Book Reviews

If you ever doubted for a moment that we live in a beautiful country, pick up a copy of Access For All: Touring the Southwest with Limited Mobility, the new book by Boulder City residents Deborah Wall and Dennis Boulton.

Illustrated with gorgeous photos they took of many destinations, the book is very useful to those with special needs and, in fact, everyone. The authors include maps with accessible sites in Nevada, California, Utah and Arizona. For each location they note the best time of year to visit, ...

The journey described in Peter Thody’s travel memoir Yellowstone Roadtrip really began forty years ago in Leeds, England. Thody first dreamed seeing a wild wolf in its natural habitat when he was ten years old. By 2013, in spite of numerous road trips all over North America, Thody had still not realized his boyhood aspiration. Deciding it was high time to achieve his goal and see a wolf in the wild, Thody and his wife headed to Yellowstone National Park in the dead of winter. ...

What could be more idyllic than a beautiful wedding on postcard picture perfect Nantucket Island? Beth Carmichael is orchestrating the event from the grave seven years after her death from ovarian cancer. When she knew that she would not be alive for her youngest daughter, Jenna's, courtship and marriage she recorded all the details of an ideal wedding day, commenting on every aspect from the choice of a groom to the choice of a honeymoon destination. She meticulously compiled a list of her recommendations in a binder she called " The Notebook" and now Jenna and her sister Margot are following through on their mother's plans, down to selecting the flavor of the icing on the wedding cake. Jenna seems to have found her ideal groom in Stuart Graham and the two young people optimistically look forward to a happy life together even though they ...

On the same day in 1889, two women left New York City with the same goal—to circle the globe in 80 days or fewer. The two women could not have been more different. Nellie Bly, a fearless reporter for The World newspaper had made her reputation by writing daring exposés where she went undercover, reporting abuses and social injustices which shocked the nation. Elizabeth Bisland was a genteel Southern woman who wrote literary pieces for Cosmopolitan and who could often be found hosting salons where she and her friends would drink tea and discuss literature. When Nellie Bly announced her plan to circle the globe by traveling East, Elizabeth Bisland’s editor sent Elizabeth in the opposite direction with the goal of beating Nellie Bly’s time. Nellie travelled first by steamship across the Atlantic, and Elizabeth began her journey traveling by train across the United States. The two encountered seemingly insurmountable obstacles in completing ...

April 9, 1959 signaled the beginning of a life altering adventure for seven brave women and the forty-one others who would ultimately follow them as their husbands became astronauts in America’s space program. This book tells the story of the exhilarating, frightening, rewarding and unexpected experiences these women encountered as astronaut wives. The original Mercury 7 wives forged the way for future wives, establishing models of behavior for the Gemini and Apollo women. Annie Glenn, René Carpenter, Trudy Cooper, Betty Grissom, Marge Slayton, Jo Schirra and Louise Shepherd and their husbands were the subjects of Life magazine articles in 1959 that provided the money the couples needed to supplement their modest military salaries. Life Magazine contracted with the astronauts and their wives to feature them in articles and then to follow them as they participated in the astronaut program in return for the money ...

When Alex Cross and John Sampson raid a wild sex party complete with drugs, alcohol and underage girls hosted by the esteemed Washington plastic surgeon, Dr. Elijah Creem, they stir up a hornet’s nest that threatens to destroy Alex and everyone he loves. Refusing Creem’s attempted bribe he earns the honor of becoming the powerful and vindictive doctor’s sworn enemy. Alex has bigger problems, though, because two women and a man are found to have died in bizarre circumstances, and it appears that three serial killers are operating at the same time in Washington. One of the victims appears to have given birth, but the newborn is missing, so Alex’s race to find her killer is fueled by his concern for the missing infant. It is soon evident to the reader that two of the killers are Creem and his demented friend, Josh, who are killing for sport and for each other’s entertainment in a "Can you top this" game, but it takes a while for Alex to make the connection. As if the responsibility of catching three serial killers weren’t enough, Alex’s reputation is being sabotaged by a ...