F Falling Down
David Cole. Avon Books. 305pp. $6.99.
Not seen by panelists.

Farmworker’s Daughter: Growing Up Mexican in America
Rose Castillo Guilbault. Heyday Books. 166pp. Illustrations. $20.
The author, now a successful businesswoman in northern California, vividly recalls her early life, mostly in central California’s Salinas Valley, but with roots beginning in northern Sonora, Mexico. They regularly visited their relatives in the Yaqui village of Vicam south of Nogales. A swift, compelling read filled with the details of everyday life.

Feast of Souls: Indians and Spaniards in the Seventeenth Century Missions of Florida and New Mexico
Robert C. Galgano. University of New Mexico Press. 212pp. Index. $32.50.
The author argues that missionization and colonization in Florida were intertwined with New Mexico, though they affected Indians in different ways and elicited varying responses. Chapters compare Indian and Spanish cosmologies and religious practices, chronicle the clash of cultures, and portray the disintegration of the frontier mission system.

Field Guide to the Sandia Mountains
Robert Julyan and Mary Stuever. University of New Mexico Press. 257pp. Index. Spiral Binding. $19.95.
A delightful, noble effort that combines chapters by a dozen experts to provide an informative, sometimes inspiring, guide to the Sandia Mountains just east of Albuquerque. Spiral-bound, color-coded, indexed and handy; there are chapters on ecology, weather, fire, geology, flora, fauna, placenames, hiking and skiing. I have a sense that the contributors decided to give readers our best shot, and they did.

Fired Up! More Adventures & Recipes from Hudson on the Bend
Jeff Blank with Sara Courington; art by Shanny Lott; photos by Laurie Smith. Laurentius Press. 207pp. 9 by 11-inch format. $35.
Lance Armstrong, who wrote the book's foreword, recommends the rattlesnake at this popular Texas restaurant, although the cooking details are not in this volume. Instead, we have the info for all those folks who really wanted to know M.F.K. Fisher plans in "How to Cook a Wolf." Details on handling exotic foods such as smoked boar or chicken fried antelope, and how to make a pecan pie with chili powder are included. This place also deep fries avocados. It's that kind of place—your basic overkill.

F Forcing Amaryllis: A Novel
Louise Ure. Mysterious Press. 340pp. $23.95.
A good contemporary mystery set in Tucson.

* Forged By Fire: The Devastation and Renewal of a Mountain Community
Mary Ellen Barnes. Vireo House. 183pp. Index. 8 1/2 by 11-inch format. $19.95.
The author writes about the destruction and renewal of the Mount Lemmon mountain community—for many years a place of retreat for the desert dwellers from Tucson, some 6,800 ft. below. She records the courage of firefighters and others who risked their lives to fight and contain a wall of flame that destroyed 344 homes and businesses. It is also the story about the residents, who added up their losses, rolled up their sleeves, and set to work to build a new and better community. Barnes' history of the Aspen fire is a fine read and can serve as a caution for those living in forested areas.   --Patricia Etter

When a massive fire roared into life on Mt. Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson in June of 2003, television, radio, and newspapers bombarded us with the latest details. We knew, long before the fire was under control, that it was nearly total devastation for the houses and businesses in Summerhaven. Barnes retells the events in far greater detail. Barnes has done her homework, including extensive interviewing of people directly and indirectly involved, and now we know “the rest of the story.”   --W. David Laird

Fort Bowie, Arizona: Combat Post of the Southwest, 1858-1894
Douglas C. McChristian. University of Oklahoma Press. 357pp. Index. $32.95.
A great overview of the Apache wars in Arizona.

Fraternity, The: Lawyers and Judges in Collusion
John Fitzgerald Molloy. Paragon House. 258pp. Index. $22.95.
For more than a half century John Molloy, now retired, was a well-known, well-respected judge and lawyer. The theme of his book is the growth of power for the legal community and the growth of the cost of justice for laymen. (Maybe all those lawyer jokes aren't wrong!) The book discusses a number of legal theories and historical case law. He disapproves of the Miranda decision, so it is a book worth reading for that minority point of view. Undoubtedly, the book would have benefited from tighter editing.

Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, The: Selected Works
Eric McCauley Lee and Rima Canaan. University of Oklahoma Press. 292pp. 9 x 11-inch format. $39.95.
A beautifully produced book showcasing the remarkable paintings acquired by Jones, a University of Oklahoma benefactor Jones. Jones was a true eclectic—oils, watercolors, photographs, sculptures, Native American artifacts are all there. He liked everything from Van Gogh to Fritz Scholder, W.H. Dunton to Paul Klee. It is just an incredible collection.

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Gambel’s Quail
Lynn Hassler Kaufman. Rio Nuevo Publishers, Look West Series. 64pp. 6 by 6-inch format. $12.95.
One of Rio Nuevo's Look West series, this little book is the next best thing to watching quail in your own patio. The excellent color photographs portray the many moods of these vivacious birds who make our lives enjoyable. It is hard to leaf through this book without smiling. Good gift.

Gardens, The
Nellie Altamirano-Bustillos. AuthorHouse. 217pp. $14.95.
Raised in East Los Angeles, Altamirano-Bustillos’s family tree includes the Sepulvedas but she also has Arizona roots. Coming to Tucson, she attended both Pima Community College and the University of Arizona and became an effective activist.

Gathering of Grand Canyon Historians: Ideas, Arguments And First-person Accounts
Todd R. Berger and Michael F. Anderson (editor). Grand Canyon Association. 200pp. (1-800-858-2808 Ext. 7030).. $15 plus shipping and handling .
In 2002, the Grand Canyon Association assembled a group of people knowledgeable about the canyon and from this has come a group of papers, two of which are from Southwest Books of the Year panelist Richard Quartaroli, who has been a Grand Canyon river runner for 30 years.

* F Georgia’s Bones
Jen Bryant, illustrated by Bethanne Andersen. Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. 32pp. 4-10 years. $16.
This fictional account of famed artist Georgia O’Keeffe’s early life deftly incorporates some of her inspiration and sensibilities. Author Bryant achieves a pleasing, lyrical quality through her gentle rhyming and phrasing, and illustrator Andersen accompanies this with illustrations that aptly capture a few of the significant places and objects in the young artist’s life. Andersen’s soft colors and contours evoke O’Keeffe’s work without being derivative. Obviously not meant to be a biography, this book, coupled with examples of the artist’s work, could serve as a good read-aloud to generate an appreciation of art among young children, and a discussion of influences on artists.   --Deb Bock

German POW in New Mexico, A
Walter Schmid. University of New Mexico Press. 167pp. $24.95.
From German POW Walter Schmid’s diary and his letters home to Germany, this readable book presents what appears to be a fair but certainly not rosy picture of prisoner life. (The United States, Great Britain and Germany were signers to the Geneva Convention which meant their prisoners were better-treated than those of the Soviet Union or Japan). Unfortunately, only one chapter is devoted to the Las Cruces, New Mexico camp where Schmid was interned from July 1944 to March 1946. Each chapter is thoughtfully preceded by an excellent summary.

Germans in the Southwest, 1850-1920
Tomas Jaehn. University of New Mexico Press. 242pp. Index. $24.95.
Although this book clearly opens the door to further studies of German ethnicity, it suffers from being a doctoral dissertation the author has attempted to convert into popular reading. It's a neat trick that is rarely accomplished.

* Ghost Ranch
Leslie Poling Kempes. University of Arizona Press. 291pp. Index. $45 cloth, $22.95 paper.
Ghost Ranch reminds us of Georgia O'Keeffe, whose canvases reflected the shapes and changing color found in the ranch’s spectacular 22,000 acres in the Piedra Lumbre Basin in northern New Mexico. The story begins long before, when the area was a haven for outlaws, and named for its perceived ghosts. Poling-Kempes writes a fascinating "biography" about the early years as a dude ranch, and later as a sanctuary for the Arthur Pack family and their wealthy visitors beginning in 1932. She details changes over the years and how, in 1955, Ghost Ranch passed to the care of the Presbyterian Church, who established an educational center there.   --Patricia Etter

Glass Castle, The: A Memoir
Jeanette Walls. Scribner. 288pp. $25.
A really remarkable, well-written book that merits the description of “creative nonfiction,” since dialogue, often quoted in some detail, comes from a time when the author was three years old. (Never recorded and hard to remember 40-plus years later.) Unfortunately, it is only marginally southwestern, recording the family’s brief sojourn in Phoenix.

F Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co. : A Road Novel with Literary License
Maria Amparo Escandon. Three Rivers Press. 295pp. $12.95.
A kind of 1001 Arabian Nights set in a prison in Mexicali, Mexico.

Gospel Tracks Through Texas: The Mission of Chapel Car Good Will
Wilma Rugh Taylor. Texas A&M University Press. 219pp. Index. $29.95.
Not seen by panelists.

Grand Canyon Impressions
Bernadette Heath (photographer). Farcountry Press. 80pp. 9 by 8-inch format. $9.95.
Stunning photographs accompanied by good captions—it would be difficult to put out a bad book about this great natural phenomenon. But this is primarily a gift shop item.

Grand Canyon: Solving Earth’s Grandest Puzzle
James Lawrence Powell. Pi Press. 308pp. Index. $27.95.
A history of Arizona geology includes a wide assortment of ideas and scientific personalities. Try the Wayne Ranney’s book, Carving Grand Canyon, first. It is no secret that the puzzle has not been solved. Powell provides a new perspective on seemingly simple, obvious problems and an awe for the complicated planet on which we live.

Grand Mesa Country: Stories From Mesa & Delta Counties in Colorado
Abbott Fay. Western Reflections Publishing Co. 212pp. Index. $12.95.
Fay is identified as the “definitive authority on little-known facts regarding Colorado’s history,” and this book represents a collection of them. For instance, the origin of “bank night” at the movies; Delta’s Egyptian Theater; the best bootleggers and counterfeiters in Colorado; a couple of underpaid physicians in Eckert. Could use some maps and more attention to sources.

Grover Canyon
Samuel P. Echeveste. Hispanic Institute of Social Issues. 266pp. $17.42.
Echeveste, a Korean War veteran and Arizona State University graduate, spent most of his teaching career in Europe. As he grows older, he looks back into his childhood and recalls family experiences with much affection.

F Gun Barrels: A Steed Wilson Mystery
P. Morreale. Silk Lable Books. 250pp. $9.99.
Writing as P. Morreale, Phyllis de la Garza has a good time with this series featuring a likeable PI who this time checks out the suspicious death of $100,000 worth of horseflesh for an insurance company.

Gunsmoke and Saddle Leather: Firearms in the Nineteenth-Century American West
Charles G. Worman. University of New Mexico Press. 522pp. Index. 9 1/4 by 12 1/4-inch format. $65.00.
Both stunning and encyclopaedic, this is the perfect book for the gun enthusiasts on your gift list. The author writes, “My primary interest has been anecdotal accounts left by the men and women who lived on the frontier rather than on the evolution of firearms technology.”

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Happy Trails: A Pictorial Celebration of the Life and Times of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans
Howard Kazanjian and Chris Enss. THe Globe Pequot Press. 169pp. 12 1/4 by 9 1/4-inch format. $24.95.
It's just what the title says it is—and a treasure for their fans.

Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides
Chris Enss. The Globe Pequot Press. 108pp. Tangential. $10.95.
Well researched, well written but unfortunately, although mail-order brides are a stock element of western history, none of the brides in this volume arrived in the Southwest.

Heirloom Seeds and Their Keepers: Marginality and Memory in the Conservation of Biological Diversity
Virginia D. Nazarea. University of Arizona Press. 194pp. Not seen by panelists.. $35.
Not seen by panelists.

F Hey, Cowgirl, Need a Ride?
Baxter Black. Crown Publishers. 308pp. $23.95.
One of the country’s most popular “country style” speakers, former veterinarian, current poet, and Benson, Arizona, resident, Black is a good writer and he should give some serious thought to producing a better novel than this silly piece about a ravishing young woman, a super wealthy guy and a couple of broken-down cowboys.

