Arizona Books

How often can one find a book that combines outstanding poetry (including prose which is really poetry), breathtaking photography, the deeply personal, and profoundly political in one book? In my experience, almost never. But this is precisely what Margaret Randall has accomplished in this unique and extremely moving collection. A collection the University of Arizona Press has produced beautifully--with page after page of full color prints that do full justice to Randall's stunning work. It's a perfect book both to own and to give. My best recommendation is that I have personally--to this date--bought eight copies of STONES WITNESS to give to friends--and I fully intend, as the occasion permits, to buy more!!!

This book is full of historical photos, and is full of humorous stories from actual interviews of pioneers who lived during this boom period. A very interesting history book. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the early 1900's boom periods in our history.

50 trails are covered in this book. Twelve are under a mile, which is nice for beginners. Each entry includes a superb historical review and a short trail description. Trails are grouped into ten areas from Globe to Sedona. Each area contains an overview map. Then each trail includes a map too. Pages in the front of book categorize trails from easiest to most challenging. My favorite is the section that list trails by waterfalls and swimming holes. Directions to each trail are accurate down to the tenth of a mile. All the trails listed are within a few hours drive from Phoenix. A great book for under ten bucks.

It isn't often that one comes across a truly fabulous read within a "series" romance. Usually they are too short, underdeveloped or lack any real "substance". In "String of Miracles" we receive all of the above and more

Mark Bradford is a high powered attorney who is on the fast track to success, helping Nancy Prentiss doesn't seem to take a lot out of him. She's sweet, young and has a lot of potential to make it in law. What Mark doesn't know is that Nancy has had a "crush" on him for awhile, only Mark sees her as a nieve, young law student.

When Mark suffers a serious heart attack he has to make a lot of life altering decisions, most of which he doesn't like. Changing is difficult but what is more difficult is becoming re-acquainted with Nancy Prentiss the girl he helped so many years ago. Not only is Nancy a lovely, grown woman, she also posesses what Mark has had to give up, a career as a fast track attorney who is rising to the top.

What comes next is hardship, betrayal, resolutios and ultimately love. This is not a book you want to miss, follow Nancy and Mark through an unbelievable journey. In a time where contemporary romance sometimes seems stale and not as exciting as it's counterparts "string of miracles" will take you on a trip through the human heart.

On the voyage of the Beagle--before he had ever seen a coral reef--Darwin had deduced an explanation of the geological processes that created them by applying Charles Lyell's explanation of uplift and subsidence. Accordingly, he posited that the Chilean coast had been rising while the ocean floor was subsiding. When he finally explored some barrier reefs, he knew that since the polyps could not live deeper than 120 feet, and all the coral below that was dead, the confirmation of the reefs' great depth was evidence of subsidence--a theory that has stood the test of time. This is an attractive and affordable edition of Darwin's treatise.

She's such a cute little book, the way she just sits on the shelf and half-watches you... no, quarter watches you, and pretends not even that much. And you know you want to read her, read her every chapter, mouth her every passage, lick your lips with every word, every syllable, lest a little drool trickle down your chin. Then she'd suddenly stare right at you, not taking her eyes off you and laugh that little laugh of hers, knowing she was a book, a thing af literacy and truth and knowledge, and you were just some dribbling drooling fool an a couch. Yes, she was a five-star book all right...

The Submerged Cultural Resources Study of Pearl Harbor with particular emphasis on the remains of the USS Arizona and attached memorial is a vital document to understanding the current state of the Arizona, its place in history, its preservation, and its future. The book starts with a history of the Arizona including modifications made to the ship current up to the attack. Also provided is an overview of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the significance of that attack on the American psyche. These sections are concise, factually accurate, and interesting to read, but will likely not expose any new or vital information to serious historians of the Pacific War.

The real originality of material here concerns the archeological record of the Arizona, and the seldom visited Utah, the only other vessel sunk during the Japanese attack (out of 30 vessels sent to the bottom of Pearl harbor that day) that is still resting in Pearl Harbor. The dives undertaken by a joint force of divers from the US National Park Service and the US Navy to document the conditions of the two ships are amazing in scope and detail. Several detailed maps of the wrecks are produced on fold-out pages in this book. These illustrations and maps are invaluable to historians, as anyone who has been to the memorial knows that only a very limited amount of detail of the Arizona is visible from the surface. (Even less of the Utah is observable from the surface.) As part of these studies experiments designed to measure the estimated rates of corrosion (and, hence, remaining life) on the ships were undertaken. These efforts are detailed in the extensive section titled "Biofouling and Corrosion Study." This chapter is of critical importance to preservationists and historians in plotting conservation strategies for these shipwrecks, bearing in mind the complicating fact that the Arizona still entombs approximately 1,000 sailors, and the Utah still holds around 50.

