Nevada Books

I saw this book in the bargain bin at a local used book store for a quarter and I said "what the heck". I think I got a pretty good deal for 25 cents. The book focuses on the main character named Meade Slaugheter and his rise in the world of the Nevada gambling scene. I found the story line to be fairly interesting with enough twists and turns to warrant reading on. Having no real knowlege of the gambling world helped me keep focused on the story and characters rather than on looking for exciting gambling stories and situations. The only thing I really had to complain about was trying to keep track of all of the different names and places that were thrown around to explain parts of the storyline. If you are looking for a decent book about the history of gambling and hotels in Nevada that focuses more on the behind the scenes financial aspects then give this book a read. However if you are looking for a book filled with fast paced casino action with stories of dealers, cheats, legendary games, and tricks of the trade, then I would focus my attention elsewhere.

Clint McCullough's "Nevada" is an amazing look at the rise of the state of Nevada as a gambling powerhouse through the fictional accounts of a strong-willed entrepreneur Meade Slaughter as he works his way up from carnival barker to owner of a major casino. Historical references to actual people and real events make this book an exciting read. Caution: Strong sexual content, exploration of drug abuse and some violence but all are relevant to the plot of the story. Excellent story, well worth reading.

NEVADA TRIVIA is by far one of the best of the state trivia books. This is due to the colorful history of the state of Nevada as well as the obvious skill of the authors, including the depth of their research. I would highly encourage anyone who lives in Nevada, the many people who visit there, or anyone who is intrigued by the mystique of this famous gambling state to buy a copy of this interesting book.

The Nevada Trivia Book by Richard Moreno is another trivia book devoted to fascinating facts about Nevada. It differs from the Bouton book by offering more indepth answers to the trivia questions and includes substantially more historical information. I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in Nevada.

This is the story about a couple that end up surviving a plane crash in the Nevada desert. Leah is 22 years of age and Reilly is somewhere in his 30's. It is a story about survival, love and understanding about cultures. I liked this story because the hero and heroine don't try to make each other jealous with past or present lovers.

This book seemed to pick up where Ms. Sattler's 'Wild Cherries' left off. This book has Travis, an ex-CIA agent who ends up in an emergency room where nurse Randi is. Little does Travis know, but long ago Nurse Randi worked in a fertility clinic where Travis made a 'deposit', and now he has a son that he is shocked to discover. Randi is a virginal mother, extremely fearful of all men because of sexual abuse as a child, but Travis is patient and although at first he was more interesting in getting to know his son, his feelings for Randi grows and grows until he's fallen hook, line, and sinker. I also enjoyed Travis' downhome country attitude that's always polite to the ladies. Very affecting. It takes awhile for Randi to overcome her childhood memories, but the pay off is great. This book is not as romantic as 'Wild Cherries', but still very good. I would recommend it well.
Cyndi

I bought this after reading "M is for Mitten; A Michigan Alphabet" because I live in Michigan and the book was Fabulous. It was a hit with me and my son and everyone else who read it. Too bad "S is for Silver" was done by different people. I ordered it sight unseen and was very disappointed. The verses were not as well written and the content was not near as good as the Michigan book. I never would have bought it as a gift for someone had I read it first...

The "Discover America State By State, Alphabet Series" is wonderful.
The books are written so they include a version for children and a more detailed history for the whole family.
We have purchased four of the books. Our 5 year old granddaughter requested the Nevada one as she lives there.

Many of the selections within this book contain little more than increasingly tedious descriptions of wilderness scenery.

