Arizona Books

Imagine being able to invent one of the great natural wonders of the world. This was practically the opportunity of the first park rangers to live at the canyon. Famous explorers and scientists had come and gone from the Grand Canyon and written their reports, but they seldomed stayed there any length of time. The rangers who came with the establishment of Grand Canyon National Park in 1919 were the first naturalists to live their lives there, and there was still plenty to explore, plenty of unknown geology, biology, and botany. Within a few years after 1919 these rangers were writing down their discoveries and experiences at the canyon, basically figuring out what this place was all about and how visitors could best experience it. 1919 was also much closer to the age of Humboldt and Muir, when natural historians were adventurers and heroes and seers, expected to speak both science and poetry. The "notes" in this book are the record of those first park naturalists as they come to terms with a great natural wonder, and they are also notes in the sense of musical notes, a song of celebration.

If you love the Grand Canyon, you will be delighted with this selection of naturalists articles written in the first half of the past century (!). Easy to read, most of the writing consisting of articles of a few lines to a few pages, you can open the book anywhere and transport yourself on or below the rim, at a time when a lot fewer tourists visited the canyon.The book is divided in three parts, Earth sciences (geology, river, sky and seasons), Life science (flora, fish, birds, mammals,) and Human history (archaeology, ethnobotany and history). Nice little B&W drawings throughout the book, this is a very good complement to a visit to the Grand Canyon or to any coffee table picture book on the Grand Canyon usually thin on writing.

...and I needed this book. As an author coming to town for a world-wind 24-hour tour, this guidebook was a gem. Everywhere I needed to go and whatever I needed to have was here. Highly recommended if Phoenix is on your next vacation or even your business trip list.

Well I really didn't know what a diverse place Phoenix is, until I read this book! Now I know that Phoenix is not just an airport hub for our state, it is a great destination in its own right. This is an excellent and complete guide of all the highlights! I recommend it to all Arizona natives.

This is a superb book,in my personal estimation.
It gives me what I was searching for, a review of the artist's work,excellent pictures,and information on the artist's personal history.I am happy when I read what inspired the artist.This book is full of info, but very delicate in handling what he has to say,and when to say it(some works are inspired from Hiroshima,for example.)
I am partial to figurative work,I look at Akio's figures and realise that there is a lot of power to the meaning of "less is more" I am so glad I have it in my personal library,it is a help in conducting myself in where I want to go in my own artmaking.He seems to prefer stoneware,and the thousand year old recipies for glazes.It is daunting to me,but I appreciate his personal history,and dedication to old techniques.This is one artist that will go down in History.
If you love figurative work,I think he is one of the most successful artists in the genre.

I thought this book was a great collective of Akio's work from his past work with the vessel to his current figurative sculpture. I would highly recommend it for any ceramic artist.

I found Beyond the Four Corners of the World to be an excellent piece of work on two levels. On the surface it's a biography; one woman's journey away from - then back to - her roots and her homeland. On a deeper level, it's a rare glimpse into the religion, culture and lifestyle on the Navajo reservation. Upon completion of this book, I felt that I had gained insight not only into the mind and heart of Ella Bedonie, but also into the beliefs and values of the Navajo People.

The story of Ella and her struggle with illness and how it intersects with her spiritual and cultural world is at once fascinating and very sad. To read Benedek's account is to travel by literary horseback deep in the rez, and meet the residents of a different world, one which is changing, one which is struggling to hold onto traditional ways at the same time. I recommend this book to anyone with interest in native people, anyone interested in cultural perspectives on illness. And anyone else! Benedek is academic and personal, she takes you there.

An Unbelievable book! Having biked parts of this trail myself, The attention to detail that Ms. Lankford has supplied is astouding! I have read many guidebooks covering many topics, and this is one of the best, from the mileage markers, to the detailed maps, to the great photos. Additionally, the book doubles as a great adventure story of two slightly crazy, but totally ambitious girls! I reccomend this book without hesitation.

