The ruby-throated hummingbird

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George C. West and Carol A. Butler

Hummingbirds may be the smallest birds in the world, but they have the biggest appetites. Their wings flutter on average fifty to eighty times each second as they visit hundreds of flowers over the course of a day to sip the sweet nectar that sustains them. Their hearts beat nearly twelve hundred times a minute and their rapid breathing allows these amazing birds to sustain their unique manner of flight. They can hover in the air for prolonged periods, fly backwards using forceful wings that swivel at the shoulder, and dive at nearly two hundred miles per hour. Native only to the Americas, some hummingbirds have been known to migrate from Mexico to Alaska in the course of a season. George C. West, who has studied and banded over 13,500 hummingbirds in Arizona, and Carol A. Butler provide an overview of hummingbird biology for the general reader, and more detailed discussions of their morphology and behavior for those who want to fly beyond the basics. Enriched with beautiful and rare photography, including a section in vivid color, this engaging question and answer guide offers readers a wide range of information about these glorious pollinators as well as tips for attracting, photographing, and observing humming birds.

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Scott Cook

Although brickmaking was one of the pioneering non-agricultural manufacturing industries in the Rio Grande Valley, as well as in other areas of the lower Rio Grande region, this is the first ethnographic study of the industry. The many and important connections between brickmaking in Mexico and Texas lead author Scott Cook to consider many core issues in the interdisciplinary field of border cultural studies, even as he gives a clear picture of the development and decline of the binational industry. Drawing largely on oral testimonies from living informants and from ten years of fieldwork in surviving sites, Cook explores the organization, development, and techniques of the border brick industry, cataloging the range of organizational forms of brick manufacturing from household-based petty commodity units to wage-labor-based petty capitalist units. He also highlights a series of linkages between production, labor markets, and commodity markets. Finally, he focuses on understanding how and why handmade brick production disappeared in Texas just as it took off into explosive growth in Mexico, roughly in the period from the 1950s to the 1980s.

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Jan Mark

An introduction to museums for young people. An account of their history and of some "strange and wonderful collections" in Jan Mark's very personal style. Light-hearted illustrations by Richard Holland.

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William Lashner

It must have been a hell of a night. One of those long, dangerous nights where the world shifts and doors open. A night of bad judgment and wrong turns, of weariness and hilarity and a hard sexual charge that both frightens and compels. A night where your life changes irrevocably, for better or for worse, but who the hell cares, so long as it changes.It must have been a night just like that, yeah, if only I could remember it.All Victor Carl knows is that he's just woken up with his suit in tatters, his socks missing, and a stinging pain in his chest thanks to a new tattoo he doesn't remember getting: a heart inscribed with the name Chantal Adair.My apartment is trashed, my partnership is cracking up, I'm drinking too much, flirting with reporters, sleeping with Realtors. Frankly, I'm in desperate need of something hard and clean in my life, and finding Chantal is all I have.Is Chantal Adair the love of Victor's life or a terrible drunken mistake? Victor intends to find out, but right now he's got bigger concerns. His client, a wanted man, needs to come in out of the cold, and he's got a stolen painting for Victor to use as leverage.But someone is not happy that the painting has surfaced. Or that the client is threatening to tell all. Or that Victor is sniffing around for information about Chantal Adair. The closer Victor comes to figuring it all out, the deeper into danger he falls, as the ghosts of the past return to claim what's theirs.