Utah Books

I have this book in a vacation property for guests. Its a cool book with some great pictures.

I had a hard time putting this book down, although I seldom read non-fiction. The case studies were very interesting, and I felt the book gave a good feel for life in the desert.

This is an excellent reference to many well-known rock art sites in Utah. My only negative comment is that most of the pictures are in B&W, and in many pics, the rock art is outlined in chalk (a no-no today). Other than that "complaint," it's a good general reference, although the text is a bit "dry." This book, coupled with Polly Schaafsma's, are invaluable guides to rock art sites for the general public.

This book by Edward Leo Lyman is a telling discourse of how The Morman people abandon a princible they held so sacred and true to obtain Statehood. I thought it pretty interesting how the pressure from the government and a lack of faith on their part forced them to give up one of their highest princibles. Very informative!

This novel could be coined the X-files of the 1850's. There is suspense, intrigue and lots of action. This book is well written and tickles the imagination of any history buff.

I was drawn to this book after seeing reference to a chapter by Douglas Hesse called "Identity and the Internet: The Telling Case of Amazon.com's Top Fifty Reviewers." Not having any real knowledge of the subject of rhetoric, I found some essays in this collection to be more interesting than others. When the focus was on the increasing blending of the private and the public in the modern technological age, I was much better able to follow the points the different authors made. Some discussions, however, particularly those in Part Four: The Public and the Private in the Discipline of Composition Studies, struck me as being of a primarily academic nature and pretty much went in one eye and out the other.

Those with a particular interest in rhetoric will surely get more out of this book than I did; all I can do is to mention some of the essays and discussion topics that I really got something out of. As I made my way through the first few chapters, I wondered just how far I would actually get through this book. Having trudged through John Trimbur's "Keeping the World Safe for Class Struggle: Revolutionary Memory in a Postmarxist Time," though, I figured things could only get better from there. Trimbur's essay is actually a fairly interesting look at how one's personal affiliations and beliefs influence one's published work, but I can't say I really enjoy pro-Marxist tracts that look back on the Soviet Union with nostalgia and argue that the American "worker" has no interest in the war on terrorism.

With Part Two: Confronting the Public and the Private in Written Language, the book finally did spark my interest in a significant way. In "The Collective Privacy of Academic Language," David Bleich attempts to understand why academic writings are so inherently obscure and difficult to read for those outside of the discipline of study. Then Lynn Z. Bloom, in "The Essayist In and Behind the Essay: Vested Writers, Invested Readers" undertakes to learn who has earned the right (by being published most frequently in English 101 "readers") to call themselves superstar essayists. Cheryl Geisler's "Upon the Public Stage: How Professionalization Shapes Accounts of Composing in the Academy," proved a most surprisingly fascinating essay for me, despite the fact it was accompanied by statistical analyses completely foreign to me. Geisler basically compares the process of writing subject-related papers by a freshman English student and a Ph.D. candidate. While this is obviously a most limited test group, her findings show how professionalization has a definite effect on the nature of one's language. Geoffrey A. Cross, in "Ethical Deliberation and Trust in Diverse-Group Collaboration" also addressed a subject almost all of us can relate to - the level of trust in one's work environment. In a business world of continual mergers and buyouts, it is difficult to know much trust to extend to people who could very possibly do away with your job, and the competitive nature amongst co-workers in many an office also poses trust issues for individuals.

The essay on Amazon.com Top 50 reviewers basically discusses the varying degree to which individuals reveal themselves online - e.g., in their About Me descriptions, their chosen subjects for review, their Friends and Favorites, and their Shared Purchases. The most striking thing about this article is Douglas Hesse's suggestion that the nature of Amazon reviews bears a certain similarity with that of peer-reviewed academic journals. The other essays in Part Three: Public and Private Identities in Popular and Mass Communication revolve around similar cases of public expression. Anyone can have their say online nowadays in a number of different ways, so how do we determine whose words truly matter to others? Do some enjoy a greater opportunity than others to speak out? These are the kinds of questions these scholars ask.