I just got Andrea Lankford's guide and getting my hands on it is bittersweet: I love the book... but really could have used this guide a couple of months ago. In November and December of 2002 I became the first solo thru biker of the Arizona Trail (AZT) and the third thru biker ever. During my journey I relied on photocopied maps, second hand advice, and a crumpled road map-certainly not the thorough guidebook that is available today. Lankford supplies us long distance adventurers with a guide complete with accurate trail descriptions, exact mileage, humor, an easily readable text, maps, and photos. Lankford is truly adept at writing a guide after thru biking the AZT, thru hiking the 2160-mile Appalachian National Scenic Trail, and serving as a National Park Service EMT/Forest Ranger. They said Andrea Lankford and her partner Beth Overton could'nt hack this 800-mile mountain, canyon, plateau, and desert route, but they were wrong. And if anyone ever said that a great guide could not come out of their expedition, they were clearly incorrect as well. As being the only other person to bike this gorgeous and challenging trail besides Andrea Lankford's friend Beth, I can tell ya one thing for sure: this baby gets 5 stars.

Houston's novel re-opens a little acknowledged but troubling aspect of World War I on the American home front; the deporation of copper miners from Bisbee, Arizona in July 1917. It was a battle as titanic as any fought by the armies on the Western Front.

Houston knows the streets, hills, and canyons of Bisbee. His original writing style transports the reader back to those volcanic days in the blast furnace heat of southern Arizona where the Wobblies of the International Workers of the World (IWW) clashed with the mine owners who in turn were backed by the county sherrif, cowboys, and the Eastern Establishment. Copper was essential to the war effort. The IWW hoped that shutting down the mines would cause a crisis in captialism, halt the war, and spark a revolution; it was all about class warfare. The mine owners feared the end of civilization or as one protagonist in the book puts it, "the end of the City of God." The reader witnesses the build-up and explosion through the eyes of characters whose personal lives and fortunes are hinged upon the outcome of the battle. For a historical perspective, the novel lays bare the insecurities and predjucies of American society during the WWI era as viewed through the prism of the West.

This novel is a keeper. After reading it, a trip to historic Bisbee, Arizona is in order.

Original! Original! I read the hole book in one day and it never got boring once. This novel of ideas and emotions deeply touched me, and its in your face attitude about a minors strike in Arizona made it the most exciting book in the Homer library...If you read just one book this is it. Thank God for that "I can read" sereis with Mrs. Johannosson

This gorgeous and unusual book should be required reading for both lovers of memoir and anyone who lives in "Indian Country" (which, really, is most of us.) Hayes layers narratives of self, land, history and tribe in an unusual way that feels utterly organic. She also offers real insight into both the brokenheartedness and the joy that characterize modern Native people's experience. Though it is not without minor flaws, I give this book 5 stars because it is amazing and unique.

Ernestine Hayes has captured what it means to grow up with one foot in white culture, the other in a native way of life she must struggle to keep alive and burning in her heart. I loved the way native stories wove in and out of her experiences. I hope she has another book in the works because I want to read more of what she has to say.

Hale vividly describes her immediate family, their families and her childhood in this deeply moving book. My heart ached for her as a child and young woman trying to make sense of a hostile world. The book is a testament to human resiliency. -- I am not Native American, but I too grew up with a strong tradition of family and connection to the land. My family was also dysfunctional. Like the author, I too have turned to writing to try and make sense and order and draw meaning from my life and pain. Relating to her as I did, this was not an easy book to read. Yet it had remained on my shelf of favorite books for several years.-- Another reviewer criticized her use of Native American stereotypes of drunk, violent, lazy Indians. I don't recall any lazy Indians in the book. The drunkeness and violence had deeply affected Hale's mother, perhaps in part explaining her cruelty to her youngest daughter. The story would have been a lie had that part not been told. Instead of reinforcing a stereotype, Hale made the human pain which results from such behavior very real and personal. She tells the story passionately enough that I felt sympathy for her parents, even as she did. This book inspired me as a writer and it impressed upon me the need to understand and the will to live and thrive which seem to be part and parcel of the human condition.

