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November 5th, 2009 
Pete 
Product Description
CALLING ARIZONA HOME is the result of nearly a century’s worth of loving Arizona. Fred and Lisa’s collaboration took them to more than twenty-five towns around the state, talking to people about their communities: what they love, what concerns them, and who they are as a town. Included in CALLING ARIZONA HOME are tales of a woman who did not come to know her husband’s real name until they applied for a marriage license, a man spending forty-five years growing with his Navajo community, a man who says that compared to Hawaii, Holbrook is paradise, and a woman whose life has come full circle in Oak Creek Canyon.
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Calling Arizona Home is an interesting collection of verbal snapshots of the cities and towns that make up Arizona. Done in the style of Chicago writer Studs Turkle, this book makes us feel as though we spent a day in front of the county courthouse in each of these places, swapping tales and smelling the ambiance. It is a perfect way to visit places you haven’t yet visited and to understand the fullness that is Arizona.
Rating: 5 / 5
This fine book is one part history, one part story-telling and one part desert poetry. If you like the Arizona history texts of Marshall Trimbel, the story-telling of Studs Turkel or the desert poetry of Wallace Stegner, you will love this book. It joins the growing body of literature that deals with mans relationship to “place”, and how we inhabit and live in concert with the places we live. In this regard, it will remind readers of the works by Dan Kemmis. Arizona has a brighter future if its residents take heed of the message this book provides.
Rating: 5 / 5
Lisa Schnebly is one of my favorite writers. In her three prior books she has demonstrated her knowledge and love for Arizona. Her writing is distinctive and very inviting. It must be Fred DuVal’s voice here that gives the book something else – a template for how to live more gently on the land. It is a blend of styles and flavors that go well together. And it makes for a lively and enjoyable read.
Rating: 5 / 5
Calling Arizona Home provides a concise, and very readable history of who came to Arizona, when and why, and explores why we each live where we do within the state – and what compels us to stay. It invites the question of what makes and unites us as Arizonans, which for a state that is so individualistically oriented, is a tough task. The authors do identify some answers and challenge us to appreciate the interdependency between self and the land rather than the rugged individualism that has elsewhere so utter branded the West. The book includes individual chapters (and photos) about different Arizona cities and towns and paints a verbal picture of life in each through the voices of those who live there. It concludes with a thoughtful ode to those of us that live, or have lived, in this fragile desert in harmony with our place. If you are an Arizonan or one who simply loves this delicate piece of the world, this book will resonate with you.
Rating: 5 / 5
As much as the interesting essays about Arizona towns, I enjoyed this book because of its call to those of us who live here to celebrate the history that is here, and to celebrate – and honor – the desert and wonderful landscape we consume too fast and take too much for granted. This is a book as much about how we live as where we live. It is a prosciption as well as a description.
Rating: 5 / 5