Utah Books

Without a doubt, this book is a big undertaking and doing it well has to be very difficult. There were a number of interesting chapters, but the style of writing, compound sentences combined with hyphenated phrases that went on for line upon line, made it very difficult to read and follow. This was probably the most frustrating book I've ever read, and I only finished it as a matter or principle.

This book gives alot of good information about the settling of the west and about many key figures who influenced the settlement of what was a vast wilderness area. The writing style is sometimes a bit too pedantic and this is not light reading that you'll go through quickly. However, the volume of information makes this book worth it. The closing of the American frontier and the settlement of the west are interesting subjects and this book does a good job of covering them.

I welcome feedback on this and all reviews at wstrnlibwarrior@yahoo.com

If you have purchased a river guide book or two in the past chances are you were disappointed. Mr. Ramptons book gives you just what you want; USGS maps with camps and rapids marked, hikes, history, geology all sprinkled in the right amounts.

Great color photos in this new version of the book as well. I have to say that Desolation Canyon is a terrible place, dont go there. I have been over a dozen times so I know what I am talking about :-)

After our 2nd day on the river, we had to seriously wonder if Mr. Rampton had ever actually been down this stretch of river. The camps he had marked didn't exist, and we discovered some great areas never mentioned in the guide. I realize rivers change, but after using various guides for the Grand Canyon, Gates of Lodore, San Juan, Rogue and Snake Rivers, this 2003 edition was one of the most inacurate guides I'd ever had to use. Thank goodness others on our group had the older Belknap's guide and had actually been on the river before.

The color topo maps were nice, but printed on too large of a scale to be easy to follow. You also have to flip back and forth between the mile-by-mile description and the maps in the back, so the book binding takes a beating. Both front and back covers had fallen off before the end of the trip. The most entertaining part of the guide was by far the description of the author's solo trip entitled "Solitude". The narrative provided hours of laughter as we read and reread the passages and even expanded the story, using his crazy, descriptive style.... "Raindrops seemed like intelligent missles that would guide themselves through any opening...."

There's some good, basic info in this guide, but don't let it be the only resource you have.

Mr. Yorgason may know his Mormon history but he sure blew it with the rest of this story. His credits claim that he has degrees in history but it's more than obvious that he didn't bother to use anything he learned about researching the subject before he put this one together! He's used one reference (and we all know which one it is)without bothering to authenticate any of the details and, unfortunately, he's so far off the money that he took much more than "literary license" with a story that was confusing enough already. Now he'll have even more people mixed up about what happened since some obviously can't separate fact and fiction. How would Civil War buffs like it if an author moved the date of the Gettysburg fight by a month!!

This is an excellent book and I liked the story line, but I found the author to be lacking in his ability to use simple descriptive words. This made it difficult to keep up with the story. I don't mind stretching my vocabulary some, but there were times these unusual words caused me to drift from the story. Like I said, I did like the story itself, except for the female lead character repeating her efforts to repent of her sins. It became a little boring there. But overall I give it 4 stars...A good book. I will buy book 3 when it come out.

This book provided me no useful information that wasn't available somewhere else in a cheaper or better format. If you are not a member of AAA, it might be useful, but it adds nothing that I could tell to the free AAA book(s) covering the same areas. I just got back from a trip driving in Northern Arizona/Southern Utah/Northwestern New Mexico and out of 5 sources it was the only one I did not take with me. It's possible the one I had was just outdated, but I don't think that was the only problem. Previous to buying it I looked at some other Frommer's in the book store, which seemed good. However, this (which I had not seen) to me was totally worthless.

This book was our Bible for our recent road trip through the four states covered. Accurate listings, in-depth coverage and helpful tips abound in this guide. We would have been lost without it!

Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to give this item zero stars.

Sadly, this book lives up to neither its title nor its promise. For anyone who knows anything about J.R.R. Tolkien's invented languages, this book is not a reliable 'Gateway to Sindarin'. Rather, it is an unacknowledged mishmash of Noldorin of the 1930s (fr. 'The Etymologies'), Sindarin of the 1950s (fr. 'The Lord of the Rings'), and numerous inventions of David Salo himself. It is therefore misleading to call this book 'A Gateway to Sindarin'. It would have been more accurate to call it 'An Introduction to David Salo's Synthetic Reinterpretation of Tolkien's Gnomish-Noldorin-Sindarin language'.

(One might charitably suppose that this was in fact Salo's preferred title, but that there simply wasn't room on the stylized Moria Gate on the cover of his book to accommodate such a lengthy phrase. Perhaps the switch from a Beleriandic mode of vowel-representation to one accommodating vowel-pointing tehtar might have saved some room?)

