If you like to drive, read this book. If you like nature, read this book. If you like to look at the pictures, read this book. This book and $20 for a tank of gas has become my favorite wedding/etc. present for friends. A wonderful coverage of the roads, the state they wind through and the minds of the authors and photojournalists.

Logically arranged geographically with ample outstanding photographs of this spectacular state, adequate historical summary and clear highway guides.

For [money] a year, you get:

- access to all the zagat cities
- listings of new restaurants that obviously don't make the book until the following year
- ability to search using different criteria. I've used this feature in Chicago quite extensively (i.e. show me all of the Italian restaurants less than [money] with at least 15 rating, etc.)

This book is extremely useful but in a different way - we leave the book in the car so when we are out and get the urge to eat out, we can easily look up restaurants.

Zagat always does a great job of pulling together reviewers information on great restaurants... this one is small, but very useful. This is a great guide on where to eat--even locals can find some great new places to try. A few restaurants are missing here, but the information that is here is very reliable. Well worth purchasing!

I love this book! I must have read it at least five times since I bought it on impulse at the store. Since I am pursuing my Masters in Social Work, and having worked with teenagers through Americorps, I have seen how family or lack of it can have a significant effect on a childs life. Sometimes I feel that we look at things too much from the outside and fail to understand why people may turn to a life such as this. I think Sanchez does a wonderful job of displaying the emotions and reasons as to why he joined a gang. I have two nephews that are the products of gang members and although at times I struggle to understand the actions of their fathers and sometimes their mother, but I have to love all of them and hope for the best. Although the actions of a gang member can never be justifed, I think that this book shows us why we as a community need to pull together and support one another. Someone once said you need to love what you hate in order to change it. I believe this novel supports this statement, and anyone who wants insight as to why our children are joining gangs should read this book. Maybe if we refuse to be so quick to condemn and pass judgement, then we can open our hearts to those who do not have the love that some of us do, and just spend a moment with them to give them that love that they need. It may be difficult sometimes to not judge others, but if we look at all the pain we as humans have caused through our judging and sterotyping throughout the world, than we may see that imprisoning others in our images of them only causes them to become that image. Sometimes a child just needs to be recognized for the beautiful person that they are, not to be told that they are a failure or a bad person because they made a few mistakes in their life. Nobody is perfect, and I have made many mistakes in my younger years, but the people who had faith in me ignited that desire to succeed and prove that I could be everything they believed I could. To Reymundo, you are a strong man and you have survived nightmares of the day that some of us only dream about. any are not as strong as you. I have recommended your book to all the kids I currently work with, many of them teenage boys with no real family, and many of them have taken your words to heart. One of them in particular read your book and by the time he finished it he realised where he was headed. You showed him something only someone who has been there could and now he is back in school and off the streets, using the mind he showed me in chess games to its full potential. This is a thank you for your courage and strength, and to let you know that you have touched others through your words. I wish you only the best and maybe one day I will be lucky enough to meet you or write to you and gain some of your wisdom. From one lost child to another, I send you love and I hope you succeed in your dream of going to college. Thank you again for the power of your words. Teachers-give this book to your children, for sometimes they don't realise the truth behind gangs or gang life. This is the reality.

My Bloody Life

This book is about a young Portico Rican male and his struggle growing up in the ruff streets of Chicago. If you are in to gangs or what to hear how the Latinos do it in Chicago. You should read this book. This book takes you into the mind and life of a gang banger. His ways and how he is just like you and me when he's not sober.
Raymond's early life was going bad. The things that happened to him affected his later life. Ray was abused by his step dad for years. He was also rapped by a family member when he went to Portico Rico. Ray's step dad sent him back to Chicago to live with his brother Hector. Hector happened to be a drug dealer and Ray picked up on that trade in an early part of his life.
There was never a male role model in Ray's life so the only people he could look up to were his big tommies that were from the same set as him. Ray didn't join a gang till he was 16. You will see that this man's every bad choice was when he was high or drunk. Only when he was sober did he make the right choices.
You should read this. It will be enjoyed from teenage on up. It sets the message that anyone can move on from what they have done even if they have killed someone,joined a gang or done drugs.

