Download or read book The Milagro Beanfield War written by John Nichols and published by Holt Paperbacks. This book was released on 2013-12-10 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Milagro Beanfield War is the first book in John Nichols's New Mexico trilogy (“Gentle, funny, transcendent.” —The New York Times Book Review), later adapted to film by Robert Redford. Joe Mondragon, a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, slammed his battered pickup to a stop, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into the arid patch of ground. Carefully (and also illegally), he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And so began-though few knew it at the time-the Milagro beanfield war. But like everything else in the dirt-poor town of Milagro, it would be a patchwork war, fought more by tactical retreats than by battlefield victories. Gradually, the small farmers and sheepmen begin to rally to Joe's beanfield as the symbol of their lost rights and their lost lands. And downstate in the capital, the Anglo water barons and power brokers huddle in urgent conference, intent on destroying that symbol before it destroys their multimillion-dollar land-development schemes. The tale of Milagro's rising is wildly comic and lovingly tender, a vivid portrayal of a town that, half-stumbling and partly prodded, gropes its way toward its own stubborn salvation.
Download or read book The Nirvana Blues written by John Nichols and published by Holt Paperbacks. This book was released on 2013-12-10 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This final volume in John Nichols's acclaimed New Mexico trilogy, (“Gentle, funny, transcendent.” —New York Times Book Review). Like its predecessors, The Nirvana Blues is a lusty, visionary novel that blends comedy and tragedy, reality and fantasy, tenderness and bite, to illuminate some very troubling truths about America—truths no less pointed and accurate today than they were decades ago. The seventies are over. All across America, the overgrown kids of the middle class are getting their acts together—and getting older. The once-tight Chicano community of Chamisaville is long gone, and the Anglo power brokers control almost everything. Joe Miniver—faithful husband, loving father, and all-around good guy—is about to sink roots. To buy the land he wants, he dreams up a coke scam that will net him the necessary bread. Joe is also about to embark on a series of erotic adventures with three headstrong women, bringing him face-to-face with the terrors (and absurdity) of the modern man-woman scene. The Nirvana Blues is part of John Nichols's New Mexico trilogy, which includes The Milagro Beanfield War and The Magic Journey
Download or read book The Sterile Cuckoo written by John Nichols and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-08-05 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A hilarious, sad . . . all too true novel about the rough underside of a college love affair.”—John Knowles, author of A Separate Peace When eighteen-year-old Jerry Payne first meets Pookie Adams at the Friarsburg, Oklahoma, bus depot, he is hardly aware that this moment marks the beginning of the most memorable love affair of his life. Overwhelmed (and yet secretly enchanted) by her zany, rambling monologue, Jerry is relieved to leave her in St. Louis as he continues to New York. Thinking he’s seen the last of her, he heads off to college, only to be pursued by seventeen lengthy letters, and before he knows it he’s involved with a seemingly crazy, startlingly honest girl who adores him. During the next two years, Pookie helps Jerry leave behind the fun-seeking, beer-blasted fraternity man he has become, as she teaches him to open his heart to her. Then, almost as suddenly as she appeared in his life, she disappears from it, leaving in her wake an eternal trail of love and wonder.
Download or read book The Magic Journey written by John Nichols and published by Holt Paperbacks. This book was released on 2013-12-10 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning forty years, the second book in John Nichols's New Mexico trilogy, The Magic Journey, tells the tale of how relentless progress transformed a rural backwater into a boomtown. Boom times came to the forgotten little southwestern town of Chamisaville just as the rest of America was in the Great Depression. They came when a rattletrap bus loaded with stolen dynamite blew sky-high, leaving behind a giant gushing hot spring. Within minutes, the town's wheeler-dealers had organized, and within a year, Chamisaville was flooded with tourists and pilgrims, and the wheeler-dealers were rich. At first, it was a magic time for Chamisaville—almost as if every day were a holiday. But the euphoria gradually dissipated, and the land-hungry developers, speculators, and interlopers moved in. Finally, the day came when Chamisaville's people found themselves all but displaced, their children no longer heirs to their land or their tradition. With mounting intensity, The Magic Journey reaches a climax that is tragically foreordained. A sensitive, vital, and honest chronicle of life in America's Southwest, it is also an incisive commentary on what America has become on its road to progress. The Magic Journey is part of John Nichols's New Mexico trilogy, which includes The Milagro Beanfield War and The Nirvana Blues.
Download or read book My Heart Belongs to Nature written by John Treadwell Nichols and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In My Heart Belongs to Nature, Nichols records his forty-five-year connection to the Taos valley and its mountains, where he still lives.
Download or read book The Voice of the Butterfly written by John Nichols and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2003-02 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling, darkly comic novel by the author of "The Sterile Cuckoo, The Voice of the Butterfly" looks at chaotic relationships fraught with conservation efforts. Funny and touching, Nichols's novel is a wild ride through the lunacies of the postmodern age.
