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Clicking on a book cover will search for the book in the catalog. If it is not part of our collection, you may request it by clicking on the Can't Find It link. An icon indicates if the book is chosen by a panelist as one of the year's best.

Damming Grand Canyon: the 1923 USGS Colorado River Expedition
By Diane E. Boyer, Robert H. Webb. Utah State University Press. 289 pp. Index. . $34.95.
In 1924 National Geographic ran a vivid adventure story about a US Geological Survey crew boating the Grand Canyon. Their purpose was to survey new dam sites, and they were a strong-willed, independent bunch who thrived on hardship and natural beauty, and loved the challenge of the rapids. Needless to say, their churning personalities had more falls, undercurrents, and eddies than the river itself. Now, eight decades later, we can read the rest of the story, as told in their diaries, letters, and later interviews. This seamlessly told book is as rousing as the original trip and is a wonderful contribution to Southwest literature and river lore. [Bill Broyles]
Archivist Boyer and hydrologist Webb combine their own observations with letters, photographs, drawings, diaries, and memoirs of the participants to chronicle the adventures of boatmen and scientists surveying potential hydro-electric dam sites. The alternating first-person accounts give the book a "you-are-there" quality that exposes personality conflicts as well as captures the excitement of overcoming floods, rapids, and scientific challenges. This is an enlightening and entertaining read for scholars and Canyon buffs, alike. [Bruce Dinges]

Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West, Volume 2
By Robert K. DeArment. University of Oklahoma Press. 416 pp. Index. . $29.95.
Some were outlaws, some lawmen, some just psychopaths, but they all were handy with their pistols and killed at will. These are the 12 baddest gunmen you never head of--- Jim Moon, Jack Jolly, and Joel Fowler, for example, but DeArment has devoted years to rounding up an enormous amount of information (he has 67 pages of endnotes and citations) about these Old West gunfighters who for whatever reasons never gained wide fame (ignominious bully Ed Scarborough was publicly humiliated by a bicycle rider who ran him over and then stomped on him to the applause of bystanders). Most would do well to remain buried. Still, each chapter would make a fascinating episode for a TV serial. Only a few of the men are Southwestern. [Bill Broyles]

Death and Dying in New Mexico
By Martina Will de Chaparro. University of New Mexico Press. 261 pp. Index. $29.95.
Here we learn that the actual act of burying the dead during Colonial times in New Mexico was not as important as ritual preparations for death. Some prestigious individuals were buried under the floors of various churches, but many more were interred helter-skelter in unmarked plots. Ultimately concern for public health shifted responsibility for burial from parish churches to the state with the formation of cemeteries. An important book to help understand the religious culture of early New Mexico. [Patricia Etter]

Death at Awahi, The: a Novel
By Harold Burton Meyers. Texas Tech University Press. 226 pp. $25.95.
Readers seeking a thoughtful account of a southwestern Native American culture, entirely fictional but made up of recognizable elements from existing cultures, will find great satisfaction in this story of a new principal and his wife arriving at an isolated New Mexican pueblo just as John Collier is about to be named head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Other readers anxious for a thriller with a murder on page one and an exciting investigation will need to find a different book. This one is even better than Meyers’ previous, well-reviewed novel, Reservations (1999). [W. David Laird]
Myers, who grew up on reservations in the Southwest, tells an affecting story of a husband and wife attempting to implement enlightened Indian policy at a New Mexico pueblo in the 1920s. Although his "villians" (a pair of Protestant missionaries and a school teacher) may be a tad overdrawn, Myers's sympathetic protagonists and his assured portrayal of native customs and Indian Service culture provide a pleasurable read. A murder at the book's close exposes a moral dilemma at the heart of federal-Indian relations. [Bruce Dinges]

Death in the West
By Chris Becker. Northland Publishing. 209 pp. $16.95.
This is an entertaining action book, filled with a series of well-told narratives of disasters, murders, outdoor adventures, dumb ideas, and pratfalls, some of them in the Southwest. Most of the stories take place on the Western frontier or contemporary wildlands. It all makes for riveting reading, much like the morning newspaper or driving past a car wreck. But as even the author recognizes in the book’s thoughtful afterword, so what? People die in a variety of ways, even in modern times and even in cities. Do we as a species learn from our mistakes? Apparently not. As individuals? Maybe. It is in the genre of Butch Farabee’s Death, Daring and Disaster or Michael Ghigleri and Tom Myers’ Death in Grand Canyon. To paraphrase Henny Youngman, “’Doctor, doctor, I get hurt when I do that.’ ‘Well don’t do that.’” An excellent book to read on the airplane, but not before your first skydiving jump. [Bill Broyles]

Descansos: the Sacred Landscape of New Mexico
By Joan E. Alessi. Fresco Fine Art Publications. 79 pp. $45.00.
The author brings us color photos of roadside descansos in New Mexico. Descansos, called memorial crosses or cruzes de memorias in other parts of the Southwest, are in turns grim, defiant, and serene. Short essays by Art Gómez, Douglas A. Fairfield, and Sylvia Ann Grider are in both English and Spanish. Explaining these reminders of death as objects of art is interesting, but I’d rather know about the people they represent. Some of the descansos show remarkable personality with photos of the deceased, metal cutouts of motorcycles, and other tributes. And what about those saddened families and friends who maintain the sites and vigils? [Bill Broyles]

Desert Desperadoes: Banditti of Southwestern New Mexico
By Bob Alexander. Gila Books. 334 pp. Index. $21.95.
[Bill Broyles]
[W. David Laird]

Desert Remains, The
By Charles C. Poling. University of New Mexico Press. 230 pp. . $24.95.

