Nevada Books

This book has a lot of nice shots of Vegas including a fold out panoramic view of the whole strip, however a few of the photos are a tiny bit out of focus. There is also a lot of interesting facts and history about the different hotels and the city. Other than those few pictures out of focus, I think it's a great book.

I purchased this book as a Christmas present for a friend that just made her first trip to Las Vegas. The book is filled with amazing photographs of all the popular sites in Las Vegas. The photography is absolutely beautiful. The book has some large fold-outs pictures of the strip. It makes you feel like you are right back in Vegas. This will truly be a treasured momento of fun times!!!!

By this third book, I really got close to the Skinner family and shouted cheers with the crowd at the finale. This family oriented western touched me with its poignancy and humor.

Dola and O.T. Skinner and their 4 children are in Goldfield, NV, still dreaming of raising grapes in Dinuba, CA.

One year has passed since they arrived in this gold crazed boom town. The Newcomer's Cafe has flourished especially since their motor car is lodged inside the front wall! Wall Walker is hired for new jobs and is probably the only really trusted man in town - however, he makes one big enemy while helping a woman regain her legal home. That enemy swears to do him in.

The two former feuding outlaw gangs have joined forces and made O.T. a seventh "partner" of sorts. Mexico gold lures them as soon as they can leave the voluptuous sister of Goldfield's most famous Indian, Fergus.

A serious, lifethreatening illness overtakes Dola Mae and for the first time, O.T. considers himself as greedy and as guilty as the men who lust and kill for gold. After all, he has literally run his wife into her sick bed in his quest for his dream of moving to California. Will his dream take his wife from him?

This third book in the Skinners of Goldfield series by Bly certainly contains the most action, adventure and intrigue of the three.

In this well written, engrossing book it's hard to tell who is worse--the victim or the murderer. This is a story almost too bizarre to be believed.

Kathy, the victim, was raised Catholic. By the time she was an adult she had clearly fallen away--we are talking about someone who married four times. Not to mention the infidelities. And she met her fourth husband, a nurse, over the dying body of her third husband. Within less than a month (I told you this was bizarre) Kathy had married the nurse, Chaz.

Kathy's career as Nevada State Controller was nearly ended by scandal. One employee accused her of sexual harassment and partially stripping in front of him. Other employees accused her of making them work on her campaign during the work day, and for free.

Kathy may have been immoral to the bone, and a shrill, unpleasant woman to boot, but her marriage to Chaz was a disaster, a marriage more of hate than of love. Their relationship was so ugly, so bitter it's surprising it lasted a year...and was there a dark secret that kept them together?

I don't want to give away more of the story, but this is one true crime novel you won't want to miss.

Chaz Higgs who was a respected nurse in Las Vegas is now serving a 20 year sentence for poisoning his wife, Kathy Augustine. Unlike other cases of killing spouses, Chaz is the fourth husband of Kathy Augustine, a power hungry politician in Nevada. The book does not paint the murdered victim as the devoted wife but rather jealous, posessive, and obsessed wife. I do feel sorry for Kathy since she didn't deserve her fate even if I felt that she was never going to let Chaz go. She doesn't get dumped but does the dumping. Even her previous husband was prepared to divorce her but died three years earlier. Sadly, Kathy's relationships with men, women, and even her own daughter are not idealistic. I felt that Carlton Smith, the author, should have just explained that her daughter, Dallas Voss Augustine, is a lesbian rather than just hint at it. I would have liked to have known the family's response to Dallas' alternative lifestyle as the author puts it. Dallas and her mother were not very close but not just for that reason since Kathy was a staunch Catholic Republican. Dallas and her stepfather, Chaz, became close because they could share their dysfunctional relationships with Kathy. Dallas was obviously disregarded in favor of Kathy's career. Dallas lost the mother that she never had in the first place. According to reports, Kathy was quite cruel and critical of her only child. When Chuck Augustine died, he adopted Dallas and her as his own child. The obituary read survived by three sons. Obviously, it must have hurt Dallas the most. Kathy was too busy with her future fourth husband and raised family suspicions. Kathy was always trying to achieve and satisfy her ego and lifestyle. With the power as state treasurer in Nevada, she was the only impeached politician to remain in office until her term was completed. She was ostracized by the politicians. Of course, Kathy had mistreated her own employees and ordered them to campaign for her on the state job. This violated state laws and she was admonished for her behavior. She created an unhealthy and hostile work environment for her employees even being heartless when one of her employees had to go home to take care of her diabetic cat. After reading the book last night, I began to see how complicated the situation for Chaz was in. He was in a hellish marriage with a demanding, dominating wife. He wanted out but nobody dumps Kathy Augustine. He probably felt that he had no choice but to do it. In the end, the jury gave him the lightest sentence of 20 years before parole. As for the rest of the people involved including Dallas who has her own troubles, I wonder what happened to them. Sadly, Kathy never found satisfaction in any of her achievements which were grand and took it out on people who were closest to her.

