Salida Book Review

America Discovered: A Historical Atlas of Exploration, by Derek Hayes. Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN: 1553650492. Map researcher Derek Hayes applies his signature approach to a collection of maps that trace the discovery, exploration, and settlement of North America from 1000 A.D. to the present. Rich narratives make over 300 beautiful maps come alive, with North America's coasts, waterways, prairies, and peaks freshly described by explorers such as Columbus, Coronado, and Lewis and Clark as they encounter these territories for the first time. A final spread discusses modern scientific exploration and includes a detailed catalog and index of the maps.

New Spiritual Architecture, by Phyllis Richardson, from Abbeville Press, ISBN 0789208350. This timely book, filled with 299 full-color illustrations and 100 line drawings, reflects an awakening of interest in religious faiths and the emergence of a global exchange of architecture and culture. It look at the approaches contemporary architects have taken to religious or meditative space, focusing on churches, chapels, temples, synagogues and mosques that have been built in the last few years and represent a late 20th/early 21st-century aesthetic.

Vaccine A: The Covert Pentagon Experiment That's Killing American Soldiers & Why GIs Are Only the First Victims by Gary Matsumoto, from Perseus Books Group, ISBN 046504400X. In this alarming narrative, investigative journalist Gary Matsumoto reveals that thousands of young men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces were subjected to medical experiments that were conducted without their knowledge or consent - and how it has put them in grave danger. In addition, experimental substances administered by military scientists are being developed as vaccines intended for mass immunization around the globe.

Diet for a Dead Planet: How the Food Industry is Killing Us by Christopher D. Cook, from New Press, ISBN 1565848640. As Mad Cow disease hits hard in the United States and bird flu rolls through the Asian poultry markets, the issue of food safety has never been more stark. Cook's riveting and timely investigation takes us beyond Fast Food Nation to explain why our entire food system is in crisis and argue that there is another way: sales of organic food nearly tripled to $13 billion in 2001-2002. Farmers' markets and food cooperatives are burgeoning across the nation and the slow food and food justice movements have become part of the mainstream.

Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin, by David Evanier. Rodale Press. ISBN: 1594860106. A sensitive, startling portrait of the legendary singer-timed to hit stores just as the Kevin Spacey movie Beyond the Sea has kindled intense new interest in every aspect of Darin's life and tragically early death.

By age 8 Bobby Darin knew he was doomed to die young. So he set out to become a showbiz legend by age 25. From his Grammy-winning smash hit "Mack the Knife" to his Oscar-nominated supporting role in Captain Newman, M.D., Darin left his mark on every aspect of show business that he touched. Now, 32 years after his death at age 37, we finally have an elegantly written, multilayered portrait of this brash, gifted artist.

Author David Evanier has:
o Interviewed all the key principals in the Darin saga and culled rare photographs from the singer's closest friends
o Pored through scores of videotapes, audiotapes, recordings, documents, and films
o Re-created the rock-and-roll and Broadway show-business milieus of the 1950s that Darin emerged from, and the sharply changing musical, political, and cultural world of the 1960s that had such a profound impact on him.

The result is a moving, insightful portrait of one of the greatest-and most complex-performers in the history of American entertainment, whose restless voice and spirit seem as alive today as ever.

The Perricone Promise: Look Younger, Live Longer in Three Easy Steps by Nicholas Perricone, from Warner Books, ISBN 044650016X. Dr. Perricone, author of the best-selling book The Wrinkle Cure, reveals a 28-day program that promises to help readers stay young forever. The book explains the science behind neuropeptides and the incredible results that can be achieved by regulating and controlling these chemicals in the body. Perricone includes a list of 10 superfoods to rejuvenate the body, revolutionary nutritional supplements and state-of-the-art topical applications.

Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life, by Deepak Chopra, ISBN 051770624 from Random House. Dr. Chopra has created an exquisite tool for discovering answers to our most personal and fundamental questions. We all want to know who to choose as a partner, what job to take, how to teach our children well. This book, a crystalline distillation of insights and wisdom accumulated over a lifetime by one of the great spiritual thinkers of our time, isolates 15 secrets that can open our eyes to truths that point the way to transformation and enlightenment.

