Robert Cameron's "Above" series are all fine works, and offer unique glimpses at major cities from a unique perspective. All of his works are primarily photography travelogues, but each offers pithy captions from local experts.

"Above Mackinac" is among the best, and offers spectacular aerial photos of not just Mackinac, but all of Northwestern lower Michigan. The book also does a fantastic job of pairing Cameron's photos with historical shots, highlighting changes over the years. Sort of a then-and-now retrospective. Mind you, these are not 35,000-foot government-land-survey-type aeriel photos, but rather are lower angle photos taken from a helicopter at perhaps 2,000 feet, so details can easily be picked out.

The colors and landscapes of this glorious region come alive -- partly because many of the photos were taken at the peak of the fall colors. The sights of Mackinac, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Charlevoix and the five-mile long "Mighty Mac" bridge bring back great memories for me anyway.

Makes a great coffeetable book. My only complaint is that unlike most of his other works, this particular book is not available in hardcover. Enjoy!

As a relatively small island, Mackinac is almost perfectly suited to Cameron's style. Reading this book is almost as good as a trip to Northern Michigan. Cameron has obtained some of the best color-reproduction craftspeople in the world to print his books, and it shows. These are not your ordinary snapshots. The entire Island is here. If you ever wanted to see something steadily and see it whole, this book is a good place to start.

I was fortunate to live on Mackinac Island the summer that this book was published and have a copy from The Island Bookstore, signed by both Robert Cameron and Phil Porter. The book is gorgeous, and now that I am planning to return to the island after a five year absence, it is invaluable as I choose lodging and make plans. It effectively captures the beauty and majesty of a very special place and Cameron and Porter's affection for Mackinac Island is evident on every page. For those who hope to visit this magical place or who already hold it dear, Above Mackinac is a wonderful journey.

I have found this book indispensable since moving from the west coast to Iowa. My only criticism is that there are no pictures, just sketches, which makes it difficult to put together what you have read with what you have seen. I recently bought a small hand size plant encyclopedia to accompany it and I find it makes things much easier. It is a good read and works well for quick reference, too.

I loved the Duggan book and now use it to plan for spring plantings. I turned an ugly yard into a beautiful garden and haven for my family and friends using the helpful, down-to-earth advice contained in the book. Whenever I think about gardening, I always check Laara's book first to find her advice about planting in shade,or in full sun, for color choices or for hardiness. I take her book with me everywhere in a plastic bag so thatI have it while on plant shopping trips, out to the nursery and out to the garden. I bought copies for my friends, too.

A great book. It tought me how to grow great vegetables with minimal fuss, while making a great looking garden.

Great photographs are herein presented of 100 Chicago-area churches. A must-see, must-have for any Chicagoan--for any Midwesterner, for that matter. The cross section includes the "bold and beautiful" as well as the "plain and ordinary" and the store-front church. The book is not limited to Christian churches, but features worship sites of other faiths as well.

this is simply a beautiful book, both the photographs and the over all design of the book. as a photographer/designer i was inspired by such a wonderful book.

This is a brilliantly crafted, mature work from a remarkably young artist. The photographs are magnificently rendered to show not only the architectural beauty and diversity of Chicago's many churches, but also the neighborhoods they are a part of. This is a book to pour over again and again, a must-have whether you're religious or not!

I was delighted to have come across this book. While I'm not much of a cook, I like to think that I could be. This book makes it sound easy and, more importantly, FUN. I recommend it to anyone interested in eating, shopping, or cooking or for an "off the beaten track" cultural/culinary tour of our great city of Chicago. Hats off to the author; she probably weighs a ton by now but it must have been an interesting journey. (Great cover, too!)

As a frequent visitor to Chicago, I love to take advantage of a big city's resources. I found "A Cook's Guide to Chicago" to be an invaluable culinary guidebook. Written in a humorous and easy to read style, the book demystifies those strange foods I can't identify, and lists stores that carry the exotic foods I love but can't find in my own neighborhood. Better yet, the author offers tips and recipes that feature them. With this book, I'm armed with a resource that enables me to search out foods I didn't even know existed!

Each chapter is filled with interesting facts that make identifying and locating groceries and cooking utensils fun.
(The description of South Water Market made me want to shop there just to see the area.) The book's layout makes it simple to use, and it is thoroughly indexed. The graphic design is a visual treat.