Contents -

William Byrd - History of the Dividing Line
William bartram - Travels in Florida
Meriwether Lewis - Across the Continent
George Catlin - Buffalo Country
John James Audubon - Missouri River Journals
John C. Fremont - West of the Great Basin
Francis Parkman - Hunting Indians
Henry David Thoreau - "Ktaadn"
Clarence King - Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada
John Wesley Powell - Exploration of the Colorado River
Clarence Dutton - Canyon Country
Verplanck Colvin - Adirondack Wilderness
Isabella Bird - A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
Plenty Coups - Vision in the Crazy Mountains
Theodore Roosevelt - Hunting in the Badlands
John Burroughs - Birch Browsings
John Muir - The Range of Light
Mary Austin - Land of Little Rain
John C. van Dyke - The Desert
Aldo Leopold - "Thinking Like a Mountain"
" - The Green Lagoons
Rachel Carson - The Edge of the Sea
Edwin Way Teale - Land of the Windy Rain
Wallace Stegner - Packhorse Paradise
" - Wilderness Letter
Edward Abbet - Desert Solitaire
John McPhee - Coming into the Country
David Roberts - The Mountain of My Fear

I used The Wilderness Reader in teaching a course in stewardship and field ecology for teachers. I found that the book contained a wide variety of different types of environmental writing and that all of the selected pieces were excellent examples of the genre. Several of my elementary school teachers even read parts of the reader to their students.

Have to admit, I liked this book. The reason it's strange to admit that, is the fact that the storyline was so absurd that it was actually good. There were so many wierd twists and plots, but Mr. Reilly was able to knit them together pretty well.

First, this was a non-stop action thriller, and there are some interesting descriptions of weapons and weapons systems that were interesting. The book is so off the wall that it became zany and not even close to anything approaching reality. Maybe that wasn't the objective. It's roughly 150 pages too long. To use Reilly's favorite and well over-used technique. It's like the Bible written by a 10 year old.

...and then he saw it
...and then it happened all at once
...without any warning at all

Get used to these phrases, because you will be reading them a lot!

I picked up this book in the used section of the bookstore because the cover blurb seemed to be what I wanted to read at the time, a mindless action-adventure. I was surprised to find out that it was a sequel to another forgettable book I'd read -- Ice Station. I am usually pretty good about authors but while I only retained plot bits from that first novel I certainly remembered the laughable "and then he saw it" line, also used several times in that one.

The author is a horrible writer, but a decent storyteller. Both books have read like first treatments of a Die Hard movie. I was never bored, but also never taken much with his "craft" of writing. The slow character moments are forced, and the action bits are telegraphed months in advance. I can mildly recommend it, for lunchtime reading or perhaps a long trans-Pacific flight.

I read this back in high school and I really liked it. Lots of action and just a good fun ride.

Typical of all the Matthew Reilly books I have read, you don't get a moments peace. The action starts practically at the first page. I don't believe so much happens within such a short amount of time. Loved it.

I listened to this book on audio. Initially intrigued by the interesting setting, colorful heroines, and promising plotline, I spent much of the second half of the book grimacing. Gratuitous violence is a poor substitute for well-crafted suspense.

I've read a few other Nevada Barr books and liked them well enough (although Ann Pigeon is far from my favorite mystery series protagonist), but this one I really didn't care for. I picked out the likely villain very early and I was waiting for an unexpected twist but it didn't come. Really there were virtuallly no surprises and those which there were didn't really matter much. I also got annoyed and very tired of her (the author, through mouth of the protagonist) harping on the one character's fatness, going on and on about it and describing him with really contemptuous language -- it gives a strong impression of someone who is rabidly "sizist." OK, the guy is fat - so are a lot of people, so get over it. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

This is my second Anna Pigeon mystery, and I listened to it on audio. I don't do crime books, but the first was so entertaining (and so well-narrated) and well-written, I looked forward to Hard Truth. I like mysteries, but not when they feature sadomasochistic scenes of violence, which is why I was happy to find these novels. Not now. The last two discs, where Anna is captured, are horrific to read.

