Arizona Books

What a great biking guide for the Grand Canyon!! The book is well written, organized and laid out clearly. The book has great photographs and information about places seldom seen by many. If you like to bike and see awesome places and views at the Grand Canyon this is the book for you!!

Andrea's been there and done that and tells all about it (and how you can do it too) in this snappily written, info-packed guidebook for biking the Grand Canyon. Though Andrea's a long-distance cyclist at heart, she's written this book for us regular folk. An intro includes tons of advice on biking in general and biking the Grand Canyon specifically, even including a history of biking in the area which is fascinating! Rides range from 1.2 miles on up and are rated for technical difficulty and family friendliness. She includes info for each ride on the type of terrain, the availability of water, elevation profiles, necc. permits, and the best season to bike it. The book is well illustrated with photos and maps and also includes anecdotes and local lore cyclists can enjoy over a campfire or when they're taking a breather. Andrea was a Grand Canyon National Park ranger for many years and her depth and bredth of knowledge about the place is incredible. For any level of mountain biker heading to the Grand Canyon, this book is as essential as your water bottle and a set of properly inflated tires.

Biking the Grand Canyon Area is more than a travel book. It is immediately apparent that Andrea Lankford knows what she is talking about with regards to great trails. This is the second book of hers that I have read. Her first book scored 5 on my list as well and is called Biking the Arizona Trail. Andrea was one of the best Park Rangers the National Park Service had. She passes on her knowledge of an area she called home for many years. You won't find a more detailed book! Go out and buy it and ride like the wind!

That's the best way to describe much of what Bowden writes here, since most of it comes from his time on the police desk at the Tucson Citizen. And it, and his nature essays, are in Abbey's vein without being in any way derivative.

Watch him recreate the treks the mojados take across the Sonoran Desert. Here him renarrate some of his crime story coverage. Let him shine a flashlight on a bit of Tucson.

I read this in a college class years ago. Since then the book has stayed with me. I grew up in Arizona and when I left it I found that this book was one of the things that guided my rememberences of it. When moved back to Arizona over a decade later I reread this book and found it to be even more engaging and relevent.

Most Arizonans are new to the state. They have no basis, no connection to it. They bring their values, their limited perspective. They buy a brand new home on the outskirts of Phoenix next to the desert but have no basis for appreciating and understanding their new home. This book provides that reference -- or at least it provides anchors. Those anchors may be dark at times but there's a lot here: guano, Ajo, suicides on tribal lands... Mostly though it is the desert that Bowden explains. "Much like a coal miner's canary, by the time the rest of us realize what he's talking about it may be too late."

Again, Bowden hands us a mirror, and what we see is ugly. Carving a swathe from Palm Springs to Ajo to Mexico, the author presses us along the eroding path of man and beast in the desert Southwest. Although doomed, a certain eloquence precedes their demise. The book's organization by chapter (Bats, Antelope, Black, Blue and so forth), although uncharacteristic, does nothing to dilute the sting and lingering ache of Bowden's biting exposition.

Arizona private detective Brinker doesn't want to go back to Mexico. When a pretty reporter asks for his help investigating a death and a story, Brinker turns her down. But when April Lennox becomes the next victim, Brinker feels personally involved. Unfortunately for him, everyone seems to be quiet and no one knows anything. The Mexican police think April's death is just another sex crime. The Arizona police have no reason to get involved--there is no obvious connection to the unidentified body on their side of the border. Which leaves Brinker with nothing but his instincts and an IOU he really hadn't wanted to call from Mexican drug-lords.

A reporter makes enemies. One of those enemies just might be an ex-boyfriend who got abusive when his girlfriends didn't cooperate. Possible, but Brinker thinks the truth is more complicated. Because April had been investigating a story that involved oppression and murder, Brinker thinks of the maquilas--border factories set up by companies fleeing the wages of the USA. His suspicions become more pointed when he learns that a number of murders seem to have maquila connections. April could have been investigating one of those--but would someone really kill an alternative press reporter just to cover up a bit of union-busting?

Author James C. Mitchell spins a delightful noire story. Brinker has problems with his women--April is murdered, his longtime girlfriend has left Arizona to move to New York, away from Brinker's dangerous life, and he can never quite connect with longtime best-friend Gabi. He ends up putting his trust in druglords who put even less value on human life than the maquila owners. Still, guilt and that strange private investigator honor keep Brinker on the job--until things get personal.

