there's a lot of interesting content in this book. it opens your mind to a lot of new personalities.

Hawthorne was, of course, one of (if not *the*) most important writers of 19th Century America and this edition demonstrates why. The level of engagement Hawthorne had with early America, the level of detail in his texts, and the level of scholarship advanced by the editor, demonstrate why Hawthorne is, inded, one of our contemporaries. Nobody can consider him- or herself "knowledgeable" about American literary history or American literature without reading "Young Goodman Brown," "My Kinsaman, Major Molineux," "The Minister's Black Veil," or "The May-Pole of Merry-Mount": these tales engage, variously, in themes of religiosity, national identity or formation, and the desire to re-write American-ness. indeed, these tales, which later influenced writers as disparate as Herman Melville, Henry James and Gertrude Stein, provide the very fabric of "American" literature. Although we have all been beaten over the head by Hawthorne in High School (if not college), an errand into his wilderness is, nonetheless, rewarding, fascinating, and enlightening: Colacurcio's editing and attention to detail (much like the subject of the book!) makes the volume accessible and rewarding.

This book was truly an unexpected pleasure. Its not a how-to book but rather a history of the stone wall. Surprisingly, that history takes the reader into a wide range of topics: geology, botany, architecture, colonial american history, among others. Because stone walls were so commonplace, their builders left very little discussion of their motives and means. Allport acts almost like a detective, piecing the story together. Additionally, because she clearly loves stone walls (and writes well), she is able to capture the mystery and the beauty of her subject. This is a great read for a wide audience: from the historically curious to anyone who wishes to build a wall of stone.

If you think that a book on the stone walls of New England might be "dry," you are wrong. This brilliantly written and researched book is as riveting as any thriller. You will gain a new appreciation for the countless anonymous generations that went before us and left their mark-- those beautiful, enduring stone walls. An absolutely fascinating book!

First, let's look at the strengths of Marilyn Dwelley's "Spring Wildflowers of New England". The illustrations are excellent, extremely simple to grasp and showing enough detail to "rough out" the identification of the majority of flowers one is likely to see, without a lot of extraneous background material seen in many photographic collections. Second, its small size makes it useful for the field. Third, the index is pretty complete, allowing you to look up many flowers by multiple common names as well as the official Latin nomenclature.

The weaknesses are also significant. There is no introduction to speak of but, rather, the book simply opens with one page of definitions, then a stream of flowers. There is no attempt to divide flowers up by anything but color; with so many white flowers, some attention to grouping by size or form would make identification more manageable. There is little information on many flowers other than their form and presentation in the wild, while for others there are comments about edibility, folklore, etc. Also, the division of flowers into color groups is slightly peculiar as she includes red flowers in the pink group and violet flowers with the blue group. And some guides contradict her comments such as regarding the edibility of the May-apple fruit. BUT, overall, despite my negative comments, I like this guide (I bought it, didn't I?) and would recommend it to be used with a bulkier guide, like the Audobon series book, as a backup for more detailed information.

If you want to know what is blooming in your New England surroundings, this is the book to reach for. Arranged by season and color with color illustrations as well as both common and latin names, this book can satisfy any level of naturalist's curiousity. It is great to see this hard to find volume back in print and in hardcover to hold up in the field!

This book describes in great detail the lives of German POW's living in a New Hampshire POW camp in the 1940's. It is well-documented, with interviews with former guards and work-crew formen. The former prisoners, guards and foremen have met for reunions at the site of the camp.

I lived in the area and remember the POW camp.

Koop's chronicle gives us a picture of an oasis of amity in a world torn by war, in the unlikely location of a prisoner-of-war camp in the tiny town of Stark, New Hampshire, several miles north of Lancaster and Berlin. We see German captives being pleasantly surprised by the humane treatment of the American guards, who observed the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Convention, and we see the Americans learning that not all Germans were enthusiasts of Hitler's fanatical National Socialism -- far from it! There are disputes about the 'pulpwood quota' (German prisoners in Stark assisted the locals in their efforts at paper production) which led to a five-day strike, but also led to deeper understanding about the dignity of the captive workers. There are amusing tales of attempted escapes -- the most successful being that of a colourful character named Franz Bacher, a youthful Austrian artist who made it to New York City. There is an illuminating glimpse into the generosity of the townspeople of Stark toward the prisoners of war, from an enemy nation but sharing a common humanity. There are tales of collaboration at arduous tasks, and there is a record of the small acts of charity and levity which transfigured a potentially painful experience into the basis of camaderie and a future peace.

One need not be a historian, or an ardent reader of history to appreciate Allen Koop's handsomely written book; one need only be a human being, possessed of sufficient imagination to place oneself in the shoes of a stranger in a strange land.

