New Mexico Books

Excellent anthropology reference book ont he subject of the Mimbres people. Recommended reading for those interested in this ancient culture.

What more needs to be said as a recommendation for a Mimbres book than that Brody is part of the project. Excelelent as usual. Waiting for the next great Brody Mimbres book.

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Miracles of Sainted Earth (Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series, 1)
by Victoria Edwards Tester

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= A REAL VOICE, UNDERSTANDABLE, ELOQUENT, LIKE MARY OLIVER
Reviewer: Glenn G. Boyer from Tucson,, AZ USA
This is a poet of universal understanding, as all should be, but so few are. When you first dip into this poetry you follow a most unusual spirit inside and outside and around what she knows, and she knows what Winston Churchill knew - we are first and foremost spirit - that we never die because we are a part of everything. Even Victoria Tester's Index turned out to be poetry, whether she knew it or not, because when she writes that's what she writes.

It is often impossible to follow great lyric language, or wade through the imagery that became substance instead of form in modern poetry. Imagery here takes us back to Whitman, the first American poet of the land, and what it nurtures - life, strong life, boisterous life, celebrating itself as the gift of God that it is. You have no trouble understanding what is written here, and to know that the writer experienced it. Though there is inevitable acknowledgment of pain, and despair, which are part of life, most of all there is the underlying, wonderful life, of which despair is usually not a dominant part. We are reminded here that suffering is made endurable by the hope that life will go on and become better, and we will again live to celebrate life at its best. There is a voice here that says, "when all else fails you in extremis, reach out and you will touch God because He is always there, though we often forget that when things are going well."

Here is a poet that brings to life what England's poet laureate, Alfred Tennyson meant when he wrote: "Tell me not in mournful numbers, life is but an empty dream." There are dreams here, "magic realism," strong spiritual acknowledgement, but the dreams in which they are encountered are never empty.

Tester's life is joy, affirmation, an invitation to rush into the world and holler, "Ain't life wonderful, and full of wonders?"

How she does this with such incredible eloquence without obscuring a clear understanding would puzzle me except that I have seen often enough how God gives a gift to a very very few, to share with the rest of us. You will read these poems over and over and become stronger for it, be comforted, because faith flies out from every page.

Definitely Pulitzer quality, but most of us know how hard it is to be noticed by the august Committee that conferred on LAUGHING BOY the big one and ignored LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL.

I was searching for my copy of this book and it appears to have disappear! I used to just have a wonderful feeling just touching the book and have recommended it to a number of people who apreciate art and that of Miss Okeeffe, especially. I find such stories of how the author, Ms. Patten would encourage Miss O'Keeffe to assist her as she made them bread and the pleasure the artist got from doing that simple task. I also found it very interesting the method O'Keeffe developed for her daily walks --- carrying stones in her pockets that helped her know how far she had walked. And the precision with which she requested her simple clothing be laid out! I do think the book was one that show the love the author developed for Miss Okeeffe and that the author also saw how destructive some of the artists so called friends treated her in the last months of her life!

I thought I had lost my original copy of this book and was rather upset, so very glad to find a paperback copy. After receiving it, I found the original hardback and so I sent this one on so that my sister-in-law might enjoy this as much as I have. Just holding the book can give me good feeling about both the author and her subject!

Quite useful as a refference for writing papers of post-graduate level. Compact book, but amount of information contained is enough to surprise you. Easy to read, especially if you have some background of knowledge related to this field.

If you grew up gobbling down books about inspiring, independent women with pioneer spirit, you will enjoy reading this loving and learned biography of the author's grandmother born in 1865. Ms. Litz' research fleshes out the economic and social circumstances only slightly apparent in the books of our youth. Lillian Weston Hazen was a successful syndicated columnist in New York City in the late 1900s when she married a promising, rich Dartmouth graduate. The Depression of 1893 bankrupted them and dried up job prospects in the East. The only position her husband could find was bookkeeper for a mining company in a rough frontier town called Gilt Edge near Lewistown, Montana. Despite tremendous physical hardships and economic setbacks, they made a life for themselves and a surviving son where many were ground down and dropped out. Despite heavy ranch labor, Lillian carved out time to write and published in Scribners and some farming journals. Her lasting legacy will turn out to be the trunk of diaries and clippings that Joyce Litz found in 1949 following her death.

This is a fine collection of 86 black-and-white photographs taken by photographer Joanne Berghold at small town rodeos around Montana in the 1990s and early 2000s. Unlike the commercialized rodeo to be seen in today's PRCA circuit, these local rodeos capture the spirit of the sport as it emerged in the early 20th century -- a family-oriented affair that brought the whole rural community together for a once-a-year celebration. Look at these pictures, and what you often see instead of covered bleachers and flashy corporate sponsor billboards is a wire arena fence with trucks and cars pulled up to it and open prairie or hills beyond. The parking lot is grass-covered, and horse trailers are parked under the trees.

The opening images set the tone of the book -- gravel roads with grass and weeds right to the edges, leading to a low horizon, where clouds drift in a big sky, a veil of rain falling into a distant mountain ridge. Then in the photographs that follow there's the contrasting activity of small town life, strung out along a treeless main street, and the gathering of people at the rodeo grounds.

