• “Nothing New or Novel”: Women in Nevada Politics Before 1919 by Dana R. Bennett
• Excerpts from Rants from the Hill Michael P. Branch
• World War II Homefront In Nevada: Excerpts from the University of Nevada Oral History Collection
• Excerpt from Everyday Las Vegas: Local Life in a Tourist Town by Rex J. Rowley
• Poetry: “Ten Poems” by Delinda Braun
• Fiction: “The Midweek Trainer” by Matthew Reed
• Fiction: “New Days of the Wolf” by Josh Woods
• Fiction: An excerpt from The Woodsman Gary T. Cage
• Interview: Susan Skorupa Mullen, Reno Gazette-Journal
• New and Noteworthy: Recently Published from the University of Nevada Press
• Writer’s Essay: “The Ethics of the Book Review” by Caleb S. Cage
• Book Reviews
• Tahoe Trap by Todd Borg
• You Came Back by Christopher Coake
• The Gold Rush Letters of E. Allen Grosh and Hosea B. Grosh by Ronald M. James and Robert E. Stewart
• Rethinking Public Sector Compensation: What Ever Happened to the Public Interest? By Thom Reilly
• Base Camp Las Vegas: Hiking the Southwestern States by Deborah Wall
• Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins

Through those years and posts, Miller battled the ghosts of his father’s legacy in Las Vegas and the myriad twists, turns, challenges, and pitfalls of a life in politics — particularly those unique to a life in Nevada politics.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Chicago native Miller was just 10 years old when his illegal bookmaker father got the opportunity to run “a legal (but posh) gambling resort in…Las Vegas.” The Sin City of the 1950s bore no resemblance to the sprawling metropolis it would become: “Las Vegas spread out like boiling water on a flat surface, the streets almost swallowed by the desert.”

Son of a Gambling Man is on sale now at bookstores and online. Miller will be signing the book at Barnes and Noble in Reno on March 25 at 7pm.

Since 1989, Roger Baum has carried on his great-grandfather’s legacy, publishing 15 of his own Oz books, with a 16th — “The Oz Enigma” — expected to arrive in March. His first book, “Dorothy of Oz,” also is in production to become an animated film starring Lea Michele, Dan Aykroyd and Kelsey Grammer, among others.

Read the whole article here.

Sierra Nevada College Presents Tracy Ross for a reading and a workshop.  The free reading is open to the public and will be held from 7-9pm on Friday, February 8.  Visit here to register.

Why do cowboy poets have mustaches?

Bookmark: Signings and events in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Book Briefs for Feb. 5-11.

Clark County resident “Rudy” writes a book.

The Squaw Valley Institute will host farmer and writer Joel Salatin on Feb. 13.  Go here to learn more Mr. Salatin, who was featured in the documentary Food, Inc.

The University of Nevada Press is proud to announce that their book Atomic Comics: Cartoonists Confront the Nuclear World, by the late Ferenc Morton Szasz, has been chosen by Choice magazine as one of the Outstanding Academic Titles published in 2012. More info on the book here.

Great Basin College is hosting an art exhibition looks at Chinese culture called “Celestial Grammar: Words and Forms of Loss and Longing,” which will open this week and remain installed through March 19.

Sierra Nevada College presents Kelly Groom in their Writers in the Woods Series.  According to their announcement: “Groom has received critical acclaim for her memoir I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl, including Best Memoir of 2011 by Library Journal, and being chosen as an Oprah.com O Magazine selection and featured in Best American Poetry 2010.”  Go here to register and for more information.

The Las Vegas review-Journal always runs great pieces on literary culture in souther Nevada.  Be sure to check out the latest book briefs, book events and signings, and their Literary Las Vegas section.

And art on local Reno architecture, here.

Who were the Grosh brothers?

E. [Ethan] Allen and Hosea B. [Ballou] Grosh were two young men drawn, like thousands of others, to the California Gold Rush.  An astounding 300,000 men came to California between 1848 and 1855.

Two things were unusual about these brothers. One, unlike many forty-niners, they were well educated. (Their father, the Reverend Aaron B. Grosh, was a prominent Universalist minister, a leader in the Odd Fellows and a co-founder of The Grange). Most of the letters from the brothers are to their father, and they are full of lively observations, just what you would expect from two men 24 and 22 who have left home to see the world.

