A Collection of Southwestern Tales β Past and Present
by Charles Anthony Alvarez(West Twins Publishing, $16.95)
As a Nogales native, U.S. Food and Drug Administration employee, and member of Santa Cruz County boards, Charles Anthony Alvarez knows his Southern Arizona. That heβs a self-described βdrugstore cowboyβ who enjoys history and reading Westerns can be seen in this book. The stories in βCollection of Southwestern Tales β Past and Presentβ take place in Southern Arizona. One, involving a mine-shaft incident, takes place in contemporary times. Others, such as a tale featuring a former-U.S. Cavalry scout whose family is killed by Apaches, are Westerns set in the 1880s.
β Christine Wald-Hopkins
Entertaining Tucson Across the Decades, Vol. 2: 1986-1989 and Vol. 3: 1990s
by Robert E, Zucker(BZB Publishing, Inc. $14.99 each)
Theyβve been out a while now, but these written histories of Tucsonβs local entertainment are worth a look, if for no better reason than to check out period hair and clothing styles. Author and publisher Robert E. Zucker grew up reporting on entertainment in Tucson: in the 1970s, he wrote for a publication by youth for youth, which soon morphed into Entertainment Magazine.
The three volumes of βEntertaining Tucson Across the Decadesβ are a compilation of stories, profiles, interviews, advertisements, and photos from the magazine. Through the years, you see clubs come and go, musicians evolve, bands group and regroup, audience tastes change. Linda Ronstadtβs there with Aaron Neville. Comedian Garry Shandling, too. KXCI and North Fourth Ave also make appearances.
β Christine Wald-Hopkins
Lost Restaurants of Tucson
by Rita Connelly(American Palate, $21.99)
It didnβt take many pages into this book on lost local eateries to send this old Tucsonan into reveries: scraping the family car at Johnieβs drive-in, the prom date dinner (plus au jus splashes on the dress) at the Tack Room, Sunday lunch with the folks at the Frampton-Stone Cafeteria; herding crying/sulking/pinching kids at Austinβs, Tia Elena, the Big A; playing grown-up at Scordatoβs. Apparently you donβt have to be a foodie for restaurants to make memories.
Local food writer and critic Rita Connelly has produced an appreciative compendium of restaurants that have come and gone in the Old Pueblo. Setting it in historical context (in the 1800s you could eat at the Palace or the Shoo Fly), Connelly describes specific establishments, as she identifies familial and business relationships, culinary trends, and the effects of the economy on the fragile business of serving food. Her book is interesting, informative, and, yes, evocative.
β Christine Wald-Hopkins
Pantano Wash
by Conley Stone McAnally (Pharaoh Publishing, $4.99)
The line β[p]retty far from the right or left of old Route 66, depending on if you are going to or coming from California, is a small pueblo called Pantano Washβ captures the tone of this little novel by Conley Stone McAnally: meandering, unprepossessing, a little humorous. Wandering into this remote desert community, a collection of drifters gets seduced by Peggyβs famous pies and stay on to create a community at Billyβs RV park. When a misadventure with a stinking bear carcass makes national news, the community becomes threatened by secrets from one drifterβs past. In a place where folks canβt distinguish a New York from a Montana accent, driftersβ secrets are easily kept. McAnallyβs other books include βTales from Homerβand βAshwood: Tales from the Porch.β
β Christine Wald-Hopkins
Rei Wan The Outsider
by Jim Herman (James H. Herman, $21.99)
Itβs easy, from a 21st-century perspective, to look back at the civil unrest of the Vietnam War period as clear-cut pro- or anti- war. We forget there was a middle ground, to act according to American ideals. In 1966, Arizonan Jim Herman, a 21-year-old college graduate disenchanted with American militarism, joined the Peace Corps, as a βPatriotic Soldier of Love.β In the first American Peace Corps contingent sent to Micronesia, this kid from Tucson spent two years on a typhoon corridor Pacific island about the size of two American football fields. βRei Wan The Outsiderβ is both an intriguing account of his experiencesβshark attack, typhoon ritual, elicit romantic temptation, and all β and an affecting meditation on what the modern world can learn from native people living in harmony with each other and nature.