HARD TRUTH by Nevada Barr takes Anna Pigeon fans deep into the stark contrast of the beauty of the Rocky Mountain Park and evil of religious cults which use faith to mask their unholy deeds. This is a different Barr, which explores kidnapping, child abuse, violence and evil. It is not a story for the faint hearted, but it contains all the classic elements of Barr's fictional prose, vivid descriptions of the locale, tight plotting, sensitive and striking characterizations.
The scenes move seamlessly between the points of view of Anna and Heath Jarrod, a wheelchair accident victim who has problems of her own when Heath discovers and bonds with the lost children.
New territory for Barr, a eye opener for her fans.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.

This is just an ugly, hateful, horrible book. Although I have regularly read the Anna Pigeon series, I have always found the gratuitous violence and brutality disturbing.

This one, though, is the worst ever---I loathed the animal torture, the child molestation, the child abuse, and the extremely unsettling religious extremism. And, of course, Anna Pigeon HAS to be brutalized, as she is in EVERY ONE of the other books.

This one was the last, however. No more for me.

I am about 75 percent through the book, but I have a good feel for the writer and the content. I'll keep it short so you can make a decision.

I think the book is really full of great Mob stories/conections with Steve Wynn. It is not as detailed as i hoped, but as a S. Calif. person who is intreged with vegas, it is a real eye opener.

The main thing i dont like is that its not like a true biography. I have been reading a Disney biography at the same time and in comparison, its not as good, but then again, I dont believe Steve Wynn really contributed to it or allowed it.

Bottom line, if you want to know about Steve Wynn and his amazing ride to the top of a billion dollar corp., read this book. If you like great vegas stories, give this a read. If you have personal feelings about Steve Wynn, you will either love it or hate it.

Easy read, buy it used, and don't ever give a dime to a Wynn company (my opinion after reading the book).

If you're looking for a biography-style book about S.Wynn's road to being King of Las Vegas this really isn't it. I'm about 120 pages into it now, and I'm already flipping through to see if it is going to get any better. Here's a little on the book:

VERY detailed! Assuming all is true in the book, you can tell there has been much research and hours of connecting people together in the stories in the book. Unfortunately, the book seems to be just that, many many small stories or bits of stories that rarely link together at once. The book really doesn't have a good time line -- it's all kinda scattered, and doesn't read very well. The worst part about the book is for me it seems the author has an agenda to destroy the reputation of S.Wynn. Every opportunity is taken to say how Wynn was asscoiated with crooked and shady characters. So many of these characters one would never recognize, so there is much wrote about why these characters are shady people, so we all will know just how bad the company of Wynn was. There just seems to be nothing good written about Wynn in the book (so far) and that doesn't seem to be changing. Maybe that's just how it really is, I don't know. There's no wonder Steve Wynn sued these people for putting this book out. If you really want a copy, you can look for mine on ebay. This will be the first book I haven't finished in long time.

This is an excellent book for anyone wanting to know more about the character of the man who is Steve Wynn. It is a true account of the way he has conducted himself over his history in Vegas and Atlantic City, not the image projected of him by Steve Wynn and his company. It is well written and concise. John L. Smith does an excellent job presenting the information, including several of the more uncanny incidents Steve Wynn has been involved in over the years by merely presenting the facts as they happened. He asks some very good questions that should have been asked but never were because of who the man is. He also points out numerous things that have been glazed over by the press and various agencies involved. Very informative. A definite must read.

This book is a real page turner. It is amazing it ever got printed, given Wynn's many attempts to strangle the unflattering portrayal it in its infancy. That in itself is reason enough to pick it up and study it.

So damaging to his super clean image, Wynn drove the original publisher into bancruptcy and tried everything he could manage to keep this book out of circulation. Steve Wynn vs. the First Amendment (1st 1, Wynn 0).

Certainly did improve Vegas by leaps and bounds, but at what cost? Using public water to build his exclusive Shadow Creek golf course, buying art, jets and NY condos with stockholders money as the stock sank into takeover waters, untimately being shown the door by casino magnate Kirk Kerkorian. Once owned by MGM, things changed. The golf course was opened, the art, NY condo and jet all sold.

