Reading Room
Here are some selections you can pick up at local bookstores. If you have nay books you'd like to recommend to the reading room, please let us know. Remember, the purpose of the reading room is to provide a place for geographers to find out about mainstream books within the realm of geography. So please keep that in mind when making a suggestion. Please, no fiction!
The Geography of Nowhere, by James Howard Kunstler, traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities toa land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartton architecture and parking lots.

Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good. "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies."
Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner, is the story of a relentless quest for that most precious resource in the American West: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecological and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and businesses to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants-- the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-- in the competition to transform the West.
The Last Ranch, by Sam Bingham, portrays the American West as an environmental battlefield, with water as one of the most powerful weapons. The year Sam Bingham spent with the Whitten family and other residents of the small ranching community of Colorado's San Luis Valley was more than enough to make him understand that envirnomental disasters are happening in our own backyard. On a daily basis, the ranching community struggled to beat back the forces of politics, economics, and nature that challenged their century-old way of ranching, but faced with the slow desertification of once-prime cattle country, the Whittens and their neighbors needed to find alternative, even radical measures to stop the coming desert. Contrasted with the earnestness of the locals, who were defending generations' worth of effort and expectations, are the attitudes and principles of an international cast of characters, including Allan Savory, the guru of holistic resource management, who brought both aid and aggravation to the table.
Federal Land, Western Anger, by R. McGreggor Cawley, is an account of the Sagebrush Rebellion as a defining moment in the political history of public land policy in the western states. Cawley's analysis emphasizes understanding the rebels' perspactive. One consequence of this unusual decision is to position the reader admirably to understand both the frustrations that combined to precipitate the Rebellion and to interpret the, then dawning, Gingrich era. in public lands policy. Now that Congress is dominated by representatives closer to Watt and the rebels than to preservatinosists, Cawley's complex and textured understanding of the rebels' position is particularly important.
Four Corners, by Kenneth A. Brown, is an odyssey through the mysterious and beautiful region of the Four Corners area, covering the people who rose and fell there, the subtle geological forces that sculpted the landscape, and the delicate yet enduring ecosystem that sustains life across the often brutal terrain. Brown journeys across the Four Corners region on foot and by air, weaving a fascinating portait of the cultural, natural, and geologial histories that have created the unique landscape that exists today. From four-story pueblos carved into sheer stone cliffs and a mountain peak where snow covers the ground for all but three months a year to an ancient midnight Holy Week ceremony in a modern Spanish Village, Four Corners is a compelling exploration of one of the world's great treasures.
The Western San Juan Mountains, editted by Rob Blair, Tom Ann Casey, William H. Rommme, and Richard N. Ellis is a veritable tome of information on the San Juan Mountains of western Colorado, including the geology, ecology, and human history of the mountains. In addition to all that, this book features several self-guided tours through the region.
The Colorado Plateau: A Geologic History, by Donald L. Baars, is the book you will wish you had after taking Paul Grogger's class on historical geology. This comprehensive summary of the geology of the canyonlands is detailed enough to satisfy a geologist looking for an overview of the region yet clearly enough written to appeal to anyone interested in learning the scientific story behind this region.
Colorado: The Place of Nature, The Nature of Place, by Thomas P. Huber. Yes, that's our Thomas P. Huber. This is a natural history of Colorado that looks at various environments within the state and how they have been altered by human intervention. The twelve environments presented are unique yet representative samples of the natural world of Colorado and were chosen not for their popularity but for their pristine character. Each chapter concentrates on one location and describes the geology, vegetation, climate, human impacts, and other notable elements of that area.
The Heat is On, by Ross Gelbspan, exposes the deliberate campaign by oil and coal interests, teamed with conservative politicians, to confuse the public about global warming and the disruptive weather patterns that mark its inital stages. Gelbspan shows how these fossil fuel proponents have supported the efforts of a small but highly vocal group of "scientific skeptics" whose statements distort the nature of scientific debate, raising doubts in the public mind about this threat which is, in fact, a matter of solid scientific consensus.
The Satanic Bible, by Anton LeVay. Just kidding. Don't read this, it's bad for you.
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