Voices of a People's History of the United States, edited by Howard Zinn & Anthony Arnove, from Seven Stories Press, ISBN 1583226281. Zinn gives us not so much a sequel as a source document for his classic A People's History of the United States: speeches, writings, poems, songs, court testimonies and more that bring our country's neglected history to life. "I wanted the voices of struggle, mostly absent from our history books, to be given the place they deserve," Zinn writes. "Working people, people of color, or women - once they organize and protest and create movements - have a voice no government can suppress."

Looking Forward To It: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the American Electoral Process by Stephen Elliott, from St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0312424159. This is the chronicle of one ordinary fellow's skeptical - and hilarious - examination of the election process. On the campaign trail he meets washed-out campaign managers, idealistic publicists, corrupt journalists, world-weary auditorium janitors, recovering drug addicts and, of course, politicians. His report documents a journey into the center of "the thing," our country, where Americans high and low come together to participate in the most profound gesture of democracy: the election.

Soap and Scent: How to Make Your Own Organic Cosmetics, by Gil Farrer-Halls, from Rockport Publishers, ISBN 1592531024. This book provides inspiration and instruction to make your own beauty products easily and inexpensively without sacrificing quality. The products featured in these pages use only natural, organic ingredients that haven't been tested on animals. Learn how to make liquid soaps, bath balms, bubble bath, shower gels, natural scents, hand-milled soap and much more.

Gift of Our Compulsions, by Mary O'Malley, with Foreword by Eckhart Tolle, from New World Library, ISBN 1577314700. Mary O'Malley has crafted a new approach to dealing with compulsions. Everyone has them, and generally people will simply try to control them. But according to O'Malley lasting healing comes from being curious rather than controlling and self-acceptance comes through forgiveness not shame. She offers readers exercises and techniques for observing and engaging compulsions, so that they can begin to understand them and change their actions. Highly recommended by Eckhart Tolle.

Vanishing Africa, by Gianni Giansanti & Paolo Novaresio, at from Rizzoli Books, ISBN 8854400068. By examining a region in the heart of the Black Continent - the valley of the Omo River in southern Ethiopia - this book attempts to trace the roots of remotest Africa, the cradle of humanity, where ancestral bonds with nature still exist. The authors have encapsulated by means of camera and pen their long years of studying the many peoples and ethnic groups of the continent in search of the endangered and disappearing Africa.

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, by Eckhart Tolle, from New World Library, ISBN 1577314808. After seven years, Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now is finally available in paperback! The book has sold more than two million copies worldwide and has been translated into over thirty foreign languages since its initial publication in 1997. Tolle presents dozens of questions and answers to existential topics relevant to our modern-day existence including relationship issues, freedom from unhappiness, addictions, and slowing down the aging process.

Tearjerker, by Daniel Hayes. ISBN 1555974090. "Until I bought one, I'd never touched a gun, never stood in front of a full-length mirror pointing a gun at myself. Bang, bang. Mine was a Magnum .357 purchased in New Jersey, much more handsome than I'd imagined a gun could be."

His writerly dreams of fame and recognition having stalled, Evan Ulmer takes matters into his own hands. He kidnaps a renowned editor, Robert Partnow, and cages him in a basement equipped with a TV, a treadmill, and a Porta-Potty. While Evan shares his sense of failure, Bob reveals his own unsavory secrets, and together they watch the media spin their situation into a lurid tale of abduction and infidelity. Blurring the boundaries between fiction and real life, cunning and sincerity, flirtation and true love, Tearjerker unfolds in startling directions that make the reader wonder along with Evan, "Was abduction a difficult and gutsy endeavor or, instead, the predictable last resort of the desperately stupid?" In this darkly humorous debut novel, Hayes explores the human reality behind the tabloid headlines and the pathos of failure and yearning in a culture of high-stakes celebrity.

Click here for an excerpt from the book

Attracting Prosperity Through the Chakras, by Cyndi Dale, from Crossing Press, ISBN 1580911625. Best-selling author Cyndi Dale shows you how to determine your chakra type, find your complementary financial style, and create personal and prosperous abundance. By understanding your chakra system, you can tackle debt or financial difficulties with more ease, choose lucrative investments, and learn to clarify your unique life purpose. Going beyond basic financial management, Dale shows how to access the powerful energies of the universe to accomplish your personal goals and ultimately realize your lifelong dreams.