* High, Wide, and Handsome: The River Journals of Norman D. Nevills
Roy Webb (editor). Utah State University Press. 308pp. Index. $21.95.
River historian Roy Webb struggled with a biography of pioneer outfitter Norman Nevills, who essentially invented whitewater tourism, until Webb transcribed and edited Norm’s river journals, allowing Nevills his own boating story. Nevills is primarily known for being the first commercial Grand Canyon river outfitter, but he is also the first person to complete more than two trips, running seven trips before his untimely death. Previously, the story of “Fast Water Man” had been inadequately restricted to two slim volumes. Webb’s work helps to fill this knowledge gap and joins the other recently published river journals that accompany me through the Grand Canyon.   --Richard Quartaroli

Highway 12
Christian Probasco. Utah State University Press. 288pp. Index. $17.95.
Musings and meandering on one of Utah’s most scenic highways.

F History of Vegas, The: Stories
Jodi Angel. Chronicle Books. 188pp. $19.95.
Despite the main title this book is only marginally a part of our geographical connection. Settings for these ten short stories are not always stated and in any case isn’t important. What is important is the gritty interpersonal world Angel creates; a world where almost any terrible thing can happen to almost any sort of poor soul, and usually does.

F Hohokam Bones
Peter Spotswood Dillard. Treeside Press/Electric eBook Pub.. 245pp. $6.00 eBook, $14.99 paper.
This complicated stew of anthropology, American Indian folklore, metaphysics, and grisly murder jumps around from the 15th century to the present, from Chiapas, Mexico, to Southern Arizona. The puzzle is, whatever happened to the Hohokam?

Home: Native People in the Southwest
Anne Marshall (editor), poetry by Ofelia Zepeda. Museum of New Mexico. 192pp. 11 1/4 by 9 1/4-inch format. 300 color photographs.. $50 cloth, $35 paper.
The Heard Museum has pulled out all the stops to mount an exhibit featuring thousands of objects in this world-renowned collection in order to show both continuity and change over time. Of particular note is “Indigenous Evolution,” by Rosemary Apple Blossom Lonewolf and Tony Jojola, who collaborated to produce a fabulous art work of clay and glass. In addition, this book takes Native American interviews, art, and artifacts—paintings, textiles, ceramics, jewelry, basketry—to speak of home and homeland. The Indian nations of Arizona and New Mexico are included, as well as the Yaqui of Sonora. The book is richly illustrated with excellent color photos, with Craig Smith rendering art works from the museum’s own collection. Chapters include "Home in the Pueblo Past," "Home along the Rio Grande," "Home on the Mesas, in the Plateau Country, in the Central Mountains, in the Colorado River Valley," "Home in the Sonoran Desert," "Defending Home," and "On a Path Together." Many living native artists are shown and represented. This book accompanies the Heard Museum's exhibit of the same name. Ofelia Zepeda’s poems of home will appeal to many readers. Sample lines include, “Home is a place that has the right feel,/the right smell,/ the right sense of coolness when you touch the walls.”

The book is an important contribution to understanding and publicizing outstanding examples of regional art. It is a wonderful collaboration between artists and the museum.

Hopi Oral Tradition and the Archaeology of Identity
Wesley Bernardini. University of Arizona Press. 219pp. $45.
Using archaeological studies from Mesa and Homol’ovi and Anderson Mesa near Winslow, Arizona, along with Hopi traditional knowledge, the author shows how population movement in the 14th century, which he calls "serial migration," converged in northeastern Arizona, ultimately to be known as "The Hopi."

F Horse of Seven Moons
Karen Taschek. University of New Mexico Press. 184pp. 9-12 years. $14.95.
The possession of a beautiful and bright horse alternates between 14-year-old Sarah, the daughter of New Mexico ranchers, and 16-year-old Bin-daa-dee-nin, a desperate, resourceful Mescalero Apache who is hunted by soldiers and hiding out in the nearby mountains in the early 1880s. The difficulties and ruggedness of life in both cultures is thoughtfully portrayed in this historical novel.

Horses
Jay Dusard (photographs) and Thomas McGuane (essays). Rio Nuevo Publishers. 70pp. 7 1/2 by 7 1/2-inch format. $15.95.
Two essays from McGuane and one from Dusard are full of praise for horses in particular and in general. The authors offer the history of wester horses and Indian ponies.

Hotter than Hell: Hot & Spicy Dishes from Around the World
Jane Butel. Northland Publishing. 155pp. Index. 8 by 10-inch format. $16.95.
Butel was revising this cookbook in the 1990s when it was first published by HP Books. Global in scope and still "hotter than hell," this latest edition from Northland is billed as "updated and revised" and unrepentant. The photography could be improved.

How the West Was Worn: Bustles and Buckskins on the Wild Frontier
Chris Enss. Two Dot/Globe Pequot. 127pp. $16.95.
Includes clothes worn by cowboys, military personnel, and settlers of the American West in the 19th century. Attractive graphics including interesting photos.

F How to Name a Hurricane
Rane Arroyo. University of Arizona Press. 166pp. $17.95.
This collection of poems, stories and essays celebrates a new visibility for Latino/a homosexuals in America.

Hummingbirds of Texas: With Their New Mexico and Arizona Ranges
Eugene Clifford Shackelford, Madge M. Lindsay, and C. Mark Klym. Texas A&M University Press. 110pp. Index. $24.95.
Not seen by panelists.

* F Hummingbird’s Daughter, The
Luis Alberto Urrea. Little, Brown . 495pp. $24.95.
There is magic in Urrea’s pen. In this epic novel he tells the story of Teresita, the legendary saint of Cabora, and her spreading fame as a healer in Porfirio Diaz’s Mexico where she emerges as both symbol of hope for the common people and perhaps a threat to the status quo. As her spiritual power grows, she forms a relationship with the man who fathered and abandoned her. Through Urrea’s gifted hands, the result is a book that is both a brilliant portrait of a nation in turmoil and a deeply personal story of faith and reconciliation.   --Bruce Dinges

This dramatic novel of Mexico is one of faith and tragedy. The story of Teresa Urrea is a family folk tale about a real person, much of which is supported by a trunk full of documents. Teresita, the daughter of a poor, illiterate Indian peon, was impregnated by the wealthy ranchero for whom she worked. Befriended by a curandera on the ranch, Teresita discovers she has the power to heal. Thus begins a powerful drama, as the faithful crowd the ranch hoping for her touch and the magic cure. The Mexican government intervenes, suspicious of those who might threaten its power.   --Patricia Etter

Teresa Urrea was known throughout the U.S.–Mexico borderlands since the late nineteenth century as Teresita, the Saint of Cabora. As Teresita grew (she reaches 19 in this novel) she learned healing methods. Mexican president/dictator Porfirio Diaz saw Teresita’s increasing popularity among the poor as a serious threat of revolution. The author ends at a climactic point in Urrea family history, when Teresita and her father are forced into exile in the southwestern United States. Luis Alberto Urrea, award-winning poet, essayist, and novelist, is a superb storyteller with a remarkable gift of language.   --W. David Laird

Teresa “Teresita” Urrea is author Luis Alberto Urrea’s great-aunt, the real-life “Saint of Cabora,” and a renowned late 19th/early 20th century curandera. This roving novel covers the first 19 years of her life as one of the illegitimate children of main character and patrón Don Tomás Urrea and the 14-year old “Hummingbird,” and is based on meticulous research and family history. Teresita is oft-abandoned, but studies under the tutelage of Huila, the curmudgeonly healer of the rancho. I loved the urchin from the beginning, and became enchanted with the tales and travels of her awakenings north through Mexico, and her entrance into Arizona.   --Richard Quartaroli

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F I Promised Cochise
Alice Louise Hardy. AuthorHouse. 226pp. $17.50.
A romance revolving around the spiritual qualities of Cochise Stronghold.

F In Perfect Light: A Novel
Benjamin Alire Saenz. HarperCollins/Rayo. 328pp. $24.95.
Set in El Paso and across the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juarez, this complex novel develops the intertwined lives of one family of four children, torn apart by the death of their parents, and the stresses of another family yearning to be together but uncertain how to do that. A thoughtful meditation on death, child molestation, and the generally awful things humans do to each other, especially along the border.

In the Desert of Desire
William L. Fox. University of Nevada Press. 16pp. $24.95.
A history of the culture and development of Las Vegas, NV.

* F In the Shadows of the Sun
Alexander Parsons. Doubleday/Nan A. Talese. 258pp. $23.95.
Spanning World War II, and set mostly in south-central New Mexico around White Sands Proving Ground, this novel recounts a ranching family’s struggles to cope with the “temporary” loss of their ranch to the Army, and their devastating loss of a son reported killed. The older brother shoots a neighbor boy and is sent to prison. The younger brother’s wife has an affair. All of these losses have been foreshadowed in the loss of interest in the ranching life shown by the children. Parsons’ perfectly executed, sometimes surprisingly humorous, dialogue is impressive.   --W. David Laird

In-Between Places: Essays
Diane Glancy. University of Arizona Press. 136pp. $32.95 cloth, $15.95 paper.
Often started as diary entries, Glancy, holder of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, lets her imagination roam over topics ranging from Indian treaties to a trip to China.

Indian Stereotypes in TV Science Fiction: First Nations' Voices Speak Out
Sierra S. Adarte. University of Texas Press. 142pp. Index. $45 cloth, $19.95 paperback.
Adarte surveyed 58 “First Nations individuals” for their positive and negative reactions to selected science fiction TV shows such as “Star Trek,” “My Favorite Martian,” and “Quantum Leap,” and found many unacceptable aspects: sacred objects used offensively, Indians succeeding only with non-Indian help. They did note that occasionally Indians played Indians and showed humor. She hopes that someday Hollywood will allow “Indian” episodes, “to be written and acted by First Nations peoples with tribal elders being consulted on content.” For the record, many non-Indians are offended on how TV portrays whites, blacks, reds, browns, and yellows—shallow plots, cardboard characters, glib dialogue. This book serves to remind us about the dangers of stereotyping.

Interpreting Spanish Colonialism: Empires, Nations, and Legends
Christopher Schmidt-Nowara and John M. Nieto-Phillips (editors). University of New Mexico Press. 268pp. Tangential. $32.95.
An examination of how historians in Spain and the Americas have come to understand and write about the Spanish Colonial past and its meanings for the present.

It Seems Like Only Yesterday: Mining and Mapping in Arizona’s First Century, Vol. 2: Bisbee and Patagonia
Robert Lenon. iUniverse. 178pp. Index. $17.95.
Bob Lenon is 96. He shares his gentle life on the pages of this second volume of what may look like an autobiography but really is a biography of the Arizona mining industry. Bob tells us what everyday life was like during World War I, the Great Depression, and in Patagonia, as well as his service in World War II. This book is as satisfying as sitting on the porch visiting with favorite elders, and hearing what it took to survive in the wild, working West.

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Jack Dykinga’s Arizona
Jack Dykinga. Westcliffe Publishers. 144pp. $50.
Jack Dykinga won his Pulitzer Prize in journalism for photographing scenes in a mental institution. He is a photojournalist and no matter how good, aesthetically, his books are, that journalistic orientation persists.

F Jemez Spring
Rudolfo Anaya. University of New Mexico Press. 298pp. $22.95.
Private eye Sonny Baca is called in to solve the mystery of the New Mexico governor’s dead body found in The Bath House at Jemez Springs. Someone has planted a bomb near Los Alamos National Laboratories. Baca is in a race against time. The prize is the precious resource, water.

Josefina Javelina: A Hairy Tale
Susan Lowell, illustrated by Bruce MacPherson. Rising Moon. 32pp. 4-8 years. $15.95.
Josefina and her brothers live in the desert where they frequent the local Oasis Snack Bar and Cantina. It’s lively—but no place for an aspiring ballerina to fulfill her dreams. So, Josefina decides to visit her cousin in Pasadena and try her luck there. Once she arrives in fast-paced southern California, the antics begin. Some of the humorous plays on names may be familiar to adults but lost on children. Illustrator MacPherson brings a cast of characters to life with great hilarity.

Journeys in the Canyon Lands of Utah and Arizona, 1914-1916
George C. Fraser. University of Arizona Press. 272pp. $19.95.
Ever wonder what it was like to see the Grand Canyon, Bryce, and Zion before the tourists arrived? Before the motorcar? While the region was a frontier? Then you'll love George Fraser’s account of riding horseback to Phantom Ranch, Toroweap Point, Rainbow Bridge, and wondrous points in between. Fraser tells us who joined him for dinner, who ran the sheep camp, what the horse’s name was, and how glorious the sunset glowed. He had an eye for detail, humor, and history. If you’ve been to any of those places, you’ll find a herd of delightful memories and notions in this book.