Perry Miller, The Transcendentalists. . .

The Unitarian reliance on miracles can be expressed through an Aristotelian syllogism: a. miracles occur b. nature cannot produce miracles *c. a supernatural force must exist. To Unitarians, that supernatural force must be God. George Ripley does not doubt that miracles occur, he simply says that whether miracles occur or are "new development[s] of nature" (p. 132) mistaken for the supernatural is irrelevant to whether God exists. After all, to the 19th century observer, magnetism and electricity seemed supernatural. To Ripley, it was better not to preface one's argument for the existence of God on an unprovable premise. He therefore calls for a "better mode of examining the evidence of Christianity" (p. 132) than is employed by the Rationalist Unitarians. Instead of premising a rational argument for the existences of God on miracles, Ripley states that the "better mode" is "the study of the human consciousness" (p. 132). He suggests that a more appropriate discussion is one which discusses the meaning of the "expression, often used, but little pondered,- the Image of God in the Soul of Man" (p. 132). From a multitude of other writings, one can surmise that the existence of God need not be proven logically or externally. We carry the answer with us everyday. By immersing oneself in nature, the eternal will be discovered. Miller sees this controversy as a "crisis in modern liberalism" (p. 129). To Miller, the question was one of sincerity and true meaning of Christian doctrine. The Unitarians had rejected Original Sin; man was no longer burdened by guilt, and he was free to have dignity. But, the Unitarians said man was free to hold onto his dignity only through supernatural intervention (p. 130). Miller sees this as intellectual duplicity. While protesting a belief in its dignity, ultimately Unitarians did not trust humanity. Ripley issued a doctrinal challenge to the Unitarians to follow their own philosophy to its necessary conclusion. The Unitarian Martin Luther Hurlbut expresses the larger implications of these competing philosophies. Without ruling miracles unreal, by simply challenging their historicity, Transcendentalism challenged faith itself, and it raised a host of questions that skirted, and in the hands of the mischievous Emerson, leapt over, the line of heresy. If miracles are mere "'natural facts'" (p. 173), then what purpose is there in faith? If physical science and reason banish Christ's miracles to the dustbin of mythology, then was Jesus indeed the Messiah; was He the Saviour? Was He the Son of God? Without the miracles, Jesus becomes a wise man, even a prophet according to Emerson (p. 192), but not the Messiah, not the Son of God any more than the rest of us. More importantly, and absolutely essential to understanding the revolution in New England, is the logical conclusion of such a line of investigation: do the words of Jesus Christ, without the miracles giving them the weight of the supernatural, carry the authority of God? Miracles affirm God's role in Christ's Passion. Without the miracles, the authority of the New Testament itself is called into question. To its opponents, Transcendentalism ceased to be Christianity. The dean of Harvard Divinity School said of Emerson's Commencement Address (p. 192) "that the part if it that was not folly was downright atheism" (p. 198). Andrews Norton, perennial opponent of Ripley, et al., said, "Nothing is left that can be called Christianity, if its miraculous character be denied" (p. 211). Thus Emerson took what was a breach in the Unitarian ministry and turned it into a new, perhaps secular philosophy. And this philosophy took liberalism to its high water mark. As Brownson says:

They claim for man the power, not of discovering but of knowing the spiritual world. . . . We may know that God exists as positively, as certainly, as we may know that we feel hunger or thirst, joy or grief. . . . The unlettered ploughman is placed, so far as evidences of his religious faith are concerned, on a level with the most erudite scholar or the profoundest philosopher. Christianity by this is adapted to the masses . . . (p. 244-246).

Each person should be able to explore for him or herself (truly in Transcendentalism) "the whole field of truth, in morals, in politics, in science, in theology, in philosophy" (p. 199). In this sense, Transcendentalism, by "recognizing in man the capacity of knowing truth intuitively" (p. 246), represents the ultimate democratization of faith and ideology. Not only does each individual have the right to choose in which God to believe, but the existence of that God can only be ascertained by the intuition of the believer.

Like its model, Miller's classic "The American Puritans," "The Transcendentalists" takes all the major texts of the Transcendentalist movement, excerpts out the most important parts, and frames them with Miller's brilliant comments to the subjects. As in his books on the Puritans, Perry Miller rides the subject like nobody before or since. Still the basic introduction to the writings, "The Transcendentalists" will serve anybody wanting to move beyond Emerson or Thoreau to the lesser-known members of the movement. While the ellipses can come to annoy those who want the complete texts, Miller's anthology is still worth reading, if only because this man was the century's greatest American intellectual historian. If you haven't read Miller, you're in for a long, difficult, rewarding journey, especially in his books on the Puritans. Without a doubt, an indispensable historian.

