Utah Books

I read the book A Mother To Embarass Me by Carol Lynch Williams. The book was about a girl named Laura that had a mom that embarassed her all of the time. Her mom was a model and she had ads with her picture on it all over the palce. All of Lauras friends thought that, that was pretty cool but she didn't. One night when Laura, Laura's mom, and Laura's dad went out to dinner Laura's mom told her that she could have a boy/girl party at her house. Laura was excited because then she colud invite her crush Quinn. She thought that the night was going to well so she asked her mom what else was going on. Her mom said that she she was......... you have to read the book to find out what happends. I really enjoyed the book because the author put a lot of deatil. The only thing I didn't like was that somethimes the author rambled on and the story got boring. I would reccomend the book to a girl because they talk about girlie things in the book such as boys and the main character is a girl. If I were to rate the book 1-5 stars five being the best book I have ever read and one being the worst book I have ever read I would give the book a four.

My 17 year old daughter loved this book! Fans of Williams' other very funny novel, My Angelica, will enjoy this story as much as they did her hilarious romance. As with all her books, Williams' produces an authentic and engaging teenage voice that readers like my daughter will easily relate to. Of course, all teenagers live in constant dread that their parents will commit some humiliating social faux pas that will forever exile the teens from "cool" society, so the conflict of this novel, a publically pregnant mother, is also something that teenagers will relate to. It's a good book, a good read.

If you are constantly being embarrassed by your mother or father and want to relate to someone who also is you should read this book. It is also a very funny book too. This book is about a young teen named Laura Stephen who has the most embarrassing mother in the whole state of Utah. Laura's mom is always embarrassing her like her terrible singing while blasting old time music, working at home in her pajamas, leaving food on her face, getting fat, or dancing at Laura's first boy-girl party with her father! Laura can't hide her mother, so she decides to change her. A list seems like the perfect idea- "Things to change about MY MOTHER!!!". After Laura's mom continues to be embarrasasing she finnaly announces that she is going to have a baby!!!! There must be something Laura can do to change this horrifing situation.
I really enjoyed this book for various reasons.
1)I could relate to Laura.
2)It was a funny book.
3)It taught a lot of good lessons about growing up.
I hope that you will enjoy this book as much as I did.

No matter your age, you can probably remember a time (or ten, or twenty) when you were embarrassed by your mother. Her words, dress, actions all combined to humilitate you in front or your friends, or worst of all, the love of your life. No matter what you tried to do to stop her, Mom only became more embarrassing by the minute and you thought you'd never be able to face the world again. Twelve-year-old Laura Stephan feels the same way and keeps a list of all the things she would like to change about her mother. But her mom doesn't mean to be embarrassing. She just wants to stay good friends with the daughter she loves. She'd do anything to keep Laura happy, but her best efforts all seem to be wrong. How could Mom have known Dad would hurt his neck while break-dancing at Laura's party? So what if Mom and Christian talked about Laura behind her back? Why should Laura be concerned that Mom has a modeling job while several months pregnant? Will the birth of the baby make things better or worse? Carol Lynch Williams take a humorous look at mother/daughter relationships that are cross-generational. A great read for a mother/daughter book club, a pre-teen who feels embarrassed by her own mother, or a mother who wants to understand her emotion-packed daughter a little bit better.

Beautifully presented and printed. The images are vivid, bold and very stark. The photographers really know how to isolate and present their subjects, and the large format photography really shines through. As a fan of good photo lighting i was a little distracted by the double-shadows in some of the images. Apart from this, technically all the photos are wonderful.

In "Salt Dreams" photographers Jimmy and Dena Katz have used large format technology to capture the strange clashes between people and what was once a vast naked desert. The images are produced in such clarity and detail they seem to insist on the discovery of a new reality, neither hyper- nor sur-real, but a pop-reality made of rocket and race-car dreams, and civilization's discards. These photos make both artistic and conceptual statements in brilliant color and fantastic precision. No more fuzzy roanticism; this is how we really are.

"Salt Dreams" by Jimmy and Dena Katz will mesmerize you. In unique large format color photographs this inspired artist couple captured the other-worldliness of Utah's Salt Lake flats. Spending months of patient observation, they came upon scenes of such strangeness you may think they were contrived but they're not. And that's the real magic of this work. Buy the book and read the excellent introduction by Vicki Goldberg, photography editor of the NYTimes to appreciate the freshness and brilliance of this work. It's unlike any other professional photography you've ever seen.