For example, at Ribbon Falls near Bright Angel Creek, they bathed under the falls on a hot July morning. “The water was very cold, but the force of its descent, probably aided by small pebbles and sand, beat the skin so hard that it warmed one up.” Or, if you’ve crossed the Silver or Black bridges across the Colorado River, you may have wondered how folks crossed before the spans were built. Fraser reports that they used a cage and two painters' swings attached to pulleys and hung on a cable. The cage was pulled by windlasses on either side. But one of his companions, “jumped in and started across pulling himself hand over hand without investigating whether his pulley was in good shape.” When he got to the bottom of the cable’s sag, he, “ found his pulley wheel stuck for lack of grease and made poor progress . . . [He] had failed to put on any gloves in his haste and thoughtlessness. The rope was frayed and burning hot. It took all of his strength and most of the skin off his hands to bring him to the north bank, and when he got there, he was completely played out.” Fraser was a conscientious observer and his descriptions and narratives are delightful. He makes us wish we were there.

Just Call Me Kate: The Stories of Fours Kates of Negotiable Virtue
Jay Moynahan. Chickadee Publishing. 71pp. $14.95.
Not seen by panelists.

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Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America: The Easiest Guides for Fast Identification
Kenn Kaufman. Houghton Mifflin. 391pp. Also available as Guia de campo a las aves de Norteamerica: la guia mas practica para identificar aves. (Translated by Patricia Manzano Fischer) Houghton Mifflin.. $18.95.
Bird watchers never have just one field guide but they do have favorites and this fast, easy guide could become that for many. It is thoroughly illustrated with photos, indexed with color coded pages and sized to fit in hand and pocket. It emphasizes identification so don’t expect much biology or history. Maps cover northern but not southern Mexico, and the Spanish-language edition is particularly useful for the bird names in Spanish.

Kit Carson and the Wild Frontier
Ralph Moody. University of Nebraska Press. 183pp. $11.95.
Bison Books has brought back into print Western author Moody’s biography of Kit Carson, first published in 1955. A successful rancher turned writer, Moody was known for classics such as Little Britches and Come on Seabiscuit. His writing from another era is still engaging.

Kokopelli
Lawrence W. Cheek. Rio Nuevo Publishers: Look West Series. 64pp. $12.95.
Cheek is a competent writer who has been tackling southwestern icons for years and he does his customarily good job here.

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F Lady Luck’s Map of Vegas: A Novel
Barbara Samuel. Ballantine Books. 285pp. $23.95.
If this were a mass market paperback, it would be called “a bodice-ripper”. After their father dies, Gypsy, a schizophrenic twin sister to India, goes off her medicine and disappears. With her mother, Eldora, India sets off to find her sister. The trip takes them through New Mexico. India spends a lot of time longing for her hot sexy weekends with handsome Jack O.

Last River, The: John Wesley Powell & the Colorado River Exploring Expedition
Stuart Waldman, illustrated by Gregory Manchess. Mikaya Press. 48pp. 9-12 years. $19.95.
A review copy was not available in time for this publication. The following is from the publisher: In May 1869, ten men boarded four rowboats in Green River City, Wyoming. Three months and 1,000 miles later, just two battered boats carrying six exhausted and starving men emerged from the depths of the Grand Canyon. The Last River tells their remarkable story. Excerpts from journals of crew members personalize the gripping text. Original paintings and a fold-out map allow the reader to simultaneously follow the expedition's route and its adventures.

Late Archaic Across the Borderlands, The: From Foraging to Farming
Bradley J. Vierra (editor). University of Texas Press. 328 pp. Index. $60.
Ever wonder what society was like 1,500 to 3,000 years ago along the North American borderlands from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of California ? This collection of 12 authoritative essays will help you to understand the people and their transition from mobile hunter-gatherers to sedentary farmers. Looking at bits of evidence, these authors develop new models for understanding how people used tools, made shelters, formed villages, worked with water and ground and shifted lifestyles. The authors blend much recent work with new theories and conclusions to provide an insightful and provocative look at the Southwest and its agricultural roots.

F League of Shadows: A Novel
Ron Terpening. Stuyvesant & Hoagland. 400pp. Tangential. $25.95.
The time is 1934, the place, Mussolini’s Italy. Briefly, however, there is a drug episode in the Sonoran Desert. This is an exciting thriller, but not very southwestern.

Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith
Martha Beck. Crown. 306pp. $24.95.
Compulsively readable, Beck’s book alleges rampant sexual abuse in Mormon families. Beck has left the church. She is now a life coach in Mesa.

Legend of the OK Corral, The
Ed Finn. Rio Nuevo Publishers. Look West Series. 64pp. 6 by 6-inch format. $12.95 .
Just when you thought there was nothing left to be said, no new way to say it, along comes this "Look West" entry, and you find yourself reading it all over again. Finn has done a nice job of sorting out the stories and the players and he has found Earp's great- grandnephew who, believe it or not, is a dead ringer for his famous uncle.

Life In Stone: Fossils of the Colorado Plateau
Christa Sadler. Grand Canyon Association. 72pp. 120 illustrations. $11.95.
Like pages in a book, the layers of sedimentary rock that are exposed on the Colorado Plateau tell us much about the diversity of environments that have come and gone over a period of hundreds of millions of years. This region is recognized as one of the finest earth-science laboratories in the world. Analysis of the fossil record and new discoveries across the plateau are answering questions, solving mysteries, and making connections that help us understand the history of life worldwide. Life in Stone tells the story of past environments and current discoveries with numerous illustrations and lively text written for a general audience.

Loop Hikes: Arizona
Bruce Grubbs. Mountaineers Books. 261pp. Index. $16.95 .
Useful and dependable.

Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church
Simon G. Southerton. Signature Books. 269pp. Index. $24.95 .
Southerton is a senior research scientist in Caberra, Australia. He specializes in the molecular biology of forest trees. As a Mormon, he is troubled by the church's belief emerging from the Book of Mormon that Polynesians are a branch of the House of Israel who were brought to the islands of the Pacific in large boats. DNA tests today indicate a "slim to none" Israeli genetic structure in the Pacific Islanders. This challenge to the Book of Mormon is one that Southerton says is not being well handled by Mormon authorities and threatens scientific careers for Latter-day Saints scholars.

Lost Trails of the Arizona Game Rangers
Kimrod Murphy. Kimrod Murphy, P.O. Box 16146, Portal, AZ 85632. 209pp. $18.
For 38 years Kim Murphy, as an Arizona Game Ranger, faced down assorted lawbreakers and tough guys and earned the respect of sportsmen, ranchers and scientists deployed at Southwest Research Station. He combines his own experiences with the life and career of Ralph Morrow, who preceded him in the region.

Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Memoirs
Charles B. Gatewood, edited with additional text by Louis Kraft. University of Nebraska Press. 283pp. Index. $39.95.
Gatewood did not actually publish “an Apache memoir”; what Kraft has done, and skillfully, is put together a lot of Gatewood’s unpublished writings, many of which are in the archives of the Arizona Historical Society.

F Lucky Strike: A Novel
Nancy Zafris. Unbridled Books. 336pp. $23.95.
Set in the uranium crazy 1950s in the red rock canyons of southern Utah, this novel brings together: a jack Mormon traveling salesman named Harry Lindstrom whose colorful and troubled behavior seems to fit him perfectly for the intermittent sales he makes in metal detectors, jackhammers, and other exploration/mining paraphernalia; an Ohio woman running from her past with her two preteens; restaurant and motel owner, Miss Dazzle; and assorted, colorful and sometimes threatening characters. Almost everyone is either running from something or driven by forces hidden from the rest of the world.

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F Maggie’s Way: The Story of a Defiant Pioneer Woman
Lucinda Stein. Western Reflections Publishing Company. 183pp. $13.95.
A sweet romance set in southwestern Colorado mostly in the second half of the 19th century, in which an independent young Irish mule skinner is transformed by love into the mother of six—a passionate fertility rounded-off by a timely case of mumps—and the co-owner of a successful cattle ranch.

Marc Simmons of New Mexico: Maverick Historian
Phyllis S. Morgan. University of New Mexico Press. 368pp. Index. $39.95.
A biography, a sample of Simmons’ work, and a bibliography of his work make this a valuable addition to the library of any aficionado of Southwest history which Simmons has so long and successfully chronicled.

Marking the Land 1
Melissa Cicetti (photographer). University of New Mexico Press. 121pp. 10 3/4 by 9-inch format. $32.95.
I love books like this. When I was a kid and my family traveled, we went by car and I’d stare out the window for mile after mile, watching and registering the scenes of landscape and buildings. Even today scenes from long ago pop into my mind. This book is such a trip, and the scenes are well rendered black-and-white photos that make me want to again ride in the backseat and just watch. Cicetti is an architect who, “received a travel grant...to document through photography, the forms, materials, and methods of human occupation along Route 66 in relation to the landscape.” She traveled from Santa Fe to Los Angeles and gives us 89 Polaroid photos of her 23-day trip over 3,000 miles. She took Route 66 and a few side roads, and shot railroad crossings, farmlands, bridges, abandoned buildings, cemeteries, mailboxes, ranch houses, and the beach at Santa Monica. Wonderful images, with motifs of architecture and geometry, themes of abandonment, connections of communication, space, and place. She pleasantly succeeds in evoking moods, emotions, thought, and recollection. (Bill Broyles)

Mesa Fire Department: Yesterday and Today: Over 100 Years
. Mesa Fire Department. 240pp. $85.00.
Begun in 2003 and completed in 2005, this has been written by past and present members of the Mesa Fire Department. It contains 100 years of heavily detailed and illustrated history. It shows significant changes in buildings and equipment, reproduces old dispatch records, lists all firefighters, employees and includes the service of “Enginettes” - wives of the firemen.

Mexican Americans & World War II
Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez (editor). University of Texas Press. 310pp. Index. $45.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.
New Mexico, Texas, California, the Mid-west, the editor has collected essays detailing Mexican-American participation in World War II. But except for the sweet couple on the cover (very possibly the editor’s parents) and the Sanchez family of Bernalillo, NM/ Los Angeles, there just aren’t enough photographs.

Mexican Americans and the Politics of Diversity: Querer es Poder!
Lisa Magana. University of Arizona Press. 113pp. Index. $15.95 .
Magana, an associate professor in the department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at Arizona State University, aims to explain politics in what she defines as the “Mexican-origin” community in the United States.

Mexico Otherwise: Modern Mexico in the Eyes of Foreign Observers
Jürgen Buchenau (editor and translator). University of New Mexico Press. 286pp. Tangential. $22.95.
This interesting collection of 25 excerpts from the books and essays of foreigners observing Mexico, starts with the 19th century and continues through the present day. It is good reading for anyone interested in an historical perspective on our southern neighbor.

Mickey Free: Apache Captive, Interpreter, and Indian Scout
Allan Radbourne. Arizona Historical Society. 328pp. Special attention. $34.95.
Panelist Bruche Dinges is the Arizona Historical Society publications director. This is the first authoritative biography, based on 30 years of research, of the Mexican American captive who was transformed into an Apache warrior, and eventuall served as an Indian Scout for the US Army in the 1870s and 1880s.

Mimicking Nature’s Fire: Restoring Fire-Prone Forests in the West
Stephen F. Arno and Carl E. Fiedler. Island Press. 243pp. Index. Tangential. $49.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.
Arno is a retired research forester with the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. Fiedler teaches silviculture and researches forest management at the University of Montana. This is well-written and easy for an interested layman to understand.

F Missing Person, The
Alix Ohlin. Knopf. 292pp. $22.95.
In this terrific (if occasionally static) first novel, narrator Lynn Fleming reluctantly flies back to Albuquerque, when her mother pleads for help to find her “missing” brother, Wylie. She finds Wylie easily: he’s a part of an eco-raider group (whose membership includes an attractive plumber) and also becomes intrigued by another missing person, an artist who may have been involved with her long-dead father. Missing psychologically is her mother, who is having a long-term affair with a former neighbor; the neighbor’s wife who dresses for success every day and then sits in a room filled with old magazines and mouths non-sequiturs as if in a conversation with a missing person; and Lynn’s married art history professor in New York with whom she has been having an affair. As the summer unfolds lives interact, bizarre plots play out, and while Lynn may not have resolved her personal problems, everyone has grown up at least a little bit.