In all seriousness: the unacknowledged, uncredited, and therefore (one presumes) copyright-violating use of Tolkien's 'Moria Gate' drawing on the cover of 'Gateway to Sindarin' is just the tip of the iceberg. While the book does have an "Annotated Bibliography" (pp.416-435), this is no substitute for a proper citation and referencing strategy. One searches in vain for any accreditation of earlier scholars of Tolkien's languages, not least the editors of Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon, whose publications and analyses of much original Tolkien linguistic material this book silently mines for forms without acknowledging any of their theoretical or methodological contributions. If this book isn't already tied up in court proceedings then it certainly should be.

There are several reviews of this deeply-flawed and pseudo-scholarly work online; I urge all would-be purchasers to consult them before supporting the publication of this book (and those like it).

David Salo's humble attitude regarding his intensely thorough research has produced a work of profound and astounding scholarship. This book is exciting to the point of being breathtaking, for, again, it raises the expectation that Middle Earth was indeed peopled by speakers of i-lambi Eldaron and rich with a living, thriving culture in which the powers of Light finally overcame the forces of darkness. Elvish is aesthetically thrilling, but getting a handle on this tongue, i.e., actually allowing tangible use of Sindarin makes this "linguist" jump for joy. The organization of the book moves the reader through what might easily be one of the most interesting graduate courses in language that any elf-friend has ever taken in higher education. Hannon lle, David Salo!

Got this book in advance of visiting area. While it had some good sections, it was very specific to dam/activities surrounding it. Good, but not great, book

I have read probably over fifty books about Glen Canyon, Lake Powell, and the San Juan, Escalante, and Colorado Rivers, not to mention countless articles, all while researching a book about Lake Powell of my own.

That said, "The Glen Canyon Reader" offers a nice assortment of selections from many of those books, and a few articles and excerpts from books and magazines that are usually much harder to find. I would recommend it to anyone looking to get a rough overview of Glen Canyon history. The book's selections by Edward Abbey, Bruce Berger, and Jared Farmer, are terrific, especially the article by Jared Farmer (author of "Glen Canyon Dammed").

While reading Jared Farmer's article, a line from "The Great Gatsby" kept flitting through my head: "You're worth the whole damn bunch of them put together." His almost shouldn't have been included, because it made most of the others seem inferior. In contrast to his, the historical excerpts from John Wesley Powell and from Escalante & Dominguez seemed dustier and more stale, the magazine articles seemed triter, and Katie Lee's book excerpt seemed even more crazed and poorly written that it would have seemed normally.

Katie Lee's excerpt is a main reason I haven't rated this book higher. I just really don't like her writing, or her insanely political, idealizing, villainizing stance. I think her presence is a much bigger detriment to the case against Glen Canyon Dam that it is a help. Female folksingers are annoying. Poll America, and I'm sure the majority will agree with me. Katie Lee is like a Joan Baez singing awful rhymes about the Colorado River swishing between her legs; her poetry is awful; her cutesy sayings about the "Bureau of Wreck-the-Nation" are just not funny. Skip her excerpt, and you're reading a solid, four star book.

The book is not a bad overview, though. I really did enjoy it. I do wish it had at least a single excerpt from the writings or oral history of some of of the Native Americans in the area though, and I think the editor could have done more to find another piece or two representing modern-day Glen Canyon, a.k.a. Lake Powell.

Despite having read a lot on this subject the last few years, I did learn things from this book. It contains Floyd Dominy's out of print booklet "Lake Powell: Jewel of the Colorado," it has clues to the Everett Ruess mystery I haven't read elsewhere, and it features several stories of animals trapped by the rising waters of Lake Powell that were completely new to me. If you're passionate about this subject, absolutely, get this book. You'll almost certainly learn something new.

And, if you know nothing about this subject, this really wouldn't be a bad place to start.

I had to buy this book for a course in college, or else I probably would have never even looked at this book. I imagine anyone else who is buying this book is in the same boat as me, if so, then good luck. If you don't absolutely have to buy this book for a course, then don't. It is boring, confusing to read, and never really clarifies anything. The author explains what folklore isn't, not what it is. They explain why folklorists methods don't really work, not which ones do work. Everytime I have to read for an assignment I come out feeling just a little more stupid than I was before. Do not buy this book unless you have to!!!

Finally, an introduction-to-folklore textbook that doesn't read like a textbook. The clarity, illustrations, and organization of this book are perfect for folklore students. I wish I had a book like this when I was a beginning student.