Two, they stayed in California, and persisted in looking for wealth–most would-be miners, disappointed and broke, moved on quickly. Despite many setbacks, Allen and Hosea remained cheerful and optimistic, always convinced that their latest plans would finally succeed.

Tell us about the book.

Historians have long known and written about the Grosh brothers, for they were among the earliest prospectors in the Great Basin, what was then Utah Territory, where later the Comstock Lode was found. After discovering evidence of both silver and gold in the area, the brothers died tragically young, before they could investigate further. Their family, hoping for a share in the fabulous wealth of the Comstock, gathered every scrap of evidence and preserved it.  The Gold Rush Letters publishes the collection, transcribed and well-annotated, making them available to the general public for the first time.

Why are the letters significant?

One, the collection is complete; there are no gaps; the family preserved every letter they wrote.  This book tells a complete story: from the first letter home, saying “We sail tomorrow” to Allen’s last, “We have had a very narrow escape of it”, written two days before he died.

Two, they were lively writers, interested in the politics of their time, the new and raw state of California, and all else young men could see and care about. The letters are astonishingly readable and fascinating. This is not dry history; these read like postcards from a friend.

Three, they were among the earliest explorers in the Great Basin and what became Nevada. This is important primary source material, now made readily available to future historians and writers.

What else is unique?

Because there were two brothers, constantly writing home, the reader sees many events in stereo, as it were; two different viewpoints, or first a short mention from one brother, and then a longer description from another.

What can the reader expect to learn?

In many ways the California Gold Rush is ancient history. Reading these letters turns history into current events. The reader is there, with the brothers, when San Francisco exploded from 200 residents to 50,000. When lawless California was rushed from a U.S. military occupation into statehood in just two years.  They didn’t know how events would turn out, who would win elections, what would become of slavery.

What was the most fascinating item you found revealed in them?

Coming to know these two brothers as real people. The times and the events astonish enough. But the brothers were, as a friend of theirs described them, “good-looking, fairly well-educated, very quick of observation, ready with expedients, gifted (especially Allen) with exceptional powers of original thought, thoroughly honest and honorable, absolutely devoted to each other, industrious, persevering, chaste, sober.”  All this comes through in their writing.

Why is this story tragic?

These two idealists left Lancaster, Pennsylvania “to see the Elephant!” as the expression of the day went. “Health, youth, strong arms, and stout hearts  … What more could we ask? We are in California!” they wrote home. They could have turned to shop keeping, or farming, and made a comfortable living. Or they could have done what many did, given up and moved back home. But they persisted in mining, which is backbreaking, frustrating labor.  Through years of hard efforts, they managed to send home just $500 and one stone they hoped was a valuable opal.  To read of their deaths, while still young and dreaming of success, will break any reader’s heart.

To many of our readers, letters from the Gold Rush era would be fascinating.  Would this appeal to a broader audience as well?

If you have any interest in early Nevada or California history, this volume is of course essential reading.  But beyond that, I think that anyone who picks this up and begins will find it a compelling story, almost like a historical novel.

What do James and Stewart add to the work through editing?

This collection would not be readable without the fine work done by the two editors. First, there was the laborious process of transcribing them, frail papers that have survived house fires and flood, cramped handwriting and faded ink. Second, there are full annotations that explain the politics, personalities, and slang of the day. These annotations never get in the way of the flow of the story, but ease the reader into full understanding of the times.

Where are the letters now?

The letters were acquired by the Nevada Historical Society in 2007, after a ten-year process of fund-raising; these important documents are now owned by the people of Nevada, and accessible there to scholars.

In their short lifetimes, Allen and Hosea Grosh never gave up their search for treasure. What they could not have known was that in their letters home, they were creating another kind of treasure: a rich history that this publication makes available to any reader.

Claire Vaye Watkins’ book, Battleborn, a finalist for the Story Prize

E-Book reader help available at Washoe County libraries

Book briefs in the Las Vegas Review-Journal

Book signings and events in Las Vegas this week, Jan. 13-19