I didn't think I was going to like this book when I picked it up last night. The wife and I were staying in a friend's home outside Woodstock, VT, it was hot, the light was poor, and here I was starting a book about rural Vermonters. Mind you, I grew up in San Angelo, TX, and there are some intensely rural folk in that locale, but these were Yankees!

Suffice it to say, I read the book through last night, and looked it up on amazon.com today to see if I could buy a copy. It's beautifully written and photographed; you usually get one or the other, but Peter Miller gives you both. Buy it, then visit the area; it'll make you appreciate your soft life in the city.

Growing up in Hudson Falls, a small town in upstate Ny near the Vermont border,it brought me back home, now that I live in Oklahoma. I have a sister that lives in Ludlow Vt. After reading the book and not visited there in such a long time, it took me back. The black & white photos have shown a technique that a lot of photographers have forgotten.The book was very well illistrated, the soft lights and shadows caught my eye in a sence that time has set still for that one split momet. I felt that Mr. Miller topped the cake with this book. I hope that he continues this type of work for a long time.

I used this guide while mountain biking in the White Mountains. It provides very detailed descriptions of a variety of off road trails and logging roads, as well as many road rides. The ratings help to determine whether you can handle the conditions of each ride, and the very complete directions minimize the loss of time searching for trail heads. A very well written guide that is small enough to be taken along in a shirt pocket.

1.From Marty's descriptions of routes I could visualize the roads he was describing. I've hiked the Whites for years and was familiar with many of the roads but never cycled on them. 2.I planned a week tour in the Whites before getting Marty's guide. Many of the loops covered the same roads I planned on using. The basic route was Marty's triple notch century with lots of loops. Marty's rides were an excellent check on my routes and improved my routes. 3.Marty's descriptions are filled with yellow from my highlighter as I took advantage of his experience with cycling in the Whites. His book was a great resource in planning my routes.

Who Would Have Thought It?, a novel by Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton has as its kernel the Cinderella story. The Cinderella is Lola Medina, daughter of a prominent Spanish-Mexican family, whose mother had been abducted by Indians shortly before she gave birth. Before dying, the mother handed her daughter over to the care of Dr. James Norval, and appointed him trustee over a fortune that had come into her possession. Dr. Norval would be the kind stepfather in the tale, while the evil stepmother is his wife Jemima Norval, hypocritical upholder of Puritan morality. As Lola's skin had been dyed by the Indians she bore the stigma of being of mixed blood which intensified the hostility with which she was treated by her New England guardians.

By using irony and satire, the author created a wide contrast between the merits of beautiful (but passive) Lola, with whom she identified herself, and the demerits of greedy Anglo-American social climbers. The most offensive of these are the cynical Rev. Hackwell and Mrs. Norval, the covetous stepmother. Upon receiving a false report of the death of her husband, Mrs. Norval entered into a clandestine marriage (so she believed) with the sexually appealing Hackwell. To show the inner life of these conniving people, the author used a simple analogy. Beneath their apparently unruffled services, devils of passion and greed, also called imps, clamored to be released.

The novel is set during the Civil War and ends with a glance at matters during the Reconstruction. The two heroes Issac Sprig and Julian Norval, brother and son respectively of Mrs. Norval, fight in the Union cause. Issac was confined to a Confederate prison from which he was released through the intercession of a kindly Confederate office. Julian was wounded at the battles of Bull Run and Chancellorsville, was falsely accused of treason, and received a pardon and promotion after defending himself before President Lincoln. Before joining the Union cause, Isaac had learned of the existence of a Mexican heiress, who had escaped from Indians, but did not know that this person was Lola. Isaac acted the role of the fairy godmother in the story and, as such, his interferences defy reality. Julian, the prince in the story, was in love with Lola but could not marry her until she reached legal age.

Ruiz de Burton had read many works, in both English and Spanish. Allusions and borrowings from them occur in the novel . . . Greek mythology, Roman history, Shakespeare, Thackeray and Cervantes are conspicuous. Partial to her Mexican origin, she was critical of the provincialism of upper class people on the East Coast. Her political sentiments were based on reactions of the moment rather than on learned perceptions. She disliked republicanism (both as an institutional practice and as a political party) and this dislike encompassed Mexico as well as the United States; she thought women could do a better job in managing public affairs than men; regarded Manifest Destiny as a ruse fostered by the United States to steal land from other nations, had little sympathy for subject races in the United States or Mexico; be these Negro or Indian; ignored the plight of lower class (and fellow Catholic) Irish immigrants; and admired President Grant, who did not want to exploit people in the defeated South;, and in one of the best parts of the novel, believed the wounded and imprisoned on both sides in the War, should be treated humanely.

