TOP PICK. Art & Photography - Louis Carlos Bernal was 11 when an aunt gave him a camera. He immediately took to it, mastering the art of capturing light and forging a style that mixed vignettes from ordinary life with the carefully planned…
TOP PICK. Art & Photography - This stylishly illustrated book resurrects the creative legacy of Mary Alice "Mac" Cox Schweitzer, an artist whose midcentury artistic production all but disappeared after 1962. More than just a biography, the volume is…
TOP PICK. Fiction - British writer Susan Barker's haunting fourth novel opens in Taos County, New Mexico in 1982 with a cryptic dialogue between two lovers watching Venus rise over the Sangre de Cristos. It leaps around the world and through time,…
TOP PICK. Fiction - Flores's second novel gives the familiar dystopian tropes of Margaret Atwood and Cormac McCarthy a Tex-Mex twist. Set in 2038 in the Texas border town of Three Rivers, the story centers on Neftali, a punkish, rebellious teenager…
TOP PICK. Fiction - Mendelsund's quirky but heartfelt novel concerns a group of professional mourners in the Texas desert, led by Ed, who travels from funeral to funeral while writing poems and trying to keep his professional and romantic…
TOP PICK. Fiction - In her tenth book, Straight turns her frank, compassionate gaze on nurses working the Covid surge at a San Bernardino ICU. They move into trailers to avoid infecting their families, leaving pining husbands and unmoored teenagers…
TOP PICK. Fiction - This arresting debut novel by a Colorado writer tells the story of a family struggling to survive a trailer park eviction. Jude Woods is the single mother of 9-year-old twins, nine months pregnant with the child of long-gone…
TOP PICK. Fiction - This Flannery O'Connor Award winning collection opens in Baja California in 1820, with the tale of mission priest who bedecks a Virgin Mary statue with the pearls his adopted Cochím son plucks from the sea. The fate of the…
TOP PICK. Fiction - Nevada, 1954. The desert is glowing in the aftermath of nuclear tests, but life goes on and so, in this slender but packed novel, does death. The desert people are as dry as the sand, sometimes a little mean-spirited, but some…
TOP PICK. Fiction - "I had my freedom now that the war had come to a close, but as a servant to Mrs. Harper I was still shackled to her in all ways that counted." Coleman, formerly enslaved, is nominally free. So is his sister, June. Their erstwhile…
TOP PICK. History - Decades before English immigrants arrived at Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, Spanish explorers were charting the frontiers of New Spain, traversing the Río Bravo what we call the Rio Grande midway between the two arms of the vast…
TOP PICK. History - This history book tackles the reclamation of María Cordova's public family story, centered on downtown Tucson's "oldest building." Through meticulous research diving into court documents, media, art, and archives Otero traces a…
TOP PICK. Memoir - John P. Schaefer's memoir covers his early family life, academic career, conservation work, and passion for photography. We see a person driven by the desire to learn, teach and challenge himself and others to do their best in all…
TOP PICK. Memoir - Dora Rodriguez was one of the many who have risked it all to seek refuge in the United States from violence in their home country, traveling hundreds of miles in the hands of the cruel cartel members only to discover that they are…
TOP PICK. Nature & Science - Author Craig Childs sets out with longtime friend Irvin Fox-Fernandez on a mountain bike trip out of the electric whirl of Las Vegas north toward an uninhabited stretch of desert past the Pahranagat National Wildlife…
TOP PICK. Poetry - Against a backdrop of mesquite, cicadas, and monsoons, life and death play out in Alberto R<accent i>os's latest poetry collection. Every poem is composed of couplets juxtaposing the ordinary with the exceptional. For instance, in…
TOP PICK. Poetry - Arthur Sze's latest collection meditates on the extraordinary in the ordinary practice of living. From the haunting violence of the nearly eradicated, as in "Jaguar Song," to the humble "Farolitos," his poems ask the reader to…
History - Long ago, it's said, the tallest structure at what's now Casa Grande Ruins National Monument was built by an arrogant fellow, Bitter Man. He imagined that he could rule the wind and the rain and for that he was chased out of Casa Grande,…
Art & Photography - Victoria Sambunaris's panoramic portraits of the desert regions of Utah, California, and Arizona evoke the widescreen photography of Edward Burtynsky and Sebastiáo Salgado. But Sambunaris's vision of the southwestern landscape is…
Homestyle Recipes That Celebrate the Flavors and Traditions of the Diné = Diné Bibee Ó'ool'įįł Bits'̜á̜ádóó Bóhoneed'̜́ıįgo Hooghan Góne' Ádaal'̜́ıįgo Daadánígíí
Cooking & Food - Diné author and blogger Alana Yazzie began her food journey at an early age in her family kitchen. From learning from family members the secrets of native recipes to sharing them on her blog, Alana has kept to her native roots by…
