Customer Reviews

Hillerman Country: A Journey Through the Southwest With Tony Hillerman

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"...a skyscape of feathery cirrus clouds stretched southward toward Mexico. To the west over the Painted Desert, they were flushed with the afterglow of sunset" From `Dance Hall of the Dead"

At a book signing in Ft. Worth to benefit a homeless shelter, Tony Hillerman expressed how much fun it was to make this book with his brother Barney.

This book contains 200 spectacular pictures from all over Hillerman country. Many pages are picture only with the caption on the page prior or after. The text among the pictures is a combination of history and exerts from Hillerman novels. Now when you read the novels these pictures will come to mind.

Re3ading this book and looking at the pictures will make you homesick even if you have never been there.

This is the latest of the books that I have read by Tony Hillerman. While writing entertaining fictional storys, his addition of real places makes them very believable. My next project is to visit these places using this book as my guide.

Gorgeous pictures to go along with a wonderful book. You can tell that Tony Hillerman really belonged in this part of the country. If you enjoy his work, I highly recommend this book and also the book "Seldom Disappointed."

"Hillerman Country" by Tony Hillerman. Subtitled: "A Journey Through The Southwest".
Photographs by Barney Hillerman. HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.

There is much beauty in the excellent photographs in this book. There is much beauty in the excellent prose in this book. I have been a fan of Tony Hillerman's Navajo Police novels, and I like Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn. So, I lean towards Tony Hillerman's writing.

When I worked as an engineer, my job took me to Phoenix, Albuquerque and Sandia. Had a tour of Sandia Labs and went up the tram to Sandia Peak. My memories of the Southwest include hot concrete sidewalks, steaming asphalt parking lots and little lizards. Back in the East, we have little chipmunks running around amongst the trees. In Hillerman's Southwest, you saw tiny lizards scampering around the trees in the parking lots. My point is that most of us see only the populated centers and this Hillerman book emphasizes the lands where people are few and far between. The book is wonderful.

I've written reviews on Hillerman's Chee/Leaphorn/Navajo novels. I was more impressed with the writing in this book because Tony Hillerman would enter an excerpt from one of his novels as the caption for a beautiful photo that his brother, Barney Hillerman, had taken. You can look at Barney's picture and then read the caption from Tony's novel, and then say "Wow! His words do a great job of describing the scene".

So, if you're a fan of the writer, buy the book for the prose. If you're a fan of Nature's beauty, get the book for Barney's photos; you'll get views that most of us never see. In either case, this book is excellent.

Wonderful quality and service on a hard to find book which sells for much, much more on other sites

Mystery author Tony Hillerman provides a personal introduction to Navajo Country and his brother, Barney Hillerman, a photographer, provides beautiful large-scale photos of the land. One of the things that struck me when I read it was that both of them were born in Oklahoma, so their family had probably been moved. This makes me think that this book, as well as Hillerman's mysteries, are a way to reclaim the land. Although I haven't read his mysteries, I enjoyed this book very much.

The large-size format of the book works really well with the photographs and gives you a sense of the scale, which is immense. Tony Hillerman's writing is engaging and the chapters of the book take the reader to various places in Navajo Country. He deals with the dispossession of Native Americans and of the destructive effects of mining, but the focus is on the continuing beauty and sacredness of the land.

When reading it I was reminded of English nature writing. There is something about the way the English list the flowers and plants that gives a sense of being tied to the land over a long time. Hillerman gives that same sense here. This sense of place comes out of generations, not decades.

This is a must have for all Tony Hillerman fans, and fans of the Southwest. The pictures are spectacular, and the text is interesting and informative.