New year, same drink
By Soncirey MitchellReader Staff New Year’s Eve parties and Champagne toasts go hand-in-hand in the modern imagination, but though the beloved sparkling wine is now an institution, it had a long, forgotten history of...
Category: Back of the Book
Man bites back at dogs
By Zach HagadoneReader Staff Among the quickest ways to get yourself in trouble is pointing out that all dogs are not God’s perfect creatures, nor do they belong in every space where humans conduct...
Don’t give up the light: An allegory
By Ben OlsonReader Staff A long time ago, the people of Sandpoint lived in darkness. When the cold winter months set in, Sandpointians were left to navigate to and from work on streets without...
The search for immortality
By Soncirey MitchellReader Staff Facebook is a monument to the dead and dying. There are an estimated 30 million accounts for deceased users, and an analysis by University of Oxford researchers suggests that the...
In praise of ‘performative reading’
By Zach HagadoneReader Staff The New Yorker carried an interesting piece on its website Dec. 2 titled “Now Watch Me Read,” in which Brady Brickner-Wood explores the idea of “performative reading.” That is, the...
The moment defined us
By Ben OlsonReader Staff History gives us moments; crossroads in the timeline of our lives that force a direction one way or another. The decisions we make when presented with these moments define our...
Idaho magic
By Soncirey MitchellReader Staff Growing up in Sandpoint means learning to identify “Idaho magic” — and I don’t mean admiring the sun-drenched mountains or the sparkles on the snow. For local kids, Idaho magic...
Hunting for connection
By Zach HagadoneReader Staff I shot a turkey the other day — the first one I’ve ever shot, and really the first bird I’ve ever bagged. Unlike a lot of my country-kid pals back...
North Idaho exposure
By Ben OlsonReader Staff When my partner announced she’d never seen the 1990s television show Northern Exposure, I made it my mission to introduce her to Joel, Maggie, Ed, Chris in the Morning, Maurice,...
Pudding mit Generation Z
By Soncirey MitchellReader Staff I recently introduced my coworkers to the newest Generation Z craze — at least in the German-speaking world — pudding mit gabel or “pudding with a fork.” To host a...