How does one man undermine Federal law to build a dolphin attraction? he is on film meeting with a known mobster who used his Atlantic City casino (Golden Nugget) to launder money, but can't seem to remember anything about it.

Fact: the son of a Bino Hall operator rises up to be one of the worlds leading casino developers and owners through some very shady associations. He influences Nevada politics as all people with money are able to, so no surprise there. The mob associations are clearly documented and associating with a convicted felon (Milken) is grounds for losing your gaming license, yet Wynn does so with impunity.

Wynn has brought some great changes to Las Vegas, but after reading the other sidie of the story, you have to ask yourself if the ends justify the means.

John L. Smith has done a great job with the facts surrounding Steve Wynn. Hat's off to him!

Very well researched book that is fascinating to read. It gives a whole new perspective to life in the gold mines of CA during the mid-1850s.

Look, the content of this book is awesome and provides a vital link to the history of the gold rush in California! But the book design is terrible, because the paragraph length on average, is about three times normal, and this error in design makes the text quite difficult to read.

If you really care about the history of California, you should read Roaring Camp, but it won't be easy, simply due to the overly long paragraph structure.

Truth is, this book shows just how much we take good book design and layout, for granted. I'll never do that again, after reading Roaring Camp.

How such a supposedly good publisher could allow this kind of flawed paragraph editing to be allowed, that's the real mystery here.

If you're looking for a rip-roaring yarn of hoary old prospectors jumping claims and battling over gold nuggets, this is not it. Johnson's book is a thoughtful work of social history that reexamines the collective memory many people have of the gold rush (all-American gold-diggin' brawl) in the context of the letters, diary entries, legal cases and ballads that people who were actually *in* the gold rush used to document their lives.

The picture that emerges is one of a complex society that grew up around the promise of instant wealth. For one thing, Americans were not (in Johnson's account) always the largest group of miners in the Southern mines: French guardsmen expelled by their country, Chilean aristocrats, Mexican families, Canadian traders, Chinese sailors, and the Indian tribes that lived in the area before the gold rush began - everyone got in on the action. This cultural meeting place brought interactions both peaceful (lessons on how to use chopsticks) and violent (the practise of "frontier justice" usually targeted non-whites without caring whether the person hanged had anything to do with the original crime, if in fact an original crime took place.) Johnson's book sketches a believable portrait of the evolvoing politics of the region, and along the way explains everything from the origin of Chinese landromats to Antonio Bandaras's character in _The Mask of Zorro_ (suddenly a much more interesting movie since I read this book).

Johnson's writing from a gender-studies perspective, so she's particularly interested in the issues that sprung up in a (mostly) all-male mining society. If you're from a culture that considers women's work "unmanly," and have thus never been taught to cook or clean for yourself, how do you survive in a frontier environment? For some, the answer was you didn't (miners got sick a lot, and scurvy was one of the killers). For others you either learned to practise domestic chores yourself (which you could then sell or split with others), and/or you paid a lot of money for help. In other words, the gold rush not only attracted men after gold, but women who saw they could make money selling services (of all kinds) to the gold miners. Johnson's section on the French prostitutes, for example (who were going to get taxed and inspected for veneral disease if they stayed in France), explains how the real money-makers of the gold rush were often not the miners (who depended on luck to strike it rich) but the merchants who sold to them.

The thing I admired the most about this book was the author's voice. Johnson presents us with a bunch of stories, but instead of offering just one interpretation, she gives us many possible readings of stories and also reminds us whose voice is being left out. For example, in her section on miners diaries she reminds the reader that diary-writing was an important part of 19 C Protestantism, so most available diaries are written from a very religious, Protestant perspective. An older historical approach would have claimed that this meant most people in the camp were religious Protestants: Johnson, on the other hand, reminds us that the Catholics, non-religious Protestants and illiterates were there too, but they weren't writing diaries.

