Nevada Books

I found the title of this book to be a bit misleading, as Roger McGrath's research in the book involves violence commited by much more than just gunfighters, highwaymen and vigilantes. I was also surprised to find the research to be concentrated soley on two boom towns on the Nevada/California border. But the research is so deep and so thorough, you can come away with a very good idea of what kind of violence was present in that time and place. McGrath then uses that research to compare the violence found in an 1800's frontier town with the violence we encounter in cities of our present time. These comparisons, which he brings out at the very end of the book, were very enlightening and thought provoking, and made the book well worth my time to read.

This book opened my eyes to what life on the western frontier was really like. Forget current media fictionalizations, the frontier was not a shooting gallery. No handsome stranger rides into to town to save the cowering inhabitants from evil. The crooks and crooked politics are all there, just like they are today. The sheriff was not always the stalwart defender of the law, in fact he sometimes had business interests to protect.

McGrath offers a carefully documented narrative of the day to day goings on during the gold rush. The data is from public records and the fill-in is from newspaper archives. A detailed yet readable account of frontier life. Far better than any cowboy novel, this is the real west.

Steve Hurst

Just a few days ago, I received my latest copy of THE NEW AMERICAN magazine and found an excellent article in it by Roger D. McGrath titled, "MAKING OUR SCHOOLS SAFE." This edition of the fine current events periodical was inspired by the terrible Virginia Tech campus shooting. McGrath wrote, "For several decades now, I have said that every 'gun control' law should be titled a 'Criminal Empowerment Act,' . . . Reality demonstrates that it is all well and good that sheep pass laws requiring vegetarianism, but until the wolves circling the flock agree, those laws don't mean a thing." His article made me realize how remiss I have been in failing to write, until now, a review for his outstanding book GUNFIGHTERS, HIGHWAYMEN & VIGILANTES.

McGrath's publication was used as the textbook for a very popular course he taught on American West history at the University of California, Los Angeles, while I was a full-time employee on that campus. I purchased my copy at the ASUCLA Student's Store in 1990, and I have gone back to reread sections from it numerous times over the years as GUNFIGHTERS, HIGHWAYMEN & VIGILANTES examines my favorite American epoch and it raises scholarly historical research to an absolute art form! Sifting through innumerable newspapers, as well as court records, jail registers, and journal entries from that time, McGrath fashions a nearly comprehensive account of the violent goings-on in the Nineteenth Century California mining camps of Aurora and Bodie. (In its time, Bodie was considered to be perhaps the wildest of all Wild West towns. So pervasive was its reputation in the territory for rowdyism that stories of "The Bodie Badman" were legendary, and it is rumored that one little girl upon learning that her parents were about to move the family to Bodie wrote in her diary, "Goodbye God, we're going to Bodie." The town is now a fabulous Historical State Park in a condition of arrested decay - a real "must-see" for any fan of the American West!)

In the Preface to his book, McGrath asks, "Was the frontier really all that violent? What was the nature of the violence that did occur? Were frontier towns more violent than cities in the East? Has America inherited a violent way of life from the frontier? Was the frontier more violent than the United States is today? This book attempts to answer these questions and others about violence and lawlessness on the frontier and to do so in a new way. Whereas most authors have drawn their conclusions about frontier violence from the exploits of a few notorious badmen and outlaws and from some of the more famous incidents and conflicts, I have chosen to focus on two towns that I think were typical of the frontier - the mining frontier specifically - and to investigate all forms of violence and lawlessness that occurred in and around those towns."

McGrath's investigation consumed several years and exhausted every available source, and "The results say much about America's frontier heritage and offer some real surprises - several long-cherished notions about frontier violence are thoroughly repudiated while other widely held beliefs, long suspected of being mythical, are demonstrated to be well founded in fact." In the process of learning about the "real" Old West, we meet lawmen and outlaws, cowboys and Indians, highwaymen and petty thieves, soiled doves and gamblers, miners and claim-jumpers, brawlers and gunfighters, vigilance committees and law-and-order associations, pistol-packing women and a brilliant one-armed lawyer who never lost a case.

