The purpose of the Griz Read is to provide new students with a common connection through a thought-provoking book. Each year, a committee of faculty, staff, and students select a book from nominations submitted by the campus community.

All members of the campus community, especially first-year students, are encouraged to read the book and participate in Griz Read events.

We believe that books forge powerful bonds and we are excited to begin the campus discussion this year!

Griz Read 2020

The grizzly is one of North America’s few remaining large predators. Their range is diminished, but they’re
spreading across the West again. Descending into valleys where once they were king, bears find the landscape they’d known for eons utterly changed by the new most dominant animal: humans. As the grizzlies approach, the people of the region are wary, at best, of their return.

In searing detail, award-winning writer, Montana rancher, and conservationist Bryce Andrews tells us about one such grizzly. Millie is a typical mother: strong, cunning, fiercely protective of her cubs. But raising those cubs—a challenging task in the best of times—becomes ever harder as the mountains change, the climate warms and people crowd the valleys. There are obvious dangers, like poachers, and subtle ones as well, like the corn field that draws her out of the foothills and sets her on a path toward trouble and ruin.

That trouble is where Bryce’s story intersects with Millie’s. On its surface, the collision may seem to be between a single bear and a single farm, both seeking to protect their own. But at heart, Down from the Mountain is a singular drama evoking a much larger one: an entangled, bloody collision between two species in the modern-day West, where shrinking wilds force man and bear into ever closer proximity. “When we argue about our responsibilities and approach to living with grizzlies, we’re really talking about whether humankind should inconvenience itself on behalf of other species… Should we require communities to forgo growth or prosperity to preserve habitat for dangerous beasts?” Andrews writes. But he has hope: “Across Montana and the West, more people are recognizing the cultural, economic, and biological value of species like wolves and grizzlies. We’re beginning to get creative about coexisting with large predators. … Right now, we’re maturing into a better understanding of grizzlies and a clearer sense of what they mean to us. The next essential task will be acting on that knowledge.”

(summary from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Winner of the Banff Mountain Book Competition's Mountain Environment & Natural History Award

Griz Read Events

Virtual Visit

• Bryce will be visiting UM virtually on October 21 to discuss the book with the entire Davidson Honors College Intro to Honors cohort, MOLLI participants, and Freshman Seminar students from Humanities & Sciences.

Other events will be announced here and via campus communications as information becomes available

The Author

Bryce Andrews' debut, Badluck Way, was the 2014 winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the 2014 Reading the West Book Award for nonfiction, the 2014 High Plains Book Award for both nonfiction and debut book, and a finalist for the 2014 Washington State Book Award. Born in 1983 and raised in Seattle, Washington, Bryce Andrews migrated east toward the American West. Having spent a decade in the high valleys of Montana, he remains fascinated by the complex and reciprocal relationship between humans, wild animals, and place.

Q&A with the Author and Discussion Questions

A Q&A with the author and discussion questions are available here.