But the best part about this book, for me, is not the facts, but the feeling it gave me while reading it. I fell in love with food and spices and cooking all over again. Suddenly, just going down the same aisle at my usual supermaket to make the same predictable meal just didn't cut it. With these newly defined foods and locations of ethnic grocery stores, I was ready for a culinary adventure. The author's skill in writing, her sense of humor and love of food all combine to portray cooking as a sensual and exotic world. "The Cook's Guide" is the perfect companion to explore that world - I highly recommend it.

As a resident of Chicago, I am grateful to the author for writing this book. Now, I know where to have my knives sharpened, buy fresh ginger, and find the best teas.

I picked up this book at the library. It is a listing of county parks in Wisconsin and what the facilities are in each. I began bookmarking the pages that I wanted to copy information from. When I got to 30, I decided to buy the book.

This book is especially useful for those that camp. Wisconsin state parks have raised the camping rates and this year even the National Forest sites have to be reserved. This book is a powerful tool for those that make spontanious decisions about how and where to spend week-ends.

This book is so easy to use! It's organized very logically and gives a good summary of the state's county parks. I took it out of the library and have used it to find great camping destinations, but there's also information on other specific activities; i.e., fishing, canoeing, hiking, etc. When used in conjunction with the websites which most of the state's counties now have, it makes planning a camping trip a breeze. I plan on buying the revised addition. All in all, an excellent resource for families or individuals who enjoy the outdoors in the Badger state.

This is one of the best book on parks that I have ever seen. I have 11 excellent books on Wisconsin (camping, hiking, state parks, backpacking, and touring), but this is the best book for finding a good county park while traveling or planning a vacation. This book is a hidden treasure: it contains information on 600 wonderful county parks in Wisconsin. This appears to be the only consolidated book on county parks in Wisconsin. The book is incredibly well-organized: 1- They provided a chapter on the 25 best parks. (This is useful if you are specifically planning to go to one of the best parks out of 600 county parks.) 2- The 600 parks are organized by location, which means when you are traveling in a particular county, you can easily find a county park. The book is organized first by location, and then alphabetical. It is a very clever and helpful way to organize a book because you can find a park in the area you want very quickly. This makes vacation planning so easy. (I own State Parks, Wisconsin by Bailey and while a good book, it's not organized like this, which makes planning a vacation more of a challenge because the parks are scattered in the book because they are not organized by location.) This books is an excellent tool for planning a vacation. 3- Each county represents one chapter in which that one county's parks are described. At the top of each chapter on each county, they have a really handy picture where the county of interest is bolded on miniature Wisc map. So, if you are planning a trip up North, but you're not familiar with all of the names of the northern counties, you'll instantly know if this chapter is the right area for you, just by looking at the picture. This makes it really efficient to find what you need. 4- It's the only book (out of the 11 Wisc books that I bought) that also has a chapter that covers best parks for a particular use. It's "Best Parks for Special Uses" chapter tells you where to find the best parks for: a) Nature Study, b) Horseback riding, c) out-of-the-way camping, d) historic sites, e) bird watching, f) folk art, g) waterfalls, h) Native American history, i) Caving, j) cannoeing, k) family camping, l) winter sports. 5- When describing a park, the book provides the following information: a) directions, b) facilities (e.g. none, swimming, beach, picnic tables, outhouses, toilets, hiking, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, playground, boat landing, grills, picnic shelter, tent sites, trailer sites, hiking, nature trails, etc.) It's a very handy book because of the depth of material that is displayed in a very effective way. I highly recommend this book. It's excellent.

DEEP RIVER is about much more than a Missouri bottom-land farm, although that farm and the author's family who worked it are central. Hamilton delves back in time to the days of Indian tribes and of slavery, and along the way spins some great stories about Frank and Jesse James, Blind Boone (a virtuouso pianist), and other colorful characters. He gives a memorable account of growing up in rural Missouri and of his school days. I found the book absorbing, and relished the author's shrewd insights and morsels of wisdom. It's the nearest thing to Thoreau's WALDEN I've seen in a long time, and it too deserves to last. Not incidentally, Hamilton, for many years the editor of THE IOWA REVIEW, writes like a dream.

I can't recall ever reading a memoir similar to David Hamilton's Deep River. I don't know if that's because I've just haven't read the whole range of this kind of literature or because his book is unique. What I do know is that I enjoyed it, that I found myself reading it again, that it is beautifully written and that it is still kicking around inside of me.