This book is very easy to read and understand. I like this fact since it is a textbook required for my class. It looks at many factors both inside and outside the US.

The book is fabulous. Very informative and easy to read and comprehend. Definately a great author!

As with all aircraft photobooks by Michael O'Leary the quality of the photographs range from good to breathtakingly good, but this time there is accompanying text as well, very informative, and an index to find you race favorite. Whatever you might think of what is being done to those last surviving WW2 warbirds at Reno, fact is that some of the most spectacular paint-shemes are flown there, the cover of this book only giving a glimpse of the beauty of what is inside. For the ones of us who like to see just how the world-record holders level flight for piston engines looked like there can be no better book in my opinion, and this book shows them all: Mustangs, Bearcats, Corsairs, Thunderbolts, a Lightning, Furies, a Warhawk, an Airacobra, Kingcobras, Spitfires and even a Yak-3.

This is a great little book. It provides the perfect balance of technical information without getting wordy, and a great selection of photographs. If you want a story go elsewhere. It includes the very rarely covered Super Corsair with some super pic's.

It may not be physically a big book but pound for pound its a champ.

Only negative: More More More!

Note: Other recommended reading;

Wet Wings and Drop Tanks by Birch Matthews, Schiffer Aviation

Supershow by Dennis Baldry, Osprey

No matter how little Rexx programming you do, this book is a gold mine. Its compact size and ring binder make it very convenient next to your keyboard. In addition to covering the Rexx language, it also covers all the popular third-party extensions. And for the OS/2 user, it is an invaluable resource on the WorkPlace Shell and other features of the world's most powerful operating system.

The REXX Reference Summary Handbook is an extremely useful tool for anyone regularly programming in the REXX language.

This book matches its title extremely well. This is a reference book detailing many aspects of REXX ranging from syntax of the language and several popular addon modules, to Workplace Shell information useful for manipulating the OS/2 Desktop. This is a summary in which entries are short and to the point making it an excellent tool for REXX programmers, not a book that teaches REXX for beginners. Finally this is a handbook with a great 4"x8" size that slips in right next to the keyboard where it is never out of reach.

While the book contains lots of information specific to the OS/2 SAA REXX platform the first chapter applies to any REXX implementation. This makes it equally useful for programming other platforms such as Regina REXX on the Windows NT platform, or the REXX included with current versions of IBM PC-DOS.

The downside to the REXX Reference Summary Handbook is that is is out of print, so it is missing some of the most recent OS/2 REXX updates. This is minor since the online REXX reference shipped with OS/2 is generally current so any missing topics can be printed from the online reference and inserted into the handbook.

Next to a good text editor this is one of the best things you can add to your REXX toolbox. My copy is borrowed often, but never gets far from hand.

Comprehensive and fluent also for not american readers (I'm Italian).

This book is a historical account that is an easy read and provides a full accounting of Nevada's history from the time when American Indian tribes dominated the territory until today. While most people think mostly about Las Vegas when considering Nevada, up until recently most of the human action is the state took place in other locations. James Hulse does a beautiful job in compiling and presenting the influence of mining, railrods, farming & grazing, immigration, water rights, military matters, and politics in all reigons of the state.

If you are interested in a thorough accounting of the history of the state of Nevada, this book is a top choice.

