Arizona Books

The book answered questions I had about exactly what a vortex is and is supposed to do. It also talks about "manifesting at the vortexes" and the possible relation to God. The book recommends reading "The Power of Silence" by Carlos Castenada and "The Power of Now" by Eckart Tolle.

I'm a regular visitor to the Sedona area and have bought several books regarding the `vortexes'. I wish I had seen this one first and saved myself some coinage. It has everything one would need, as a novice or as one who has made the trek before. The easy to follow instructions are a huge benefit, not only do you get a map but street by street directions. Great for some like me who is never sure where north, south, east or west might be.

The extras are a great read as well. I was also pleasantly surprised with the list of affirmations at the end of the book. There's also a recommended list of things to take on your hikes, a great help. It may seem like common sense, but you'd be surprised how often I'd forget items that would've made my whole experience that much better.

I took this guide with me on my hikes and actually used it, something I've not really done with any of my other `guide' books, because this one actually does guide! Highly recommended to anyone visiting the area! Whether you're big into the whole `new age' thing or just love the beauty of this place, this is definitely the guide book for you!

After many years of hiking and studying the Grand Canyon, this text was a true delight and an eye-opener. The explanations of the geology associated with each step down the different trails really brings to life the geological history of the Canyon. The book provided new insight on trails that I have been over many times before and has added to my appreciation and understanding of the Canyon. Many thanks to the authors!

I highly recommend this book even if one has no present intention of hiking in the Grand Canyon (though I have to say that, after reading it, I now find it imperative to go there in the very near future). The Introduction and Appendices of this book together comprise the most informative, concise and accessible introduction to a science subject (Geology in this case) I have ever had the pleasure to read. The authors actually make events of the last 4600 million years (!) jump off the page as if they were part of a live action series!

It is rare to find a book which transcends its specific topic as this one does. Even my nine-year old was fascinated by the vivid descriptions of the forming of the major features of the North American landscape, the formation and break-up of Rodinia, Pangea, etc., and the many, many layers of history present (and not present!) in the fantastic artwork the Colo. River has carved for all to experience first hand.

I have not "road-tested" this book for its specific hiking information. However, I can certainly certainly recommend the book based on its geological and earth history content alone.

Oddly enough, Agnes Franz hasn't created just a history of one Arizona town in the book, Historic Prescott. What I found instead in these collected descriptions and photos was a cross-section of the wild west as a whole.

Released in today's era of rapid and often bewildering change, this book provides a clear and colorful case study--a kind of executive summary by verbal and visual snapshots--across another time of development, one that occurred as America's wildest frontier morphed into today's version of civilization. Historic Prescott shows the world's most famous American fantasy era through the life of one pivotal town.

By gathering and rapidly describing countless key events in 16 chapters--chapters like Bucky O'neill - Rough Rider, Home on the Ranchland, Prescott's Chinese History, Indian Way of Change, Law and Some Order, and Rodeo--Historic Prescott uncovers a town--and the type of town--that was the backbone of the west.

Franz writes in a staccatto style that may take a page or so to get used to by some readers, but most will probably get into its flow right away. Events move along quickly; that's for sure.

The price leans toward the steep side, but if you're a fan of the old west, there's much to enjoy in this slim large-format volume. Franz's collection and easy-reading descriptions make it just plain fascinating to watch the west of our fantasy grow up into the modern era.

I would highly recommend this well-written book to every Prescottonian...Arizonian...in fact anyone interested in the history of Prescott and Yavapai County. The author's extensive research - both for facts and photographs - has resulted in a fascinating tale of the growth of a small mining town and its surrounds.