Overall, I thought Johnson's book was very impressive. It won't necessarily give you a complete picture of the gold rush (Johnson's only looking at the southern mines), but it will give you a more complete picture than you'd have if all you'd ever heard was the Hollywood version of history. Looking at some of the other reviews on this site, I gather that some people get mad at this book because it doesn't squish history into an adventure story, while others get mad because they see it as "liberal revisionism." I actually thought Johnson was really fair in her presentation of history: she spends a lot of time looking at the raiding and fights that were going on between *all* the racial groups in this area, and she makes it clear that the fact American miners came to dominate the mines had a lot to do with the fact the mines were in the USA, and the government tended to (but did not always) side with natives over foreigners. As for the revisionist angle, yes, Johnson's challenging a popular perception of what the gold rush was (an all-American bonanza) but she's doing so based on what seems to be a lot of historical evidence and the testimony of the miners themselves. In other words I'm gathering most of the people who hated this book were looking for something completely different than what I would look for in a history book. If you, like me, are looking for well-written interpretation of historical evidence that acknowledges when the author *doesn't* know something, this is a good history book.

In my opinion, Susan Johnson's research and demonstration of scholarship makes it inevitable for her to prove and defend her hypothesis throughout her book, ultimately confirmed in a solid thesis statement. What I find most intriguing about this book is the utilization of sources available to bring an "unheard" story, the "othered" story, to print. In Johnson's preface, she discusses the ideas for possible worlds of social justice. By choosing to undertake writing this book, Johnson deconstructs the social space of the California Southern Mines and through her thoughtful, inclusive reconstruction she gives a place to "others" whose testimonies and experience previously went unheard in a "mainstream" historical world. However, it is the stories that Johnson brings to life in this piece that truly `paints a historical picture' of the California Gold Rush.

While some of the topics Johnson brings up such as the mixing of cultures that takes place during this time, she lacks the organizational skills and talent as a writer to make the book compelling. Her work is all over the place and it's hard to follow especially when trying to use it as the basis of a research paper (which is what I had to do for a upper division history class of mine).

Since I'm such a big fan of the show, I decided to try one of the novelizations. I got caught up in the story easily enough, and even finished the book quickly (a matter of one evening). Reading BODY OF EVIDENCE was a lot like watching an episode of CSI, and yet at the same time there were enough differences to keep it interesting--and, at the same time, irritating.

Character-development doesn't seem to be a big thing in these serial novelizations; nor, in fact, does a believable plot. And this book could have used some editing, as there are a LOT of grammatical errors that took away from my enjoyment of the story throughout the entire book.

But it is a quick read, and it DOES feel like I'm "watching" an episode of CSI. I enjoyed this one enough that I'm now reading a second, so I guess the author did his job!

This is my second attempt at reading Max Collins' novelizations based on the CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) and I'm forced to admit that I probably should just go watch the show. I've always enjoyed forensic mystery stories, but in retrospect I really prefer those tales where the medical examiner is 1) brilliant, and 2) an interesting character. Quincy was my first brush with the genre, Kate Scarpetta before she started to have regular emotional breakdowns, and, lately, Temperence Brennan. These are characters alive with emotion as well as skill with a knife.

The characters in the CSI stories fall short if you are looking for books that are as much about them as they are about the dissection of a crime. It's something like reading a script that gives you no hint of the feeling behind what the character is saying. If the puzzle drags for even a moment, you suddenly realize that there isn't much meat to the story. And if you can guess the answer you start wondering if you should just peek to see it you're right and go on to another book.

Such is the case here where once of the tales is about murder by misdirection, and the other is a grim tale that combines politics and the worst kind of murder. The stories are interesting, but having now read a few of Collins books, the plots are guessable because the author likes to drop little hints. And there is negligible emotional involvement perhaps as much as a good crossword puzzle. The book is decent light reading but you may find yourself wanting more.

