Los Alamos is a full-color, 175-page, photographic portrait of a New Mexican town. These images, captured on film by master photographer William Eggleston, range from 1966 to 1974 and superbly capture the ups, downs, scenery, and close-ups of a living, breathing city. No text distracts from the full-page photographs, which are presented as the works of art they are. This large sized compendium is a welcome and recommended addition to any personal, professional, academic, or community library Photography collection.

Eggleston is a bit of a mystery. His photographs make you open your eyes wide and say, "Wow!" but it's hard to say what it is about them that is so stunning. This book is the best thing he has published to date and it offers the clearest window into Eggleston's genius that I've seen. Reproduced on large pages in rich colors that leap out and shake you until you splutter, these pictures bypass the intellect and kick your sense of raw beauty like a mule with a belly full of habaneros.

It's clear to you that the beauty is all about the color, or is it? What's happening with the composition? Soemthing is at the tip of your tongue, but try as you might, you can't say what makes these pictures so obviously works of great genius.

When you calm back down and try to figure how a book of pictures that look almost like snapshots could sting you so hard, the accompanying essay by Thomas Weski gives the best account of Eggleston's work that I've seen to date---short, but clearer and more insightful than Janet Malcolm's meditation on color and snapshots in Diana and Nikon or Eudora Welty's introduction to The Democratic Forest.

This book is stunning! A large number of Eggleston's photographs beautifully printed on good paper. "Los Alamos" is one of the best photography books I have seen in years.

Liza Wieland is an incredible writing talent. She is also a creative writing teacher in a California college and no one need apply the old adage to her about "those who can't do, teach." In fact, I'm really sad that she can't devote 100% of her time to writing. She only has one other novel out, which I promptly ordered. She has some short story collections too. She only has this one novel carried by my public library, which is unusual, as it carries just about everything. All I can say is, thank God for university presses or I guess this wouldn't have seen the light of day. Why was it deemed so non-commercial? Well, it is intelligent and I guess in most media and the arts that puts you in the hole. If you don't want to think, don't want to marvel over certain passages and reread them to fully appreciate them, this may not be for you, especially if you don't like gorgeous, beautiful, virtually poetic prose. If all you like is steamroller straight ahead plot driven fiction, she is not solely concerned with satisfying that reader need. What she does do is create one heck of a story and a cast of characters out of her imagination using one fact from the real world. That fact is that she pretends that the father in the story, who is living like a hermit in the mountains outside of Santa Fe, is the unabomber and that his family members, just like the real life unabomber, are going to be the ones who have to bring him to account. In real life, his brother turned him in to the law. In this account, his daughter is brought into the dilemma by her stepbrother, who is convinced her father is the unabomber and wants her help bringing him in. Jane, the daughter, is a gorgeous young woman, also brilliant like her father, who alternates between being a stripper in Las Vegas and a dance teacher for children, first in California and then in New Mexico. Her stepbrother is a teacher and her father was a math professor at the University of California but has lived as a hermit for years. The story is told from shifting points of view and the most chilling narrative is the father's as you are inside his mind and able to see the brilliance and madness in there first hand. This is a very moving, very touching book, which takes bends in the road in fiction that are wholly unpredictible and an utter delight. The father's relationship with his late twin brother, killed in the Vietnam War, is just one other nuance to the father's story that incredibly richens it. There is a romantic element for Jane's part of the story, an extremely ironic but satisfying one.

In light of the recent tragedies we have endured, Liza Wieland's novel Bombshell takes on even greater weight and significance as she takes the horrific events of the Uni-Bomber and puts a name and a face to those involved. Like a master painter who unveils more with each stroke, Wieland builds a tremendously suspenseful story which evokes anger, outrage, sympathy and understanding. Told through the eyes of three characters, Bombshell allows us to experience the terrible toll that these events take on individuals as well as society at large. The three different views from the professor, his stripper/wanderer daughter and her step-brother add a personal dimension allowing the reader to linger in the pain and horror of the realization of who is responsible while slowly letting up the shade that allows us, at first, a glimpse and then a full-throttled revelation into the minds of the characters. Is this a story about the abject evil of people who perpetrate such acts or is it a love story in which the professor is performing penance and showing his love in the only way his his skewed perception of reality will allow?

