Local Authors

$14.95

1. A Heart Traced in Sand: Reflections on a Daughter's Struggle for Life by Steven Boone When a seventeen year old cross-country runner learns she is dying of a rare malignancy, she embarks on a healing quest with undeviating courage and prayer. It is her fathers faith that is tested at every turn. Using dreams, religious writings, and Naomis notes to herself, he emerges from the tunnel of darkness with an inspiring message of hope.

$14.00

1. A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca Anyone who doubts the power of the written word to transform a life will know better after reading poet Jimmy Santiago Baca's wrenching memoir of his troubled youth and the five-year jail stint that turned him around. When he enters New Mexico's Florence State Prison in 1973, convicted on a drug charge, Baca is 21 and has a long history of trouble with the law. There's no reason to think jail will do anything but turn him into a hardened criminal, and standing up for himself with guards and menacing fellow cons quickly gains him a reputation as a troublemaker. But there have already been hints that this turbulent young man is looking for a way out, as he painstakingly spells out a poem from a clerk's college textbook while awaiting trial or unsuccessfully tries to get permission to take classes in prison. When a volunteer from a religious group sends him a letter, contact with the written word unleashes something in Baca, who starts writing letters and poems with the aid of a dictionary. Reading literature shows him possibilities for understanding his painful family background and expressing his feelings. Poetry literally saves him from being a murderer, as Baca stands over another convict with an illegal weapon, ready to finish him off, and hears "the voices of Neruda and Lorca... praising life as sacred and challenging me: How can you kill and still be a poet?" Baca has a year to go on his sentence, but the reader knows at that point he has made a choice that will alter his destiny. Without softening the brutality of life in jail, Baca expresses great tenderness for the men there who helped him and affirms his commitment to writing poetry for them, "telling the truth about the life that prisoners have to endure." --Wendy Smith

$15.95

1. Curandero: A Life in Mexican Folk Healing by Eliseo "Cheo" Torres and Timothy L. Sawyer, Jr. Eliseo Torres, known as "Cheo," grew up in the Corpus Christi area of Texas and knew, firsthand, the Mexican folk healing practiced in his home and neighborhood. Later in life, he wanted to know more about the plants and rituals of curanderismo. Torres's story begins with his experiences in the Mexican town of Espinazo, the home of the great curandero El Ni�o Fidencio (1899-1939), where Torres underwent life-changing spiritual experiences. He introduces us to some of the major figures in the tradition, discusses some of the pitfalls of teaching curanderismo, and concludes with an account of a class he taught in which curanderos from Cuernavaca, Mexico, shared their knowledge with students. Part personal pilgrimage, part compendium of medical knowledge, this moving book reveals curanderismo as both a contemplative and a medical practice that can offer new approaches to ancient problems.

$18.95

1. Emerald Passage by Christopher Murphy Recently released from a South African prison, Rollo Runyan-a diamond smuggler and something of an educated rake-finds his latest contraband confiscated by a rascally Russian dealer. And now, to further a far more grandiose scheme, he has to get it back. Runyan's mission to secure a parcel of emeralds takes him gallivanting all over the world. He meets an array of people but doesn't know if they are friends or enemies. In London, he stashes secret papers exposing a plot to sabotage Persian Gulf oil fields. On his way to Rio, he connects with three very different women who each play a significant role in his struggle to collect the emeralds. While flying over the Caribbean Sea, he must foil a midair hijacking, and in Tel Aviv, Runyan has to face a deadly showdown with Arab leaders terrified that their reign of wealth is at an end. As he evolves from scoundrel to philanthropist, Runyan retains his reckless courage and wry humor. If only he could find a definitive answer to his one, burning question: just how much can be achieved with benevolent deceit? A thrilling ride through some of the world's most exotic locales, Emerald Passage explores the gray area between right and wrong through the eyes of a new kind of hero: Rollo Runyan.

$17.00

1. Forest in F Minor by Sachiko Hamada This extraordinarily moving novel is the story of Mizuo, a young Japanese artist, who is like a nail that sticks out from the lacquered surface of her country's repressive culture - a nail that refuses to be hammered down. Born after Japan had lost World War II, Mizuo grows up glorifying the idea of democracy with its promise of personal freedom, and yearning to live in America. She creates an uncommonly equal partnership with her young husband, trying to free herself from traditional Japanese roles. When her husband is awarded a fellowship to study at the University of Chicago, she can't wait to escape. But when she arrives three months later to join him, he has become a cold, emotionally unavailable man and she finds herself utterly alone. Inspired by an unusual doll she made in Japan and new friendships with an American lesbian couple, a mysterious man in a Peruvian poncho, an African-American potter, and Lyna, an uninhibited writer, she begins a journey of identity in the harsh and dangerous South Side of Chicago. The present tense narrative is interwoven with her past experience in Tokyo, Okinawa, and Paris. Mizuo s participation in a colorful mind-body workshop, her witnessing of a secret ritual where women become goddesses, and an experience of mystical fusion on the peak of Macchu Picchu play a part in her final transformation.

$14.00

1. Gossip by Miriam Sagan Gossip is a collection of personal essays that covers themes from a woman's life, ranging from love magic to marriage, old boyfriends to solitude. At the age of fifty, the author learns to shoot a gun for the first time and confront fear. There are essays here on on language and meaning--including ethical wills, blessings, and credos. And memoirs that chart a course including young widowhood, raising a child, a re-union with a high school boyfriend, re-marriage, and ventures into middle age. As Laurie Wagner says: "Sagan is writer whose obsessive ability to observe the ordinary details of domestic life--the nuance of motherhood, marriage and friendship--allow her to lift the veil on the mundane, the things we take for granted, to reveal their more sacred properties. Reading these stories reminded me that I don't have to go far to find beauty and magic in my life, that it might be waiting for me in a simple bowl of mole."

