THOMAS W. SWETNAM’S The Jemez Mountains: A Cultural and Natural History (University of New Mexico Press), doesn’t read like the academic tome its title suggests. The 40 short chapters explore colorful topics ranging from Penitentes and grizzly bears to hippie communes—each told in conversational prose and grounded in first-hand knowledge. The University of Arizona dendrochronology professor grew up in the Jemez in the 1960s, when his father was a U.S. Forest Service ranger. Swetnam returned after retiring in 2014. “Places on the landscape remind us of deep time stories told of and by rocks and trees,” he writes, “and near time stories of people.” Those tales elegantly intertwine, “forming a diverse quilt of memories.”