I basically started zoning out once I got to Part Four: The Public and the Private in the Disciple of Composition Studies, as these essays tended to discuss what I see as internal arguments within the field of rhetoric. Once this advanced past a discussion of personal vs. nonpersonal types of writing to debates between expressivists and feminist/cultural studies sub-groups, I got very little out of the discussion.

As the collected essays do tend to represent different schools of thought and different approaches to the writing and teaching of rhetoric, it would seem to afford the rhetorically-inclined an objective, relevant treatment of a range of important issues. As a complete layman, however, I had a hard time connecting with a significant percentage of the subject matter.

This is an excellent overview of a region which is well known for the scenery, but whose people and history are little noted. Blending history, literature and miscellaneous observation, Geary paints a fascinating picture of the sparsely populated Colorado plateau section of Utah, a land of small Mormon farming communities, wide spaces and beautiful landscapes. For some reason, this book is not found in any of the tourist bookshops in the area, yet it is--while not a "tourbook" in the usual sense--the best source to really understand the area.

This is a selection of many of the best known essays of Enos Mills, who's regarded as the spiritual (as well as practical) father of Rocky Mountain National Park. Mills is justly loved by people who know the park, and deserves a broader audience along with other early environmentalist writers like John Muir.

Enos Mills was very much a turn-of-the-century naturalist. His voice is without any sort of academic affectation; he reads like the patient, intelligent watcher that he is, but not at all like a pedantic teacher of great and ponderous truths. Some of these stories are essentially understated, self-deprecating adventure yarns. There are times when you feel sure the author's exaggerating for his story's sake. Heck, for that matter he'll refer to an animal as "Mr. Ground Squirrel." I smiled a lot while reading this -- in bemusement, sometimes, but never in derision.

All those somewhat dated tones and turns of phrase only add to the charm of this book and of Enos Mills' work in general. Off of his pen, "Mr. Ground Squirrel" is a statement of the greatest respect. You don't snicker, because his relationship with that animal has a completely convincing integrity to it. There's a sort of glow that comes over you, reading this kind of thing, that makes "Radiant Days" a very fitting title.

Don't let my sendup of his voice fool you, though. Enos Mills was an impassioned environmental advocate -- just one whose approach, at least in writing, lacks the sort of anger we often feel a century later in realizing what we've lost.

I recommend this book to anyone who finds the indigant tone of most environmentally concerned titles to be exhausting. Radiant Days would make a fantastic gift to a young adult with a vaguish interest in the out of doors, or to anyone visiting the Rockies. Get it for teenagers who loved Raiders of the Lost Ark, too; it makes a great adventure read, with substance and to spare.

In my research on southern Utah, Glen Canyon, and Navajo Mountain, I put off reading this book for as long as I could. I figured: it's written by a millionaire not a writer, it's written long after Rainbow Bridge had already been discovered, and the cover just looks kind of dumb.
But I'm glad I read it.
The book features good descriptions of Navajo Mountain, of early trading posts, of traders John and Louisa Wetherill, and of a time when undiscovered Anasazi ruins could be found around every canyon bend and horses were the best way to move around in the desert.
The book includes good historic photos, and is even funny at times: like when the wealthy author talks about what sort of collars he likes to wear on his shirts, or when he writes about packing a makeshift humidor for cigars. It's a must, I'd say, for fans of the Navajo Mountain area.

I wouldn't have liked this book as much if I didn't live in Kayenta. It is the author's description of Red Lake, Kayenta, and Tsegi among others that makes this book so interesting. My Doctor told me about it, I bought it and have been passing it around to other people in town. Sorry Amazon. Sometimes the story drags a bit but that is Zane Grey. Sometimes his treatement of the Navajo is a bit stereotyped. Come to the four corners, stay awhile. Hike among the canyons and mesas. Get to know the people. Than read the book. You'll get much more out of it. There's an isolated cliff dwelling out here (somewhere near Tsegi Canyon, no more hints) where Zane Grey carved his name into the sandstone. He writes a pretty good description of the area and its people.