Arizona Books

This is a delightful book filled with delicious recipes from the Inn at 410 B&B in Arizona. The dishes use easily found ingredients and most are easy to make. It is printed in black & white with a few illustrations.

The book starts with baking tips including tips on lowering fat. Recipes include beverages, fruits, breakfasts, muffins, breads, spreads, scones, cookies & desserts. Sample menus are also given.

My favorite recipes are the blintz soufflé with blueberry sauce & Parmesan herb muffins. I also enjoyed the oatmeal pancakes, hash brown pie, tropical scones, raspberry crème anglaise & cinnamon kiss cookies.

I received this book as a Christmas gift from my father-in-law, who very conscientiously purchased the book from a locally-owned, independent bookseller. What a delightful book it is! My husband and I read it together, and we very much enjoyed every page. Bowers writes beautifully, fluidly and with wonderfully astute scientific insight. It is always a pleasure to read the writings of a scientist so inspired by her work that she shares her passion with laypeople; scientific passion is nothing less than infectious, regardless of the discipline. Bowers' essays are accessible, insightful prose that leave the reader hungry for more. A pure delight to read.

This book tells the story of an American mining engineer and mine developer in northern Mexico from the 1890's to the 1920's, with the last entry in 1932. This is a true story, which makes it all the more remarkable. Morris Parker wins the first mine that he owns himself in a poker game in Chihuahua Mexico. That and many other colorful stories fill the book. He also knew Pancho Villa, and counted him a friend. Better than movies. I could not put this book down, but read it through over the course of a week. Highly recommended if you have any interest in the northern Mexico, Southwest U.S. region, the time, or in mining history.

My Southwest Studies class required this text, and I have to say that I think it is great. It is a collection of poems, interviews, and essays, written by and about the people who call this wonderful place home. It is easy to read and very infomative- a wonderful journey to the Southwest.

This movie and the series in general are excellent tools for shaping young character.

Mystery Lights of Navajo Mesa seeks to employ children as a demonstration of how to act under pressure and how to thrive in that pressure as a team working toward a common goal and for the good of each other and others.

Don't worry, your child won't feel like they're being taught anything. They will simply enjoy the movie for the mystery and excitement and the hope of having friends like they see in the movie.

If you're looking for spun sugar literary confection, and easy comfort, move on. But if you want to encounter
poetry that disturbs you in the best possible way, keeps you up at night, demands that you respond with your
heart and your mind, read both Naked Wanting and Raven Eye.

Margo Tamez is a poet whose work is not easy, clearly born of experience raw and real, making the reader touch that place of pain, of personal wounding far, far, away from the romance of the Southwest and the stereotype of the "stoic noble" on the rez. Her writing forces us to look where the bodies are buried, when we want to turn a blind eye to the violence wreaked upon the individual and environment. Both Naked Wanting and Raven Eye gave me that gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach, the tight, clenched first buried in the chest. Bless her for that.

And bless her, too, for somehow still weaving threads of redemption and reemergence in the face of soulbreaking sorrow, for offering real mythos and confronting false spirituality.

In My Mother Returns to Calaboz, there is a visceral longing for home, for groundedness in the deepest and most literal sense. It reflects an abiding love for la tierra, but not the convenient, fantasy-laden Southwest. It is a personal, damaged homeland, smelling of chemicals, shot through with run-off that is still somehow, unquestionably sacred. Tamez writes of border dwellers unbowed, unabsorbed, defiant, and ultimately triumphant - not noble, but stubbornly flawed and human.

Lisa Alvarado, poet, editor, literary critic

Barbara Kramer writes a much needed biography of Nampeyo, the Tewa potter. This book is a comprehensive look at Nampeyo's life, as both a member of the Hopi/Tewa nation, and as a seminal artist. Kramer also succesfully challenges much of the conventional wisdom surrounding Nampeyo's life and work, some of which has persisted for almost a century.

While setting the context in which Nampeyo lived and worked, Kramer also draws a vivid picture of life in the Hopi/Tewa villages at the close of the 19th Century. Beset by archeologists, ethnographers, and missionaries, the Hopis attempted to maintain a way of life and culture that had sustained them for generations.

Kramer writes in a clear, accessible style, and makes liberal use of quotes and other references from Nampeyo's extended family. For anyone interested in the history and development of 20th Century Hopi pottery, this book is a must read.

