THE SOUTHWEST'S CONTRARY LAND, Craig Childs, Arizona Highways, $39.95, hardback with full-color photography, 176 pages.
Craig Childs, a keen-eyed naturalist and former river guide, has created a travel book brimming with such breathtaking photographs (all taken by Arizona Highways photographers) that one will be tempted not to read any of the narrative. This, however, would be a mistake, as Childs' ability to move the reader through the landscape truly enhances the magnificent images.
Childs has traversed this area of the country so often that he is intimate with the contradictions and transitions inherent to the land. This intimacy is best illustrated when Childs — writing about one of the major transitions of his life — describes spreading his father's ashes into the same stream where the two had often fished.
In the book, the author takes the reader up remote streams, through rugged canyons, out onto the Sonoran Desert and down to the Sea of Cortez.
In combination with the gorgeous full-color photographs, "The Southwest's Contrary Land" is an excellent addition to any family's collection of travel books.
HEAVEN'S WINDOW: A JOURNEY THROUGH NORTHERN NEW MEXICO, Michael Wallis and Jack Parsons, Graphic Arts Center Publishing, $27, hardback with full-color photography, 120 pages.
In "Heaven's Window," historian and biographer Michael Wallis explores the rich history of northern New Mexico, with its bustling Native American marketplaces, evocative churches, ancient petroglyphs, lively fiestas and haunting old ranchos.
All of Wallis' writing is made more genuine and exciting by the very capable photography of Jack Parsons. Not only can the reader see images of the vast Southwestern landscape, but the intimate photographs of old pickups, drying chilies, crucifixes and ceramic bottles fill the pages of the book.
"Heaven's Window" peels back the layers of time, treating the magic and mystery of the locale and its people.
AMERICAN BYZANTIUM, Virgil Hancock III and Gregory McNamee, Arizona Highways, $35, hardback with color photography, 111 pages.
There's a sentence on Page 2 of "American Byzantium" that describes perfectly the spirit of this book: "Just as Jesus took the Hebrew religion to a new level, Las Vegas has taken capitalism to a new level."
Arrogant, overblown, vulgar, a little too honest — just like Vegas.
In "American Byzantium," Virgil Hancock III chronicles — with his very perceptive eye — the pop-culture desert playground that deliberately blurs politics, money, art, religion, entertainment, sex and anything else architects can imagine and marketers can sell.
Supported by an essay by Gregory McNamee, Hancock dishes up a plate of images that expose the city's opulence, glamour, fantasy, poverty, decay and despair. All in beautiful color, nonetheless.
"American Byzantium" is not a great book — we've seen so many images of Las Vegas that nothing seems new. However, what it does show — the transformation of fantasies into reality and the purification of consumption — should make it at least moderately popular.
E-mail: gag@desnews.com