Arizona Books

This book sets out to help Native Americans understand their cultural heritage.
It really does much more than that. It lays a foundation that we all could adopt to live a full life in dynamic harmony and balance with each other, and the rest the earth's living things. It takes us beyond sustainable living by invisioning us as a product of our unique piece of the earth.

I'll admit I don't read a lot of short stories--I'm a more of a novel kind of guy. But I was totally won over and completely captivated by Rane Arroyo's first collection of fiction. His short stories are about gay and bisexual Latino men and their lovers, ex-lovers, future lovers and the families they all come from. Some of his written words made me laugh out loud; others made me incredibly sad. And being from the Windy City myself, I loved his references to various Chicago places like the bar, Little Jim's, and the vegetarian restaurant, The Chicago Diner--both of which are still in business on Halsted Street. But what I found most intriguing about Mr. Arroyo's stories was his experimentation with different writing styles. "The Blackie Soto Mystery Series" is a hilarious descriptive list of a series of mysteries about Blackie and his two friends who have wild adventures while solving crimes--kind of a gay Latino Hardy Boys. And "Rat Poison: The Book of Marcus Mar" tells the tale--in 101 sentences--of a young man committing suicide--I found it disturbing, sad and beautifully written. Other stories are told as monologues, in verse, and even as cyberspace emails. "How to Name a Hurricane" is a quick, wonderful read that you will have a difficult time putting down once you begin. I highly recommend that you check it out.

This is a valuable book (resource) for budding entrepreneurs. It seems to try to cover all the bases for starting a small business, but it can't do them all well in the space available between its covers. The book is only 288 pages long. If you are in the planning stages of starting a small business, then I highly recommend you get a copy of this book. Read it, study it, and outline it. There are helpful checklists to help you grasp the subjects. You will come up with a plethora of keywords and terms that you will want to google to find Web pages giving more detailed (and maybe more current) information.

I am a SCORE counselor (Senior Corps of Retired Executives) who typically does face-to-face counseling sessions three nights a month. It would really be neat if my clients would read this book BEFORE they came to their session with me because they would pretty much be "educated customers" ready to ask educated questions. Our sessions would be so much more beneficial.

My favorite chapters were:

1. Initial business concerns
2. Your business' structure
3. Business start-up details
5. Sources of business assistance (SCORE is mentioned here)
7. Your smart business plan (and a good sample plan is included)
8. Obtaining the financing you need

The book is weak when it comes to how the Internet can be used in corresponding, hiring, and marketing. But this is just one example of how googling keywords and concepts found in the book will make the book more complete. Don't treat the book as authoritative on the law. It isn't. Nor was it ever intended to be. It is light on tax information as it relates to small business.

I was particularly impressed with the material presented in Chapter 2: Choice of Legal Entity. That subject is sorely ignored in most small business books, and it is critically important. It is a subject I regularly must spend a great deal of time discussing at my SCORE sessions. This book does a pretty good job on the topic.

Chapters 4 and 9 through 12 are easy to find fault with. The topic of each could fill a book. But having these topics covered definitely will help a budding entrepreneur know some of the issues they raise.

I would have liked the book more if Chapter 6 (marketing) had been less superficial. When I read it I got the impression that the author was more a public relations expert than a marketing expert. I generally categorize public relations as a subset of marketing. Marketing includes advertising, public relations, and a whole host of other promotion techniques. I did not get this message when I read the book. I also would have liked the book better if the Internet, email, and Web sites had been discussed more. But there are many books on those subjects. Therefore, I can't complain too much about the limited discussion of computers.

When you read this book it may feel a little like it was produced on an assembly line. Maybe it was? There are 51 versions of this book sold; one for each state and the District of Columbia. Content is king, and this book has it. 5 stars!

This is a terrific collection of information for anyone interested in watching, feeding and hosting these marvelous birds. Topics include interaction between humans and hummers, emotional attachment, celebrations, banding; research; places to see hummingbirds in Texas; gardening to attract the birds; feeder advice; how to photograph these tiny birds; and finally the identification guide to all 19 of the species that have appeared in the region.

