Arizona Books

This book is so much fun. It takes you to all the World War II sites on Guam and the Marianas Islands. Guam is so full of artifacts from WWII that you don't even have to hike through the jungle to find them. There is some right outside your hotel door. It has dive sites too. It tells you what happened at each site and what your looking at. There are great maps and pictures in it. If you like to learn about WWII this is a great way to do it.

I recently ran across the WPA Guides and they are truly remarkable, not only about the state but about the time.

In doing a project for school I came across this book and found that not only was it an easy read but the photographs and definitions were excellent.

Every tourist coming to Arizona knows about the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Lake Powell, the Petrified Forest, etc. What Sam Lowe offers is a compendium of the lesser-known attractions - giant dinosaurs, frogs, "Mystery Castle," the Kingman Power Plant, Seligman, "Geronimo" (world's largest petrified tree), Peridot, Bisbee's Lavender Pit Mine, Chloride's rock murals, London Bridge, Nowhere, Hi Jolly, etc.

I've lived in Arizona for 37 years and seen most of what's in You Know You're In Arizona" and its worth the time; to make certain I don't miss anything, however, I consult Sam's book prior to leaving the Phoenix area.

I was born on this homestead so I'm a bit biased.My mother still is'nt happy with what my father put her through.Pregnant at 123 degrees,no power,running water or bathrooms,with Willard's cropduster knocking the swamp cooler off the roof,she and other women show the strength and resolve of these pioneers.

33 tales collected by Mr. Powell between 1879 to 1884 when he was posted to the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico working as a collector for the Bureau of American Ethnology. Mr. Powell was made an honorary member of the Zuni tribe.

This is a collection compiled by Frank Hamilton Cushing. Cushing (1857-1900) lived with the Zuñi and collected many stories that are part of their myths and way of thinking. "Zuñi Coyote Tales" is a selection from His larger collection "Zuñi Folk Tales".

Each tail pits the Coyote against a different critter or deity. As the story progresses we get a better understanding of Coyote and a lesson learned. Even thought this is a standalone book it is more dynamic if you know something of the Zuñi culture and history.

A reoccurring theme is that Coyote is very a very nosy trickster and it is best to keep your nose to your self.

A note for the squeamish, as with many folk tails some parts are painfully violent.

The author skillfully tells his story while carefully drawing the reader into his private life. The book is written with honesty and humor and without being overly emotional or dramatic. Although the author tells of his hardships and struggles,he does so in such a way that you see his life as colorful and rich rather than tragic. The story shows that love and nurturing can occur in non-conventional ways and from people you would not normally consider caretakers. This is a story of love and caring and the strength of the human spirit. I highly recommend this book.

J.R. Moehringer's "The Tender Bar" chronicles the infatuation a young boy develops for a neighborhood bar, the men that frequent it, and the education it provided. And in doing so, he elicits laughter, compassion, and admiration. To wit, a few underline-worthy excerpts: "The two critical tests of a man's mettle, Sheryl believed, were women and liquor. How you reacted to each, how you managed each, went a long way to determining your manliness quotient" (p.130). And J.R.'s reflection on confidence, "I wondered if self-confidence could be acquired, or if, like fathers and flawless skin, it was just something you were born with" (p.163). Or the distinction between a leer and a look: "Women don't like being leered at, but they love being looked at with delight" (p.258). And, lastly, J.R.'s realization that "the secret of being a good man...was [to] follow the example of one very good woman" (p.346). In short, this is J.R.'s story and it is, if nothing else, a memorable and impressionable one.

I loved this book! It is always entertaining, at times heartbreakingly poignant, and very difficult to put down.

This book beautifully marries form and content. The book is J.R. Moehringer's autobiographical memoir, spanning from his elementary school years into young adulthood. Much of the book revolves around the hours Moehringer spent in a neighborhood bar on Long Island, trading stories and having friendly but impassioned arguments with the other barroom regulars. As you read the book, you almost feel like you're in the bar listening to the conversation. Each chapter is really a barroom story in itself; you can almost hear Moehringer, lubricated by a few drinks, sharing yet another anecdote from his life history.

Some of the stories Moehringer recounts seem too good to be true. Perhaps, like any good barroom raconteur, Moehringer embellishes a little for dramatic or comic effect. At first I wondered if the stories really were factual. By the end, I decided that I enjoyed the book even more for not being sure.

