Nevada Books

The average Joe has never heard of Jose Antonio de Aguirre and likely would never hear of him unless he had an interest in the Basque people and culture. However obscure he is to most, Aguirre is an important figure in the modern history of the Basque people because he was their elected leader at the time of Franco's Falangist rebellion in Spain and he was one who managed to escape with his life and to publicize the Basque struggle in the west.
To me, the Basques are the Irish of the Latin world. All through their history, they have fought for liberty against one oppressor after another. And like the Irish, millions of them fled overseas to become people of substance and influence in their adopted countries. The Irish diaspora has produced many great men and women in the Anglo-Saxon world and beyond. The Basque has done likewise in the Latin world and beyond. The Irish finally got their own state in the twentieth century, but the Basques are still waiting for theirs.
Escape Via Berlin sounded to me like it would be an exciting book, full of intrigue and harrowing escapes, and in some ways it is. But in other ways it plods along and gets bogged down in minutiae that occasionally exasperated me.
The book is really three-in-one, with a series of unconnected dissertations at the end. Part One sets the scene, gives the background of the Spanish/Basque conflict, and finds Aguirre trapped in Belgium after the German occupation. I found this section maudlin, preachy, and repetitious.
Part Two is the meat of the story and shows that in addition to being earnest and whiny, Aguirre could often be very funny. In this section, Aguirre assumes the persona of the Panamanian Dr Alvarez with the help of a score of sympathetic Latin American diplomats and after much bureaucratic finagling, is able to leave Germany and its occupied territories via Sweden. Aguirre recounts many incidents during his residence in Berlin and Hamburg that leave the reader wondering just how he ever managed to get out without being discovered. There is the added benefit of Aguirre's first hand observations of ordinary life in Nazi Germany under wartime conditions.
The third part recounts his escape to Sweden, conditions in Sweden, the difficulty of leaving Sweden, then finally getting passage on a ship and having to undergo one last brush with the Gestapo on the way into the North Atlantic and onward to South America. Here he resumes his preachy hand-wringing but manages a few nice slaps at bureaucracy wherever he encounters it.
The reader can stop after Part Three unless he/she wishes to read through Aguirre's musings on a variety of topics, most of which touch on the postwar political dispensation in the world, but especially Spain. The Basque President is quite the thinker, naive in some ways but realistic and original in many others. When reading of Aguirre's thoughts on the role the spread of liberty will play in bringing world peace, I thought of George W Bush and the neocons. When he wrote of some of the reforms he was able to effect in the Spanish Basque provinces before he was exiled by the Falangist victory in the Spanish Civil War, I thought of socialism at its core ideal: a hand up, not a hand out. When he wrote of a meritocratic society with minimum standards of living for the working poor, I thought of a man who was in many ways ahead of his time. But at the end of that appendage I was left wondering why it is that any talk of Basque autonomy never includes those Basque provinces controlled by France?
Though I enjoyed Escape Via Berlin overall, I found that it lacks a unifying theme. Part of that may be the fault of the translators and part of it is surely the fault of the editors who freely admit in notes to bowdlerizing many passages to avoid offending certain unnamed groups. Despite the book's many faults,it should be of interest to anyone who is interested in the Basques.

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"Once you're in the cancer world, everything's iffy," says one the main characters in Gerald Haslam's new novel, "Grace Period." That honest fatalism, informed by a medically undeniable grasp of mortality, pervades this book and makes it both a sad tale of ever-approaching loss and a moving story of love and redemption.

Marty Martinez is a Sacramento journalist in his mid-60s when, in the course of a few fast years, his son dies of AIDS, his wife leaves him and he is diagnosed with prostate cancer. So undone by his traumas, one evening he is sitting out in his backyard with a can of gasoline and a box of matches. But he soon enough realizes there is help for him yet. It comes in many forms: counseling, a support group, an uneasy return to his Catholic faith, and eventually it comes through the love of a woman, Miranda, who is also battling cancer, and the love of a family from whom he's been estranged.

There have been a lot of good books of late about aging and dying, and not all of them have been written by Philip Roth. Unlike Roth, Haslam is not much of a literary stylist, but his novel is a straightforward and unvarnished look at the struggles in cancer world. He fully immerses the reader in the excruciating particulars of living with and battling the disease. As if taking heed of Susan Sontag's exhortations in her famous essay "Illness as Metaphor," he seeks to rescue this all-too-common experience of cancer from what Sontag deemed the general perception of it being "obscene."

And so Haslam spares no details. Perhaps because the main character is a reporter, and one who will come to write about his battle with prostate cancer for his newspaper, there is an abundance of medical information that sometimes bogs down the narrative. He takes you very specifically through the many tests, check-ups, exams, chemo and hormone treatments, and post-op side effects (ever wonder about the workings of a penile pump?), and it can get a little clinical and monotonous.

But it also gives the novel authenticity. This is no slapped-together compilation of research. This is lived experience, the often tedious and painful routine of fighting sickness, an insider's look at the "ethnicity of the ill." Haslam captures the constant fluctuations, the increasingly ephemeral joys and, ultimately, the fateful resignation of Marty and Miranda in cancer world. Toward the end, Marty reflects, "The amazing thing to me about all this -- my health problems as well as hers -- was how matter-of-fact they'd become; there was no movie background music, no crescendos or diminuendos, just two people alive and responding as best they could to tough problems."

