Arizona Books

THIS IS THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ! Even better than the classics the teacher in my school tells me to read. I really liked reading this book, wish it were longer even though it's already 300 pages, but I wished it went on forever because it was really good. I haven't read a book in more than 3 months and this book got me back to reading. After I finished, I was kind of upset I finished the book, it's too good. I'm so glad I bought this book!

I read this book when I was young and read it again recently. It was even better. I have read many books and none have given me the feeling of this one. The review that calls it "slow building horror" is right on the mark. Completely engrossing and unsettling. Here is a VERY short description. Bryce moves to an isolated old boomtown. Ancient legends, town history, and an old indian woman who "sees" things all take part in unfolding the truth of a horror that Bryce sees is gaining power as events in town get stranger. Although the novel is aimed toward young adults, the plot and idea of this book would be interesting for anyone. Also, if you read this, is it just me or does it seem that Steve Zell makes a lot sexual references that are sort of creepy and off and definitely don't go with the book? When I read it I was trying to see what the relevance of some were and just couldn't see any even though they are blatant and numerous. That was the only thing about the book that I didn't like. Email me at scoulo1@lsu.edu if you agree because I really am curious to know if I wasn't the only one.

The story was suspensful and fun. The characters were well defined and the surroundings and events were very well described. I could taste the warm, Indian bread! I seriously could not put the book down. I truly enjoyed this book!

The story was suspensful and fun. The characters were well defined and the surroundings and events were very well described. I could taste the warm, Indian bread! I seriously could not put the book down. I truly enjoyed this book!

From the title "WiZrD", I assumed I would be reading a fantasy book. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this is a horror novel set in modern day Arizona, includes a cast of humans (alive, dead, and undead), and incorporates colorful, actual legends from both the Navaho and Anasazi cultures. The book gave me many of the positive impressions I had while reading "It" by Stephen King, e.g., teenagers battling supernatural forces, characters you care about, and some spine-tingling imagery. However, unlike "It", "WiZrD" builds, from the start, to a thoroughly fitting and imaginative ending. Zell has a real talent for creating a large cast of characters, each of whom are unique, each fitting like a puzzle piece into the overall story, and each contributing to the eerie climax. In general, I was very impressed with this book and highly recommend it. Zell shows great storytelling skills that I hope will only improve in his next work.

We are snowbirds and we kept getting "misplaced" with the regular maps. This one is complete and accurate. Thanks

These Delorme Atlas & Gazetters are wondeful. They show you many features not available through GPS, maps or other atlases. It is a great feature to have the BLM lands marked as well as the back roads. Good resources are also included in each states atlas. A good addition to anyone's travel tools.

I purchased the maps so I could see the elevation contours. I have a Tennessee maps and it gives the elevation changes by 100 foot. The map gives some elevation but not the contours.

Great Product! Nearly as good as having a seperate map for every county in the whole state.
I like it best because I can read the text much easier than a state map, especially in low light. My bifocals are OK for reading but not the fine details of most maps.

I have nothing but praise for DeLorme. We have purchased and used 5 states now (Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Colorado, and Arizona), and each has enabled us to really enjoy some spontaneous vacations. I plan to buy one for each state I visit.

For anyone interested in the current climate of Earp studies Glenn Boyer's book "The Earp Curse" is must reading. The book does not address Wyatt Earp directly, but instead delves into the mystery of the workings of the minds of today's players in the field of Earp study. All in all, this book is very illuminating and amusing in its attempt to expose the politics, jealousies, power-grabbing and intrigue that seems to go hand in hand in todays's popular history culture. The books of Glenn Boyer are at the center of a maelstrom and "The Earp Curse" is no exception. For decades the collective work of Glenn Boyer has been beset by detractors and naysayers. In recent years this caterwaul has increased in volume and intensity. In "The Earp Curse" Glenn Boyer unleashes a virtual broadside of information directed at his more vocal critics. I am sure that you will be amazed when reading this book to see the wide assortment of letters and comments from his detractors that Glenn Boyer has managed to weave into his book. The claims that the information contained in his books was concocted from whole cloth are destroyed by this myth busting tour de force. The most damaging portions of the book were written and provided by the detractors themselves and brings into question the claims and allegations of these same critics. All serious Earp buffs and fans of the old west will want to add this book to their collections. Buy this book, you will not be disappointed.

The field of Earpiana is indeed a jungle these days, and Glenn Boyer gives his personal perspective on it in The Earp Curse. That perspective is a bitter one, and understandably so in view of his experiences in the ongoing "Earp Wars." Perhaps no account of the "wars" can be pleasant, but Boyer's trenchant humor may bring an occasional smile or even a more or less unwilling chuckle to readers hardy enough to try this catalogue of the activities of battling historians, "historians," history buffs, and hangers-on.