Missions and the Frontiers of Spanish America
Robert H. Jackson. Pentacle Press. 569pp. $44.95.
Here is an ambitious work, filled with facts and figures, illustrations and photographs, in an effort to compare mission development in the Rio de la Plata region of South America with those of the North Mexican frontier, mainly Upper and Lower California. Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona are briefly covered. Rare maps are reproduced here, but are too small to read. The index needs subheadings to be useful.

F Moon in the Water
Stan Gordon. Five Star. 302pp. $26.95 .
A romantic, historical novel whose protagonist is a legendary Apache woman warrior.

More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Nevada Women
Jan Cleere. Globe Pequot Press. 172pp. Index. $10.95.
A nice collection of focused, enlightened Nevada women whose lives often lived in defiance of accepted cultural roles, spanned the 19th and 20th centuries. Excellent for young adult readers.

F Mother Fox and Mr. Coyote / Mamá Zorra y Don Coyote
Victor Villaseñor, illustrated by Felipe Ugalde Alcántara. Piñata Books. 32pp. 4-8 years. $14.95.
Trickster coyote is featured in this bilingual folktale that the author asserts is traditional in Mexico as well as among “many tribes of the Americas.” Not surprisingly, old coyote is the one who gets tricked by a clever mother fox trying to save her babies. Full pages of text juxtaposed with brightly stylized, engaging illustrations give this a wide age appeal.

Mules Go in Front, The: A Story of Hardship & Triumph on Arizona's Lower Gila
Shirley Woodhouse Murdock. Adobe House. 199pp. Index. $19.95 .
In 1925, the author’s parents, Ethelind and Harold Woodhouse, packed their belongings and a two-year-old son into a Model T Ford truck and moved from Southern California to Arizona’s Mohawk Valley near Yuma. Tough times followed but the valley had been the home of farmers for more than 60 years and irrigation was well established. Murdock supplies good footnotes and well-captioned snapshots.

Mule’s Eye View of the Grand Canyon, A: The Photograph Collection of Trail Guide Ray Tankersley
Mona Lange McCroskey. HollyBear Press. 122pp. 11 by 8 1/2-inch format. $22.50.
The publishing decision to make light grey photos even more difficult to see is frustrating. Still, the photo album of David Raymond Tankersley, a Texas cowboy who worked as a trail guide in the Grand Canyon, can be appreciated by anyone who has endured the mule ride to Phantom Ranch. The 1931 ice floes on the Colorado River and the photos of Havasu Falls circa 1930 are well worth a look.

F Murder at Seven Falls: Seven Days in March
David Skramstad. PublishAmerica. 247pp. $19.95 .
Honeymooners discover a dead body at this popular southern Arizona hiking mecca. The plot is contemporary and topical as local authorities go to work with minimal leads.

Murder Unpunished: How the Aryan Brotherhood Murdered Waymond Small and Got Away With It
Thorton W. Price III. University of Arizona Press. 239pp. Index. $17.95.
In 1977, an African-American prisoner at the state prison in Florence was murdered by a white prisoner, who was acting on orders from the Aryan Brotherhood. Thorton "Terry" Price was a defense lawyer for one of the members of the Aryan Brotherhood who was indicted as a co-conspirator. In this account, published almost 30 years later, Price recalls the details of the five trials that ensued and paints a grim picture of prison politics and the overwhelming problems in prison management.

F My Heart May Be Broken, but My Hair Still Looks Great
Dixie Cash. William Morrow. 320pp. $19.95.
A lighthearted West Texas caper in which hairdresser-detectives catch a horse thief and words of wisdom abound such as, “You can put a pair of boots in the oven but that don’t make ‘em biscuits.”

F Mystic Call, The: La Llamada Mistica
María Luisa Retana, illustrated by Steve Bovée. High Desert Productions (Bisbee, AZ, 520-432-5288.). Unpaginated pp. 4-8 years. $17.95.
A Bisbee author and illustrator have teamed up to depict the predicament young animals native to the San Pedro River find themselves in, when they are mysteriously lured to the river. A wise old owl awakens slumbering mothers to the danger. In this bilingual tale, neither the irresistible call of the river nor the critters’ magical release from the spell is ever convincingly explained. Such is the mystical?

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Native Roads: The Complete Motoring Guide to the Navajo and Hopi Nations
Fran Kosik. Rio Nuevo Publishers. 271pp. 2nd edition. $16.95.
Not seen by panelists.

* Navajo Legacy, A: The Life and Teachings of John Holiday
John Holiday and Robert S. McPherson. University of Oklahoma Press. 394pp. Index. $29.95.
John Holiday, now 86, was raised by his Navajo medicine-woman grandmother who encouraged him to take up the healing arts. Growing up in a traditional livestock economy in the San Juan River region, he neither attended school nor learned to speak English. Nevertheless, he recalled living through major periods in Navajo history: livestock reduction; service in the U. S. Army—until they learned he could not speak English; work in uranium mines and with the CCC; and as an extra in a John Ford film. Holiday said he was anxious to share his experiences with future generations. The book also includes Navajo words for reservation sites.   --Patricia Etter

Navajo Nation Peacemaking: Living Traditional Justice
Marianne O. Nielsen and James W. Zion (editors). University of Arizona Press. 223pp. Index. $35.
Nielsen is an associate professor in the Department of Crimincal Justice at Northern Arizona University; Zion is a private consultant on court matters who lives in Albuquerque. They offer an inside look at the Navajo justice system. How can an Anglo-European court system fairly adjudicate, try, or sentence people who believe in traditional Navajo values and customs? Here 12 chapters raise the problems and suggest ways to administer justice fairly and humanely. The difference in legal systems has been described as vertical justice (Anglo-European) versus horizontal (the Navajo way). The accounts are quite revealing about how reasonable people can view the world quite differently. The chapter on “Navajo Thinking,” is especially thoughtful and the book should be required reading by anyone interested in the Navajo, law, or anthropology. Surprisingly interesting.

Navajo Rug Designs
Susan Lowell. Rio Nuevo Publishers: Look West Series. 64pp. 6 by 6-inch format. $12.95.
The talented Susan Lowell wades into the specialized field of Navajo weaving. The 102 designs pictured in color come from the art collection at the Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado, AZ, which is a part of the National Park System. The photos are nice and the information interesting and, Lowell insists, the future is bright for weavers and buyers both.

Navajo/English Bilingual Dictionary, A: Alchíní Bi Naaltoostsoh
Alyse Neundorf. University of New Mexico Press. 865pp. $64.00.
An ambitious and important Navajo language dictionary written for teachers and school children. The language is currently taught in Reservation schools and some colleges, including Arizona State University. Neundorf found that literal translations from English are inaccurate. She encourages students to construct words and sentences to show how flexible language can be when it comes to creativity.

* Navajoland: A Native Son Shares His Legacy
LeRoy DeJolie (text and photographs). Arizona Highways Books. 80pp. 10 by 13-inch format. $12.95.
Navajo photographer LeRoy DeJolie takes us to his Four Corners homeland and leaves us breathless with its magnificent scenery, hidden places, and many stories. Where we see San Francisco Peaks, he sees “Where the Snow Never Melts.” He takes us to other sacred peaks bounding his homeland: Hesperus Mountain and Blanca Peak in Colorado, and Mount Taylor in New Mexico. DeJolie compares creating photos to crafting raw silver and turquoise into fine “jewelry.” In this comparison, his book is sterling.   --Bill Broyles

This outstanding production is so well written that the reader will come away with a fine understanding of Diné worldview. It features spectacular photographs by Navajo LeRoy DeJolie, who writes that his heart "is anchored to the red-rock canyons, mesas, and sage-covered rangeland of the Kaibito Plateau." He notes that his people passed through three worlds before emerging into the present world, which is encircled by four sacred mountains: Mounts Blanca, Taylor, Hesperus, and the San Francisco Peaks. DeJolie takes a unique approach by writing about, and recording with his camera, the four distinct environments surrounding each of the sacred mountains.   --Patricia Etter

Negotiating Tribal Water Rights: Fulfilling Promises in the Arid West
Bonnie G. Colby, Johne E. Thorson and Sarah Britton. University of Arizona Press. 191pp. $35.00.
Identified by authorities as comprehensive and detailed, “everything you ever wanted to know about Indian water...”

New Mexico Artists at Work
Jack Parsons (photographer). Museum of New Mexico Press. 176pp. 9 1/2 by 10 1/2-inch format. $39.95.
A handsomely mounted sampling of work from contemporary, avant-garde New Mexico artists.

New Mexico Impressions
Laurence Parent. Farcountry Press. 80pp. 9 by 8-inch format. $9.95.
This is the least interesting of the southwestern books in the Farcountry Press Impression series which includes Nevada (2004) and Arizona. They are all heavy on the picturesque. If you accept that, this book is a winner.

New Southwest Home, The: Innovative Ideas for Every Room
Suzanne Pickett Martinson. Northland Publishing. 138pp. Index. 10 by 10-inch format. $34.95.
There is no identification as to either owner nor location of the expensive interiors photographed for this book. However, aspects of each room are described to give some minimal idea of the elements employed in their decorating.

News In Texas, The: Essays in Honor of the 125th Anniversary of the Texas Press Association
Wanda Garner Cash and Ed Sterling. The Center for American History/University of Texas at Austin. 163pp. $29.95 .
Some 18 columnists/editors have produced a number of very good stories on the development of newspapers, their publishers and editors, and how they dealt with the news in all aspects. Included is a history of the Texas Press Association.

* F No Country For Old Men
Cormac McCarthy. Knopf. 306pp. $24.95.
McCarthy amazes with this elegant and provocative rumination on greed and violence set in the modern-day West Texas borderlands. A drug deal gone bad sends an old-school county sheriff in pursuit of the bystander who walked off with a suitcase stuffed with money, and the stone-cold assassin grimly determined to retrieve it. McCarthy presents an apocalyptic vision of frontier values at odds with a society devouring itself. In addition to his trademark fascination with graphic violence, there is an uncanny ear for dialogue. This brilliantly crafted novel reminds us why Cormac McCarthy stands in the front rank of American writers.   --Bruce Dinges

F No Man’s Land
GM Ford. William Morrow. 310pp. $16.95.
Beginning at the fictional Mesa Azul prison in Arizona, this thriller quickly becomes a chase when the mastermind among the prisoners takes the journalist who had written a biography about him on the road for his own form of revenge. They are followed closely by a star female newscaster determined to be the first to break the story as they all head into California’s Sierras.

NS Sedimentology and Stratigraphy of the Palisades, Lower Comanche, and Arroyo Grande Areas of the Colorado River Corridor, Grand Canyon, Arizona by Amy E. Draut, David M. Rubin, Jennifer L. Dierker, Helen C. Fairley, Ronald E. Griffiths, Joseph E. Hazel, Jr., Ralph E. Hunter, Keith Kohl, Lisa M. Leap, Fred L. Nials, David J. Topping, and Michael Yeatts. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2005-5072.
. US Geological Survey. 68pp. All USGS publications can be downloaded pdf free from the USGS website: www.usgs.gov/pubprod, or print versions can be ordered calling the toll free number 1-888-275-8747. . $16 plus $5 shipping & handling.
This report analyzes various depositional environments in three archaeologically significant areas of the Colorado River corridor in Grand Canyon.

