Field Tested, Seattlest Approved

Those design-obsessed types over at Coudal Partners have just recently posted Field Tested Books, an online compendium of book reviews by lots of bookish (and blogish) people. Not just your ordinary reviews, these focus on books read in specific places and the impact the locale had on the reader's experience (hence, Coudal likes to refer to them as "experience reviews" instead).

Local boy done good, John Moe, has his Raymond Carver college moment in Walla Walla. Much of the collection reads like a roll-call from The Morning News, including its esteemed founders, Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack. But Seattlest doesn't think that's a bad thing.

Other interesting contributors: Nathan Rabin, Onion A.V. Club writer; and David Reese, creator of the comic strips Get Yer War On and My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable, both of which kept us slightly more sane post 9/11 and into the Iraq war, and are now available in book form. His review is our favorite, mostly for its searing Nick Hornsby-esque honesty regarding why he never actually finished his chosen read.