Mr. Boyer has written an expose' on all he has had to endure over the last 50+ years of Earp research. I have personal knowledge that it is true, as I helped contribute some of the information on these shenanigans. Some of the characters represented in this book covet what Mr. Boyer has accumulated over the years, and the only way they know to get at him and his documents is to attack him in the hopes he will bring his treasures out into the open for them to use for their own. This book is about some of the unmitigated attacks he has had to endure.

Although the title may lead one to think that this book is about a gloomy family misfortune, the real curse is that there exists a feud between people, who while all the while share a common interest, carry on behind the scene and in some cases openly, in a manner which resembles the conflicts which caused the famous Street Fight or as it is better known, Gunfight at the OK Corral.

In The Earp Curse, as Mr. Glenn Boyer enumerates, there has been and continues to be individuals who have initially sought his knowledge, and then betrayed the trust, copiedsome of his work and then worst of all, have made claims the much of his work is pure fiction. There is an old sales adage which goes, "The dog with the bone is always in danger" Glenn Boyer has definitely has become a legend of sorts, due to the fact that he spent decades of his life interviewing family sources who have since passed on, but left him with a wealth of documents, original manuscripts, artifacts, and most uniquely, intimate details of events which which had never been shared with anyone outside the family.

To be an historical writer, obviously requires a great deal of knowledge about the subject. Publishers however, need to know that a book will sell before they will support the project. Stuart Like had to create a larger than life Wyatt Earp in order to sell it to the public, who in many cases were weaned on legends and tall tales of the old west. Most of the criticism of Mr. Boyer's work centers on his classic work I Married Wyatt Earp : The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp and more recently Wyatt Earp's Tombstone Vendetta.

While for the most part other Earp researcher have added some useful information and insight, there isn't really anything new under the sun that wasn't already covered in newspapers of the day, court documents, family letters, and Stuart Lake's Frontier Marshal and the privately published John Flood manuscript of Wyatt Earp by Wyatt Earp.

Mr. Boyer's works on the Earps, do not read like a typical history book, they are very entertaining and informative. It is obvious that I am a fan of the author, but the interested readers will do themselves a great disservice if they don't look at both sides. This book documents how the information and references where blended into very readable format

The Earp Curse is a book that every Earp fan or old west buff should have in their library.

"The Earp Curse" shows the public the awfully vicious world of Earp historians. Anyone who knows anything about the Earp family should personally shake Mr. Boyer's hand and give him a bottle of Scotch (at the very least). We know what we know of Wyatt through Glenn and this book shows how he has been attacked and threatened along his trail of setting the record straight. Read this book and you will agree! Thanks for the insight, Glenn.

Rathje's and Murphy's RUBBISH! is insightful and engaging. Their anecdotes about the ironies of environmental movements rallying behind particular causes (like McDonald's styrofoam clam shells), and their analyses of popular misconceptions about waste provide, great food for thought for policy makers and for environmentally-minded individuals concerned about the problems with waste and its disposal. Along the way, the authors demonstrate the utility of archaeological knowledge for dealing with current social challenges. This book is a really great read!

Great book. Rathje is a engaging figure that delivers a good story - the story of our garbage.

Highly recommended.

I never thought reading about garbage would be interesting - well, okay, actually I did, otherwise I would have never read this book. I mean that I didn't suspect the book would be so darn interesting. Garbage really sheds a strong light on the culture that generates it. Just think, your garbage tells us a lot about who you are. Future archaeologists are going to love digging through our old garbage in a few thousand years. Oh, what a story it will tell.

This is an overview of the University of Arizona's continuing trash sorting project started in 1972 to document the lifestyle habits of the American public through observing what we eat, what we use in household goods, etc., and then throw out. Socio, political and economic behaviors become evident while recording the fascinating finds in daily trash digging, probing, and quantifying.

This project also included studies at the now closed Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island in New York City where holes were bored all the way to the bottom of the fill and where the studies then took on a more ominous dimension of environmental impact discoveries such as: that the breakdown of trash, even over years, is a myth. The research showed that there is little biodegradation occurring due to compaction and lack of bacterial decomposition, so the researchers found completely intact and recognizable items from food to readable newsprint- even at the bottom of the heap where it was at least 50 years old- same type discoveries of intact trash heaps discovered in ancient Rome, Greece, etc.

Most distressing of the discoveries in the landfill was the discovery of the huge quantity of "leachate"- a toxic liquid stew, that is leaking at the rate of a million gallons a day into New York Harbor.

The book concludes with recommendations on alternatives to landfill as a means to dispose of trash plus recycling and lifestyle changes.

For another enlightening read on all things trash, there is Elizabeth Royte's "Garbage Land"- a personal story of discovery of what her family's trash footprint is and where everything including recyclables ends up- a real eye-opener and an entertaining read!