This is one great book. As I read it, many memories of my childhood on the southside of chicago came back. The life he writes about is true now as it was then. This book is surely a voice coming out of the hood. But as reymundo states in the first page, "Unfortunately the people who need to hear this message the most will probsbly never read this book." This book should be given to someone in the gang life to open the eyes of the kids who have taken the wrong road. It should be looked at not only as a story to read but also as a lesson to learn and teach to others. Because there are many scared youth today in the clutches of the gangs in all neighborhoods looking for a way out and all they need is a path to follow.

I hope Mr. sanchez does not give up his dream of getting his degree. The book about that story will truely be even greater that the one about his past. It will teach the latino youth that we can achieve all our goals. I am close to receiving my degree and I know this is the best example I can set kids and other young latinos who have no postive role models to follow and admire. Don't quit trying mi hermano. ""AMOR"

Jim Brandenburg has stepped beyond the comfortable environs of the successful photographer and created a true work of art. The premise is audacious... take only one photograph per day for ninety consecutive days and set them in order to illustrate the minimalist way of thinking so often absent in photo assignments. With typical photo-journalism assignments for publications such as National Geographic resulting in up to tens of thousands of photos, the presentation of ninety varied and spontaneous images exposed Brandenburg to the very real possibility that the result might be unwieldy and chaotic. The genius in this book is the way the images, supported by a gentle and well written narrative, weave a seamless tapestry of a three month journey. Lest one think this book is simply pretty pictures, look at the photograph of a poacher's kill... haunting, visceral and yet not gratuitously graphic. Images such as this give this book an edge that is gripping and very meaningful. Brandenburg is a "wolf person" extroardinaire... but here he expands his subject matter while paradoxically stripping his assignment down to the very barest of essentials. He presents some of the most flatly beautiful images I have ever seen in print. Lake Superior is not only a national treasure, it is Hiawatha's water... haunting, ethereal, powerful and fundamental. Brandenburg shows us several of the great lake's moods. The Boundary Waters area is a primordial wilderness still relatively unmolested. Brandenburg brings the delicate tracery of these waters and the winter's embrace alive. The Aurora Borealis is vivid, the midnight sun is brooding and the frozen waterfall speaks of latent, pent-up power awaiting spring's release. This book almost talks. Impressive, beautiful, moving and pretty amazing.

Read initial article re 90 day journey in National Geographic, which mentioned book forthcoming. His text was excellent; photography incredible and exquisite. An "ordinary guy" searching nature and being frustrated, tired, cold - but awakened and awed by the wonder he stumbled upon. Every nuance of his life's training in photography and nature put to the test and found consummate.

I'm a verbal type; I'd rather read a beautifully written description of a frozen lake than stare at a picture of it anytime. Even knowing that, my mother gave me this book several years ago, and I fell in love. I sat with it for hours, seeing, dreaming, and I still take it down often to do the same again. The photographer, Jim Brandenburg, set himself the challenge of taking only one photograph each day for three months, in the boreal forest where he makes his home. The result is a portrait of life as many of us can never experience it: not just "calendar shots," but pictures that show the cruelty of man, the certainty of death, the very simple beauty of a single bright leaf burning on the dark, still waters of an evening pond. Some photos are amazing in themselves and some seem ordinary in the extreme, but it is important to take them as a whole, and see what you learn from the journey.

Ian Frazier's multi-Plains-state odyssey encounters Indians, farmers, cattlemen, outlaws, Anabaptists, the United States Air Force, and most importantly, Lawrence Welk.

An enjoyable, readable book, Frazier's tale is however ultimately tragic. The history of the Plains is largely a succession of social, economic and ecological disasters, including the destruction of the buffalo and the Indian cultures, the boom-and-bust farming era, the Dust Bowl, the depletion of the Ogalalla Aquifer, and, most heartbreakingly written of all, the strip-mining of coal.