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* Oasis Remembered, An: An Indian Agency Sacaton, Arizona, A Pictorial & Historical Review About the Place and Its People
Robert E. Ramsey. Trafford. 159pp. $15.95 .
Robert Ramsey was a baby when he arrived at the Sacaton Indian Agency in 1926. His father, a BIA teacher, spent the next 38 years in the village, while his mother worked to develop "Pima Cotton" at the Cotton Research Center. Ramsey's rare photographs recall a time when the Gila River flowed through an oasis of shade trees, date palms, and cottonwoods. A map of the Agency charts the early buildings. His school chums included Native people. He also sought reminiscences from his friends who lived in Sacaton, and who contributed their own photos for a first historic view of the tiny Native American town.   --Patricia Etter

* Oatman Massacre, The: A Tale of Desert Captivity and Survival
Brian McGinty. University of Oklahoma Press. 258pp. Index. $27.95.
For all the incident’s lurid sensationalism, it’s remarkable that it has taken 150 years for a historian to present a full and dispassionate account of the 1851 massacre of the Oatman family in southwestern Arizona, and its aftermath. Worth the wait. McGinty has mined archival materials and published sources to produce a compulsively readable narrative of the dissident Mormon family’s trek westward, their fatal encounter with Indians along the Gila River, and young Olive Oatman’s seven-year captivity and eventual return to white society. He strips away layers of myth and conjecture to explore Victorian Americans’ attitudes about themselves and toward Native Americans.   --Bruce Dinges

Both history and historiography, this well-written book adds detail and corrects errors of commission and omission found in Royal B. Stratton’s now nearly 150-year old account, Captivity of the Oatman Girls, the “standard” account often criticized for its popularizing and sensationalizing. Of the two Oatman sisters captured near what is now Gila Bend, Arizona, only the older, Olive, survived. McGinty writes well, with precision and clarity, so we know without doubt when he is speculating and the evidence on which he bases his speculations.   --W. David Laird

Obsidian: Geology and Archaeology in the North American Southwest
M. Steven Shackley. University of Arizona Press. 246 pp. Index. $55.00.
This book is overdue. It combines the author’s own research with a wide range of other studies to paint a clear picture of where Native Americans found obsidian in the Southwest and how they used it for arrowheads and knives. Students of archaeology will be fascinated. This is an important book and will be studied and cited by the next generation of scholars.

F Oh Pure and Radiant Heart
Lydia Millet. Soft Skull Press. 489pp. $25.00.
This young librarian’s fantasy is that Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and Enrico Fermi, fathers of the atom bomb, return to Santa Fe 60 years later and contemplate their accomplishments. Another book to read in conjunction with the other new titles about the development of the atom bomb.

Oh, What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West, 1846-1890
Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuster. 192pp. $25.00.
Not seen by panelists.

F Old Grandfather Teaches a Lesson: Mimbres Children Learn Respect
Carilyn Alarid & Marilyn Markel. Sunstone Press. 115pp. 9-12 years.. $16.95.
Designed primarily for classroom and group use, the authors/educators attempt to instill values, such as listening and sharing, by coupling the ancient Mimbres culture with the more general notion of a Native American “talking stick.” The black-and-white illustrations, taken from actual Mimbres pottery, are interesting but not particularly engaging for children. Despite the authors’ assertions that they do not presume any actual connection between the talking stick and this particular ancient culture, their creation strikes one as contrived, if not presumptuous.

Old Las Vegas: Hispanic Memories from the New Mexico Meadowlands
Nasario Garcia (collection and translation). Texas Tech University Press. 302pp. Index. $34.95.
Not seen by panelists.

On Ancient Wings: The Sandhill Cranes of North America
Michael Forsberg. Michael Forsberg Photography. 168pp. 11 1/2 by 11 1/4-inch format. $45.00.
If you attend the "Wings Over Willcox" bird festival to see the sandhill cranes, this book is for you. Forsberg spent five years taking the beautiful photographs for his book, and it is a tribute to the birds. Their flyways are mapped, their challenges chronicled. Listed are 18 festivals that pay tribute to these "soulful birds...ambassadors of good will that connect habitats, cultures and people."

One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey “The Kid” Ungar, the World’s Greatest Poker Player
Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson. Atria. 316pp. Index. $25.
Ungar, who showed an aptitude for numbers and gambling at a very early age in New York City, now dead for nearly a decade, is a legend among serious and professional poker players because of his remarkably good abilities and instincts for certain gambling games (e.g., Texas Hold ‘Em and Gin) and also for his excruciatingly bad instincts for others (e.g., horse racing, roulette and golf). While much of this excellent biography (which includes lengthy quotes from Ungar) is set in Las Vegas, its really marginally Southwest because geographical setting is relatively unimportant. Personality, strategy, gambling highlights, drugs, lifestyle, rehab, etc. are what it’s all about.

One Ranger: A Memoir
H. Joaquin Jackson and David Marion Wilkinson. University of Texas Press. 296pp. Bridwell Texas History Series. $24.95.
Finally. An honest book about not just the glories of being a renowned lawman, but also the pathos, heartbreak, sacrifices, stresses, and betrayal. Jackson is the real McCoy, but some of his colleagues are dead, his son is in jail, and his own life has been honest but hard. Chapters cover his major cases, his friends and nemises, his reflections and opinions. After quietly getting two hardened criminals to confess and turn their lives around, a defense lawyer wrote that Jackson’s handling of the matter was the, “finest piece of police work that I have ever seen. Intelligence, sensitivity, creativity, and a knowledge of the human animal accomplished what bluster and brute force never could have accomplished. He is the first-rate model of what modern Peace Officers should be.” After 25 years Jackson knew it was time to retire, a hard thing to admit: “I realized that I had developed an entirely different response to a ringing telephone. I started to dread it. I began to wonder if I still had what it takes to respond. The long hours, the high stress, the countless miles had exacted a heavy personal toll. In a word, I had grown weary.” Jackson was the role model for Nick Nolte’s character in the movie, “ Extreme Prejudice,” and had a part in Tommy Lee Jones’,” The Good Old Boys, “ but he doesn’t seem to have let fame turn his head. He is frank and colorful, compassionate but brave. His career as a Texas Ranger covered 1966-1993. If olden day sheriffs could/would have talked honestly, this is the kind of unvarnished, human book they might have written and that we’d want to read instead of wading through superman interviews and myth. Darned good. Not a true autobiography in a linear sense, this is an episodic account of the life of a man who is truly the “last of the breed.”

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Padres: The National Chicano Priest Movement
Richard Edward Martinez. University of Texas Press. 197pp. Index. $19.95.
The first history of the founding and operation of PADRES, an organization of Hispanic Roman Catholic priests which was started in 1969 to combat racism and discrimination within the heirarchy of the Catholic church.

Patagonia: The Way It Was
Hattie Wilson. Dawes Publishing. 136pp. $20.
Delightful collection of profiles gathered 30 years ago of Patagonia residents.

Peppers Cookbook, The: 200 Recipes from the Pepper Lady’s Kitchen
Jean Andrews. University of North Texas Press. 229pp. Index. $21.95.
Andrews is the authority on peppers—“Pepper Lady” is her trademark—and she knows her stuff.

* F Phoebe and Chub
Matthew Henry Hall, illustrated by Sheila Aldridge. Rising Moon. 32pp. 4-8 years. $15.95.
Endearingly rendered animal characters that inhabit Grand Canyon terrain reveal three simple, yet thoughtful, “rules” in life. Illustrator Aldridge captures a vibrant, joyful appeal in depicting Phoebe (a tree frog), Chub (a fish), and their friends as they celebrate a birthday. Many of these animals are endangered, and an author’s note encourages the reader to learn more about them.   --Deb Bock

Phoenix Favorite Places Guide
Lisa Takata. Lisa Takata. pp. $15.
Without an index, this is not easy to use. The market must be new residents since Takata lists hardware stores, nurseries, thrift stores, many outside the Phoenix area.

Phoenix Then and Now
John H. Akers, photographs by Paul Scharbach. Thunder Bay Press. 144pp. 11 1/4 by 10 1/8-inch format. $17.95 .
It is always fun to look at photos of "then and now" and see what changes take place over time. Here one can see changes in clothing and dress, automobiles, architecture, street lighting, landforms, watercourses, and more. One can lament the intrusion of man in the once pristine desert or rejoice over redevelopment of the country's fifth largest city.

* Photographer’s Guide to the Grand Canyon, The: Where to Find Perfect Shots and How to Take Them
John Annerino. Countryman Press. 96pp. $14.95.
Though some locations are off the beaten track, you will not expend as much energy getting there as might be presumed typical for über-hiker/runner/adventurer John Annerino. Those Grand Canyon visitors who have more time than the typical several hours, following Annerino’s advice of where and how to take perfect shots, will undoubtedly visit scenic locales worthy of superb photographs. Viewing his amazing images, however, might lead to discouragement. Film will be the cheapest part of your entire trip, so take plenty of exposures. You might not get that “perfect” shot, but your results will improve, and you’ll visit out-of-the-ordinary Grand Canyon vistas.   --Richard Quartaroli

Picturing Arizona: The Photographic Records of the 1930s
Katherine G. Morrissey and Kirsten Jensen (editors). University of Arizona Press. 247pp. Index. $50.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.
Nine papers, by the editors and others, tackle many aspects of photographing Arizona and its people in the heart of the Great Depression. Migratory workers and child laborers were popular subjects as were Arizona's Indians. Photographers included Dorothea Lange and Russell Lee both of whom became well known for their work with the grim realities of the Depression. Picturing Arizona is filled with a selection of images from the period.

F Playing Lotería /El Juego de la Lotería
René Colato Laínez, illustrated by Jill Arena. Luna Rising. 32pp. 4-8 years. $15.95.
Mexican heritage and culture, prevalent in the American Southwest, are conveyed in this bilingual account of a boy’s visit to his grandma’s village in central Mexico where her lotería stand at the fair becomes an engaging opportunity for him to learn more Spanish. Assertions on the dust jacket that there is a language barrier, but that love overcomes such barriers, are a bit confusing and unconvincing given the dialogue. Rules of this “Mexican bingo” game are included.

Pots, Potters and Models: Archaeological Investigations on the SRI Locus of the West Branch Site of the Santa Cruz River in the Southwest Tucson Basin
Stephanie M. Whittlesey and Karen Harry (editors). Statistical Research, Inc. 700pp. Includes a CD . $65.
Not seen by panelists.

* Pottery of Santa Ana Pueblo, The
Francis H. Harlow, Duane Anderson and Dwight P.Lanmon. Museum of New Mexico Press. 185pp. 9 1/4 by 11 1/4-inch format. $45.
Focused primarily on Santa Ana Pueblo in north central New Mexico, Harlow et al. also describe the pottery styles from circa 1450 to 1760 in the Puname Pueblos, which include Zia Pueblo as well. Created for “a wide audience, from…specialists to those who appreciate the art of Pueblo pottery,” none will be disappointed. The authors chronologically and geographically relate the Puname Pueblos pottery evolution, and also cover the end of pottery making for local use, and several ongoing current revivals. Over 350 color photographs highlight the wonderful artistic work of, and on, these utilitarian creations.   --Richard Quartaroli

Po’pay: Leader of the First American Revolution
Joe S. Sando & Herman Agoyo (editors). Clear Light Publishing. 254pp. Index. $14.95.
In 1680, the Native People of New Mexico were fed up with the Spanish, who believed it a sacred duty to enslave Native People and destroy their worldview in which they maintained a natural balance by performing their ceremonies. Po’Pay who was, “cunning as a fox with the determination of a bear,” resolved to rid the country of the invaders. This is the story of how he energized the other pueblos to join him in accomplishing the feat which was effective for a surprisingly long period of time. In addition, the authors write about the statue of Po’Pay that was created to fill the one remaining place in the U.S. National Statuary Hall.

Prairie Gothic: The Story of a West Texas Family
John R. Erickson. University of North Texas Press. 208pp. Index. $16.95.
One branch of Erickson’s family arrived in Texas in 1858, settling in Parker County, west of Weatherford. Another helped establish the first community on the South Plains, the Quaker colony of Estacado. They crossed paths with numerous prominent people in Texas history: Sam Houston, Sul Ross, Charles Goodnight, Cynthia Ann and Quanah Parker, Jim Loving, and a famous outlaw, Tom Ross. Erickson’s research took him into the homes of well-known Texas authors, such as J. Evetts Haley and John Graves. Graves had written about the death of Erickson’ s great-great grandmother, Martha Sherman. The theme that runs throughout the book is that of family. It is the story of pioneer women and their struggles to keep their families together; it is the story of cowboys, outlaws, and Indian raids, told against the background of a harsh environment of droughts, blizzards, and rattlesnakes; and it is universal.

* Preserving Western History
Andrew Gulliford. University of New Mexico Press. 414pp. Index. 8 1/2 by 11-inch format. $34.95 .
Gulliford’s concern is with what has come to be known as “public history”—history not taught in a classroom. Such history takes many forms: conferences and meetings, workshops, museums, and historical reenactments. This collection of papers, 36 grouped into 11 categories, represents a “textbook” of public history. For example, in repatriation of Native American artifacts at Grand Canyon National Park, a study question asks for the reader’s opinion of the Hopi “altars” constructed by the non-Hopi archaeologist Henry R.Voth. If that won’t give you pause for thought, you are out of touch.   --W. David Laird

Public Education in New Mexico
John B. Mondragón and Ernest S. Stapleton. University of New Mexico Press. 256pp. Index. $22.95.
Two retired University of New Mexico educators have collaborated on a nuts-and-bolts text “primarily designed as a resource for university students preparing for careers in education and educational leadership.”

