Pacific

I have read many books about San Francisco and this will give anybody incredible insight into the City. If you had one book to read about SF, this should be it.

Traveller's Tales San Francisco is a very unusual travel guide. It is more like a collection of short stories set in, and all about, the most beautiful city on the planet. Each story takes the reader on a journey through either a specific neighborhood, cultural enclave, outdoor activity or unique "only in San Francisco" setting in a way that no other travel guide does. I am a local and tremendously enjoyed reading this guide because it was like taking a tour of The City without leaving my reading room. The story of the "in-line midnight skaters" swooping up down our wonderful hills was quite a ride indeed. Also, the story of a Golden Gate Bridge Jumper, who survivded was quite moving. This book is a must for locals who think they know all that goes on in their City.

I am seriously addicted to these Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology books. They lead you by milepost on such wonderful tours. You'll want to grab your camera, rock hammer and pocket protector, and hit the road with this one.

There are a lot of excellent maps in this spiral-bound book. The Great Basin offers many surprises to those who leave the Interstate. Enjoy.

I have a confession to make. When I live in a place that has ice and snow on the ground for twenty-something days; the temperature hovers around the cold mark (anything below 50 degrees Fahrenheit;)and my home heating bills are larger than my mortage payment, I frequently contract cabin fever. Symptoms include, but are not limited to, looking at maps, howling at the moon (when available), chasing parked cars, and reading travel books. I know, I know, it's only the beginning of winter and readers are typically not standing in line to get tickets for their summer vacations. However, to my surprise I find that a number of libraries have very popular travel programs that start in January. Could it be that others are afflicted with this seemingly incurable malaise? Thus, you can imagine my delight in finding a copy of this wonderful travel book. My wife and I traveled U.S. Highway 50, christened "The Loneliest Road in America" by Time magazine, across Nevada a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, while we had a number of obligatory travel books of this region, this one was not available. I can't believe how much we missed! Since it was published by the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, it is a specialized travel book. But don't let that fool you. While it is chock full of information on the geology, flora, and fauna of the region it is so much more. In addition to being highly readable it has 70 color photos, 170 black & white photos and an abundance of illustrations, maps, and sketches. The book takes the traveler along this historic Lincoln Highway from Carson City to Baker and introduces you to a unique Nevada adventure complete with national forests, deserts, and a National Park, Great Basin, that many travelers don't even know exists. About the only thing you will miss is the diesel fume spewing monsters pulling full grown homes and bumper-to-bumper traffic at every milepost. During our visit to Great Basin National Park we encountered perhaps a dozen cars. The book has a helpful road log keyed to highway markers. The trip will take you from ghost towns to Pony Express stations and so many side trips into areas of pristine beauty that you will be hard pressed to believe you are in Nevada, which is, after all just a lot of desert, right? You might even visit a lake that produces some of the best trout fishing in the State and stop for a picnic lunch under aspens that will take your breath away. How about stopping in Fallon and visiting the Naval Air Station and Strike and Air Warfare Center, the Navy's Top Gun training center. Riding the "Ghost Train" from Ely is a trip you won't forget. We discovered the works of Nevada poet Kirk Robertson in a small bookshop in Eureka, which has a beaufifully restored historic courthouse. Kind of a special two for one deal. If you are looking for the fastest way to traverse Nevada complete with four lanes of pavement, interchanges, and fast food stops, Highway 50 is not for you. On the other hand, if you have just a touch of adventure in your soul and don't mind beautiful scenery, historic ambiance, and lots of space, this is worth your time. I would not make this the only travel guide to take on such a trip but I would not leave home without it. Take heart fellow sufferers, spring and summer is coming and this book will remind you why the wait is worth it.

Come into a deep, old northern forest where trees reach for the sky, hundreds of feet high. Where their roots beneath the duff, spread out in vast tendrils seeking food, creating food for voles & mice, who, in turn, are fattened up for the owls hunting for food for their owlets.

Carol Reed-Jones has created a lyrical story of life around an old-growth fir tree, & Christopher Canyon's illustrations are bright, powerful & absorbing.

A keeper, its story is delightful & its images memorable.

"The Tree in the Ancient Forest" depicts the"circle of life" concept in a beautifully presented, easilyread format. The author, Carol Reed-Jones captures the essence of the importance and beauty of an ancient forest, presenting a different element on each page. Christopher Canyon's illustrations offer additional beauty to the ideas penned by the author. A wonderful book for children and adults alike -- a great gift book for the ecologically-minded, nature-lover! Highly recommended!

