I'd like to announce the winner of the second annual "On Oregon" blog Book of the Year. I'm the sole judge, I live in Oregon, and the book I pick has to be about Oregon in some way, either as a topic or setting. It could be a new release, a forgotten classic, or totally obscure. It could come from a national publisher or be printed by a local copy shop. Whatever the book's origins, I simply happened across it in my routine fixation on all things literary Oregon, and it blew my mind. After reading the book, I felt an intense desire to share it with others.
There are no nominees — just a winner. I may know the winning writer or I may not. He may have handed me the book in the bar, drunk. She might have flung it at me in a post-coital rage. Who cares? This process is probably a lot more honest than the ones that determine most regional and national literary awards. It's certainly more transparent than the processes that decide who gets published in the important literary magazines that no one reads.
This award carries no monetary prize. There is no certificate. Maybe I can scrape up a little trophy corroding in a thrift store and shine it up to look nice. Maybe I'll take you out and get you drunk on cheap Pacific Northwest lagers formerly brewed in the Pacific Northwest by union men.
And the winner is: Pokin' Round the Gorge: A Sexy-Romantic Guide for Gorge Lovers, 36 of the Gorge's most secretive, historic and hidden spots.
Not only is this book the "On Oregon" blog Book of the Year, it just might be the most sexually outrageous book in the annals of Oregon literary history.
And to that I say — thank God someone else besides me likes to have sex outdoors in Oregon and is tired of reading books from people who go into nature and never get it on. They'd rather hike, identify plants, garden, sketch, journal, or think about their misspent youth not getting it on in nature.
Pokin' author is Scott Cook and he obviously loves to have sex and do most of it outdoors. If he's not nominated for an Oregon Book Award for creative nonfiction, they should cancel the prize on the grounds of prudery. This is creative nonfiction at its very lusty best.
Where to begin with this book? Well, how about the stunning nude and semi-nude photographs ranging in horny subject matter from spanking to streaking to coupling, all in various picturesque locales in the beautiful Columbia Gorge? Or how about the deeply researched and lively historical anecdotes and Cook's obvious love (boner) for Oregon? Or how about the unprecedented awesomeness of using blackberries to turn a reader on? Or how about that a writer had the guts (and balls) to compile a guide that upends the quaint and boring notion of what guide books can teach? Give this man sex in the woods, on stumps, in the meadows, on Crown Point (or in culverts!), or give him death, or worse perpetual sex in bed with Sarah Palin's television show blaring. Maybe she should read Cook's book and try to emulate it Alaska-style on an episode! Then I might actually watch it and see how she really works with Todd or any other octogenarian Tea Bagger around she can seduce.
Congratulation Pokin' Round the Gorge: A Sexy-Romantic Guide for Gorge Lovers, 36 of the Gorge's most secretive, historic and hidden spots. You are the "On Oregon" blog Book of the Year. You educate and entertain, and might even save someone's sexless relationship. The perfect holiday gift for people who like to have sex outdoors and those who should. Isn't that about everyone?