This is the type of novel that gets all the juices flowing. If you are not in love, you will want to be after you read this book. If you are in love, this story revisits the passion that you felt when your love was new. The characters are complex yet simple. The story is deep yet easy to read. Read it with that special friend.

First of all, I have to admit to being absolutely in love with George Guidall's voice. When I noticed he was the narrator for this book, I just HAD to listen to it. I wasn't familiar with the author - just the narrator. Thank you George for reading this beautiful, poignant, book. I was returning home to my husband after being aware from him for several days, and listening to this timeless love and life story, brought tears to my eyes. I could hardly wait to get home and wrap my arms around my husband. Maxwell made me 'feel' every possible emotion from angry to sadness to unbelievable joy. It was a treat from start to finish. I can hardly wait to read another book by him.

I love reading stories about love lost and found. The characters are not flawless, which makes an even better story because it mirrors real life more closely.

Evan Maxwell is a gifted writer who quietly lures the reader into the lives of Dane and Helen, two people too proud to see the possibilities life can offer until they mature enough to handle it. Finding a lost love and the added gift of a son makes Dane realize that too much time has gone by and missed chances can turn themselves around. Reading this particular story was like having the softness of a winter's day envelop me into its embrace. It is wonderful to read a love story from the male point of view that makes a woman feel this way. I didn't want it to end...

Please, Evan Maxwell, give us more like this to enjoy!

I read this book in Spanish and have some good things to say about it and some other comments.

The novel is written in a rushed, but exciting prose that picks up one of its themes, that of flight and escape. Matute has a great talent for this style and once you become involved( right from the start) it's hard to put the book down. The descriptions of rural Spain are a startling revelation for the yankee reader, and the conflict between "los de abajo( the under dogs) y los de arriba( those above)is beautifully done.

The pueblo, Lower Artamila,is not a friendly place and Matute seems to have been born and raised there even though we know she is from Barcelona the capital of Spanish sophistication. The conflict between Juan and Pablo, half brothers in blood and social standing, is lopsided because we learn so much about Juan, the inheritor of of his father's estate. The land where the action takes place and its workforce. Yet we are given the one dimensional portrait of Pablo which to me was not satisfying.

As good as Pablo is we see in counterpoint how evil and confused Juan has become. There is a definite family bond that is emotional at one plane and sexual on another. Mix this with envy and loneliness and you have Juan reavealed as a kind of little monster who is the opposite of the good but boring little half brother Pablo. What goes on inside Juan's head is where the novel both succeeds and fails.

You have little to lose in reading this short book and I'm glad I did. I wouldn't put Lower Artamila on my travel plans, nor woud I want to have as my next door neighbor Juan Medinao.

It being on the reading list aside, this author unwellknown in the United States, is well. I dont have time to write a review that does it justice, but this is what it feels like to be young. Well, for me..I guess I had a bleak childhood.

it saved me in ap spanis

Mr. McClure captures the inner character and beauty of each yacht featured. Mr. McClure conveys through art-like photographs and discriptions what each owner feels about their particular yacht. The readers absorb through each vessal how the owners have perserved a 'moment in time' through loving restoration.

The photos and writing are the best I've seen amoung wooden boat books. I've been rebuilding a double-mahogony hull Owens for two years, and I got some great ideas on how to finish out the decks, and the interior. The Owens has never looked better!

I think this book written by my brother-in-law is great. He & my sister put alot of time & effort in this book. The pictures of the yachts are just awsome. I find this book to be very interesting!

Natural resource management, like abortion, is one of those enormously complex political issues that too often gets reduced to dueling slogans and sound bites. William Dietrich does readers a great service by letting people from all sides of the issue (there are many more than two) speak at length, and by juxtaposing their views in ways that highlight similarities as well as differences. One of the book's running themes is that both loggers and environmentalists love the forests, but that each group has great difficulty seeing that quality in the other. Their mutual incomprehension is rooted in their utterly different ideas of why forests are important, and how humans ought to relate to them.

