Fact & Fiction

Welcome to Fact & Fiction!

Fact & Fiction opened in 1986 in downtown Missoula, and expanded to the University Center in 2007. Our goal is to provide books, services and programs for the readers and writers of the area. With years of experience and an eclectic knowledge of titles and authors--our booksellers love to recommend the right book for your reading pleasure! Author readings, signings and events are held on a regular basis.

Authors Downtown and at UM !

JAMES LEE BURKE
returns to F&F Downtown on July 14th
Reading & Signing RAIN GODS
More information soon!

The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet

A brilliant, boundary-leaping debut novel tracing twelve-year-old genius map maker T.S.Spivetas attempts to understand the ways of the world
When twelve-year-old genius cartographer T.S. Spivet receives an unexpected phone call from the Smithsonian announcing he has won the prestigious Baird Award, life as normalaif you consider mapping family dinner table conversation normalais interrupted and a wild cross-country adventure begins, taking T.S. from his family ranch just north of Divide, Montana, to the museumas hallowed halls.
T.S. sets out alone, leaving before dawn with a plan to hop a freight train and hobo east. Once aboard, his adventures step into high gear and he meticulously maps, charts, and illustrates his exploits, documenting mythical wormholes in the Midwest, the urban phenomenon of arims, a and the pleasures of McDonaldas, among other things. We come to see the world through T.S.as eyes and in his thorough investigation of the outside world he also reveals himself.
As he travels away from the ranch and his family we learn how the journey also brings him closer to home. A secret family history found within his luggage tells the story of T.S.as ancestors and their long-ago passage west, offering profound insight into the family he left behind and his role within it. As T.S. reads he discovers the sometimes shadowy boundary between fact and fiction and realizes that, for all his analytical rigor, the world around him is a mystery.
All that he has learned is tested when he arrives at the capital to claim his prize and is welcomed into scienceas inner circle. For all its shine, fame seems more highly valued than ideas in this new world and friends are hardto find.
T.S.as trip begins at the Copper Top Ranch and the last known place he stands is Washington, D.C., but his journeyas movement is far harder to track: How do you map the delicate lessons learned about family and self? How do you depict how it feels to first venture out on your own? Is there a definitive way to communicate the ebbs and tides of heartbreak, loss, loneliness, love? These are the questions that strike at the core of this very special debut.

Quote of the Day

"The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty."

- John Steinbeck
Writers at Work--Fourth Series
From The Quotable Book Lover (Lyons Press)

BOOK LISTS of INTEREST!

Check out new listings Montana Book Awards, The American West, YRCA 2010 and a few others!

Candy Shop War
by Mull, Brandon
Four young friends are befriended by the owner of a new candy shop. However, the gray-haired, grandmotherly Mrs. White is not an ordinary candy maker. Her confections have magical side effects. Purposefully, she invites the kids on a special mission to retrieve a hidden talisman under Mt. Diablo Elementary School.