Pueblo Indian Agriculture
James A. Vlasich. University of New Mexico Press. 363pp. Index. $34.95.
A history professor at Southern Utah University, Vlasich presents the Pueblo Indians who were successful arid lands farmers for centuries and now are re-orienting themselves in a modern world where gambling casinos appear to be a better source of income.

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Que Onda? Urban Youth Culture and Border Identity
Cynthia L. Bejarano. University of Arizona Press. 248pp. $40.
A great idea made into difficult reading by a too-academic approach. Que onda? What gives? Hard to say based on this volume.

Quirky Kactus: The Quirky World of the Great Saguaro
Ron Swartley. Frontier Image Press. 40pp. $7.95.
Not seen by panelists.

Quotable Texas Women
Susie Kelly Flatau and Lou Halsell Rodenberger. State House Press. 174pp. 6 by 6-inch format. $12.95.
Call this "maxims to live by." Sometimes amusing, always wise, one could do well to listen to these Texas natives. Some are: Molly Ivins; Liz Carpenter; Barbara Bush; Mary Kay Ash; Lady Bird Johnson, but there are many others.

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Race Work: The Rise of Civil Rights in the Urban West
Matthew C. Whitaker. University of Nebraska Press. 382pp. Index. $35.
A really nice job of tracking the Civil Rights Movement in Phoenix. Principal players include members of the Ragsdale family, prominent Salt River Valley morticians. a pioneering work.

Rattlesnake Bomber Base: Pyote Army Airfield in World War II
Thomas E. Alexander. State House Press. 216pp. Index. $18.95.
This little U.S. Army airfield out in the middle of nowhere lasted about seven years, then first abandoned and finally disappeared. This is a thoroughly researched account of its heyday, and such accounts are one of the areas where small presses shine.

* Rattlesnake Mesa: Stories from a Native American Childhood
EdNah New Rider Weber, photographs by Richela Renkun. Lee & Low Books. 132pp. 9 years and up. $18.95.
The author’s authentic, vivid, and often humorous recollections of life on the Navajo reservation, and at the Phoenix Indian Boarding School in the early 1900s transport the reader into experiences far different from contemporary life. Striking black-and-white photographs by Native American photographer, Richela Renkun, add a somewhat realistic feel. A saguaro and cholla studded landscape photo in a chapter set on the Navajo reservation is a slight incongruity. Adults may find these glimpses more charming than older kids, but for any age, Ednah’s honest tales are instructive, touching, and funny.   --Deb Bock

Real Roadrunner, The
Martha Anne Maxon. University of Oklahoma Press. 124pp. Index. $39.95.
A serious look at this popular bird obtained by years of field observation and experience raising young roadrunners in captivity. Maxon is a retired zoologist.

Recuerdos: Memories of Childhood in Tucson
Elizabeth McCauslin. Syren Book Co. 141pp. $14.95.
A charming little book remembering life in Tucson in the 1930s (and remembering when famous author Harold Bell Wright yelled at the kids for making too much noise).

F Red Hat Club Rides Again, The
Haywood Smith. St. Martin’s Press. 321pp. Tangential. $24.95.
Members of this well-publicized organization of peppy women rescue one of their own from the maws of Las Vegas, Nevada. If you liked the Ya-Ya Girls or the Sweet Potato Queens, this is for you.

Red Rock Canyon: A Climbing Guide
Roxanna Brock & Jared McMillen. Mountaineers Books. 447pp. Index. $34.95.
Just 30 minutes from Las Vegas, NV, Red Rock Canyon offers an abundance of climbing routes.

Refuge of Whirling Light
Mary Beath. University of New Mexico Press. 165pp. Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series. $23.95.
Albuquerque poet, artist, and naturalist Beath writes poems about the small details and epiphanies of everyday life.

F Religion of Hands, The: Prose Poems and Flash Fictions
Ray Gonzalez. University of Arizona Press. 160pp. $16.95.
Award-winning poet Gonzalez likes to see his poems looking like essays. His subject matter is regional and personal. Often he is obtuse. Here is the beginning paragraph for "Ovary." "This is America as a source of lightning, all belly buttons getting out of the way to let the war dance take place without applause."

F Remember Me
Melissa Bowersock. Draumr Publishing. 301pp. $19.95.
A young military wife must come to terms with her marriage.

F Return to Abo: A Novel of the Southwest
Sharon Niederman. University of New Mexico Press. 297pp. $24.95.
Three generations of women, having lived for many years apart, now together on a New Mexico ranch, come to terms with their past and struggle for understanding.

Ride 'em As They Come: The Life of John "Rusty" Tulk, 1886 - 1997
Rusty Tulk. Morris Publishing (Kearney, NE). 174pp. Index. Illustrations, brands, notes. $17.95 paperback.
Tulk worked as a hand on cattle drives while still a teen and left home in 1903 to work on an Arizona ranch, then 5 years later he became a show rider as well as participating in rodeos before settling down (at age 67) to ranch/farm life. Excellent memoir with much about cowboy life in the Southwest.

Rider of the Pale Horse: A Memoir of Los Alamos and Beyond
McAllister Hull with Amy Bianco. University of New Mexico Press. 158pp. Index. $24.95 .
Hull was 21 when he began his 2-year stint at Los Alamos. His work was absorbing and the goals were immediate. Today, provost emeritus and a professor of physics emeritus at the University of New Mexico, he writes, “I remain interested in bringing an issue that is critical for the future of our world before the readers who can determine the policies of their governments.”

Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez:1893-1923
David Dorado Romo. Cinco Puntos Press. 291pp. Index. 8 3/4 by 11-inch format. $26.95..
Some think the “best seats in the house” for observing the Mexican Reolution of 1912 and on (“Anda ya...”) were El Paso, TX, and Chihuahua, Mexico. Romo has plumbed the archives and come up with this readable and lookable (lots of photos) account for armchchair revolutionary buffs.

F Riot at Bucksnort and Other Western Tales, The
Robert E. Howard, edited by Rusty Birke. University of Nebraska Press/Bison Books. 253pp. $17.95.
The University of Nebraska Press is re-issuing two of Howard’s western novels—this title and The End of the Trail. Howard, who lived and wrote in Cross Plains, Texas from 1924 until his death at 30 in 1936 is considered a “master” of pulp fiction. Burke is a well-known Howard scholar and editor of the Wandering Star edition of Howard’s works.

Roadrunners
Lynn Hassler Kaufman. Rio Nuevo Publishers: Look West Series. 64pp. $12.95.
New Mexico’s state bird can barely fly but whizzes along at ground level at about 15 mph. Roadrunners have to be quick to catch their dinners of flying insects, small rodents, lizards, and snakes, all adept at staying out of the way. A member of the cuckoo family, this bird’s antics delight everyone.

Rock Art Savvy: The Responsible Visitor’s Guide to Public Sites of the Southwest
Ronald D. Sanders. Mountain Press Publishing. 256pp. $16.00.
A useful book whose purpose, according to the late author, is to encourage people to learn about the sites, visit them, enjoy them and respect them.

Rocky Mountain Elk Portfolio
Donald M. Jones (text and photography). Farcountry. 120pp. 10 3/4 by 10 3/4 inches. $24.95.
A professional photographer has sorted through his collection of wildlife photos to come up with this attractive book.

F Rogue's Game, The
Milton T. Burton. St. Martin's Press. 296pp. $23.95.
When the narrator describes his move in the late 1940s to West Texas, we assume that some kind of poker scam is underway. Then an oil boom happens and the accounts of wealth and power, money and greed temporarily take center stage in this readable noir novel that has plenty of twists and turns.

Ruby, Arizona: Mining, Mayhem and Murder
Bob Ring, Al Ring, and Tallia Pfrimmer Cahoon. U.S. Press & Graphics. 257pp. Index. $22.95 .
This small mining town near the Mexican border in Southern Arizona, now a ghost town, has been thoroughly researched by this trio of retired history buffs.

Ruth Benedict: Beyond Relativity, Beyond Pattern
Virginia Heyer Young. University of Nebraska Press. 373pp. Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology. $60.00.
Young, a former student of Benedict’s, uses her teacher’s unpublished writings along with lecture notes to show that the noted anthropologist was embarking on new interpretive directions. Only a few pages devoted to New Mexico’s Zuni tribe.

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San Diego World’s Fairs and Southwestern Memory, 1880-1940, The
Matthew F. Bokovoy. New Mexico University Press. 316pp. Index. $29.95.
What does San Diego have to do with the Southwest? Besides its Hispanic heritage and architecture, two World’s Fairs in San Diego featured Puebloan Indians at a time when Americans were discovering the Southwest as a tourist destination and as a myth. Fifty-six pages of notes but readable text. Much, too, about San Diego and its history.

San Luis Valley, The: Sand Dunes and Sandhill Cranes
Susan J. Tweit . University of Arizona Press. pp. 6-inch by 7-inch format . $14.95.
Mostly text, this small booklet is a handy companion to the larger coffee-table book "On Ancient Wings," a photographic look at the graceful birds.

F Sanctuaries of the Heart/Santuarios del Corazón: A Novella in English and Spanish
Margarita Cota-Cárdenas. University of Arizona Press. 187pp. $19.95 .
Safe havens—real, spirtual, psychological—are examined by this graceful writer in a novella written in both English and Spanish.

Sanctuary Experience, The: Voices of the Community
Elna Otter and Dorothy Pine. Aventine Press. 427pp. $22.95 .
Not seen by panelists.

Sandia Mountain Hiking Guide
Mike Coltrin. University of New Mexico Press. 177pp. Index. Maps. Spiral Bound. $19.95.
This nicely done hiking guide covers the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico. Most of the individual trail sections are divided into synopsis, driving instructions, trail directions that include a bit of the area’s history, a map, a photo and an elevation profile. Valuable for Sandia fans. An original feature is GPS waypoints for many of the trailheads and junctions.

F Santero's Miracle, The: A Bilingual Story
Rudolfo Anaya, illustrated by Amy Cordova, Spanish translation by Enrique Lamadrid. University of New Mexico Press. 32pp. 5-10 years. $16.95.
Ten-year-old Andres assists his grandfather, a master “santero” (woodcarver of saints) in completing a carving of San Isidro in a traditional northern New Mexican village. Will a heavy snowfall delay the arrival of the rest of his family in time for Christmas? More urgently, will help be able to get through for an ailing neighbor? Richly colored, folkloric-styled scenes convey a vibrancy and warmth, and strengthen this simple tale of faith.

F Sarah’s Quilt: A Novel of Sarah Agnes Prine and the Arizona Territories, 1906
Nancy E. Turner. Thomas Dunne Books. 402pp. $24.95.
In this sequel to These Is My Words, Sarah Prine, now a widow, faces a depressed cattle market, an avaricious neighbor, rebellious children and must also help her brother’s family who are victims of the San Francisco earthquake. Turner’s fans have been waiting for this and it should not disappoint.

F Second Chance Ranch
Barbara Kennedy. AuthorHouse. 135pp. $15.50.
Not seen by panelists.

F Secret Project Notebook, The: Los Alamos, NM
Carolyn Reeder. Los Alamos Historical Society. 247pp. $5.99.
Not seen by panelists.

Shadow in the City, A: Confessions of an Undercover Drug Warrior
Charles Bowden. Harcourt. 313pp. $24.
Tucsonan Bowden recreates the dramatic tale of an unnamed narcotics agent in an unnamed city. The protagonist, whose alias is Joey O'Shay, shows nerves of steel as a participant in more than 300 drug busts. Most readers will have one question: why does O'Shay keep going on with this nasty business? Bowden's publicist at Harcourt says the reason for all the secrecy is that he is still at it.

F Shadow Man
James Doss. St. Martin’s Minotaur. 326pp. $23.95.
The 10th Charlie Moon mystery, where Moon, a Ute rancher and tribal investigator, takes on the investigation of the murder of a local attorney. Tribal shaman Daisy Perika, Moon's crotchety aunt, also becomes a target . Big money, big gambles, and a surprise ending.

