My wife and I recently decided to drive through New England, mainly visiting Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. On a friend's advice, I bought the Scheller's Best Vermont Driving Guide and after reading that, went out and bought this guide to New Hampshire. Both of these books are absolutely terrific, giving you information about places that is just about impossible to find anyplace else. There are lots of interesting tidbits that made our trip a lot more fun, and the books have a nice sense of humor, unlike a lot of dry guidebooks. We did two of the recommended drives in each state and found them very rewarding. Using the guide books, we were able to discover little hidden places like small museums and other attractions that we never could have found on our own--and we met some really great people along the way, too. If you're planning to drive through VT or NH I highly recommend both of these books.

In 1977, this book transformed a scientific field. In the 1990s, its reprinting is mainly of historic interest. Not much of the biogeochemistry data from Hubbard Brook in the intervening 20 years have been integrated into this "2nd edition."

I was told by somebody the other day, "why search far and wide for *birds*, for goodness sake?" in perhaps slightly stronger words. He may have a point in a way: some recent rare bird sightings in NH have included the Exeter Wastewater Treatment Plant, Nashua's broken glass filled Mine Falls "Park" and just down the street from congested state highway 3 in Merrimack/Bedford ... and so on and so forth. Why go far and wide indeed! Following any of this book's 21 tours, and seeing any one of the more than 100 bird sites mentioned will give you the answer. You find that the serene beauty of the surroundings mentioned - along with the welcome quiet - encourages you to see and hear more. This search for the almost spiritual essence of bird watching is what makes this book special. Modestly called "A Standard ABA state birdfinding guide which provides thorough coverage for the entire state of New Hampshire" by the author, the locations are anything but standard. From the wails of terns and gulls at the seacoast of Odiorne State Park to soaring hawks at Mt. Kearsarge summit to the remote wilderness of the North Country's Connecticut Lakes, the book will take you to the silent beautiful spots to breathe, listen and enjoy.

Just a couple of cautions: Each tour can take as long as three or four days to complete properly. You'll lose that "essence" in a big hurry if you decide that the seacoast is great, but maybe that trip down the Androscoggin River can be done by the end of the day! The areas that are mentioned are not always connected by major interstate highways.

A good bird picture guidebook is recommended, such as "Peterson's Field Guides: Eastern Birds" if you want to actually identify birds. While we aren't particularly good at that (and often make fools of ourselves misidentifying bird species), it's still fun to try.

Other books on nature and birding in New Hampshire can be found But I would highly recommend this book to add to your collection of books of northeastern natural sites.

This book is a excellent history of the Suncook Valley Railroad. It is well illustrated, and factually accurate. I have used this book as a prime resource for my own modeling and historical research, as I'm always looking for new sources of information concerning the SunVal.

The Franconia, New Hampshire, farm of the American poet Robert Frost was turned into a museum and center for poetry and the arts in 1976. From that time, "The Frost Place" has been annual event wherein an emerging poet has been invited to spend the summer living in the house where Frost once lived and wrote some of his greatest poetry. The Breath Of Parted Lips: Voices From The Robert Frost Place, Volume One is a remarkable anthology of twenty-four poets, each of whom won that honor of a summer's residency and document the success of the original concept as a means of generating outstanding poetry while nurturing the poet's muse in the rooms and views that were once the inspiration of the great Robert Frost. Poem At 40: Windwashed--as if standing next to the highway,/a truck long as the century sweeping by,/all things at last bent in the same direction./An opening, as if all/the clothes my ancestors ever wore/dry on lines in my body:/wind-whipped, parallel with the ground,/some sleeves sharing a single clothespin/so that they seem to clasp hands,/seem to hold on.//And now that I can see/up the old women's dresses,/there's nothing but a filtered light./And now that their men's smoky breath/has traversed the earth,/it has nothing to do with them./And now that awkward, fat tears of rain/slap the window screen,/now that I'm naked too,/cupping my genitals, tracing with a pencil/the blue vein between my collar bone and breast,/I'll go to sleep when I'm told.

I still remember when I was surprised to learn that New Hampshire has a coast (in fact, I drove by it last summer) and for years I kept thinking Maine or Vermont must have been one of the original thirteen colonies (Maine was really part of Massachusetts and Vermont was apparently just Vermont). The colony was "discovered" by John Smith, five years after he founded the colony of Virginia, but originally the area was "discovered" by Martin Pring, who was looking for sassafras trees and a shortcut to Asia. Susan Whitehurst tells young readers about the first settlement in the Province of New Hampshire, the Algonquian Indians who already lived there, and the rocks that would end up giving the state the nickname "the Granite State."

In part because there is not that much history about the Colony of New Hampshire, in part because Massachusetts annexed it at one point, Whitehurst is able to spend time talking about how the colonists made their livings. She spends almost as much time talking about the French & Indian War as the American Revolution, and when she deals with the latter she keeps the focus on what New Hampshire had to do with it. The book ends with a glossary, time-line, and index, as well as some nice suggestions on what to see in New Hampshire today.

This is a awesume book ! It takes a factual book that was written by a now deceased author and starts where she left off and brings it up to date on the history of all the villages surrounding Conway. Excellent pictures of many landmarks and attire of the period. This would be a great book for a history buff or someone wanting to learn more about the area of Conway, New Hampshire. Janet Hounsell did a excellent job on a huge project like this one.

I first read this book in college in 1977, and I still have my same dog-eared copy. It's an amazing journey through a life and marriage and family that defies better desctiption (at least from me). Its simple bareness of style is haunting, and has stayed with me through all these years. One of my favorite books of poetry. If you like writers such as Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood, you should love this book.

This dictionary is a thorough introduction to the complete genealogies of the ME./N.H. regions because of the detailed lists provided and totally researched. This will save you a lot of time and give you an excellent working knowledge of the area. The topo is historically accurate. This book is well researched and easy to understand. Colonial Families are well represented and many family names, links, and historical synopsis are provided. It's brief and to the point as any good dictionary should be!

This book is actually circa 1983. The first half is basic pretty interesting history, the last half is best. Here you will find company profiles for about 50 industries, and you can start sheding tears right now, as more than a few of these classic old companies are now gone. My interest is in old machine tools, so I found entries for Kingsbury Machine and Whitney Screw products fascinating. Speaking of Whitney, they are the LAST mfg in USA still in business makeing machine cut screws and this includes those quality brass wood screws you once bought at your local hardware. I hope someone buys this book and does something to help keep these industries alive!!!