A feature on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday propelled Timothy Egan’s book about the 19th C photographer Edward Curtis up to #33 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Dreamscape Audio) describes how Curtis became obsessed with photographing Native Americans after stumbling upon Princess Angeline, the daughter of Chief Seattle, living not only in extreme poverty but illegally, since Seattle had banned Native Americans from living within the boundaries of the city named after her father.

Unsurprisingly, holds are heaviest in the Northwest.

Egan has written six books including the National Book Award winner The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (HMH, 2005).

His previous book, published in 2009, is The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2012 at 9:32 am and is filed under 2012 -- Fall, History, Nonfiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.