Shelter from the Storm: The Photographs of Kirk Gittings
Gussie Fauntleroy. New Mexico Magazine. 87pp. 9 1/4 by 7 5/8-inch format. $29.95.
There are 87 mostly stunning photographs of New Mexico landscapes and buildings in this book that is easy to hold in your hands or lap. To learn more about them, however, you have to refer to a four-page insert titled, "Images." Heaven help you if you lose it because there is no other identification. Managing them both at the same time gets to be a chore.

Sheriff Harvey Whitehill: Silver City Stalwart
Bob Alexander. High-Lonesome Books. 311pp. $30.
Not seen by panelists.

Silent Voices of World War II: When Sons of the Land of Enchantment Met Sons of the Land of the Rising Sun
Everett Rogers and Nancy Bartlit. Sunstone Press. 349pp. $28.95.
Not seen by panelists.

Six-Guns and Single-Jacks: A History of Silver City and Southwestern New Mexico
Bob Alexander. Gila Books. 313pp. Index. $21.95 .
A well-researched account of the wild and woolly days of Silver City and Grant County in the days when Geronimo and Billy the Kid created a stir. Alexander also highlights the contributions of ordinary men and women to the settlement of this neglected corner of The Old West.

* Slavery, Scandal, and Steel Rails: The 1854 Gadsden Purchase and the Building of the Second Transcontinental Railroad Across Arizona and New Mexico Twenty-Five Years Later
David Devine. iUniverse. 266pp. Notes and bibliography. $20.95.
This saga of how Arizona got its first railroad in 1877 starts with slaveholder states looking for a rail link to California (the purpose of the Gadsden Purchase), and Arizona looking for a way to export minerals, cattle, and timber. The grades were steep and curvy, but brash entrepreneurs, including Leland Stanford, laid the rails. This intriguing book is tightly edited and thoroughly documented. The notes are an archive in themselves. A very solid, readable contribution.   --Bill Broyles

The Gadsden Purchase, its purpose to provide a southerly transcontinental railroad route, supplied the last piece to the jigsaw puzzle of the continental United States. Not built until 25 years after the purchase, the completion of the steel rails was the result of scandal, yet its intended purpose to extend slavery was long since unneeded. While giving credit to previous or ongoing works as seminal for their individual topics, southern Arizona historian David Devine admirably links the themes for this much-needed overview. Something else much needed is an index, the lack of which mars the overall work, but 14 maps provide more than adequate coverage.   --Richard Quartaroli

F Slumgullion Greed
Alex Harold. Western Reflections Publishing Company. 167pp. $8.95.
At the moment, there are three little books (4 1/4 by 7 inches) in the Slumgullion series written by a Disciples of Christ minister. The first, “Slumgullion Gold,” appeared in 2000. Slumgullion is an area in southwestern Colorado where the town of Lake City can be found (it is also a word in the vernacular, meaning a dish that has been thrown together out of available ingredients with results that are not usually of gourmet quality). The protagonist of this nice, old-fashioned series is Lake City Sheriff Jim Booker, and he fights evil-doers with few illusions but successful determination.

Songs and Stories from the Grand Canyon: Authentic Voices from America's Best Loved Places
. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. pp. CD SWF40167 2005. Check the Smithsonian website for details: www.smithsonianstores.com. $12.98.
The collection is divided into five sections: Man, Geology and Critters; American Indians; Boatmen; Mule Packers; Tourists and Cowboys.

* Sonoita Plain: Views from a Southwestern Grassland
Carl E. Bock and Jane H. Bock. University of Arizona Press. 116pp. 10 1/4 by 10 1/4-inch format. $20.00.
The Bocks have studied the biology of a research ranch southeast of Tucson. They show us a beautiful countryside, introduce friendly people, and by the last page remind us that people and nature can—and must—live in harmony. Their message of science-based stewardship should be required reading for citizens who vote, and land planners. The text is thoughtfully and skillfully told—darned near lyric in places—as the Bocks combine ecology with a sense of home. Photos add reasons to visit the book and Sonoita’s beautiful grasslands.   --Bill Broyles

F Sorrow of Archaeology, The: A Novel
Russell Martin. University of New Mexico Press. 271pp. $25.95.
Sarah MacLeish narrates this wondrous novel telling of her early life and college years, becoming an MD, and eventually falling in love with an archaeologist who convinces her to return to her home country, the very southwestern-most tip of Colorado. In alternating chapters she describes her symptoms leading to multiple sclerosis, resigning her practice, and working (on good days) at her husband’s dig at the mouth of Tse Canyon. The reader learns not only to understand the give and take of multiple generations on the same land, but also the intermix of landscape with life across centuries.

Southwest Lite: Full-Flavored, Healthy Cooking
Bob Wiseman. Northland Publishing. 122pp. Index. $16.95.
Some good, healthy dishes are included that cut out the salt, are low in fat and carbohydrates, and still come across as tasty. However, the cooks on the SWBOY panel pointed out that the chef often uses canned vegetables (tomatoes), and they can be salty.

Southwestern Feng Shui: A Practical Guide to Effectively Practiciing Feng Shui in a Desert Environment
by Lisa Montgomery. Workers in Light Organization, Mesa, AZ. 91pp. 9.95.
Not seen by panelists.

Sum of Our Past, The: Revisiting Pioneer Women
Judy Busk. Signature Books. 224pp. Index. 9 1/2 by 9 inch format. Tangential . $32.95.
Busk, a high school English and journalism teacher, has put her enormous energy and conviction to work to prove that she can be a good Mormon mother (of six), community worker, loving wife and academician. In this attractive volume she and her husband retrace a Mormon pioneer trail from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Like City. She quotes from diaries of forebears who made the trip a century and a half ago.

Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, 1850-1930
Richard J. Orsi. University of California Press. 615pp. $29.95.
This is not an easy book to read, but it is an important one. Orsi has documented a favorable reassessment of the role of the Southern Pacific Co. in the development of the Southwest and he makes a compelling argument for taking another look at the company and its interests and contributions.

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Thanks for Tuning In
Richard Ruelas. Boffo Books. 198pp. 73 halftones. $21.95.
Hundreds of Arizona children and adults were brought up with Wallace and Ladmo, the Phoenix children’s television show which remained a veritable household word for 35 years until it went off the air in 1989. This is mainly the story of Wallace (Bill Thompson) and the behind-the-scenes drama and trauma of his relationship with Ladmo.

They Opened Their Hearts: Tucson Elders Tell World War II Stories to Tucson Youth
Sherrie Wagoner and Rita Magdaleno (editors), Sierra Middle School Classroom Teacher: Deborah Dimmett. Voices: Community Stories Past and Present. 224pp. 11 by 8 1/2-inch format. $20.00.
The recipe: ask 116 middle school students to meet 44 Tucsonans who lived during World War II and assign homework to the adults. The soldiers wrote about life in the war and the civilians wrote about life on the home-front. This bridge of generations is fascinating grass roots history with very personal touches. The students and their editors did an admirable, professional job. The adults narrated their experiences and opened their photo albums. The students supplied poems and short essays about meeting the adult contributors. The result is a rewarding and proud reading.

F Thief in Retreat: A Sister Agatha Mystery
Aimee & David Thurlo. St. Martin’s Press. 256pp. $23.95.
Sister Agatha is a nun, formerly an investigative reporter, whose responsibility to her order is filled by serving as go-between for Our Sister of Hope Monastery near Bernalillo, NM. In this, her second outing, she is asked by the archbishop to find some missing artwork and a missing professional evaluator at a former monastery near Las Vegas, NM, now a private retreat center. Turns out there is a ghost involved, too.

Thirty Years Into Yesterday: A History of Archaeology at Grasshopper Pueblo
J. Jefferson Reid and Stephanie Whittlesey. University of Arizona Press. 266pp. Index. $35.00 cloth $16.95 paper.
This could be one of the most important books available about Southwest archaeology. Its subtitle should be "What it means to be a Southwest archaeologist," for it is more than a book about the University of Arizona summer field school at Grasshopper Ruin in Arizona's White Mountains. It shares the personal stories of the diggers, the meal table discussions between students and professors, the tumble of theories, the roughhouse realities of funding and publishing. The Ruin itself is amply covered in a companion book published in 1999, Grasshopper Pueblo: A Story of Archaeology and Ancient Life.

This Day in the Life: Diaries from Women Across America
Joni B. Cole, Rebecca Joffrey, B.K. Rakhra (editors). Three Rivers Press. 448pp. Tangential. $14.00.
The 34 diaries include one written by the manager of a legal brothel outside Las Vegas, NV.

Tiller’s Guide to Indian Country: Economic Profiles of American Indian Reservations
Veronica Velarde Tiller (editor). BowArrow Publishing Co. 1120pp. $70.
This guide contains current information on 562 American Indian tribes in 33 states. It includes history and modern life details along with vital statistics. The Arizona chapter is a “must” read for Arizonans interested in the subject.

To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews in New Mexico
by Stanley Hordes. Columbia University Press. 347pp. 39.50.
Not seen by panelists.

Train Stops Here, The: New Mexico’s Railway Legacy
Marci L. Riskin. University of New Mexico Press. 156pp. 8 by 10-inch format. $39.95 cloth $24.95 paper.
Pay close attention to the title of this book. The subject is indeed train stations in New Mexico with a few Harvey Houses included.

True Women & Westward Expansion
Adrienne Caughfield. Texas A&M University Press. 178pp. $32.95.
Caughfield, Director of Academic Programs at the Heritage Farmstead Museum in Plano, Texas, has examined the diaries and letters of 90 19th century Texas women to come up with a treatise clearly intended for fellow/sister academics, so it is not easy reading but is sprinkled with entertaining vignettes.

* Tseyi: Deep in the Rock, Reflections on Canyon de Chelly
Laura Tohe (text), Stephen E. Strom (photographs). University of Arizona Press. 45pp. $15.
Those of us who have visited Arizona's Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto stand in awe under sheer, reddish-orange sandstone cliffs set against a limitless blue sky. But there is more to the canyon than its aesthetic pleasure. Navajo poet, Laura Tohe, writes of the Diné, the people who came late to the canyon, and of their attachment to the land. These are the people the United States Cavalry forced far from their homes in the 1860s. Happily, those that remained were released to their ancestral home where "they could live a harmonious life filled with spiritual beauty." Photographs by Stephen Strom.   --Patricia Etter

Tulia: Race, Cocaine and Corruption in a Small Texas Town
Nate Blakeslee. PublicAffairs Press. 450 pp. $26.95.
Journalist Blakeslee has written a riveting expose of justice run amok and the ultimate vindication of scores of residents (mostly poor and African American) of a small Texas town who were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms on the testimony of a rogue undercover drug enforcement agent.

F Tyrannosaur Canyon
Douglas Preston. Forge. 325pp. $24.95.
Set mainly in the Southwest, particularly in the canyon country on the New Mexico-Colorado border, the novel begins with the murder of an old prospector, setting up the reader to assume that his notebook (taken at his request by the man who discovers him dying) contains the location of a rich ore deposit, when in fact the “ore” he has found is the remains of a meteorite which carries on its surface dormant microbial life forms! This page-turner should appeal to both mystery/murder fans and those readers with a taste for science-fiction/fantasy.

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F Under the Wild Western Sky
Jim Arnosky. HarperCollins. 32pp. 6-10 years. $15.99.
Author/illustrator Arnosky imparts a sense of discovery and wonder as the reader joins him in recalling his travels and observations in the West – primarily depicting the natural world of the Sonoran desert and ranching/prairie life in Oklahoma. Acclaimed for his skill as an illustrator, he produces exquisitely rendered sweeping landscape paintings as he explains to the reader about learning a different way to see. Cleverly placed smaller sketches adorn pages as well.

Utah's Wilderness Areas: The Complete Guide
Lynna Howard. WestCliffe Publishers. 343pp. Index. $24.95 .
This excellent introduction covers 99 Utah wilderness areas and wilderness study areas as well as recommended wilderness areas within national parks. The text is clean, informative and enthusiastic. The photos are stunning. This book proves the case for wilderness areas.