I don't drink much, have rarely been in bars, and have spent little time on Long Island. Nonetheless, I had no trouble inhabiting Moehringer's world.

I highly recommend this excellent memoir!

I'm not much for memoirs, but I picked up The Tender Bar on the recommendation of the clerk at a local San Francisco bookstore, and I'm glad I did.

The Tender Bar, by J.R. Moehringer, chronicles the early life of, well... J.R. Moehringer, who grew up in Long Island, New York, alongside his mother, grandparents, several cousins, aunts and his Uncle Charlie, a bartender at the local pub, Publicans. His father, a popular radio disc jockey, was absent much of Moehringer's life, and his absence is the central storyline of The Tender Bar.

With no father figure in his life, Moehringer becomes attached to the bar, Publicans, as well as the many real-life characters that frequent the pub. Each chapter in the book is about one of those characters, and the memoir moves (though slow, at times) chronologically as Moehringer encounters and befriends more and more people.

Though Moehringer details the years he and his mother spend living in Arizona, as well as his collegiate career at Yale, most of the book takes place in and out of the Long Island bar. Due to the fact that most of the events occur in the bar, most of the chapters involve the characters drinking themselves silly, leading to amusing events and/or interesting conversations on work, life, women, the New York Mets and a host of other topics.

For the most part, it's an easy, fun, well-written read that will make you laugh throughout the book. There are some slow parts, and a lot of places in the book where the author is trying to be deep and serious, which can seem forced and unnecessary. But I liked The Tender Bar, and would recommend it as a good "vacation book," especially if you're on some tropical beach (as I was -- in Barbados -- while reading Moehringer's tale).

Journalist J.R. Moehringer has written a rollicking coming-of-age memoir set on Long Island and centering around a small town version of the TV bar Cheers. The story opens with the author at about age six being raised by his mother and grandmother at his grandparents' house, his golden-voiced and leaden-souled father having disappeared into thin air. Before long he finds that his best childhood friends and father figures are a bunch of bartenders and drunks at the most popular bar in town, Dickens. Once he reaches drinking age, it's hard for J.R. not to become an alcoholic. One of the bartenders is his uncle and the bar's policy is that relatives drink free (but must pay for any drinks they give to others).

Obviously, the young protagonist becomes a successful writer. How he reaches that stage provides two great stories--that of the struggling student and journalist, and that of the rollicking young alcoholic. That you are reading the book removes some of the suspense about the outcome, but Moehringer and a cast of Dickensian characters at both Dickens and his grandparents' house makes the journey very entertaining. If you like Frank McCourt's various memoirs, particularly Angela's Ashes, or if your childhood included alcoholic caretakers (parents or otherwise), you'll love "The Tender Bar".

Sure, this book may speak strongly for the respect and preservation of the desert southwest, and for that, it deserves proper credit.

But for me, it has had a much deeper impact. This is a lot more than just an argument that we should protect our wilderness, although it is easily that. Rather, I found it to be a profound guide on how to think and act in general, about pretty much everything, everywhere.

This is one of the greatest books of the American twentieth century, a true classic, and everyone pondering how to think about and evaluate everything these days could surely benefit by reading it carefully.

I purchased this book because David Quammen referenced it in one of his books, and I really enjoy Quammen's books. It is listed on various websites and in some magazines as a "Nature Classic".

I have visited and hiked the deserts and canyon in Utah and northern Arizona. That allowed me to feel a lot of what Abbey writes about. It is a special place. I wish I could go back and see Arches National Park when Abbey was there. (It was Arches National Monument at the time of his stay there.)

While there are some controversial things in this book, and while I don't agree with everything Abbey writes, I have to say that I really hated to come to the end of this book. Besides the stories about nature, Abbey also writes about some of the human activities in this area.

I think I understand why people call this a landmark book. The environmental movement was just starting in the sixties. (Does anyone else remember the green Ecology symbol?)

An early environmentalist even before the term came into use. Ranks up there with Sand County Almanac and Silent Spring. A must read for those who care about the environment. Abbey predicted some of the water problems that now face the southwest.

This is my favorite book. I consider Abbey to be a hippie environmentalist--a sort of modern day Thoreau. The book will suck you in and you'll be wishing you could run off to Moab and have a beer with Abbey.