This is a beautiful and interesting book. Having shared it with others I have found that everyone has a different opinion of the story the pictures tell, and all were impressed. I would reccomend this book highly to all those interested in people being people in the desert.

We just took a motorcycle trip through parts of Utah, with this book in our saddlebags. It was excellent with ideas, maps, town and even historical descriptions. We only wish we had purchased it a couple of months earlier for our Southern Utah trip. But it has us excited to take future trips in Utah.

I used this book on my recent driving trip to Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches and Canyonlands. It was a real highlight on the trip. My friend, who was navigator, used it for "color commentary" on the drive. It's also a great supplement to other guidebooks such as Frommer's and Lonely Planet.

My only criticism is that the maps and illustrations would be better in color and the text is a bit verbose. In spite of those bits, it's still five stars.

We traveled all over Utah with this book and started to think of it as the Bible of Traveling Utah. Would highly recommend. Saw places that we would have missed if not for this book. Used it daily to plan our days.

I went on the Grand Cirlce trip (Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands, and Glen Canyon/Lake Powell) and found this book very helpful in planning my trip. I gave it a 4 star only because it doesn't give the time required for each trip. For example, for the drive to Temple of Sun and Moon, from the book, it seemed like a 30 minute trip. However, from a separate source, it said the drive takes 2-3 days to finish. Nevertheless, still a good source.

Martin provides a thorough history of events leading up to the dam's construction as well as the history of that construction.

It's well researched, and does not grind environmental or other axes, so will be good reading for people who bring a variety of viewpoints to the question of whether Glen Canyon deserves a doff of the hat or some dynamite from Hayduke.

Martin's book is a good rendering of the planning, construction, completion, and opposition to the Glen Canyon Dam. The book is a good historical work, though I didn't find it a compelling read, like "Cadillac Desert". Martin's best prose is when he descibes life in the town of Page during the construction of the dam, with rich details about life in a government town in the middle of the desert. Very enjoyable read even if you wish Glen Canyon Dam would fall back into the canyon. Can make you appreciate fully the people who built it and the people who opposed it.

THIS is a thoroughly gripping history of a great and fantastically beautiful river of the American Southwest, and of the powerful human beings locked in a bitter struggle over it, all their massive efforts to control it and equally determined efforts of those who did not want it controlled. Its climax is the completion of the monumental Glen Canyon Dam and the creation of Lake Powell, with a water storage capacity of 27 MILLION acre feet an a power-generating capacity to supply the needs of vast numbers of people and businesses over a vast range of our country. It is wrong to sugests that there are any villians in the story, but clearly, there are many heroic figures in a collosal struggle of competing interests, from the Sierra Club's David Brower, conservationist turned environmentalist, to the Bureau of Reclamation's Floyd Dominy, to prime contractor Merritt, Chapman Scott's chief engineer, Lem Wylie who got the job done despite the fact that the corporation went belly-up at the end. And it has politicians and statesmen-politicians from Colorado's Wayne Aspinall to Arizona's Stewart Udall and Barry Goldwater. Even Holywood with Charlton Heston and John Wayne, mercifully in bit sub-plots, grace a page or two. Every person even remotely interested in the history of our country's development and the beauty of the place it unfolded, should read Russell Martin's, "The Story That Stands Like a Dam."

This book is absolutely loaded with information on Glen Canyon, Glen Canyon Dam, Lake Powell, and Page, Arizona--the nearby town of dambuilders. Its author has tried incredibly hard, and succeeded, at writing a book that is unbelievably fair, and that presents the controversial story of the building of Glen Canyon Dam in as truthful and as unbiased a light as possible.

Russell Martin, the book's author, doesn't even mention (until the book's end) whether the book's main characters--the dambuilders and the conservationists--are republicans or democrats; this allows those characters to escape the stigma those labels would bring, and allows the reader to consider the characters just on what they did and what they said, and not instantly dismiss them because they're political parties may not be our own.

This book is beautifully researched, written as a gripping narrative, and well-worth reading--though I have to add that it's so full of information that about three-quarters of the way through the book I experienced a brief feeling of being absolutely glutted on facts about the subject.

