This book is really geared more toward the academic. I would not find it useful as a field guide, though it makes for fairly interesting biological reading. It is not laid out in a "field guide" fashion, with species listed and illustrations for each provided. It would be frustrating to take the kids to the beach at low tide and attempt to use this unless you are very well acquainted with your marine taxonomy. Most species are not identified by a common name, and the color plates and illustrations are not necessarily near the species text.
This book reads as a textbook for students rather than a useful tool for laymen who just need to know what critter they just found under a rock, and want the information before the tide comes back in.

Though published in the early 1980s, this book does a wonderful job of introducing the active naturalist to the nearshore marine life of the Pacific Northwest. This book includes good illustrations and photographs, descriptions of where marine flora and fauna live and what they do there. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to go the seashore of the Pacific Northwest and figure out what they are looking at. Kozloff has been there and seen everything he's writing about. I use this book as my primary text when I take students to Puget Sound, Washington, for my marine ecology field course. A top notch field guide!

In the middle of the fifties I found a pocket edition of 'Heavenly Discourse' in a bookshop in Stockholm, Sweden and found it fascinating and hilarious. I lost the book and the name of its author. No one of all the Internets Search engines were able to find this title. Amazing! Finally I found a copy of the first edition (1926) at the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam. But this precious edition will not be lended. I think after more than 70 years a translation into Dutch would be worthwhile. Why not a new reprint of the 1st edition? = Jacques de Reus, Amstelveen. Netherlands

"Heavenly Discourse," by C. E. S. Wood, would rate six or seven stars. To my utter disbelief, it is out of print. The good news is that "Wood Works" includes four of these hysterically funny satires. They build slowly, like a Bob Newhart monologue, and this short excerpt does not do them justice:

"BILLY SUNDAY: Why, there is Herman Morgenstern. I sent him to hell. He kept a family beer garden on Fourth Avenue...

JESUS: I liked him. He was a gentle, charitable soul.

BILLY SUNDAY: But he kept a beer saloon.

JESUS: I lived with publicans and sinners.

BILLY SUNDAY: And there is Margaret Hartwell. She had an illegitimate child. She sold her body. She was a harlot. I sent her to hell. How did she get here?

JESUS: I liked her. The one with her is Mary Magdalen."

The bad news is that "Wood Works" is a comprehensive overview of Wood's oeuvre, and while a lot of it is nice to have if you're already a Wood ! fan, it does become clear why "Heavenly Discourse" is his best-known work.

The introduction and commentary give about the right amount of background on C. E. S. Wood.

It's a nice book. But I hope someone gets around to reprinting all of "Heavenly Discourse."

If there's certain kinds of books that must be consistently updated, it'd be reference books, especially place references. I keep this book near and dear to my heart because it has great hikes, particularly ones that have small campsites that once the day-hikers go home are quiet and nice. But thee lack of an update is glaring. For example, the Table Rock (Molalla River Valley one) hike has a poor description of how to get there, as rapid growth in the Willamette Valley has changed the roads and towns on the way. Also, the trailhead is now around three or so miles earlier, since the road gave out in 1996. I cannot group this book with the outdated trash though, since it manages to capture a good idea, and also most books overlook Table Rock, period.

A great guide to the Northwest Illinois area. I really look forward to travelling to more of the areas Don Davenport highlights. He managed to get alot in, the important elements to making it an interesting read, but got me itching to go and see some more. He relays historic points which are a key to really enjoying the magnificent sights and that history which made it so awesome. Along the way he mentions the tourist attractions (always pointing out those for youngsters)he feels are worth the money and the eating places worth the time. There is much more in this book than I was expecting, anyone living in or near Illinois should buy it now! Go and see history come alive and did I forget to mention he recommends great places to stay!