β Christine Wald-Hopkins
Hiding in my Pajamas
by Becky Kueker (Outskirts Press, $9.95)
Becky Kueker couldnβt have selected a better title to represent her experience in retirement. A principal in a high-powered architectural firm and married to a successful financial planner, Kueker with her husband had project-managed the bejesus out of the practicalities of their retirement. That included their savings, investments, house-downsizing, retirement schedule and an affordable, desirable retirement-home location (near good golf).What they hadnβt projected was what daily life in the affordable, desirable, retirement-home on the golf course would be like. That brings us to the image of a professional woman with nothing to do but binge-watch Netflix, nibble on chocolate, and not change out of pajamas. Itβs no spoiler to say she got past that period. Billed as βsomewhere between a memoir and a how-to,β βHiding in my Pajamasβ includes quotations from experts with her candid narrative. She could have left out the advice to βyou,β the reader, however. Her own story, along with her friendsβ stories, makes her point.
β Christine Wald-Hopkins
Trouble at the Circle Cross
by Ted Beltz
(
Eagle Trail Press, $17.99)
While riding fence, a local cowboy discovers a body with obvious grizzly wounds. But there are many bends on the winding trail and what looks like a simple bear attack turns into much more when the coroner finds a chunk of lead buried in the victimβs spine. The case appears to be solved after a long-buried secret is uncovered, but the confession leads to another death and corpses start stacking up like cordwood. Beautiful scenery and colorful cowboy anecdotes fill the pages of this high-country mystery as the hands of the Circle Cross Ranch and the local deputy work to find the killers.
Tucson author Beltz recently published a sequel, βHigh Country Justice.β
β Vicki Ann Duraine
Unfinished Business
by Geoff McLeod(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $12.95)
When a Phoenix police officer is run down during a traffic stop, his son, Greg, vows vengeance. Evidence of corruption and cover-up begins in Colorado Springs where Greg becomes entangled with a comely coed he rescues from a seedy bar. But is she a victim or the first link to his fatherβs murder?
Filled with tough Marines, molls, drug runners and showdowns, this is McLeodβs second novel.
β Vicki Ann Duraine
The Absurd Naturalist
by Gene Twaronite, (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $9.95)
Dragon Daily News: Stories of Imagination for Children of All Ages
by Gene Twaronite. (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $9.95)
With a twinkle in his eye and a clever turn of phrase, Gene Twaronite expounds on the natural world and our, at times, unnatural role in it. His subjects meander all over the great outdoors, ranging from βTen Reasons You Shouldnβt Gardenβ (because it sets us up for failure and brings out the worst in us) and βToad Throwingβ (a natural outcome of lawn-mowing in New Hampshire) to his rumination on paying off the national debt by creating a Grand Canyon Disneyland. The collection reflects 30 years of articles written for journals and newspapers; of special interest to Southern Arizonans are the challenging lessons the author learned in his desert garden:ββ¦javelina eat mostly on the run, like a marauding pack of teenagers in a food court, hastily tearing off chunks of plant fleshβ¦leaving bits and pieces in their wake.β His observations will not turn a brown thumb green, but they invite a smile.
Twaronite is the author of five books, three of them for children and young adults. His most recent offering, βDragon Daily News,β is a collection of fanciful short stories written for kids up through the middle grades. A former science teacher, landscaper, and contributor to βHighlights for Childrenβ magazine, Twaronite lives in Tucson.
βHelene Woodhams
Wings of the W.A.S.P.
by R.L. Clayton. (Createspace Independent Publishing. $14.99; 7.99 digital.)
