This is a wonderful book about a family living and enjoying the natural world around them. I envy them. For a while, a person can escape their hectic, city living,and enjoy the life the author is sharing with us. I highly recommend it!

The gorgeous imagery of the West is what makes this so incredibly amazing. There are lightning storms, hail, floods, fires, grizzly bears, guns--even murder and intrigue. Who knew there was so much going on in Montana? I highly recommend this beautifully written book.

This is a must book for every reader that loves wildlife and nature. I felt like I was visiting an old friend by the way it is written. The way some of the wildlife are described gives the feeling of a personel relationship with them, such as the grizzly crippled by a gunshot.

The descriptions of what it is like to live in such a place could be right out of our country's past years ago.

The author does an excellent job of expressing her feelings about the natural world that surrounded her in this unusual place...a place so few have visited but so many dream about.

The way she described how the scientist conduct their field research to monitor the grizzly, wolf, mountain lion, and coyote gives us a view into their scientific world, but on a personal point of view with some very humorous stories.

If you've never been to a semi-remote place surrounded by beautiful mountains, variety of wildlife, or interesting people, buy this book and it will take you there.

I grew up on a ranch in Idaho and now live in the East. This book made me laugh and almost cry as it reminded me of my dad who is an old cattle rancher. I knew this book was truly authentic when I read the boy's stories of his Grandpa "Old Al". I read it in one day, and I am not a big reading type of person. Loved the book and so will you.

If you want to know what an authentic Montanan is like, read this book. Having lived in Montana for 7 1/2 years and experiencing firsthand the Montana mindset it was refreshing to read about how it developed in one Montanan's life.

Montanans are tough, physically and mentally. They are proud and self-sufficient. As you read this story of a young boy growing up without a father or mother, in the care of his Old West Grandpa and Grandma, you will gain a new appreciation for the folks we call Montanans.

Montana is a great state and Montanans are great people. Read this book for an authentic Montana viewpoint.

The wrong Book Description has been applied to Flathead Fury. Skye Fargo is up against Duke Wolfrik from Transia, who is trying to create a utopia in Montana. He creates his own town and controls the people who live there. Fargo teams up with the Flathead tribe, whom Wolfrik wants to destroy. An exciting story with alot of action and a colorful opponent for Fargo. I have read two other Trailsman books and so far Flathead Fury is my favorite. Well done!

Jens Lund's book is an excellent and thoroughly-documented study of commercial fishing in the Ohio River Valley. We are fortunate that he documented the occupational traditions associated with fishing because the industry is under stress and rapidly changing. Lund provides rich descriptions of virtually all aspects of commercial fishing, from the various species of fish in the rivers to the variety of boats used and built in the Ohio River Valley and extending into ways of using nets, lines, and fish traps. The book is valuable for folklorists, historians, anthropologists as well as biologists and anyone interested in relationships between environmental concerns and culture. I would recommend this book highly and encourage readers to also look at important studies of maritime folklife such as the book "Beautiful Swimmers," which deals with crabbing in the Cheasapeake Bay and "Gladesmen," which deals with fishing and hunting in the Florida Everglades.

Great book, chronalogically written. The author addresses the reasoning behind the changes in design and apperance through out production and is very thourough in his research. As a owner/restorer of a flathead Harley I am impressed with the spectacular color photos and the detail he has brought out about the design differences. This is not a technical book but a book that brings the reader in touch with the subject and helps them understand the wonders of these great machines. It would make a great coffee table book as the subject is of great interest to the general populatuion as antiques, art and history.

Deftly edited by Robert Bigart, "I Will Be Meat For My Salish": The Montana Writers Project And The Buffalo Of The Flathead Indian Reservation is the compiled saga of the relationship of the Native American Salish people to the buffalo, including their dependence on it for survival in prehistory and their role in preserving the species today. Individual chapters include buffalo-related legends and history, the management of buffalo herds on the Flathead reservation today, Salish biographies, and much more. An amazing insight into the interrelationship of human beings and nature, "I Will Be Meat For My Salish" is a strongly recommended addition to Native American Studies supplemental reading lists and reference collections.

Little Coyote is one of the best studies of plain/plateau Indians I have ever read!!! I recently spent a year in Montana and my birth mother loaned me her copy to read. At first I was daunted by its length, but then the story kept me enrapt for many an hour.