"Rubbish" is a highly academic book about "The Garbage Project" at the University of Arizona's Anthropology Department. The main idea behind "The Garbage Project" is to gain information about society by analyzing garbage patterns in various locations.

Despite being a book about garbage, the contents of the book are quite diverse. The book is divided into 4 parts. The first section, An Introduction to the Garbage Project, gives the background of "The Garbage Project", why it started, what they do, and what they hope to accomplish. This section also discusses how anthropologists use garbage to learn about ancient civilizations. The second section, The Landfill Excavations, discuss the basic theories of landfills, how the team takes samples from landfills, and discusses why biodegradation does not work in landfills. The third section, Interlude: Diapers and Demographics, I found to be highly entertaining. This section has a fascinating chapter on estimating the population of a neighborhood (as well as sex and age) based on the garbage collected from this neighborhood (a study done to initially help the Census Bureau). This section is also filled with useless information such as "There is a link between owning a cat and reading "The National Enquirer"". There is also a detailed discussion about disposable diapers in landfills. The final section, Garbage and the Future, was the most educational by far. This part discusses the serious shortcomings of citywide recycling programs and side effects people never hear about. There are also discussions on alternate garbage disposal methods, such as high tech incinerators used to generate electricity, as well as several other attempts at using technology to turn garbage into a useful product. The section and the book end with a chapter on reducing and addressing garbage disposal.

I think this book will not be for everyone. The book reads like a Master's Thesis at times, rather long and seems to ramble. However, some parts of the book are exceptional (such as the chapter on recycling or "Closing the Loop") and are really an eye opener.

I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in Environmental Sciences. Also, if you can manage to wade through pages of various scientific theories and facts, I'd highly recommend picking this book up! While a little slow reading at times, it is quite informative and I think a real eye opener.

Susan Neider's Guide to the Colorado Plateau gets it exactly right. Read this book - or even just look at it - and you are itching to get on the road! The stunning pictures tell you where you'd love to go and the logical and readable maps and the clever photo icons show you just how to do it. After you make your travel reservations, go back and really read the book. The pictures will reward much careful looking and the literate, informative text is filled with useful and unusual details on the history and geology of the region. This book informs without clutter or preachy wordiness. And when you are finished with your trip, you'll have an unbeatable souvenir - though it is likely to be worn out! No matter, you will likely, like me, log on and buy another! The price is right, too, it won't break the bank. This book is an excellent value. Great job, Ms. Neider, thanks!

The best book of its kind and it delivers a remarkable balance of informative text, readable maps, and wonderful photos. This is much more than your normal guide book - it is a portfolio of why I love this place. There is a great deal of information that I haven't found anywhere else - or at least not from the same reference. I now have a copy to carry with me, and a copy to keep displayed in the house.

I took Susan Neider's wonderful Color Country on our family's recent trip out west. We had never been there before, and traveling with Ms. Neider's book was like having our own personal tour guide. She tells you where all the "not to be missed" spots are in each park, and even the best time to see them. Then she provides great maps that make it foolproof to get there. We were never lost even once. We particularly appreciated the scenic route she recommends for approaching Monument Valley, and the detour to Goosenecks State Park, a wonderful spot our other guidebooks didn't even mention. And there was just the right amount of information about the geology of each area to keep us informed, and so well explained that we were still interested. She gives each site a Child Rating for its interest to children, and we found these to be spot-on. For example, she rates Mesa Verde a "5" (the highest child rating), and we all loved it. And now that we're home, Color Country has become our favorite souvenir. The photos are just plain amazing. This book is worth the price just for the portfolio of photographs alone.

[...] Color Country provides travelers to the Colorado Plateau of Utah with essential information to get the lay of the land, a concise explanation of the geology of each park, a list of highlights, and gorgeous, honest photographs of the places covered. Dirt and gravel roads are not the focus of this touring guide; those who want more detail about backcountry travel would be advised to read an expert such as Michael Kelsey. However, even remote places like Kolob and Needles are, in fact, mentioned in the copy I bought. For the traveler looking for a superb overview, this book cuts to the quick and captures the essence of each park with finely-conceived text and images. Rating this book with one star is like buying a Brooks Brothers suit and then complaining because it didn't hold up when you went rock climbing in it.

The photography is art and I am looking forward to our trip. I feel as if I've already been there.

