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Rating: 
Summary: Lopez...
Review: Beautiful stories...except for the title piece. This is a violent and subpar work for this very gifted writer.
Rating:
Summary: eclectic and thought-provoking
Review: These stories are all over the map -- from 17th century love letters between Peruvian saints to a 20th century mappist who devotes his life to his practice. This is my first encounter with Lopez, but his excellent writing is evident throughout. Though I didn't like all the stories (the Lords one was the weakest I thought), I found his subject matter so interesting and the ideas so gripping that I couldn't put it down. Lopez has a knack for creating a sense of place from the land. These stories contain some beautiful slices of Americana and some memorable scenes and characters. I love the story about the 17th century saints. Many gems in this short collection.
Rating: 
Summary: fascinating, didactic, curious
Review: This collection of stories stretches the range of stories that Lopez has published, but that also means that he works outside the range of which he is a true master.Remembering Orchards is vintage Lopez - an excellent tale of a step father, a step son's growing to appreciate his step father, and a gently given didactic message regarding pesticides. Stolen Horses is another vintage Lopez - a young man, drifting in life, getting lured into crime - with a gentle didactic message regarding ranchers being priced out of their land. In the Garden of the Lords of War is a tale that consists of a single image of achieving/maintaining peace. The story is description and, while interesting, fails both as story and as entralling description. Ruben Mendoza Vega, Suzuki Professor of Early Caribbean History, University of Florida at Gainesville, Offers a History of the United States Based on Personal Experience has an interesting structure - a very short "story" with extensive footnotes which provides the real story - that of the colonial families' power in Cuba. Emory Bear Hands' Birds is a delightful indictment of our system of incarceration in the context of a story of Native American beliefs. The remaining stories have similar variety and message. These are good stories, worth reading, but far from the best of Barry Lopez.
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