Southwest Books

I am a librarian who uses reference books everyday and I'm impressed with how user friendly this book is. The first 70 or so pages have nice big photographs of plants that are easy to identify. This pictorial guide will assist those with a limited knowledge of the flora to recognize some of the most common trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants in the Southwest.

Flipping thru the book I realized that the big 'juniper' in my Mom's front yard is really an Arizona cypress. The line drawings of the berries in the description section of the book convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt I need to rename it. I had just taken someones word for it and now I checking the book and see I've been wrong for years.

The descriptions are rich with plant lore. The Arizona Cypress may live to be 700 years old and Native Americans used it to treat all skin fungus infections. These descriptions are obviously the result of a lifetime of studying and collecting information on these plants.
The book is a fine example of the great things that can be achieved by small regional presses these days. Anyone with an interest in native Southwest plants should make sure they have a copy on their shelf.

First of all, let me confess - I am an armchair traveller with respect to the Indian Ocean! Still saving up my few bob to go to some of the wonderful places mentioned in this book.

The book is amazingly detailed, especially in detailing the culture and history of the islands, and very readable.

My only criticism is that more photos would have been better!

2006 Update (above was 1999) - finally went to Madagascar and loved it! Iain, let's have a new edition! Until then travellers should check out Hillary Bradt's guide.

This is the very best book as a resource book on the Comstock Lode. It has the advantage of 100 years of history, the ability to amass all of the figures on such things as dividends, tons of material, freight.

It also hs the advantage of knowing what happened to the leading characters of the Comstock.

No student of the Comstock should be without this book.

Loved the book. The patterns are very southwestern and very well done. Would love to have more of her books. But cant find any. The patterns are very helpful in making up my own patterns and the colors she uses are bold and very well put together.

I ordered this after by chance coming upon a tossed out copy of another of Wolfert's cookbooks. I can only assume the person did not like to cook. Wolfert deserves as much acclaim as Julia. This is authentic, delicious French cooking, and with a mind to --somewhat--reduced cholesteral. No collection should be without it. I intend to hunt down all of her other books.

What a refreshing look at Hispanic folklore. Now we can relish the stories we grew up hearing as young latino children. Our parents' and grandparents' stories handed down throughout the generations, welcome us once again in listening to these audio tapes of "The Corn Woman." Didn't you ever wonder where your parents and grandparents stories got their roots from? Try listening to this series and perhaps you will find your answer. These stories add spice to our imaginations. They take us back to our youth, as if we were hearing them for the first time from our elders. Enjoy the splendor of hearing these folklore stories in either Spanish or English, with your purchase of this audio series.

This collection of folk literature is valuable for anyone teaching bilingual Spanish/English literature. It is also very useful for teachers of Spanish language, anthropology , children's literature, and folklore. I am using it in a college level writing class. Stories are printed in both Spanish and English. They are short and well-written, retaining the flavor of the original in the translation.

J. Frank Dobie was a folklorist of Texas and "Coronado's Children" may be his best and most famous book. He was born in 1888 and bridged the old west and modern times. CC was written in 1930 when many of the old timers, who knew how to spin a yarn, were still around. Dobie sought them out and recorded their stories of lost gold and buried treasure. He was also a serious scholar who rummaged through Spanish and American archives to give authenticity to his stories -- and he was not adverse to saddling up a horse and doing a little on-the-ground research.

"Coronado's Children" has inspired thousands of otherwise normal people to pick up a shovel and head off to some god-forsaken wasteland to dig in the ground looking for the "Lost San Saba Mine," the booty of pirate Jean Lafitte, or the $2 million the James boys supposedly buried in the Wichita mountains of Oklahoma. These are the kind of stories that dreams are made of -- and who knows? Some of them might be true.

Dobie has collected nineteen tales in CC and he tells them beautifully in prose that is conversational and colorful. He has enormous respect for the land and the Indians, the Mexicans, and the Anglos who live in the harsh, dry country of the southwest. An oft-used adjective to describe his stories is "magical" and so they are. "Coronado's Children" is an American classic.

Smallchief

Masterfully written, narrated, and prodigiously researched for twenty years, Jerry Thompson's Cortina finally provides a balanced and contextualized life of Juan Nepomuceno "Cheno" Cortina. Cortina was a South Texas Mexican ranchero whose fight to "defend the Mexican name" and whose struggle for equality and justice in Texas manifested itself as social banditry that violently culminated in the "Cortina Wars" in the mid-nineteenth century.

Cortina's early social-banditry embodied the frustration and resentment of the countless ethnic Mexicans who for generations had owned and worked the land that would become U.S. territory as a result of the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty, and as a consequence much of it lost to Anglo newcomers via legal, extra-legal and illegal means. Cortina became more than an avenger of perceived and actual wrongs against ethnic Mexicans in Texas, however; he also participated in the major conflicts that convulsed Mexico beginning with the U.S. war on Mexico, through the War of the Reform and the French Intervention. His actions in these conflicts allowed him to ascend to important and powerful Mexican military and political positions from which he emerged as a respected and courageous defender of the Republic prior to the advent of the Pax Porfiriana. His actions often resonated as far away as Washington, Mexico City and even Paris, France. Nonetheless, even in defending the nation, he remained very much a norteño whose allegiance was mostly to his region and ultimately his personal interests.

Thompson rescues Cortina from the one-dimensional "most insolent...bandit" or "red-robber of the Rio Grande" caricature found in earlier histories by authors such as J. Frank Dobie, Walter Prescott Webb and others by providing us with a rich tapestry of a "man of immense nuances, contradictions, paradoxical views, and incredible survival instincts." He presents a fully fleshed-out, warts-and-all man, properly contextualized in the chaotic times of a violent and vivid land. Thompson has assuredly enriched the body of knowledge of both Mexican and Texas history.

Well the book is an in depth look at the famous spur makers and some not so famous and the history of Spurs in the New World. Some minor inconsistencies in information about when a maker or company marked their products. I enjoyed the extensive list of little known makers and their style points in the back of the book. If your looking to see the makers marks in a book; well... be satisfied with the history and folklore and construction. The omission of showing historical documentation of the maker marks of the makers reviewed is a glaring one. Cowboy Spurs... is informative and chock full of biographical tidbits on the best of the best custom and production spur makers. I bought Cowboy Spurs and Their Makers but then I ordered Cowboy Bits and Spurs by Joice Overton which is more helpful with Identification and styles; a Schiffer book.