Mitchell's writing gave me a strong sense of place--of windswept LA, the deserts of Arizona, and the frenetic border towns of Mexico--where jobs, money, drugs, and sex create a vibrant but dangerous society. Once the story really got going, it dragged me in and kept me reading. Nicely done, Mr. Mitchell.

Once again Mr. Mitchell has given us an interesting, well-thought out and gripping novel involving his favorite gumshoe... Private Detective Brinker. When Brinker becomes privy to a man being shot following an NCAA Basketball final in his home town of Tucson, Arizona, he's surprised to get drawn into the murder the next day by a female news reporter who had been about to meet the dead man shortly before he was killed. Brinker is inclined to stay out of the whole thing but decides to ask a few questions and the answers lead to a plot that thickens as the story flips back and forth between the Southern US and Mexico until it reaches it's exceptional climax. Somewhat faster paced than Mitchell's first novel "Lover's Crossing", "Choke Point" still retains all of the interesting side-bar detail including more references to old 60's songs that remain with the reader when the narrative is on hold. There is no doubt that James C. Mitchell is going to be around for some time. He has already developed a style that gives promise of reaching that plateau where such authors as Tanenbaum, George, Lescroart and Turow dwell

Bryan Lord, Philippines

A riot broke out at a college football game leaving a Hispanic man dead. The next day April Lennox informs PI Brinker at his Tucson office that the victim was a whistleblower who contacted her about wrong doings in Nogales, Mexico. She asks him to accompany her on a visit to the deceased's mother to see if she can provide some light on what her son knew. Brink says no and not long afterward, April's sexually abused body is found in Nogales.

Brink feels guilty that he failed to talk her out of going and not accompanying her. As a former border patrol agent, he has contacts on both sides of the law and borders, which he uses to track April's movements. He learns she was killed in Nogales and her death and that of ten other victim ties to the Mexican factories using cheap labor. Brink's friend visits the mother and finds that her son was pressing for better working conditions at the Amistadt office. Brink feels an obligation to obtain justice for April by capturing a killer and his employer.

The protagonist uses a drug dealer and that man's associates in Nogales to assist him in his efforts to provide justice to the victims as Brink believes the end justifies the means. The law means nothing to his unknown enemy so Brink adapts the same game theory leading to quite a border thriller. James C. Mitchell takes his audience on quite an eye-opening borderlands' experience with the action-packed CHOKE POINT crime thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Two authors of the 20th century whose letters go beyond fascination are James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway. This volume is an excellent example of just how committed Hemingway was not only to writing, but to getting as close to the action of his writing. Once the reader emerses themselves into his letters, one sees the true Hemingway, not the mythological one created by critics (mostly those who were not fans of the writer).

It is almost unimaginable that someone in his time or any other could be so well connected and intimate with other artist: Joyce, Pound, McLeish, Fitzgerald, Picaso, and so on. If you're a writer this collection is wonderful. It shows the day to day dealings with drafting, editing, publishing, and the intimate relationships between writer and publisher, though this relationship is almost non-existent today.

I found Hemingway through his letters to be someone who is passionate about life and equally compassionate about friends. He tells it the way it is, not the way politically correct messengers do. It is an education in itself to read this collection.

This collection of letters serves as the closest thing to a Hemingway autobiography we have. It is certainly must reading for the student or researcher, and I would highly recommend it for even the casual Hemingway fan.

Hemingway often wrote letters to either warm up for a day of writing or cool off afterward, and in these letters you see him at his unguarded, intellectual, humorous best. The style of his letter writing is often much freer than the tightly crafted prose style of his fiction...it's almost like watching a classical musician break into some improvisational jazz.

A great book to just dip into wherever you want, and this new edition is long overdue.

I miss old fashioned letters, now that we live in the age of email. Frotunately, I still have 'real' letters saved that have now collected dust from my parent's generation, and from a time gone by.

