PhotoBooks Nevada

Learning from Las Vegas created a healthy controversy on its appearance in 1972, calling for architects to be more receptive to the tastes and values of "common" people and less immodest in their erections of "heroic," self-aggrandizing monuments.

This revision includes the full texts of Part I of the original, on the Las Vegas strip, and Part II, "Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed," a generalization from the findings of the first part on symbolism in architecture and the iconography of urban sprawl. (The final part of the first edition, on the architectureal work of the firm Venturi and Rauch, is not included in the revision.) The new paperback edition has a smaller format, fewer pictures, and a considerably lower price than the original. There are an added preface by Scott Brown and a bibliography of writings by the members of Venturi and Rauch and about the firm's work.

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At the beginning of the third millennium, Las Vegas, Nevada has become a new model of consumer entertainment—the total pleasure market in which everything is for sale. Hancock’s superb photographic eye chronicles the pop-culture fantasy playground that is Las Vegas, a physical location as much as an idea, a place that deliberately blurs politics, money, art, religion, entertainment, sex, and anything else architects can imagine and marketeers can sell. The range of Hancock’s images is as diverse as the city itself: the town’s neon-saturated nights; the glitzy, monumental hotel-palaces; the decaying buildings yielding to wrecking crews; the billboards that sell everything and convey unexpected truths; and a sampling of all that draws a worldwide audience seeking to be entertained.

Las Vegas is a visceral city, an exaggerated feast for the eye, and at the same time it is a community fractured by consumerism—in which buying and selling set all our choices. No book to date offers the intense emotional experience of Las Vegas found in American Byzantium.

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For more than a decade, photographer Linda Dufurrena has recorded with powerful eloquence the rugged, heartbreakingly beautiful landscape of northern Nevada and the patterns of life on the Dufurrena family ranch in the Quinn River Valley. Her work has appeared in magazines and has been widely exhibited, but now, for the first time, over 100 of her finest photographs are collected in book form. Accompanied by a brilliant essay by her daughter-in-law, geologist Carolyn Dufurrena, that discusses the rhythms of the land and of life on the ranch, the photographs in Fifty Miles from Home vividly depict the heart of the West and its fabled ranch culture.

Within the fifty-mile circle of territory over which the Dufurrena family ranch operates--territory ranging from the edges of the barren Black Rock Desert to high, aspen-filled mountain basins--Linda and Carolyn Dufurrena follow the annual cycle of ranch work and the seasonal changes of the surrounding landscape. Life in this remote Nevada backcountry is shaped by the challenges of the austere Great Basin desert around the ranch and by the time-honored skills of generations of ranch families. We witness in Linda Dufurrena's magnificent color photographs the seasons of lambing and cattle drives; the work of cowboys and sheepherders; the animals around the ranch, from orphan lambs to horses to an arrogant rooster; and the close-knit ranch community of the multigenerational Dufurrena family and its hired workers. And around the ranch, in every direction, are vistas of breathtaking beauty as the natural landscape evolves through the seasons, as flowers bloom and storms pass overhead.

Nevada's modern ranches are beset by challenges of many kinds, yet many ranchers, against seemingly impossible odds, are stubbornly clinging to their heritage. Fifty Miles from Home helps to explain their loyalty to this beleagured life style: the joys of several generations of a family sharing work and play, and passing on traditional skills to the younger members; the proud dignity of hard work done well; the daily grace of living surrounded by a landscape of such beauty and magnificence. Linda and Carolyn Dufurrena's paean to Nevada's ranch culture and to the unexpected wonders of the Great Basin landscape will linger indelibly in the memory of every reader who discovers this superb book.

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The Sierra Nevada is one of the West’s most beautiful and famous mountain ranges. In this beautiful full-color gift book, James Martin, recipient of a Banff Mountain Book Festival award, shares an intimate view of its rugged landscape. He describes in poetic detail his own early history of hiking in the Sierra Nevada range, attending Ansel Adams–led seminars in Yosemite, and once hiking from there to Mount Whitney and on to Sequoia — a total of 350 miles. Whether he’s discussing the fascinating geology of this "youthful" range or encountering a couple determined to achieve the first nude ascent of Cathedral Peak, the author’s vibrant text and exquisite 100 color photographs capture the Sierra in all its moods.

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The state of Nevada is known as a place for quick money, 24-hour marriages, and easy divorces. But it's also the only place in the United States with a legal sex industry. About 300 women today work in Nevada brothels, all regulated by the state government. Often shunned from serious condsideration, little is known about the prostitutes or the environments in which they work. In Brothels of Nevada, photographer Timothy Hursley offers a view of this unknown side of America. He exposes the sites in all their variety and complexity, from neon signs on double-wide trailers, to red-toned bars where workers and customers meet, to bedrooms lined with velvet and lace. Far from risque, the images are poignant reminders of how little brothels differ from many American settings. Hursley photographs twenty-five houses, roughly the entire sex industry, in views from the mid-1980s to today. Brothels of Nevada includes large well-known places like the Chicken Ranch and Mustang Ranch as well as tiny houses off the beaten track, like Angel's Ladies and Bobbie's Buckeye Bar. Alexa Albert addresses how the design of the brothels affects the work they house.

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From the rugged beauty of the Black Rock Desert and the noble grandeur of Wheeler Peak to Lake Tahoe's crystalline waters and the deep caverns of the Great Basin, Nevada shows off the splendor of the Silver State. Snowcapped mountains, rolling forests of pine and fir, vast deserts, and intriguing ghost towns contrast with the glitter and glamour of Las Vegas and Reno, enchanting readers with modern delights and natural beauty.

Photographer Deon Reynolds brings the spectacular scenery of Nevada to life in this large-format photo-essay book. Complete with a thought-provoking essay by Carson City resident Jon Christensen, this magnificent book covers a wide range of landscapes, recreation, and communities throughout Nevada, revealing the exquisite allure of this amazing state.

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Far from the neon lights of Las Vegas casinos that define Nevada to the planet at large is another world that few nonresidents of the Silver State ever see. From the canyons of the Mojave Desert to the wetlands, from the mountains to the basins--those long dry unforgiving stretches between the mountain ranges--Stephen Trimble reveals territory unjustly neglected by residents and tourists unlike. There are plenty of discoveries in Ann Ronald's evocative essays as well. Among the surprises is a dazzling shot of an aspen-lined creek that looks as though it could have been taken in almost any state except Nevada.

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A photographic journey through the history of one of America's most distinctive towns, Las Vegas. Part of the highly successful "Then and Now" series, each spread shows an image of Las Vegas as it was, and how it is currently.

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Las Vegas: A Photographic Tour reveals the evolution of a place that began as a Mormon missionary fort in the middle of the desert and became the most extravagant fantasy land in the world. Here are the histories of such famous sites a Caesars Palace, Glitter Gulch, Fremont Street, and La Concha Motel--tales both sordid and glamorous. Famous, infamous and ordinary people from all over the world flock to the City of Lights each year to bask in the glow of this bizarre and wonderful place. Open the pages of this beautiful full color book and step into the razzle-dazzle world that's adored by families and high rollers alike.

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