The week begins for most people on Monday morning, but CSIs Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes are just ending their Sunday night shift when they get a call to go out to a local advertising agency because one of the partner's personal assistant has found child pornography on her boss's printer. The investigation is instantly difficult because several of the employees are on vacation and it is impossible to tell who was in the office over the weekend. Sifting through this Body of Evidence is not going to be easy.

IT expert Tomas Nunez is called in to assist the technical part of the investigation and he discovers which computer the print command was sent from, but when the CSIs find multiple fingerprints on the keyboard of that station, they realize that they've got a real corker on their hands. Add to that their personal feelings about child pornography and this is going to prove to be one emotional case, with more than one instance of misguided accusation.

Elsewhere in Las Vegas, Gil Grissom, Warrick Brown, and Sara Sidle are called to investigate a woman's body discovered by a local citizen. The profile of the case is heightened instantly when her identity is confirmed as the long-missing secretary of Mayor Darryl Harrison. Sheriff Brian Mobley immediately takes himself off the case because he has everything to gain by implicating the mayor in this crime: Mobley was planning to run against the mayor for his seat. Mobley's campaign manager Ed Anthony has been doing everything in his power to help Mobley, including several things he shouldn't have done.

Author Max Allan Collins (again with research and plotting assistance from Matthew V. Clements, a true-crime writer in his own right) is on a roll with these CSI novels, and Body of Evidence is no different. He captures the tone, setting, and characters from the television series perfectly, complete with the touches of humor that so wonderfully break the tension and illustrate the friendships that lie under the professional relationships.

The computer and Internet knowledge contained within Body of Evidence is just another example of the fine work done by Collins and researcher / co-plotter Matthew V. Clements (a true-crime writer in his own right and the co-author of several short stories with Collins). The details are part of what makes CSI so fascinating, and Collins and Clements do not skimp.

Tie-in novels like Body of Evidence are ideal for fans who are looking for an original CSI mystery during the summer rerun season. Plus, the stories are longer so, generally speaking, there is room for more detail and character development, making for a more fulfilling, multi-hour experience -- more like a CSI movie than a typical episode.

I'm a casual watcher of the TV show, and this is the first CSI book I've read. Since I'm not a die-hard fan of the show, I had a little trouble matching character names in the book with their image from my memories. This was a little distracting for me, but shouldn't be a problem for those who pay more attention to the TV show. Reading this story seemed much like reading a fleshed-out script for a show's episode ... a very cool effect.

As per the show, there are two cases in focus. First is the discovery of child pornograpy printouts at an advertising agency. Second is the discovery of the body of Las Vegas' Mayor's secretary who had been kidnapped several weeks earlier. I think the book spent more time with the first case, with just tidbits of the second case thrown in until the end. Once the child porn case is wrapped up, the book shifts the murder case into high gear and ends rather suddenly. One thread through both cases is that an innocent person is actively framed by the perpetrator.

Because of the heavy sexual content of these cases, I wouldn't recommend this book for younger readers. I havent yet read any other books from this series, but I will be picking them up soon.

--Lynellen.com

This is a fairly good book, the first 3 were much more entertaining. Not sure who is proof reading and/or editing but that seriously needs to be improved upon.

Another glaring error - in the first 3 books (as in the TV show), it's stated that Sara is a vegetarian. However, in one part of the book, the author has her eating a turkey sandwich!

Also, you can tell which character is the author's favorite - it's noted that a lot of space is devoted to Catherine Willows and her flowing strawberry blonde hair, clothes, how intelligent she is. Sara seems to just be part of the background - in the portion of the book dealing with the case of the mayor's secretary - Grissom, Warrick, Sara and Brass are meeting in the mayor's office. The author focuses mostly on Warrick's reactions to things said - was Sara meant to be a only a casual observer at the meeting? This is prevelant throughout the book series. Would like to see a little more time and space devoted to Sara.