A Life in the Law: a Woman Lawyer’s Life in Post-World War II Albuquerque, New Mexico
by Mary M. Dunlap with Mary Kay Stein (Sunstone Press, $19.95)
Mary Dunlap and her two young children arrived in Albuquerque on a June morning in 1947 to witness a murder/suicide as they traveled through town. Although that crime was committed and solved in the two gunshot retorts, not all cases were as easily decided.
Told in her mother’s voice, Stein presents a compilation of 40 years spent representing the colorful locals and working with tribal law. Though many clients were nationally insignificant, two cases marked her career: a record-setting vehicular manslaughter award and years spent in the 1960s working on a lawsuit between two companies vying for uranium rights.
A longtime Tucson resident, Stein transcribed tape recordings left by her mother, Mary Dunlap, into this loving tribute to her illustrious career in law and their life in New Mexico.
The Clay Remembers
by Sharon K. Miller (Buckskin Books, $14.99)
Desperate to escape from her abusive husband, Anna Robinson flees to Tucson where she lands a job with an archaeological firm. She joins a crew at a dig in the Santa Catalina Mountains and, in addition to artifacts, finds romance. But Anna knows that nothing stays buried forever, and her fears are realized when she is abducted by her husband.
Like Anna, Miller is fascinated by the Hohokam and Yaqui cultures. “The Clay Remembers” is the result of years of research and the first in a trilogy.
How Abraham Lincoln Used Stories to Touch Hearts, Minds, and Funny Bones
by Terry Sprouse (Amazon Digital Services, $12)
He was a tall, ungainly and homely man, yet Abraham Lincoln knew the secret to winning friends, influencing people, and swaying an audience. His secret lay in the power of stories, says author Terry Sprouse, and this enabled Lincoln to make irresistible and memorable connections.
Sprouse takes a close and careful look at Lincoln’s secret weapon, detailing how stories work (they are the shortest path between strangers and friends), how to tell them (use mimicry and facial expressions), why to tell them (to relieve stress, avoid commitments or soften a blow) and the best kind of tell (use a moral in your story to win over opponents).
Sprouse devotes several chapters to the hows and whys of storytelling, ending each with a bullet-point summation, and dedicates the rest of the book to examples of famous Lincoln stories and why they worked.
It’s a delightful read, even if you have no intention of becoming a raconteur or a politician. Sprouse, a former Peace Corps volunteer, lives in Tucson.
Approaching Wilderness: Six Stories of Dementia
by Gene Twaronite (CreateSpace, $5.95)
In an effort to explore and perhaps better comprehend the challenges of his late mother’s illness, Tucson author Gene Twaronite offers six stories illustrating the struggles of dementia patients and their families. Strangers wear familiar faces, belief in a benevolent god is threatened, and options to the dreaded nursing home are in short supply in Twaronite’s disturbing, and yet touching stories, originally published in literary journals.
Beyond El Camino Del Diablo: Beyond the Devil’s Highway
by Eugene Sierras (Trafford Publishing, $25.33)
With the death of his wife and child, Navy flyer Richard Valencia leaves active duty in the Middle East and returns home to try and make sense of the tragic turn his life has taken. To find peace with the past and contemplate the future he sets out on the journey along the Devil’s Highway that he had planned to take with his late father.
Peace proves to be in short supply, though, after Richard runs afoul of a white supremacist border patrol agent who carries a grudge. Luckily, it’s not all bad news — Richard falls in with folks who act as foils to the xenophobe dogging his trail, and help him grow in wisdom and spirituality as his journey takes him to Tucson, a new love, and a new life.
Author Eugene Sierras is no stranger to the Devil’s Highway as his vivid descriptions indicate, and he is conversant with military terminology and law enforcement. A Navy flyer who saw many tours of duty before retiring in 1986 to complete his career with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Sierras lives in Tucson.
A Really Big Sneeze
by Sharon A. Takerer (Wheatmark, $10.95)
In this picture book, a little girl named Mo posits that the scientific explanation for the creation of matter that she was taught in school may be one way to look at it, but another explanation might be that cosmic dust got up God’s nose and caused a mighty “Achoo!” that made him sneeze out stars, and planets, and the earth. The story is told in rhyme, with illustrations by the author. Sharon Takerer lives in Tucson, and is the author of “Seamus: The Patron Snake of Ireland and “Oh, Ednacita!’