Occasionally I stumble over published letters of famous writers in antique bookstores: Last time, it was a 800 page volume of some of Ernest Hemingway's personal letters; the first edition of this Amazon edition. They were published posthumeously, and not intended by EH for publication.
We get a peek behind the curtain, and learn among other things that Ernest Hemingway was addicted to letters, wrote lots and lots, starting in his teens; and that he was really depressed when he didn't receive replies; or when there were days when the postman brought no letters. Waiting for transatlantic mail added to his sense of loneliness. Letters were a lifelong passion of his, continuing up to the day when he took his own life. These private letters weren't meant to be published, and they are raw, but very honest.
When you read them, you are in no doubt that the writer is a true artist, and an original!
They stretch over the span of his productive life, and they are varied: addressed to family (his parents, his children), his ex, to friends, including famous contemporaries, such as Marlene Dietrich (just one of them), his agent(s), his publishers, and many more.

I have a hunch EH must have been hard to keep up with, but his letters are fun to read; even though, in my view, his novels are mixed: Some great, and some I don't care for.

Guess, EH's life was bizare too. The private letters are consistent with that. And yet, they exude a special warmth; both gentelness and passion.
Reviewed by Palle Jorgensen. December 2004.

This book should become a major contribution to Latin American studies, because it provides fresh perspectives on topics we'd thought we already knew well. It does so by relating Latin America to vital issues in history, notably recent research on frontier history, "the new Western history," & themes of race, class & gender. The chapter by Susan Socolow, discussing Argentine frontier women & thus engendering the history of the gauchos, is particularly strong, but so are most of the others. One drawback is that coverage is largely limited to the far margins of Spanish America (northern Mexico & Rio de la Plata regions), when there is plenty of work to do on the frontiers of core areas of Spain's New World empire, e.g. Peru & Bolivia. (There is some fine material on Brazil, but the book's main emphasis is on Spanish America.) Nevertheless, this work definitely advances understanding of important aspects of Latin American history.

This book should become a major contribution to Latin American studies, because it provides fresh perspectives on topics we'd thought we already knew well. It does so by relating Latin America to vital issues in history, notably recent research on frontier history, "the new Western history," & themes of race, class & gender. The chapter by Susan Socolow, discussing Argentine frontier women & thus engendering the history of the gauchos, is particularly strong, but so are most of the others. One drawback is that coverage is largely limited to the far margins of Spanish America (northern Mexico & Rio de la Plata regions), when there is plenty of work to do on the frontiers of core areas of Spain's New World empire, e.g. Peru & Bolivia. (There is some fine material on Brazil, but the book's main emphasis is on Spanish America.) Nevertheless, this work definitely advances understanding of important aspects of Latin American history.

This book should become a major contribution to Latin American studies, because it provides fresh perspectives on topics we'd thought we already knew well. It does so by relating Latin America to vital issues in history, notably recent research on frontier history, "the new Western history," & themes of race, class & gender. The chapter by Susan Socolow, discussing Argentine frontier women & thus engendering the history of the gauchos, is particularly strong, but so are most of the others. One drawback is that coverage is largely limited to the far margins of Spanish America (northern Mexico & Rio de la Plata regions), when there is plenty of work to do on the frontiers of core areas of Spain's New World empire, e.g. Peru & Bolivia. (There is some fine material on Brazil, but the book's main emphasis is on Spanish America.) Nevertheless, this work definitely advances understanding of important aspects of Latin American history.

Such fun, interest, reality and adventure for a first novel! The Cowboy Rides Away, by Betsy Thornton, a must for mystery lovers and an extreme must for us mystery lovers in Arizona. Reviews usually refer to the author as Mr. or Ms., however, after reading this novel, you too, will simply refer to the author as Betsy. Her talent allows you to become involved, place yourself within the dusty setting, next to the characters, so that you also feel you know her well. A "quick read" in the sense nothing gets done until you close the back cover. The rating of 9? Only because I wanted the story to go on...

This book was a quick read with a plot that holds you and references to the '60's that I truely identified with. I hope Ms. Thornton keeps 'em comming!!!!

The Cowboy Rides Away is a very well written mystery, particularly for a first novel. The characters, even the minor ones, are so vivid they stay in your mind like the country song lyric from the title. The sense of place is also strong. Chloe Newcomb sees the Arizona desert as an outsider, which gives her description of it added sharpness. The mystery was fascinating and not created from a formula. I'll be looking for this author's future work.

I was so impressed by the way Marcum is able to keep his poems accessible and conversational, intimate and complicated, formal and engaged. This is one of the best books I've had the pleasure to read in months.

Marcum uses magic realism, gritty lies, prayer and confession to propel this book of poems. And make no mistake, this is a book--a narrative thread moves througout the work--and not just a random collection of poems.