Download or read book On Top of Spoon Mountain written by John Nichols and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2012-08-15 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Kepler wants to climb Spoon Mountain with his grown son and daughter on his sixty-fifth birthday in three weeks. The kids, Ben and Miranda, think he’s crazy. For starters, Spoon Mountain is almost the tallest alpine peak in New Mexico. Jonathan’s health is terrible. Still reeling from his third, nearly fatal, divorce, he has a rotten heart, serious asthma, and a fed-up girlfriend who is about to drop him like a bad habit. Once a celebrated novelist, Hollywood screenwriter, and environmental activist, Jonathan is now tottering at the ragged end of his career and yearning to make amends to his children for his past sins before it’s too late. Years ago, Spoon Mountain was very special to the Kepler family. They once shared halcyon days in the wilderness. Can they go home again? Does Spoon Mountain offer redemption . . . or annihilation? And why is getting there so laden with pratfalls? John Nichols is at his hilarious and poignant best in this rollicking tale of love, anarchy, and the awesome Rocky Mountains. It is drop-dead comedy with an inspiring and beautiful message.
Download or read book If Mountains Die written by John Treadwell Nichols and published by W W Norton & Company Incorporated. This book was released on 1979 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A celebration--in words and pictures--of one of the most beautiful areas of the United States: the Taos Valley of northern New Mexico.
Download or read book Acequia Culture written by José A. Rivera and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2005-01-21 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conflicts between Hispanic farmers and developers made for compelling reading in The Milagro Beanfield War, the famous novel of life in a northern New Mexico village in which tradition triumphs over modernity. But as cities grow and industries expand, are acequias, or community irrigation ditches, a wise and efficient use of water in the arid Southwest? José Rivera presents the contemporary case for the value of acequias and the communities they nurture in the river valleys of southern Colorado and New Mexico. Recognizing that "water is the lifeblood of the community," Rivera delineates an acequia culture based on a reciprocal relationship between irrigation and community. The acequia experience grows out of a conservation ethic and a tradition of sharing that should be recognized and preserved in an age of increasing competition for scarce water resources. "A worthwhile contribution to the future management of water resources."--Professor Michael C. Meyer
Download or read book Big Bad Bodie High Sierra Ghost Town written by Doug Brodie and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2001-03-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mid-19th century mining town of Bodie, California located at 8,369 feet, atop the Sierra Nevada Mountains, just 3 1/2 miles from the Nevada border, was considered one of the richest gold and silver mining towns in the west. Geologists who know of its present rich ore deposits, say it could have been again, but since it became a California historic state park in 1962, that possibility was terminated. The old town, now the best preserved ghost town in the Nation, is maintained in a state of arrested decay by the State of California, meaning it will never be restored to its once rough and tough condition of the 1870s, but it is prevented from further deterioration through a system of constant repair. The public is encouraged to visit the old town, and this book is a compilation of stories, news items, historic information, and reports of its past, some true, some possibly true, and some probably outright lies by citizens of the past and news reporters who wrote for the many old newspapers that described life as it was lived in the years immediately following the Civil War. Authors Jim Watson, photographer, and Doug Brodie, former newspaper reporter, have obtained items heretofore never explained nor described in writings about the old town. Their research has made this book a one of a kind publication.
Download or read book The Empanada Brotherhood written by John Nichols and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An aspiring writing adrift in New York finds love and community at a corner empanada stand in this novel by the author of The Milagro Beanfield War. It’s Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, when ex-patriots, artists, and colorful bums are kings. A tiny stand selling empanadas near the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal streets is the center of the action for the shy narrator, an aspiring writer just out of college. There, he falls in with a crowd of kooky outcasts from Argentina who introduce him to their raucous adventures, melodramatic dreams, and women—particularly a tough little flamenco dancer from Buenos Aires. Charming and insightful, this deceptively simple novel is a tale told by a master. It is a wise coming-of-age story, full of joy and touched by heartbreak, that captures a special time and place with extraordinary empathy and humor.
Download or read book Devil s Tango written by Cecile Pineda and published by Wings Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As much personal journal as investigative journalism, this account traces the worsening developments at Fukushima Daiichi during the first year following the nuclear disaster. Often poetic in tone and philosophic in scope, this day-to-day reportage is peppered with the author's reflections and dramatic monologues as she investigates the public's willing blindness toward the nuclear power industry's disregard for public safety in the pursuit of profit. The book offers a unique perspective and attempts to come to terms with Fukushima's catastrophic consequences on the planet.
Download or read book Political Economy Goes to the Movies written by Satyananda J. Gabriel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-14 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political Economy Goes to the Movies provides an introduction to political economy using a wide range of popular films and documentaries as the objects of analysis. The work helps readers to understand and analyze the economic and related political, cultural, and ecological relationships depicted in selected films. This is achieved through the lens of past and present economic theories and in the context of debates over the dynamic influence of economics on individual life chances. Film may have more to teach us about the real world than the abstractions of certain economic theories. A world of income inequality, child labor in mills and mines, local rebellions against land seizures, and wars triggered by economic conflicts provide the context for many films mirroring real world events. Some films depict the interacting and intersecting political, economic, cultural, and ecological contexts within and between variant economic relationships, whereas other films show “catastrophes” such as economic depressions, disruptive social transitions, violent revolutions, and existential environmental degradation – a world in disequilibrium. Films allow us to see a panoply of human social relationships and related problems, even to explore cataclysmic moments in our species life, but not to necessarily see the why of these relationships and problems. Simultaneously, mainstream economics has severe constraints on what can be analyzed. Film exposes this weakness of the mainstream model. Twelve Years a Slave, Trumbo, The Big Short and others are analyzed for their realism by referencing documented historical social events, and behavioral economics provides further data for analyzing the realism of social interaction within the films. Exploring events and contexts absent from the typical economics text or the basic level economics classes, this work is essential reading for students and scholars of political economy in both economics and politics departments, as well as those of pluralist economics and Marxist economics.