Perhaps one of Oklahoma's better-kept secrets is the work done by the University of Oklahoma Press. To be sure there are some readers that know about the quality works published by the Press such as Lige Langston: Sweet Iron; The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown; and The Western Range Revisited, to name but a few. However, I am frequently surprised at the number of readers that are not aware of the caliber of the offerings by OU Press. Thus, I was anxious to read this just released paperback novel, which is volume 30 in the highly acclaimed American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series. I was not disappointed. The novel, written by a Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of New Mexico who is of Choctaw-Cherokee-Irish descent, will draw you in from the first page and keep you reading to the very end of the 296 pages. It is about Jacob Nashoba who was born in Mississippi, came of age in Vietnam, and settled in an Apache village on a reservation in the Black Mountains of eastern Arizona. He finds a job as a game and fish ranger for the Tribe and tries to adjust to a life of semi-isolation and "adjustment." It's not easy. The cast of characters he must deal with include his estranged wife, corrupt tribal officials, a resident anthropologist that is, well, different, and various and sundry sellers of "vision quests" to tourists and former Hollywood extras that I swear I have seen in old John Wayne movies. Add to this mix a right-wing militia group secretly, to some, training on Indian land and you have the makings for a first rate story. Dark River has it's light side but be aware that this is a complex, subtle, sometimes violent story that deals with the aftermath of Vietnam on certain individuals(not just Nashoba!) and the contemporary problems associated with Native Americans and their identity. It is not a novel to be taken lightly. I had to go back and re-read parts of some chapters and think about the message of this book a number of times. I would do it again. It's that good. OU Press is to be commended for making this book available to a wide audience at a reasonable price. They do good work.

In DARK RIVER, Owens creates memorable characters (one of his strenths, I think) and tells a compelling story with laugh-out-loud humor. Consider one of the minor characters: the resident anthropologist Avrum Goldberg, who wears a traditonal breechcloth and Apache leggings and moccasins. He shares traditonal lore with tourists, who mistake him for an Apache and call him Chief Gold Bird, a title he denies without success. Goldberg's dream is for the Apaches to turn the reservation into a tribal theme park to attract more tourists and generate income, a scheme that does not gain favor with the Apaches, who are reluctant to give up their cars, televisions, and other twentieth-century technologies. This is by no means the central focus of the novel, but Owens skillfully weaves his imaginative subplots and characters into the central story, his concern about what is happening on a river in the reservation where he goes to flyfish.

I think this is Owens's best novel yet. Furthermore, it is accessible to any reader--one doesn't need to be familiar with his other work or knowlegable about American Indian literature to read it. Actually this is true for THE SHARPEST SIGHT (1992), which my then 85-year-old mother compared to Norman McLean's "A River Runs Through It." She would read and reread passages from each.

I understand DARK RIVER is a finalist for the Best Novel of the West from the Western Writers of America, and I wouldn't be surprised if he wins. He has received several awards for his earlier works.

Dark River, with its main character Jake Nashoba, starts off like the other excellent novels of Louis Owens. The story has great quirky characters, encounters and conflict between native and Anglo culture, different native cultures, and traditional and modern native culture, plus a little Native American magic and mysticism. But with the turn of every page, Dark River turns increasingly surreal. The excitement of the novel grows as the characters all head for the dark river of the title. Dreams and reality mix until it's hard to know where one ends and the other begins. This is one of Louis Owens' best novels and I enjoyed reading it immensely, ranking it up with my personal favorite, Bone Game. My one regret is that Louis Owens' life ended too early and he isn't around to give us any other stories to read.

This is one very nice novel, and Owens has a sharp eye for character development. I heard him read from this book a couple of years ago--and must say the laughter of the audience was echoed as I read it for myself. Let's hope this talented author keep producing these gems.

Tongue firmly embedded in cheek, Owens seems to take on everything in this novel, including his own previous novels. And nothing is as it would appear. Absolutely nothing. It's wonderful!

Owens is a true original, yet his stories are as old as time. His characters come to life and take charge of the story. For the academically minded, this would be an interesting novel to use when discussing the Foucault/Barthes debate concerning role of the author in the text.

A 1950's folk singer and wild woman's memoir of her love affair with the Colorado River and Glen Canyon before the Glen Canyon Dam flooded her canyon. She tells of floating the river and exploring intimate side canyons on small personal trips.

This is one of the best and most special books I have read. Katie Lee really gives you the experience of Glen Canyon--it's beauty, wildness, and uniqueness. I fell in love with the place through her words, and felt her loss deeply when the damn dam was built. This act (the building of the dam) was truly a dark time in our history. I thank Katie Lee for sharing her thoughts and feelings and cheer her for her openness in those closed times.

Katie Lee has written a beautiful & powerful love story & funeral song to a place some considered the most beautiful on earth, now drowned under Lake Powell. The book is largely exerpts from Katie's river journals from 40+yrs ago & has an immediacy that left me feeling like I was in Glen Canyon with her. She mentions that she shared early drafts of a fiction version with Ed Abbey, who told her to just write her own story. That she couldn't make up anything better than her own experiences. Ed Abbey was right. I devoured the book in one emotional sitting, then spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly with dreams & visions of lost desert canyons in my mind.

