Laura de León is a radar astronomer who studies Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHOs) such as threatening asteroids and comets at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. In Los Angeles in 2020, several crises are coalescing. The first strain of SARS-CoV-2 triggers the lockdowns, the city roils with protests of Derek Chauvin's murder of George Floyd and the police killing of Breonna Taylor, while the Bobcat Fire sweeps across the San Fernando Valley. In the midst of these emergencies, Laura is struggling to keep her family alive. Simultaneously, Laura is trying to write the history section of a Congressional report titled the National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan. This report will advise Congress that it must develop a system to detect and deflect PHOs, and the section Laura is working on cites several historical meteorite impacts as proof that the Earth is now undefended against a significant impact event. A story about family, love, risk, and science, A History of Hazardous Objects contemplates how experiencing trauma and pain may help us secure a safer and more just world.
My Chicano Heart is a collection of author Daniel A. Olivas's favorite previously published tales about love, along with five new stories, that explore the complex, mysterious, and occasionally absurd machinations of people who simply want to be appreciated and treasured. Readers will encounter characters who scheme, search, and flail in settings that are sometimes fantastical and other times mundane: a man who literally gives his heart to his wife who keeps it beating safely in a wooden box; a woman who takes a long-planned trip through New Mexico but, mysteriously, without the company of her true love; a lonely man who gains a remarkably compatible roommate who may or may not be real--just to name a few of the memorable and often haunting characters who fill these pages. Often infused with Olivas's trademark humor, readers will delight in--and commiserate with--the lovestruck characters who populate these richly realized stories. Each story is drawn from Olivas's nearly twenty-five years of experience writing fiction deeply steeped in Chicano and Mexican culture. Some of the stories are fanciful and full of magic, while others are more realistic, and still others border on noir. All touch upon that most ephemeral and confounding of human emotions: love in all its wondrous forms.
With a foreword by John N. Maclean, son of Norman Maclean The Writings of Norman Maclean: Seeking Truth amid Tragedy provides the first critical reassessment of this celebrated author's work in more than a decade. In his study, Timothy P. Schilling focuses on Maclean's attempt, in A River Runs through It and Other Stories and Young Men and Fire, to come to grips with the tragic side of human existence. From the 1938 death of his brother Paul to the 1949 deaths of thirteen firefighters in Montana's Mann Gulch wildfire, Maclean is driven by a desire to discover ultimate meaning--the truth--in the face of haunting tragedy. Through careful analysis of all of Maclean's published works, Schilling highlights the audaciousness of Maclean's quest to wrest free an answer from "the universe." Ever open to scientific, literary, philosophical, and theological ways of viewing reality, Maclean found ambiguity, paradoxically, to be an essential tool for probing the truth. Beyond exploring Maclean's use of this tool, Schilling breaks new ground by considering Maclean's invocation of the Transcendentals in "A River Runs through It," noting the sly homage Maclean pays to Izaak Walton, examining Maclean's often-neglected "Other Stories," assessing Robert Redford's film adaptation of "A River Runs through It," and providing the most thorough exploration of Young Men and Fire yet available. With this book, Schilling offers a current and complete analysis of Maclean--one of the most iconic figures in Western American literature.
Selected as one of the San Francisco Chronicles' 15 best books of 2021 From critically acclaimed author Maceo Montoya comes an inventive and adventurous satirical novel about a Mexican-American artist's efforts to fulfill his vision: to paint masterful works of art. His plans include a move to Paris to join the ranks of his artistic hero, Gustave Courbet--except it's 1943, and he's stuck in the backwoods of New Mexico. Penniless and prone to epileptic fits, even his mother thinks he's crazy. Ernie Lobato has just inherited his deceased uncle's manuscript and drawings. At the urging of his colleague, an activist and history buff (Lorraine Rios), Ernie sends the materials to a professor of Chicanx literature (Dr. Samuel Pizarro). Throughout the novel, Dr. Pizarro shares his insights and comments on the uncle's legacy in a series of annotations to his text and illustrations. As Ernie's uncle battles a world that is unkind to "starving artists," he runs into other tormented twentieth-century artists, writers, and activists with ambitions to match his own: a young itinerant preacher (Reies López Tijerina); the "greatest insane artist" (Martín Ramirez); and Oscar Zeta Acosta who is hellbent on self-destruction. Will the fortuitous encounters with these prophetic figures result in his own genius being recognized? Or will his > Told through a combination of words and images in the tradition of classic works such as Don Quixote and Alice in Wonderland, Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces features fifty-one vivid black-and-white pen drawings. This complex and engaging story also doubles as literary criticism, commenting on how outsiders' stories fit into the larger context of the Chicanx literary canon. A unique and multilayered story that embraces both contradiction and possibility, it also sheds new light on the current state of Chicanx literature while, at the same time, contributing to it. Propulsive, humorous, and full of life, this candid novel will be loved not only by Beat fiction fans but by contemporary fiction lovers as well.