Undoubtedly there were thousands of unique perspectives to World War II, but one of the most interesting views was had by a lone woman who sat behind a desk in a small office in the ancient adobe hacienda at 109 East Palace Avenue in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her name was Dorothy McKibbin. During the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer and his gathering of scientists at Los Alamos designed and produced the first atomic bomb. McKibbin took care of just about everything else. A Smith College grad, Dorothy McKibbin had seen some difficult times in her early life, despite coming from a well-to-do Kansas City family. She spent a year as a "lunger" in a sanitarium in the mid 1920s, and she was widowed with a10-month-old son at the age of 33. But McKibbin was a survivor, a woman of determination. She picked up her young child, pulled up roots, and started over in the small, off-the-beaten-path town that had captivated her as she recovered from tuberculosis in 1925-Santa Fe. The move placed her at a crossroads with history, where in 1942 she would become the Gatekeeper to Los Alamos. She arrived in Santa Fe in 1932 with no job nor any prospects of one, but soon she had a bookkeeper's position at a trading company and was building a stunning adobe home that is now one of Santa Fe's historic properties. She made friends with the "cultural mix" of the Santa Fe area, among them photographer Laura Gilpin, architects John Gaw Meem and Katherine Stinson Otero, poets Witter Bynner and Peggy Pond Church, artist Cady Wells, and such legendary locals as Edith Warner and Tilano Montoya. Life was unhurried and unaffected. Then, in 1942, she met Robert Oppenheimer and that all changed. She was offered a new job at that meeting and took it immediately, saying years later, "I never met a person with a magnetism that hit you so fast and so completely as his did." It was an overwhelming job, but, through it, she and Oppenheimer formed an extraordinary friendship. A strong bond developed between them that lasted throughout their lives. In his history of the Manhattan Project, David Hawkins said it best. "Dorothy loved Robert Oppenheimer. He was her special one, and she, his." Pricilla McMillan of Harvard University has summed up this book well in saying, "this is the story of the beautiful, high-spirited woman who helped Robert Oppenheimer create the Los Alamos Laboratory and became its link to the outside world during World War Two. . . . It is exciting to read and just really excellent in every way."

What a mesmorizing account of a woman's life! I could not put the book down and found that Dorothy McKibbin's image of being a "power girl" ignited my own need to move forward and make a difference in life. Steeper has done an incredibly thorough job capturing the details of not only McKibbin's life and life-long contributions, but also the events of the time period. I highly recommend this book and plan to buy more for my "power girl" girlfriends around the world!

What a mesmorizing account of a woman's life! I could not put the book down and found that Dorothy McKibbin's image of being a "power girl" ignited my own need to blast forward and make a difference in life. Steeper has done an incredibly thorough job capturing the details of not only McKibbin's life and life-long contributions, but also the events of the time period. I highly recommend this book and plan to buy more for my "power girl" girlfriends around the world!

Edith Warner's own words exceed in beauty and simpicity anyone else's account of what her experiences were like in Northern New Mexico during the era of the making of the atomic bomb. Captured for the reader are the feelings of an anglo woman being accepted by Native Americans, the difficult life a woman making it on her own, and her intense feelings about how the war affected pueblo people.
Editor, Patrick Burns, has done a fine job of editing and staying true to the spirit of these wonderful writings!

Edith Warner came to New Mexico from the East in 1922, seeking a place to regain her failing physical health. Rather, she found a place ideal for her spiritual health, an ancient land where she felt at peace. She settled into a little house beside the Rio Grande at a lonely railroad siding called Otowi, where she supervised the off loading of freight. Ironically, in that out-of-the-way location, fate placed her at a crossroads in time, to live between the pastoral life of the neighboring Pueblo Indians and the frenzied pace of nearby scientists ushering in the atomic age at Los Alamos. In the midst of these different worlds, Edith completed her personal journey and touched the lives of everyone who passed her way, from sheepherders and potters to world-renowned physicists. Her story has been presented in two previous books, THE HOUSE AT OTOWI BRIDGE, a memoir and southwestern classic by Peggy Pond Church, and THE WOMAN AT OTOWI CROSSING, a fictionalized and altered version of Edith's life by Frank Waters. Now, IN THE SHADOW OF LOS ALAMOS offers the story through Edith's own writing, with a preface to set the stage.

