This book is exactly what you'd expect from a book purchased at a gift shop at the Grand Canyon, bland.

It is by no-means in-depth and spends more time describing the antiques that Colter decorated her buildings with than with her life. Colter was a fascinating woman and I would have liked to learn more about her than this book provided.

Being as how Colter isn't exactly someone you're likely to read more than one book about, I would recommend purchasing something with more pictures and information than this one, which is more just a basic outline.

"Builder upon the Red Earth" is not the slick tome of expensive color photographs and analytical drawings that Mary Colter's unique contribution to Twentieth Century American Architecture deserves. However, this essentially biographical book is the only one in print showing pictures and telling the history of Mary Colters extrodinary talent.It is not clear if Mary Colter's obscurity is due to the fact that she was a woman practicing architecture in a time when the field was dominated by men or if the remote Southwestern locations of her most interesting works kept them hidden form view, but it is high time more people took a serious look at her work. Colter's projects, which are "built ruins" foreshadow the work of Western deconstructionist architects like Antoine Predoc or Tom Maine. Showing the work of Colter which is almost 80 years ahead of its time "Builder upon the Red Earth" should be in every young architects library.

Although I agree with the reviewer who says that Mary Colter deserves a far better book, I still highly recommend this one, as at least it fills in a gap that's almost the same size as the canyon where Colter's buildings still stand today. More people should read it so that some will be inspired to write more!

Preparing to hike the canyon myself I wanted to read up on what it would be like.I found "The Man Who Walked Through Time" in the bookstore on the Canyon's rim and read it right there,under a tree. This book will transport you to another world,deep below the rim and the mystery's and dangers therein. Colin Fletcher's courage and precise planning made for a successful journey and anyone planning a trip within the Grand Canyon would do well to read this book. I still have that worn copy I bought in 1972 and I re-read it once a year-just before I pull on my pack and head down the Canyon. Cheers Mr. Fletcher,Cheers.

Colin Fletcher makes you feel you are by his side walking the entire length of the Grand Canyon National Park from border to border, West to East, over an entire season. The solitude and peace of this jouney is still with me after reading this story 21 years ago! You will be entertained throughout the trip with Colin's wealth of knowledge on Hiking, Nature, Geology, History, and his ever-dry sense of humor! I felt like he became an old friend with whom I wanted to visit again and again. -- Those who like this book will likely enjoy 'The 1000-Mile Summer' (California trek) and 'The Winds of Mara' (set in Africa) also by the author.

Colin Fletcher's THE MAN WHO WALKED THROUGH TIME is as alluring as the Grand Canyon itself. Why? It successfully fuses human spirit with rock, water, bush, and animal. We walk the Tonto plateau above the Colorado River with Mr. Fletcher and even beyond because our senses are stimulated to wonder, sometimes worry, about what's around the next bend. We feel the heat, we experience the spiney shaft of a cactus plant, we see the ravens soar above in desert skies, and we pray that we will make it to the next cache of supplies and cool water. For those of us seemingly locked into the corporate world of time, pressure, and demands for productive performance, this book provides necessary relief. And yet, there are different pressures, different times, and different demands for productive performance in the midst of that incredibly alluring Grand Canyon far below the world of the rim. Time is measured in penetrating silence. Pressure is felt on the feet and in the stomach. High performance is demanded in scaling a steep angle of loose and crumbling rock

A very interesting saga of the Grand Canyon. Especially of interest to those who have been fortunate enough to visit the sights and locations discussed in the book.

This was one of the best books I have read in a long time. I lived at the Grand Canyon for over a year & was so interested in this book I kept looking things up, to see which was fiction & not. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot of things I didn't know.

The biggest drawback of this book is its sometimes florid prose which detracts from the history itself. The Grand Canyon is such a great American cliche that reading about it seems trite, but Pyne manages to breathe quite a lot of life into it. He attempts to bring all of European intellectual history to bear on the history of the Canyon. He describes 3 Ages of Exploration and the principal ideas and explorers of each--he describes in some detail the burgeoning geologic knowledge of the late 1800's and devotes as much space to the human representation of the Canyon in art, relating Canyon art to European art movements. He describes the advent of commercialism, of the ecology movement and its principal spokespersons, and of the Canyon in music. He describes how the 3rd Great Age of Exploration--space exploration--has resulted in the canyon being reduced in geologic importance because of the advent of new theories of planetary history, discovered through plate tectonics and impact craters.

This book is a great intellectual history of a subject that tends to be considered so trite as to be mundane. In the course of the 20th Century the wonders of the Grand Canyon have been so often noted that they have become a cliche of commercialism. Pyne takes us back to the Spanish explorers and helps us to understand why their intellectual powers were inadequate to interpret the meaning of the Canyon when they first encountered it. Pyne describes 3 great ages of exploration, and devotes considerable space to the explanation of the geology of the canyon, first discovered in the late 1800's by John Wesley Powell and his associates. He also makes frequent reference to the human representation of the Canyon in art; he considers this, it would appear, to be as significant as its geology. He relates this art to the modernistic movements in Europe. He describes the advent of commercialism and of the ecology movement by men like Joseph Wood Krutch, who wanted the Canyon maintained in its pristine state for the enjoyment of all. He describes how the Canyon has become less important in scientific circles with the advent of the theory of plate tectonics and of crater impact zones, of space exploration.

