Utah Books

It is well written and illustrated, including abundant photographs, diagrams, maps, stratigrapic columns, and cross-sections. From the crusty old geologist to those with a passing curiosity about the rocks and landscape this book has something for everyone. Read it and you are likely to know more than the rangers!

Reasonable priced for a book this size.

There are some ghosts in the first chapter of Ghosts of the Oquirrhs by Marilyn Brown. Thankfully, they mostly disappear in favor of a lovely story based on a young woman's diary the author inherited from her grandfather.

I say "thankfully" because the ghosts are never fully realized. Ghosts, after all, have a tendency to be ethereal. I say "thankfully" because the meat and bones history of a small mining town in Utah are much more interesting that ghosts. I say "thankfully" because the sweetness in this Utah town is not the ghosts but its tendency toward acceptance of all, regardless of color or religion. And the story of how this town called Sweet Pie very nearly lost its innocence is of much greater value than any ghost story I've ever read. I say "thankfully" because the protagonist, one Miss Cecily McKinsey, is of far more interest as a real life girl of her time than the eerie winds that whistle through the underground mines in her town ever could be.

Marilyn Brown is an author steeped in love for the history of her state. She brings it alive in this unaffected novel about love and how it can be endangered by pettiness and how it can triumph when good people stand firm in the face of evil.

The author's sensitivity is apparent in her language and her characters. She is also the author of "Statehood" and "The Earthkeepers."

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "This is the Place"