During World War II, WASPS (Women Airforce Service Pilots) flew domestic missions, freeing up male pilots for combat and service duty. It was a valuable wartime contribution, but the female flyers in R. L. Claytonβs eye-opening historical novel were not welcome by the military brass at the Marana Airfield. When an attempt to sabotage a WASP by causing a mid-air incident goes horribly wrong β and a cover-up at the highest levels ensues β Sgt. Joe Clark risks everything to set the historical record straight and put his own demons to rest. Clayton, who lives in Tucson, was inspired by his motherβs war-time experiences as a WASP.
βHelene Woodhams
Sugar and Dirt: Memoirs of a Tortoise
by Fernando Prol. (Wheatmark, $11.95)
Fernando Prol offers a bildungsroman that traces a young manβs journey from his childhood experiences as a refugee from Castroβs Cuba through his fondly-remembered school days in Maryland, the tragic loss of his mother, his fall from grace resulting from a series of youthful bad choices and his ultimate redemption. The structure of the novel is somewhat bewildering β it is presented as the posthumous autobiography of βFP,β edited by a relative-by-marriage who did not know the memoirist well, but who was entreated by FPβs widow to bring order out of the confusion of random poems, unrelated thoughts and missing chapters. There are some fine momentsβas in the section in which FP attempts to reconcile his troubled relationship with his father. Prol, who himself was a refugee from Cuba in 1961, lives in Tucson.
βHelene Woodhams
Dunbar: The Neighborhood, the School, and the People 1940-1965.
by Aloma J. Barnes. (Wheatmark, $25.95)
In May, 1912, three months after Arizona became the 48th state, its legislature amended the 1909 territorial school code to make segregation mandatory. In integrated Tucson, a makeshift facility was hurriedly created from an undertakerβs parlor to accommodate the children who were suddenly without a school to attend; six years later, in 1918, a new, two-room school was constructed on North Second Street. Named for a poet, the school became the lyrical heart of the culturally and ethnically diverse community that surrounded it. With the school as its centerpiece, author Aloma J. Byrnes offers an intriguing and well-sourced account of the growth of the Dunbar neighborhood, where she has lived for many years. In a volume overflowing with personal reminiscences and anecdotes from residents and former Dunbar students, she identifies the important personalities and events that shaped the community and provides the historical context, beginning with Jim Crow-era Tucson and moving on through integration. Highlights, such as the spring training accommodations the neighborhood offered Negro baseball players like Satchel Paige, who were unwelcome at the cityβs hotels, make this an enlightening read. An extensive bibliography is included.
βHelene Woodhams
Grace in the Desert: Poems and Lyrics Celebrating Tucson
by don-E Merson. (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. $25 paper; 3.99 Kindle)
The author of this collection of poetry and song is an unabashed lover of Tucson and the Southwest deserts. Praising everything about the city that is spectacular, and everything that is ordinary--from the expanse of the mountain ranges and the inevitability of a monsoon cloudscape to the woman selling newspapers in a median on Valencia Road--Merson is clearly smitten with the charms of the Old Pueblo; with this illustrated volume he invites the reader to join his celebration. The author, who creates software, is a transplant from the Washington D.C. area now living, it appears contentedly, in Tucson.
βHelene Woodhams
Damn Shoes and Other Talking Tales: A Selection of True Narratives About People Who Directly and Indirectly Experience Communication Disorders
by Daniel R. Boone, PhD. (Forman Publishing Group, $15.97)
Speech, language and voice disorders arise from a variety of causes, and the resulting difficulties in communication can have a profound effect on both the speaker and the listener. In this anecdotal collection of cases, drawn from a 58-year career as a clinical speech-language pathologist, the author outlines the physical causes of pathology (aphasia, dementia, neurological impairment, etc.), their verbal manifestations, and his own interactions with the patients who suffered from them. Interspersed are recollections of his early career, his growth in the profession, and his, at times, deeply personal experiencesβhis mother is the subject of one of the patient narratives. Daniel R Boone is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at the University of Arizona; he lives in Tucson.
βHelene Woodhams