If you have a stream or creek in your neighborhood that is begging to be rennovated, then this is the book for you. Even if especially written to deal with waterways in the Northwest part of the country, it is packed full of useful information that can be applied to any watershed. The writing is lively, full of descriptions that draw you into wanting to know more, and it reads easily and quickly. The author's style is colorful and inviting, and even if you don't live near a river, stream, or tumbling creek, you will learn a lot about the biology, ecology, and economics about waterways and how we are all impacted by the care or lack of care we have given them. The book is well-organized. It includes sections on the physical requirements of wildlife, stream projects, and even chapters on how to educate the community, which agencies and organizations can lend a hand, national and local legislation, and appendices that make this not only a wonderful book to read, but a field guide on how restore watersheds or "Adopt a Stream."

Holt, Rinehart and Winston published this huge series of ethnographies over at least 15 years, between 1960 and 1975, perhaps later. They are ideal for students who want to get a basic idea of a particular group of people or for first-year students who need to get a feel for what ethnography is (or was). This book on the Ainu of a small region of Sakhalin island covers the same territory as the others---economic activities, daily life, the life cycle of an individual, kinship and marriage, the community, social rank, and finally, beliefs, rituals and world view (i.e. religion). Everything is presented in more or less severe description, with little chance for either anthropologist or the studied people to speak out. It is anthropology in a rather dry mode and certainly without much reference to any sort of theory whatsoever. I have used a number of books in this series. They are very good for what they are----just don't have very high hopes about what you will get. Other good ones I can recommend are Barnett's study of the Palauans, Friedl's study of a Greek village, and Beals' study of a South Indian village. They are out of date, but still useful for making students aware of what anthropology is (or used to be) about.

The Ainu of the northwest coast of southern Sakhalin all left their homeland after the war and fled to Japan to avoid the Russian army. Thus, Ohnuki-Tierney's book is definitely a work of preservation, recording the ways of a culture that no longer exists. She approaches the people sympathetically, giving us a clear picture of their life style, without really revealing anyone's life. She also deals very well with the Ainu as a people, brushing aside all the mysticism and romantic nonsense once spread about "the lost Caucasian race of hairy Ainu" etc. I learned a lot about the possible origins of the Ainu as well as their relationship with the Chinese and Japanese in previous centuries. If a reader combines this book with Kayano Shigeru's "Our Land Was a Forest", a good picture of Ainu life in the 20th century can be acquired. I recommend this book with the caveat that it represents an earlier style of anthropology that is no longer in fashion. It can be useful nevertheless.

This book's as much about fly fishing as The Big Two-Hearted River is. Without ever deviating from its straightforward purpose -- to explore the good people Chatham's met in a lifetime of flyfishing the San Francisco Bay and points north for chinook and stripers -- Chatham manages also to pen a meditation on what makes people good, and how challenge (including the challenge of fly fishing well) nurtures that goodness. The book's also a love story to a Northern California that used to be, and belongs in any Bay Area or Northern Californian's bookshelf along with Bay Area Landmarks, The Flavors of Home and other well-written celebrations of that place's home geography.

And the details about fishing, in bays, estuaries and rivers, are fun.

If you have any doubts about the literary value of this book, note the foreword by Thomas McGuane -- who wouldn't muck around writing forewords for trash.

Loved the book, Russell.

Brigham Madsen provides a good through history of the Bannock nation. His focus/speculation on how they became seperate from the Snake nation and on their continued existance in regards to buffaloe hunting provide an excellent benefit to reading this book. Though somewhat dry in parts, this book gives a reader insight into the life of the Bannock and the history of the american west. Great for anyone interested in the history of southern Idaho, Oregon, NA history or History of the American West.

This book documents a journey on houseback from Mexico to Alaska. A true story set in 1976. Enjoyable easy reading.

I have used this book with elementary students with nice results.The first few pages describe how the Northwest Coast Indians made, decorated and used wooden boxes. Then line-drawn patterns are given which can be colored, cut out, and pieced together like a puzzle. There is a Salmon Egg Paint recipe for making the same type of paint the Indians used. There are instructions for making a Bentwood Box out of heavy paper, which is then decorated. The design templates imitate well the art of the Northwest Indians, similar to that used on totem poles.