Good information but very general and lacks any useful detail. One can get a lot of this information on line or from the locals.

I've been sea kayaking for 16 years, all of them on the coast of Maine, as well as many other places around the globe. . .and I've read LOTS of sea kayaking guidebooks. . .and this is by far the BEST I've ever read!

I thought that I already "knew" the coast of Maine really well. . .but reading Dorcas' book, I realize there is lots to learn and lots more coast to explore.

Not only has Dorcas done a superb job at gathering a huge amount of information useful for kayakers, she has presented it in a very kayaker- and reader-friendly way. I really appreciate that it isn't a book of "suggested trips," but rather a book with thorough info about launching spots, safety considerations, places of interest, and useful local knowledge. Her focus on natural and cultural history information also helps me figure out places I want to explore.

Have I used the book? Yes, this past weekend I went paddling near Kittery and the book was helpful for figuring out launching spots and weather/tide concerns to watch out for. And when we found a baby seal "stranded" on the beach, I knew that there was a phone number in Dorcas' book that we could call to report the "stranding" and help out the seal. We called, the seal was fine.

And relaxing after the paddle, I started thumbing through the book to figure out the next stretch of coast I wanted to explore.

This is definitely a must-have book for any sea kayaker planning a trip to Maine!

Kayaking in the Northeast has just gotten easier and NE kayakers much better informed thanks to the release of D. Miller's book. This book lives up to its title in every way. The book is well written, detailed enough to provide confidence and an opportunity to plan well for a paddle adventure. The information in this book will save those less familiar with the coast of Maine many frustrating mistakes and bad trips,and for those more familiar with Maine some new ideas on what to do and see. In addition there are informative chapters all who use the coast of Maine for recreation should know and follow. For those of us beginning to explore the coast of Maine by kayak this is an essential addition our bookshelf.

... the reviews for King Henry VIII by William Shakespeare (and all their other books as far as I can tell) as if different editions have the same content - obviously in the case of classics that is far from true.

... 3 editions of Henry VIII at this time: (1) Hardback edited by Gordon McMullar published in November 2000 (2) Paperback edited by Jay L. Halio published in September 2000 (3) Paperback edited by R. A. Foakes published in February 1998

Their editorial reviews describe ALL 3 of these editions as "This is the first fully annotated modern-spelling edition of King Henry VIII to appear for over a decade and includes up-to-date scholarship on all aspects of the play, including dating authorship, printing, sources and stage history." I don't think so! The reader reviews don't distinguish the editions but they are the same reviews posted for the different books. I wish I could contribute the answer but I am still trying to figure it out -- in the meantime, purchase cautiously or you may be disappointed.

Shakespeare managed to describe the later life of King Henry the eight, with much intelligence and gracefulness. This play, written centuries before, has captured my attention unlike any present-day play or novel. King Henry VIII was based on the life of the notoriously known King Henry the eight of England. To my dismay, only two of King Henry's wives were mentioned. This play showed how King Henry's life was never truly complete: he couldn't trust anyone, he was unfaithful to the Lord, his wives and his country, and he was never blessed with a son, to be heir to his throne. For myself, the climax of the play was viewing how the king dealt with the change of wives and the birth of his daughter, Elizabeth. The play King Henry VIII by William Shakespeare is a wonderful recommendation for anyone who wishes to understand the tidings of King Henry the eight from a fictitious, historical, personal point of view, rather than from historical facts.

This was an appropriate conclusion to Shakespeare's career. Not only are the characters such as Henry VIII, Cranmer, and Wolsey convincing, but the poetry and images are beautiful. In addition, through the fall of several characters such as Wolsey, we can see reflections of Shakespeare himself as he wrote his 37th and final play. It is also poetically appropriate that one of the greatest writers England ever knew ended his career by writing a play about one of the greatest kings that England ever knew! I DO NOT believe that Shakespeare only wrote parts of this play as many people do. With the beautiful images, poetry, and captivating characters, I am very confident in the belief that this play was written entirely by the one and only William Shakespeare.