Puerto Rican poet and playwright, Rane Arroyo could be introduced with several more identifiers before his name. Perhaps the poet himself would add titles such as Intellectual, Gay, Dreamer, Comedian, American, and Friend. Invoking this multitude of identities, Rane Arroyo's collection of poems, Home Movies of Narcissus, playfully explores realms that are forbidden, imagined, and erotic. There are few borders in Arroyo's writing: his poems seamlessly fuse humor with sincerity as they capture the truths of loneliness, sex, culture, and history. At times merely a stream of consciousness while other times careful constructed stanzas, Arroyo's poems are structured as diversely as the stories which they reveal. Arroyo's poetry artfully recreates its subjects in terms of the emotions that they illicit, not just the linear definitions of or societal reactions to them. Such multi-dimensional reflection and writing are a testament to Arroyo, a poet with strong identities and a deep personal awareness. I think that you will find your own adventure as you read Home Movies of Narcissus. This book of poems reads like a cultural biography of America, featuring a multitude of fascinating worlds and people, both real and imagined.
In the first section of the book "Yes, Si, Aha," poems such as "The Cousins" and "Delicious Parable" articulate truths of Arroyo's Puerto Rican identity during the author's childhood and adult years. In the poem "Cousins," Arroyo references his "tropics-starved parents" (9) while recounting a homoerotic conversation among childhood friends. This scene is among countless others in the collection which juxtapose multiple identities, in this case exploring notions of cultural relocation as a Latino and internal exile as a gay adolescent. The reader can only smile as he is left to ponder "Zorro's erection" or a childhood game about "the addict's attic" in the hometown "cha-cha-cha Chicago." Classic poetic devices such as alliteration describe unconventional or even taboo subjects, creating poetry that is both interesting and entertaining to read. Such poems relive moments which border between nostalgia and dysfunction, adding to the lure of Arroyo's dynamic writing.
The poem "Delicious Parable" details a poignant sacrifice, an impoverished Puerto Rican mother who struggles to provide a traditional meal for her son. The speaker in the poem cries when he realizes that the dried codfish "with chance bones in it" is the "only inheritance she can give." As he describes the memory, Arroyo's tone is playful yet upfront. He avoids making a political statement about poverty (or any of the other numerous issues in the book). Rather, Arroyo's identity as a poet and his powerful honesty about life experiences (and dreams) awaken the reader without offending him.
In the section of poems entitled "The Mask Museum" Arroyo reinvents traditional notions of identity, death, and art. In "Bad Disguises," a clever poem about Halloween with characters such as Antonio Banderas, Richard Nixons and Andrew Carnegies, the speaker ponders, "Someone in a devil's mask / demands my green card. / It's a joke, / but not for me. When is this home?" (12-14). Throughout the book, Arroyo's confessions of fear, loneliness, and pain can be intimate, sudden, and even haunting. In "Bad Disguises," Arroyo conveys the powerful pain evoked by racism, while the humor of Halloween deflects but does not undermine his message. This is one of several poems where Arroyo narrates struggles of discrimination as a Chicago-born Latino. A search for a home within a world of discrimination is a reoccurring struggle in his stories of identity.
"Unfunded Art" searches for beauty in a bizarre studio of nude models with "gunshot craters," "gang tattoos," and "stone testicles." In choosing to write about such a place, the poet celebrates imperfection and garners respect for it among his readers. Arroyo celebrates such characters not because they are marginalized but because they have discovered their own beauty. These triumphs of discovering personal identity give a voice to the marginalized without clouding the message with political protest.
In the section "Hungry Ghost," a series of poems about Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, Arroyo creates a clever banter between a witty poet and the arrogant historical figure who demands that the poet memorialize him. Arroyo expresses the shared frustrations of a poet and a historical figure, with statements such as "To be forgotten is a daily death" and "You are all memorialists with / nothing to confess." However, from the frustrations of the speaker arise humorous and playful images, and even a Ricky Martin reference. Arroyo reawakens the identity of a Puerto Rican with words that passionately long for a homeland and mourn a commercialized paradise. The Ponce de Leon sequence of poems explores an interesting concept that appears throughout poems of Latin American identity, such as Arroyo's: Spanish conquest wrote history with violence and a sword. The Latin American poet recreates history with his pen and words. Arroyo's poetry is particularly successful in such creation because he does not taint the art or history of his work with politically charged messages. If anything, his personal commentary merely adds humor that is both quirky and enchanting.
"The Black Moon Poems" contains some of the darkest moments of Arroyo's book. Sleepless nights and drunken moments paint images of struggle, anger, and confusion. Yet, in recounting his searches for identity, Arroyo's identities are never undermined. The reader is given a glimpse into the sufferings and frustrations of a self-proclaimed "double exile." Arroyo's yearning for mutual acceptance and understanding of his gay and Latino self's echoes throughout his poetry. His writing expresses the physicality of such yearnings. They are eroticized with frequent references to images such as pubic hair, hard laps, wet dreams, and masturbation.
Underlying Arroyo's tales of exile and frustration are a message of acceptance and a desire for human dignity. Arroyo is an openly gay, Latino man who powerfully and successfully describes his experiences, creating an art form. Arroyo's existence alone is a political poem; yet, his life professes truth by experience rather than protest. His work is thought-provoking, clever, and funny; however, at its core is a sincerity of experience which makes it a worthwhile read. With an open-mind, the reader can understand Arroyo's search for identity. Along the way, he will find all of the realities of the journey: humor, discrimination, love, and loneliness. Whether to savor the cultural experiences of an artist or to grow closer to one's own identities, Home Movies of Narcissus is a rare and wonderful journey of discovery.

