Local offerings

"The Mapmaker's Eye: David Thompson on the Columbia Plateau" by Jack Nisbet (Washington State University Press, $29.95). The Spokane writer chronicles the journey of the English fur-trader/explorer/cartographer down the entire length of the Columbia River in 1811-12.

"The Velveteen Mommy: Laughter and Tears from the Toy Box Years" by Jenn Doucette (Navpress, $12.99). A Snohomish stay-at-home mom offers tips on how to get out of the house and restore your sanity.

"Dancing in the Kitchen" by Jeanne Lohmann (Fithian Press, $12, www.danielpublishing.com). Brief prose meditations by a widowed Olympia writer, suggesting that "life pushed to its limits can admit us to a surprising and generous place."

"The Last Thylacine" by Terry Domico (Turtleback Books, $13.95, www.turtlebackbooks.net). A novel by a San Juan Islander about an Australian field biologist who believes he's found the supposedly extinct Thylacine (Tasmanian wolf).

"Perils of Pankratova: Some Stories from the Annals of Soviet Historiography" by Reginald E. Zelnik, with Laura Engelstein, David A. Hollinger, Benjamin Nathans, Yuri Slezkine and Glennys Young (University of Washington Press, $12.95). Historian Zelnik, who died in 2004, examines the vein of "constrained dissent" that ran through the career of Russian labor historian Anna Pankratova (1897-1957). His co-writers include University of Washington associate professor Glennys Young.

"A Day in the Life of the American Woman: How We See Ourselves" by Sharon J. Wohlmuth, Carol Saline and Dawn Sheggeby (EpiCom Media/Bulfinch, $35). A coffee-table book by the creators of "Sisters," in which 50 female photographers, including Seattle Times photo editor Barbara Kinney and former Times photographer Natalie Fobes, "capture extraordinary images of an ordinary day in the lives of American women."

"Chicken Soup for the Soul ... Stories for a Better World" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Candice C. Carter, Susanna Palomares, Linda K. Williams and Bradley L. Winch (Health Communications, $12.95). A volume of inspirational self-help with contributions by locals Cathy Som, Michael Stern and Patricia Anne Zeitlin.

"The Fate of the Corps: What Became of the Lewis and Clark Explorers After the Exploration" by Larry E. Morris (Yale University Press, $19). Paperback reprint of a 2004 study of what happened to the participants in the Lewis and Clark Expedition after they returned from the Pacific Northwest.

Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times book critic