Nevada Books

"Shrubs of the Great Basin" is a wonderful, extensively informative textbook for individuals interested in identifying shrubs throughout the southwestern United States. Organized by family, this is a wonderful textbook for botanists and flora enthusiasts. Fleischmann incorporates historical and detailed information not typically unearthed in field guides. In addition to illustrations of each species, the author includes 24 pages of wonderful photographs of numerous shrubs detailed throughout the text. Overall, an excellent and informational book.

Sinning in the City is a Las Vegas travel guide that opens up Pandora's Box and shows the sinful pleasures of Sin City. It is wittingly split up into eight sections covering all the seven deadly sins with the final chapter dealing with repentance. The guides are up to date with all the latest and greatest "sin's" Las Vegas has to offer; lust can be found in the hottest dance clubs in the nation, and gluttony is appeased in the assortment of restaurants and buffets on and off the strip. It is a perfect gift for those visiting Las Vegas and for those who call Sin City home.

This book has 59 tours in the "central" Sierra Nevada of California. That is, the beautiful but less-visited area between Lake Tahoe/Donner Pass to the north and Yosemite to the south. Each tour is rated with difficulty, length, elevatnion, navigation, time, and season. The USGS topos for the tour are listed, along with excellent tour maps. Each tour has a description of what you see, where to start, and leads you thorough the tour.

The only thing I think is missing would be an index, but that wouldn't stop me from buying the book.

This book has 59 tours in the Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Park areas and around Huntington Lake. Describes some beautiful country. Each tour is rated with difficulty, length, elevatnion, navigation, time, and season. The USGS topos for the tour are listed, along with excellent tour maps. Each tour has a description of what you see, where to start, and leads you thorough the tour.

I like the book, but I would also like to see an index and more tours for the Yosemite high country.

The Eastern Sierra is an excellent, but underappreciated area to ski. The cold east side has fresher snow than the western side of the Sierra. However, since there's only one main road (395) and few passes open in winter, it's not visited a lot.

The book covers 78 tours in 184 pages in the Eastern Sierra/Owens Valley area from Bridgeport (N. of Mono Lake) south to Bishop Creek. This includes the Mammoth area and Rock Creek area, both with developed and backcountry XC ski areas.

It's a great book, but I wish it had an index. The Tioga Pass area could use more coverage. But what it does cover still makes it a terrific guidebook!

In this true life adventure British journalist Nicholas Gordon journeys to Tanzania, Africa, to investigate the status of the declining wild elephant population. (20,000 slaughtered in ten years leading up to 1990 when he was there).

Elephants are frequently referenced but not directly encountered. The emphasis is on how the socialist government is trying to convert the native people's from hunting, and or poaching, to other forms of food production.

He interview numerous officials and violators but presents his material in the form of a narrative which is quite intriguing and well written as you might expect from an accomplished journalist and magazine editor.

Well worth reading.

In a beautifully illustrated book Carmelo Urza finely analyses the discussions about this avant-garde sculpture made to celebrate the Basque shepherds of America. He shows and comments the different points of view of those implied: the Basque-american community to whom the monument was dedicated, the Basque government in Spain and, of course, the artist himself. He also provides us with detailed information of the negotiations which finally led to the placing of the monument where it is now. It is a book worth reading in order to know about the aspirations and self-image of the Basques living in America, but also of those living in Spain.

This book is great for getting to know the history behind arborglyphs....They are an important source of historical data...This book is mostly about Nevada...There is a lot of good information about the Basque "sheepmen"/sheepherders....There are a lot of arborglyphs in the Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado...I have seen quite a few myself....The life span of an arborglyphs is about 80 yrs....It is important that we start documenting them now for future generations.....Countless arborglyphs have been lost to time already...check out [...] for more info

I tried to read this late at night in a guest room in Palo Alto (while I was still on Eastern time), at a house where I was also urged to read _Up and down California_, the narrative based on Brewer's own letters, still in print (first edition 1930). I got the latter via interlibrary loan but the memory of Alsup's vistas of rock has brought me to Amazon to buy my own copies of both.

This is an interesting book about the buildings in the Sagebrush state. It does include the history of the profession of architecture but is missing some of the important definitions of the times, such as "carpenter." It gives credit to the buildings, but misquotes the names of the architects in some cases (no "John M." or "Morrill John" Curtis exists as an architect in Nevada, for example). Even a few mistakes such as this cause the reader to question the validity of other information. (My advice to authors: if you do not know, then don't guess and certainly don't put it in writing! Check primary sources!).
Overall, the book is worthwhile and a boon to historians with its pictures of old buildings inside and outside.