Rane Arroyo has a quality refined by love and talent, which he has released on paper in the form of this collection. His humor, his emotions and his love for words makes him a modern-day legend. I am a fan!

Let's face it, dictionary-making is one of the most difficult linguistic tasks when working with any language. The decisions are complex and often require detailed analysis far beyond the skills of a single linguist. This dictionary is a true team effort and has been decades in the making. Much of the team membership are native speakers of Hopi as well.

This dictionary is a truly outstanding effort and deserves a place in every library of languages and linguistics, whether the library is focused on the languages of Native America or not. There are only a couple dozen dictionaries in the world that clearly exceed the exhaustiveness and production quality of this volume. This dictionary of Hopi is the very best dictonary to have been produced for ANY language of Native America. It is superior to dictionaries of the majority of minority languages of Europe as well.

As far as size and production quality, it exceeds most "college-level" dictionaries of English, although not quite as large as the "unabridged" dictionaries of English.

With the imminent extinction of many of the languages of the Americas, this dictionary is unlikely to be superseded as the dictionary we all wish we could make.

Extremely thorough, comprehensive dictionary of the Third Mesa dialect includes *30,000* entries, each with multiple word forms and at least one sample sentence. Cultural context, idioms, and colloquialisms are also indicated. There are illustrations for entries that need them, just as there are in the better English dictionaries. Includes a pronunciation guide, brief grammar and a separate index of prefixes and suffixes.

How Long She'll Last In This World is an articulate and engaging collection of remarkable poetry by Maria Melendez. Drawing from her expansive knowledge of the environment and biology, Melendez creates poetry which induces muse and highlights the spirit as it carries its readers through a creative and evocative philosophy. American Adhaan (October 2001): Watch night spilling on the western edge/of invisible, its cool surrender/to the peach-colored clouds (just water/that has lately collapsed/into form).//How violently natural/my petroliferous valley looks/in this faint, blue wash;/the slow, arc'd strokes/of a great egret's wings/deny the crude thickness/of this air.//The shattered world's particulates/fall everywhere around us;/the call to prayer means bowing/and facing them all.

How Long She'll Last In This World is an articulate and engaging collection of remarkable poetry by Maria Melendez. Drawing from her expansive knowledge of the environment and biology, Melendez creates poetry which induces muse and highlights the spirit as it carries its readers through a creative and evocative philosophy. American Adhaan (October 2001): Watch night spilling on the western edge/of invisible, its cool surrender/to the peach-colored clouds (just water/that has lately collapsed/into form).//How violently natural/my petroliferous valley looks/in this faint, blue wash;/the slow, arc'd strokes/of a great egret's wings/deny the crude thickness/of this air.//The shattered world's particulates/fall everywhere around us;/the call to prayer means bowing/and facing them all.

How Tradition Works: A Meme-Based Cultural Poetics Of The Anglo-Saxon Tenth Century by Michael D. C. Drout (Associate Professor of English at Wheaton College) re-examines "memetic" theory while contemplating the manner in which traditions are created, modified, perpetuated, and recognized. Especially focusing upon the Oral Traditional Theory as revealed in a case study of the longevity of classic Anglo-Saxon poetry from the tenth century, How Tradition Works is especially intended for specialists in evolutionary theory, memetics, and Anglo-Saxon studies. A serious-minded, college and graduate school-level discussion of the complexities of intergenerational human societal expression.

Do you remember how Steven Jay Gould used to make deep forays into other scholars' fields in order to find witty and profound explanations for biological phenomena? It does not often happen (at least not effectively) in the other direction, e.g. a Professor of English tramping around fearlessly and knowledgeably in various fields of science. Well, meet Michael D.C. Drout, an intrepid, medievalist and polymath who has embraced the teachings of evolutionist Richard Dawkins, especially the concept of "memes" (The Selfish Gene 1976) and who has applied it vigorously to the exegesis of certain Medieval texts. This is a bold, new "Theory of Tradition" that should be taken seriously as a rich source of brilliant ideas for theses, college courses, and further scholarly work. (e.g. See some of Drout's inspiring suggestions on page 295.)