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* Voice of the Borderlands
Drum Hadley, Andrew Rush (Illustrations). Rio Nuevo Publishers. 368pp. $29.95.
Borderland rancher Drum Hadley poetically remembers good horses, bad men, and long-gone women. He has an ear for the language of cowboys and vaqueros, American and Mexican. From his lifetime of saddles, campfires, fiestas, and sitting on the corral fence, he has gathered and created yarns, images, and stories that he pencils into poems grouped as “Cowboys and Horses,” “Mother Lode,” “Changes,” and “Eternity.” He always returns to mythic land and abrupt lives. His voice echoes cowhands along the border from Mexicali to the Rio Grande.   --Bill Broyles

Drum Hadley is the real thing—an accomplished poet who has spent his adult life as a working cowboy and rancher. In this impressive collection, he paints a lush portrait of the Arizona/New Mexico/Sonora borderlands viewed through his own keen eyes, and related in the stories of the men with whom he has ridden the ridges and canyons of the Guadalupe Mountains and Mexico’s Sierra Madre. The voices convey a sense of awe and wonder, sprinkled with an earthy sense of humor, at man’s stubborn persistence in an unforgiving land. Spoon River has its Edgar Lee Masters; the Guadalupes have Drum Hadley.   --Bruce Dinges

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Walking It Off: A Veteran's Chronicle of War and Wilderness
Doug Peacock. Eastern Washington University Press. 208pp. $19.95.
When he wrote The Monkey Wrench Gang in 1975, Edward Abbey became the spokesperson for a generation of Americans angered by the unthinking destruction of our natural heritage. Without consultation, Abbey based the central character of eco-guerilla George Washington Hayduke on his friend Doug Peacock. Since then Peacock has become an articulate environmental individualist writing about the West's abundant wildscapes. Abbey and Peacock had an at times stormy, almost father and son relationship that was peacefully resolved in Abbey's last days before his death in 1989. This rich recollection of their relationship and the dry places they explored are recalled in Peacock’s honest and heartfelt style in this poignant memoir.

Walking Through the Ashes: A Volunteer Firefighter’s Perspective on the Rodeo-Chediski Fire
Gary Phillip Holdcroft. Trafford. 190pp. $15.00.
Not seen by panelists.

Water, Rock & Time: The Geologic Story of Zion National Park
Robert L. Eves. Zion Natural History Association. 136pp. $19.95.
Not seen by panelists.

Way Out, The: A True Story of Ruin and Survival
Craig Childs. Little, Brown and Company. 270pp. $23.95.
Accused of writing “over the top” by more than one reviewer of his previous book, Soul of Nowhere, Childs did not let that deter him in writing this one. Everything he encounters and experiences while trekking in the slickrock country of the Southwest is larger than life, more danderous than any previous adventure and, ultimately, leads to yet another life-lesson (which bear a similarity to life-lessons learned in Childs’ other books).

We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive
Laurie Notaro. Villard. 223pp. $12.95.
Former Phoenician and Arizona Republic columnist Notaro has now moved with her husband to the northwest and to provide material for her essays, she roams the country. Nevertheless, her roots are still in Arizona and so are many of her relatives who figure prominently in her thoughts.

F West Bound: Stories of Providence
Robert F. Gish. West End Press. 133pp. $15.95.
Not seen by panelists.

Western Pursuit of the American Dream, The: Exhibition, National Heritage Museum, 2004-2005: Selections from the Collection of Kenneth W. Rendell
Kenneth W. Rendell. Historical Publications. 358pp. Index. 11 by 9-inch format. $39.95.
Rendell, a dealer in historical documents, also has a passion for collecting literally hundreds of the rarest of objects, for his personal collection of Western Americana. The photographs are accompanied with full details on provenance, and include a Davy Crockett letter, Native American clothing and artifacts, tools of the fur trade, and more.

Western Traditions: Contemporary Artists of the American West
Michael Duty and Suzanne Deats. Fresco Fine Art Publishing. 279pp. Index. 11 3/4 by 10 3/4-inches format. $85.00.
Deats has interviewed the 38 living artists featured here, and Duty contributes a historical perspective with essays on Frederic Remington and Charles Russell. The book was printed in Italy.

F What Does ‘Died’ Mean? Ha’íishá Óolyé Daaztsá
Marjorie W. Thomas (writer and translator), illustrated by Patrick G. Begay. Salina Bookshelf. 32pp. 4-8 years. $9.00.
In both Navajo and English text, a grandmother attempts to make the death of her husband comprehensible to her three and a half-year-old granddaughter by pointing out examples of life and death in the natural world. The matter-of-fact tone and the admonitions about sugar and diabetes, a disease prevalent among Native Americans, create direct, but not frightening, lessons.

White Justice in Arizona: Apache Murder Trials in the Nineteenth Century
Clare V. McKanna Jr.. Texas Tech University Press. 223pp. $27.95.
McKanna teaches American Indian history at San Diego State and has concentrated on the injustices meted out to Indians in territorial days. In addition to a fairly rough justice accorded to everyone, in territorial Arizona neither settlers nor the military had a very good understanding of Indian culture. Sometimes attempts in Washington D.C. to remedy errors made matters worse.

* F Who Pooped in the Park? Grand Canyon National Park
Gary D. Robson, illustrated by Elijah Brady Clark. Farcountry Press. 48pp. 4-8 years. $9.95.
Don’t be put off by the title of this highly informative series! Animals aren’t always seen in the wild, but they leave telltale signs of their presence such as footprints (tracks) and poop (scat), as this story set in Grand Canyon National Park aptly instructs. Young Michael, teased by his sister about lurking mountain lions, overcomes his wild animal fears as his family hikes and attentively focuses on identifying the marks of rabbits, deer, javelinas, coyotes, bats, owls, ringtails, bobcats and yes, even mountain lions. Simply rendered, colored pencil sketches add a naturalist’s touch.   --Deb Bock

Wicked West, The: Boozers, Cruisers, Gamblers, and More
Sherry Monahan. Rio Nuevo Publishers. 184pp. .
Monahan takes a lighter look at the shenanigans in western towns of the 1880s: the shady ladies, gunslingers, gamblers, and hard drinkers. Highlighted insets offer rules for the games of Monte and Faro, tobacco terminology, and dozens of western synonyms for alcohol. Recipes included.

* F Wild Girl, The: The Notebooks of Ned Giles, 1932
Jim Fergus. Hyperion. 355pp. $23.95.
Fergus employs an actual incident in depression-era Douglas, Arizona as the springboard for his adventurous novel chronicling the adventures of a 17-year-old photographer as he accompanies a gentlemen’s expedition in search of the lost Apaches of the Sierra Madre. By turns humorous and poignant, it is both a classic coming-of-age tale and a sensitive exploration of cultural differences and the common humanity that we all share. This compulsively readable book has the earmarks of a southwestern classic.   --Bruce Dinges

In 1999, photographs by the virtually unknown Giles, 80, are shown at a New York gallery, including one photo of an Apache girl curled in fetal position in a jail cell. Giles is fairly cynical about the recognition, though not about the girl or his work. His notebooks of the 1932 expedition from Douglas, Arizona into the Sierra Madre Mountains of Sonora/Chihuahua tell us how he came to be the official photographer and how the girl came to be in jail. Wonderful characters, well-structured narrative, satisfying reading.   --W. David Laird

Wild, Wild West of Louis L'Amour, The: The Illustrated Guide to Cowboys, Indians, Gunslingers, Outlaws and Texas Rangers
Bruce Wexler. Courage Books/Running Press/Perseus Books. 188pp. 8 1/2 by 12-inch format. $14.98 cloth.
An absorbing coffee table book with photos, essays, drawings, a glossary of terms and, as they say, “much, much more,” all collected to examine and enlarge upon the world created by popular western writer Louis L’Amour.

William Henry Jackson’s “The Pioneer Photographer”
Bob Blair (compiled, edited, and annotated). Museum of New Mexico Press. 210pp. Index. 11 by 8 1/2-inch format. $39.95.
Jackson, who began a career in photography after his discharge from the Union Army, is best known for his work in the Northwest. As official photographer for the U.S. Geological Survey working with Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden, he also worked at Mesa Verde and on the Navajo and Hopi reservations. This is his own (challenged) story first published in 1929, now “corrected” by Blair, a Taos-based researcher and Jackson admirer.

Wines of New Mexico, The
Andy Sandersier. University of New Mexico Press. 124pp. Index. 8 by 10-inch format. $19.95.
New Mexico’s wine business is on the upswing. More than 20 years ago, European wine companies gave it a boost and then retreated. While it is still not easy to find New Mexico wines in New Mexico cafes, the future looks hopeful and this book is an informative guide - at least for now

Winging It: A Beginner’s Guide to Birds of the Southwest
Catherine Coulter, Cynthia Coulter, James Coulter, and Vivian Coulter, illustrated by Jennifer Owings Dewey. University of New Mexico Press. 127pp. 9-12 years. $19.95.
Winging It admirably introduces a young audience to the joys of bird watching. Short vignettes, seemingly based on recollections of the authors (three siblings and their mother) from childhoods spent outdoors, as well as occasional poems or excerpts from well-known authors, open the readers’ eyes to a keener observation and appreciation of birds. Perhaps not detailed enough to be a true field guide, the entries for 42 species are still packed with interesting facts, glossaries, photos, and sketches of the birds and many of their nests, eggs, and tracks.

F Winslow in Love
Kevin Canty. Doubleday/Nan A. Talese. 254pp. $23.95.
A brief run by doomed poet Richard Winslow through Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas on his way to Florida makes this tangential.

Woman’s Place, A: Women Writing New Mexico
Maureen Reed. University of New Mexico Press. 353pp. Index. $21.95.
Reed analyzes in depth the literary contributions of six women to our understanding of the Land of Enchantment. Three, Mary Austin, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Pablita Velarde, are well-known. The other three, Cleofas Jaramillo, Fabiola Cabeza de Vaca, Kay Bennett, are less so. This appears to be an expansion of a dissertation.

Women of the New Mexico Frontier, 1846-1912
Cheryl J. Foote. University of New Mexico Press. 198pp. Revised edition. $19.95.
Little books like this one require a great of dedication and research to produce but they bring recognition to people who devoted their lives to improving their worlds. Teachers, missionaries, wives, scholars, politicians, Foote, who teaches at the Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute has done a good job in tracking them down and profiling their efforts.

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Y

Yard Full of Sun: The Story of a Gardener’s Obsession That Got a Little Out of Hand
Scott Calhoun. Rio Nuevo Publishers. 192pp. Index. $22.95.
This author was indeed obsessed, delightfully so. Nevertheless, gardeners in the Sonoran Desert would do well to listen and learn how to create a desert garden that thrives with minimal water. One might even learn how to build an old ocotillo trellis or paint house numbers on a row of purple pots. The book design is outstanding, and is heavily illustrated.

You Know You Are in Arizona When...
Sam Lowe. Globe Pequot. 103pp. $9.95.
The subtitle on this handily packaged collection of trivia reads, "101 quintessential places, people, events, customs, lingo, and eats of the Grand Canyon State." The notations are listed in alphabetical order beginning with Apache Tears, the black volcanic glass for which Superior, AZ is famous, to the Yuma territorial prison which opened in 1876 and closed in 1909, and includes such wisdom as "Daylight Saving Time is for sissies."

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Z

* Zane Grey: His Life, His Adventures, His Women
Thomas H. Pauly. University of Illinois Press. 386pp. Index. $34.95.
Pauly, an English professor, is the first person to have full access to Grey’s personal correspondence. He takes advantage of the opportunity in this revealing biography of the Ohio dentist whose best-selling novels of the 1920s, mainly set in southern Utah and northern Arizona, defined the romantic West in the popular mind. Grey emerges as a complex individual who battled depression, indulged in multiple affairs, and spent lavishly on outdoor activities. Grey suffered at the hands of literary critics, but his influence on popular culture is undeniable. He has long deserved a serious biography. Pauly’s book serves him well.   --Bruce Dinges

Zone of Tolerance: The Guaymas Chronicles, Vol. 2
David E. Stuart. University of New Mexico Press. 296pp. $24.95.
Stuart, emeritus associate UNM provost for academic affairs and professor of anthropology, revisits the scene of his 2003 memoir, The Guaymas Chronicles, with somewhat less success. The “red light” district, aka, the Zone of Tolerance, in Guaymas, has been shut down. Stuart visits the old bars and hotels and provides a biographical update on some of the characters in his first book.