In 1968 Edward Abbey wrote a memoir, Desert Solitaire, A Season In The Wilderness, that would instantly be hailed as a nature classic, as well as his bestselling work. While familiar with EA's name the only work of his I'd read up to this point was a woeful collection of the man's `poetry'. Believe me, when I say there's a definite reason for the quotes around the word poetry. Apparently the work is considered somewhat of a nature hymn, along the lines of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. This is a perfect example of poor criticism propagating myths down through the years. This is not to say that there is not some fine writing in DS, but neither its consistency nor tone are akin to Walden's....Although these events happened over 3 seasons, the book condenses them down into 1, for dramatic effect. It's a technique that can see such startling contradictions in the same book as this reluctant admission-

`As I type these words, several years after the little episode of the gray jeep and the thirsty engineers, all that was foretold has come to pass. Arches National Monument has been developed. The Master Plan has been fulfilled. Where once a few adventurous people came on weekends to camp for a night or two and enjoy a taste of the primitive and remote, you will now find serpentine streams of baroque automobiles pouring in and out, all through the spring and summer, in numbers that would have seemed fantastic when I worked there: from 3,000 to 30,000 to 300,000 per year, the `visitation,' as they call it, mounts ever upward....Down at the beginning of the new road, at park headquarters, is the new entrance station and visitor center, where admission fees are collected and where the rangers are going quietly nuts answering the same three basic questions five hundred times a day: (1) Where's the john? (2) How long's it take to see this place? (3) Where's the Coke machine?'

-& this contrapuntal admission that he basically understands why the previous lament was written:

`Standing there, gaping at this monstrous and inhuman spectacle of rock and cloud and sky and space, I feel a ridiculous greed and possessiveness come over me. I want to know it all, possess it all, embrace the entire scene intimately, deeply, totally, as a man desires a beautiful woman. An insane wish? Perhaps not--at least there's nothing else, no one human, to dispute possession with me.'


While the book is not going to make the reader drop the book & take a breath, like the best of Loren Eiseley, Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire is a book worth reading, not nearly so much because it is a paean to nature, although it occasionally is, but because it is an excellent portrayal of a man's state of being- a man who could be hypocritical, childish, write poorly, then surmount these flaws. If the same were true of most of EA's readers this last sentence would not be as cogent.

I admit it. I cannot put down a good book about stupid people making bad decisions in a spectacular, and spectacularly dangerous, place. There are a lot of short stories in here about how things went really, really bad for people who were unprepared, stupid, didn't know what they were getting into, or were just pure unlucky.

I saw the book in Flagstaff the day before I started a week long raft trip through the canyon. I decided it was probably a bad idea to read it then. Once I got back however, I did read it and couldn't put it down. It was all the more real for having just been there and having gone through some of the extremes of temperature, rapids, etc. that the unfortunates detailed in the book went through. I was proud of the outfitters staff who had us well prepared.

Anyway if you are entertained by people who took too little water into 125 degree temperatures, or who decided to run the rapids without life jackets, or who may or may not have been murdered by a fiancee, read this book. Obviously it's not for everyone. But I loved it.

You have many ways to die in Grand Canyon: fall, jump, get pushed, clown around, drown, starve, thirst, or be in an airliner collision over that vast chasm. Ghighlieri and Myers, a wilderness river guide and a Grand Canyon physician, methodically, graphically, painstakingly document the known deaths by name, date, events leading up to and subsequent rescue and/or recovery efforts. A fascinating read, should be required for anyone planning a visit to such a beautiful and potentially fatal attraction.

Although it sounds a bit morbid, this book is a very good read. There is a good mix of entertaining anecdotes and statistical analysis. The authors delve into the root causes and chains of events that have led to the hundreds of deaths in the canyon and really drive home the point that people make the same mistakes over and over and over again. If you are thinking about hiking, backpacking, or rafting in the canyon, I highly reccomend reading this book first - it will help you make the right decisions about your time in the canyon.

Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon
Excellent service, great book, well laid out and very informative

I was at the grand canyon when I bought this book-I didnt want to buy it,but a stranger had told me about it,and not wanting to tell a lie in case I ran into this person again (which I did)I picked it up and glanced at the first few chapters-within minutes I was hooked-it is an unbelievable read - to even think about what some of those victims must have gone thru was terrifying-yet it is one of those books that once you start to read it,you can't stop!It made me respect mother nature even more and appreciate the safety rules and regulations the forest service puts up,no matter how trivial it may seem to be.