A guided tour of Montana's literature, including Native American stories, autobiographies, journals, fiction, and poetry.

Southwest Montana is beautiful country, evoking mythologies of freedom and escape long associated with the West. Partly because of its burgeoning presence in popular culture, film, and literature, including William Kittredge's anthology The Last Best Place, the scarcely populated region has witnessed an influx of wealthy, white migrants over the last few decades. But another, largely invisible and unstudied type of migration is also present. Though Mexican migrants have worked on Montana's ranches and farms since the 1920s, increasing numbers of migrant families—both documented and undocumented—are moving to the area to support its growing construction and service sectors. The Last Best Place? asks us to consider the multiple racial and class-related barriers that Mexican migrants must negotiate in the unique context of Montana's rural gentrification. These daily life struggles and inter-group power dynamics are deftly examined through extensive interviews and ethnography, as are the ways gender structures inequalities within migrant families and communities. But Leah Schmalzbauer's research extends even farther to highlight the power of place and demonstrate how Montana's geography and rurality intersect with race, class, gender, family, illegality, and transnationalism to affect migrants' well-being and aspirations. Though the New West is just one among many new destinations, it forces us to recognize that the geographic subjectivities and intricacies of these destinations must be taken into account to understand the full complexity of migrant life.

MONTANA: SKIING THE LAST BEST PLACEPhotographs by Craig W. HergertStories by Brian HurlbutForeword by Warren MillerFrom big-mountain resorts to small town ski hills only open a few days a week, Montana is the last frontier for skiing in the West. It's a place where farmers and ranchers share the slopes with snowboarders and twin-tip skiers, a place where snow lovers can still experience skiing at a mountain not yet contaminated by the sport's increasingly commercial atmosphere. Vintage chairlifts and A-frame lodges are as much a part of Montana's skiing landscape as high-speed quads and glitzy resorts, yet they seamlessly blend together and coexist to create a winter experience like no other: Wide-open spaces, expansive mountain vistas, dry, light powder, friendly locals and a laid-back feel.This is what skiing in Montana is like, as seen through the camera lens of award-winning photographer Craig W. Hergert in this breathtaking new volume. Compiled over many years and thousands of miles, "Montana: Skiing the Last Best Place" highlights all of the state's seventeen ski areas in stunning photographs that brilliantly depict the lifestyle, atmosphere and charm of winter in the Treasure State. Combined with stories about each mountain, these timeless photos capture the people and places that make Montana a special place to ski, creating a one-of-a-kind book that uniquely and beautifully chronicles Montana's skiing culture. For skiing, Montana truly is the Last Best Place, recorded here in photographs, no doubt to be treasured for years to come.

"Roxane is a wonderfully complex character...This is a remarkably accomplished debut mystery, with sensitive character development and a heart-stopping denouement. Let's hope there are more Roxane Weary novels on the way."—Booklist (starred review) 2018 Shamus Award Winner and Best First Novel Nominee for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, The Last Place You Look is a head-on collision between an allegedly closed case and a tenacious, troubled private investigator who doesn't know when to quit. Nobody knows what happened to Sarah Cook. The beautiful blonde teenager disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend Brad Stockton—black and from the wrong side of the tracks—was convicted of the murders and is now on death row. Though he’s maintained his innocence all along, the clock is running out. His execution is only weeks away when his devoted sister insists she spied Sarah at an area gas station. Willing to try anything, she hires PI Roxane Weary to look at the case and see if she can locate Sarah. Brad might be in a bad way, but private investigator Roxane Weary isn’t doing so hot herself. Still reeling from the recent death of her cop father in the line of duty, her main way of dealing with her grief has been working as little and drinking as much as possible. But Roxane finds herself drawn in to the story of Sarah's vanishing act, especially when she links the disappearance to one of her father’s unsolved murder cases involving another teen girl. The stakes get higher as Roxane discovers that the two girls may not be the only beautiful blonde teenagers who’ve turned up missing or dead. As her investigation gets darker and darker, Roxane will have to risk everything to find the truth. Lives depend on her cracking this case—hers included.

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

A writer returns to Nova Scotia, and finding it almost unrecognizable, sets out to capture the essence of his ancestral province--a place as strange and wild as anywhere on the continent. John DeMont visits places as diverse as a Buddhist abbey; the first free black settlement outside Africa; an island that harbours pirate treasure; and a backwoods barndance where the music of 18th-century Scotland lives on. He visits tuna smugglers and moonshiners; the brooding painter Alex Colville; spiritual seekers from Japan, the US and Europe; and Anne Murray's greatest Austrian fans. He also races yachts with summer residents; patrols the coast for drug smugglers with the Mounties; and casts for salmon with the wisest fishing guides. A road book with a difference, and an endearing search for home, The Last Best Place is wry and wise, as quirky and lively as Nova Scotia itself.

Collection of 230 stories, poems, reminiscences and reports written by 150 men and women about Montana.