Frazier has a mystical experience during a fashion show in Nicodemus, Kansas, experiencing a redemptive joy and a vision of the West that might have been. Nevertheless, his journey as a whole discloses the ruins of conquest, and human beings alienated and spiritually adrift. With the exception of Crazy Horse and Gerard Baker (ranger at Fort Union), no character in Great Plains seems to love the Plains for their own sake. This vast and formerly rich region, so influential in defining America itself, is something to alter, or escape from. The book's final paragraph eloquently summarizes Frazier's tragic vision.

A Wyoming rancher is quoted in Great Plains as saying, "I like beating on things and making them do what I want." His words are perhaps the most concise summary of our Anglo-American attitudes toward the Plains, and indeed all of the Americas.

On the Great Plains is a great look at the land and it's history by a vagabond traveler that initially hooks up with a Sioux indian by the name of Le War Lance in New York and suddenly transports himself in a rusty van to travel the lonely highways of the Great Plains. While rambling through the country side Frazier provides a history of the land and a description of its present day state with a description of the people as well. Stories of Custer, Bonnie Clyde, Crazy Horse ( a particularly long fascination), Billy the Kid and the descriptions of the places that made them famous. Also fraught with humor such as a descriptively long ride to Sitting Bull's former cabin site located beyond the middle of nowhere with a guide that has to study intently a fuel additive bottle before believeing its not the right kind of alcohol. The history and stories of people and places are endlessly fascinating such as the inhabitants of Nicodemus, a black pioneer town that never completely died and that has an annual festival attended by the whole county, the story of Lawrence Welk and how he was once hit by a thrown brick, a description of a present day rendezvous at the site of Brent's Fort, a visit with the future and controversial Superintendent of the Little Bighorn Battlefield Gerad Baker and many more descriptions and historic story telling. More poignant in that Frazier travels as a modest man that sleeps frequently in his van while listening to the land outside including the ocassional vehicle that goes by in the night. A precursor to "On the Rez".

Great Plains is a cross between Kathleen Norris' "Dakota" and William Least Heat Moon's "Blue Highways." It's a road book about the high plains -- that semi-arid, often treeless region covering 10 states lying between the Rockies and the Mid-West. Rather than a day-by-day log of a single journey, it is an account of many trips, as its author criss-crosses the terrain, jumping from place to place and from one historical period to another. When you are done, you have a sense of a vast land and a great 200-year swath of history.

Fragments of times and places that we may know from movies and text books come together in a sweeping tapestry containing: Indian tribes, buffalo herds, cattle drives, railroads, homesteaders, droughts, blizzards, grasshoppers, long rivers, sand hills, badlands, small pox epidemics, black settlers, missile silos, strip mining, the Dust Bowl, the Ogalala aquifer, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Custer, Bonnie and Clyde, and the experience of driving a van along straight, empty highways in all weather, picking up hitchhikers, sleeping overnight by the road, and stopping to talk to ordinary people living extraordinary lives in a depopulated landscape most travelers know only as "flyover," that featureless land seen from above between East and West Coasts.

It's a great enjoyable read that meanders over its subject, sometimes with a sense of wonder, sadness, amusement, and even -- at a fashion show in Nicodemus, Kansas -- unadulterated joy!

Winesburg, Ohio is a story based on real characters in the early 1900's in a small northern Ohio town. If you enjoy in depth detail on characters you would enjoy this story. Every chapter is based on a new person which can get boring and confusing for some people seeking adventure. I read this book because I live close to where the story took place and thought it would be interesting to learn more about my area's history. I could relate with some of the places described in the story, which made me more interested and kept me reading. The characters described in the story are easy to relate people of my own acquaintance with; each character has their own unique story. The way that Sherwood Anderson writes makes you almost get inside of the characters' head to make you think like that character had thought. It took me a while to get the drift of the story but it seems most people will eventually get hooked on a certain character. I would not recommend this story for a person interested in reading more about action and adventure. Winesburg, Ohio is a great story for someone that would like to know how people in history had thought and that would like to experience Ohio in the early 1900's.