Trees Of Golden Gate Park And San Francisco is a 'must' bible of detail for any San Francisco resident or enthusiast who wants to know more about the city's urban forest and landscape. Chapters are packed with details ranging from early San Francisco landscape history to the evolution of its parks. The presentation is based on the writings of botanist Elizabeth McClintock, and presents the stories of almost two hundred different trees located in Golden Gate Park. No color photos, but the depth of text and detail doesn't need them; the b/w line drawings are enough.

...that there should be people in my community as to write such a book. Starting with the park's planning phases (did you know that Mr. Central Park himself, Frederick Law Olmstead, recommended putting the park along what is now the Van Ness corridor!), the book quickly progresses to encyclopedic coverage of the trees of the park... Sections from this book are destined to become long and enjoyable walks for us in the near future! Unlike many field guides, very fitting for pleasure reading.

Collaboratively collected and analyzed by Birke Duncan and Jason Marc Harris, The Troll Tale and Other Scary Stories is an impressive selection of engaging fairy tales about trolls, poltergeists, fairies and other creatures of folklore mythology. Narrated in the fantastic, sing-song style of folklore storytelling, The Troll Tale and Other Scary Stories is an engaging, entertaining, and strongly recommended anthology for folktale/fairytale enthusiasts.

Harris' and Duncan's collection of eerie tales brings to the table a fresh look at a literary genre that has been confined to rattling chains and creaking floor boards for too long. The 'ghost story' is too limiting a moniker for a dynamic story type that includes myths, folklore, and belief systems that, as Harris and Duncan show clearly, can shed important light on all aspects of the human psychii. In reading "The Troll Tale" my understanding of that tantalizing corner of the mind that conjures the 'scary story' has been broadened appreciably. Harris and Duncan prove that eerie tales can tell us not only what raises the hair on our necks but what drives human nature. This is an engrossing and worthwhile read.

Louise Edwards writing in The China Journal (July 1999) says: "This innovative volume furthers a dialogue between China studies and postcolonial and cultural studies. Using literary debate as its primary focus (popular music is also discussed in Chapter 6), the book raises questions for all disciplines of China studies, Gregory Lee also makes a timely contribution to the field of postcolonial studies...Troubadours, Trumpeters, Troubled Makers makes a valuable contribution in resisting the "mixophobia" that is so prevalent in academic scholarship."

This book attempts to promote a non-authentic, non ethnocentric, and more complex perspective on certain aspects of Chinese poetic and political culture. Its concerns, as the title suggests, are not just with the culture of making and consuming lyrics, poems and songs, but also with questions to which such practices give rise. As the sub-title ( Lyricism, Nationalism and Hybridity in China and Its Others) suggests the interest is also in 'inauthentic' hybrid practices and communities - the book talks not just about mainland China, but about peripheral communities like Chinatowns and Hong Kong. Since this is a comprative work it looks at other non-national communities and cultures like that of southern France, or Occitania. Nor is the book an orthodox British or Western sinological statement on modern Chinese culture. Rather it attempts to shed light on those lyrical works that are either marginalized and occulted, or considered by conventional scholars to be literally beneath consideration. The chapters on contemporary poetry and the chapter on Chinese popular music, are attempts to do just that. Similarly the chapter on the representation of the Chinese American and the descendants of Chinese immigrants to Britain is there to tell a story of Chinese people who in a sense are no longer Chinese, and yet will always be seen and represented as such, and so at a certain level will always remain so.

