The Large Ask
Naomi Klein concedes in her new book that fighting climate change will be expensive and disruptive. She also passionately argues that it remains our most necessary battle.
Brad Tyer
Observer contributor Brad Tyer is the editor of Montana Free Press, a nonprofit statewide news outlet in Helena, Montana.
Articles by Brad Tyer
A New Book on the American Political Divide Calls, Unconvincingly, for Civility
The authors of Polarized are thoughtful exemplars of a lost ethic who care more about commonality than victory.
An Evocative New Memoir of Nature and Loss Never Quite Gets Off the Ground
Another entry in the overcrowded genre of grief memoir, A Song for the River is beautifully written but plumbs all-too-familiar territory.
Chasing Tornadoes and Drama in ‘The Man Who Caught the Storm’
Dallas author Brantley Hargrove’s new biography of storm chaser Tim Samaras is a streamlined primer in tornado science — and a hell of a story.
Boom and Bust in Big Spring
"The Kings of Big Spring" conveys the difficulties and deprivations stared down by the Depression era's 99 percent.
‘The Most Dangerous Man in America’ is a Pleasant Flashback to One of the Wildest Stories of the ’60s
In this deeply reported new book, two Texas authors interrogate the deeper meaning of Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and LSD.
At Home in the In-Between
In 'All the Agents and Saints,' Stephanie Elizondo Griest doesn't just describe her country's in-between zones. She inhabits them.
If These Walls Could Talk
The pictographs of the Pecos River have lasted millennia in a tempestuous desert, surviving mostly in silence. Now an archaeologist has cracked the code — and they can begin to speak again.
Dramas of Family and State Unfold in ‘All the Houses’
Karen Olsson's novel is about coming to terms with the past in a family — and maybe in a country — that too often refuses to acknowledge any tense but the unreflective present.
The End is Nigh: What Now?
Cecile Pineda's 'Apology to a Whale' describes a disease, and seeks a cure, in language.