As a result of these studies it was determined that over 99 percent of the Arizona is encrusted with a diatom/detritus mat of plant and animal life, particularly sponges, large Feather-Duster Worms (Schizoporella errata), vermetid mollusks, Sagebrush Tube Worms (Salmaoina dysteria), and Colonial Feather-Duster Worms (Branchiomma cingulata). There are a total of ten taxa of fauna and five taxa of flora that comprise the bulk of species present on the wreck, although many more have been identified in minor quantities including barnacles, snapping shrimp, numerous types of sponges (especially erect and encrusting species), Orange Soft Coral (Telesto riisei), Wood-Burrowing Bivalves (Martesia striata), sea squirts of several species, and various mantis shrimp and oyster species. Additionally, there are numerous fish living and nesting on the Arizona, including the Cardinal fish, the Parrot fish, the Burrow goby, the Mongoose fish, the Goat fish, the Sordid Damsel fish, the Balloon fish (whose eggs have proven particularly destructive to some portions of the Arizona), the Gold Butterfly fish, and the Raccoon Butterfly fish, just to name the most significant. For those interested in further hard scientific explorations, there are many other topics discussed including sedimentation and water oxygenation studies, oil escape and entrapment studies, and a fascinating set of bathycorrometer measurements, which are conveniently summarized in table form.

There is an additional section on management of the site, which reveals great insights from two former administrators of the landmark. This section is vital reading for anyone interested in underwater landmark administration.

This book is profusely illustrated, and was obviously meticulously and painstakingly produced. It is immense value to underwater archeologists and preservationists, historical site managers, biologists, and serious historians of World War Two. This is truly a landmark volume.

This is a superb text whose editors have done yeoman duty coalescing the work of the best scientists in the field. The articles within this tome are remarkably accessible to the layperson, such as myself, keenly interested in astronomy, its history, and its current research. The authors of the articles in this encyclopedic work have exercised commendable care in documenting their sources, back to and including Galileo's pioneering work to discover that, contrary to the doctrine of the time, the Sun's disc isn't free of "blemishes." This is the first work (of many) I've studied which made crystal-clear how the variation in sunspot paths across the disc during the year served to support some conjectures and refute others concerning the Sun.

Wonderful poems and interviews exploring oral tradition and poetry, and staying grounded in Native American culture in the midst of the modern world. Includes a good sampling of contemporary writers, including the prolific Paula Gunn Allen, and N. Scott Momaday, author of the classic House Made of Dawn. One of my all-time favorites.

This is a book I would have been proud to have written, but Kathy M'Closkey has done it exceedingly well. She has told a long overdue and in-depth history of Navajo weaving that binds together themes usually glossed over or ignored in most academic texts--both art historical and ethnographic--and sets the record straight. One of her central and most telling points is that, given the past (and still current) Anglo-dominated marketing and auction systems, the more Navajo women wove, the poorer they became.

The author also addresses the problem of knockoffs of Dine' creativity and design seen today in the increasing number of overseas copies (from Mexico, India, Europe, and elsewhere) of Navajo weaving designs being marketed in the U.S. and sold worldwide.

Richly documented from the records of traders, trading posts, government, and other original sources--especially the testimony of the Dine' (Navajo) weavers themselves--the author gives voice to a history too-long hidden from the general public and now made clear and plain. "Swept Under the Rug" reveals how the weavings were severed from their makers' stories and how, because of this, the prevailing and standard "history" of Navajo weaving does not reflect Dine' values, but rather those of an externally controlled access to the public and marketplace. Fair-trade grassroots indigenous initiatives and cooperatives such as Black Mesa Weavers for Life and Land, Sheep Is Life, the Dine' College Navajo Textile Project, and others, are starting to bring about change and empower the Dine', through the work of their own hands, to reach the market directly, reclaiming the present and a future for the wool and weavings at the core of their culture and economy.

This book is a must-read complement to the few books in print about Navajo weaving that give voice to the Dine' themselves, such as in "Weaving A World: Textiles and the Navajo Way of Seeing," by Roseann S. Willink and Paul G. Zolbrod, and in parts of "Woven by the Grandmothers: Nineteenth-Century Textiles from the National Museum of the American Indian," ed. by Eulalie H. Bonar.