Mardy Murie is often referred to as "The Grandmother of American Conservation" and "The Grand Dame of the American Conservation movement, but somehow after reading her story, these titles barely seem adequate to describe such an incredible and personal woman. While we may liken Murie to women like Rachel Carson or Anna Botsford Comstock, Murie's journey is singular. We follow her from her childhood in Wyoming to graduation at the University of Alaska, through love, into the far reaches of the Alaskan North.
Murie successfully bridges the personal and the political, her own life and her life's work, her love for one man and her love for their work together. You will laugh with her, you will cry with her, feel scared for her, and come to love her. She will become your hero.
We must recognize Murie as an American treasure, but we must also recognize that Murie's inspiration is perhaps more important now than it ever was. The most obvious reason for this statement is the continuing struggle to preserve the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from growing oil interests. We must also recognize, however, that Murie could be the inspiration for the young generation of leaders in conservation-- a group of leaders that undoubtedly must include women. That there are very so few women leaders in conservation has caused the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women to recognize the struggle of women in their efforts to achieve leadership positions in the conservation movement. Other organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund, the Sierra Club, and the National Wildlife Federation have launched campaigns to attract more women into leadership roles. The lack of women in environmental leadership reflects America's view of rugged individualism in our collective imagination...nowhere has this myth been more prominent than in the discussion of America's last frontier-- a very personal discussion for Ms. Murie.
Not only is Margaret E. Murie a woman in the conservation movement, but she is an American treasure with a very personal and very political story to tell. Even as she approaches her 101st birthday in August, she continues to speak out for Alaska's lands, peoples, and wildlife. Her story is not one of fame, comfort, or glory, but it is her American story. Mardy Murie will become your hero, your inspiration and your friend. Take the journey with her.

I, first, heard of Mardy Murie and her husband, Olaus, while watching John Denver's The Wildlife Concert. He wrote A Song For All Lovers for their deep and abiding love for each other and for the state of Alaska. The song's beauty gave rise to my curiousity. And, recently, while watching a documentary of Mardy's life, I became determined to read this book about her life.

This book is a must have. Mrs. Murie paints with words, a picture so vivid of Alaska's tundras and plains, that I felt as if I were part of it. The lifestyle was hard, but satisfying, and this woman's life was nothing short of fascinating. Mardy Murie is a living testament to the strength and beauty of women, and she leaves a shining example of what a woman can do. In her assistance in Olaus' work for the ANWR and other Alaskan Land Conservancies, to her carrying on of that work, she is a beacon to us all of what we can do.

Buy it...read it. You will fall in love with Alaska and with Mardy.

The Typhoon of War preserves important information about a people at a time that has received little attention from historians or anthropologist. For me it has opened doors I never even knew were there. As a kid living in Micronesia right after World War II, I didn't conceive that the "natives" would be anything other than eternally grateful for the American presence. I recognized differences between the people of Guam and Truk but it was mainly that some spoke better English, or were darker, and some lived in better houses. That some of them might actually look back to Japanese times as "better" was unthinkable. As I grew older, I began to perceive that perhaps we could have done a better job as saviors/colonizers than we did. Now in retirement I collect books about Micronesia and occasionally travel there. I guess I'm still trying to understand better this place I've been. The Typhoon of War is the book I've been waiting for to do just that.

And why should you read this book if you have no interest in Micronesians. It's thick, dense and won't keep you up all night. Here's why; to help you understand how we in America deal with other places (Viet Nam, Bosnia, Africa) and how we might improve our success by actually trying to understand what the people living there think.

The three authors of The Typhoon Of War, Poyer, Falgout, and Carrucci, have done an excellent job of researching and writing a wonderful piece of seamless historiography. Not only that, but they have written on a subject that has been left relatively untouched for too long, the role of Micronesians in World War II, on whose land the Japanese, the Americans, and their allies fought their war in the Pacific.

A multitude of books have been written on the subject of World War II in the Pacific, and new volumes continue to be produced every year. Yet, few of these hundreds of books have ever devoted more than a paragraph or two, if that, to what happened to the native people who have inhabited this far flung universe of islands for thousands of years. The Typhoon Of War, has corrected that oversight. For those readers, both professional and lay, who are constantly looking for new insights into the greatest and bloodiest conflict in the history of man will find more here than they might in the multitude of generic texts that have reproduced the same general chronology, ad nauseam, over the past fifty years.

I don't know any of the authors, but I am familiar with some of their individual earlier works from which I assume sprang this collective effort. Their bibliography is likewise impressive. They have bypassed little that has gone before them in what up until now has been a rather obscure area of research for all but a few academics. Having lived in the Mariana Islands for five years myself, and having done my own research in the area of World War II oral history amongst the islanders, I see that the authors have also used a variety of unpublished, yet valuable sources, such as the collection of oral histories collected in the 1980s and early 1990s by researchers at the University of Guam, Dr. Dirk Ballendorf, Dr. Don Shuster, and Wakako Higuchi.

Much of what I have read in The Typhoon Of War has confirmed what I have concluded from my own research, primarily, that the typhoon of war that swept the islands of Micronesia was the most defining experience of these people since the cataclysmic coming of the Spanish more than 350 years ago.