Along with saloon keeper George Hand's authentic and humorous Old West Arizona diary, Whiskey, Six-Guns and Red-Light Ladies: George Hand's Saloon Diary, Tucson, 1875-1878, and Mark Twain's hilariously exaggerated firsthand account of Old West Nevada, Roughing It (Mark Twain Library) -- the funniest book I've ever read! -- Roger McGrath's more sober and scholarly GUNFIGHTERS, HIGHWAYMEN & VIGILANTES ranks as "The Best Of The West" on printed page. But that's not to say that McGrath's book is an entirely humorless affair. In the chapter titled "Rough And Rowdy", for instance, we learn of a "Bogus Billy The Kid" and of Mike "Man Eater" McGowan:

Even an impostor made a name for himself among the ranks of Bodie's fistfighters. On a Thursday night in 1882, "a rough looking fellow" entered a saloon and announced to the score of patrons that he was Billy the Kid and that he could stand any man in the room on his head. This boast caused half of the men in the saloon to retreat through the back door. "The balance of the select company of tax payers and Christian statesmen," said the Bodie Standard, "advanced on the bogus Billy the Kid, and when he struck the sidewalk it sounded as though Berliner had hit a base drum. When the man got up he explained that his name was simply John Smith and that his father went by the same name." [page 187]

The most notorious of Bodie's brawlers was Mike McGowan, known as the Man Eater. McGowan had earned his sobriquet in Virgina City, where he delighted in chomping on the ears and noses of his foes. He obviously received his share of defeats, however, because his head was described as having been "beaten all out of shape." ... In Bodie, he managed to chomp on Sheriff Peter Taylor's legs, chase a man down Main Street with a butcher knife, break a pitcher over a waiter's head, threaten to chew off the justice of the peace's ears, eat a stray bulldog, and engage in several fistfights. The Man Eater was finally given a choice of a long jail term or exile from Bodie. He chose the latter and wound up back in Virginia City, where he was arrested for vagrancy. "This must be a mistake on the part of the authorities," said the Bodie Standard, "for Mike has a visible means of support. He has an upper and lower row of teeth." [page 187]

I guess this goes to show that EVERY century has had its "Man-Eating" MIKE. And here we thought there was something unique about our own "Evander Holyfield-Eating" MIKE Tyson.

This guidebook really is worthy of the award it won. It describes over 60 hikes in the Sierras the bulk of which are long day hikes or backpack trips. Each route has a topographical map included, detailed descriptions and alternative routes or side trips included. What makes this guide fairly unique are the many (very beautiful) color plates and some wonderful sidebars on local history, including a discussion of arborglyphs left by Basque sheepherders and the fight by the climbing community to save "Camp 4" in Yosemite Valley.

Nonetheless, I cannot give the book 5 stars. There are several minor errors in the book. Arrowheads have not been found atop Mt. Whitney: that is an apocryphal story that dates back to Clarence King. Similarly, the claim that Mt. Rose is the only 10,000 ft. peak with a trail to the summit in the Tahoe area is untrue. The Tahoe Rim Trail goes right over the summit of Relay Peak and this even appears on their own map of the Mt. Rose hike. The main drawback of this book, however, is that it really only covers the popular backcountry hikes in the range. The book lists only 8 hikes in Sequoia and Kings Canyon and these are the premier hiking parks in California. So, while this book is good if you really have no idea of what is available in the Sierras, hikers with some foreknowledge, or those seeking solitude, will need to supplement this book with other sources.

"Hiking in the Sierra Nevada is a user friendly, rock-solid guidebook with clear writing, useful topographic maps, inviting photos, and it's conveniently sized to fit in the side pocket of your pack." - NOBA award review

Winner, 2002 National Outdoor Book Award for Best Outdoor Adventure Guidebook: Hiking in the Sierra Nevada. By John Mock and Kimberley O'Neil. Published by Lonely Planet Publications, Footscray, Australia. ISBN 1740592727.

