Tucson can be told in many ways: through the history of its university, a detective who returns to solve a disappearance while confronting her past, a young woman who finds in the desert an opportunity to reinvent herself, or the legacy of La Casa Cordova, a historic property steeped in memory.
In “The University of Arizona: A History in 100 Stories,” “The Arizona Triangle,” “The Bean Trees” and “Storied Property: María Cordova’s Casa,” the landscape becomes more than a backdrop. It emerges as a quiet protagonist.
Across these stories, identity, mystery, belonging and transformation come to life. Although they differ in genre and style, they share one common thread: Tucson.
If you’ve ever wondered how a small university founded in the middle of the desert became one of the nation’s leading research institutions, “The University of Arizona: A History in 100 Stories” offers some answers. Writer and historian Gregory McNamee traces 140 years of history through 100 short stories that portray the people, discoveries, buildings and traditions that have shaped the University of Arizona.
Far from being a conventional chronology, the book blends historical events with intriguing anecdotes, including the origins of the rivalry with Arizona State University and the ghost stories that have become part of campus folklore. It also explores how fields such as astronomy, agriculture, anthropology and the Earth sciences helped establish the University of Arizona as an internationally recognized institution.
If you enjoy mystery novels featuring unconventional detectives, family secrets and unexpected twists, “The Arizona Triangle” deserves a place on your reading list. The story follows Justine “Jo” Bailen, a queer private investigator who works for an all-women detective agency in Tucson. Jo’s routine is turned upside down when she is hired to find Rose, her childhood best friend, who vanished without a trace. The investigation forces her to confront the secrets of her own past.
“The Arizona Triangle” marks the debut of Sydney Graves, the pen name of acclaimed author Kate Christensen. The novel takes readers through Tucson and a small fictional town in southern Arizona, and it is the first installment in a mystery series featuring Jo Bailen. According to the author, the next book is already in the works and will be titled “Saguaro City.”
Before winning the Pulitzer Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction for “Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver captivated thousands of readers with “The Bean Trees.” First published in 1988, the novel blends humor, tenderness, social inequality and a profound reflection on what it means to find a place where you belong, becoming a classic of American literature.
The story follows Taylor Greer, a young woman from rural Kentucky determined to escape the future that seemed mapped out for her. Her journey west takes an unexpected turn when she becomes the caretaker of Turtle, a 3-year-old Indigenous girl. Together, they make their way to Tucson, discovering along the way that family is not always defined by blood, but by the people we choose to build a home with.
In “Storied Property: María Cordova’s Casa,” Lydia R. Otero reconstructs the history of La Casa Cordova, an adobe home in the heart of Tucson that has long been presented as one of the city’s oldest buildings. Behind that preservation narrative, however, lies another story: that of María Navarrete Cordova, the woman who lived in the house, fought to preserve her legacy, and whose presence was all but erased from the official historical record.
Drawing on court records, newspaper archives and María Cordova’s own testimony, Otero shows how urban renewal in the 1970s transformed not only Tucson’s physical landscape but also the story the city chose to tell about itself.
With extensive experience in historical research and writing, Otero recounts how the Cordova family lost the property through eminent domain and how it was later turned into a museum without fully recognizing the people who had lived in and cared for it across generations.
100 stories to understand the history of the University of Arizona
“The University of Arizona: A History in 100 Stories” is an ideal read for alumni, current members of the university community and anyone interested in learning about the roots of an institution that has left a lasting mark on Arizona. Through short chapters and accessible language, McNamee offers an engaging journey that invites readers to discover the university from a different perspective.
The book has earned praise from historians and scholars. Thomas E. Sheridan, professor emeritus of anthropology and author of “Arizona: A History,” says McNamee recounts the university’s evolution “with concision, wit and an extraordinary ability to explain how the University of Arizona became one of the world’s leading public universities.” Sheridan adds that the book “is not only entertaining; it also has real soul and substance.”
Similarly, Bruce J. Dinges of Roundup Magazine describes the book as “the story of visionary administrators and inspiring educators who built a first-rate research institution.” He also notes that McNamee’s relationship of more than five decades with his alma mater allowed him to combine “personal anecdotes with an encyclopedic knowledge of the accomplishments of its faculty and their global impact.”
A triangle of mystery in Tucson
In addition to delivering the suspense typical of crime fiction, “The Arizona Triangle” stands out for featuring a queer private detective as its protagonist, a rare representation within the genre. Through Jo Bailen, Christensen weaves together a criminal investigation with themes of identity, relationships, loyalty and the lasting marks of the past. The novel offers a contemporary take on a mystery set in a partially fictional Arizona.
Christensen says “The Arizona Triangle” was not her first venture into crime fiction. At just 13 years old, she wrote a thriller titled “Life Can’t Be a Penguin,” about two siblings who become caught in a dangerous chase after witnessing a murder. “I still have it somewhere in a box,” she told the Orange County Register, revealing that her fascination with mystery began long before she became a novelist.
With a complex protagonist and a plot that intertwines the classic suspense of detective fiction with the scars of trauma, the story maintains tension through its final pages. Arizona’s desert landscape also becomes an essential element of the narrative, as haunting and captivating as the characters who inhabit it.
“The Bean Trees” continues to captivate generations
Through memorable characters and warm storytelling, “The Bean Trees” explores themes of friendship, motherhood, identity and belonging. Arizona serves not only as the setting for Kingsolver’s novel, but also as the place where the protagonist finds the opportunity to reinvent herself and begin a new life. It is a moving novel that continues to win over new generations of readers decades after its publication.
“Only a Dickensian villain could dislike this book. It is so open, so direct about what is wrong with the world, so straightforward about the mess we are in, that it leaves you astonished and smiling,” wrote the late novelist Carolyn See in an essay for the Los Angeles Times.
Kingsolver’s idea, See explains, is that all of these “unimportant” people, if they choose, could form a kind of counterculture, “so that what the establishment sees as unattractive, utilitarian at best — America’s bean trees, so to speak — might somehow blossom and thrive.”
“If all the women, all the children, all the elderly, all the brown and Black people began working together to help one another, then the United States might become the normal world of wisteria,” See writes, using the flowering vine as a metaphor associated with beauty, nostalgia and spring.
A story of belonging and survival
“Storied Property,” by Lydia Otero, was selected as one of the 2026 Southwest Books of the Year by the Pima County Public Library, an annual recognition honoring the most outstanding books related to the American Southwest.
“‘Storied Property’ should be required reading for anyone who loves Tucson and for anyone who values its stories of survival and belonging,” says local writer Melani “Mele” Martínez, author of “The Molino: A Memoir.”
With deep ties to the history of Tucson and Barrio Viejo, “Storied Property” offers a critical look at urban development and the legacy of Mexican American families in Arizona. It is recommended reading for anyone seeking to understand how local history is constructed, who is left out of it and why recovering those voices remains an essential task.
Whichever of these books you choose for your next read, it will bring you a little closer to Tucson.
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