Without doubt, this is the single greatest western novel that I have ever read. It was a gift given to me as a boy, and I have reread it periodically ever since.
This is a magnificant epic of a novel in a single volume. The collossal enterprise of building the first transcontinental railroad from start to finish connects everything, but is really about Neale's love for Allie Lee- and everything he and their friends go through to rescue her. I know that sounds more like a romance novel than it does a western, but, trust me, this is THE western. You actually care about the many skillfully drawn characters- and it hits you hard when they die in heroic sacrifice. I know that some readers will see the characters as western charactatures and stereotypes, but that is only because Hollywood later overused them- the book came first.
By the way, Larry Red King's rescue of Allie Lee from Belle's "Dance Hall" is still the greatest single scene in any western novel, or film, as far as I am concerned.
Oh yeah, not all the language is "politically correct" these days. That's because the men who built this nation weren't politically correct- empire builders never are.
One more thing, the hero of this novel is an engineer, a civil engineer, and a great role model. At least to me, he was.

I started reading Zane Grey's novels about 15 years ago, when a great-uncle told me of the times, as a youth in the 1920s, he had read Grey's novels on cold nights in front of a fire. It must be close to a decade ago when I first read this title, and I can't help but re-read it every few years. It infuses me with wonder and awe every time.

I knew enough about Grey's novels, by the time I read this one, to know that Riders of the Purple Sage was considered his best. But when I got to the end of The U P Trail, I said to myself, "This is the greatest book I have ever read." This novel, which is focused upon the construction of the Union-Pacific Railroad, has something incredibly passionate and elemental about it that not only elevates it above Grey's other numerous titles, including Riders, but makes it a giant in its genre. Grey himself says in his dedication that "it is the book for which I have written all the others."

The book's scope is akin to a giant mirror being held up to reflect, in one grand and allegorical image, the breadth of the human experience in the building of the American West, and the destruction of its frontier culture. It's a tale of heroism, virtue, sacrifice, greed, personal ruin, redemption, betrayal, saintliness, violence, bigotry, lust, depravity, nobility, and so many other aspects of human nature it's hard to list them all here. It is filled with unforgettable characters who represent every social group involved with both the building of the railroad itself, and the white man's ambition to expand the nation to the Pacific coast. Some of the incidents and moments created by Grey will remain with readers long after they have finished the book, if not forever. And central to it all is the tortured story of the lovers Neale and Allie.

As to drawbacks: modern readers may struggle, in places, with the novel's tone and language. The dialogue of its characters sometimes contains the vernacular and political perspective of the era in which the book was written, and held up to modern standards it could occasionally be labeled politically incorrect. Readers may also have trouble accepting the extra-innocent, almost saintly Allie, and the numerous occasions in which her virtue is preserved against all odds.

Generally, though, I believe that the power and beauty of the book will be the primary impression left with those who read it. It should not be missed by anyone who is a Zane Grey fan OR a fan of historical fiction pertaining to the American West. It's a great view of the legacy in which all Americans live today.

This book has excellent (repeat excellent) depth of information on the Marine Corps Order of Battle, as expected from the title. It also contains very interesting lineage and background data and a wealth of related information. I would rate it excellent in these regards. Anyone with an interest in these subjects should have a copy of this book in their library.

I was a little disappointed to find the Tables of Organization (T/O) data somewhat less complete. There is considerable data buried in text and higher level summary data (such as number of men and major weapons at company level) in the tables, but unfortunately the book does not contain the detailed T/O of Marine units that I had hoped for. This is especially true for pre-war and early war organizations and for ancillary units (like Engineer and Pioneer units). The Bibliography does mention that Tables of Organization are retained by the Marine Corps Historical Center in original paper format and are not complete. This would make the accumulation of complete Tables of Organization a difficult task, but perhaps Mr. Rottman and/or Mr. Frank will be able to turn their considerable research abilities to detailed T/Os in a future work.

All in all an excellent work and one that I recommend very highly!

This book is truly one the best books on the topic of military orders of battle. Not only does Rottman present the complete order of battle of the USMC in WWII, but he also discusses the changes in its TOE and the doctrine behind the organization. Not only does he present a detailed OB that covers all land and air units, he also presents a battle by battle OB as well. This book is a must have for serious fans of WWII history, the USMC, and Order of Battle afficianados. This book will be a resource to scholars for generations to come.