Pyne puts the Grand Canyon in the context of world history with numerous references to the "First, Second, and Third Ages Of Discovery", the first represented by Coronado, the second represented by Powell, the third represented by space exploration, and with numerous references to geology, (somewhat surprisingly) to art, and to nature writing. This book details the extensive geologic exploration of the canyon in the late 1800's, the art it produced, and the effects of European trends in art on the Canyon art, and the changing view of the canyon as a result of space exploration and environmentalism. A lucid and compelling work.

Okay. First off, I have to confess I bought this book by mistake. I was expecting to get a sort of audio guide to the Grand Canyon, so I was pretty disappointed when this turned out not to be the case.

The audiobook instead turned out to be two short stories: the first is, of course, 'The Grand Canyon', and the other is 'At Grandmother's House' (or something like that). 'The Grand Canyon' was a lot more enjoyable and funnier. It was a narrative about the writer's trip to the eponymous canyon and his self-deprecating humour got quite a few chuckles out of me.

'At Grandmother's House' recounts the author's trips to his grandmother's house in the woods when he was young, and concentrates on two incidents in particular, one involving imaginery bogeymen he was afraid of as a boy, and another involving a real bogeyman (well, actually an escaped criminal) hiding out near the house. Not terribly interesting a listen.

As an audiobook, it was pretty good. The reader has a wonderful gravelly voice, and a good sense of deadpan nuance which worked well, especially with the first story's self-deprecating humour.

So, a pretty average couple of stories, one somewhat better than the other, that were fairly entertaining and reasonably competent, but nothing to write home about. Three stars.

My Personal Rating Scale:
5 stars: Engaging, well-written, highly entertaining or informative, thought provoking, pushes the envelope in one or more ways, a classic.
4 stars: Engaging, well-written, highly entertaining or informative. Book that delivers well in terms of its specific genre or type, but does not do more than that.
3 stars: Competent. Does what it sets out to do competently, either on its own terms on within the genre, but is nothing special. May be clichéd but is still entertaining.
2 stars: Fails to deliver in various respects. Significantly clichéd. Writing is poor or pedestrian. Failed to hold my attention.
1 star: Abysmal. Fails in all respects.

I picked up this book when I was going out to see and hike the Grand Canyon. The book is much more interesting in context, i.e. you've seen and undertand the scale and the environment of the Grand Canyon. The book has a series of short vignettes, arranged roughly chronologically, about explorers, miners and assorted neer do wells that really gave life and reality to my experience hiking and exploring the Canyon. Each of the stories is concisely written and illustrated with period photos in B&W.

I suppose Scott Thybony's Havasu Trail Guide told me most of what I needed to know. However, it was very poorly organized. It read like a term paper that was thrown together the night before it was due. Rather than have clear sections such as history, geology, Native Americans, and the trail itself, Mr. Thybony drifts aimlessly back and forth between topics. After I finally finished the book, I still did not feel like the trail had been completely explained. I had to skim back through the book and piece together his information about the trail.

In short, I do not feel confident about my understanding of the Havasu Canyon Trail after reading Scott Thybony's guide.

I enjoyed the plot of the book and the excitement of the expedition down the Colorado River. However, it was very long on stereotypical characterizations and situations ... hence the lower rating.

This book was terrible. I couldn't finish it. The dialoge was sophomoric. There wasnt any character development. A complete waste of time.

One can only hope the the Last Canyon is Mr. Vernon's last book. Flat characters; flat imagery; sophomoric dialogue; silly, forced, disconnected scenes: the genuis here is that one truly celebrates the end of Powell's journey becasue it also coincides with the end of Mr. Vernon's prose. One wishes Mr. Powell's journey had ended 300 hundred pages sooner.

As John Wesley Powell and his crew of nine follow the Green and Colorado Rivers through uncharted territory into the Grand Canyon in 1869, Vernon imbues them with so much energy and strength that this fictional account of their journey feels like the real thing--more like a well-written memoir than a flight of imagination. His depictions of the canyons, mesas, geological strata, and the always changing river are so precise and vivid that they feel more like great photographs than prose. His descriptions of the heat and privation have the intensity of old sermons of hellfire and damnation.

With a lyricism as masculine and vigorous as the characters of his story, Vernon tells of two parallel, and eventually intersecting, journeys--the famous journey of John Wesley Powell and his crew on the river, and the fictional journey of a family of Paiute (Shivwits) Indians across the high mesas, as they try to reclaim a daughter which the father sold to Mormons in exchange for two guns. Vernon alternates these narratives in successive sections, bringing the ironies of the two journeys into sharp focus. The Powell expedition fights the forces of nature and is often at the mercy of the elements, struggling with equipment and scientific instruments, and in danger of running out of food. The Shivwits, on the other hand, are in communion with nature, comfortable in their belief that nature will provide, as it always has--their struggle, of course, being to preserve their lands and culture.

Vernon is a remarkable writer, equally adept at all aspects of writing--action sequences on the river, dialogues ranging from humorous to rancorous, insights into the characters' thinking, and a faithful adherence to the writing style of the period. His ability to present very different descriptions of the same geographical features, as seen separately by the Paiutes and explorers, is nothing short of amazing. This is a beautifully written, very masculine story of exploration and cultural conflict, one that should not be missed by anyone fascinated by tales of outdoor adventure and exploration.