The Emerald Mile
The Emerald Mile – Kevin Fedarko’s pitch-perfect prose describes the 1983 fastest white-water run down the Grand Canyon. A must-read for white-water enthusiasts. I wish I had read “A Conversation with Kevin Fedarko” before I read The Emerald Mile, rather than afterward, because it explains how and why he was able to write such pitch-perfect […]
Where Light Comes and Goes
Where Light Comes and Goes. Medicine and more with Dr. Abby Wilmore, this time at Yosemite National Park. When I reviewed the first book in Sandra Cavallo Miller’s Dr. Abby Wilmore series, I remarked how unusual it was for a university press to publish popular fiction. But I also noted that Miller’s first novel, The […]
Saints Sinners and Sovereign Citizens
Saints, Sinners, and Sovereign Citizens: The Endless War over the West’s Public Lands A journalist’s look at Clive Bundy and others who rebel against federal control of public lands. John L. Smith’s Saints, Sinners, and Sovereign Citizens nicely complements Betsy Gaines Quammen’s American Zion (which I previously reviewed in “Bookin’ with Sunny”). Both books examine […]
A Marriage Out West
A Marriage Out West The Romance of Anthropology. Subtitled “Theresa and Frank Russell’s Explorations in Arizona, 1900-1903,” A Marriage Out West analyzes the Russell’s 1900 honeymoon summer when they traveled from Gallup, New Mexico, to archaeological sites scattered to the north and west, searching for native burials that would aid Frank in his scientific research. […]
Dutton’s Dirty Diggers
DUTTON’S DIRTY DIGGERS, GIRL SCOUT ARCHEOLOGISTS ON THE MOVE. Anyone who fondly remembers Girl Scout camping days will relish the reminiscences to be found in Catherine S. Fowler’s Dutton’s Dirty Diggers. For eleven years, from 1947 through 1957, Bertha P. Dutton led a series of Senior Girl Scout Archaeological camps. Headquartered in Santa Fe, where […]
On The First Day of Holiday Giving – Neal’s Books For The Guys in Your Life
ON THE FIRST DAY OF HOLIDAY GIVING NEAL’S BOOKS FOR THE GUYS IN YOUR LIFE What follows is a list, in no particular order, of twelve books I’ve read or re-read in the past year that I recommend to others, particularly those of the male persuasion. You might want to give one as a gift. […]
American Zion
AMERICAN ZION, CLIVE BUNDY, GOD & PUBLIC LANDS IN THE WEST American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God & Public Lands in the West unearths historic myths and displays contemporary reasoning that together define current land use issues in the American West. Despite her own proclivities as an ardent environmentalist, Betsy Gaines Quammen offers a balanced inquiry […]
How Much of These Hills Is Gold
HOW MUCH OF THESE HILLS IS GOLD C Pam Zhang juxtaposes nightmare with dream in her novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold. Her style is that of a dream, rising and falling in bubbling prose that percolates from page to page. The content, however, is something quite different—brutal, harsh, relentless, unforgiving. Reading How […]
Memorizing Shadows – Stone Wishes
MEMORIZING SHADOWS, INSPIRATION FROM THE ARIZONA TRAIL AND STONE WISHES ON THE COLORADO PLATEAU Because we couldn’t go hiking together in red rock country this spring, a friend offered two chapbooks of poetry written by a woman who loves canyons and deserts as much as we do. My friend is correct. Heidi Elizabeth Blankenship’s poems […]
Nomadland, Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century
NOMADLAND An eye-opening book of investigative journalism, Nomadland explores the terrain traveled by those who are houseless—not homeless, houseless—men and women who live year-round in one kind of vehicle or another. Some live this way by choice, but Jessica Bruder, the author of Nomadland, focuses on those who have been forced by economic circumstances to […]
Wild at Heart
WILD AT HEART, MUSTANGS AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE FIGHTING TO SAVE THEM I reviewed Terri Farley’s Wild at Heart back in August of 2017. This is the perfect holiday gift for yourself or your favorite horse lover. Since Bookin’ with Sunny supports all independent bookstores, I am giving you a chance to purchase it through the […]
Don’t Skip Out on Me
DON’T SKIP OUT ON ME Don’t Skip Out on Me by Willy Vlautin is the chosen book for 2019 Nevada Reads. It is the second Willy Vlautin book I’ve read and felt worth recommending. Vlautin is not your ordinary author; he is also a singer, composer, and musician. Before yesterday, September 14th, I hadn’t listened […]
Reflections on the Donner Party
MICHAEL WALLIS AND BERNARD DEVOTO ENLIVEN THE DONNER PARTY AND MANIFEST DESTINY In The Best Land Under Heaven, Wallis recounts the history of the Donner party, an easily followed trail most of the way. The winter of 1846-47 came early around Truckee (later Donner) Lake, the snow there reaching several feet early in November—at least […]
Sweet Promised Land and Robert Laxalt, the Story of a Storyteller
SWEET PROMISED LAND AND ROBERT LAXALT, THE STORY OF A STORYTELLER Aside from Mark Twain’s Roughing It, Robert Laxalt’s, Sweet Promised Land (1957, 2007) is the most perceptively written depiction of Nevada before the Nevada Test Site, and Las Vegas defined the state differently. While Mark Twain wrote his memoir about frontier Nevada in its […]
Deep Creek
DEEP CREEK When I first read Pam Houston’s acerbic collection of short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness, I recognized a writer who would have a long and successful career musing creatively about life and love. Five books and more than twenty-five years later, in her latest collection of essays, Houston stamps a coda on her […]
Angle of Repose
ANGLE OF REPOSE Because it is a new year doesn’t mean a reviewed book has to be new. If Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose hadn’t been the Clayton Community Library Book Club pick for January 2019, I never would have chosen it for review; sometimes we readers just get lucky. A lot of book clubs […]