Eh... I must disagree with Mr. Freund and Yitzak, I found the work so-so. Personally, I abhor any historical work which does not have the word "survey" anywhere in it's cover. If Dr. Hanson had included a lot more pictures, or, "challenge questions" at the end of each chapter I would have found it more entertaining. Whatever happened to books with pictures and "challenge questions" at the end of each chapter?

A.B.

I too have looked far and wide for this incredible piece of work. Hanson does an incredible job. Truly commendable work! I suggest that all people, especially those who enjoy reading about the Revolutionary War, buy this book and even buy it for a friend. Just marvelous. I read it twice it was so good.

As a scholar of American History, I have searched long and hard for a book which contains what Necessary Virtue has. Charles P. Hanson writes an amazingly interesting and informative book on American History that has no match. This is a must for the serious History-buff. TBS!

Frances Yates was first recommended to me more than a decade ago and I'm sorry that I waited so long to read her. THE OCCULT PHILOSOPHY IN THE ELIZABETHAN AGE challenged many things I thought I knew about the Renaissance and Reformation, and it more than whetted my appetite for Yates's biography of Giordano Bruno.

Beginning with the strange figure of Raymond Lull, a 13th-century Spanish mystical philosopher who could read both Arabic and Hebrew (an unusual accomplishment for a Christian of his or any other time), Yates traces the influence of the "occult philosophy" on Western Christendom through the Italian and continental Renaissance to Elizabethan England. "Occult philosophy" seems to me be the wrong terminology for the Hermetic/Cabalistic spiritual science that inspired some of the greatest minds of the age, if for no other reason than that it rather discredits the whole enterprise from the outset. Part of Yates's design, after all, is to remind us that there was a time when science and religion were not at loggerheads with one another, a time before "the connections of the psyche with the cosmos" were cut off at their roots.

In the first part of the book, Yates sets the stage with brief discussions of the thought of Lull, Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Reuchlin, Francesco Giorgi, and Henry Cornelius Agrippa, and she offers a new interpretation of an engraving by Albrecht Durer. At the heart of what Yates calls Christian Cabala were two central ideas: that the name of Jesus is the Tetragrammaton, the "ineffable name" of God; and that there is a unity of truth behind the appearance of things accessible to those afflicted (or blessed) by "inspired melancholy".

In the second part of the book, Yates examines the influence of Christian Cabala on English philosphers and poets, including John Dee, Edmund Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. The backlash against the occult philosophy -- signalling the end of the Renaissance -- is also examined.

You will walk away from this book with a profound sense of the largely unrecognized contribution made by Jewish culture to the development of modern Western philosophy and science. The expulsion of the Jews (and the Moors) from Spain after 1492 (not to mention the unintended consequences of forced conversions) takes on new meaning in the light of Yates's researches.

One weakness of this book, however, is its failure to consider the possible Islamic influence on the development of the occult philosophy in Western Europe. Lull, after all, studied not only Cabala but also the great Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes). While one cannot discount the enormous influence of the exiled Sephardic Jews, one should also remember that medieval Spain was home to a most fruitful cross-fertilization of Jewish and Islamic thought. Yates admits that she's no Hebrew scholar, but a knowledge of Arabic might also have been of benefit here.

Another weakness is Yates's rather prosaic and unengaged approach to her subject matter. This is understandable perhaps in a scholar, but her reluctance to let slip her passion is our loss.

As the title states this book sets out to find the philosophical roots of Elizabethan culture of the late XVI and early XVII century. The question posited by Dame Frances Yates is : What was the underlying Philosophy of the Elizabethan age and she points unmistakably to the occult philosophy i.e. Hermeticism tempered by Christian Neoplatonism and Qabbalah. Origins of the Elizabethan culture are traced straight to the Medici court, Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Yates being no believer of the operative work of magic, still provides enough food for thought for the student of Renaissance humanism, history of ideas or budding hermeticist. Although this book grew out from a series of lectures on "Inspired Melancholy" it still manages to tie in such diverse subjects as historical background of Ben Johnson's The Alchemist and Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (Henry Cornelius Agrippa seen as the inspiration for the character), philosophico/magical/religious meaning of Elizabethan poetry (Spencer, Raleigh), the dramas of Shakespear (specially the Tempest and King Lear) and content of Durer's famous print Melencolia. The strengths of Frances Yates writing is precisely the ability to show the unifying idea behind these seemingly diverse works of art and philosophy. An important part of this book is connected to the destiny of the exiled Spanish Sephardim jews who spread the medical writings of Avicenna and rich literature of Iberian Qabbalism.