The book is not organized around any immediately recognizable principles. Yes, all right, there are sections where Hamilton leads us to believe that he is now going to concentrate on the issue of slavery in western Missouri, or on the movement of pioneers through western Missouri, or the Civil War as it affected western Missouri, as well as, of course, on his memories of growing up on a farm next to the Missouri River. But the problem is, or perhaps I should say, the delight for the reader is, that all these various themes keep slipping into one another, folding in and folding out, forming a kind of fabric. The reader starts with one thread and then is diverted to another, and then another, until he meets the first thread again, now somehow changed.

Contradictions abound. Hamilton's careful scholarship is hedged with cautions than none of these "facts" may be supported by careful scholarship. He floods us with handed-down stories of the region, but asks us the question: How is he to compose a readable book except by choosing the most readable stories -- whether they are true or not? His detailed, graphic and beautifully written accounts of how he learned to hammer a nail, dig a fence post hole or which objects his uncle carried in the back of his pick-up truck, are set against a sweeping historical and pre-historical panorama that takes us back past the Missouri Indians to possible evidence that this land was inhabited by humans 35,000 years ago.

And on and on. Although I have read nothing else of Hamilton's (he is a professor of English literature at The University of Iowa and the editor of THE IOWA REVIEW), I suggest that this book can most successfully be approached as poetry writ large, and in reading it, above and beyond its engaging parts, we are being offered Hamilton's very personal take on the nature of reality.

A very interesting book. Thoughtful and fun. Amazing sentence structure - I do not remember reading anything quite like it - it was rather refreshing. I note that the author is a Prof. of English at U of Iowa - I do wish I had had someone like him teaching fourty years ago. Hope we see more of his work.

This book is obviously well-researched, though I think that more information on other parts of Ohio could have been included as well. It's obvious that the author concentrated on his area of Ohio. I would love to see a few sequels to this book; I'd buy them! However, my biggest complaint is the title--it is *very* misleading. I expected stories of *haunted* places in Ohio--and only a couple of ghosts are alluded to. Actually calling it Ghost Towns: Ohio's Lost Landscapes and Forgotten Places or something like that would have been better, I think.

I love this book. While I never visited towns like Rialto, when they were more than a wide place in the road, I feel like I have a pretty good idea what they were like after reading "Ghosts." A nifty canal went through Rialto in it's boomtown days, and you can still see the remnants one of the locks there today, although the weeds and undergrowth try to hide it. The town is long-gone, but with Mr. McNutts writing, one can step back in time. And, the last chapter, on Hamilton, is priceless. I didn't want the book to end. Highly recommended.

I really loved Ghosts because it takes me to a lot of places I have visited and grown up around, from ghost towns to old canals to old battlegrounds. It is one of my favorite travelogues, and I recommend it highly.

I bought this book before my 2nd time to Chicago. When I read the introduction of the book at Amazon.com, I thought it would be useful as the tour guide to the river tour in Chicago. However, I found it is useless for the travelers who would like to take the ship and enjoy the time on the Chicago River as the scene in 'My Best Friend's Wedding'. This book is good if you are interested in the history, geography, architecture and any other things about the Chicago River. On the other hand, if you want to be a lazy traveler who only wanna enjoy the sights and the atmosphere on the river, just throw this book away and open your eyes to see the beautiful things around.

As a native of Chicago I loved this book. I thought I knew all about Chicago's wonderful history, the waterways, the neighborhoods, its colorful past and promising future. Solzman's book reminded me of so much I had forgotten or never knew. As an avid canoeist I felt connected to the river as I travelled "arm chair style" past familiar haunts and intersections. All this from my new home in the hot deserts of Arizona. Thank you David for your wonderful story telling and accurate accounting of Chicago's waterways.

David Solzman paints a portrait of the Chicago River that glows with vitality. His book is a careful mix of scholarly detail, gorgeous graphics (many photographs were taken by the author), and a resounding voice expressing his love for one of Chicago's natural treasures. Solzman, a professor of geography at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is a long-time lover of the Chicago River: "lover" is the significant word here. Solzman knows the River like the back of his hand. Her history, both natural and cultural, is fully detailed here. Her past troubles are dissected, and her future is assessed. Solzman's work for the nonprofit group "Friends of the Chicago River" provides him with the ability to examine what the future of the Chicago River will be. This book makes me want to closely watch and rejoice in the River.