Underground Leviathan explores the emergence, dynamics, and lasting impacts of a mining firm, the United States Company. Through its exercise of sovereign power across the borders of North America in the early twentieth century, the transnational US Company shaped the business, environmental, political, and scientific landscape. Between its initial incorporation in Maine in 1906 and its final demise in the 1980s, the mining company held properties in Utah, Colorado, California, Nevada, Alaska, Mexico, and Canada. The firm was a prototypical management-ruled corporation, which strategically planned and manipulated the technological, production, economic, urban, environmental, political, and cultural activities wherever it operated, all while shaping social actors internationally, including managers, engineers, workers, neighbors, and farmers. Author Israel G. Solares examines how the twentieth century multinational firm established and articulated multinational corporate sovereignty in ways that reflect other multinational titans, like the East Asian Trade companies, and presages the digital giants and space corporations of the twenty-first century. Bridging the domineering practices used during the colonization of Southern Asia with the futuristic colonies on the Moon, Underground Leviathan documents the cost of a corporation's unyielding desire to consume the secrets at the center of the Earth.
Monumental Lies: Early Nevada Folklore of the Wild West opens the door to understanding how legends and traditions emerged during the first decades following the "Rush to Washoe," which transformed the region beginning in 1859.
A Natural History of Oregon's Lake Abert in the Northwest Great Basin Landscape focuses on a salt lake and includes descriptions and numerous photos of the region's geology, hydrology, and plants and animals--from lichens to pronghorn sheep--as well as its archaeology. Because birds are so conspicuous, both on the lake and in the uplands, there is an abundant amount of information including about them.
Zayas defies Spanish hegemony by manipulating and transforming the ideals of courtly masculinity.
"Set in the wasteland of post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, Hammer of the Dogs is a literary dystopian adventure starring 21-year-old Lash. With her high-tech skill set and warrior mentality, Lash helps to shield the Las Vegas valley's survivors and protect her younger classmates at a paramilitary school holed up in Luxor on the Las Vegas Strip. After graduation, she'll be alone in fending off the deadly intentions/desires of the school's most powerful opponents. When she's captured by the enemy warlord, she's surprised by two revelations: He's not the monster her headmaster wants her to believe he is and the one thing she can't safeguard is her own heart"--
During the pandemic and in the wake of his father's death, Daniel A. Olivas reviewed almost 25 years' worth of his short stories and chose his favorites. The result is How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories. This collection brings together some of his most unforgettable strange tales that will be enjoyed, again, by his fans, and introduce new readers to Olivas's distinct--and very Chicano--short stories.
To the North/Al norte is part of a growing field of narratives told by formerly undocumented or undocumented writers in the United States. It is a hybrid book of poetry written in Spanish by the Nicaraguan poet León Salvatierra, who mixes lyric and prose poems to explore migration, exile, violence, dislocation, among other themes that stem from the transnational experience of the Central American diaspora that emerged from the civil wars in the 1980s.
"Imposing Order Without Law examines the history surrounding nineteenth century American settlers in two remote regions-the slopes of the Eastern Sierra Nevada and the Honey Lake Valley-who used extralegal means to establish order in their communities. The book reveals the use and effects of group violence used to enforce community edicts which transformed the Native People's world into colonial outposts"--
After practicing medicine for more than thirty years, Dr. Norah Waters struggles with career burnout as she hunts for the lost fulfillment in her work. Supported by her steadfast dog, a misfit veterinarian, and a pensive radiologist, she wrestles her way through a surprising assortment of obstacles, sometimes amusing and sometimes dreadful, to make a final decision about her future.