Katie Lee has given us a wonderful glimpse at a lost treasure. Her discriptions of the river and side canyons tell of her love of this lost world. My 2nd greatgrandfather went through Glen Canyon in 1872 with the second Powell Expedition and Katie has given me some feeling as to What he saw and the places he visited. I never understood what a treasure Glen Canyon was to Us till I read her book. Thank You Katie Lee

Katie Lee has led a remarkable life. But while she may be a fine story teller for a live audience, she is a poor writer. I found it a slow book to flog myself through- despite an enormous interest in the subject. Too bad she couldn't have put her ego aside and sat down with a professional writer. I can think of several women writers of the west that would have been a boon to the project. I look forward to the Katie Lee biography from one of them.

This book contains stories with contemporary characters so life-like you might feel like emailing one or two with your thoughts. The backdrop of Arizona is a setting that is at once organic and otherworldly, like a lunar landscape. The dialogue is surprising and clear-toned. These are vivid and haunting stories.

This is one of the best story collections I've read in years. Every story is strong, all the characters are incredibly real, and there's an overall sense of sadness that knocks you on(...). Not that the stories are depressing, per se. In fact, they can be hilarious at times, and there's almost always a feeling of hope at the end. I came across "Why the Sky Turns Red When the Sun Goes Down" in BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2003,and while I love that story (it's about a family with a robot boy), there are others here that I like even better. "Crossroads" and "September are my favorites. An amazing book. I look forward to whatever Harty writes next.

Ryan Harty has wowed me with this prize-winning collection.
Each of the eight stories deals with sadness in indelible forms. One of my favorites in the collection centers around a husband and wife and their robot son who seems to be coming apart. The ways in which each family member handles the boy's breakdown mirror survival techniques of people dealing with illness: The wife distances herself; the husband tries to fix the situation; and the son tries to hide his problems.

In another story, a brother cleans the apartment of his dead, mentally ill sister and ends up sweeping all of her cats out onto the street.

The last story, September, is a gorgeous account of one young man's first love: the mother of one of his friends.

I highly recommend this SSC!

While I was reading this book, I couldn't wait to get home from work so I could fall back into the stories. Now I'm walking around with the characters in my head, like old friends. It's a beautiful book, the kind you want to recommend to everyone you know. Ryan Harty is a wonderful writer.

People often romanticize the SouthWest, imagining coyotes and endless desert and cowboys; however modernity has cut off a lot of the romance. Wal*marts, strip malls, endless bars, parking lots, concrete offices, endless cold air chilling the outdoors dot this landscape. Harty knows this and invigorates his character, develops his plots and gives people a history, an emotional depth deeper than any desert valley. I am not sure whether his one more science short story in this collection is a hit or miss-a rather Bradbury-esque story, it is off from the rest of the book. His teenage/young adule male characters are intense, brooding, lost, and not always likeable-but you won't forget them. Their is a palable sadness, a desolateness nature in his writing, it is very moody, but there is a kind of hope borne of small suburban trials and tribulations that keeps you reading.

I met Colleen Coble last September at the ACFW Conference in Texas, and I've been reading her books ever since.

As always, when I read a book I was impressed how Tess's past experiences influenced her job choice, and her relationship problems. Colleen is a masterful story teller and the story gripped me from beginning to end.

I highly recommend this book as a story with take away value.

I love Colleen Coble, and have read all her books. Fire Dancer is by far my favorite. It seems that many of Coble's books follow the exact same formula. This was the first book that I felt strayed into new ground somewhat. This book was a fascinating read. I would recommend this book if you enjoy Colleen Coble and a (somewhat predictable) romantic mystery.

A decade ago Tess's parents died in a barn fire; now she's one of the best smoke jumpers in the business - but has yet to face her loss. When the serial arsonist known as Fire Dancer strikes her home town, Tess can no longer run from her past and must face not only past truths, but their impact on her safety and future. FIRE DANCER is an intriguing novel of psychological cat-and-mouse games and intrigue and is a top pick for advanced teen readers.

As a child Tess Masterson could not save her parents and her uncle from a terrible fire.

As an adult and working as a smoke jumper putting out fires and chasing arsonists, she must return to the place she left behind to help her sister save the family ranch. Before she can, there's a blantant attempt on her life. With no time to figure that mystery out Tess heads to Arizona and the nightmares that haunt her sleep. Can she really go back to the place where much of her family was lost?

When she arrives sparks soon fly as she's reaquainted with Chase Huston. Meanwhile the local lawman has come to believe a series of fires over the years are the work of a serial arsonist. Tess and her band of smokejumpers begin to help in the investigation and putting out fire that pop up all over town, some getting very close to the family ranch.

Does this arsonist called the Fire Dancer have something against the Masterson family? Can Tess stop this serial arsonist? Can she put out the fire that begun to blaze in her own heart for Chase?