As a reviewer, I am suppose to tell you whether or not you will enjoy this book, but such a prediction would be based solely on opinion. What I can tell you is that Patrick Burns, the book's editor, was passionately dedicated to his project on Edith Warner and that his admiration of Edith, despite never having met her, shows through in his work. Burns pursued lost documents in dusty archives, salvaged old letters that were about to be destroyed, and talked with Edith's friends and relatives from around the country to gather and preserve this record of her writing, which includes published and unpublished articles, letters, and surviving portions of her journal. IN THE SHADOW OF LOS ALAMOS is the result of years of in-depth research into a remarkable woman and a place in time. Edith's story leads the reader to wonder what might have become of her had she stayed in Pennsylvania, never having found her little house by the river, but we will never know because Edith recognized that she was right where she was suppose to be. She pursued her destiny. Through this book, she continues to inspire others to do the same. My opinion? You will more than enjoy IN THE SHADOW OF LOS ALAMOS.

The nine authors who each tackle a chapter provide a unique and fascinating insight into life, and more specifically, women's life at Los Alamos. This book is a must read for those interested in the cultural and social aspects of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.

This book, originally compiled during the early postwar years at Los Alamos, consists of reminiscences, letters, and essays by representative women who devoted their lives to the Los Alamos experience during World War II. A unique description of the Manhattan Project, it remains one of those disarming pieces of historical literature that make history such an engrossing field to wander into.

This book represents one of the best and most comprehensive data sets for explosive properties that is available. It is not light reading nor intended for the non-explosives community.

Dorothy Hoard doesn't just present a book on hiking the Los Alamos outdoors. She leads the hiker on a guided tour of the environs, its geology, its people, its natural and social history. She walks the walks of the ancient Pueblo Indians as she explores the niches of their art, lifestyle, and work. She introduces the hiker to the area's unique rock and land formations, and the fragile yet resourceful flora, while inviting the hiker to appreciate the strength of this ancient land and the art and work of its innovative people. This is a book not just about hiking; this is a book about discovery in the land of the Ancients.

I highly recommend Shroyer's Secret Mesa. In a thought-provoking way, the author introduces the reader to the fascinating world of Los Alamos, research center AND town. Never dry, the book relates history and present day projects with a human interest focus. Frankly, I couldn't put the book down, and learned a myriad of new things by reading it. If you're looking for a unique read, pick up this one.

SECRETS! is a delightful, intriguing book. The writing is crisp and snappy and very humorous and the story pulled me in from the very first page. I practically read the entire book in one sitting. We get a wonderful glimpse into the lives of a family during the years of the Cold War in the secret city of Los Alamos where atomic bombs were made and tested. Told through the viewpoint of a young girl whose father worked at the national laboratory at a time when nuclear war was a very real threat and school kids hid under their desks when the sirens went off, there are two parallel stories in this book. First, the unique experiences growing up during the 1950s and the secret games of childhood while living in a gated, locked city where everyone needed a special pass to get in or out, and second, the secret life of her father since he could never discuss the work he was doing at his job at the labs - and he always has a funny story to explain where he's been or what he's been doing whenever his family asks. An enjoyable and interesting read!

Excellent book, it takes a bit to stick with it, but the modern day excerpts/perspectives threaded into the book give it a good historical perspective. This is a good combo to go together with Richard Rhodes "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" and "Dark Sun".

- for anyone seriously interested in our nuclear heritage, weaponeering, or the NWEPS program. Gives INCREDIBLE insight as to the minds and directions these young physicists were going.

This book is a must-read. Simple, concise, straightforward technically. You gotta read it, 'nuff said.

This is an incredible book. This is originally a compilation of Robert Serber's notes he gave to incoming scientists at Los Alamos in the 1940s, explaining to them the purpose of the Manhattan Project and the expected means by which they would achieve their goal. This particular copy, courtesy of the University of California Press, contains not only an introduction by Mr. Richard Rhodes (author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb - strongly recommended), but notes throughout the Primer itself by Robert Serber. It is fascinating to read comments on a document by the man who wrote it many years afterward. Be warned: This is NOT a how-to book, and does require some basic knowledge of calculus and physics. It is, however, unbelievably interesting, and worth the cost to add it to your collection.