The guide sets aside two pages for each species, and impressively includes both a photo and several painted illustrations of the different sexes, a range map, seasonal abundance graph, and description of the species (with behavior and song).

The photos throughout the book by Sid and Shirley Rucker are incredible and worth looking at all alone, and the paintings by Clemente Guzman III in the guide section are excellent. Even the illustration on the back of the book's slip cover is delightful -- all 19 species of hummingbird described within.

Although too large to use as field guide, this book is a must-have for hummer-lovers of any age at home, and would make a wonderful gift. Highly recommended.

My wife and I enjoy watching the hummingbirds through our front window and I decided to find a reference book on the little birds so we could see what kinds shared our front yard.
I was amazed to find so much information in one small book about hummingbirds and so many beautiful pictures to help identify them. There is information about their nesting, eating, migrations and tips to help encourage the birds to share your yard. It is also amazing that because of their extreme need for high energy food and the scarcity of nectar, they are born to be very aggressive to protect their sources.
The author did us all a great favor in writing this book. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to watch hummingbirds

Hershmann John's "I Swallow Turquoise for Courage" is filled with wonder connected with the earthy spirit and wisdom stemming from his life heritage and experience in the American Indian Culture.
I travel through his writings so easily connected and with such awareness that as I read it feels like I too have experienced life as he describes myself.
I highly recommend this book.

Being new to the life and times of Mary Austin, I found this book captivating. Credit goes to Augusta Fink for one of the finest biographies I have ever read.

But not really. I was in the play's July 2000 west coast premiere at Sacred Fools Theatre. This is a brillantly written show which updates the classic R&J story. But it's MORE than that. It serves up verse as in-depth as Shakespeare's, as poetic as Fry's, as beautiful as the sonnets, as magical as any fantasy. At the heart of the story is love, but at elliptical orbits around the story is a hard look at family, at new-found fame (and its attendant pressures), and at the courage that's required to follow your dreams. This is totally modern language...in gorgeous verse. If you wonder what it might have been like to be alive and reading Shakespeare's works a year or two after he wrote them, find out; buy this play.

This is a powerful, haunting, eloquent collection of poems that takes events in American history, such as narratives of 19th century white women's captivity by native American's and events surrounding the 1893 World's Fair, and interprets them through contemporary lenses. The result is a unique blend of the present and past which, combined, tells a sometimes troubling story.
Chavez, a teacher of creative writing and literature at Albion College in Michigan, focuses on the personal struggles of men and women, both past and present, and reveals a social history that is almost timeless in it's harsh, complex, oppressive condemnation. A few lines from the poet "A Century Plant" will give the reader a sense of the struggles experienced by many in our society, past and present:"There is a fire on earth that burns much hotter and sweeter than hell. I've felt it. Eternity is now, a lingering death I face every day. Extinction a relief."
This collection is the story of men and women made captive for more than a century. Their captors have been racism, alcoholism, poverty, emotions, failed marriages and a multitude of other events that can strike any individual, any time, without warning and many times seemingly without reason. Their stories, whether from the past or present, will be eerily familiar to many readers. This is first rate narrative poetry from a poet that does her homework and understands the power of words...and history.

Beautiful photos Contains a lot of information to make your visit there much more interesting.

This small volume offers a dense and sometimes kalidoscopic and surreal homage to Homer, Fuentes, and Berryman. While filled with mystical references to the apocalypse, the volume also reviews the the many loves of "H.," the protagonist, as well as positioning its own narrative along side of El Naranjo (Fuentes) and 77 Dream Songs (Berryman). It is a mystical chant that basically accuses "our times" of hypocrasy, insanity, and indifference. The book passionately chronicles a struggle between love and hate, between adversity and ease, between this world and the next. Strong verse, strong politics.