It is a running history of a People that few have heard of and shows them as they are, a People that are destined to lose their way of life. It is a cronicle of daily life and all its struggles, happiness, joys and sorrows.

This book is an excellent book for those who want to know just how much a People lost and how their ethnicity has been lost. The Character development is excellent. It is a book I highly recommend to anyone.

With the completion of Glinda of OZ, I can now claim to have read every one of L. Frank Baum's OZ books, including the short story compilation.

After glancing at Glinda's Magic Record book, Dorothy notices war has been declared in a remote corner of OZ no one has ever visited. Being the good, just, and noble queen she is, Ozma decides to travel there with Dorothy and the wooden sawhorse in order to implore her people to solve their differences without violence. The journey there is practically uneventful (Ozma and Dorothy adroitly find themselves out of only one misstep), but once they visit Evil Queen Coo-eh-oh they find themselves imprisoned under a globe. Glinda, alerted of their peril by an enchanted ring she gave to Dorothy, sets out immediately with all of OZ's favorite characters in order to rescue the two girls and make peace between the Flatheads and the Skeezers.

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this story as much as I did the others; perhaps that is because I've grown up and lost my ability to see the playful fun in Baum's books-although I certainly hope not!

"In which are related the Exciting Experiences of Princess Ozma of Oz, and Dorothy, in their hazardous journey to the home of the Flatheads, and to the Magic Isle of the Skeezers, and how they were rescued from dire peril by the sorcery of Glinda the Good."

Always one of my favorite Oz books, Glinda was Baum's last and posthumously published. I can't count how many times I've actually reread it over the years-- that should be enough of a review in and of itself.

Excitment surged through me as I browsed the bookstore shelf, I had found the long-forgotten OZ shelf of the childrens section. I read most of the OZ books long ago, but I had noticed that there were a few that I didn't recall reading, so I ventured into the corner were Frank Baums captivating stories were held. I bought this book, excited about Dorothys adventures that I had yet to experience, and when I opened the cover, I noticed a note stating that this was Baum's last book, and that the publishers were going to try to create another book about OZ. I obviously noticed that this never came to be. Baum seemed to know this would be his last book, because the world of Oz went out with a bang. Every loved character was mentioned, or brought back into the wonderful tale of Dorothy, Ozma, Glinda, Flatheads and Skeezers. In a tribute to the amazing wizard of literature, this was one of Baum's best books about everyones favorite fairyland...OZ.

Bilger calls himself a gonzo journalist, and it may take just that type of writer from the fringes to head out in search of folks who eat squirrel brains or play rolley hole (a marbles game). Yet he proves greatly sympathetic to his subjects (more so than gonzo god Hunter S. Thompson, for example). In the hands of a Faulkner or a Flannery O'Connor, the tales of bullfrog farmers and coon hunters might have become Southern gothic grotesqueries. But Bilger paints them in vividly human colors in ways that might even make you want to go noodling for flatheads (a most unique method of catching catfish). This is a fun look at the lives of people we rarely encounter.

This is storytelling at its best. I first read one of the essays in this book in the New Yorker and right away I knew I'd be looking to read everything that Burkhard Bilger writes. This book contains eight essays but I think of them more as real-life stories. In the table of contents each essay title has a subtitle. Even they are a pleasure to read, each one beginning with the words "In which". To give you an idea of what I mean, here's the subtitle for the essay on moonshining: "In which the age of the microbrewery meets the modern police state, with intoxicating results".

In the introduction the author tells us how he started writing these tales about the South. He was living in Massachusetts and decided he wanted to get a coonhound which he knew, and missed, from growing up in Oklahoma. But finding a coonhound in New England wasn't easy. He says "A few people had heard rumors of such dogs, but none had actually seen one in the flesh." He ended up at the home of a breeder who handed him a magazine "American Cooner". The author said "It was the strangest publication I had ever seen." And so began his journey in search of life outside the popular culture which is all most of us know, beyond the "range of most antennas".