These questions and more will fill your mind and heart reading this novel, as will a long list of possibilities for the identity of the Fire Dancer.

When I first began to seriously pursue a writing career one name kept coming up. Colleen Coble. It seemed she had a million novels and billions of adoring fans. As I got to know some writers Colleen was one I was always pointed to as an example of what was right about this novel writing thing I wanted to do.

Finally I got to know her a bit and she was one of the first to encourage, and eventually convince me, that if I was serious about this writing goal I had to join American Christian Fiction Writers. I finally did and it's the single best thing I've done to date to help me advance to the place where I'll have my own name on the binding of a book.

Some who've never cracked open a novel of Colleen's, especially men, may discount her books as romantic fluff. I admit I did. I knew nothing of the romantic suspense. It was her books that convinced me I needed to pay attention to genre. Yes, there's romance. But there's always these intricate plots. In this story alone. You have Tess dealing with the lost of much of her family, an arsonist, attempts on her life, the lost of her family ranch and her horse. Her sister's illness and troubled marriage. Feelings for Chase, a man she shouldn't give a care for. Chase dealing with his own issues of family and love. Stevie and Paul's marriage. And so much more. And Colleen weaves it all together in a way that the reader keeps it straight in their head and never gets lost.

Some of the most interesting passages in the story were the first person accounts from of the fire dancer. Colleen slowly drips out just enough information about this person that she get a real feel for them without ever revealing who they are until the last possible second.

I could go on and on about this book and about Colleen's writing but I must stop. If you've never read a Colleen Coble novel, this is a good place to start since it's the beginning of a new series. She has another new one just released, Midnight Sea, that's unrelated and yet another coming out later this year called Abomination. I can't wait to get my hands and eyes on both of these and more of Colleen's work.

I hope you'll pick up Fire Dancer and loose yourself in the world of Tess Masterson for a few hours. You won't be disappointed.

Care to dance?

In 1991 a young Tess Masterson watched with horror as her parents were both eaten alive by fire in their barn. Tess was horrified as she stood by and knew there was nothing she could do to save them. The fire pointed Tess's life towards fire fighting as a Smoke Jumper, those that jump from airplanes into the fire to attempt to stop its forward progress in any way they can. Tess relives that day every time she jumps into a fire and wonders many times what she could have done to save her parents from that barn inferno.

During one of the jumps Tess and a good friend, Allie, jumped as a pair into one of the fires. Allie's parachute did not open. Tess did all she could to assist Allie as they both floated towards the fire, reaching her and holding on to slow her fall. In the end, Allie was slowed but not enough to keep her from getting badly hurt when she hit earth. When Tess learned that the parachute Allie used was actually Tess's chute she began to think that she must have been a target by someone sabotaging her chute. Some of the lines were cut showing the murderous intent by someone. But who? Anyone on the fire team could have done this as well as anyone near their base camp. Allie was in the hospital and there she would stay for some time so her broken bones and the rest of her body could heal.

Chase Huston was a foster child the Masterson's had taken in. He was a handsome but bothersome ranch hand that Tess skirted when she could. Tess also owned a gorgeous horse, Wildfire who was a one-person horse, and Tess was that person. She hated leaving him when she had to go back on duty and couldn't wait until that smoke jumpers duty was over to see Wildfire back at the family owned ranch.

Fires continued to start in suspicious ways and places with a note and evidence found at most of the arson related fires. Signed "The Smoke Dancer" this person stopped at nothing to kill or maim animals or humans. The Masterson family seemed to be one of the main subjects The Fire Dancer was out to hurt.

Stevie was Tess's sister who Tess knew was not feeling good by just looking at her. Stevie had Lupus that left her feeling very run down and poorly. This devastated Tess. Tess helped her in any possible way. As time went on, Tess and Chase became closer but bitterness still was in the back of each other's mind, bitterness from earlier years. Eventually feelings between the two did change.

Tess's Smoke Jumper friends were the same or better than her family since she was with them so much and each ones life was so valuable to the others. It was hard to think that one of them could be the one that has been trying to hurt or kill Tess but the possibility of that existed as it did with various ranch hands.

I have always been fascinated by stories about fire, the fighting of them and the tracking down of arsonists. "Fire Dancer" is a great story with so many Christian values explored throughout; values that would help all involved when they take those values into their lives. Colleen Coble has spun an excellent story combining love, adventure, fire, mystery, murder, and that Christian value. An excellent book and a great read. Colleen writes in a way that makes this book easy and interesting to read, and hard to put down.

There is nothing I can say that would do any justice as to how great this book is. It was everything you could possibly hope for in an ethnographic text. You learn a lot about a culture very different from ours and it is truly just fascinating!

