As a winery employee, I would recommend this book to both serious and novice winery visitors. This book is loaded with beautiful glossy photographs and detailed information on each winery, organized by region. It focuses on wineries only, with brief referals to nearby food and farms of interest. Each winery has it's own page, with a helpful quick reference in the left margin of the necessary details on hours, fees, directions, wines etc. This is a plus when you have limited time, and don't want to spend half your day searching through a guidebook. There is also a section that classifies the wineries by specific features that may help narrow down your selection when touring. The winemaking calendar and grape glossary would be especially useful to first timers. The size makes it slightly awkward to carry around, but the photos will make a wonderful momento when you return home!

SOUNDS OF VALLEY STREAMS : Enlightenment in Dogen's Zen - Translation of Nine Essays from Shobogenzo by Francis H. Cook. 164 pp Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989 and Reprinted.

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of Dogen (1200-1253). As one of the most powerful and brilliant minds Asia has produced - and it has produced many - his many-levelled and multi-faceted works should be viewed, not so much as a purely local and Japanese phenomenon, but as a supreme contribution to world literature. For all of us, he is, as Taizan Maezumi Roshi says, an inexhaustible spring of wisdom.

Dogen's works are profound. They express the point-of-view of an enlightened Master. Such works, especially when written in a sinograph-based language such as Japanese or Chinese, present almost insuperable problems of interpretation, and there are very few scholars who are equal to the task of translating them.

Dr Francis Cook comes to this task well-prepared. His work is highly respected in scholarly circles, he has held faculty posts at Dartmouth College and the University of California at Riverside, where he was an associate professor in the Religious Studies program, and he has a number of impressive publications to his credit.

In addition, he has a masterful command of the Japanese language, a command enhanced by two years spent as a Fulbright Fellow at Kyoto University. He has also devotedly practiced Zen meditation for many years. This last is extremely important as enabling Dr Cook to rise above the intellectualizing and speculation which limits so much contemporary Zen scholarship.

As he himself explained in his 'How to Raise an Ox,' the translator must be able to "approach the text in the light of his own Zen practice.... because unless the translator has some insight, however small, into what Dogen Zenji is saying, he will miss much in the text and the translation will suffer" (page 89). This is a simple point, but it is often overlooked, not only by translators, but also by a certain type of reader.

Whereas Dr Cook's earlier 'How To Raise an Ox' gave us ten of Dogen's essays on Zen practice, the present book, logically enough, now goes on to give us nine essays on Enlightenment. As in his previous book, the translations are preceded by four of his own well-written and informative introductory essays on Dogen: 'Being Awakened;' 'The Buddha Right Before Us;' 'The Enlightened Life;' 'A Few Words on Genjo Koan.'

Students might want to supplement these by also reading Dr Cook's 'Dogen's View of Authentic Selfhood and its Socio-ethical Implications' (in DOGEN STUDIES, edited by William R. LaFleur, pp. 131-149).

Besides having a very clear mind, Dr Cook has such an enviably clear and simple prose style that anyone who is at all serious about trying to understand Dogen should find all of these essays interesting. Here is an example of his style, picked at random from 'A Few Words on Genjo Koan' :

"The emptiness of things does not mean that they are nonexistent or nothing, but rather that they are 'boundless' in containing infinite meanings, qualities, and values.... To say that a certain person is "bad" is to impose the selfhood of badness on the vastly open and fluid configuration we confront and consequently to misconstrue its reality. The emptiness of things does not deny or negate, diminish or limit, and certainly does not impoverish; it opens and expands things infinitely" (page 58).

Yes indeed. For, as the Heart Sutra says: Form is Openness! Openness is Form!

The nine translated Dogen essays, some of which are among his most famous, are as follows :

GENJO KOAN Manifesting Absolute Reality; IKKA MYOJU One Bright Pearl; GABYO A Painting of a Rice Cake; GANZEI Eye-Pupil; KANNON; RYUGIN Dragon Song; DOTOKU Expression; BUKKOJO-JI Beyond Buddha; DAIGO Great Awakening. The book is rounded out with a 27-page section of Notes, a Bibliography of both Japanese and Western sources, and an 8-page Index.

