When a mining claim on a crumbling cliff of burnt-rose quartzite lured naturalist Jack Nisbet to the northeastern corner of Washington State in 1970, he began a search for an understanding of that open country through stories about the people who lived there and the everyday events he shared with them. Together, these vivid, engaging, and subtly humorous stories evoke the essence of this place. "At once wry and compassionate, these crisply written vignettes impart a spirited, substantial nourishment as they describe a particular American landscape." -Booklist"A fine, gracefully written combination of bird-watching, people-watching, and regional history." -Kirkus"In Jack Nisbet, an unsung corner of the West has found its troubadour." -Ivan Doig"Purple Flat Top is everything a portrait of a place should be: intimately local yet completely universal, rich in the texture of people and other species, and spit-true." -Robert Michael PyleJack Nisbet is a writer, teacher, and naturalist. He is the author of several books, including The Collector and Sources of the River, the winner of the Washington Governor's Writers Award, the Murray Morgan Prize, and the Idaho Book of the Year. He lives in Spokane, Washington.