I had this book in my collection for sometime before getting to it. I'm glad I finally did. There are many acclaimed and favorite PNW so-called "native" son writers such as Doig, Holbrook, Morgan, Kittredge, etc that combine well storytelling and folklore with personal or others' memoirs with description of the PNW with historical events. Unfortunately, there are only a few true "native" (PNW Native Americans) son & daughter writers. Janet Campbell Hale clearly belongs in this company. The contrast of her work with Sherman Alexie's is quite stark. (She's Couer D'Alene, he's Spokane Indian). Personally, I find Alexie's work too dark and does some significant injustice to Native Americans by perpetuating stereotypes of drunken, violent, lazy, etc Indians. I believe such talent should be put to more edifying uses - a force for good and change. However, Janet Hale doesnt ignore or gloss over the conditions on the Rez, but brings you in to the story rather than disturb you like some of Alexie's stories. Her connection "bloodline" with a very important figure in PNW history, John McLoughlin, is well done as well as the short bit with Chief Joseph's flight. The story throughout the book is a fluid connection with her family's past, her childhood, and her current "role" in life - a woman, an Indian, a writer. I believe this type of work is invaluable in contributing to our society, especially as pertains to Native Americans. I havent ever read her Pulitzer nominated "Jailing of Cecelia Capture", but plan to do so quickly, as well as her other works.

Border Crosser With A Lambourghini Dream spells it out for the reader:this book is an inyoface collection of poems that spins our curiosities into unknown directions. The reader is spellbound by images that riff off another; thus, this book becomes the mirror image of self and forces the reader to look internally at damage done.From Subzero:"image/mirage/indian/myself/reversed/behind/the mule". The section, Blood Poems, is raw & unique. Juan Felipe's abstract imagery is the hardcore language that becomes spit in the face: it is the language & gesture of the hoodrat, the hipster, the street person--" Blood at the age of seventeen/Blood at the age of one,in a Greyhound bus". These poems will shake your reality lopsided.

As with much of Herrera's poetry, the reader will experience estrangement of the first order. One may picture American society as an "exploding quazar" that requires several readings to discern. Herrera's synecdoches take time to unravel, but well worth the effort. This is Carlos Santana meeting David Lynch: the "Last Mayan rock band" performing songs that aptly depict society, the status of art, and subjectivity at the twilight of postmodernism. Good stuff.

I loved this book - it's thoughtful, warm, and wise -- and it says so much about both the natural world and the human heart. I hightly recommend it!

Bringing the Mountain Home by SueEllen Campbell is a book to treat both your emotions and your senses. The book of essays is largely about the Colorado Rocky Mountains but also has some gems about an Africa sojourn. The essays are visceral, intelligent, personal, and universal. As she eloquently says in the book: "In fact, I realized I was taking two walks at once. One was intensely personal and immediate, my body, sense, memories moving through a specific and extraordinary place and moment. The other was shared, my own experience formed by my culture, by other, earlier visitors to wild places, by circumstances, attitudes, assumptions, words, even emotions I had no part in creating but had somehow absorbed into myself" (x).

I love the gentle humor (such as the time she finds her friends all enjoying a backpacking trip while she somehow ends up as cook and camp-person) and the keen observations. I grew up in this area, but Campbell has looked at it with such wonder and detail, I can hardly wait to open my eyes and look around me more carefully. She knows every wildflower, every animal, every path and the reader is inspired to hike with eyes and ears wide open. With chapters titled with elements such as desire, pristine, trudging, grandeur, and misery, she captures so much of the wilderness experience in its many facets. I feel the misery of paddling a canoe when those muscles ache as well as the glory of seeing wildflowers in full profusion in a mountain valley. Campbell perfectly describes the sudden urges to get out in the wilderness, and then fearlessly describes both the glories and glooms of those trips.

Campbell's writing is lyrical, enthusiastic, honest, sensory. She is a master of words and of wilderness. I relish reading and rereading this book of essays and will never go on an Alaskan backpacking trip without it.

This book is the perfect gift for a hiking friend or a city-bound person who is far from the wilds. I recommend it to Amazon readers without hesitation. You're in for a treat, and so are your friends.