Owings, Alison. Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans. Rutgers Univ. 2011. c.376p. index. ISBN 9780813549651. $26.95. SOC SCI 
Owings (Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich) presents a wide-ranging collection of personal stories as told by Native Americans from Maine to Hawaii. She conceived of collecting these oral histories when confronted with her own ignorance about both the historic and the modern lives of native peoples. Each chapter is devoted to an individual or group of individuals from a specific tribe, and Owings wisely lets the speakers tell their own stories, often in their own words. The sum is a rich collection that is poignant, funny, heartbreaking, and very real. The vast diversity in Native America is evident. Each interviewee comes across multidimensionally, strongly and openly identifying with his or her tribe or nation, while balancing tradition, language, heritage, politics, and identity with the day-to-day business of working, parenting, creating, traveling, and living. Similarities are evident, but so are rich differences in perspective, status, circumstance, and outlook. The book is engaging and thoughtfully conceived and effectively communicates Owings’s central thesis—that Native Americans are alive, well, and thriving and have much to teach and share with the rest of us. VERDICT Recommended for all readers of nonfiction, and highly recommended for anyone living in or near Native communities.—Julie Edwards, Univ. of Montana, Missoula, Librarian