This is an excellent book though, and I would recommend it (along with Jared Farmer's "Glen Canyon Dammed") to anyone interested in the subject of this controversy.

Topaz Moon is a testament to the power of art, not simply as a mechanism for creating beauty, but also as a method of documenting history. Faced with the social disruption and indignity of relocation and internment in WWII, Professor Chiura Obata of the University of California at Berkeley chose to use his considerable artistic gifts to create what amounts to a visual diary of his internment experience. Seemingly hundreds of drawings, pen and ink paintings and watercolors (too many to count) document Professor Obata and his families experiences from the start of the war, through relocation to Tanforan, internment at Topaz, and beyond, in stark terms, quiet dignity and haunting beauty.

Unlike photography which can only memorialize the actual events of a moment, painting and sketching allows the artist to document his or her own emotional reaction to those events. Dorothea Lange, herself an admirer of Professor Obata, took photographs of the Tanforan relocation center, including Professor Obata's art classes, some of which are reproduced in Topaz Moon. However, compared to Professor Obata's own first hand sketches of the internment process, Lange's photos appear emotionless. This is because Professor Obata infuses his documentary sketches, which are remeniscent of Van Gogh's figural drawings, with the powerful emotional reactions he felt in witnessing scenes in which he too was a victim.

But Topaz Moon is a text which is more about creating community than casting blame. Kimi Kodani Hill, Professor Obata's granddaughter, has framed her grandfather's art with an insightful, succinct and compelling history of Professor Obata's life and the events of the time. The anectdotes relayed by Ms. Hill emphasize the support, assistance and sympathy given to the Obata's by their many freinds outside of the camps. I was struck by the fact the President of U.C. Berkeley, Robert Gordon Sproul, who himself was vocally opposed to the internment, personally rescued Professor Obata's life's work of art and stored that art in his official U.C. residence for the duration of the war.

While Topaz Moon is more than an art book, the art itself is more than merely documentary. Professor Obata's finished paintings and sumi-e works represent some of the best American artwork of the 20th Century. Works such as Moonlight Over Topaz (commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt while Professor Obata was still interred), Hospital Topaz, and Silent Moonlight at Tanforan Relocation Center would stand out in any museum. In their own way, these images are every bit as beautiful as his earlier Yosemite woodblock prints.

I highly recommend this book.

Most of the artwork are done in black ink on white paper. It makes for a stark and bleak testament to the difficulties faced and endured by the internees. The book is a great teaching tool for children and adults, not only to learn about the internment, but to study the artwork.

This is a wonderful book. I bought it for the artwork which is fresh, inventive, and very skillful but the social history is equally engrossing. The text is clearly written and generous with quotes.

At 8.25" square it's smaller than your average coffee table book, but the pages are rich with intelligence, beauty and invention.

"Topaz Moon" is a slim little book that is filled with a selection of the interment imagery of Chiura Obata. The imagery is both in his writings and in his art. And both make lasting impressions.

The images range from simple line drawing to watercolors executed while a victim of Executive Order 9066 in which all West Coast Japanese Americans were rounded up and placed in interment camps. It is amazing what he was able to accomplish in the face of circumstances beyond his control. Obata's work is excellent.

"Topaz Moon", "Obata's Yosemite" and "Nature Art With Chiura Obata" are the only three books currently in print about the remarkable artist and human being that was Chiura Obata. The three books present different facets of his life and all are worth reading and seeing. Highly recommended.

It's a text book for colleges. But it's well written, and each author who contributed their view point of the Donner tragedy, goes from the ridiculous to the sublime. One of the more interesting books on the subject.

Editor Kristen Johnson has done an excellent job of pulling together many difficult-to-obtain source documents that are pertinent to the Donner Party. She enhances the reader's understanding by presenting detailed biographical information about each document's author, combined with copious footnotes, all of which are extremely helpful and unbiased. The tremendous amount of research required to synthesize the material is quite apparent. Johnson's volume of material helps to counterbalance some of the older, more biased works of Donner literature. This is a "must-read" for anyone interested in American history, the great western overland migration, or simply in tales of survival. Congratulations to Ms. Johnson upon compiling an interesting, eclectic mix of old and rare--some almost forgotten-documents which really improve our understanding of conflicting viewpoints of one of America's greatest mysteries. (This text refers to the hardbound edition of the book, c. 1996.)

