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- We truly love the West. We spent
most of our first year of fulltiming
there. We will probably return year after
year. But as we visited and lived in the
mountains, deserts, and scrublands, we
began to read to better understand the
'West.' Here are our favorites.
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- Like the writers say, this is
wide-open, wind-blown space
- with incredible vistas and it has
its own unique histories, cultures, and
stories.
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Photo is of
the Church of San
Jose de Gracia, completed in 1776 and located in Las
Trampas, New Mexico.
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- Readin' Thru
the West
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- Abbey,
Edward (1996). John Macrae, Editor.
The
Serpents of Paradise: A
Reader. New York: Henry Holt
and Company.
- Nonfiction and fiction.
Abbey was an independent thinker, an
extremist, a 'desert mystic,' and a
prolific writier. Here his longtime
editior, John Macrae, has put together
a collection of essays, travel pieces,
and works of fiction that parallel
events in Abbey's unusual life. Abbey's
earlier work, Desert
Solitaire (1991), captures the
heat, mystery, and rewards of a desert
experience.
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- Brown,
Dee (1994). The
American West. New York;
Touchstone Book.
- Nonfiction. This western
primer tells the stories of Native
Americans, settlers, cowboys, miners,
and ranchers. The narrative explains in
a straightforward manner the conflicts,
struggles, and conquests that led to
settlement of the West..
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- Darlington, David (1996). The
Mojave: A Portrait of the Definitive
American Desert. New York:
Henry Holt and Company Inc.
- Nonfiction. Somewhere
between the styles of Edward Abbey and
John McPhee, Darlington focuses
attention on the Mojave desert.
Combining natural history with regional
history and biography, the author
conveys how people have uses and abused
this unique region and leads to a sense
of protectiveness for this harsh, yet
perilously fragile and vulnerable
location.
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- Hillerman,
Tony (1999). Hunting
Badger. New York:
HarperCollins Publishers.
- Fiction. A new mystery by
Hillerman is a have-to-read for us. Of
course, if you've never read any of his
books featuring Jim Chee and Joe
Leaphorn, fictional Navajo Tribal
Police officers, that are set in the
four-corners areas - - you may first
want to start with one of his earlier
titles like 'The Blessing Way'
(1970).
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- Jance, J. A. (2000). Devil's
Claw : A Joanna Brady Mystery.
Avon Books.
- Fiction. The newest in a
series of mystery novels (seven so far)
set in Arizona, this time Sheriff
Joanna Brady of Cochise County is
working two cases in the weeks before
her wedding to Butch Dixon. This series
starts with 'Desert
Heat.' Jance, an American Mystery
Award-winner, is also the author of the
popular J.P. Beaumont mystery series,
set in Seatle, WA.
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- Nagle,
P. G. (1999). Glorieta
Pass. Forge Books.
- Fiction. This historical
novel combines fictional characters
with real people to tell the story of
the battle of Glorieta
Pass, frequently referred to as the
"Gettysburg of the West." In the Sangre
de Christo Mountains outside of Santa
Fe, Union forces, primarily made up of
Colorado volunteers, smashed a
Confederate force and ended southern
hopes of controlling the gold fields of
the west.
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- Nichols,
John (1974). The
Milagro Beanfield War. New
York: Henry Holt and Company.
- Fiction. This novel is the
first episode of Nichols' 'New Mexico
Trilogy.' Reminiscent of the power and
humor of Steinbeck's Cannery Row, this
is a vivid, human portrayal of a
downtrodden Hispanic - - one man who
takes a stand for his individual rights
and a democratic chance at improving
life. The results are hilarious and
unforgettable.
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- Preston,
Douglas (1992). Cities
of Gold: A Journey Across the American
Southwest. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press.
- Nonfiction. This is engaging
tale of a journey by horseback through
the rugged mountain and desert
wilderness of Arizona and New Mexico.
The author retraces the route of the
1540-1541 expedition of the Spanish
Explorer Coronado. Preston attempts to
catch a glimpse of what this area was
like when those Europeans first passed
through. He survives the life-risking
journey and unveils how much and how
little the land and people of the
Southwest have changed.
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- Reisner, Mark (1993). Cadillac
Desert : The American West and Its
Disappearing Water. Penguin
USA.
- Nonfiction. The winner of
the National Book Critics Circle Award,
this is a history of the struggle to
discover and control water in the
American West. It is the tale of rivers
diverted and damned, political
corruption and intrigue, billion-dollar
battles over water rights, and economic
and ecological disaster.
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- Stegner, Wallace (1998). Marking
the Sparrow's Fall: The Making of the
American West. New York: Henry
Holt and Company Inc.
- Nonfiction and Fiction. This
collection of nonfiction essays and a
novella were written by Stegner, winner
of the National Book Award and a
Pulitzer Prize, in the years from 1948
to 1992. His son, Page selected them
after his father's death, some having
never before been published, to form an
understanding of 'what it means to be a
westerner.'
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Created by Annette
Lamb and
Larry
Johnson,
7/00
- Updated by Larry Johnson,
8/00
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