I went on a 4 day trip to Chicago and found the information in the book to be fairly reliable and covered most areas of interest. The strong points were reviews of hotels (I booked before reading this guide) and it correctly advised that the Allegro is a good hotel. Also good were overviews of the main neighbourhoods near the loop. Things I wanted to know while I was there and couldn't find in the guide were details of shops that sold electronic goods and locations of internet cafes. The book had some strange errors including a colour picture page labelled as Wrigley park which in fact is Comiskey Park.

This is the best travel guide I have ever read. It tells you the ins outs and inbetweens of every place you planned on, and never thought of, seeing in a major city. It gives great details on well known and hidden restaurants, the prices, the cuisine, and how good the taste is. I highly recommend any Frommer's guide. I bought the San Fransisco edition and found it so great I bought the Chicago edition for when I am at home. Frommer guides are a must have for a city you live in or near, and a city you are visiting.

The author of Frommer's Chicago 2001, Craig Keller, has been a journalist in Chicago for more than a decade. As such, he is very familiar with the area, and he is an excellent writer, which makes the book easy to read.

This 321-page guide has an excellent index and table of contents. It is filled with photos and is well laid out with color-coded margins to help you thumb to the different sections. These include: (1) The Best of Chicago: the best among Chicago's hotels, restaurants and entertainment experiences. (2) Planning your trip to Chicago: suggestions on when to go to Chicago, an annual calendar of Chicago events, tips for travelers with special needs, means of getting to Chicago, and information on O'Hare Airport. (3) Advice for Foreign Visitors: information for non-U.S. citizens with a summing-up section called Fast Facts. (4) Orientation to Chicago: information on the Chicago River, ethnic neighborhoods, and public transportation. (5) Where to Stay: types of accommodations in all the major segments of town. (6) Where to Dine: restaurants listed by area of town, type of food, and cost. (7) Exploring Chicago: the sights in Chicago that tourists like to see. (8) Shopping: all the most famous shopping sites. (9) Chicago after Dark: bars, clubs and musical shows of Chicago. (10) Appendix: information on Chicago history and politics.

I highly recommend this thorough, readable, glossily attractive guide. It is easy to use, and full of every kind of information a visitor, new or returning, could want on Chicago.

I find this a useful book that I refer back to time to time, as I innately trust the author's advice. There is excellent info in here on a plant's propagation/division and planting requirements. I haven't found anything better.

There are problems: 1) I wish it was more exhaustive in the number of plants it covers, although for a primer it picks really good candidates. 2) It commits the common sin of putting the photographs in their own section instead of with the text, substituting nearly useless line drawings next to the text. 3) The book is topically organized -- plants for shade, using ground cover, developing woodland gardens, etc. I find this rather annoying, and I can never find what I want right away. I'm forever referring to the index. 4) It's presented on cheap paper stock in an amateurish paragraph format, with no page divisions for different plants. This makes it needlessly difficult to use as a reference.

In sum, there is a lot of great info in here, enough to recommend it. I just wish the layout was better.

"Go Native...", written more as warm personal narrative, is as extensive as an encyclopedia without being dry, includes superb drawings and gorgeous color photos. It is a great help if one personally chooses to prepare for the low maintenance stewardship of our natural "wildlife" environment, maybe heeding Thoreau's simple joys of nature. "Perhaps it is time for each of us to consider taking a single step" suggests Harstad.
Even a modest land plot can be a natural theater of brilliantly sunlit landscape in constantly changing shadows and colors. Some, albeit greatly scaled down, might be reminiscent of those scenes from the 19th Century landscape artists, such as the Hoosier Group and the Hudson River School, that at the beginning of the 20th Century inspired today's goals in Conservation and Habitat Preservation. Or, as I can imagine, your own "...Brigadoon...look in your heart and there it will be."
Carolyn Harstad writes that native plants and wildflowers have the ability to thrive and survive on their own and when the "pioneers" came "...they wrote glowing reports... that the land through which they were traveling looked like an immense flower garden." Can we assume that similar sentiments inspired George Washington, Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark among others of America's early visionaries?
Here is a small but highly pertinent cross-cultural reference: Eva Cassidy sings of seasonal moods in her typically heartfelt manner: "Autumn Leaves", "Fields of Gold", "What a Wonderful World", and "Blue Skies" on the cd "Live at Blues Alley".

This book was wonderful in describing the various plants that are native to the lower Midwest and which ones (that you would have believed to be native) are not. A must have for persons who would like to create a native yard. A great gardening tool.