That said, the book does have its flaws. Some readers may be bored and even put off by the heavy reportorial vein of the narrative. Though Haslam knows he's writing fiction, and knows the "cut burn poison" particulars only work within the larger context of real human drama, too often that drama is mawkishly rendered and over-determined.

Difficult family relations are too easily resolved, hugs of forgiveness abound, and other than the two damaged lovers, the rest of the characters are paper-thin. If only the stress and strain and resentment that surface -- and sometimes in surprisingly ugly ways -- amid lingering illnesses could be as easily managed in real life as they are in this novel. If only borrowed time could be so reassuringly well spent and tidily ticked down. This is to say that the novel's secondary story lines lack true complexity.

Then there is Marty and Miranda's relationship with Catholicism. In the theology classes they attend, and later in one of Marty's investigative assignments, we get a neat little sampler of all the contemporary church issues plucked from the news. From pedophile priests to debates about homosexuality, the virgin birth and celibacy, none of this is especially fresh or well integrated. The mystery and vulnerability that arises when Marty, a self-described "foxhole Catholic," searches for spiritual comfort during his illness is too quickly co-opted by headlines. A better-realized and more personally oriented struggle with his faith would have added another, richer dimension to him.

But we all know there are books with obvious flaws that nonetheless seduce us. This, for me, was one of them. Perhaps I am simply a sucker for stories of perseverance and desperate love, but aren't we all? Haslam shows us that grace can indeed conquer the indignities and impoverishments of dying. By the book's end, I was genuinely moved, and I suspect you will be, too.

Adam Hill teaches literature at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.

Ex-Texas Ranger (Johnny Canavan) versus the gunthrowers. Well-written fiction that's very easy to read. I grinned a few times with the subplot of the story: Canavan dealing with the demands of the female, Ardis Lundy. The paperback is worth your time, good way to spend a few relaxing hours.

This book fills a void in the history of the state of Nevada. But the author spends much time blind to the factors that devealop the state as a whole and their impact on Nevada's hispanics, and rather focuses on how the hispanics were just sufferers of white majority's whims. Nevada has a rich history of many races (Including many Chinese) and the facts presented in the book are befitting of Nevada's Hispanics. But the writing is choppy at best, and a second edition is sorely needed. The book seems as if it was very rushed towards it's finishing pages.

I read the 2nd Edition, Revised, of this book and the account of Nevada from 1860 to 1900 was exciting because Nevada was a weird and exciting place during those years. but I did not find the account of 20th century Nevada too interesting, even tho the book devotes full attention to the political history of the state, which I would ordinarily have thought would guarantee my finding this a good book. For a really good state history, read History of North Dakota, by Elwyn B. Robinson. I found that state history (I am not from either Nev. or ND) unputdownable.

Provides forms to copy and use or a way to get them on disk. Would be better to just include a CD in the book jacket. Probably set up to get you mailing address for future spam.

The City is grand. The book does an adequate job in describings sites and getting you around town. Was it the best book? It worked well for us although we were looking for more definitive 'must see's.

If you are looking for a guidebook that packs in lots of information alongside a ton of color pictures, this would be the one. It has an extensive history section and details the features of all of the major hotels and attractions. Take note that it is produced by the Discovery Channel, because it reads much like the channel's documentaries. That is the guide's downfall. While it is tall on info, it is horrible short on critique. It does not rate the hotels, restaurants, or attractions. If you want a really helpful guidebook, with lots of tips and advice, check out "The Unofficial Guide". The Insight Guide is a good secondary guidebook through which to read up on general Las Vegas info. Just don't make this one the first or only guide you buy about the city if you really want some insight.

MAHOGANY'S REVELATION by Nevada York is one woman's quest to find the truth. A friend of hers, Dawn, who is searching for the son she gave up for adoption six years ago, questions her beliefs in Christianity, and Mahogany goes on a search to find the real story. A young Jewish man who finds Mahogany attractive, and his minister, the pastor of the Calvary Fellowship Church, aid her by explaining Biblical prophecy.

Meanwhile, a major terrorist attack on Washington D. C. changes the world. An earthquake in Israel destroys the mosque that stands on the site of Solomon's temple. The President of the United States is contemplating a nuclear strike on Syria, whom he believes responsible for the gas attack that killed 7,000 Americans, and an Arab cardinal, David Ibraham, is elected Pope in Rome. Some people in powerful positions feel that the Biblical prophesies regarding the end times and the coming of Christ are imminent and they are eager to help bring it about more quickly.

MAHOGANY'S REVELATION is an interesting and quick read. I do wish that more in-depth information about the real issues between the Palestinians and the Israelis had been explored, if it was going to be mentioned at all, rather than just the spouting of the widely accepted fundamentalist view that the Palestinians must be driven out to fulfill Biblical prophesy. As a Christian, I am sure God is capable of taking care of His own prophesy without the aid of mankind. Also, there was an instance where the new Pope is going to be chosen and the man, David Ibraham, is described as a Muslim in one place and the next, he is a Christian. While I understand that the man was not who he said he was, that was confusing. All in all, the drama made the book worth reading.

Reviewed by alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

The Tahoe map coverage is a little disappointing as only major trails in the immediate vicinity of the lake are included. However, the Point Reyes map is fairly extensive and includes trails throughout the better part of southern Marin county. Trails have a difficulty rating and a highlighted trail demarcation that were helpful but not as straight forward to understand as they could be.