Almost on the same level with the scorn with which she regarded the religious double-dealing of Hackwell and Hammerhard was her dislike of the chicanery of northern politicians, whom she personified in the Cackle clan. This bunch of rapscallions was motivated by self-gain. Like the prosperous proponents of religious sobriety (which they mocked in private), they pretended to be promoters of public rather than private good.

Such were the good and bad polarities with which Ruiz de Burton structured her novel. She had fun exposing fraud, but, nonetheless, she found one senator on the northern side who was not on the take and treated President Lincoln gingerly, blaming the faults of his administration on hangers-on or on a system that kept people away from contact with their representatives.

Who Would Have Thought It? generates suspense up to its happy ending when Lola, the Mexican heiress, and Julian, the Union Colonel, are united. A like coupling took place in Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton's life when she married Colonel Henry Burton to whom she was devoted. Some of the characters are names who move in and out with negligible impact; others are mocked in detail; and others are the heroes for whom, the reader cheers as the solution of their perplexing problems seems even more uncertain. Although not a masterpiece, the novel provides a politically incorrect sidelight on social and political life during the Civil War era.

Who Would Have Thought It? by Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, re-released by Arte Publico Press in 1995, is an entertaining examination of the Civil War, gender and class conflicts during the 1860's in the United States. The story begins when Lola, a young Spanish girl whose mother has recently died, comes to live in New England with the Norval family. While Mrs. Norval is not interested in the young "black" girl, she is interested in the gold and precious stones that were left to the girl by her dying mother. While her husband tries to find Lola's father, Mrs Norval schemes to get rich, as do the local "ministers." Meantime, the Civil Wat complicates matters for everyone, leading all the characters through a plot of treachery, lust, and intrigue. Who Would Have Thought It? is a delightful commentary on the American social culture of the 1860's

Sometimes at the end of a short story, I go 'huh?' and turn the page, thinking surely there must be more. Not so with Willow Temple. Most of these stories, examining the myriad repercussions of brief moments in time, leave readers with a satisfying sense of completion. Many of them focus on a sense of longing for the simple times of the past years, and the prose, while spare and focused, is at the same time lyrical and evocative.
A good find. Fans of literary fiction should love it. Those who aren't, won't!

Donald Hall is a fine, intelligent craftsman of a writer. He knows how to distill volumes into a few pages, how to inform his reader about the spectrum of life from which he plucks his characters with a minimalism that in other hands would create a cold if not frigid climate. Hall is to short stories what Charles Ives and John Adams and Aaron Copeland are to music, Richard Russo and E.L. Doctorow and E. Annie Proulx are to novels: he has found the six senses in American life and weaves them into tapestries like few others. There is a bit of Robert Frost, of Walt Whitman, of Wallace Stevens and of William Carlos Wiliams here, and their presence is honored and hallowed.

Donald Hall is concerned with the cycle of life, not only the reverent form, but also the rocks and boulders that our lives encounter. He is able to speak in the voices of children and adults as narrators, wades through the toxicity of alcoholic parents, the foibles of those that have and those that have not, deals with the cold reality of dying and its aftermath on the living, and yet is able through his incredible gifts with words to make elegies and songs, instead of eulogies and bleatings. These stories are brief in pages, nearly all of them have the terse no-nonsense New England psycheand stoicism, and yet each story brings a desire to sit and cogitate, assuring ourselves we will not forget the folks we've just met. Read and weep, read and chuckle, but by all means .... read.

Helen Powers writes with canny wisdom of the ordinary things of life, lending a sense of adventure to the most potentially melancholy of topics: growing old, closing up a family home, dealing with sickness and injustice. And she leaves us laughing! Her wit sparkles, and her sometimes politically incorrect gems make me wish I'd said them, She's a pioneer of staying creative in the later decades, and a role model for anyone who's noticed more than a dozen gray hairs on the comb. Short entries make brief reading sessions enjoyable, but you'll want to devour this book, it's so funny and so philosophically adroit. Keep writing, Ms. Powers!

This is a most enjoyable little book. I believe that anyone who can read can relate to at least some of this book. Most adults should be able to relate to the book in its entirety. The author encourages us to appreciate our environment wherever we are. Also, rather than sitting around wringing our hands over the mess the world is in, take action, even if it is only cleaning up a mess in our own home! It is my belief that the author points us in the right direction, in order to make a difference, to improve things where we are. This should definitely be on the required reading list.