This book takes many early, hard to find, publications and compiles them into one comprehensive resource. The book has excellent annotations and summaries which place events into perspective and help give a fair, balanced view of the Donner Party tragedy. Highly recommended for anyone who has an interest in our western history and the early settlers who helped to form it. This is a great follow-up book to McGlashan and Stewart

Johnson's book is a great reference for anyone interested in the Donner Party. It is a compilation of written source materials, most contemporary to the Donner event. The book contains many personal accounts of the tragedy, given from widely diverse sources, from survivors and rescuers to "yellow journalists" of the time. Johnson's compilation is a testament to how the Donner Party story affected people of the time, and how their varying perspectives affected their opinions. Johnson avoids reader confusion with a complete set of footnotes, detailing where various writers were inaccurate or incomplete in their retelling of this amazing story of the West.

I loved this book. Fascinating, and just the best author, he's got a special touch with his writing. Highly highly recommend, you can't go wrong.

Lovers of the redrock wilderness country of southern Utah will enjoy Tom McCourt's reminiscences of the years around 1950 at a little mining town on the Colorado River at the head of Glen Canyon.

The author went to White Canyon as a child to visit his grandparents, who were involved in the uranium mining boom. His grandfather always hoped to strike it rich but never did. What Tom McCourt discovered was a different kind of riches -- a great, wild landscape to explore and to love. Now the region around White Canyon is explored and loved by many people from all over the world. Many, many square miles of wild land still exist there for each of us to discover and cherish.

If you enjoy the works of Ed Abbey and Terry Tempest Williams, you will like Tom McCourt's different, but eloquent way of writing about wild Utah. He was there before the tourists arrived.

Every now and again a book is written by a relatively unknown author that deserves a wider audience than is usually given to such efforts. This is such a book. Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell reservoir has been controversial from its inception. It is alternately referred to as the jewel of the Colorado and Lake Foul sewage lagoon. There are literally thousands of books dealing with the subject from almost every conceivable angle. Surprisingly, there are very few about the people and places that "...few people knew and almost no one remembers." Places such a White Canyon town now under 200 feet of water. The town was built in 1949 to service a uranium-processing mill during the atomic energy craze of the late 40s and 50s. The book tells the story of the rise and fall of the town and the people such as the authors grandparents that made it a special place in southeastern Utah. This is a magical, bittersweet story of a special place gone but not forgotten. Highly recommended.

Is there anything cooler or more mysterious, really, than a ghost town? How about a ghost town that not only became ruins, it completely vanished? ...Even the land around it, and the red rock and hills above it, vanished.
That's White Canyon, Utah, and that's the subject of this book. Before this book, White Canyon was only a mentioned in a dozen or so other publications that dealt primarily with Glen Canyon or Lake Powell. But no more. Tom McCourt has researched and written a terrific little book that tells more about this tiny town that's been submerged by the impounded waters of Lake Powell than we ever knew before.
The book's writing is solid and inventive, the book's structure (of featuring first the area, then the industry, then the town, then the town's boardinghouse, and then the town's people) is interesting and effective, and the book's information is thorough and fascinating.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Lake Powell, misses Glen Canyon, or likes Western history. It's a little-known gem, and you won't be disappointed.

the story of Alex Smith is a great story about a kid who always played second fiddle, but when he got the chance to sign, he took full advantage.

Smith went to Helix high school and in 2 years lost 2 game as the starting QB leading his team to 2 straight state titles.

Smith wasn't the story however, his teamate was.
Running Back Reggie Bush, who later signed to play at USC.

Smith had only 2 offers, 1-Michigan State 2-Utah

Smith declined Michigan State because his uncle was the head coach, and fearing a political backlash, Smith chose Utah.

at Utah, Smith was at the very bottom of the depth chart and even thought about transfering out, but destiny was on Alex's side.

on the last play of the game against Texas A&M, Utah's starting QB got hurt, and Smith took over. his first start was against California and Smith lead the Utes to a win over the ranked Cal.

in 2 years, Smith lead Utah to a 21-1 record and from the unknowns to a powerhouse football team.
in his junior season, Smith had just about everything you could ask for short of the National Title.

Utah finished 12-0, ranked #5 in the Nation, and was the first Non-BCS team to make it a BCS game.