A meme, according to Dawkins, is a unit of cultural replication such as a catchy song or memorable slogan. According to Drout, "Memes" are the answer to "How does tradition work?" Drout's book takes us convincingly through one example after another. The focus is tenth century English monasteries as exemplary meme-keepers by means of often repeated and copied rules and formats for documents. Drout cautiously coins three new words for his "Theory of Tradition" (recognitio, actio, justificatio) The humility with which he does this is worth reading in the footnote on page 13 and worth emulating by humanists and scientists alike who might be considering the coinage of some new jargon. By the way, if you are a fan of footnotes, you will love most of the others in this book. Each is its own little eloquent, opinionated essay. My only complaint is that some should have been raised into the text.

Critics of a memetic analysis of tradition might say that it ignores the contributions of individuals. This certainly is not the case with Drout's memetic modification of Dawkin's concept of "meme" (a "meme of a meme".) Drout's unique version is nicely mutated and appears to be well selected for its new function in literary criticism.

Itself divided into the sections Foremothers, Self and Identity, Self and Others, Spaces, Myths and Archetypes, Writers on Language and Writing, Growing Up, and Celebrations, this broadly inclusive anthology includes writers who need no introduction to anyone familiar with Chicana literature: Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, Gloria Anzaldua, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Alma Villanueva, Cordelia Candelaria...and if you haven't read their poetry or pose, here's your chance.

Simply the most comprehensive collection of Mexican-American women's writing --both good and bad-- "Infinite Divisions" has enough jewels to understand why it would be required reading for anyone hoping to delve into Chicana literature.
"Little Miracles, Kept Promises" by Sandra Cisneros is a nice sample Mexican-American life condensed into a format so innovative that it merits being read twice... Prayers and petitions to God and all the saints, hopes and fears about sexuality and love and life, the traditional scraps of paper left as a religious offering in church become a touching prose piece.
The book thoroughly disects the sometimes-ghost-story, sometimes-feminist-symbol of La Llorona, the crying woman who murdered her children in some stories and who was the reincarnation of La Malinche (Hernan Cortes' lover) in others. "Aztec Princess" and "Malinche's Discourse" make for wonderful discussion pieces, not to mention reading.

Paul Lay's informative text is a perfect accompaniment to Richard Turpin's stunning, lovely, full color, tour-de-force photographic excursion through the appealing beauty of Ireland's landscape, cities, architecture, and people. Enchanted Ireland is an outstanding compilation of Irish images and a pure celebration of the natural wonder and folk charm of a vibrant people in a land bustling with vigor and cultural legacy. Highly recommended!

Having just returned from a 2-week visit to Ireland I was eagerto get my hands on anything related to the places I saw. So, I took alook at several photography books on Ireland and was losing hope of finding the "right" one, when I started flipping through "Enchanted Ireland." I was stunned by the wonderful photographs, and the great range of both landscape and city/town pictures. There are also some beautful people pictures, including--to my astonishment--Paddy, an accordion player and resident of Inishmor, whom I saw on my trip to the Aran Islands. If you're looking for a wide range of photographs and a good idea of what parts of Ireland look like (and they're stunningly beautiful) then this is *the* book to have. You'll want to leave for Ireland tomorrow!

We got this book out of the library and ended up buying a copy as the tales are worth many repeat visits. The stores about different kinds of friendship are charming but what really catches our attention is the language. It is clear for young children to understand but is ever so slightly different -- as if spoken by someone translating into English or someone using a different 'flavor' of English. It really adds to the sense that these are Native American tales.

The illustrations are detailed and very attractive with lots of things for listner to explore while letting the words soak in.

"In the evening the Sun touches the ocean in the west and climbs down the long ladder to the underworld. Then he sets out on his underground journey to the sunrise place in the east. Up above, now that the world is dark, the time has come for people to light fires and tell stories." Join John Bierhorst at the crackling campfire as he retells seven Pueblo fireside tales. These are stories that just beg to be read aloud. Each short and engaging tale centers around the theme of friendship, and is rich in Native American insight, wisdom, and humor. Wendy Watson's charming and expressive cartoon-like artwork, in quiet, subdued desert earth-tones, complement each story beautifully, and bring the endearing cast of animal characters to life. Find out why Coyote has short ears, how Snake lost his only friend, why peaches are sweet, and how Bee learned to fly... Perfect for youngsters 5-10, Is My Friend At Home? is a marvelous collection the entire family can read and share together. "The Sun has come to the end of his underground journey. As he climbs up the ladder to the sunrise place, he puts on the skin of a gray fox, and white dawn comes up. "Ha!" he cries and he puts on the skin of a yellow fox, and yellow dawn comes up. He steps out of the underworld. It becomes morning. No more storytelling until nightfall."