Arizona Books

Have you ever wondered what your hometown will look like 100 years from now, long after you are gone? Allen Dutton and Diane Bunting have offered this gift to Arizonans. As a native Arizonan, I have always been enamored of the Old West Arizona. Dutton and Bunting obtained photographs of many Arizona communities from the 19th century, and returned to set their tripod on the exact same place 100 years later. The results are startling. Some towns have become ghosts of their previous glory, while others have thrived beyond recognition. Still others remain relatively untouched by time.

I should comment on the remarkable quality of the photography. Dutton and Bunting used an 8 x 10 format, which make the landscape scenes come alive in black and white. Their technical mastery is evident in their work.

This work is a fascinating coffee table book, and a must for any Arizonan! Old west buffs will enjoy it too.

Good all around trail guide. Includes accurate GPS coordinates. Trail ratings are ok. The trip odometer settings are great if you don't have a GPS.

Good all around trail guide. Nice trip odometer listings for if you do not have a GPS.

Good all around trail guide. Includes accurate GPS coordinates. Trail ratings are ok. The trip odometer settings are great if you don't have a GPS.

Good all around trail guide. Nice trip odometer listings for if you do not have a GPS.

[[ASIN:0978563433 Arizona War: A Colton Brothers Saga

This author convincingly brings together turmoil of the Civil War as it reaches the Southwest, the Apache's struggle to hold on to native lands, and the settlers' battle to survive these events while enduring the hash climate and terrain of New Mexico and Arizona.

I couldn't put the book down.

Melody Groves deftly brings to life the Colton Brothers' love for each other and their dedication to family. Her artful insight into each brother's thoughts and their individual responses to severe physical and emotional trials brought, from me, deep sympathy for them.

In particular, Cochise's torture of one of the brothers, James, is recounted in a so point-by-point, excruciatingly real way that this reader's cold heart was wrenched harder than I'm comfortable admitting.

I strongly recommend Arizona Wars.

This is an excellent snapshot of places to go to experience the waterways of Arizona. A well documented little book! I recommend to anyone.

For those who wonder what they are seeing on a casual walk in the desert, this book is very welcome. It profiles 50 wildflowers and makes mention of the locale of dozens more in the course of the text on the 50 hikes. In this way, one can make flower identification moving from the book to the trail or the other way around. The photos, over 100 in all, are of very high quality.

The author, Christine Maxa, is well-informed and concise. By the time you've read through a few of the hikes and profiles, you realize she's every bit as at ease with wildlife as her portrait with an elephant would imply. She shows not only a familiarity with the flowers, but also a wide knowledge of the pollinators and predators and parasites that dwell among them: the cochineal insect, source of the rich red dye prized for centuries by aboriginal Americans and Europeans alike; hummingbirds, which carry pollen on their heads; bees, which carry it on every part of their bodies; forest rangers, which carry the full force of the federal government when charging the spectacular parking fees described in the "Special Considerations" section of the hiking guides.

One of the nice things about learning about desert flowers is that there are relatively few of them, so that one can become well-versed and appear authoritative in a relatively short time. Even so, surprises abound. American carrot, which appears on many of the hikes, is a real carrot of the genus Daucus, though Maxa does not say whether the root is edible. Scorpion weed and rattlesnake weed, despite their ominous names, are benign and pretty, while larkspur, a beautiful type of delphinium, is highly poisonous.

This guide's greatest strength, fittingly enough, is its information. I had wondered in the past whether teddy bear cholla and jumping cholla were one and the same plant. A quick trip to the handy 2-page index of common and scientific names confirmed that it was. This sort of detail may seem simple, but it's often surprisingly hard to come by, given the widespread fear among Americans of Latin binomial nomenclature. And despite the title's reference to Arizona desert, the flowers discussed are by no means restricted to that state. Eleven years ago in the California part of Death Valley I noticed a widespread infestation of a parasite that resembled a tangle of orange string. Thanks to this book I finally know what it was: Dodder (p.134), a plant related to morning glory that lacks leaves and roots and chlorophyll. Of further interest in the profile are two common names for dodder that at first glance seem to describe mutually exclusive traits: love vine and strangleweed.

Ever wonder what it's like in a real ghost town, or long to return to the old Wild West; or are you seeking a guide to spooky tourist spots in Arizona. Well, "Arizona's Haunted History" is made for you. Jill Pascoe has written a great collection of uncanny, real-life tales of haunted sites in the Grand Canyon State. The author lives in Arizona and she brings her knowledge of the state to these stories, including her own unusual and sometimes frightening experiences at many of the locales. As the author writes, "The history of Arizona is not just wild, it is also haunted."

The book has nineteen chapters ranging from ghostly haunts in the big cites of Phoenix and Tucson to smaller ghost-troubled towns like Bisbee, Jerome and Tombstone. The entire state seems infested with hauntings. A final chapter leads the reader through the solitudes of forgotten ghost towns, off the beaten track, where it seems every derelict building houses the departed. The book is illustrated by many photographs and they seem to capture the strange atmosphere of the creepy places.

Jill Pascoe has roamed the state for great stories and recounts many of her conversations with locals about their supernatural encounters. She describes her adventures in locating such places as Brunckow's Cabin, reportedly the bloodiest cabin in Arizona's history, and a challenging cabin to find. She anchors each of the haunted sites within their historical, architectural and archaeological context and this helps us identify with those who have returned from the grave.

Often while reading, you feel as if you are drifting back in time or in space, as the language and the stories transport you away from our age of computers and globalization. You may think you hear the moaning of miners trapped in a mineshaft forever, or gunfighters shooting it out into eternity, or the plaintive sobbing of a little girl failing to save her doll (and herself) from drowning. The ghosts in the stories seem to speak directly to you at times and they bring a chill.

The stories have an authentic eerie feel and some of the encounters are genuinely hair-raising. It is clear that Arizona has more than its share of ghostly places. Read the book to experience a sense of the supernatural or to guide your travels in Arizona

This book is a great read. It is highly recommended for long time residents of the state and for those visiting as there is more than sun and desert in Arizona.

This Book is a must if you like hiking mountains and live in Arizona or want to visit the state. The book is broken down into areas of Arizona. In the discriptions of the mountains Bob tells how the mountain got its name. He is very detailed about how to get to the top and how to get there and tells if you need the USGS 7.5 minute map for that mountain. This book is not restricted to just mountains, but he also tells how to hike and how to get to some hills. There are quite a few off trail hikes in the book as well. He does not restrict the book to just trail hikes and roads. The only dissapointment in the book is that he did not cover any mountains is Sedona, Verde Valley and did not include much in the Prescott erea. But other then that he shows a wide variety of mountains across the state.