Alex Smith ended his junior year leading Utah to a 35-7 win over Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl and took home MVP of the game, finishing 29 of 37 for 328 yards and 4 tds.

Smith was a Heishman Trophy finalist and was named by The Sporting News as the college football Player of the Year.

i really hope there is a revised story, because it pretty much ends where Alex makes his decision to go pro, which was a no brainer.

Smith ended up becoming the #1 overall draft pick in the 2005 NFL Draft.
he threw his first TD pass in his 150th pass attempt, finishing the season with 1 td and 11 ints.

Alex wore #11 and was in the #1 pick in the NFL Draft. pretty crazy numbers hu?

the Alex Smith story is really fascinating. he's not a showboat, or a gloater. he's a very humble guy who knows where he came from.

great story.

Wow! This is a compelling story, for young and old. Heather is an amazing storyteller, and does a masterful job of sharing the story of Alex Smith as he follows his dream of playing football in the NFL. It is full of fun and anecdotal excerpts from his childhood, and a detailed review of his march to an undefeated 2004 season, leading the University of Utah football team. I couldn't put it down, and read the whole book in one sitting (two weeks before his going first pick in the NFL draft). Now, I can't wait for the sequel covering his 49er years!

The story of Alex Smith and his meteoric rise to the number one NFL draft choice is a superbly inspiring story, written by a very talented young author. It is laced with humerous anecdotes and interesting insights into Smith's homelife and his first 20 years.

I used this book as one of the historical references for my novels, "Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God" which tell the complete story of the Conquest of the Mexica. The author's research has produced magnificent artwork of long-destroyed Mexican pyramids, temples and other structures in and around the Templo Mayor. The artwork looks and is modern and I suspect that the actual structures, although wonderful, weren't quite as scenic. Weathering and aging would be factors.

Also, a time-traveller to Tenochtitlan would have noticed things impossible to capture on paper. When the wind shifted there would have been the odors of blood, dismembered corpses and dissolution--mixed, no doubt, with the scent of the numerous flowers growing within and immediately outside of the temple precinct.

Also, I noticed a slight disagreement with the description provided by the old conquistador, Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Castillo noted the presence of two temples on the flat top of the precinct's primary pyramid. Serrato-Combe's work agrees with this. One of these temples was to Tlaloc. Again Serrato-Combe and Diaz are in agreement. The second temple, according to Diaz, had effigies of both Huitzilopotchli and Tezcatlipoca. Serrato-Combe indicates that this was specifically the temple of Huitzilopotchtli. I suspect S-C is right and that Diaz' recollection of events many years earlier may have been muddled. Nevertheless, in my novels I go along with Diaz' descriptions, primarily because his descriptions are so graphic and were, no doubt, partly the products of the terror that any European would have felt when examining these blood-soaked but magnificent structures.

RB

If you have ever been interested in ancient civilizations, and have wondered where/how they lived... this book is for you. The pictures in this book are fabulous and bring you into the lives of this ancient civilization.
I would recommend this for anyone both for it's visual beauty and historical content!

reading from the author all the illustrations are computer generated based on oral and verbal manuscripts and on the actual foundations left behind...

i found the plaza's and home layouts to be of great interest... also his recreation of the ball court is good...

author also touches on the design of the temples... based on what manuscripts we have and the surviving structures...

the chapter on the templo mayor was great... but was hoping it could of been more detailed... author leaves alot of room for possibilities

definitely worth the purchase... if interested in the design of possible configurations of our capital

I bought the "Best Hikes" book Colorado last year and it was perfect for our family. It was a no-brainer to buy this book on Utah's hikes. We used it frequently in choosing great hikes on our trip to SE Utah this summer. I recommend this book not only for people with kids but to anyone who wants to take easy to moderate difficutly hikes as well as those who want to learn what's along the way!

A great book that goes into detail about interesting sites to watch for along the way. Includes cautions and degree of difficulty. A must read for anyone who enjoys (or would like to enjoy) hiking with children.

We just discovered this book, and think it is absolutely wonderful. The authors are obviously very experienced in hiking with children, and besides just listing the possible hikes, they give excellent suggestions of how to make the day fun for the whole family, what you should take with you, games to play along the trail, etc. The book is very well organized and easy to use. If you want to go hiking with your little ones but aren't sure where to go, then this is the book for you!