but shaken and confused. His return coincides with a series of bizarre killings that panic the communitya reminder that in the legendary land of promise abundant possibilities and agents of destruction live side by side.

The Last Paradise

Resonating with ancient themes of quest and transformation, The Last Paradise follows Travis Doyle, a Vietnam veteran working as an insurance claims adjuster, from California to Hawaii. Doyle is dispatched to investigate fire damage to outbuildings, equipment, and vehicles at a geothermal drilling site located in volcanic lava fields believed by the local inhabitants to be the home of Pele, the fire goddess.

Snow Mountain Passage

Snow Mountain Passage is a powerful retelling of the most dramatic of our pioneer stories the ordeal of the Donner Party, with its cast of young and old risking all, its imprisoning snows, its rumors of cannibalism. James Houston takes us inside this central American myth in a compelling new way that only a novelist can achieve. The people whose dreams, courage, terror, ingenuity, and fate we share are James Frazier Reed, one of the leaders of the Donner Party, and his wife and four children in particular his eight year old daughter, Patty. From the moment we meet Reed proud, headstrong, yet a devoted husband and father traveling with his family in the ‘Palace Car,’ a huge, specially built covered wagon transporting the Reeds in grand style, the stage is set for trouble. And as they journey across the country, thrilling to new sights and new friends, coping with outbursts of conflict and constant danger, trouble comes. It comes in the fateful choice of a wrong route, which causes the group to arrive at the foot of the Sierra Nevada too late to cross into the promised land before the snows block the way. It comes in the sudden fight between Reed and a drover a fight that exiles Reed from the others, sending him solo over the mountains ahead of the storms. We follow Reed during the next five months as he travels around northern California, trying desperately to find means and men to rescue his family. And through the amazingly imagined ‘Trail Notes’ of Patty Reed, who recollects late in life her experiences as a child, we also follow the main group, progressively stranded and starving on the Nevada side of the Sierras. Snow Mountain Passage is an extraordinary tale of pride and redemption. What happens who dies, who survives, and why is brilliantly, grippingly told.

Bird of Another Heaven

From the author of Snow Mountain Passage, a saga of the Donner Party, comes a deeply engaging new novel, set in both our time and the late nineteenth century. It centers on a California woman, half Indian, half Hawaiian, who became consort and confidante to the last king of Hawaii. The story is told by her great grandson, Sheridan Brody, a Bay Area talk show host, whose life has reached an unexpected standstill. He can t quite commit he doesn t know why to his Japanese American girlfriend and her five year old son. A corporate merger may soon threaten his job. But when he receives an on air call from a woman claiming to be his grandmother, Sheridan feels compelled to uncover all he can about this previously unknown branch of his family, embarking on a quest that will change how he sees his future and his past. What he finds, through the journals of his great grandmother, Nani Keala aka Nancy Callahan, and through his own investigations, is an almost mythic tale: how Nani, a shy girl from a remote Indian village, learns English at a local white rancher’s school and meets the Hawaiian king, David Kalakaua, on his grand progress by train across the United States in 1881, and returns with him to Honolulu. There, as his young ally and prot g e, ever more assured and charming, she plays an integral role in his attempt to revive the monarchy and spirit of his people and, eventually, witnesses the mysterious circumstances surrounding his downfall. Bird of Another Heaven is rich in historical scene and character, based in part on actual events. Nani s life unfolds against the backdrop of the opening of northern California and America s rising ambitions in Asia and the Pacific during the 1800s. It is also a story of emotional intensity and compassion, equally compelling for Sheridan s contemporary journey of self discovery and the beautifully imagined journey of Nani, a woman of extraordinary power and appeal.

Where Light takes its Color From the Sea

Stories and essays by the highly acclaimed author of Snow Mountain Passage and coauthor of Farewell to Manzanar. Taking inspiration from California’s breathtaking landscapes, history, and distinctive way of life, Where Light Take Its Color from the Sea reveals a writer s keen appreciation of place. This collection of Houston s shorter work spans his forty year career and tackles varied topics: the concept of regionalism, lessons of a master potter, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and various aspects of American history, including the gold rush, the Donner party, and the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Santa Cruz a coastal city circumscribed by a mountain range where Houston makes his home provides both a literal and figurative place from which to stand and observe. From the historic cupola of his house, he describes the timeworn candy store across the street, the touch of light on the mountains and the sea, his forebears journey to California, and other perspectives on place. A new regionalism is on the rise, according to Houston, one that is characterized by conscious choice and has a higher level of awareness about the interlocking and interdependent workings of the world. Those who are familiar with the author s novels will enjoy the eloquence of his shorter works, while others will be delighted to discover this writer, traveler, and native Californian.