It is not surprising that Barry Bonds appears on the cover of this look at the "National League West" for young fans, but it is ironic since Bonds had not yet played during the 2005 season (he might be ready in September, but who knows). Jim Thome was on the cover of the "National League East" volume and Mark Prior is the cover boy for the "National League Central," and both of them have spent time on the disabled list, but at least they got some games in this year. Then again, this has been a strange year for this particular division. When as of last night this is a division where the San Diego Padres are a game under .500--and in first place. Meanwhile, the N.L. East the New York Mets are playing .513 ball and in last place. What an interesting world in which we live.

Jim Gigliotti introduces the five teams in this division as being an unusual collection of franchises. The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants have storied histories that go back to their days in Brooklyn and New York, while the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, and San Diego Padres are relative new comers. The history of the division, which goes back to 1969, is traced to provide a quick overview of the N.L. West as a whole. Then Gigliotti goes on to provide more about each individual club. His stated goal is to allow his young readers to soon qualify as an expert on all of the teams in this division, but that is overstating the case. However, he does give young fans a solid introduction and the means to learn more.

The teams are arranged alphabetically in this slim volume and in each chapter we learn about the history of the franchise, its best moments on the field, and some of the biggest stars who have played for each team. This becomes a disservice to the Dodgers and Giants who have each been around twice as long as the other three teams put together. The Dodgers have six world championships and the Giants have won five World Series. There are photographs of Jackie Robinson and Sandy Koufax to go along with Duke Snider's Hall of Fame plaque, but that leaves other Dodger greats like Roy Campanella, Maury Wills, and Orel Hershiser just to get their names mentioned. Carl Hubbell has his plaque and John McGraw, Mel Ott, and Willie McCovey get their photographs in, to go along with a statue of Willie Mays, but Christy Mathewson gets passed over.

Still, when Gigliotti talks about New York Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson snaring McCovey's line drive to end the 1962 World Series he is doing his job (remember the "Peanuts" cartoons where Charlie Brown sits dejectedly on the curb and in the last panel jumps up and asks why McCovey could not have hit the ball 2 feet--or even 1 foot--higher?). Sometimes the details are put in the margins of the book, but the important thing is that they are there.

The book tries to tie the old to the new, so while Randy Johnson and Larry Walker have moved on to other teams, young fans have pictures of current stars like Preston Wilson and Jason Schmidt. However, this is a hit and miss proposition since Sean Burroughs of the Padres gets a color photo but is currently in the minor leagues (the son of former A.L. M.V.P. slugger Jeff Burroughs and a Little League World Series star, Sean has not shown the power numbers somebody playing the hot corner has to have).

A lot of the fun of being a baseball fan is pouring over statistics, and in the back of the book young fans will find several pages of Stat Stuff, so that they can see that Todd Helton's lifetime average of .399 with the Rockies is currently a point higher than that of Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn with the Padres. While Christy Mathewson still has the career team records for wins (372) and strikeouts (2,499) with the Giants, Barry Bonds leads in none of those categories, although his considerable accomplishments are noted in detail at the end of the chapter on the San Francisco team. Young fans will also find a Glossary of baseball terms so they know what it means to be in the "cellar" or an "underdog."

There is also a Time Line that puts Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" in 1951 in historical perspective and a list of books in the back of this Behind the Plate volume where readers can go For More Information about the National Leagues West and Major League Baseball. If you check out the homepage on the web you will get links to the MLB and ESPN cites, which will help young fans find out more about the players and the teams mention. Gigliotti provides a lot of information, but there is so much out there, especially if you are a fan of the Dodgers or the Giants (no one is a fan of both, as this book should also make clear to its young readers).

this book gives great information for anyone interested in learning more about the history of native american tribes and the double standard our legal and legislative systems have caused.

While home is 'where the heart is', it is also where the body happens to reside as well. "The Nature Of Home: Taking Root In A Place" by environmental literature critic, board member of the Environmental Association for Great Lakes Education, and academician Greta Gaard (University of Wisconsin - River Falls) provides a focused yet wide ranging discussion on what it truly means to be at home in the world. A collection of essays that draw upon such diverse sources as Buddhist studies, feminist psychology, ecopsychology, and environmental writing, "The Nature Of Home surveys the interplay between 'place and identity. The resulting conclusion of her theme is that 'home' is not a static concept but rather a process of 'cultivating the connections with place and people that shape who we become'. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, "The Nature Of Home" will prove to be of immense relevance to students of the psychological aspects of the environmentally oriented concept of home, the concept of ecofeminism, and issues of environmentally relevant social justice, as well as non-specialist general readers with an interest in being and feeling at home in our world from the deserts of Southern California, to the high country of the Sierras, the Wind River Mountains, the North Cascades, Washington wildlands and Minnesota waterways in every season of the year.