The National Outdoor Book Awards (NOBA) is the outdoor world's largest and most prestigious book award program. It is a non-profit, educational program, sponsored by the NOBA Foundation, Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education, and Idaho State University.

Picked this up for an extended Northern California hiking and riding trip. I purchased about four others as well and I used all of them as each has a little something different. Not a single one was useless and none warranted less than 4 stars. I would reccomend doing the same rather than just picking one for your trip.

In addition to everything you'd expect from a Falcon Guide--accurate trailhead information, good maps, elevation-gain graphs, topo references, etc.--the descriptions of the hikes are engagingly written, with humor and insight. Covering the entire Sierra is a pretty daunting task, but the author has obviously been hiking in the range for years and I thought the coverage was pretty comprehensive and balanced. In the two areas I'm familiar with, Mammoth and Yosemite, he chose some great hikes.

The book is no substitute for local guides, but at least it should help readers choose a region to focus on.
To me, this was much more helpful than its cluttered Lonely Planet rival. You feel like you're being conducted along the trails by a personable as well as knowledgeable guide.

Since the other reviewers complained about it, I thought there were a sufficient number of few photos. However, a little black and white image is never going to do justice to a Sierra landscape.

I purchased this book before a summer trip to Mammoth last summer and have been very happy. I have always enjoyed FalconGuide books, and this is no exception. There are plenty of hikes to chose , my only complaint is that there could be better maps and more photos included.

This hiking guide contains all the required elements for a useful hiking book: excellent driving directions to each trailhead, elevation gains, topographical maps and other random thoughts about each trek. There is an absence of photographs, which is the only reason I don't give this the ultimate "5 star" rating. There is an emphasis on hikes south of Lee Vining, so if you're looking especially at the Bridgeport or Virginia Lakes area, there are better guides out there. But if your speciality is Mammoth and Yosemite, lace up your boots!

"Hot Springs of Nevada" is a great guide to hot water in the Silver State. As expected, the book contains photos, descriptions and directions to help the soaker get to hot springs. Unlike Gersh-Young's "Hot Springs & Hot Pools of the Southwest" and the similar books that feature Nevadan hot springs, it is "George's 2 cents" that make this book essential. Similar books tend to be too objective, only indicating the cold hard facts like the temperature at which the water source may be at a particular location. Such quantifiable info doesn't give the reader an overall sense if it's a place one would actually want to visit. "George's 2 cents" provides a subjectively accurate evaluation to help the reader prioritize locations. It seems that this treasure is now out-of-print and going for exorbitant prices through Amazon's used sellers -the retail value was $10.95, when signed by the author. If you can afford it, "Hot Springs of Nevada" is an essential guide to the Silver State's hot springs.

George's hot spring guides consistently rock the house!

His directions are always the best, his "two cents" comments are always appreciated, and his listing of springs is fairly comprehensive.

His other two hot springs books are great, as well.

To soak in a natural hot spring beneath a bazillion blazing stars is akin to stealing the creme filling outta the Oreos...and no one notices! Finding these special, out of the way places to soak -- off the beaten path -- is a triumph and a wonder. Thank you so much for fording the way into uncharted waters......

This is a very true retelling of the events that surrounded John and Stella during a very intense period of their lives. I was there when it happened and was with them during many of the events John describes. I bought the book to see how my friend remembered that time frame and much to my surprise, not only is the book very accurate, it reminded me of things I had forgotten.

It doesn't get much more real than this. Great insight into a whirlwind!

I have read this book several times. What I would really like to know is more about the internal conflict had about taking a bigger job for the post office or going to Washington. I believe that it is the mindset he had that allowed him to win this money. I believe that what he delt with after is not as important as how he got where he was when he won. THAT SAID - I enjoyed the book and am VERY HAPPY for John and his wife.

Great Book! I really found this book very interesting and enlightening! Well written and great insights! I would highly recommend this book not only to jackpot winners but to anyone who "dreams" of winning.