Foreword by Jeff Kelley. Nevada's open spaces have long inspired complex responses from a population largely shaped by European sensibilities toward land and its uses. In Mapping the Empty Fox considers how eight of the state's most distinguished and innovative contemporary artists have responded to the harsh, enigmatic landscapes of the Great Basin and how, through their work, they have expressed and helped to define our attitudes toward the space we call the West. The artists are Jim McCormick, Rita Deanin Abbey, Dennis Parks, Walter McNamara, Robert Beckmann, Michael Heizer, Bill Barker, and Mary Ann Bonjorni.
Worlding the Western takes the fiction of the Western United States as a focal point for a re-examination of the consequences of exceptionalism and closed borders in the Trump Era. At a time of bounded individualism, new nativism, climate emergency, and migration crises, author Neil Campbell argues that fiction offers opportunities to put the world back in ways that challenge the dark side of globalization and proposes worlding as a different and more open form of politics.
Skins is Adrian C. Louis's realistic novel of life on Pine Ridge Reservation, the story of two brothers--one a rez cop, the other an alcoholic--and their relationship with each other, with their people, with their environment.
Winner, TopShelf Magazine Book Awards Historical Non-fiction.Finalist, Northern California Book Awards General Non-FictionLook. Smell. Taste. Judge. Crush is the 200-year story of the heady dream that wines as good as the greatest of France could be made in California. A dream dashed four times in merciless succession until it was ultimately realized in a stunning blind tasting in Paris. In that tasting, in the year of America's bicentennial, California wines took their place as the leading wines of the world.For the first time, Briscoe tells the complete and dramatic story of the ascendancy of California wine in vivid detail. He also profiles the larger story of California itself by looking at it from an entirely innovative perspective, the state seen through its singular wine history.With dramatic flair and verve, Briscoe not only recounts the history of wine and winemaking in California, he encompasses a multidimensional approach that takes into account an array of social, political, cultural, legal, and winemaking sources. Elements of this history have plot lines that seem scripted by a Sophocles, or Shakespeare. It is a fusion of wine, personal histories, cultural, and socioeconomic aspects.Crush is the story of how wine from California finally gained its global due. Briscoe recounts wine's often fickle affair with California, now several centuries old, from the first harvest and vintage, through the four overwhelming catastrophes, to its amazing triumph in Paris.
Going It Alone is the story of the conflict between joy and loneliness Tim Hauserman discovered on a series of backpack trips in the wilderness: a tale of self-induced misadventures and overwhelming sadness but also many moments of sublime rapture. It is a humorous, humble take on the experience of spending time alone in the wilderness--part exquisite nature journal, part Bill Bryson in the woods--with a unique voice and take on the world.
Thomas Savage (1915-2003) was one of the best of the Intermountain West novelists for several decades of the twentieth century. His thirteen novels received high critical praise but low sales throughout his career. O. Alan Weltzien's insightful and detailed literary biography chronicles the life and work of this neglected but talented novelist.
Amidst the evolving scientific knowledge of epidemic diseases during the mid-to-late 19th century, Guarding the Golden Gate narrates the development of the Quarantine Station on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay and illuminates the everyday activities of the station's personnel as they met both political and public health challenges.
A photographic showcase of the largest Basque festival in the US, held in Boise, Idaho, every five years. The photography of Jon Hodgson, combined with the writing of Basque-American expert Nancy Zubiri, captures the essense of the ancient Basque people who have adapted their culture to the Western American landscape.
Presents a collection of articles John Glionna wrote as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times and as a freelance writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. These stories introduce readers to the 'real Nevada', revealing hidden subcultures, offbeat tales, and the diverse spirit and character of the state's rural people and the land they inhabit.
Drawing upon literature, film, websites, journals, public policy documents, and other writing, this innovative study models an interdisciplinary approach to water governance that reinvigorates our imagination to foster a more sustainable and equitable Colorado River water ethic
Explores the middle-class African American-led movement to challenge housing discrimination, gain equal access to twentieth-century Los Angeles, and ward off resegregation.
With fearless and playful language, Katherine Factor's debut collection reveals agony, humour, and the necessary voices of the female oracle through time. The oracle's message is apparent - she is not dead. Her words are cryptic but contemporary, offering caution along with guidance to a society interested only in using prophecy for profit.
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