Tibet : The Roof of the World Between Past and Present, by Maria & Kurt Diemberger, from Rizzoli Books, ISBN 8854400106. The current situation in Tibet is split by infinite contradictions where new social realities must be reconciled with ancient traditions, oracles still relay the voices of the mountain gods, and Buddhist monks strenuously defend their religion. This book leads the reader through a maze of geographical, geological, mythical, historical, social and religious details to portray the everyday life of Tibetan people. Lavish photographs reveal a blend of tradition and modernity, from remote nomadic tents to the cybercafes of Lhasa.

Biodiversity Response to Climate Change in the Middle Pleistocene: The Porcupine Cave Fauna from Colorado, by Anthony D. Barnosky. This book chronicles the discovery and analysis of animal fossils found in one of the most important paleontological sites in the world-Porcupine Cave, located at an elevation of 9,500 feet in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. With tens of thousands of identified specimens, this site has become the key source of information on the fauna of North America's higher elevations between approximately 1 million and 600,000 years ago, a period that saw the advance and retreat of glaciers numerous times. Until now, little has been understood about how this dramatic climate change affected life during the middle Pleistocene. In addition to presenting state-of-the-art data from Porcupine Cave, this study also presents groundbreaking analysis on what the data from the site show about the evolutionary and ecological adjustments that occurred in this period, shedding light on how one of the world's most pressing environmental concerns-global climate change-can influence life on earth. Illustrations: 58 b/w photographs, 76 line illustrations, 57 tables.

Power Animals: How to Connect with Your Animal Spirit Guide, by Stephen D. Farmer, from Hay House, ISBN 1401903320. On the CD enclosed with this book, Farmer guides you through a journey to discover and connect with your power animal. Once you've determined who your power animal is, refer to the text to learn what this says about you, call upon your special animal, and read a channeled message from that animal's spirit. The book explains which animal spirit to call on for particular situations; additional tracks on the CD will help you consult your power animal as an oracle.

Colorado 24/7, by Rick Smolan, David Elliot Cohen. Rick Smolan and David Elliott Cohen are the original creators of the best selling Day in the Life series and have been responsible for the most successful photography books in history including the New York Times #1 best seller A Day in the Life of America. Smolan and Cohen's ambitious and imaginative projects combine storytelling with state-of-the art-technology and have appeared numerous times on the covers of Time, Newsweek, Fortune and US News & World Report.

Smolan and his wife Jennifer Erwitt are Co-Directors Against All Odds Productions, based in Sausalito California. Fortune Magazine honored Against All Odds calling them 'One of the 25 Coolest Companies in America'. Smolan and Erwitt's award winning projects include: From Alice to Ocean, Passage to Vietnam, 24 Hours in Cyberspace, One Digital Day and The Planet Project.

Cohen is President of Western Arts Management based in Ross California. His award winning books include The Circle of Life, The Now and Then series, One Year Off and A Day in the Life of Africa.

Following the success of The New York Times bestseller America 24/7, DK is publishing 50 books that showcase the best photographs from each state - all to be published on the same day. Each individual book includes 95% new photography and is a unique peronal expression of state pride.

Brothels, Bordellos, and Bad Girls: Prostitution in Colorado, 1860-1930, by Jan MacKell. Prostitution thrived in pioneer Colorado. Mining was the principal occupation and men outnumbered women more than twenty to one. Jan MacKell provides a detailed overview of the business between 1860 and 1930, focusing her research on the mining towns of Cripple Creek, Salida, Colorado City, and similar boomtown communities. She used census data, Sanborn maps, city directories, property records, marriage records, and court records to document and trace the movements of the women over the course of their careers, uncovering work histories, medical problems, and numerous relocations from town to town. She traces many to their graves, through years filled with abuse, disease, narcotics, and violence. MacKell has unearthed numerous colorful and often touching stories, like that of the boy raised in a brothel who was invited to play with a neighbor’s children and replied, "No, my mother is a whore and says I am to stay at home."

"Delicacy, humor, respect, and compassion are among the merits of this book. Although other authors have flirted with Colorado’s commercial sex, Jan MacKell provides a detailed overview. She has been researching these elusive women for the last fifteen years. Such persistence allows her to offer rich detail on shady ladies who rarely used their real names or even stuck with the same professional name for long."—Thomas J. Noel, from the Introduction.