Arizona Books

I wanted to learn Portuguese fast because my fiancee is a Brazilian. When I bought this Beginning Brazilian Portuguese, I had about 4 weeks before I visited my sweetheart. Two weeks before my trip to Brazil, I studied it and I concentrated just in the part where two instructors teach you in the form of a dialogue. My goal was to just get use to the portuguese sounds. I did a few of the excercises and to my surprise this basic level of study helped me understand my sweetheart when she spoke to me in Portuguese. I recognized some of the words and expressions. I realized that Beginning Brazilian Portuguese is a very practical language course. It does teach you the everyday Brazilian Portuguese words and phrases such as "nao é?" It also let's you in the culture. For instance, in my humble opinion there is no word for breakfast in Portuguese. They use "Café da Amanha." I kept asking my sweetheart how to say "breakfast" in portuguese and she did not understand me. When I came back and repeated the course for a second time, I learned about Cafe da Amanha. Yes, from the moment I studied this course I became captivated by it.

When I came back from Brazil to the USA, I have repeated this course about 4 times already. This course is very rich in the way that it has been put together. Personally, I would not be able to learn everything in one repeat. I learn bits by bits and I first just went through entire course because I wanted to get use to the Brazilian Portuguse sounds. When I came back I studied the multiple questions and paid attention based on my experience in Brazil and learn more words. I repeated it and took dictaction and listen to a couple of songs in the course. Finally, I am still studying it and learning the grammar. Guess what? I never dreamed that I would write Portuguese. I am successfully writing letters in Portuguese to my fiancee and she understands me well. I am beginning to speak it. And all of this because I keep repeating the course: Beginning Brazilian Portuguese.

The whole point: Beginning Brazilian Portuguese is a fantastic course put together. With patience you can acquire a very strong base in the Portuguese language from the Brazilian Portuguse course. (Why not Portuguese in general!) We humans are not recorders and so we cannot learn a language in 10 days but with work and effort one can learn a language in a few months. I am happy with this course and will keep on studying it and will end up with a very strong foundation. I am going back to Brazil in July and will test again my Beginning Brazilian Portuguese.

Have fun! Vem vindo ao Brazil!

Everett Larreynaga

As an avid off-roader, I look for remote, under-the-radar types of places. Fortunately, my home state is one of the best places for 4x4 wandering. Anybody can hook up with some Glamis types and rip-it-up a local sand dune. For me, wilderness means getting far out of Phoenix, driving long distances on dusty back roads and eventually finding that perfectly lonely camp site. Enter the Benchmark Maps' "Arizona Road & Recreational Atlas." For browsing alone, it has been the impetus for multiple back country trips. When used with Google Earth and a guidebook, this tool has been perfect for triangulating locations and showing routes. The DeLorme Atlas is the obvious comparison. The DeLorme is also a really good atlas, but I really appreciate the "readability" of the Benchmark. The colors are in harmony with desert esthetics while better expressing elevation. Unlike in previous editions, the 6th is split into two main sections. There is a landscape map section and another for public lands. Most folks won't need more than the conventional landscape maps. If you're doing a week long trip into an unknown section of back country, it's always helpful to know if you're on private property or public lands. Given that you're allowed to do different things on the lands of different agencies, it's helpful to take a glance and know if you're in Grand Canyon National Park, the Hualapai Reservation or on good ol' BLM land. This atlas shows tons of back roads, GPS grids, a recreational guide for the newbies and legends that are clear to read. As an added plus, it shows additional maps for getting around in urban Tuscon and Phoenix. When exploring the desert or getting around in the city, the 6th edition of Benchmarks' atlas is about all anyone will need to get around in the Grand Canyon State.

This is another great book that my daughter loves!!! The colors really keep her interest and we love it!

If you buy only one book, get this one. This book rates the levels - easy, medium, hard - and the hiking distances and times. It also includes the driving distance from the downtown area to the start of the hike. We did 6 different hikes and the book listed points of interest along the way.

The power of Ken Lamberton's "Beyond Desert Walls: Essays from Prison" comes from its amazing, unflinching honesty joined with elegant writing - a combination that, for me, is irresistible in personal essay or memoir. A Teacher of the Year in the 1980s, Lamberton later spent a dozen years in prison for an offense even he describes as despicable. Yet it was in prison that he found himself and honed his writing skills. His first book of essays, "Wilderness and Razor Wire," won the 2002 John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing; written while he was incarcerated, it eloquently describes the little bits of nature available to him within an Arizona prison and how they saved him.

While "Beyond Desert Walls" is also about nature (specifically the Sonoran Desert of southeastern Arizona), it is more about Lamberton himself and how he got into the predicament that put him behind bars. Describing this over the course of several essays is where his honesty really comes to the fore. It's also about his wife, Karen, and her stubborn determination to stick by him - she even became a paralegal to assist with his case - and how she believed, as he wrote, that he was "worth salvaging." And it's about Lamberton's belief in himself as he creates a new, more introspective and truthful life as a faithful husband, devoted father, and freelance writer.