This deep philosophical difference is at least as old as the 20th century. John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, and Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the US Forest Service, fought battles similar to the ones Dietrich describes back at the (last) turn of the century. Dietrich, a journalist writing about a present-day controversy, says very little about that history, and that choice makes the book less informative (and less helpful as a means to understanding the problem) than it might be.

Still, _The Final Forest_ is a valuable, well-balanced piece of journalism. It's a great resource for open-minded people on either side of the preservation vs. development debate, and a superb introduction for anyone coming to the issue for the first time.

I gained a deeper understanding of the conflicts surrounding forestry in the Pacific Northwest. The stories told in this book could never be explained or understood in a 30 second television news broadcast. And while much of the news is depressing, this book offers hope for a brighter future where science, conservation, forestry, and consumer interests can meet for the future use of our forest resources.

Dietrich was introduced to me while I was visiting the Hoh Valley rainforest in Olympic National Park in Washington. Being inside a rainforest was a life-changing experience and Dietrich's 'Final Forest' consolidated all the feelings for me. His well-written account of Pacific Northwest landscape, past and current, along with the excruciating fight to save whatever is left, is important for current and future generations to elevate their cognizance towards environmental stewardship.

I picked up this book while touring the visitor's center at the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State, on the way home from camping in the Canadian Rockies. In spite of having grown up in Washington State, I'd never seen the Grand Coulee before, and thought it was about time. Besides, the kids thought it would be a treat.

The Grand Coulee dam sits in a wide, deep channel, or coulee, in the Eastern Washington basalt. David Alt's book is relevant because it explains (among lots of other things) where the coulee (and others like it) originated. The story begins with early settlers, who wondered at the scab lands in the area, and their contrast with the rich soils of the Palouse Hills. Some of these scab lands show stream beds much too wide to support current flows, and scouring as much as several hundred feet above the current channels. There are also potholes in the coulees, very numerous, and some of gigantic proportions. Further north, in Montana, there are the unmistakable horizontal lines of ancient lake shores, high on the hills and mountains of river valleys.

These and other clues led early geologists to wonder and speculate about ancient glacial lakes during the last ice age. T. C. Chamberlain was one of these, as was Joseph Pardee, who actually calculated the volume of water in what is now called Glacial Lake Missoula. The numbers are impressive. The lake held roughly 500 cubic miles of water, was nearly 2000 feet deep, and covered an area of roughly 2,900 square miles.

The problem was, it was all held back by an ice dam, an ice finger, actually, from one of the glaciers that moved down from Canada during the last ice age. And when the water in the lake became deep enough to float the ice dam, it gave way, resulting in a tremendous rush of water out of the lake that sloshed its way, making temporary lakes as it went, all the way to the Pacific ocean.

Along the way, this great flood formed many of the features we see in Montana, the Idaho panhandle, Easter Washington, the Columbia Gorge, and the lower Columbia. Alt has structured his book so that he takes the reader on a voyage from the lake's beginnings in Montana through the river valleys the flood scoured. Along the way he explains how the floods resulted in landmarks easily visible from interstate highways, including such features as Coeur d'Alane Lake in Idaho, the scablands and coulees of Eastern Washington, the Columbia River Gorge, and Lake Oswego in Oregon.

The book is nicely illustrated, with lots of black-and-white photographs of geological features as well as useful maps. The story, for the most part, is sequential, and follows the events of the flood from the moment the ice dam broke. An important point, though, is that there were many such floods. Perhaps three dozen or more. This cyclic behavior resulted from the creeping ice: as soon as the ice dam washed out, the glacial ice, continuing it's plodding movement, would begin damming the river again, and the process would repeat.

Alt's purpose in writing the book is to both tell the story of geological events, as well as to illustrate how scientists grapple "with an emerging scientific controversy." As he points out, "[S]ome handle it well, others miserably as personalities, pride, and outright prejudice supercede scientific evidence. While I found some of these stories interesting, for me they were a little distracting, particularly when Alt takes the apparent point of view that earlier scientists who did not readily accept the "monster-flood theory" were somehow bad scientists.