The voice of this poet is always true, even and musical. He moves in and through Spanish and English, between borders and bodies, along highways and pool halls. I especially appreciate his constant engagement with the political acts of self and language--it is evident that Marcum knows the responsibility of the poet, he stares it down, bears witness and finds himself singing. His "I am Joaquin," "Dreaming Pancho Villa," is both vital and fresh in the American Chicano tradition of the identity poem.

A truly remarkable debut. I'm keeping my eye out for his reading tour.

Do yourself a favor and buy this book. Cue Lazarus marks the debut of a vital new poet, one who has already hit his stride. Marcum mines the richness of his mixed identity (he is the son of a Mexican woman and an Anglo man), often weaving Spanish together with English to create the basic material of his art. His poetry plunges through a network of blurred boundaries to explore fundamental human predicaments. But while Marcum explicitly roots his art in an imaginative construction of the Mexican-American experience, he slyly lays claim to a wider cultural tradition. He moves through the souls of Ezra Pound, Jay Gatsby, and Marc Antony with the same command as those of Pancho Villa, his friends, his relatives, and his many selves. William Carlos Williams famously insists that the universal exists in the particular. Carl Marcum shines intense light on particular moments of particular lives and, in the process, achieves more than a thousand volumes of presumptuous generalizations. He straddles the fault line of self-knowledge, a vantage point that offers precious insight. Cue Lazarus is a pure pleasure.

"Cue Lazarus" is a book of poetry for people who hate poetry; "Cue Lazarus" is a book of poetry for people who love poetry. It is a book filled both with stories and sensations, celebration and criticism, hope and despair. Carl Marcum tells the story of a self becoming aware of the world around him and his own power and responsibility to interpret that world.

Beginning in "a seventy-seven Pinto / [on] an eastbound freeway" in the southwest and ending in a Philadelphia train station, this book is truly a journey. In between is death, love, cigarettes, bourbon, pool, road signs, fairy tales, coffee and pie, breakfast, and angels. And yet, from this amalgam emerges a voice, strong and true, sometimes wryly amused, always passionately engaged.

These poems are subtly wrought, the often politically-charged content cleverly concealed beneath the lyricism of the language. But make no mistake, everything in this book is an act of both personal and political identity. The most obvious instance, "Cuando El Presidente visito a mi pueblo," claims this blatantly propagandist moment as an intensely personal experience. Other poems achieve the same goal by positioning the speaker on a very literal border between selves, between languages, between cultures.

"Cue Lazarus" is not just an astonishing first book of poems, it is an astonishing book. These are poems not just for the sake of poetry, but present things that can only be said as poems.

This a delightful book. David Muench's ability to use light and contrast to capture the varied landscapes of Arizona is unsurpassed. He truly has a gift.

David Muench's photographs show the incredible beauty and variety of Arizona's scenery. The book is a wonderful gift for anyone who loves Arizona or color photography. We received it as a gift and have purchased two more copies since then to give to others.

This is a wonderful coffee table book packed with a wide variety of spectacular photos of Arizona. It is a stunning display of the tremendous variety found in Arizona's natural habitat. Muench focuses on different aspects of the landscape including light, form, life and ecology. Captions tell where the photograph was taken with some brief commentary. A short essay by the photographer leads off each section with some of his personal thoughts and insights.

You will find an awesome view looking up through the trees to the sky, and the beautiful azure color of the Colorado River contrasting against white and rust colored rocks. Views of waterfalls, snow-capped mountains, autumn leaves and desert sands will take your breath away. Natural rock formations and cactus plants are seen in a new light as they become elegant sculptures. Endless, brilliant blue skies are captured against fields, mountains and red rock formations. Close-up of photos vibrant pink cactus flowers and sunny yellow poppies will brighten your day. You also get an occasional glimpse of lush green trees and plants.

As with all of Muench's books this one is printed on quality glossy paper with the highest of production values doing justice to the photography. As a Muench fan this is a treasured addition to my library.

"Victim Advocate" Chloe lives in an old mining town (now a small artist's colony) in southern New Mexico. She has a brief relationship (a couple of dinners) with Terry, a charming man who tries to talk to her about something worrying him -- bur first confesses that he's married. She angrily walks out and thinks that her relationship with him is over, until her role as Victim Advocate results in her being called to the scene of a questionable death -- Terry's -- and she finds herself comforting the widow. Her relationship with Terry quickly gets reported, and her job is in jeopardy. She's told to take a vacation -- so she ends up using her free time to look into Terry and his death.