Each of the essays is about a tradition, or sport, or way of life that is in danger of dying out, some of them illegal, some not. He visits a woman in Oklahoma who breeds coonhounds and hunts racoons more than 340 nights a year, a man in Kentucky who hunts and eats squirrels, and a man in Georgia who owns a fish hatchery, frog farm, and wild hog preserve. Each of these stories is, in the end, about people and this is where Bilger's writing really shines. He knows how to write about people better than almost anyone else I've read. I read alot of non-fiction and profiles of people and I know it's not easy to write about people in a way that gives the reader the sense that they now know that person, at least a little. The writer spends a few days with someone, hangs out with them, talks to them for hours. Then he has to sit down and from all those hours pick just the right details, just the right quotes, just the right observations, to make that person seem real on the page. And Bilger has mastered that art.

Beyond the people, he also puts the stories into a larger, sometimes historical, context. In the story on cockfighting he goes to Louisiana where some people are reluctant to talk to him even though it's one of the few states where the sport is still legal. He tells about the popularity of the sport in different parts of the world and in the early history of America, when it was not only legal but a "fashionable amusement". In fact it didn't begin to be banned until the 19th century, and New York in 1867 "became the first city to ban all blood sports." The author talks about the efforts to outlaw the sport in the few states that still allow it, and he does mention animal rights activists but he doesn't interview any. He doesn't seem to be trying to write an unbiased account, and if there's any doubt about where the author's sympathies lie, that doubt will be dispelled by the time you get to the last paragraph of this essay which gives us his view (brilliantly written, I think) of modern civilized America.

The final story is about marbles. Yes, marbles. A specific game called rolley hole, which he tells us "is to other marble games as chess is to checkers". It's about the near extinction of the game and how it was revived by a folklorist, and how the revival led to, among other things, an international competition in England. Even if you know nothing about marbles, even if you've never heard of rolley hole, this story will have you on the edge of your seat wanting to know what this is all about. But in a larger sense this story is also about how and why life is changing in our country and whether anything can be done about that, even by a well-meaning folklorist. The last few pages are reflective and philosophical and I was left not quite sure whether to feel sad or hopeful.

Make no mistake about it, the author likes the people whose stories he tells. He writes about each of them with great warmth and affection. And reading this book made me feel happy to be in this world with all its strangeness.

Most of us who live outside the South have adopted the "New South" image, consisting of budding high-tech nodes, car plants in South Carolina, and, of course, the Atlanta Olympics. Bilger shows that unique southern traditions, including those squirrel brains, are still around and thriving. He is not judgemental (although he doesn't seem too anxious to relocate), but rather paints a detailed and sympathetic portrait of a unique and still vibrant rural southern culture.

This book could be used in a college course as an anthology of metaphors. They finally started to irritate me. About half way through, I found myself skipping paragraphs, then pages, then chapters and finally gave up and read the end. It was a sad, depressing tale that just seemed to go around and around in circles. Maybe that's what the author was aiming for.

Perma Red is a book I greatly enjoyed, though I don't believe it would be a book everyone could appreciate, that's why I gave it three stars, which should actually be 3.5 stars or 3.75 stars. If it were me alone, I would have given Debra Magpie Earling and Perma Red five stars *****. Let me see if I can further explain...
I picked up the book because I drive through the all the towns she writes about in this novel when I go to the Flathead Lake each summer; threfore, I knew exactly where she was talking about when she talks about Dixon and Perma, Kailspell, and Polson. So, I loved it because I could relate to the area...the Flathead River and the dangerous roads are exactly as she describes them. And describes them and the books characters she does...avidly. This book, so full of description, takes the reader into the fields and mountains Louise runs through...through the doors of the homes on the reservation and into the lives of three (perhaps four) characters so detailed and intertwined, that I thought I could perhaps run into them again. The souls, desrires, and weaknesses of Baptiste, Louise, and Charlie, (and Harvey)are placed throughout the novel so the reader never knows more than they should before the story unfolds. More than that, their downfalls are human.
One reviewer said this book has a lot of methaphors, and they are right...just look at the title and then read the book...you will understand what I mean. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy the book. Quite contrary, I would say.
I liked this book enough to share it with my friends, and family, and with the book club I belong to.
As I stated earlier, this isn't necessarily a novel one would pick up right away. However, if you want something different to read, and give the book the chance it deserves, I believe you will remember Louise as a fierce surrivor--someone you know has seen "it all" first hand. Further, you will remember this book (hopefully) for the beauty and tragedy it brings to you.

There are lines in this novel that stopped me in my tracks. The harshness, beauty, violence and forgiveness of the land brilliantly parallel Earling's characters and story. Haunting and magnificent.