Nevada Books

Two Richards, Lingenfelter & Dwyer, edit this 1988 collection of "Classic Tales of Fantasy, Adventure, and Mystery." They compile them from sources that kindled the public fascination with this supposedly inhospitable, magically hidden, stupendously lucrative, yet utterly fatal place. So the legend was printed, to paraphrase John Ford. Forty-niners gone astray, John Brier & William Lewis Manly, provide their own powerful narrations from when they found themselves trapped there, the first white men to witness its terrifying and dispiriting sights. Prospectors like Shorty Harris and promoters like George Graham Rice share their polished, yet engaging, accounts, as do editors of newspapers from the camps. They're joined by a host of flimflamming publicists eager to cash in on the crazes in the later 19th and earlier 20th century surrounding hoaxes, self-dramatizing forays after lost mines, Death Valley Scotty's mendacity, and the Bullfrog discovery. Yarnspinners and poetasters-- the best being Paul DeLaney surviving the summer's heat and Sydney Norman's debunking of Scotty-- round out the breathless array of selections.

It's a handsome volume, but it would have benefited from a more detailed map than the dated, single inset one prefacing the book. I also wish more period illustrations had been interspersed throughout, instead of only at the start of each chapter. Also, the editorial material's very slim, a short introduction to the collection and brief notes prefacing the selections offering not much explanation or context for the entries. While these do often speak for themselves, the editors could have assisted the reader who does not know fact from fiction here.

For the truth, Lingenfelter's standard 1986 history, "Death Valley & the Amargosa," gives you in exhaustive but not exhausting detail a well-told in-depth survey; John Soennichsen's "Live! From Death Valley" entertains with a personal travelogue that captures the sense of the terrain from a modern perspective. (Both works reviewed by me on Amazon and this blog recently.) This subsequent anthology, on the other hand, revels in the rather dated, inflated and hyperbolic styles of the past. These types of stories made the impressions on those who never came within a thousand miles of the desert what it "must" have been like, in all its romance, horror, and hyperbole. Some of these impress-- the harrowingly detailed yet efficiently sketched forty-niner Manly or Brier's eloquence humbles you, when one realizes the limited formal education such men likely had, and how well they used their ability to tell a gripping first-person survival account better than any "reality" t.v concoction.

John Brier sums it up: "One tires of writing about yielding sand and impeding scrub, so effectual in stretching distance and consuming strength and time." (33) Either the teller begins to risk tedium by being honest, or conceit by being imaginative. Endless pages of despair don't hold one's attention; ghosts, skeletons, glitter, and wild Indians do. These rhetorical flourishes, set to separate elsewhere fools from money, or at least audiences from spare change for a paper, may wear down the contemporary reader, but they do provide an insight into how the popular press plays upon fads and puffs up trends. C.C. Julian (surprisingly absent from these earlier reports, but see Lingenfelter's history) and Death Valley Scotty foreshadowed Tony Robbins and Donald Trump, relentlessly and inventively selling themselves as they sold you for decades on end still more of their secrets of success. They never let you peek openly into their hoard, but these early promoters know how to keep you hoping to learn more. Much of the stock market frenzy, seller panic, and buyer lust can be seen in today's e-commerce and globalized markets no less than the semi-fictitious boasts by inside traders and secrets whispered by PR spinners over a century ago from this place that still haunts dreamers and provokes schemers.

A visit to Pyramid Lake is a surreal experience. Given the surrounding desert terrain, a 188 square mile lake seems out of place. It is an aquatic jewel in an otherwise parched environment. The waters are filled with delicious fish while the shores are guarded by mysterious tufas. Being one of the great desert writers of his day, Sessions S. Wheeler has literally written the book on this strange place. "The Desert Lake: the Story of Nevada's Pyramid Lake" is a multi-disciplinary approach to what the author simply refers to as 'the desert lake.' Wheeler starts by looking at the lake's origins, stretching back to the time when the current body of water was the deepest part of ancient Lake Lahontan. Today's lake is surrounded by caves that once were homes to people now referred to as the Lovelock Culture. Their way of life is described, as well as the arrival of today's Paiutes. "The Desert Lake" shares the story of these peoples with the aide of anthropology, history and archeology. The inevitable arrival of European-Americans is well documented, starting with John C. Frémont's initial discovery, through the bloody conflicts and the eventual creation of the Pyramid Lake Reservation. In many respects, this could be a case study in Anglo-Indian relations. To tell the story of this special place, Wheeler uses a large number of primary sources. For starters, the book is jam packed with photos of significant places, people and artifacts. Written primary sources include the writings of John C. Frémont, Ulysses S. Grant and others. While starting with ancient origins, the scope spans through the years to ultimately cover modern times. "The Desert Lake" describes contemporary developments like the building of the dams and canals -developments which led to the extinction of the great Pyramid trout. This sixth edition contains an additional section on fishing. This new material will be tedious and overly technical for anyone with a casual interest in the lake. In terms of the drawbacks, the images are all black and white, despite being a 2001 revision. In terms of the strengths, this book is as relevant and readable as when first published in 1967. Wheeler's book can appeal to both academics as well as laypeople with an interest in history. The interesting conversation, large text and high number of illustrations make "the Desert Lake" an expeditious and enjoyable read.