Gloria Totoricagüena's Identity, Culture, and Politics in the Basque Diaspora is a great introduction to the understanding of Basque diaspora from a multi-disciplinary approach -a somehow overlooked area of Basque studies by the international academia and surprisingly by the homeland scholars-. It analyzes the formation of the diaspora as an historical phenomenon for the over five hundred years, reveals the multi-directional interconnectedness and networks (from a familiar to an institutional level) among diaspora Basque communities and between those and the homeland, and describes the changing nature of the meaning of being Basque from transnational and deterritorialized perspectives. The book focuses, from a historical perspective, on the physical, emotional and psychological interconnectedness among diaspora Basques and the Basque region, while emphasizing the current Basque Government-diaspora institutional relations, promoted increasingly since the return of democracy to Spain and the early 1980s-. It also pays special attention to the influence of the Basque homeland nationalist ideology on the reformulation of Basque identity on the diaspora communities, specifically in the period of the Basque-Government-in-exile between the 1940s and the late-1970s. In sum, Identity, Culture, and Politics in the Basque Diaspora is a comprehensive ground-breaking work which lays the foundation for more theoretical and empirical comparative research in Basque studies in the international terrain as well as in the Basque Country and which will attract not only an expert reader, but also a wide audience eager to learn aspects of Basque history, culture, and politics that until now have been to some extent ignored.

"The Sespe Wild" is an anthology of reflections on life and life issues in the Sespe river. Each chapter focuses on an animal that lives or used to live around the Sespe. There are also chapters talking about attempted dams, oil drilling, and rock art left by the Chumash Indians. The book can be read in installments, or, if you have the time, in one sitting.

Monsma is a gifted storyteller, and traces the individual histories of each aspect in a way that makes you want to root for the cause of conservation. At the the same time, he presents both sides of each issue fairly, and never comes down clearly either way. This can be a challenge for the reader, particularly if you're looking for a more black and white discussion of environmental issues. Personally, I loved that aspect, as it left me asking questions of myself. Perhaps that is the biggest lesson in this book: You ask important questions, and as you go through life, part of the answer is revealed, but only enough to prompt more questions.

On a side note, readers with a Christian background may chuckle at some of verbal puns that hint at time spent in Sunday School, but for the rest, it's a soulful account of how a place so small and almost insignificant can be filled with life that continues to thrive in the midst of contant challenge. Monsma is obviously passionate about nature, and here he shares it with us.

Drawing on his personal experiences of backpaking in the Sespe Wilderness over many years, Monsma revels in the beauty of the landscape, and its bird and animal life. His descriptions of early mornings in the wilderness are compelling; they make me want to reach for my backpack and hiking boots and head out to the backcountry.

Drawing on extensive scholarship, he tells the chequered history of the Sespe and the story of its preservation only 50 miles from the Los Angeles metropolis. Describing the threats from oil drilling, dam building and suburban development, he not only points out the short-sightedness of current energy and development policies, but also shows the remarkable ability of the wilderness to regenerate itself and obliterate the traces of earlier intruders.

He uses rhetorical figures such as the native american shamans, tricksters and bear-men to introduce different ways of seeing nature and connecting it to everyday urban life. The traces of zen buddhism and Carlos Castaneda appear hokey at the beginning, but become an integral part of the book's structure.

By the end this is the kind of book that makes you not only want to visit the wilderness, but also makes you see under the surface of urban life. Every freeway drainage ditch, patch of scrub, and visiting hummingbird comes alive with layers of meaning.

Clarence King sure knows how to tell a good story. Whether they are true stories, well that's for you to decide. But really, it doesn't matter. You'll read of him dangling from the edge of great cliffs and running from wild west bandits, all the while keeping the reader wondering how he'll ever live to tell the tale. Overall the book is a collection of stories by a man who loved the Sierra Nevada, for it vast wilderness was his playground.