A book of stories that give glimpses into the secret lives of men and women in small town Ohio. The characters in this book could be characters anyplace in the world though. Each has a story, each has secrets, each has passions, disappointments, desires, longing. I personally think that each of the characters in Winesburg are reaching out for connection to other people. They long to have even a moment of understanding, sympathy, companionship in the midst of a life that is big and unclear, a universe that expands above them nightly to remind them of their infinite smallness. This book is as meaningful today as it was when it was written--maybe even more so. As our world becomes more and more faceless with telephones and emails and air-conditioning, wouldn't it be nice to connect to a person instead of a remote computer? Wouldn't it be nice to know that there are others with thwarted desires, stinging disappointments, undying hope, just like us? Take a read through Winesburg and meet some of them.

Sherwood Anderson published this collection of short stories in 1919 all set in fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio. Even though it's written in the third person, it's told through the narrative voice of George Willard, the town reporter, who shows up in most of the stories, sometimes taking an active role and at other times just telling a story.

It is obvious that the writer loves these people, and is frustrated at the isolation and unhappiness of their lives, even though he makes it clear that they hold within themselves everything needed to make them happy. The character in the first story is a dying old writer who is attempting to write about all the people he has known as a "book of grotesques". What follows is the collection of stories, which each character fulfilling that expectation.

There are the young lovers who don't quite connect; there is a old man so obsessed with religious fervor that he attempts to sacrifice his grandson; there is a married man who regrets it all and tries to warn a younger man of future unhappiness; there's a doctor and a sick woman who try to connect. The book is full of people who toil all their lives and never achieve happiness. As I made my way through the book I kept hoping that even one of the characters would rise above the morass. It didn't happen.

The writer has a wonderful sense of place and the town of Winesburg in the early part of the 20th Century is very real. These people were not poor or disadvantaged in the usual sense of the word; they didn't suffer fire, floods or famine. Instead, they trapped themselves in their own psychological webs that made it impossible for them to lead anything but sad unfulfilled lives. This is a fine book and stands alone as a clear voice of its time.

Although I grew up in northeastern Minnesota and was driven away by the cold, I am always drawn back to Duluth and Lake Superior. (Duluth is an incredibly beautiful place and for a city it's size has a thriving arts community.) Barton Sutter makes me want to move to Duluth. He describes the characters, the landscape, the lake, the weather...everything which makes Duluth so special...in his own unique style. In a few chapters he talks about the BWCA, but I didn't feel that this detracted from the main concept of the book. Mr. Sutter is to be congratulated for making this city come alive for me.

Barton Sutter is an amazing writer. He uses his creativeness to express his feelings about the beautiful city of Duluth. Not only did I enjoy "Cold Comfort," but I enjoyed learning more about Barton Sutter. He seems to be a brilliant man with a lot of positive energy. The book highlights points of Duluth and Lake Superior that I've never heard of before or considered. I'm new to the city of Duluth; during my winter break, I'm going to take some time to visit the places that Sutter talked about in "Cold Comfort." He really inspired me about the city of Duluth and I look forward to getting to know the city better!

I attended college at what was then called Wisconsin State University-Superior in the late seventies. I was from Philadelphia and I quickly got into this college to avoid the draft. So did many eastern draftable men. Imagine my surprise when I landed at Duluth Airport in January and stepped into a sheet of frozen air that made the hairs in my nose stiffen like pins.
Barton Sutter describes Duluth and Superior exactly the way people live there. Yes, people live there and they are nice people, but as Sutter shows, they ain't like you and me. They live in snow drifts nine months of the year.
Then there's Lake Superior or as Barton describes it, GOD. The lake is an ocean and it's everywhere. Barton describes fishing, hiking ,canoeing, and reading maps for a hobby. Somewhere in those dark winters he gets a divorce, is involved with a suprisingly active art community, and then gets married again. The prose is perfect. The description of rugged Minnesota and Wisconsin is terrific. Forget Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. Experience ice fishing at thirty below.

This was the first time I read a memoir written by someone my own age, and it definitely evoked a great number of memories!

This is a very enjoyable read, and a definite must read for anyone growing up in the Midwest in the 70s/early 80s.