What do people make of places? Basso's opening sentence is a good example of what the Apache call `letting one's mind have room'. As we read through the chapters of the book Basso continues to add layers to the meaning of this opening question. It allows us to reflect on various uses of the word `make'. We make sense of places by interpreting them. We make places intelligible by foregrounding them. We make use of places; as sign posts or land-marks through the use of descriptive naming. We make places or constitute them as sites or repositories of learning; we invest them as placeholders for morality tales or homilies. We make places vital; we invest them with agency, we enchant them, animate them, in the spirit of golems; we take a piece of earth and through magic or metaphysics we bring it alive, giving it a mission and a life of its own.

Wisdom sits in places. The Apache are a good example of virtue ethics. This is a theory of ethics, usually based on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which argues against an ethical universalism and in favor of a particularism. It foregoes the quest for nomothetic foundations and looks instead to the development of certain skills or character traits. Aristotle created a catalogue of areas of behavior or traits with a continuum of possible dispositions. The virtuous behavior was the means between the two extremes of each continuum. Thus the virtue of bravery was somewhere in the range between cowardice and foolhardiness or irrational voluntarism in the face of impossible odds or a meaningless risk.
Aristotle's concept of phronesis finds an interesting parallel in the Apache moral imagination. Phronesis is a meta-virtue; it is the ability to choose the right action for each particular event; the ability to find the virtuous means between vicious poles. It is the essential skill for particularism which is the theory that the right action, the correct moral choice is particular to each unique event. It is opposed to the universalist proposition that there are sets of moral propositions or codes that we can apply in a covering law model. Universalism holds that when two of our moral codes clash we resolve the dilemma by applying a meta-rule, most commonly a deontological (Kantian) or utilitarian proposition.
The Apache's sense of wisdom is a good example of a pragmatic ethics informed by a set of virtues that are learned and continually developed throughout their life's journey. In the first chapter we note how each speaker brings the homily (the moral lesson associated with a place name) forward, making it their own, fleshing it out. One imagines that each speaker and hearer of place names is expected to silently immerse themselves in each homily; making it real by seeing it happen. The act of giving vision to the oral narrative is a process of developing layers upon layers of particular exemplars of the lesson. It is thus internalized and carried forward for the next use. As one gains wisdom one becomes more proficient at seeing when and where to apply these lessons.
This is similar to the thought of the American pragmatist and logician, C. S. Peirce, who proposed a fallibilism about knowledge, truth, and scientific results. He felt that we were always discovering more and that a full statement of any putative universal law was always deferred. Peirce's original pragmatism differed from what James and Dewey later made of it. For Peirce we expanded our sense of a truth through a process of discovering layers upon layers of particular applications and gradually gaining more of an understanding of the wider truth. But his sense of fallibilism posited rich moral concepts such as justice or duty as essentially contested concepts.

We have maps in our heads. There are other interesting parallels with the ancient Greeks besides virtue ethics. There is a significant body of study regarding Plato's thought on the spoken and written word. Plato argued that reality resides in absolute and eternal forms. Thus the impressions available to our senses are imitations that is but a shadow of these eternal truths; they confuse us and should not be trusted. Worse still are the imitations of imitations; thus his polemics against poetry, art, and the written word. It would be interesting to combine this with the study of texts in the 20th century to look at the Apache's preference for maps in the head. Barthes, Derrida and others all expanded our notion of what can serve as texts and it might be interesting to look at Apache use of places through some of those lenses.
In addition there are interesting parallels with the sophists. Although Plato and Socrates succeeded in creating our contemporary disdain for sophism, recent work in the study of Isocrates and others brings a new appreciation of certain tenets of sophism. The sophists exhibited some similarities to the Apache notions of epistemology. They both saw the elders and ancestors as the source of wisdom and warrants for knowledge to be used for current problems. They both argued that the knowledge of the past resided less in universal laws than in practices of the ancestors; actual responses to past dilemmas that are best accessed through interpretation rather than a rote use of the covering law model or a slavish rehearsal of rigid and dogmatic rituals.
They both thought that knowledge (as justified true belief) was discovered and ultimately ratified and warranted by the voice of the majority; the interpretation that found the most general favor. The sophists proposed that vigorous debate in an open forum of citizens is the most epistemologically sound form of inquiry. Their best speakers would take both sides on various propositions of what the ancestors would have done in the current crisis. The goal was to make the best possible argument for all options and let the citizenry decide.
Both the ancient Greeks and the Apache continued to observe religious rituals but it would also be interesting to compare characteristics of their religious cosmology, the role of the gods, and their associations with natural entities and nature in general.

This book was mediocre at best. Although Keith Basso did provide some insight into why the Apache people cherish their land, I felt that Basso kept on saying the exact same thing in every sentence. I had the point of the entire book by the time I was ten pages into it, and it kept on going, therefore making me lose my concentration on what I was reading.