Yates history provides an alternative view of English history at the time of Tudor and Stewart dynasties most importantly in their relation to Ecclesiastical powers and politics of continental Europe.

This is a wonderful book that will stimulate a fundamental rethinking of the view of European Political and intellectual history.

Writer of this review is the translator of the book into Serbian .

Dame Frances Yates had an incredible impact on the study of early modern magic and occultism. Although she wrote on other subjects, her primary legacy is in this field, particularly her books _Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition_ and _The Art of Memory_. For anyone interested in the occult Renaissance, these books are both absolutely required reading.

As a scholar, Yates had some bad habits, and these are most obvious in _The Rosicrucian Enlightenment_ and, to a lesser extent, _The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age_. In these books, we see her habit of beginning with a "What if?" proposition, then repeating it in stronger and stronger formulations until it has become an accepted fact.

_The Occult Philosophy_ has this problem to some degree, but the primary problem is that Yates tries to deal with a subject on which she is not qualified to pronounce: Kabbalah. As she asmits, she is not a Hebraist, and her only access to Kabbalah comes from reading some of Gershom Scholem's work. Of course, she cannot be faulted for writing on the subject before Kabbalah became a large and accepted field of study within Jewish Studies, but Yates here displays her usual tendency to overstate her case.

A related problem is that she can be rather offhanded in her treatment of figures peripheral to her obsessions (i.e. anyone not John Dee or Giordano Bruno), and this can lead her to distort matters by repeating others' second-hand analyses.

Having said all this, bear in mind that it's Frances Yates we're talking about here. Stacked up against her best books, _The Occult Philosophy_ looks pretty sad; stacked up against almost anything else in the field, it's drop-dead brilliant: it's very well written, charming, stimulating, and extremely accessible. If you like Yates, read this book now, just take it with a little grain or so of salt; if you haven't experienced Yates yet, DON'T buy this --- read _Giordano Bruno_ NOW!

Yates had her faults, certainly, but she almost singlehandedly invented a field of study. This is an important part of the Yates corpus, but by no means its core.

When the book arrived from Amazon, I greedily ripped the shipping box open, pulled the book out and did a quick search for photos. To my disappointment, the photos where printed very poorly on stock paper. Not the type of thing you want to see when trying to reconnect to your youthful days in Dexter, Maine. This said, I will now tell you what I liked about the rest of the book - EVERYTHING! From her frank and honest thoughts about special youthful moments and times she shared with family members and friends. To her detail description of Dexter locations that hold a ton of memories for her and for all of us that spent our youth there in the 50s. Very thought provoking read which takes you though a huge range of emotional feeling. Sometimes very funny and sometimes very sad, but mostly a well balanced range that gives a true feeling of that time and place.

On Main Street, A Memoir is a little gem that details small town life in the 20th century. Through the eyes of the narrator, Prudy, you become acquainted with a wide assortment of characters who touched her life. This book will appeal to all ages because the author is able to recall in rich detail a by-gone era that many have (or wish they had) experienced.

I found this book thoroughly enjoyable to read. The author describes growing up in Dexter, Maine with a wonderful selection of characters and experiences. Although I now live in Maine, I grew up in a suburb of New York City, and I still easily identified with many of the author's descriptions of childhood and adolescent experiences. She has a terrific mastery of words. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to be reminded of their younger years.