Tangled relationships, intrigue, betrayal, and struggle mark this gritty mystery, set against the landscape of a modern-day ranch in New Mexico.
Desert Remembers My Name, The: On Family and Writing
By Kathleen Alcala. University of Arizona Press. 204 pp. . $14.95.
A leisurely paced series of vignettes, personal essays, and fragments about literature, place, and extended family. In the author’s own words, “I want my writing to insinuate itself into the subconscious of the people of the Southwest, so that we might remember who we were and who we will be, since so little time is spent in the present. I feel as strongly about this as any fanatic. This is my job.” [Bill Broyles]

Dictionary of Jicarilla Apache=Abaachi Mizaa Ilkee Siijai
By Melissa Axelrod, Matilda Martinez, Maureen Olson, Wilma Phone. University of New Mexico Press. 492 pp. $75.00.
The Jicarilla Apache Nation is centered in Dulce, New Mexico, and tribal members speak Jicarilla, an Eastern Apache branch of Athabaskan. This wonderful contribution to language incorporates four sections: a grammatical sketch, phrase and texts discussion, Jicarilla Apache-to-English dictionary, and English-to-Jicarilla Apache index. Users and students may find the usage examples drawn from traditional Apache stories especially helpful and relevant. A sample entry is this: “ha’díbá’ts’iizee’í (n.). English: those who were thirsty. Examples: Ánhaskiyíí ha’díbá’ts’iizee’í kógaada’hizííná. : That old man gave water to those who were thirsty (Hoijer text 10).” This edition, written for and by the tribe, is admirable and significant. [Bill Broyles]
The first edition of the Jicarilla Apache language, thirty years in the making, is a monumental work. It is a big step toward preserving a language that the tribe continues to speak during its ceremonies, but like other Native languages could have been on the brink of extinction. An introductory grammatical sketch contains sections on sounds and sound systems, parts of speech, verb structures, and more. Following sections are the Jicarilla Apache-to-English dictionary; the English-to-Jicarilla index; and the thematic lexicon. [Patricia Etter]

Dividing Western Waters: Mark Wilmer and Arizona v. California
By Jack L. August, Jr.. TCU Press. 172 pp. Index. . $32.95 cloth.
A timely review of the Colorado River water compact and subsequent legal battles affecting millions of Southwest residents and their access to water. Jack August is a masterful researcher and makes a dull story come alive by focusing on negotiator Mark Wilmer. The book is a warning for our future: we have much to worry about, especially the plots and subplots behind water policy. The cover photo of Lower Fall of the Yellowstone River puzzles me, since the Yellowstone is not part of the Colorado watershed. [Bill Broyles]

Don't Throw Away Your Stick Till You Cross the River: the Journey of an Ordinary Man
By Anni Beach, Vincent Beach. Five Star Publications. 297 pp. $14.95.
This uplifting autobiography weaves personal stories with human crises as the author relies on homespun advice. Settings include schools on the Navajo Reservation and Chandler, Arizona. This story of an ordinary man trying to help others is a pleasant counterpoint to the mush we see at the grocery store checkout stand. [Bill Broyles]

Dona Tules: Santa Fe's Courtesan and Gambler
By Mary J. Straw Cook. University of New Mexico Press. 184 pp. Index. . $21.95 hardcover.
Although Gertrudis Barcelo's legend endures in the annals of the American conquest of the Southwest, the known facts of her life would scarcely fill a short article. Cook's small book, based on prodigious research, separates fact from fiction and paints a clearer portrait than previously available of the prostitute, gambler, and businesswoman and the men and women whose lives touched hers. This may be as close as we can get to the real Dona Tules and her place in history. [Bruce Dinges]

Down the Colorado: John Wesley Powell, the One-Armed Explorer
By Deborah Kogan Ray. Francis Foster Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. . $17.00.
Top Pick
John Wesley Powell's name is forever linked with Grand Canyon, and most know him as the first documented explorer to successfully navigate the wild Colorado River. While the Colorado expedition was an amazing feat, it was but one of many courageous acts in Powell's life. The son of abolitionists, Powell's family were persecuted for their beliefs. After an incident at school, his mother invited a family friend and naturalist to tutor Powell at home. So began his fascination with the natural world, and a life of exploration that would take him to the Battle of Shiloh (where he lost an arm), the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado and, ultimately, simultaneous appointments as head of the US Bureau of Ethnology and the US Geological Survey. Author/illustrator Deborah Kogan Ray tells Powell's story in simple terms that nonetheless capture the determination of this remarkable individual and the times in which he lived. [Cathy Jacobus]

This biography of John Wesley Powell chronicles his Ohio childhood, his service in the US Civil War, and his voyage down the Colorado River. Ages 8 and up.
Drift: a Novel
By Jim Miller. University of Oklahoma Press. 208 pp. $24.95.
Atmosphere trumps plot in this noirish novel set in modern-day San Diego and the Southern California desert. The book sometimes has the feel of a travelogue as the main character, a struggling college literature professor, wanders the streets and roads, contrasting the new with the old. Ultimately, the book is about dreams--how we construct them and how they so often elude us. Miller provides a somber vision of lives lived on the edge. [Bruce Dinges]

Drifting West: The Calamities of James White and Charles Baker
By Virginia McConnell Simmons. University Press of Colorado. 210 pp. Index. . $29.95.
Fraud or hero? That question has perplexed Colorado River historians for 140 years since James White claimed to ride a log raft through the Grand Canyon. Simmons’s book assembles a wealth of information about the debate in this readable account. She also provides much interesting river lore. [Bill Broyles]

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