Download or read book Red Sky at Morning written by Richard Bradford and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Red Sky at Morning is a minor marvel: it is a novel of paradox, of identity, of an overwhelming YES to life that embraces with wonder what we are pleased to call the human condition. In short, a work of art.” — Harper Lee Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as “a sort of Catcher in the Rye out West,” Richard Bradford’s Red Sky at Morning is the classic coming-of-age story set during World War II about the enduring spirit of youth and the values in life that count. In the summer of 1944, Frank Arnold, a wealthy shipbuilder in Mobile, Alabama, receives his volunteer commission in the U.S. Navy and moves his wife, Ann, and seventeen-year-old son, Josh, to the family’s summer home in the village of Corazon Sagrado, high in the New Mexico mountains. A true daughter of the Confederacy, Ann finds it impossible to cope with the quality of life in the largely Hispanic village and, in the company of Jimbob Buel—an insufferable, South-proud, professional houseguest—takes to bridge and sherry. Josh, on the other hand, becomes an integral member of the Sagrado community, forging friendships with his new classmates, with the town’s disreputable resident artist, and with Amadeo and Excilda Montoya, the couple hired by his father to care for their house. Josh narrates the story of his fateful year in Sagrado and, with irresistibly deadpan, irreverent humor, describes the events and people who influence his progress to maturity. Unhindered by his mother's disdain for these "tacky, dusty little Westerners," Josh comes into his own and into a young man's finely formed understanding of duty, responsibility, and love.
Download or read book So Far from Heaven written by Richard Bradford and published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. This book was released on 1973 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Story of the Tafoya clan, a Chicano family with a flair for misadventure. The Tafoyas include a physician philosopher, a radical daughter with a degree from Bryn Mawr, a clumsy, stupid son, and a governor of New Mexico.
Download or read book A Fragile Beauty written by and published by Ancient City Press. This book was released on 1995-07 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Biff America written by Jeffrey Bergeron and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-12-04 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biff America is a wonderfully funny mix of Andy Rooney and Garrison Keillor. From low-flow toilets to prostate pride, knee surgery to avalanche fatalities, gay marriage to schoolyard bullies, Biff America poignantly writes what the American people need to know. Through it all, Biff America has a gift for revealing the uplifting realities of modern life and, sometimes, his humor will make you blow beer through your nose. With an introduction by John Nichols, author of THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR, and copious illustrations of Biff in action. REVIEWS: "Whether it is on stage, in print or on top of a fourteen-thousand-foot summit, Biff America can make you laugh, cry and feel nauseous-all at the same time." -Rachel Dratch, cast member, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE "Don't let any of that touchy feely crap fool you; Biff America can be a mean drunk, a weasel when confronted and is an unstable individual. He still owes me $67." -Brad Pitt, Baraboo, WI "Biff America's writing is provocative, edgy, insightful and, most important, absorbing. He has a unique gift for mixing comedy with pathos; his observations on life, politics, his family, himself or anything else that strike his fancy are uncannily on point, often with a devilish wit." -NBC "Beneath his blue-collar sensibilities, rough-hewn mountain-town ethos and snort-your-morning-coffee dorm-room humor, Biff America is a surprisingly refined and nuanced writer who finds amazing insights in everyday life. Unrestrained, ribald and slightly off-kilter, he stands as a mad prophet of our times. George W. Bush should read this book." -DENVER POST "The columns in this rich collection form one of the more thoughtful and laugh-provoking journeys that I've taken in a long spell. Think of Lake Wobegon Days meets The Little World of Don Camillo. There's a biting satire aplenty throughout these pages, but it is always couched in a truly humane understanding of our species' tragic-comic fallibility... I found myself repeatedly moved, and moved deeply, by these poignant and funny stories." - John Nichols, author of THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Boston-born writer, comedian and skier, Jeffrey Bergeron, under the alias Biff America, was the recipient of the 2005 Colorado Press Association award for both humor and serious column writing. Recently elected to the Breckenridge City Council on the homeland security and medicinal marijuana platform, Bergeron skis more days than he works and lives in Breckenridge with his hot wife, Ellen. He can be seen on TV, heard on radio, and read regularly in various magazines and newspapers. CONTENTS: Chapter 1: Recreation Chapter 2: Family Chapter 3: People Chapter 4: Dead People Chapter 5: Politics Chapter 6: Connubial Bliss Chapter 7: God Chapter 8: Sex, Love and Body Parts Don't miss out on your Biff fix - get Biff America: Steep, Deep, and Dyslexic today!
