THE OREGON STORY is a beautifully made book. There is an illustration on at least every other page. Some pictures are are color, but most are black-and-white.

What I enjoyed most about THE OREGON STORY is its coverage of important events in my lifetime, such as the Rajneesh group that created quite a stir in Antelope when I was very young (I remember a school teacher telling our class, "There is a man here in Oregon going around telling people that he is God."), and the Tonya Harding Olympic controversy. I also enjoyed the photograph and description of the Keizer Shipyards because I have recently become acquainted with the works of an Oregon writer named Cleta Brooks Lee; in SING ABOVE THE PAIN Cleta writes about her time as an employee at the Keizer Shipyards. The photographs in THE OREGON STORY helped add a dimension to my understanding of that era of history.

Being a former Oregon resident and to this day occasional Oregon visitor, I was fascinated by this book, which is a history of the Beaver State, and one that is done quite well. From the chronology of the state, to recording historic events, and sidebars about influential people in its history, this book takes a wonderful look back over the past 150 years.

Since the book was written by staff members of the Oregonian, it reads like a "newspaper account" of the days leading from Oregon's inception to the present. But what an entertaining account. From the early days, through the "turn of the century, the roaring 20's, the Depression, wartime, the fifties, turbulent 60s, up to the year 2000, all events are well-documented.

I never knew for example that Tom McCall when he was governor in 1970 staged the only ever state-run rock concert. I only saw him years later when I lived in Oregon and saw him deliver commentary on the evening news. I knew of course about Vanport and its horrendous end. I also remembered the bad flooding in 1996, having been in Portland the weekend before it happened. And of course, who could ever forget Mt. St. Helens erupting in 1980? These of course are just a few of the events that have occured in Oregon's history

I mentioned sidebars about influential people. People like McCall, Artie Wilson (a famous Pacific Coast League baseball player now living in Portland), Beverly Cleary (who wrote the Henry books I loved as a kid), Neil Goldschmitt, and the current Portland mayor Vera Katz, among others.

I have always loved the state of Oregon and its people, even if I'm a dreaded "Californian." This book reinforces my love and admiration of the state to the north of me.

We recently moved to southern Oregon and my wife wanted a few coffee table books. I thought "How about books on Oregon?" That way, I could learn a few things about my new environment while satisfying the coffee table's needs, too. So I made an Amazon.com list of several books that looked attractive to me and then narrowed it down as best I could.

I put on hold the more expensive historical atlases and books on Indian folklore that were calling out to me, then I bought three bona fide coffee table books, the kind with plenty of obligatory photos of the beautiful northwest. But I reserved at least one spot on the table for a book with some intellectual interest in it.

I finally settled on "The Oregon Story." It seemed a central and topical enough choice to warrant it as a coffee table book, while at the same time it appeared (in the Amazon "book description") to offer a good amount of material on Oregon history.

How happy I was to discover this excellently written book on Oregon history! The layout is concise and topical enough to be a good book to lightly browse through in the presence of company (hence, coffee table book), and there are dozens of fascinating historical photographs.

The text itself is large and reader friendly, the photos include captions and there are several separate, half page descriptions of the most famous luminaries of Oregon history. The book is not too thick, further qualifying it as a coffee table book, but once opened, the reader is in for a nice selection of easily readable historical pieces, each dedicated to a decade of Oregon history.

Okay, so it's a good coffee table book - but how might it fare for the more serious reader? Well frankly, after it arrived in the mail, I couldn't wait to get right down to reading it. I found it an exceptionally engaging read from cover to back. Granted, I'm the kind of person who will pick up my children's history textbooks and read them through without hesitation (what can I say? I love history), but there's also a special reason why "The Oregon Story" is a particularly excellent historical documentation.

That is, it has been written by newspaper journalists. Such journalists know how to write concisely and entertainingly. I only wish my old school's history textbooks were written so well!

I truly believe that this team of journalists is on to something good here. In fact, I consider this one of the best history books ever conceived. There are subtle reasons for this, not the least of which is the unbiased yet in depth coverage of Oregon political and social events throughout its history.

The chapter on the controversial 60s is a case in point. It is topical, but what is covered is provocative and gave me the feeling that I'd read between the lines without actually having to sift through several paragraphs of detailed information. This is the real gift of this kind of historical reporting.

These newspaper reporters truly are talented writers. But it's also apparent that each and every column has been edited by several more journalists. In the end, one begins to understand the value of team written, thus finely edited, journalistic writing. The person who benefits from this artfulness is the reader. I truly felt as if I was getting a great bargain as I read through the set of refined articles fairly detailing, yet not dwelling in detail upon, Oregon history.

Nothing is held back, it seems, from the editorial process. This is exciting historical reporting, not boring academic facts. The journalists' opinions are often exposed, both conservative and liberal slants, and this ingratiates the reader even more to the material at hand.

Did you know that Oregon had its own home grown suffragette? Some of the most influential political figures in American history were Oregonians. I learned that Oregon has been, since its 19th century pre-state years as the Oregon Territory, a place of controversy, where people have traditionally come to "escape" the world, yet where some of the most important progressive ideas and social achievements of the 20th century have originated. Much of the environmental movement, for example, was spearheaded in Oregon due to the controversy that came as a result of the inherent problems attached to the logging industry.

I was also fascinated to read about the slanderous exploits of Oregon's early entrepreneurs and about details of the Ku-Klux-Klan's "legal" criminal behavior during the 1920s. There's much information concerning Oregon's roller coaster economy; particularly interesting are the chapters on the boom of the 1970s and the relative bust occurring during the most recent two decades.

On the down side, most of the more detailed material - biographical study (particularly businessmen) events and photos - is concerned with Portland and the Willamette Valley, which is understandable considering that The Oregonian newspaper is located in Portland. I was hoping that there would be more information on southern Oregon, where I now live. Strangely, the only picture of Ashland (home of the Shakespeare Festival) is one showing the Ku-Klux-Klan marching through the streets during a 1920s parade. Scary!

If journalistic reporting of the history of Oregon sounds as if it may be your cup of tea, then this book is exactly what you need. All in all, I consider it well worth its price. And I can only imagine, with relish, what such a journalistic team could create on the subject given more space and freedom of their collective pens.