This book does a great job of describing the routes up desert summits throughout southern California and southern Nevada. Basic maps, photographs, and detailed descriptions of routes make it a highly informative book. I can personally attest to the accuracy of the directions for about forty of the hikes. Additionally, mining and natural history add to the depth of the presentation. The only summits left out of this book that I've climbed myself are those within the boundaries of military reservations (and so it's fair to say that this book is as complete as is legally possible). Those who already own the first edition of this book do not need to get the updated edition since very few substantial changes were made between the two editions.

Although born and raised in Denver, one genre I have read very little is the "western" novel -- cowboys, rodeos, horse thieves, and the like. Because of this unfamiliarity, I do not know with what to compare Robert Laxalt's novella Dust Devils. In broad outline, the plot seems pat, almost cliche: teenaged boy wins Arab horse for bronco-riding in rodeo; horse thieves steal animal; boy and best friend -- an Indian -- take off after thieves and regain horse; boy shot by thieves and nursed back to health by shaman and Indian girl whom boy loves; boy and girl decide to marry in traditional Indian rite; boy's father -- a life-long Indian-hater -- renounces life-long prejudice and embraces new daughter-in-law and her tribe. And all of this in just 102 pages! What redeems this book is Laxalt's unerring gift of description and character. His world -- both moral and physical -- rings true. Having never read Louis L'Amour or any of the popular western novelists, I do not know how Laxalt's book compares. I do recommend it. (I also commend our local librarian for adding this book -- published by the University of Nevada Press -- to her collection. One of the particular gifts of local libraries and thoughtful librarians is the placement of obscure or unfamiliar books on the shelves which the community can sample for "free").

This is the US Forest Service's gospel for plant identification in the eastern Sierra-Nevada. That means that it dove-tails with Forest Service datasets on plant distribution, which are often the only ones available.

The only reason I dock this manual a star is that it--like virtually all government documents & missives--is organized & written in a convoluted, tortuous style that only other bureaucrats seem to be able to tolerate without reaction.

Don't throw out your Jepson, but this is a great addition to the professional or serious botanist's regional library.

This book was very helpful in finding a hotel for 4 nights in Las Vegas. I am a graduating senior from college this May and my boyfriend and I were looking for a vacation spot that I could afford my half of the trip using my graduation money. The Family Fun Guide to Las Vegas, which I happened to see pop up as a banner ad while doing internet research on Los Vegas, was very helpful in finding a hotel for $40 a night in such short notice!

Thank you,

Contributors
Preface By William R. Eadington
Acknowledgements By Judy A. Cornelius
Sect. 1. Studies on the Mathematical Methodology of Gambling Games in Casinos
Analysis of a Gambling System By S. N. Ethier
Playing in Real Games By Thomas C. Roginski, Carlson Chambliss
Casino Card Shuffles: How Random are They? By Robert Hannum
Cardroom Theory-A Two Way Street By Donna Harris, Mason S. Malmuth

Sect. 2. Blackjack Papers
A Study of Index Rounding in Card-Counting By Ken Fuchs, Olaf Vancura
A Computer Teaches Itself to Play Blackjack By Olaf Vancura
Blackjack Subsets: Software for the Study of Blackjack, and an Application to Resplitting on Six Deck Blackjack By William G. Hawkins
Does Basic Strategy Have the Same Expectation for Each Round? By Edward O. Thorp

Sect. 3. Variations on Blackjack
A New Sidebet for Blackjack: Hedging Against Stiffs By Linda M. Woodland, Bill M. Woodland
The Quality of Blackjack Play in Australian Casinos By Michael B. Walker, Sylvana Sturevska, Duncan Turpie

Sect. 4. Kelly
The Kelly Criterion in Blackjack, Sports Betting, and the Stock Market By Edward O. Thorp
Can You Do Better than Kelly in the Short Run? By Sid Browne
Limitations on Kelly or the Ubiquitous "n "approaches" "infinity"" By John E. Leib

Sect. 5. New Games and Wagers
Blackjack: Betting the Klondike's "Free Ride" By Peter Griffin, Edward O. Thorp
An Analysis of Caribbean Stud Poker By Peter Griffin, John M. Gwynn, Jr.
Double Hand Marquez-A Derivative of Blackjack and Pai Gow By John M. Gwynn, Jr.
A Really Hard Hardway Bet By Donald E. Catlin
A Detailed Study of Pai Gow By John M. Gwynn, Jr.
Using Overall Expected Return per Dollar Risked to Determine Strategy Decisions in Gambling Games By Donald E. Catlin