A cowboy in black hat, wranglers and spurs checks out the draw for the events posted on the side of a trailer, a young girl practices roping a hay bale, hats are placed over hearts in the grandstands and in the crow's nest for the Pledge of Allegiance, horses in the dusty light move into a holding pen, a cowboy bows his head in prayer on the top rail of a chute over a saddled bronc, riders one after another take spills off bucking rough stock. The arena itself may be dusty dirt or waterlogged mud. A roper waits, eyes set in concentration, a piggin string clamped in his mouth under a full mustache; a young bulldogger skids boots first in the dirt, his arms locked around the horns of a calf. There are team ropers, barrel racers, young bull riders taping up, and bullfighters in clown makeup. In the end, buckles are awarded to the winners, cowboys head out with war bags over their shoulders, and horses move up loading chutes into a trailer.

The book is a tribute to a western tradition and way of life, still close to its roots in the workaday world of ranchers and cowboys. It includes an essay by Kim Zupan, a gifted writer and former rough-stock rider. All photos were taken in Montana in rural small towns like Boulder, Belt, Wilsall, and Roundup.

Absolutely love this book. I have been searching for this book for about a year. Though it is out of print, I now own a beautiful piece of history. Looking forward to reading more about it.

Consider the following:
--In the 1990s, my mother was an Earthwatch volunteer on three different Incan projects. On the recommended reading list for each was this book.
--In 2006, my Peruvian guide said she had been tempted to give me a nudge as I leaned over a Machu Picchu guardrail to snap a picture. "Hand me this book again only when we're on flat ground," she advised, only partly in jest.
--In the two years I've been tracking it, rarely have I seen a used copy of the paperback for under $65.

Anyone who tries to find in-depth information about most of the 14 monuments covered in this book--originally published in 1982, reprinted in 1990--will quickly discover why it is still so sought after. (See the first comment for brief descriptions of the 14.)

Nor does one have to get too far into the text for other reasons to become immediately apparent, for included in each chapter are descriptions of the site/monument and the specifics about its construction that are so clear that I do not even have to look at the photographs to recall all I saw. Equally well explained is what is known/unknown as well as theories now discredited.

What makes this book so special, however, is the historical background Hemming weaves into his discussion of each site/monument, for it includes an avalanche of detail not found in guidebooks. Until I read this book, for example, I had not understood why flooding the plain at Ollantaytambo had helped repel the Spanish, for I'd never imagined that "the Spanish horsemen found themselves trying to maneuver in rising water that eventually reached the horses' girths." Likewise, neither my guide nor guidebooks mentioned that the condors on the coat of arms of the city of Cuzco were there "in memory of the fact that when [Sacsahuaman] was finally taken [by the Spaniards], these birds descended to eat the natives who had died in it."

Also skillfully woven throughout the entire text are the observations of a) of those who were among the first Europeans to see the Incan works and talk to the Indians who remembered them being built, b) of 19th century adventurers who came upon them and c) archaeologists who have studied them. For instance, Hemming writes that "The beautiful buildings [of Sacsahuanman] ...did not long survive the conquest....The soldier-chronicler Cieza de Leon, who reached Cuzco at the end of [the 1540s], exploded with fury over the wanton destruction: 'The Spaniards have already done so much damage and left it in such a state that I hate to think of the responsibility of those governors who allowed so extraordinary thing to have been destroyed and cast down without giving a thought to the future....The remains of this fortress...should be preserved in memory of the greatness of this land!' "

Equally interesting is the 53-page introduction to Inca architecture--yet another reason this is so prized, especially as it, too, is written as a narrative that weaves in history, religious beliefs, and observations. Naturally much space is devoted to the "technically and aesthetically astounding" stonework. Yet explained as well are the other types of wall construction, the thatching of the roofs, the reason for rejection of elaborate decoration, the reasons monuments were sited where they were, the role the storehouses played in the military success of the Incas, and so on. Suffice to say that not only did this section answer every question I had but also many I would never have thought to ask.

That the text is so well written that it is an absolute pleasure to read seems almost to be icing on the cake. There are also end notes documenting sources, bibliographies of both early and modern works, a glossary of Quechan words and alternative spellings of Inca names and an index.

As for the illustrations-- Though in black and white, Edward Ranney's 157 photographs are so revealing that it did not even occur to me to wish they'd been in color. Also accompanying the text are 15 site plans, occasional sketches of buildings as they would have originally appeared, a map of the Inca empire and another of the Inca sites around Cuzco.

Given all that is in MONUMENTS OF THE INCAS, it did not surprise me that when we returned to Lima, my Peruvian guide (also an archaeologist who has worked on the tunnel between Sacsahuanman and Coricancha) asked to borrow it again and photocopied it in its entirety. --B. Evans, 1/12/08

See the comments for 1) brief descriptions/locations of the 14 monuments discussed, 2) the 1982 NY Times' review of this book, and 3) information about its author and photographer.