Although the islands off the Maine coast have been photographed many times, no one has captured the islands and their people like Peter Ralston in Sightings: A Maine Coast Odyssey. There is a fundamental honesty and integrity to these photographs unavailable anywhere else. The beauty of the photographs comes from the tension between an unforgiving environment and the rugged individualism of the remaining year-round island residents' struggle to survive a declining fish population and a growing, homogenizing second-home tourist population. Sightings reflects Peter Ralston's unique perspective as both an observer and a participant in attempts to maintain the islander's unique way of life.

Peter's humility and willingness to let the islands and their residents to speak for themselves results in deceptively-simple photographs which gain impact with each repeated viewing. The simplest photographs involve the viewer by inviting speculation about both past and the future. Sightings also chronicles with brief, unobtrusive text Peter Ralston's role as co-founder of the Island Institute and an artistic eye fined-tuned by his personal friendship with the Wyeth family.

Sisters of Fortune is a biography of a family during the Civil War era. It reads like a novel. Three sisters who live in a small town in New Hampshire, left by their fortune-seeking father, try to maintain their upper-middle class life style on the little money he sends them while they fall in and out of love, have their hearts broken, and finally marry. The sisters write wonderful letters to their father telling him of their loves, travels, parties, friends, relations, neighbors, domestic affairs, money worries, etc. and begging him to come home. When the eldest daughter Lizzie marries and moves to New York, the younger daughters, Annie and Charlotte spend winters with her there and launch themselves in a round of parties and social events. Since their father had been a Congressman, they know and write about many of the famous men of the day--for example, Daniel Webster was a family friend. They write about the the slavery debates, the coming of the Civil War, and the growth of New York City as well as their own private affairs. A touching and charming book.

The small booklet, encloses 6 uniquely charming cards, that can be pulled out easily to be used as post cards or for decoration. The old timey cars, and beautiful sunsets make each card special. A nice gift idea!

This title is currently being revised. While the latest title, the 6th edition, is available at this time, a new, 7th edition will be available in May 2002. These walks are interesting and for the most part easy. More, new walks are being added to the new edition, the best of what is already there will be kept....

This guide is really great. I used it on a visit to Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont, the directions are very clear and the shops featured are wonderful. I recommend this book highly for a nice way to find the off the beaten path places. My personal favorites were in Georgetown and Rowely Mass and Bennington Vermont. will take it to New Hampshire next!!!!

If you are history buff, this work tells the story of King Philip's War as no other.

One caveat: As with all histories of the day, it has zero objectivity with regard to the First Nations.

Still, the details this book provides will be found nowhere else.

Reading the accounts in other history books on the era gives you a general idea about particular battles. This book goes into GREAT detail.

It is worth both the price and the wait to have it printed. Superb!

I had to read this book...and comment on it. Like Thomas O'Connor, I am also a native of Southie. Using a voluminous store of references, and countless personal interviews, O'Connor has written the most comprehensive history of "The Town" I've ever read. He takes the reader from the very beginnings of life in the relatively isolated peninsula settlement, through the cultural, ethnic, occupational, and religious history of the residents, emphasizing their insular nature, seemingly always at odds with the rest of Boston and other outsiders, right through the 80's.

The detailed background information provided by O'Connor over an entire chapter, regarding the forced busing for school integration and ensuing Southie riots, will give the non-Southie(and maybe some Southies also) reader a much better understanding, and different perspective, on the town. O'Connor is clear on the causes of the riots, namely a clueless judge following the path paved by a self-serving state legislature that passed a law which would preclude busing to Boston's lily-white suburbs, compounded of course by Southie's insular nature and desires to maintain their neighborhood schools. I recommend Michael MacDonald's recently published "All Souls" for a terrific read on the tragic experiences of one very poor Southie family in the projects during the those riots in the 70's, and on through the 80's, into the 90's.

Overall..a terrific historic work on South Boston by O'Connor..the best Ive ever read.

I grew up in this town many years ago. I found the book interesting and hard to put down. The old names I remember hearing about (Lyman, Pomeroy, Clark, Frary and Searle) became a little more real to me. Looking at the old homes and trying to remember them as a kid is fun. It would be a great book to have on hand while driving through town. Thank you, it is a wonderful work.

The Smithsonian Natural Guides are my new bibles for travel. Who really cares about those guides for motels, restaurants and cheesy attractions anyhow? These guides take one to the real America behind (and often above) the tourist traps!

Finch and Wallen team up to the best of their expertise with splendid descriptive writing and photography (the latter always a trademark of this series!). Cape Cod, The Berkshires, the Connecticut and Rhode Island Coasts as well as other areas of natural interest are brought right to the reader and make you want to go there immediately and see what you've just read about.

These essays should be included in any personal collection of books on the Cape, because they fill a gap by paying sensitive tribute to some of the smaller natural areas owned and managed by local conservation commissions and private conservation trusts. The brief essays are artfully developed by Robert Finch and boldly illustrated by Ellen Raquel LeBow. Each of the twenty-four 'special places' that are the book's subject are visited by Finch on foot and the commentaries are filled with information about the land and its vegetation. But the real value behind this reading experience lies in the way the reader is able to vicariously participate in the luxury of unhurried reflection with the writer as he interacts with these diverse areas. There is no reason to hurry a reading of this book in the way you would not gulp a glass of fine wine. Finch's essays are intended as an "invitation" to experience those "unanticipated intersections between the place and the visitor which cannot be found in trail guides". Finch experiences many unforced special moments and readers will find their own favorite 'places' even before the opportunity to act on his offer to search them out. The essays take us from the base of the Cape through to Provincetown and across the water to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket islands. Directions are given to each of the natural areas described. A helpful listing of various presiding conservation commission addresses and telephone numbers is provided at the back of the book.