For example, Alt states on page 21:

"When J. Harlen Bretz first proposed his great flood, he could not say where the water had come from. He pointed to the enormous expanse of glaciated country to the north and vaguely suggested that the water had come from somewhere up there, somehow. Perhaps a brief interlude of much warmer weather melted an enormous amount of ice. Maybe a volcano erupted beneath the ice. It was a puzzle. People need not understand everything they know. It is perfectly proper in scientific discussions to recognize that a phenomenon exists without being able to explain it."

In hind site it's easy to criticize people for not "believing." But Alt does a disservice, I think, with his implications that such criticisms were somehow unfair. No doubt there were personal conflicts and bad manners, but overall, my perception is that the scientific community was pretty prompt about accepting the new theory once the evidence was presented. And, certainly, the cause of science is not advanced by accepting uncritically ideas for which only ad hoc explanations about "where all the water came from" are advanced. One need only review the circumstances surrounding the fiasco of "cold fusion" to understand the value in the scientific method of "believing" after the facts are established, and not before.

Philosophical issues aside, I really enjoyed this book. It's part of a class of books aimed at the intelligent arm-chair scientist (but of interest, I believe, to "real" scientists, as well) in which a particular geological micro-history is traced through thousands of years. For me, personally, this was a fun book. I enjoy geology, and I especially enjoy such books that take a particular historical event in geology and explain it in detail. It's the sort of book I can easily read while camping, or in the evening, at home. I highly recommend it.

. . . but don't even think of reading this book without ready access to a large-scale map. A road map is fine for the job.

Geologist Bretz first walked the dry channels of Eastern Washington in the 1920s and observed a landscape which told of a catastrophic flood released repeatedly which held more than ten times the combined flow of all the modern rivers of the world. Glacial Lake Missoula And Its Humongous Floods reveals the geology and research involved in tracing the paths of these floodwaters. Any with an interest in geology in general and Missoula in particular will find this fascinating reading.

The book was well designed and nice to read. The book also included cabins and guard stations. The title should have read "How to rent a fire lookout or cabin in Oregon." Almost all the places were in Oregon. I live in Washington and was dissapointed to only see 8 places in Washington (I'm sure Washington's shortcommings and not the authors). The book is a great reference though and I can't wait to visit Oregon!

How to Rent a Fire Lookout in the Pacific Northwest is a valuable tool for exploring the beautiful backcountry of the Northwest! Authors Tom Foley and Tish Steinfeld have given a great gift to those of us in search of outdoor adventure. As a seeker of Oregon Stories within the landscape, I am enjoying this book immensely. I will include it in preparation of future sauntering and discovery!

Just astounding! I have stayed at three of the lookout featured in the book, and they are every bit as wonderful as the book illustrates. This book is a must for the nature lover. I'm not much of a hiker or skier, so fortunately this book tells you how difficult it is to reach each lookout. And most all the lookouts are a mere $25-$40 a night! My lookout trips have been the best vacations I've ever had. Please, please pick up this book if you plan to be in Oregon for any length of time and love great scenery...

I liked the book and it was excellent in the areas covered, but it missed the largest part of the US PNW geographic area - the high deserts and dry land conifer forests East of the Cascades in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. As one born and raised in the Northwest, I would really like someone to write a book that acknowledged and showed the styles of architecture and interior design found in places like Pendleton and White Swan.

Most of the PNW is not wet and cloudy, but drier with a harsh and stark beauty that can clearly be seen on the old highway between Ellensburg and Yakima, or cruising between Bend and Madras. Or in the forested places near La Grande and in Northern Idaho. There is the Horse Heaven and Pend Orielle country as well, which have their own forms of architecture that pay tribute to a beautiful and fascinating, and not always kind country.

I wish for a book on PNW style that covers more than the narrow coastal strips and Willamette Valley.

It is obvious Ann Wall Frank loves homes. Her beautifully written text is like poetry, and the photography is stunning. It is a must have for anyone who cherishes making a house a home. The humor, warmth, and intelligence of Ann Frank's writing style sets this book apart from others of its kind. We in the northwest are proud of our style, and Northwest Style captures who we are perfectly. Encore!

