Nebraska Books

This is one of the few books to be found on the Tiwanaku people of Lake Titicaca. These are a people who pre-dated the Inca and for close to 800 years dominated the highlands in what is now Peru and Bolivia.

Today their most visible remains is the gate of the sun and semi sunken temple on the shore of Lake Titicaca. They left no written records and in the immediate area of Tiwanaku city itself their remains have been poorly excavated over the years. Aside from their ruins perhaps their most stunning legacy has been their textiles.

This book displays a number of gorgeous textiles that were produced by the Tiwanaku and Wari peoples - these textiles, most of them today in private collections, on display here for the first time in one place, are one of the main reasons to get this book.

The text surrounding the textiles, snuff trays and sculptures produced in Tiwanaku and Wari illustrated in this book is scholarly. It draws on what little we have been able to find out about these people to show us a culture that was both savage, tightly integrated with nature and a people with high artistic sensibilities. If you want to know more about pre-Columbian cultures that extend beyond the Inca this book is one you should get for your collection about a little discussed people. If you enjoy pre-Columbian textiles this book should not be missed, if only for its colour illustrations.

As you read of the adventures of Tornado Jones and his family you are transported back to a simpler time. The book can be summed up as the adventures of Tornado Jones and his family as they fight progress and the build of a damn that will flood their old family home palce. It is a wonderful book I was first introduced to back in 1963 when my fifth grade teacher ended every school day reading out loud to us from this wonderful book.

This 4-vol. set includes 2 volumes of narratives in Arikara with interlinear translation and two volumes of freer translation of the texts. A set of two audio cassettes is also available from University of Nebraska Press (and presumably from Amazon.com if you ask about it). _Traditional Narratives_ is really almost beyond criticism or praise. What Parks has done here is not just to present scholars and American Indians with a gold mine of Plains Indian traditional culture. He has given us and the Arikaras by far the most substantial, most accurate, and easily accessible collection of material in the Arikara language by some of its last fully fluent custodians (all of the informants for _Traditional Narratives_ are now deceased). For linguists, this is the largest corpus we will ever have of a beautiful and amazingly intricate language, now, like many other American Indian languages, edging toward extinction.

I admit to a terrible weakness for good, highly detailed line drawings; I know real people and animals don't have ink outlines, but there's nothing like a great ink sketch to help you understand just how a creature, or an outfit, is put together. Jo Mora, who deserves to be far better known than he is, was a master of the medium, and nowhere does he strut his stuff better in this book, first printed in 1946, when he was 67 years old.

Mora begins with a brief, humorous sketch of the beginning of the American cattle industry--the early Spanish ranchero, the antebellum Texian frontiersman-cowhunter, and at last the first great trail drives to Kansas. He goes on to explain why the cowboy's dress and tools are as they are and how the rider does his work, complete with diagrams that show sequentially how a steer is "busted." He tells about the two chief systems of breaking a cowhorse, about the longhorn and his customs, the trail herd on the way north, the chuck wagon, the roundup, brands, rustling, and that indispensable item, the horse. He illustrates it all with fine detailed pictures that should help anyone, even if they've never seen a real cowboy in their lives, imagine how one should have looked. His friendly, casual voice, like that of Will James or Ramon Adams, is that of an old-timer at the campfire genially explicating upon something he loves and knows well, without ever forgetting that he may be dealing with a pack of ignorant greenhorns. This is one of the half-score or so of books that are absolutely indispensable to an understanding of the genuine "waddie" and his work. It begs to be brought back into print.

Making his way across Nebraska, Skye Fargo comes upon a burning cabin, and an entire family shot execution-style. He soon learns that there's a killer on the loose: smallpox. And then there's the night riders, and they're out to make sure anyone with the disease - and those near them - don't live long enough to spread the illness. Now the Trailsman is going to give the cowardly killers a dose of their own medicine.

Jon Sharpe has turned out another terrific entry in the Trailsman series. A story filled with strong and entertaining characters of both sexes.

There are many memorable moments in this book but the strongest for me has to be the scenes in the prison stockade, particularly the beating of Skye Fargo and his hanging from the fence. These scenes so well written they created vivid images in my mind.

Then there's the mystery elements as to what is really going on and just who is behind it all. When revealed the answer came as a complete surprise. This and the savage action all interspersed with moments of humour.

This book was so well written I found it impossible to put down so found myself reading it in one sitting.

If you're a fan of the Trailsman series then this is an entry not to be missed, if you just like a great western to read then this book should be on your too read list.