One Can Think About Life After the Fish Is in the Canoe

Back to back volume, reader flips book over to read second book. Beyond Manzanar is by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston. One Can Think About Life After the Fish Is in the Canoe is by James D. Houston. Clean and tight. French flaps.

Surfing

Surfing traces the history of the sport from its beginnings in ancient Hawaii through the mid 1960s. This revised edition of the 1966 classic features extensive illustrations, a new introduction, and articles by Mark Twain and Jack London recounting their observations on Surfing. The book also explores the development of the surfboard and follows Surfing‘s timeline from the earliest legends to the accomplishments of modern Surfing heroes. By Ben Finney and James D. Houston. 120 pages, approximately 50 black and white historical photographs, with maps and diagrams, size: 10 3/4 x 9′. Smythe sewn paperbound book.

Farewell to Manzanar

During World War II a community called Manzanar was hastily created in the high mountain desert country of California, east of the Sierras. Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese American internees. One of the first families to arrive was the Wakatsukis, who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with them only the belongings they could carry. For Jeanne Wakatsuki, a seven year old child, Manzanar became a way of life in which she struggled and adapted, observed and grew. For her father it was essentially the end of his life. At age thirty seven, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalls life at Manzanar through the eyes of the child she was. She tells of her fear, confusion, and bewilderment as well as the dignity and great resourcefulness of people in oppressive and demeaning circumstances. Written with her husband, Jeanne delivers a powerful first person account that reveals her search for the meaning of Manzanar. Farewell to Manzanar has become a staple of curriculum in schools and on campuses across the country. Last year the San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the twentieth century’s 100 best nonfiction books from west of the Rockies.

In the Ring of Fire

Sample Poems DictionaryAs a small south american squirrelinhabiting mostly mountainous regionswould feed on lizards half way betweenpoles of the tropics, I too would fallheartbreaked in the settlement of feudsof the fields of kentucky. When the moss grows high between the perennials and disordered mimmocks weep, these dainty fastidious gestating mammalsbreak for leavened bread and sup between the rows of trees, lifting like friarssome heavy books in the sunlight’s morningwindows where the mollusks row in scion’squadragesimal phyla. Found TextThe deer mistook their reflections for deer and thedeer mistook their reflections for other deer and thedeer apparently mistook their reflections for sheepand what the deer mistook their reflections for isn’t certain and the deer were removed from the scene, being deer, before being removed and mistaking reflections of the other deer for the sheep the deer were removed and the deer deciding to join themjoined the deer having mistaken reflections of sheepfor the deer having mistaken reflections of sheepfor the deer in the plate glass windows. The New LifeI eat steak and live on the big neon avenue and fear strangers, admire myneighbors, the drug store, and the bus,I was an addict live addicted to the avenue, in the dark folds late at night, addicted to sleep and lavender,I went into the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine, loving you and theliquor store, the lavender bottles, the many directions. PART TWOToday I am rivets of sails in a log cabin where JackLondon lived in Alaska until they moved his cabin herewhere we collect the change to buy our drinks and eat the free hors d’oeuvres, where the neighbors aresomewhat pleased beside the railroad trains, where thevague sense of the Union Pacific is with opssums offreeways and you, where the airplanes fill the plastic sky, wherethe fish are brightly colored on the lawn, where anunderwater bird is pummeled on the sidestreet, where we take hallucinogens and wander through museums, where the people construct the atificial ponds, where

Hawaiian Son

Eddie Kamae, a leading force in the Hawaiian cultural renaissance of the past thirty years, has spent his life documenting and illuminating cultural traditions and old Hawaiian ways. Written by James D. Houston and interspersed with Eddie’s recollections, Hawaiian Son charts this Hawaiian man’s very personal odyssey across the backdrop of the twentieth century Hawai’i. Generously illustrated with historic photos and drawings, the 280 page book insightfully portrays the influential kupuna, dancers, musicians, and storytellers who have guided Eddie on his lifelong journey.

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