Owning It All: Essays
by William Kittredge
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Description
This is a deeply felt and highly informed essay collection about life in the American west by one of the finest writers ever to emerge from that region. As theSeattle Times has said ofOwning It All: "You may never again see the American west in quite the same way if you take the time to view it through the eyes of William Kittredge. [This is a] stunning book." Having grown up on his family's cattle ranch in eastern Oregon, Kittredge directly confronts the contradictions and myths that lie at show more the heart of the Western experience: male freedom and female domesticity, the wild and the tame, self-interest and love of the land. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I enjoyed the book despite the authors angst over how he perceives humans should have used the land he loves. He grew up in Eastern Oregon and settled in Montana later in life and clearly has a deep love for the land and wild places. I don't think his particular form or worry helps the land though and only serves to sap his joy. Still, there were moments of insight which I appreciated which made the book worth finishing.
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Recommended Nature Writing
346 works; 180 members
Author Information
23+ Works 1,086 Members
William Kittredge was an American writer, born August 14, 1932 in Portland, Oregon. He grew up in Portland and was a rancher until he was 35. He graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in agriculture, and from the University of Iowa with a M.F.A. He spent most of his life in Montana. He spent most of his life in Montana. He taught show more creative writing at the University of Montana in Missoula, MT for 30 years. His writing focused on the west. He wrote fourteen books, and published essays and articles in major magazines and newspapers. His work includes novels, Phantom Silver (1987) and The Willow Field (2007). His nonfiction includes Owning it All (1987), Hole in the Sky: A Memoir (1992), The Nature of Generosity (2001), and The Next Rodeo: New and Selected Essays (2006). He edited an anthology with Annick Smith, The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology (1990). His awards included a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford and Writing Fellowships from the Endowment for the Arts. In 2017, received a Lifetime Achievement Award the at Montana Book Festival. William Kittredge died on December 4, 2020 in Missoula, Montana. He was 88 years old. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Bill Dollarhide
- Important places
- Oregon, USA; Montana, USA; Nevada, USA; Wyoming, USA; British Columbia, Canada
- First words
- In the long-ago land of my childhood we clearly understood the high desert country of southeastern Oregon as the actual world.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir, General Nonfiction, History, Science & Nature
- DDC/MDS
- 979.5 — History & geography History of North America Great Basin and Pacific Slope region of United States Oregon
- LCC
- F881.35 .K58 .A3 — Local History of the United States, Canada and Latin America United States local history Oregon
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 78
- Popularity
- 404,847
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.94)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 2
