BOOKSHELF

BOOKSHELF THE RIVER THAT FLOWS UP-HILL: A JOURNEY FROM THE BIG BANG TO THE BIG BRAIN,

by William H. Calvin. Macmillan Publishing Company, 866 Third Ave., New York, NY 10022. 1986. 528 pages. $26.50, hardcover, postage included. Sierra Club Books, 730 Polk St., San Francisco, CA 94109. 1986. 528 pages. $15.95, softcover, postage included.

A glance at the title of this book gives the prospective reader only a vague idea that its contents deal with one of Arizona's greatest attractions-the Grand Canyonand with a most exciting scientific and intellectual discussion of the evolution of life. The River That Flows Uphill is both a history of this process and a journal of a 225-mile rowing trip down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon.

Author Calvin, a neurobiologist at the University of Wash ington in Seattle, writes cogently about many aspects of biology, geology, anthropology, and scientific philosophy. He begins with the "big bang" theory of the origin of the universe, and then discusses the ascent of life, culminating in our own species. He also considers the future of our planet, besieged as it is with complex environmental and social problems. And he achieves this in the readable tradi tion of such scholars as Stephen Jay Gould and Carl Sagan. What makes the story come alive is not only Calvin's style but also his stage: the matchless evolutionary textbook of the Grand Canyon. What better place than this great chasm whose "wilderness setting," writes Calvin, "so epitomizes the lives experienced by our an cestors and acquaints us with those... circumstances for which evolution shaped us." And so, as his boat carries him through the geological ages, he describes his voyage and what he sees day by day throughout the two-week trip-rock formations, rapids, plant variations, lower life forms such as lizards, prehistoric Indian ruins. This is accomplished with some of the best descriptive prose this river runner and book reviewer has ever read about the Colorado.

Interspersed with the record of his voyage, Calvin in precise coun terpoint carries on a lucid conver sation with his fellow travelers about the course of evolution-on the unpredictability of the process, the gaps in the fossil record, the specter of nuclear winter-as he, and we, think about how we have come to be on that river of time. The title? The back eddies of the Colorado River sweep upstream, a metaphor for evolution "like a river that flows uphill, hoisting itself by its own bootstraps to ever-fancier innovations."

Reading this powerful book reminds one of what Frederick Dellenbaugh, artist and boatman of Maj. John Wesley Powell's 1871 voyage through Grand Canyon, wrote 80 years ago: "As for us, we appeared ridiculously inadequate. We ought to have been at least 20 feet high to fit the hour and the scene."

TRADITIONAL BASQUE COOKING: HISTORY AND PREPARATION,

by Jose Baria Buska Isusi. University of Nevada Press, Reno, NV 89557. 1987. 205 pages. $21.45, hardcover, postage included.

The well-regarded University of Nevada Press has featured the Basque Book Series among its other distinguished publications. To be complete, any series dealing with these robust people must include the culinary accomplishments they have brought to tables far from their homeland. The American West has been the beneficiary of the Basques' work ethic and their renowned hospitality. In our own Arizona, the Basque families of Echeverria, O'Haco, Charlebois, Manterolla, and Poquette are but a few of the many who have sustained our society with the gifts of their own. Tioro (fish stew), cordero al chilindron (lamb in chilindron sauce), and sopa con ajo a la vasca (garlic soup Basque style) are some of the gastronomical gifts within this handsome book. Anthropologists tell us that all cul tures offer food and drink to their guests. None does it better than the Basques.

(RIGHT) "Mount Sinyala, Grand Canyon #2," by Cynthia Bennett; acrylic on canvas, 24 by 18 inches. Having lived at Grand Canyon, and now a resident of Sedona, Bennett has been inspired by the canyons of Arizona for more than two decades. A simplicity of style and effective use of color and light make her work immediately recognizable.

(BACK COVER) Picture-perfect view of Arizona's most visited landscape from Grand Canyon Lodge, one of the Canyon's "architectural treasures." See page 38.