The Coast of Maine book is good if you're a first-time visitor to the state. I recently bought this before going to Maine for a week and found this book very helpful. If you're going to be driving a fair amount, then you'll like this...it provides information about the interesting things to do in the major coastal towns and areas in between. This book is lacking in a couple of areas, however. First, the hotel and restaurants listed are few in number and don't provide the best selection, although it is a start. Second, the maps aren't very helpful if you're going to do a lot of driving and provide only a relative idea of your location. I would recommend getting a AAA map of Maine to accompany this book.

That said, this is still a very useful book. Most of the other books on Maine were too focused (e.g., only lodging, or only lighthouses, etc.). This one at least gives a good overview and identifies both the common and less well-known things to do.

My family and I recently visited Maine and in preparation we purchased Great Destinations The Coast of Maine Book to get an idea of what we wanted to see. I found this book to be very clear and concise. It was extremely helpful in giving us an overview of what we wanted to see and do whilst in Maine. The coastline was as beautiful as the book depicted and I would recommend buying this book and also visiting this tremendous State.

I had this book in an earlier edition (1970's?) and found it delightful. As a boy I pored over the text and line drawings to learn how farm life was 150 years hence (I grew up on a farm). The knowledge of the means of labor and variety of tools which were crafted and used has been with me since, and it is interesting to see some of those tools in antique stores and know exactly how they were used. It also has given me great insight into how my ancestors settled the regions were they made their homes, as my family history research progressed.

This was a great book about Noah and his father Issac and their encounters and troubles they have while building to improve their farm. I loved this book and will probably re-read it over and over again! One interesting thing was that Noah spelt peas wrong! It is also a love tale for those of you that like that type of thing.

Overall, this book does a good job of providing succinct summaries of some great hikes throughout Maine. I only gave it three stars, however, because it strangely omits western Maine (the area near the New Hampshire border). Western Maine has some great hiking, including the Maine section of the White Mountains National Forest, Mt. Blue State Park, and Grafton Notch State Park. Oddly, this entire region goes unmentioned.

This is a great book for the moderate, hobby fisherman. I have been fishing in Maine all my life, however when I recently moved to central Maine I was at a loss as to where to throw my line. I bought this book last year late in the season and had very good luck with the advice given. It gives you peak times and lures to try for best results. I look forward to checking off some of the spots I missed last year and hopefully catch the big one! The only complaint I have is that it is sometimes more geared to fly fisherman than I would like. Overall a very good investment in my book!

So far, my husband and I have been on three of the hikes. Of them, two were not as described -- I would have rated the Holyoke one as a Moderate-Difficult, given the steepness of the terrain, rather than Easy-Moderate. It also didn't talk about the alternate route to the top, which was much easier, and less stressful. However, I do like the history and the cultural background of the areas we're hiking through. Highly recommend the Mad River walk in the Waterville Valley -- but bring your bug spray!

It would have been very nice to have the book tell you when you had to pay for parking -- especially in the US Park Service territories. We will continue to use the book, but I'll take the descriptions with a large grain of salt, and bring cash, just in case.

This book not only gave great detailed information on the local hikes and outings, but also contained lots of helpful cultural and local interest details. Each destination was painstakingly researched and contains an extremely helpful and easy to decipher map of the area. For those planning longer trips, a helpful selection of local hotels and bed and breakfasts will be a welcome addition. I also appreciated the restaurant selections carefully sorted by price. The author writes with enthusiasm about each travel destination and is very convincing about the merits of each spot. I found the details for each country walk to be extremely helpful in increasing both my knowledge of the area and my overall enjoyment of the trips.

All campsites of New England with all the possible information you want!!! I especially like the 'Scenic' rating wich tells you where to go to camp on places with beutiful views!!!
Very nice and comrehensive guide, too bad that there are no pictures...(rather impossible, it wouldn't fit in one book)

This book is a comprehensive directory of New England campgrounds, both public and private. It provides both facility and recreation information, but emphasizes (with a rating of 1-10) the scenic beauty that can be observed directly from each campround. I found the "tips" on each camground to be extremely informative and I plan to vacation at the sites that received a high rating from these authors. I enjoyed reading about the outdoors (my reason for camping) not about RV needs.