Legend of the Eagleman Wayne Parrish 364 pages, softcover: $18.95. Morro Press, 2006. Based on an Indian legend warning against gambling and greed, this suspenseful and engaging novel blends tribal history, water disputes, illegal land swaps, and political corruption. Matt Dillon, Indian sculptor and special agent for the Arizona Gaming Commission, goes undercover to investigate […]
Book Reviews
Posted inApril 17, 2006: The War on Wildfire
Communities and Forests: Where People Meet theLand
Communities and Forests: Where People Meet the Land ed. Robert G. Lee and Donald R. Field 320 pages, softcover: $29.95. Oregon State University Press, 2005. This collection of essays suggests that traditional forest management is shifting, from being solely science-based to accounting for societal and cultural values. Lee and Field present four major types of […]
Posted inApril 17, 2006: The War on Wildfire
A law born from the ashes
California’s devastating fires of 2003 gave rise to the Healthy Forests Restoration Act — the business end of the Bush administration’s Healthy Forests Initiative, itself introduced in Oregon after the 2002 fire season. George W. Bush’s Healthy Forests, by Jacqueline Vaughn and Hanna J. Cortner, is the story of a legislative moment in time — […]
Posted inApril 17, 2006: The War on Wildfire
On the wing again
As California condors disappeared, a new world emerged. From observation posts in Southern California’s Transverse Ranges in the 1960s, hazy vistas of L.A. subdivisions, office buildings and jet airplanes gradually replaced sightings of the largest bird in North America. “This is not a species that’s grown old and feeble,” NPR science reporter John Nielsen writes […]
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
At home in the valley
In The San Luis Valley, Susan Tweit takes us on an extraordinary spring journey through a place her heart knows as home. It’s a joy to read her keen observations about wild territory — in the outback, in our hearts — and the many ways it feeds the soul. In the tepee-shaped slice of south […]
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
With liberty, justice, and locally produced food for all
“Injustice is part of every meal we eat,” writes Jenny Kurzweil in Fields that Dream: A Journey to the Roots of Our Food. In each chapter, Kurzweil tells the story of an organic farmer, fieldworker or marketer based in the Pacific Northwest, illustrating how injustice might be diminished by purchasing food from local and socially […]
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods
Skinny Streets and Green Neighborhoods Cynthia Girling and Ronald Kellett 176 pages, softcover: $35. Island Press, 2006. Urban sprawl and congestion: We all know it’s a massive problem. But proven, practical solutions often elude planners and developers. Authors Cynthia Girling and Ronald Kellett, who teach architecture and landscape architecture, examine several case studies of ecologically […]
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
National Parks and the Woman’s Voice
National Parks and the Woman’s Voice Polly Welts Kaufman 344 pages, softcover: $22.95. University of New Mexico Press, 2006. This updated edition of a decade-old book examines the role of women in the National Park Service, from Yellowstone explorers of the late 1800s to present-day park founders and advocates. Women now fill one-quarter of park […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Got Sun? Go Solar
Got Sun? Go Solar Rex A. Ewing and Doug Pratt 160 pages, softcover: $18.95, PixyJack Press, 2005. Tired of waiting for Washington, D.C., to make a serious commitment to solar power? Then pick up this information-packed but very readable book and get started on your own. Authors Rex Ewing and Doug Pratt explain home renewable […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Exploring High Mountain Lakes in the Rockies
Exploring High Mountain Lakes in the Rockies Fred W. Rabe 146 pages, softcover: $29.95 Aquatic Ecosystems, 2006. Exploring High Mountain Lakes in the Rockies features dozens of color photographs, maps and sketches. But it’s not a travel guide to the approximately 8,000 high-elevation lakes speckling the region; instead of trails, biologist Fred Rabe describes geology, […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Big dams, big battles
Like it or not, dams define the West. This is the birthplace of big dams — Hoover, Glen Canyon, Grand Coulee — and to a large extent, these monuments have written the history of our cities and our agriculture. These days, Westerners talk more about taking down big dams than about building new ones. But […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Friends in high places
Breaking Through the Clouds is a compilation of essays by Richard Fleck, a scholar, writer and wanderer of the West’s high mountains. Fleck deftly weaves in the history and human background of each peak, quoting John Wesley Powell on the first ascent of Longs Peak in what is now Rocky Mountain National Park. Far from […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2006: High Noon for Habitat
Stalking the boojum in the Sonoran Desert
From afar, the Sonoran Desert is a stonewashed, monochromatic expanse. Look closer, and you’ll swear that fantasy writer Lewis Carroll did the landscaping. Two rainy seasons each year give the Sonoran Desert stunning biodiversity and some pretty quirky plant species — many so specialized to a particular place that budding naturalists are likely to need […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2006: High Noon for Habitat
Just where is that home on the range?
It’s easy to write about coming to the West. Legendary figures, such as Jack Kerouac, Ed Abbey and even John Denver, still inspire young people to follow them to the land of Rocky Mountain highs and red rock deserts in search of enlightenment. What’s harder to do, however, is to write about leaving the West. […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2006: High Noon for Habitat
Under Ground: How Creatures of Mud and Dirt Shape Our World
Under Ground: How Creatures of Mud and Dirt Shape Our World Yvonne Baskin 237 pages, hardcover: $26.95 Island Press, 2005. Yvonne Baskin, a science writer, takes us on an intriguing tour of the planet’s soils and sediments. Did you know, for example, that because earthworms aren’t native to much of North America, fishermen should dump […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2006: High Noon for Habitat
Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes and the Trial that Forged a Nation
Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes and the Trial that Forged a Nation Paul VanDevelder 324 pages, softcover: $19.95 University of Nebraska Press, 2005. “Coyote warriors” are the new generation of American Indian leaders who leave the reservation to train as attorneys, scientists or other professionals, then return home to help their tribes. Tribal governments, […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2006: The Killing Fields
Seeking peace in nuclear times
In Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir, former U.S. Marine Leonard Bird offers a personal account of nuclear war. His story shifts between Japan — the only place atomic bombs have been used in combat — to the pockmarked Nevada deserts that for 40 years were ground zero for the U.S. nuclear test program. Nearly […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2006: The Killing Fields
Urban planning — with a wild touch
Feeling overwhelmed by pell-mell developments that consume the landscape of your community? Two new books suggest a remedy — a variety of innovative planning methods, illustrated with plenty of maps, diagrams and photos. Typical subdivisions are shaped around the “human context” — roads and schools, zoning, and the marketability of the lots and houses — […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2006: The Killing Fields
The Colorado Plateau II: Biophysical, Socioeconomic, and Cultural Research
The Colorado Plateau II: Biophysical, Socioeconomic, and Cultural Research Charles van Riper III and David J. Mattson, eds. 352 pages, hardcover: $35 University of Arizona Press, 2005. Every two years, scientists gather to discuss the history, biology and geology of the vast Colorado Plateau, which sprawls across the Four Corners area. This book presents their […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2006: The Killing Fields
John Muir: Family, Friends, and Adventures
John Muir: Family, Friends, and Adventures Sally M. Miller and Daryl Morrison, ed. 272 pages, hardcover: $29.95 University of New Mexico Press, 2005. This new collection of essays, John Muir: Family, Friends, and Adventures, manages to break fresh ground in discussing the great naturalist. Historic photographs, sketches and excerpts from letters brighten the sometimes-scholarly essays, […]