$19.95

1. Hiking Alone by Mary Beath Anyone who doubts the power of the written word to transform a life will know better after reading poet Jimmy Santiago Baca's wrenching memoir of his troubled youth and the five-year jail stint that turned him around. When he enters New Mexico's Florence State Prison in 1973, convicted on a drug charge, Baca is 21 and has a long history of trouble with the law. There's no reason to think jail will do anything but turn him into a hardened criminal, and standing up for himself with guards and menacing fellow cons quickly gains him a reputation as a troublemaker. But there have already been hints that this turbulent young man is looking for a way out, as he painstakingly spells out a poem from a clerk's college textbook while awaiting trial or unsuccessfully tries to get permission to take classes in prison. When a volunteer from a religious group sends him a letter, contact with the written word unleashes something in Baca, who starts writing letters and poems with the aid of a dictionary. Reading literature shows him possibilities for understanding his painful family background and expressing his feelings. Poetry literally saves him from being a murderer, as Baca stands over another convict with an illegal weapon, ready to finish him off, and hears "the voices of Neruda and Lorca... praising life as sacred and challenging me: How can you kill and still be a poet?" Baca has a year to go on his sentence, but the reader knows at that point he has made a choice that will alter his destiny.

$24.95

1. Map of the Lost by Miriam Sagan Centered in northern New Mexico, this collection of poetry describes a series of journeys that create maps of place and memory. The poems travel south to deserts both mythical and real, east to childhood and the past, west to the Pacific and notions of Buddhism, and north to Alaska and a cold transcendence. Each section concludes with a return home where reflection charts locations and people lost to everything from the passage of time to urban renewal.

$19.95

1. Ornesha's Ascension by Ornesha De Paoli In 1992, Ornesha truly began her journey into the mysterious world of the unknown. Only after trekking down the paths of metaphysics, science, and religion did she begin to discover that they were all a part of each other, held separate. Since that time, her life has been a training ground for the study of human separation and human ascension. Ornesha’s Ascension is an intense, literal depiction of the enlightenment of the human being. Spiritual and religious terminologies are both artfully and simplistically explained with such clarity that confusion can no longer exist. Through the use of the O.A.R. Method, the myriad of belief systems that hold humans hostage to this reality are very systematically and easily de-structured. A “collaborative effort” best describes this book, as it is the combined up-to-date information of Ornesha, the collective consciousness, and many Ascended Masters who also walk this path into the new energy

$19.95

1. Take Me to Truth: Undoing the Ego by Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Viera Take Me to Truth is the first book to boldly address the fundamental problem that all spiritual seekers face on the journey to awakening; the ego. Take Me to Truth is a powerful six-stage navigational guide that takes us through the six remarkable stages of undoing ego. Each of these stages becomes an experience of deepening trust, eventually removing all existing blocks to the awareness of the Infinite Love that we are and have. It bridges the yawning gap that exists between seeking enlightenment and finding it.

$16.95

1. The New Sun: Poems by Cynthia West Cynthia West says, "Kneeling, I retrieve shattered shards, glue them together. If I can stick even one piece to another, I have a poem. It is bread. . . . To write poetry, I memorize suffering's names, visit the wounds no stitches can hide, gather stories in my pain bag until it bursts. Love aches if it isn't told. . . . My words are small, round circles, elm seeds, designed to inhabit cracks. They sprout, growing leaves that call water, roots that hold earth, shade that shelters fruit. . . . I lean over the stream, holding a tin for panning gold, allow water to wash away the mud until the sun flashes on wet metal. . . . Kneeling, I retrieve shattered shards, glue them together. If I can stick even one piece to another, I have a poem. It is bread."

$14.00

1. The Sound a Raven Makes by Sawnie Morris, Michelle Holland and Catherine Ferguson New Mexico Book Award Winner, 2007! A triad of strong women's voices, Sawnie Morris of Taos, Michelle Holland of Chimayo, and Catherine Ferguson of Galisteo are gathered together in one volume. These three poets of rural northern New Mexico share a deep language of landscape with river rapids, a blur of hummingbirds, the lingering scent of woodstoves and the inescapable voice of the raven. The book functions as three generous chapbooks, a sampling of poetic geographies and styles. Poet Lisa Gill writes in The Rio Grande Sun, "This is the kind of book that takes your head and repositions it on your neck while a trio of women gently whisper in your ear, 'Look, really look at the world around you.' Together these three poets create a veritable manifesto of how spirit inhabits place."

$21.95

1. Vaccine Safety Manual by Neil Z. Miller The Vaccine Safety Manual is the world's most complete guide to immunization risks and protection. It includes pertinent information on every major vaccine: polio, tetanus, MMR, hepatitis A, B, HPV (cervical cancer), Hib, Flu, chickenpox, shingles, rotavirus, pneumococcal, meningococcal, RSV, DTaP, anthrax, smallpox, TB, and more. All of the information, including detailed vaccine safety and efficacy data, is written in an easy-to-understand format, yet includes more than 1,000 scientific citations. More than 90 charts, graphs and illustrations supplement the text. This encyclopedic health manual is an important addition to every family's home library and will be referred to again and again.

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