Legends of the Pond is a delightful book filled with incredible short stories of ingenious people that reflects a 300-year span.

As a N.H. native, I found myself reliving the past through the mythical and magical writing ability of the Author. This book created a tremendous imagination allowing me to wander back through the familiar rural towns of N.H. and relive their past, especially among the impressive Abenaki Indians and their culture.

I highly recommend this book as the Author has skillfully written something worth reading for everyone including a chapter on the First American in Space, Alan B. Shepard, Jr. of Derry, N.H.

New England is fancinating and full of stories and legends. This book takes you to that time. The author shares his time consuming research to provide us a glimse of yesterday. Living in New Hampshire myself, I have been to America's Stonehenge. I have seen Big Island Pond and stepped on Escumbuit Island. The author who I have met, is a wonderful individual who cares about detail. If you like legends, if you like history, if you like descriptions of what people did in those times, then I strongly recommend this book.

In New England there is so much history. There are also little no communities' rich in story and this is about some of those towns. The book is set in the small rural areas of New Hampshire called Atkinson, Derry and Hampstead.

Legends of the pond is a collection of stories, poems, letters and so much more about Big Island Pond. The book is well written and I was very impressed with the author ability to make the words come to life.

Covering the time frame from 1692 to the present you'll read stories about rum-running, underground railroads and even John Glenn, who spent 11 years summering on the island. There is bound to be something everyone can enjoy with this book.

One thing I liked about this book is that you do not have to read it in any order, skip around the pages and let history take you on a journey, what you'll find in the pages is pure magic. The author has done a great job and I highly recommend reading this one.

The battle at Cross Keys, Virginia is not one of the more renowned conflicts of the Civil War. My family had been flummoxed by the lack of information when researching my great-great grandfather's teenage career as a soldier in the 39th New York regiment that fought there. Enter Peter Svenson to save the day, pulling the experience of the battle out of oblivion into an extraordinary narrative. A landscape artist, he had purchased a 40-acre rhomboid shaped tract on which to build a home and studio and to farm hay. He belatedly discovered the land to be the actual battlefield. Turning to original source material, including personal letters, memoirs and formal military reports, he summons a very detailed account of the events and environment of 8 June 1862. Not only does the battle become an important lens through which to critically assess the strategies of Fremont (North) and Jackson (South) and the fortunes of each side in the early part of the war, the account is highly revealing of the experience of the common soldier. Though there were thousands out there that day (far more Union than Confederate, though the North lost this one), Svenson takes pains to identify the regiments and their locations, and what happened to them. I now know where my ancestor most likely fell and the horror he endured for hours until he was picked up and taken to the "hospital," a store that had been appropriated for a surgery. I am astounded that he made it out of there with his limbs intact, that he survived the everpresent danger of disease Svenson describes. Please know there is more to Svenson's book than the battle history, however: he intersperses the history with accounts of life on the land in the late 20th century. In doing so, he shows how deeply connected the present is to a very traumatic part of our national past. It's a thoughtful book, made all the more enjoyable by the author's strong, pleasant voice. BATTLEFIELD was nominated for a National Book Award when it debuted; while it ultimately did not win, it is tops in my estimation.

Paul Langford's book still remains the definitive work on the Marquis of Rockingham's first ministry. Detailed, thoughtful and well-written, it is a masterful insight into mid eighteenth-cetury British politics from one of the period's most distinguished contemporary historians.