Highly recommended.

For anyone interested in surrealism this book is a must. Aragon is harsh and yet decisive in his uncompromising judgment of what is obsolete and what is not with respect to the surrealist revolution, and his denunciation of 'automatic writing' as poetry is right on the mark. He is so obnoxious and unsparing in his criticism of everyone and everything that the reader immediately realizes he was mistaken in joining the Communist Party and leaving the surrealist movement:he was made for a group that espoused absolute rebellion against everyone and everything conventional, and it was where he belonged. He distinguishes real poets from those he so gently refers to as, "any dog on the street who, like an inexhaustible diarrhea, ceaselessly copies down his insignificant scribblings and dares to compare it with true poetry". Eheheehehe! A must

Here's a gem of a book. McKanna skillfully examines a nineteenth century murder case that resulted in the conviction of a poorly defended Native American in San Diego County. From a messy crime scene that would make a modern "CSI" team cringe to an almost comical court case, McKanna shows that the conviction of "Indian Joe" was perhaps inevitable given the racist nature of the local citizenry and judicial system. In 1893, José Gabriel would become the first man executed at San Quentin. Expertly researched by using court records and newspaper accounts, this book is also a highly readable and sobering comment on American justice.

This is a compelling book on how it can be argued that the Harlem Globetrotters saved professional basketball in its growing years. The lost history of the pivotal contest where the Globetrotters defeated the juggernaut Minneapolis Lakers is woven between the societal and sports history of the times. For example, readers will find out that many fans would flock to arenas to watch the Globetrotters play in the first game of doubleheaders and leave before the start of the "main event," but the players still suffered tremendously due to the unbalanced playing field in life and race relations. And many times there was no solace found in the competitions. The book is a must for a person who wants to explore the history of pro basketball and/or how sports has at times favorably impacted race relations.

Arnold Krupatýs ýThe Turn to the Nativeý is a unique bit of literary criticism. One of the few studies of American Indian (or ýIndian,ý to use Sherman Alexieýs preferred term) literature, aside from Ruoffýs ýAmerican Indian Literaturesý and Graulichýs ýYellow Woman,ý featuring Leslie Marmon Silko, Krupatýs book examines major themes of Indian literature as well as the role of the non-Indian when reading Indian books.

ýThe Turn to the Native,ý while it serves as a nice overview of major themes, especially post-Colonialism and the ideologies through which Westerners always tend to view Indian literature, concerns itself largely with Gerald Vizenor and his ýHeirs of Columbusý (two out of the four ýcriticismý chapters are devoted to Vizenor, and a full one of them is devoted to ýHeirs.ý) Krupat identifies some of the Sartrian influences (and refutations thereof) in ýHeirs,ý while placing the book squarely in the larger context of postcolonial literature and literary theory as a whole.

But the main theme of the book is IDENTITY, which he fully explores in the last (and byfar the longest) chapter, ýA Nice Jewish Boy Among the Indians.ý While obstinately about the role of the non-Indian reader in general (and the non-Indian critic in particular) in exploring and reading Indian literature, it really serves as a model for later criticisms of Indian work (and, Iýll admit, it helped me in my own journey into this subject far more than ýtraditionalý criticism ever did). Told in the form of a story (what else?), it tells Krupatýs story as a Jewish-American immigrant and the offspring of Holocaust survivors, who share quite a bit in common with the Indians who, in their own way, are survivors of a different kind of Holocaust. From that basis, Krupat manages to make several statements about the role of non-Indian critics (shaky at best) and non-Indian readers (sorry, you just wonýt ýgetý all of it). As a non-Indian, it was refreshing to read, and it helped me immensely in organizing my thoughts about Indian literature and my place as a ýtwinkieý in it.

Essential reading for anyone doing scholarly work in Native American or Indian literature. Makes an excellent companion piece to ýThe Heirs of Columbus.ý

In "From Our House," Lee Martin explored his youth, growing up with a father who must cope with a split-second decision that cost him both of his arms. In "Turning Bones," with the help of his ancestors, Martin explores his middle age, looking back on his marriage, the question of children, the death of a friend. Reconstructing the lives of his forebears from what facts he can discern and the skin and bones that he inherited, Martin not so much stalks his ancestors as he is stalked and guided by them; they tease him with their shadows so that he finally has "the peace of his confession." The beautiful concluding chapter confirms, in more ways than one, that his inquiry was worth the trip.