Books, Tucson Weekly

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 23 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Mostly Books' best-sellers for the week ending May 17, 2013 1. The Painted Girls…

Meeting the Mountains

Lee Allen — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Including a step-by-step tour to Mt. Lemmon, a new book might be the only guide to the Catalinas you'll ever need by Lee Allen Team an invigorated invertebrate zoologist with an avid arthropodist, a pair of inquisitive minds whose studies border on legendary, with a quest to know even more—and you come up with this definitive work. Writing the book's foreword, author and avowed desert rat Bill Broyles notes the Santa Catalina Mountains become good friends to anyone residing in Southern Arizona.…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 16 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Antigone Books' best-sellers for the week ending May 10, 2013 1. A Long Day at the End of the World…

Disappointing Discoveries

Tim Hull — Thu, 16 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

A talented researcher of the history of the West's posthumous book captures the calamities of the conquistadors by Tim Hull Failure is a slippery term, its meaning changing with perspective, one door closing and another opening and all that; but it's difficult to come up with a more fitting word to describe the 16th-century conquistador expeditions to these badlands. First there was Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in 1540.…

Bullies at the Border

Christine Wald-Hopkins — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

An investigative reporter looks back at the terror inflicted by the Minutemen by Christine Wald-Hopkins If there's a single lesson to be carried away from reading this engrossing and chilling new book about vigilantes and our border, it's this: Don't underestimate 'em. Those Minutemen might have been funky-looking old guys with beer bellies and hairless legs, perched on lawn chairs, facing down Naco.…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 09 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Mostly Books' best-sellers for the week ending May 3, 2013 1. Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1 George R.R. Martin ($8.99)…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 02 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Antigone Books' best-sellers for the week ending April 26, 2013 1. The Lost Daughter: A Memoir…

The Raw and the Cooked

Jarret Keene — Thu, 02 May 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Tucson author's imaginative flame sears in debut story collection by Jarret Keene As a veteran fantasy reader, I relish an unexpectedly superb story collection. The sumptuous moments I spent savoring tales told in, for example, Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners, Cory Doctorow's Overclocked and Cody Goodfellow's Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars are unforgettable.…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Mostly Books best-sellers for the week ending April 19, 2013 1. City of Bones…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Antigone Books' best-sellers for the week ending April 12, 2013 1.The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared Jonas Jonasson ($15.99)2. Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power Rachel Maddow ($15)3.…

Unintended Mystery

Christine Wald-Hopkins — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

A novel set in Northern Arizona lacks suspense by Christine Wald-Hopkins White folks are allowed to attend some kachina dances on the Hopi reservation, but they are expected to remain quietly in the back and refrain from photographing the proceedings. When novelist Shannon Baker takes readers to a social dance on Second Mesa, she honors that rule: She describes the village in which the dance takes place but paints the dancers with the general broad strokes that our previous experience of "kachina" can fill in.…

Water Worries

Tim Hull — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Through interviews and essays, a father/daughter team looks at the nature of our heat island existence by Tim Hull I suspect that very few of us living in the Southwest's urban heat islands these days think much about the idea of "commons" unless we're talking about the pool and hot-tub controlled by the proto-fascists on our HOA's board of directors. Indeed the very idea of commons—those resources that, ideally, we would all own together: the water, the land, the air—is anathema to the radical right wing that controls Arizona and seems to get its ideas about private property and public policy from the black-and-white Westerns made at Old Tucson in its heyday.…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Mostly Books' best-sellers for the week ending April 5, 2013 1. City of Bones…

Tales of Tradition

Paul Wine — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

While scholarly in intent, Robert S. McPherson's book on the Navajo remains reader-friendly by Paul Wine In early May 1996, newspapers in Utah and New Mexico reported that two Navajo women, Sarah Begay and her 96 year-old mother, Irene Yazzie, were in their house in Rocky Ridge, Ariz. when they heard what sounded like an explosion overhead followed by a strange whistle. Then they heard voices and footsteps out in the yard.…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Antigone Books' best-sellers for the week ending March 29, 2013 1. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared…

Tear Down This Wall

Jon M. Shumaker — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:00:00 -0700

The disruption and destruction created by the border wall is shown in photos and words by Jon M. Shumaker There's an old reporter's rule that says "Follow the money." While photographer and writer Krista Schlyer may have avoided that particular aspect of homeland security and who benefits from the billions spent on the militarization of the Southwest border, the rest of her powerful new book is right on the money.…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Mostly Books' best-sellers for the week ending March 22, 2013 1. The Cats of Tanglewood Forest…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Antigone Books' best-sellers for the week ending March 15, 2013 1. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared Jonas Jonasson ($15.99)…

America's Indian

Tim Hull — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Goyahkla, generally known by his Mexican name, Geronimo, is the star of a new biography by Tim Hull Goyahkla, the One Who Yawns, was not a nice man. You may know him by his Mexican name, that name you yelled as you jumped from some boulder or rooftop when you were a kid: Geronimo!…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Mostly Books' best-sellers for the week ending March 8, 2013 1. Deadly Stakes: A NovelJ.A. Jance ($25.99)2.…

Disturbing the Dead

Christine Wald-Hopkins — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Brent Hendricks went on a daytrip to reflect on the horror of what happened to his father, post-mortem by Christine Wald-Hopkins So what can you get if you confront a Harvard Law graduate-turned poet with the real-life desecration of his father's dead body? Material, lord knows.…

Adam Rex Gets A Big Head (...Not Really)

Mari Herreras — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:00:00 -0700

We profile the local author/illustrator as one of his books is a year away from the big screen by Mari Herreras Sure, having one of your books banned provides some street cred—and maybe a prime spot in the window display at Bookmans during Banned Books Week—but for Tucson children's author and illustrator Adam Rex, it's a status he'd rather do without ... Entering the Epic Café on Fourth Avenue, Rex looks like any other coffeehouse regular.…

The Tucson Weekly Incomplete Guide to Some of What We'd Recommend Doing at the Festival of Books

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:00:00 -0700

We like having fun — do you? Gustavo Arellano ¡Ban This!…

Celebrating Code Talkers

Paul Wine — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:00:00 -0700

A heroic story is told by the Navajo who lived it during World War II by Paul Wine In the early months of World War II, Japanese cryptographers, many of whom were graduates of American universities, had been extremely successful in unraveling U.S. military codes being used in the Pacific. At the suggestion of Philip Johnston, a Los Angeles engineer who had, as the son of missionaries, grown up on the Navajo reservation, the U.S. Marine Corps embarked on an ambitious project to devise a more secure code based on Diné Bizaad (Navajo), a complex language that, at the time, was understood by just a handful of non-Navajos.…

Top Ten in Books

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:00:00 -0700

Mostly Books' best-sellers for the week ending Feb. 22, 2013 1. Mousetronaut…