Arizona Books

This screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen reminded me of how much I liked the film shot from it. Perennial criminal Hi returns to prison again and again for robbing convenience stores but Edwinna, the police officer who takes his mug shots, softens his heart. He decides to make a new life of it by marrying her. They buy a trailer in Arizona, set up housekeeping, and try the next logical step: to start a family. Edwinna, though, learns that she cannot conceive and that's where the screenplay takes a typical Coen brother leap into absurdity. Ed and Hi decide to become parents by kidnapping one of a set of quintuplets since "it was unfair that some have so many while others should have so few." What ensures is pure madcap, inventive, hilarious comedy with a hint of the bittersweet.

The screenplay evokes the film with such clarity and excellent visual storytelling that you'll feel as though you're watching it. While Holly Hunter and Nicholas Cage, who played Ed and Hi, excel at portraying quirky characters, this script makes it clear that they had a fantastic script to work with and were not the sole reasons for its success. This paperback contains a few black-and-white still shots of the film (certainly not worth buying the screenplay for), the full credits for the film, and a short interview/exchange between the Coen brothers and the filmmakers for Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn, a movie that was released during the same season.

Sayre's book on ranching and endangered species uses a compact study area, the Altar Valley of Southern Arizona, to analyze various forms of human and 'natural capital.' The book is deep in the area's history, ecology and current resource management practices, and yet also steeped in theoretical arguments that make perfect sense given his overall argument. The Bobwhite Quail plays a central role in producing a landscape of "Nature" (big "N") that becomes the pivot-point for contemporary rural politics between ranchers, environmentalists, and federal agency workers. Really good research, and still accessible; kudos to the author.

Ednah New Rider Weber has what so many authors dream of: an authentic and original voice, and it's put to good use here, sharing a recollection of childhood that is hilarious and chilling in turn, and always honest. This book puts into first person perspective a dark chapter of American history in a way that both chilren and adults can appreciate. I savored her beautiful language, realistic and lively dialogue and knack for pulling together her chapters like the last threads of a perfectly woven cloth. I look forward to reading this book aloud to children in grades 4 and up, and I recommend it as a must-read for anyone interested in Native American history or memoir-writing.

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 Ceremony of Peyote, there is no easy, pro forma way to reconnect, no perfect prayer that can be prayed. Colonialism and racism have taken their tolls both in daily life and spiritual practice. But this poem reclaims and reframes ritual with afrank, and unvarnished fervor. Tamez refuses to shirk from the distorted in herself, or in her people. But in the boldest move, Tamez' poetry reveals that Spirit still lives, lives deeply for her in the body, in the process of birth and renewal and in the threads of communion that emerge despite everything.

Lisa Alvarado, poet, editor, literary critic
La Bloga [...]
[...]

It is not surprising that the development of the internet and related electronic technologies has coincided with an academic interest in the history of reading. Using and transmitting texts in new ways, scholars have become increasingly aware of the precise ways in which manuscripts and printed books transmitted texts to early modern readers. This volume collects nine essays on reading and literacy in Europe from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Topics include: the function of marginalia in vernacular medieval manuscripts; the trope of reading in the fourteenth century; the definition of literacy in early modern England; marginalia and reading practices in early modern Italy; revision of medieval texts in the Renaissance; the prevalence of translated French poetry in sixteenth-century England; the use of poems as props in the plays of Shakespeare; the private reading of the playscripts of masques; and early-modern women's reading practices. These essays demonstrate the energy and excitement of the rapidly developing field of the history of reading. They will appeal to those interested in European cultural history, the transition from manuscript to print culture, the history of literacy, and the history of the book.

This atlas is awesome. It was comissioned by the USAF in the early 1960s to help plan the Apollo manned mission to the moon. The photographs were taken from observatory archives and projected on a curved surface, then rephotographed to simulate what the flat surface of the moon would look like from the Apollo craft in close lunar orbit. This is an atlas of lunar features as viewed from the Apollo spacecraft. A piece of history. Handle it with white gloves if you manage to obtain a copy--but keep it close to your telescope.

If you are looking for a copy of this item, please contact me at P.O. Box 612, Lewistown, MT 59457

A strange occurrence - coming upon a self-epiphany while thousands of miles away from what it's about. It's what strikes Ernest & Magdalene in "The Region of Lost Names". On separate trips, the two discover their true thoughts about their families and begin to think about them- and the past mistakes of their parents. Faced with this thought, they turn to repair the mistakes of the past in this deftly written tale of a family dealing with itself. "The Region of Lost Names" is highly recommended and a top pick for community library fiction collections.

Translated with an informative introduction and extensive notes by David Marsh (Professor of Italian, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey and a specialist in Renaissance Studies), Renaissance Fables: Aesopic Prose By Leon Battista Alberti, Bartolomeo Scala, Leonardo Da Vinci, Bernardino Baldi presents the first English renditions of fables by Alberti, Scala, and Baldi, as well as brand new translations of Leonardo's fables. Written in the 1400's and 1500's, these classic allegorical stories, often epigrammatically short, rely heavily upon symbolism and the world of nature to mirror issues of human society at large. The writings are presented in their original Italian as well as in English, and offer encapsulated pieces of human wisdom as well as timeless ponderings of thought. A highly recommended contribution to classical literature and folklore shelves.

Playing off the double entendre in the title of her book, Beth Reingold examines the representative nature, action, and effectiveness of women legislators. "Are women in public office simply women who represent, or are they also women who represent women? And what about the men in public office-do they represent women? Do they represent women to the same extent their female counterparts do"(2)? Reingold researches legislative records, conducts extensive personal interviews, and issues surveys to male and female legislators of California and Arizona in order to deconstruct popular views of female/male representation.

By defining, dissecting, and finally, dismissing the"strategy of difference" (what legislators attribute to legitimize women's positions in legislation) in chapter 1, Reingold is able to prove that there are no significant differences between the representing behavior of men and women legislators (243). In fact there are more similarities, than there are differences.

Utilizing Hanna Pitkin's (1967) work, The Concept of Representation, as a framework, Reingold further reveals that in "neither [the California nor Arizona] legislature was being female (descriptive representation) a guarantee of attitudes and activities associated with women (substantive representation)"(30, 243). Men and women have an equal opportunity to effectively represent women.

Reingold research proves that "descriptive representation was, as a criterion for substantive representation, neither absolutely necessary nor always sufficient" (243). These findings indicate two things: (1) men are able to fairly and successfully represent women, regardless of the lack personal or bodily connection (i.e. abortion); and (2)women representatives do not always make a difference for women adequately or justly. Reingold is quick to say that it does make a difference that women hold public office,even if the importance only lies in increasing the numbers.

Beth Reingold's research and findings brilliantly challenges the foundations of gender politics and expectations in America.