This classic work by one of the great yarn-spinners of all time includes some wonderful descriptive information about California places and people in the early 1860s and some gripping, heartstopping tales about King's own mountaineering exploits. Even in his early 20s, Clarence King was recognized for leaderhip and intellectual ability. He served with the Army Topographic Engineers on the survey of the Western United States along the 40th parallel and was an intimate of Henry Adams and his wife in their small social/intellectual circle in Washington D.C. (See Patricia O'Toole's "The Five of Hearts"). He established his national reputation for being a shrewd, practical man of science when he discovered and exposed a stock swindle based on salted ore and fraudulent assay samples when asked to evaluate a mining promotion in Colorado. "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada" is a non-chronological, semi-autobiographical reconstruction of some of King's time (circa 1862-63) with Josiah Whitney's Survey, commissioned by the State legislature to catalogue and evaluate California geologic and mineral resources. It is an entertaining and engrossing narration of one foolhardy, death-defying exploit after another. Like those of John Muir (another classic, albeit overrated talesman of the Range of Light), Clarence King's numerous renditions of his own hairsbreadth escapes from impossibly precarious positions by the power of luck, pluck and sheer physical prowess, while entertaining and enthralling, were made possible only by his own chronic rash foolhardiness, if not by tremendous powers of exaggeration. A better man was his fellow draft-dodger (the Civil War was going on back East all the while they were dancing around in the mountains of California, after all), William Brewer. Brewer served longer, harder and more responsibly than King in the Whitney Survey. Brewer also wrote a factually more thorough and reliable description of conditions in the young state of California in a series of letters home to his family in New England (collected as "Up and Down California"), with none of King's histrionics but just as entertaining in its own way. King's book does include some unique insights. One is his near-comic description of the "Piker" rubes (from Pike County, Missouri), rural folk residing in the foothills of the Southern San Joaquin Valley, which can be read as a precourser of all hilarious mountain folk descriptions, from Li'l Abner through the Beverley Hillbillies to Deliverance. But truth be told (rarely enough, one suspects), this book is mostly about the indefatigable King and his own personal exploits in the Southern Sierra. While King's literary talent was substantial, his writing (and indeed his entire public life and historic reputation) were seemingly unilluminated in any way by his own domestic arrangements. These included a life-long love relationship and common law marriage to a black woman, Ada, with whom he maintained a household including their several children. Not only did he keep the marriage secret from all of his prominent social contacts, but he kept his own notorious identity and true name a secret from his wife and children until just before he died. Still, under the constant strain of maintaining a double identity, he continued to support his family and maintained an exhausting schedule of international travel, geological consulting and writing until he died prematurely from consumption at the age of 59. (See Thurman Wilkins' "Clarence King"). You won't find any mention of King's real family anything King wrote for public consumption, or even for the consumption of his well-placed friends. Altogether, this book makes for a slightly less than satisfying cud to chew over, but it tastes pretty good the first time on the way down.

Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada is essential reading for anyone who both loves those mountains and wants to get a glimpse of life there before it reached the level of settlement it has today. Whether or not all the stories here are strictly factual, they are often both gripping and entertaining. Additionally, they bring the reader some sense of what rural central California life was like at that time.
Clarence King was a gifted wordsmith. His hilarious, politically incorrect descriptions of western characters are reminiscent of some of the best incisive commentary of Mark Twain. Then his descriptions of climbing in the mountains are so intense that you may even wince as you are carried along as he describes some of the most hair-raising brushes with death. Those who have been where King describes will certainly feel what King has written as they read along.
One reviewer, though entertained, seems to doubt what King says. I don't. Though there may be a little hyperbole in King's description of events, the reader should remember that at that time the average guy was far more physically fit than the average guy today. You had to be or you didn't make it, because every day in the wilderness was fraught with challenge and physical danger.
All in all, you could say that this book is a collection of bold tales well told. I particularly like the stories of his crossing the desert coming to California, of the hog farmers, of his escape from determined bandits, of his ultimate conquest of Mt Whitney, and of all the colorful characters he meets in his path both in the Sierras and at Shasta.
And though some might take him for a bigot because of some of his comments about the natives, remember that he saves the sharpest point of his pen for the most worthless characters of his own stock who abound in the California of his day. Whatever you think about what King has written, once you pick this up you'll find it hard to put down until you've finished the last paragraph.

