My Grandfather,Dr.William V.McDermott,has told me much about his experiences on the Omaha Beach and the terrifying seens in Ebensee. His pictures of the concentration camps help a 13 year old girl like me really understand some of the real meaning of war,although,nobody could ever know what its really like....unless they were actually there. I enjoy listening to his engrossing stories and this book was just a whole new one to catch my breath and fufill my thirst for history and information.

Fifty years after WWII, it is rare and unusual treat to read a firsthand account of the Allied advance through Hitler's Fortress Europe from D-Day to VE Day. Dr. McDermott's account is based partly from memory, but mostly from the hundreds of letters he wrote his wife during the course of the campaign. A half-century later, Dr. McDermott thought to throw the dusty cardboard box of correspondence away, but fortunately for us, his daughter convinced him otherwise, and he decided to take the letters and write this book about his extrordinary experiences.

In the 1990's, our collective memories of WWII are shaped by Steven Ambrose and "Saving Private Ryan." This book rounds out these accounts with another, more thoughtful side of the GI's experience. There are accounts of shelling and blood, but the book focuses on how simple acts of kindness or simple pleasures of normal life -- a French peasant giving a US soldier some apples, or a beautiful sunset over Caen in June 1944 -- assume such poignant meaning and enlarged proportion.

Dr. McDermott was one of the first doctors at the scene when the Nazi concentration camps were liberated. His account of the suffering is mournful and harrowing. Throughout the book he talks about Nazi brutality, but it isn't until the final chapters that he sees firsthand to what depths that brutality would sink.

For anyone interested in WWII, European History or the Holocaust, I would highly recommend this book.

My Grandfather wrote this book and personally I loved it! He has told me about his expierences freeing the concentration camp. I give it a ten, not just because I know him but because I thought it was well put together and I reccomend it to everyone.Even if you can't stand the thought of concentration camps or war it describes to you what really happened as if you were really there. Bahan McDermott (Age 12)

Just want to say that this is really a fantastic book.
Carl Jennings did a really great job. I have gave several
copys to friends for Christmas. I new Carl at the old Peony Park
and I wish him all the best at his new Peony Park in Wahoo Nebraska. The many pictures cover Peony Parks history in 1919
to the present. Just learned the book is now in it's second
addition, and a movie is being made,"Peony Park an American Legend" this year. Great!

Love ya,

Barb

This is a fantastic book on Peony Park!
I had no idea how famous it was. The author did
such a nice job with all the pictures.
So happy to see there will be a new Peony Park soon.

Sincerely,

Barb Berg

The book is so cool, really neat story.
Peony Park has such a neat place in history!
I look forward to going to the new Peony Park
this summer.

Robert Vivian has taken the personal essay to new heights, expanding poetic language into a deeply inspirational journey into the human experience. If ever you believed the essay genre to be dull and pedantic, Vivian will change your mind forever with his gorgeous language and important insights. The essay is boring no longer

buy this book. it's brilliant. brilliant. hear me? brilliant!

I came across this audio tape just by chance months after my father died. Listening to it helped me to get through one of life's most difficult times. Dr. Peck brings the reality of death to the meaning of life - a begining and an end. So make the most of the middle. It's a shame this tape is "out of print".

though one can not rule out the possibility of the fear that people have of "death" but this book definately makes it seem simple. well i would say that after reading it one has a positive approach towards death, the only thing we need to remember is that we should'nt forget what this book teaches for most of the people forget things after a while. its definately an extraordinary reading.

This must be one of the most detailed historys ever written of a city streetcar system. Richard makes it very readable.

Valuable also to historians of the labor problems of the streetcar systems, which were dramatic and violent.

'O&CB: Streetcars of Omaha and Council Bluffs' is a complete history of streetcar operations in Omaha, Nebraska and Council Bluffs, Iowa. Author Richard Orr takes great care in making the book detailed and interesting, with lots of anecdotes, photographs and maps adding to the experience. A must have for all fans of streetcars anywhere.

I have made several of the recipes in this book and have yet to be disappointed. The recipes are unique and delicious. The fish recipes are outstanding!

I have been ordering Omaha steaks for quite a while. Yes, I do love the recipes they have and really can't add anything to the wonderful Amazon review above.

If you love steaks, but find it impossible to find that "restaurant" style in the grocery store....look no further. This is the place to order steaks.

Rebecca@SeasonedwithLove.com

This (1890)is one of two large collections of Omaha and Ponca texts prepared by the Rev. James O. Dorsey for the Bureau of American Ethnology (now incorporated in the Smithsonian Institution). The other is Omaha and Ponka Letters (1891), which is a supplement to this. Two or three texts remain in the National Anthropological Archives unpublished. One referred to a Congressman of the time in disparaging terms, and the others were obscene.