Anthropologists, language students, and Native American culture afficionados will find this book, and any by Keith Basso, written links into a cultural past which struggles to exist today. As the Western Apache tribes become more modern, the information found in this and other Keith Basso writings, become necessities in the preservation of traditional Apache culture; with the exception of the knowledge of a few hundred very traditional Apaches still living in Arizona.

What do people make of places? This is the central question examined by Keith Basso in his ethno-linguistic study of the relationship between language and landscape among the Apaches of Cibecue, on the Fort Apache Reservation in central Arizona. Basso, a professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, has spent over 30 years conducting field work among the Western Apaches. His publications concerning this group include articles on language, patterns of silence in social interaction, witchcraft beliefs, and ceremonial symbolism, among others. The idea for Wisdom Sits in Places stemmed from a study conducted between 1979 and 1984, in which Basso, with the help of a grant from the National Science Foundation and the guidance of the Apaches, conducted a study of Apache places and place-names; how the Apache refer to their land, the stories behind the place-names, and how these place-names are used in daily conversation by Apache men and women. The result is a stunningly informative account of the use of landscape and language in the social interactions of the Western Apaches.
Basso divides his book into four sections: Quoting the Ancestors, Stalking with Stories, Speaking with Names, and Wisdom Sits in Places. Each chapter's focus is to examine how landscape and language serve distinct purposes in Western Apache society. Basso incorporates the oral history of, and discussions with, local Apaches, as well as his formal training as an ethnographer-linguist, to explain the underlying themes of this book.
First, Basso introduces the reader to the idea of place-names and in the Western Apache construction of history. As conceived by the Apaches, the past is a "well-worn `path' or `trail' which was traveled first by the people's founding ancestors and which subsequent generations of Apaches have traveled ever since" (31). The ancestors gave names to places, based on events that occurred there. Regardless of the physical changes in the landscape that occurred over time, the story of what took place, as well as the place-name, was passed down through generations and serves as a connection between the people and their ancestors.
Second, Basso examines how the language and the land are "manipulated by Apaches to promote compliance with standards for acceptable social behavior and the moral values which support them" (41). The historical tales of place-names are without exception morality tales, intended to influence patterns of social action. Their purpose is to serve as warnings, criticisms, and enlightenment for those who are behaving improperly; not in accordance with the Apache way of life. The telling of a historical tale is "intended as a critical and remedial response" to an individual's having committed one or more social offenses. Apaches contend that if the message is taken to heart, a lasting bond will have been created between that individual and the site at which the events in the tale took place. In short, the land, accompanied with its historical tale, "makes the people live right" (61).
Third, through the act of "speaking with names", place-names can be condensed "into compact form their essential moral truths" (101). "Speaking with names" is considered appropriate only under certain circumstances, generally to enable those who engage in it "to acknowledge a regrettable circumstance without explicitly judging it, to exhibit solicitude without openly proclaiming it, and to offer advice without appearing to do so" (91). Evoking images of a particular place and narrative thus replaces a more direct form of advice or criticism, with "a minimum of linguistic means" (103).
Finally, with the guidance of his Apache friend, Dudley Patterson, Basso examines the path of wisdom in Western Apache society. Patterson explains there are two mental conditions, "steadiness of mind", and "resilience of mind", which lead to a third and most desirable condition, smoothness of mind. These three conditions are not innate; therefore, one must work on one's mind in order to gain wisdom. To work on one's mind, "one must observe different places, learn their Apache place-names, and reflect on traditional narratives that underscore the virtues of wisdom" (134). A resilient mind, according to Patterson, does not "give in to panic or fall prey to spasms of anxiety or succumb to spells of crippling worry" (132). A steady mind is "unhampered by feelings of arrogance or pride, anger or vindictiveness, jealously or lust" (133). Steadiness and resilience give way to a sense of "cleared space" or "area free of obstruction", conditions necessary for smoothness of mind. Only those who continue on the trail of wisdom their whole lives come closest to having a smooth mind, and are "able to foresee disaster, fend off misfortune, and avoid explosive conflicts with other persons" (131). Thus, wisdom is intertwined with the idea of survival through the consistent and thoughtful evocation of landscape and language.
Keith Basso and the Western Apaches of Cibecue have provided readers with an insightful and provocative account of the connection between language, land, and a people's cultural history. Wisdom Sits in Places opens the door for future research on place-names by shedding light on a previously overshadowed topic in anthropological studies. Basso's dissection of certain stories and social interactions can be overwhelming and a bit dry, but his purpose is made clear when his examinations are added together with the Apache narratives. What results is a clear picture of what language and landscape mean to the Western Apaches, the functional versatility of place-names, and the importance of being aware of one's sense of place.