Zippy is nicknamed thusly because of her rapid speed as a small child! She is the youngest of three children, with a span of about 9 years between her sister and herself. In the course of the memoir, Zippy describes her small town, the crabby owner of the corner drugstore, the mean lady down the street, her mother's book addiction, her father's "creative" employment, attachments to various animals, her unpopularity with her teachers, and her brother and sister's feuding.

A central theme throughout the book is Zippy's pre-occupation with her faith. Raised a Quaker, Zippy spends a good deal of time trying to figure out how and what to believe. The various excuses she uses to try to get out of going to church are very funny!

An insightful book, more than just a vehicle for laughter. It is insightful and full of wisdom as well.

I was quite surprised to read two negative reviews (among all the glowing ones) of this charming and delightful book. I think those reviewers totally missed the point, because they couldn't find the truth in Zippy's story. Zippy is a very imaginative child, prone to exaggeration and flights of fancy. These are qualities she clearly inherited from her parents.

We'll never know if the "wicked" old neighbor lady really wanted to kill her; but, Zippy was convinced, and therefore terrorized by this woman. It was Zippy's reality. Who among us hasn't conjured up imaginary demons, scary neighbors and spooky houses when we were children?

I have never before read a book that so accurately captured a child's imagination, emotions and reactions to the characters and situations that made her life uniquely hers.

One reviewer commented that there was no way that the author could remember the events of her childhood with such clarity and detail. Well, let me assure this reviewer that my brother reminds me regularly all of the horrible and just plain stupid things that I did when we were growing up. How much he actually remembers and how much he has invented is not for me to say. I do know that he seems to possess an amazing faculty for recalling the events of our childhood and beyond. Just because I can't, doesn't mean he's lying, does it? Maybe. But who cares? It is the essence of the experience that is being related.

Having grown up in the 'very, very big' town of Muncie that was 'so very far away' I absolutely and positively could relate to every event in this book. By the way, in the name of truth, Muncie is a 30 to 40 minute drive from Mooreland (depending upon whom you are following), which to a young child IS a long, long way. Muncie is a small town by most standards, but NOT if you are from Mooreland.

I was so taken by this book that I drove to Mooreland one day to see Zippy's house, the church, and so on. Kimmel's description of Mooreland is dead-on, even more than 30 years later.

I loved the story of how Zippy's father handled the threat from the neighbors to poison the family dogs. Anyone who grew up around here can see that happening, believe me. Hoosiers have a very bizarre sense of humor, love to make a point and don't take kindly to being threatened. This book captures those attitudes like no book I've ever read.

Another golden moment in the book is when the older sister tells Zippy that she is adopted. The way the kooky parents handle this is absolutely hysterical. Zippy's reaction is unexpected and priceless.

Zippy's struggles with religious issues are beautifully conveyed. This sensitive subject is handled with just the right balance of reverence and independent thinking to make anyone appreciate how Zippy relates to the conflicts and contrasts within her home and her community regarding spiritual issues. Kimmel puts a child's spin on an issue many adults are still debating, and she does it beautifully.

I recently bought several copies of this book to give as gifts to people whom I know can relate and will appreciate this story. One copy, I am sending to a new friend as a way of explaining the occasionally twisted, but decidedly Hoosier, way of seeing things. I just hope Haven will give us a sequel. Meanwhile, I'll have to read this book again and again.

What a brilliant accomplishment by a new author. Bravo!

A sarcastic, cynical, deceitful, grumpy little girl. Or at least that's what she thought she was. This book is hilarious at (many) times, sad, cute, sweet, and touching. I don't know how this girl survived her childhood riding such an emotional rollercoaster. Well, that's just the thing, when you're small EVERYTHING is a plunge down an emotional rollercoaster. Haven Kimmel has you riding along shotgun on that delightful coaster with her, with your arms in the air and smile stretched ear to ear. She has a real gift of storytelling from a childs perspective. Everyone you meet is as a child sees them, from the mangy foster kids to the old lady with her skin trying to leave her body and piling up around her ankles. This is one to read and pass along for others to enjoy. Everyone will recognize some aspect of their childhood. And that's the funny thing, most of us could tell stories like these if we could recall them as vividly as Kimmel.