This material was part of a slated series, to include also a grammar and a lexicon. These were never published, due to Dorsey's untimely death. The manuscript(s) for the grammar, based loosely on the Riggs Dakota (Santee) grammar can be consulted at the NAA, which also holds the estimated 20,000 slips of Dorsey's Omaha-Ponca lexical files, and numerous other documents accumulated by him in the course of his Siouan work.

The Cegiha language consists of two volumes bound together with a common introduction. The volumes are indexed. Each volume consists of a series of texts in Dorsey's Government Printing Office version of his orthigraphy for Omaha-Ponca. Traditional literary texts come first, then more recent stories shading into historical texts and culminating in letters. Dorsey apparently kept copies of letters of the Omaha-Ponca text of letters that he wrote for members of the two tribes.

The details of the arrangements he made in connection with the letters are unknown, but as Dorsey seems to have been scrupulous in his dealings with the Omaha and Ponca and neither his colleague Francis LaFlesche (an Omaha) or any others at the time or soon after ever made any complaints on this score, I assume this keeping and publication was done with the knowledge of the authors and did not concern them. The letters are especially valuable as historical records, besides presenting contexts for linguistic constructions that might not otherwise be as well exemplified.

Apart from the numerous individual letter dictators (and in one case, writer) with whom Dorsey worked, he worked with a series of Ponca and Omaha individuals, mainly members of or associates of the LaFlesche families. Several Omaha individuals also assisted him in editing the material, and their useful comments, sometimes attributed, are listed in the notes.

Each text is presented in interlinear literal word (or phrase) by word translation, followed by a free translation. Each text has individual end notes and there are also end note series for the two volumes.

The texts have various faults that are due to the technology for recording them (rapid ink pencil handwriting on wrapping paper) or the early state of investigation of Omaha-Ponca and other Siouan languages, and they are not without some printing errors or mistranslations, but they are a priceless linguistic, literary, and historical testament to the Omaha and Ponca people of the 1880s and their neighbors.

In addition, even without Dorsey's numerous other publications, and the large body of fieldnotes, notes, and manuscripts in progress that Dorsey left behind at his death, this volume and its companion would establish Dorsey as scholar of stature, and through Franz Boas, who used this material in seminars with his students, as a seminal influence on American anthropology and linguistics. Student after student of Boas compiled grammars and collected texts in the original on Dorsey's model as a preface to their anthropological investigations, not always willingly, but to the continuing benefit of both the Native American groups involved and subsequent generations of anthropologists and linguists.

Collected and organized into a book, these photos give an overall impression of the big engines of railroad history. I wanted to get a feel for the work my grandfather did as brakeman in Minneapolis. This book includes two spectacular wrecks and some precious human group photos, so it fulfills my purpose very well.

As one of the Friday Riders listed in this book, I have known and ridden with Bob Sobie, the author of the Elroy Sparta Trail Guidebook, for a number of years. As a matter of fact it was my Bachelor bike ride that Bob mentions in the book. As an author and a psychologist I believe I have a unique perspective of Bob and the words he wrote in this book. If the famous analyst C.G. Jung were to meet Bob he would probably call him a "sensing" person. Let me tell you why I believe that's important for an author of a guidebook. Being a sensing person Bob writes what he gets through his senses. He writes about what sights you will see. He describes the sounds you'll hear. He includes how much the trail will incline or decline. He even includes what you should expect from sleeping and eating at various places along the trail. Though his own passion about the trail definitely does leak out, he leaves whether you ride or how much you ride up to you, as he does with all the other attractions in the area.

As one of the Friday riders listed in this book, I have known and ridden with Bob Sobie, the author of the Elroy Sparta Trail Guidebook, for a number of years. As a matter of fact it was my Bachelor bike ride that Bob mentions in the book. As an author and a psychologist I believe I have a unique perspective of Bob and the words he wrote in this book. If the famous analyst C.G. Jung were to meet Bob he would probably call him a "sensing" person. Let me tell you why I believe that's important for an author of a guidebook. Being a sensing person Bob writes what he gets through his senses. He writes about what sights you will see. He describes the sounds you'll hear. He includes how much the trail will incline or decline. He even includes what you should expect from sleeping and eating at various places along the trail. Though his own passion about the trail definitely does leak out, he leaves whether you ride or how much you ride up to you, as he does with all the other attractions in the area.

Finally....the essential trail guide worthy of the scenic Elroy Sparta Trail----America's first rails-to-trails bikeway. From tunnels to trails to history to tourist attractions to accommodations, the Sobie Guide is a celebration of cycling and the natural beauty of the unglaciated regions of southwest Wisconsin.