In my opinion, Lamberton does for prose what another remarkable ex-convict, Jimmy Santiago Baca, does for poetry.

Beyond the Reach of Time and Change: Native American Reflections on the Frank A. Rinehart Photograph Collection features one hundred photographic portraits taken during the very late nineteenth century by professional Frank A. Rinehart. Rinehart practiced his trade upon Native Americans in their traditional dress during the an event known as the Indian Congress; his landmark photography, which unlike that of others did not pander to shameless stereotypes, rests in the Haskell Indian Nations University today and is widely regarded as one of the best photographic documentaries of the era. In addition to the powerful black-and-white photographs of individuals and groups from a wide variety of native tribes, Beyond the Reach of Time and Change features 14 essays by modern Native American writers, artists and educators - including some descendants of the individuals photographed - offering various reflections upon the role of these timeless images in their heritage. Highly recommended for native studies shelves and personal collections, and an emotional collection to page through.

1.Each tour is really a series of tours starting with a short route and then extending it. This lets the rider decide how far he wants to ride instead of being constrained by a single route. 2.I've used the routes around Tucson and found the descriptions to be accurate and detailed. Many of the routes came from the Tucson Chapter of the Greater AZ Bike Assn and are still used on the club's rides. 3.About 25% of the rides are close to Tucson. Routes further from Tucson include multi-day tours in the southern part of AZ going right to the border with Mexico.

There are many, many books on scientific terminology out there, and in my mind, this is one of the best.It covers all of the standard greek and latin bases and combining forms. (the other book that I would recommend) is a good book on root words and combining forms such as,Donald.J.Borrors dictionary of root words and combining forms-if I have gotten the title wrong, just search Donald.J.Borror and I am sure it will be rectified.
This book is basically a book on biology. It covers plant,animal, and human anatomy.There are many, many, lessons in this book,and as I said formerly,I think that it would be a good investment to purchase a dictionary of greek and latin root word constituents and their various forms in order to do a thorough etymological study of it.
That said, and I know that I have been rambling, it is a worthwhile book. I would suggest this book to any biology,medical,etymology, or lover of words. It will increase your vocabulary and understanding of life ten-fold.

Every now and again a book is destined to become a classic. This is such a book. To describe this reference book as monumental is not using too strong a word. This is indeed a singular effort to provide scholars, collectors and interested readers with a must-have resource to understanding the origins and intricacies of some sought-after works of art.
For centuries collectors have coveted the hand-woven blankets, sarapes and ponchos of the Pueblo, Navajo, and Spanish American artists of the Southwest.
Indeed, the popularity of these objects is increasing, as evidenced by the long line of cars and attendant crowds gathering in the high school auditorium in Crownpoint,N.M., on the third Friday of every month.
Collectors, buyers and speculators meet at the school to examine hundreds of handmade rugs created by native artists. These would-be buyers vie for the sought-after items in a high-speed auction. These monthly sales are testimony to the never-ending popularity of Southwestern textiles.
As for this book, where to begin?
The author became the first curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado Museum in 1953. He remained at that post until his retirement in 1986, and later became interested in the history of Southwestern textile development.
His exhaustive research led him to visit dozens of museums and painstakingly study thousands of 19th century textiles. He supervised chemical tests of dyes from hundreds of yarns and spent years conducting research in both renowned and obscure archives in an effort to document the material and basis for textile development.
His work resulted in a classification scheme for Southwestern textiles that established a baseline for understanding, identifying and dating items of unknown origin. This book is the result of that research and will be the standard by which all future efforts will be judged.
The book contains 115 black and white figures, line drawings that demonstrate weaving techniques, edge finishes and corner tassels as well as 191 gorgeous color plates that enable the reader to visually determine the distinct traits of the three textile traditions of the Pueblo, Navajo, and Spanish-American blanket weaving art.
There are chapters dealing with fibers, yarns, dyes, fabric structure, tools, weaves and finishing techniques as well as 97 pages of appendix, chapter notes and an index.
This is a monunmental work that will appeal to scholars, collectors and general readers with an interest in the history of this Southwestern art form.

Luci Tapahonso delivers another beautiful collection of poems and stories centered around her Navajo culture. Like most of her works, her emphasis is on family and community, and on the ties that bind us invisibly and lovingly to each other and to our homeland. The stories and poems are at times touching and funny, revealing the human being behind the sorrows and joys of everyday living. If you like happy endings, family values, and good old-fashioned heartfelt love, this will become your favorite book. It is at once beautiful and familiar -- these are your experiences and emotions as much as the poet's, whether you are a Navajo or not. Don't skip "In Praise of Texas," in which the narrator reflects the thinnest hopes and dreams which live in all of us, and which "blossom without any urging on our part" (13)