Sect. 6. Mathematical Analysis of Other Casino Games
An Accurate Analysis of Video Poker By Edward Gordon
A Short Note on the Expected Duration of the Australian Game "Two-Up" By Peter Griffin
A Winning Strategy for Roulette By Jerome H. Klotz
A Statistical Characterization and Comparison of Selected Craps Money Management and Bet Selection Systems By Ken Elliott III

Emma Sepulveda emigrated to the United States from Chile in 1974, a young college student who had supported President Salvadore Allende and thus was in some degree of peril following the coup that left Allende dead. She learned English, became a U.S. citizen, eventually earned a Ph.D. in Spanish language and literature, won prizes in photography, poetry and for literary criticism, and became extremely involved in community activism to improve the lot of Latinos in her adopted city of Reno, Nevada. She also traveled back to Chile to help Las Arpilleristas, the mothers and wives of those who "disappeared" under the Gen. Pinochet reign of terror and who were trying to locate the whereabouts (or remains) of their loved ones. These women made tapestries to both publicize and raise money for their cause. Sepulveda helped make a documentary about these women, and it won a Peabody Award.

Twenty years after she arrived in the United States, Sepulveda ran for the state senate from her local district. In a grass-roots, pavement-pounding, door-knocking campaign, she got first-hand glimpses into not only the lives of recent immigrants but others among our society's disenfranchised: children and senior citizens in poverty, single mothers and divorcees working low-paid jobs. Her encounters with disaffected gun nuts and others are a bath of cold water, although a measure of humor is included. Sepulveda visited the halls of power not only in Nevada but in Washington, D.C., to raise money for her campaign against a well-heeled, white Republican male, Nevada political insider. The reader may end up feeling as if he or she has run a political campaign.

Sepulveda's blow-by-blow account of her campaign - dirty campaign tactics and all (including phoned death threats) - is a captivating chronicle of present American society and our democratic election process. It also spins a compelling tale of an immigrant's journey (early chapters describe life in Argentina and Chile and the Allende saga), and paints a portrait of the slowly emerging clout of Latinos in our country.

Since our home is in the Motherlode area of California, the stories in this book are particularly meaningful. But they will also be of interest to anyone curious about life in the wild, wide-open days of early California.

All of the text, except for photo captions and brief asides, are transcriptions from newspaper articles, letters, journals and other documents from the period. The stories are often hilarious - relating tales of adventures and misadventures by miners, politicians, families, muleskinners, shopkeepers, saloonkeepers, sherriffs, lynch mobs, judges and a variety of ne'r-do-wells who populated the Sierra foothills during the time of the gold rush. There are also many tales of tragedy as greed, accidents and recklessness claimed the lives of many people unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who happened to look at the wrong person in the wrong way.

As entertaining as the text is (and the some of the writing reads almost like poetry), this book is greatly enhanced by the many beautifully restored black and white photos from the 1850s to the early 1900s. They include wonderful images of everyday life in the area, amazing feats of engineering, and the tough conditions in the mines. If you've visited the now-sleepy villages along Highway 49 from Plymouth south to Oakhurst, you'll be amazed at what thriving, busy places they used to be.

In total, the collection paints a vivid picture of the lives...the excesses and extremes that the Americans, Mexicans, Indians, Chinese and others from all over the world faced in trying to extract riches from the ground, or from each other.

I would like to have seen a set of maps with the historic and modern names of the towns, mines, roads and gulches. These would be a handy addition for those of us who like to visit such places and see what remains today. My only complaint with the book itself is with one of the font choices. For me, some of the sidebar text was a little hard to read.

Despite these minor concerns, I found this book to be enlightening and a delightful read. All of the stories are short so I could read for a while, then put it down and pick it up later - just the thing for those of us who can't often sit and read for long stretches of time.

Craig Sheumaker
Co-author of the history travel guidebook America's Living History-The Early Years
America's Living History - The Early Years (A Traveler's Guide)

Dear Dave, Loved the book! My main comment is "I know you have more to tell". Give me something. There's only a finite amount of time to fish, live, and then die - not in that order. I hope you can write something with a little more soul. Speak to the flyfisherman with more than "this is where to go, and how to do it". I've gotten to the point in fishing - as I'm sure you have - where the circumstances, and feeling of the environment mean as much to the fish story as the end resulting "big one caught". Go for it! Tell me about the iced guides, the hellish 4wd road to get in, the unusual presentation. In short tell me a story. This book was a great start, but I - because I can only speak for myself - would like to feel what it's like. Due to the perameters of a book of this type I didn't expect more than what was offered, but encourage you to go the next step. Die-hards don't know any better. Thank you.