Here are a few lines from Dr Cook's translation of GENJO KOAN :

"Conveying the self to the myriad things to authenticate them is delusion; the myriad things advancing to authenticate the self is enlightenment" (page 66).

A tremendously important idea, beautifully expressed!

Though it will probably be a long time before the West has humility enough to acknowledge that Zen Master Dogen belongs right up there along with such Western luminaries as Plato and Hegel, it's heartening to see that many Dogen translations have now begun to appear. These translations range all the way from the sincere and highly competent, through to the probably equally sincere but somewhat less competent.

Since very few, even among Japanese, understand Medieval Japanese, I'm not in a position to say whether Dr Cook's translation is 'excellent,' though it reads very well and I strongly suspect that it is. He's certainly put in the leg work to qualify as a highly competent translator, and anyone who may be looking for a good edition of Dogen could do worse than select his.

Drawing upon ancestors notes, Zane Gray reconstructs the agony of America's initial transmontane western movement of the frontier away from the original colonies into the OHIO Valley where Indians and Whites contest for souls and Wetzel, and Indian hunter, pursues his cause in a most dramatic fashion. The book is a riveting account of true adventure the veiled backdrop of which is the continued occupation of the teritory occupied by British and Americans. An excellent introduction to further study of the the then misunderstood goal of Manifest Destiny.

....in an effortless-feeling blend of clearly explained scientific information about Californian plants and animals and some of the mythological stories attached to them. The book does just what the title implies: marries science and mythology, and in a style always lucid and often poetic.

Two corrections to recommend:

1. None of the California missions were founded by Jesuits. (Baja is different, however.)
2. California was probably not named per the Cali Fornax theory; recent scholarship traces the name to Queen Calafia and her island California in Garcia Montalvo's novel THE EXPLOITS OF ESPLANDIAN.

If you are the author and are reading this: please e-mail me and let me know if you plan on writing, or have written, other books--I found this one informative and enjoyable.

In the wonderful tradition of Streams in the Desert, this devotional classic is not only a keeper, but should be at the top of your gift-giving list. Short devotionals with scripture references and poems, Spring in the Valley is inspirational and encouraging.

As a thirty-five-year resident of Stillwater, MN--one the world's most beautiful cities, located on the banks of the St. Croix River--I can attest to the quality of Debra Chial's book. This rather small pamphlet-like coffee table book contains stunning photographs of some of the river highlights, including fall foliage, bridges, bluffs, cascades, historic sites, trains, boats, and scenic cityscapes. With a well-crafted foreword on the history of the river, and clear captions throughout, this out-of-print masterpiece is worth locating for photo buffs and all Valley residents. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.

This is a most amazing book about a most amazing woman. Mayer and DeArmond have been reasearching for more than 20 years, and many of us have been patiently awaiting the finished product. It was definitely worth the wait. They have patiently worked all the research, all the, newspaper articles, mentions in other books, census data, etc. into a well written and coherant narrative. The sum of Ms. Mulrooneys life adds up to so much more than the individual incidents. And the analysis by Mayer adds even more to our understanding of her as a person.

Dr. Bernice Thomas skillfully explores a fascinating and all too fleeting moment in design history when six ordinary Hudson Valley post offices became extraordinary through the surprisingly intense personal involvement of President Franklin Roosevelt and an assorted cast of Depression era muralists and architects.

With compelling insight, Thomas looks closely at these six gem-like post offices and how they reflect FDR's deepest beliefs in the power of local history, art and architecture to enrich the everyday lives of American people. Eleanor Roosevelt "rejoiced" in these P.O.'s, and we can rejoice that Dr. Thomas has brought these unusual buildings and their meaning to light in rich and entertaining detail.

Author Pronzini is a terrific mystery author. Starvation Camp is a reprint of a "western" from earlier in his career. In this book, a Mountie tracks down the killers of his lover. There's lots of action and I found the lead character fascinating. Starvation Camp would be a good read for fans of either westerns or mysteries. Or both.

It's happy story. At last steven made his girlfriend. I like him. So he's usually extra. But this story he's hero! It's fun.