Who knew the Pacific Northwest had such an eclectic range of home styles, from Japanese influenced designs to rustic log cabins, to stunning urban lofts. This book is written in an accessible (versus snobby) style, warmed by humor and with an irreverent eye to the iconoclastic bent of the nation's current power center. Beautiful photographs and "real" homeowners--not royalty or billionaires.

As the contributing editor for "Oregon" on Suite101,com, I'm always on the lookout for great books about Oregon. Best Places to Kiss in the Northwest is great for what it includes and should probably be broken into three separate books so that more places in Oregon, Wasington, and British Columcia can be featured.

I agree wholeheartedly with the picks included. There are just so many great restaurants and B abd B's that are missing.

An entry in Bend, Oregon states that Bend is known better for outdoors kissing spots than cozy restaurants, yet I can name Kayo's Dinner House, Le Bistro, and McGrath's Fish House right off the bat that are left out.

In addition, I don't know if this would be considered a best place to kiss in other people's books, but growing up in Bend, the two best kissing spots were on top of Pilot Butte (might be closed to cars now) and Pioneer Park. Neither were included.

In Washington, Centralia's got a very cozy B and B I'd love to go back to visit (no Centralis entries) and Ocean Shores isn't even mentioned.

That said, the most annoying factor of the book is its organization. Within each section, (e.g., Vancouver and environs) towns are listed all higgledy piggledy! Ladner comes after West/North Vancouver, which is followed by Tsawwassen, then Point Roberts. It took me longer than it should have to find what I was looking for.

The write-ups are fair and show little bias. It is very journalistic, without any real personal stories. I really wanted to know why each spot was chosen.

What's there is good and even great for some areas. It's too bad there are gaps.

This is a terrific travel guide for true romantics. I have used it on many trips and have never been disappointed. A great companion book to take along is The Romantic's Guide: Hundreds of Creative Tips for a Lifetime of Love.

From the Oregon Coast to the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, my wife and I have relied on previous versions of this book. In every case, the B&B's have been accurately reviewed and the restaurant choices top notch. You can trust this book.

... it's overpriced. Throughtout the course I came across several one line facts regarding ADO that cleared up many questions that I haven't found answers to elsewhere, but for the cost of the product, I would have liked more of those little gems.

Overall, a good course that I learned from, but at a higher price than I thought was worth.

This is one of the best training materials I've seen for ADO. You sit and watch video CDs in your computer. You'll find everything you need to know about ADO from a beginners level to the most advance level. The course is divided in the following sections: 1) SQL Language and Data Types 2) Core ADO Classes 3) Advance Recordset Techniques and 4) N-Tier Programming. Once your done with the course, you'll keep this book as a reference book. The course comes with 2 videoCDs and a lab workbook.

This training course is an excellent way to learn ADO on the go or where ever you are. And there's nothing better than just sitting there watching the Video CD's. It's real easy to go through hours of training with a Video CD compared to a regular book which isn't very exciting. The course covers all the basics plus JOINS, Functions, Stored Procs, Parameterized Queries, Disconnected Recordsets and Performance Issues including how to debug your Stored Procs. It's well worth the money and is a great reference tool when you need a quick refresher.

Good information basically summarized. Most regions described are generalized but it gives you good information to start from. Maps could have been much better though.

A really nice book for people who are new in sea kayaking. Have lots of information like outfitters, transportation, maps, etc. It's a good book to read for info. and to pick the best place to kayak in the NW if you have only a few days in the region.

Invaluable guide. This book does not just tell the reader where to park and where to camp, also includes history, low impact camping tips, advice on ethics and hygiene and manners.

The chapters on various island groups are described by different authors, with uneven quality. We have been to areas covered in three chapters, The Discovery Islands, The Clayoquot Sound, and the Gulf Islands. The details of the two of the chapters were precise, the hazards were as described (as we discovered when we did not take them seriously enough - I was almost run over by a whale watching boat in the fog off Vargus Island, a hazard that we had not taken seriously even though it was clearly described in the chapter).

The chapter on the Discovery Islands in some cases offered vague or incorrect details as to the location of camp sites.

For some reason, we did not find this book on the Amazon web site by using searches that should have found it, for example kayaking British Columbia. But our local Kayak store carried it.