I was so excited to find this at the bookstore; I write articles and research paranormal and folkore in Utah. However, even just flipping through the pages, there were many curious mistakes and incorrect information. For example, Dunning writes about the 'ghosts' of the Salt Lake Cemetery--and mentions Hiram BeeBee. She states she could not find any information about him, and hopes that someone will be able to illuminate this character. Well, if she was searching for Hiram BeeBee, it is no small wonder. The correct spelling is Hiram BeBee, as it is plainly stated on his easily-found gravestone in the upper, 'pauper' section of the cemetery, near the mausoleum. BeBee was quite a character--there are legends of his secret, 'true' identity--that of The Sundance Kid. Although most historians dismiss these claims, BeBee's eccentricity does not stop there. He was a very volatile, violent personality: he was jailed for murder, a yogi before most westerners even knew what a yogi was, and a modern-day sampson, claiming all his power and strength resided in his long white hair. There are well-documented accounts of his struggle to keep his power-hair in jail. It's a great story, but the landscape was lost. And there are no legends about BeBee haunting the cemetery.
Also mispelled was "Emo's grave." Dunning spells it 'Imo', but perhaps that is correct from an earlier incarnation of the legend. In addition, she describes the legend of Emo, part of which has to do with a broken urn inside the crypt. Dunning, a psychic, states she uses her 'mind's eye' and determines the urn used to be blue-green, with gold veins adorning it. A bit off the mark--the 'urn' is actually a vase for flowers, and ashes have never been involved. Even a very modest bit of research (or even psychic ability) would have revealed this.

Linda Dunning has put together a nice collection of Utah's monsters, ghosts, aliens, and other "extra-worldly" and "other-worldly" stories. From Utah's own version of "Bigfoot" and "Area 51," to the aquatic monsters in Bear Lake and Utah Lake, and those ghosts of grave robbers, she has taken the time to review journals, newspaper archives, and eye-witnesses of those events that, literally, tales are made of.

Dunning clearly states that she is a skeptic, but concludes that there are enough weird events that happen to make her a believer that strange activities, beings, and places are afoot.

Perhaps Bigfoot will walk out of the High Uintas, carrying strange disc-shaped metallic objects, and accompanied by a ghost or two.

This book is a nice contribution to American folklore in Utah.

I was absolutely hooked on this book as soon as I started reading it. It is a very compelling approach to identifying Book of Mormon locations. I've read probably most of the rest of the BoM geography books. This one is by far the best. Just as the BoM asks people to have an open mind when reading it, so should a reader approach this book. I can unconditionally recommend this book to anyone interested in BoM geography. Did I mention this is my favorite BoM geography book?

The only thing more confusing and bizarre than the premise, which is that the place names in Mesoamerica is the key for locating actual places in the Book of Mormon, is the author's incredible certainty that he is correct. In fact, the entire tone of the book reflects a confidence that his arguments simply fail to support.

As he explains it: "[I] assume that current Mayan dialects have undergone a lengthy metamorphosis starting from ancient Hebrew, Sumerian, and the other Middle Eastern languages spoken by the three groups mentioned in the Book of Mormon, coupled with extensive Oriental infusion. Using the three oldest secular histories of the region (Popol Vuh, Titles of the Lords of Totonicapan, and Annals of the Cakchiquels), numerous dictionaries and word lists for the indigenous dialects and related languages, ancient maps, current archaeological charts and reports, and the geographical descriptions contained in the Book of Mormon, [I] meticulously trace place names in Central America to Book of Mormon cities."

"Assume" is the key word here.

Unfortunately, this results in a silly and unscholarly approach that reflects poorly on true Book of Mormon geological research, which has been more effectively and responsibly furthered by Dr. John L. Sorenson and Dr. John E. Clark. Even newcomers like James Warr offer new and insightful possibilities to an increasingly respectful field that is growing with the knowledge of Mesoamerican peoples and cultures.

Alas, Pate's approach is marred by his overbearing audacity and certainty that he is right and everyone else is wrong. He is the sort who packs his slides under his arm to give informal talks and fireside addresses to easily impressed and grossly uneducated audiences.

His belief that similarities between modern place names and formal names in the Book of Mormon can be traced and linguistically correlated should raise a red flag on common sense alone. Only in confirming sites could it even serve in this capacity (and then only very carefully). But the ease of Pate's overactive imagination impressed even him: "A propitious linguistic link led me to examine Guatemala and El Salvador as a potential Book of Mormon site. From there, locations kept falling into place until it became apparent through the mounting evidence that I had hit pay dirt. As I began finding city names on maps and in the old indigenous literature, I thought, This is too easy, am I missing something?"

No kidding! In short, this book is even poor speculation. The author would better serve this field by taking up UFO and crop circle research.

This book was not worth the paper it was printed on. This bookwas a very difficult read because of the poor editing, and many factmistakes. Havn't they ever heard of a spell checker? I would not recommend this book for anyone interested in the mormon battalion. Rather, try to get your hands on a copy of Daniel Tyler's book. END

The Mormon Battalion is a result of apparently careful scholarship brought to print with an eye for anecdote straight from the original diaries of the participants. Characters come to life through their own words. Anyone interested in the early frontier period of western US history should own this book. Unfortunately, several "typos" throughout were distracting