Nevada Books

In this true life adventure British journalist Nicholas Gordon journeys to Tanzania, Africa, to investigate the status of the declining wild elephant population. (20,000 slaughtered in ten years leading up to 1990 when he was there).

Elephants are frequently referenced but not directly encountered. The emphasis is on how the socialist government is trying to convert the native people's from hunting, and or poaching, to other forms of food production.

He interview numerous officials and violators but presents his material in the form of a narrative which is quite intriguing and well written as you might expect from an accomplished journalist and magazine editor.

Well worth reading.

In a beautifully illustrated book Carmelo Urza finely analyses the discussions about this avant-garde sculpture made to celebrate the Basque shepherds of America. He shows and comments the different points of view of those implied: the Basque-american community to whom the monument was dedicated, the Basque government in Spain and, of course, the artist himself. He also provides us with detailed information of the negotiations which finally led to the placing of the monument where it is now. It is a book worth reading in order to know about the aspirations and self-image of the Basques living in America, but also of those living in Spain.

This book is great for getting to know the history behind arborglyphs....They are an important source of historical data...This book is mostly about Nevada...There is a lot of good information about the Basque "sheepmen"/sheepherders....There are a lot of arborglyphs in the Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado...I have seen quite a few myself....The life span of an arborglyphs is about 80 yrs....It is important that we start documenting them now for future generations.....Countless arborglyphs have been lost to time already...check out [...] for more info

I tried to read this late at night in a guest room in Palo Alto (while I was still on Eastern time), at a house where I was also urged to read _Up and down California_, the narrative based on Brewer's own letters, still in print (first edition 1930). I got the latter via interlibrary loan but the memory of Alsup's vistas of rock has brought me to Amazon to buy my own copies of both.

This is an interesting book about the buildings in the Sagebrush state. It does include the history of the profession of architecture but is missing some of the important definitions of the times, such as "carpenter." It gives credit to the buildings, but misquotes the names of the architects in some cases (no "John M." or "Morrill John" Curtis exists as an architect in Nevada, for example). Even a few mistakes such as this cause the reader to question the validity of other information. (My advice to authors: if you do not know, then don't guess and certainly don't put it in writing! Check primary sources!).
Overall, the book is worthwhile and a boon to historians with its pictures of old buildings inside and outside.

Thomas guide books used to come with the material on a cd. Now that cd is not available.They need to include the cd or make it available either by purchase
or included with the guide.

If you are interested in Nevada mining boom towns and ghost towns, a visit to Tonopah should be in your future, and this short, illustrated book would make for good reading beforehand. The text is drawn from the much larger A History of Tonopah Nevada book, but the photos are new, provided by the Central Nevada Museum or from various private collections.

Although the first chapter, on the pre-history of the area (think 10,000 BC to 1,000 BC) is probably not necessary to understanding what went on here between 1900 and the present, the rest of the book is much to the subject, discussing the foundation of the city, miners and their business practices, mining specialties, the companies, the silicosis, the role of women, the social organizations both high and low, as well as the petering out of the mines and the arrival of the government in the form of the air force base and then the nuclear tests. Written in 1990, it does not address the last 17 years of decay and the sad collapse of Tonopah since then.

The photos are uniformly excellent, and give a vivid portrait of the lives of honest frontier folk.

Well worth reading.

The author relies on Austin's newspaper (no longer in print) called the Reese River Reveille to describe what every day life in Austin was like, from its founding in the 1860s to about the 1950s. Most of the book focuses on the 1860s, when Austin was founded as a mining town. The book then discusses its growth and development, the struggles of its inhabitants in an isolated location, and the hopes for Austin's own "place in the sun" as a premier western town.

The book is easy to read and very enjoyable. Having spent about a month in Austin this summer, I was pleasantly surprised to find this book in my college's library. Recommended for anyone interested in frontier history.

The giant Great Basin Desert was covered by Great Lakes sized bodies of fresh water 10 000 years ago. Today it is dry and salty dotted with salty inland seas and isolated mountain ranges teeming with biodiversity.

This book is a journey through old Lake Bonneville and Lake Lahonatan to today's Lake Tahoe, Mono Lake, Great Salt Lake, and Pyramid Lake. Along the way we meet the Humboldt River and mountains of the Great Basin. A truly great read for natural history buffs and those fascinated by America's least known desert.

Warfighters takes the reader into the USAF Weapons School to learn how the air force teaches its pilots to be at the top of thier profession. The book contains beautiful color photographs of the most high-tech military aircraft in action. The book gives a comprehensive history of the fighter and bomber aircraft of the the USAF. The Red Flag school is shown in good detail as are the adversary aircraft flown against students to teach them how to fight the latest soviet made fighters.