Chloe is an interesting, likeable character, and the New Mexico community described comes to life for the reader. Some of the secrets uncovered by Chloe were a bit obvious, but I did not guess the identify of the killer. I intend to read more by this author, and I think this book deserves to be nominated for some awards.

Thornton's hardwork over the years is really paying off. This finely crafted book is so enjoyably written! The characters are as engagingly quirksome as Martha Grimes' Jury, Plant, and company. And, yes, we see glimpses of our own humantiy throughout!! You don't want to miss this one.

A true joy to read. One of those books you are so sorry to finish.

Thank you Betsy Thornton!!!

While on leave due to a case that left people dead, Cochise County, Arizona Victim Advocate Chloe Newcombe hires carpenter Terry Barnett to build a bookcase for her. However, with her former lover somewhere south of the equator, Chloe finds the charming Terry quite attractive and ponders a fling with him. Several observers watch her flirt outrageously with Terry, but the affair ends before it starts when he calmly mentions his artist spouse Heather; Chloe rejects the idea as not worth the complication.

Chloe must have had a prophecy because not long afterward, someone murders Terry. Besides Heather as a suspect, Chloe is also considered a strong person of interest by Detective Flynn. Unable to sit idly by as a prime candidate and especially when Terry's estranged brother Fred arrives from Ohio planning to prove his sister-in-law, whom he never met, killed his sibling, Chloe begins investigating. She quickly learns how the brothers had a falling out over April Matasky twenty years ago and follows up by digging deeper into the suddenly caring Fred.

The who-done-it is a well written combination amateur sleuth (in some ways competing sleuths between Fred and Chloe) and police procedural. The mystery resolution seems stretched, but readers will not care because what truly makes the tale and the series so powerful is Chloe. She is the poster worker of "to err is human" and though an excellent victim advocate makes misjudgment calls that prove costly to her clients. In other words, she is not perfect on the job or for that matter in her romances. Fans will appreciate this solid tale because of the fabulous lead female.

Harriet Klausner

Here is a converted desert romantic with an interest in not only nature but man. Krutch writes and hits the mark like Thoreau and Eiseley and you won't want to miss him or this book if you're looking for a little sanity in a world gone mad.

Written over 50 years ago, this classic book of nature writing captures the near timelessness of the southern Arizona desert in a series of essays describing the author's fifteen-month sojourn there. While Krutch harks back to Thoreau, his perspective, turns of thought, and style of expression are similar to the reflective essays of E. B. White. They begin with observations of plant and animal life and evolve into ruminations on the nature of human life.

Krutch writes of birds, the night sky, bats, saguaro cactus, ocotillo, and desert flowers. Considering them, he rediscovers the truth in ideas he has so long held as true that they've become near platitudes. Where there is plentitude in some things, for instance, there is no need for it in others. Nature cares for the species but not individuals, while human values tend toward the opposite. While every rose has its thorn, the blooming cactus shows us that the reverse is also true. A visit to the vastness and forbidding desert monuments of Cathedral Valley in south central Utah reminds him of the precariousness of human life.

The desert leads Krutch to contemplation of its paradoxes, as well. For instance, the struggle for life here where conditions for survival are more restrictive actually create an uncrowded and more serene ecosystem by comparison with the tropics. The varieties of bird life are vastly greater here than in more temperate climates. A species of toads can live unseen and unheard for 363 days of the year, emerging after a rain fall to sing and reproduce, then disappear and survive somehow in the waterless months between. Finally, there's one question he's never able to answer: why bats fly clockwise from Carlsbad cave.

You can't really know a place, he believes, until you have seen it both as novel and as familiar. A landscape is no more than a picture postcard until you have spent time there and discover yourself in the midst of it. "The Desert Year" is a wonderful account of that process and a celebration of the joy that can be found in settling down for a while in a place that gradually comes to feel like home.

If you have an interest in the desert and why we live here with JOY you must read this book. Krutch was an extraordinary man and he lived an extraordinary life his first year here. This book is the story of why he stayed instead of returning to New York. It is perhaps the most admired book about Tucson that has ever been written.