The Story of Hoover Dam is a collection of articles published at the time of the construction of the Dam, each chapter is a different article, wrote at different time from the next one. The books provide details of the many construction and management aspect of the Dam. Although I am a Civil Engineer I find the book difficult to read. The language of the book is really technical and the authors refer often, to names of machinery and other technologies of the 30's. The books include many pictures and drawings depicting the construction of the Dam and its design. This an excellent historical reference, not only for its pictorical information but also because you get a sense of the mentality at the time. Nonetheless this is not a book for a first hand account of the construction of the dam, instead this book is more suitable for people who have already have read something about Hoover Dam and want to explore more in detail the design and the construction of it.

Fabulous technical collection of articles & photographs outline the surveying, design, planning, construction, and politics/management of the project. Includes many engineering drawings and elevations.

The Basque people are certainly an interesting race; it is believed that theirs is one of the oldest languages in Europe. Where they came from and how they ended up in northern Spain has been a point of contention between anthropologists for some time. They suffered terribly during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's; the famous painting by Picasso represents some of the suffering in the Basque city of Guernica. The people of that city had the dubious distinction of being the first in history to have been the victims of the deliberate terror bombing of civilians. The Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA has been engaged in a decade's long struggle to create an independent homeland for the Basque people out of the Basque areas in Spain and France.
This book is a collection of photos taken in the Basque regions in Spain and France. It is a rugged, yet beautiful land; most of the buildings are very old. While there are some modern devices displayed in the pictures, the majority could have been taken decades ago and some perhaps over a century ago. People are meeting over drinks, coffee and traditional food. Some of the beautiful pictures of the villages in the valleys could have been taken at the turn of the century.
When people appear in the photo, one thing is clear. The Basques are a very proud people, they have lived on and worked their land for centuries and will continue to do so. Rugged mountains and terrain breeds rugged, hardy people and that certainly describes the Basques. No small set of photographs with associated explanations in a book can truly describe any culture, especially one this old. However, it can both literally and figuratively give you a snapshot and that is done very well in this book.

"A Time We Knew: Images of Yesterday in the Basque Homeland" is the product of a fascinating collaboration between photographer William Albert Allard and the dean of Basque-American literature, Robert Laxalt.

In the fall of 1967, Allard spent two months in the Basque country of northeastern Spain and southwestern France, capturing with his camera the everyday life of the people who lived there. Although Allard spoke no Basque and was linked to the Basque country only through his Basque wife, his stunning photos evoke the tremendous power of the Basque landscape and people: the haunting flanks of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques at evening; the gloomy mountains of the northern coast of Spain just at the approach of a storm; a rough-hewn woman with a scythe at Behorleguy, on the frontier between youth and age, in whose face is reflected the painful past of the ancient Basque people. From a technical point-of-view, these incredible photographs are so good that they could truly be "images of yesterday": the color is brilliant. Alas, though, "yesterday" in the Basque country is no more. The years since 1967 have seen the heavy industrialization of both the French and Spanish sectors of the Basque homeland and the gradual passing of the ancient ways Allard captures here.

Laxalt's contribution to this book is his prose vignettes, some of the best of his characteristically exquisite prose-poetry. A second-generation Basque-American whose father grew up in the French Basque country, Laxalt knows the region as well as probably anyone in the United States. While one cannot miss the heavy dose of romanticism in his prose ("Girls slender as reeds walking hand in hand down the lane, singing an ode to spring in soprano voices pure and light as air") and even pastoralism (exacerbated by the fact that the Basques are some of the world's greatest shepherds), it is obvious that Laxalt is a remarkable writer.

A poetic look at "yesterday" in the Basque country. Get it on your shelf.

This book provides a thourough set of the features and attractions you will see on a drive through the Sierra Nevada. Most guides cover Highway 49 and some cover US395, but this guide also covers the far southern and far northern ends of the mountain range.

An exhaustive guide might be 1000 pages long, but in the 300 pages here, Koehler lovingly covers the highlights as well as some hidden gems in the area.

When I recently planned a trip to the Sierra I browsed through many books on the region. It wasn't until I saw Koehler's new title that I knew I had struck Sierra gold. This book is not just a timely overview of the region that is one of the nation's true scenic wonders--it is impressively well-written. Koehler threads her own experience into a beautifully-rendered survey of every destination you would probably consider visiting, whether by foot, snowshoes or car.