My fiancée is a huge Vegas fan. He tries to go there once a year with the guys. He gave me this book as a joke, hoping that I might consider Vegas for our nuptials. Well, guess what? I'm thinking about it. Like most people, I think, I have always considered Las Vegas weddings a bit cheesy, but that's all in the past. As the author points out, Vegas stands for fun with glitz and glamour thrown in. Well, I probably won't get married in Vegas (although I now know where to turn for chapel-shopping), but I can certainly see why so many people visit Las
Vegas again and again.

This book gave me some good information about places to get married. It had a little bit more "fluff" that I had to sift through to get the information, but it was useful.

Last March my wife and I had a renewal of vows ceremony at a Las Vegas wedding chapel with an Elvis impersonator. This book perfectly captures the fun and excitement of our experience. This book makes a perfect souvenir of the occasion. We are giving copies to all our guests who had joined us. For all pop culture buffs this is a perfect book for their personal libraries.

This is the first lonely planet book I've bought, but I'm very attached to it. It had lots of great listing from things to do to places to stay. I particularly linked to range of places to stay. It's organized into moderately priced to cheap options so you can pick what's right foryou... I used the 2000 edition.

Lonely Planet guides are the best out there, by far, at least for people who travel with a budget and only a pack on their backs, stay at hostels, and like to really experience a new location without being so touristy (Fodor's guides, for example, are the opposite of Lonely Planet's and are written for the upscale traveler). The California/Nevada guide is no exception, but it's just too outdated (published in 1996), and I wouldn't recommend buying it and instead would recommend waiting until the come out with a new one, whenever that will be. That's the only reason I wouldn't give it 5 stars. They did just put out a new San Francisco one though ...

Every Lonely Planet guide gives lots of tips for what to see, places to eat, and the "must-see" things when you travel. This guide explains the history of California and Nevada very well, and always has good suggestions of interesting places to visit. I am a native Californian, but I don't travel anywhere in the state without this guide.

"Megan," the fourth book about the McQuarry women. Megan McQuarry, the last of the bunch, redheaded and courageous. Upon her return to Primrose Creek, Megan is determined to make a go of it. Although, penniless, she still has grit. Megan meets Webb Stratton at the stage depot. Webb now owns Megan's share of the land. However, as time goes on, Webb not only owns the land, but Webb is also owner of Megan's heart. Little by little, Webb gets a portion of Megan's heart, but in return, Megan also steals Webb's heart.

"Megan" is not only Megan's and Webb's story, but it lets the reader know the secrets of the McQuarry girls. It is Ms. Miller's conclusion to the McQuarry saga and a very informative conclusion. I loved the way "Megan" was a revelation of the McQuarrys. Good work, Ms. Miller.

I loved this book. Being a frequent traveler I normally read during take off, work on my laptop till the battery runs out, and read until landing. I grabbed this book in the airport and read it until I was finished. I absolutely loved the relationships between the characters. Being a Binchy, Plain, and Pilcher fan I think I've found a new author. I felt like I was there, exactly what a good book should do!

In 1870 a heartbroken Megan McQuarry returns to her hometown of Primrose Creek, Nevada after two years of trying to become an actress with nothing to show for her efforts. Unlike her happily married sister and two cousins, Megan has no land to go back to after selling it. Ironically, the first person she meets is Webb Stratton, who owns her former land.

Somehow, deep in his gut, Webb knows Megan needs a friend and a bit of help. He offers both and she accepts them. She becomes his housekeeper. As she learns what values matter in life, Megan and Webb fall in love. However, before they can consider a lasting relationship, he must revisit his past and rectify his mistakes.

MEGAN, the final novel in Linda Lael Miller's Primrose Creek series, is a warm tale of redemption that emphasizes the author's belief in what really matters in life. The story line is fun due to observing Webb and Megan struggle with their pasts, their love, and their future as both learn the core values of people. The three previous novels (see BRIDGET, CHRISTY, and SKYE) are tender western romances, but MEGAN's story is the most sensitive and compassionate of the quartet. Ms. Miller provides her audience with a beautifully touching Americana romance.

Harriet Klausner