Penn has led me to insight into my own mixed-up family as my mother seems to have forgotten her own mixblood memory--had it not been for my grandparents, I would have never known my great-grandparents were members of the Delaware nation. Racial shame is the wrong way to bring up your children, and Penn clearly depicts the suffering it inflicts upon the entire family.

I think that good autobiography brings us to that space and place in our humanity where we must stop and rethink America's history so we do not continue to make the same mistakes again. Penn relates how American history has affected his own family from Chief Joseph to the present. What I enjoyed most was the way he wove textual criticism of other Native authors and their works into the story of his life. He is truly a gifted storyteller, and knows how to connect with his reader.

This is an amazing book. It is hard to write about one's own family and make it interesting. To go further and make it not only interesting, but relevant to others, takes a writer of rare talent. Penn is clearly such a writer, and I was very pleasantly surprised at the creative and original approach taken in this work. The author draws thought-provoking parallels and connections between his own mixblood Indian family's dreams, visions, failures and successes, and those of other families, in particular other native and mixed-blood families, including exploration of the writing of many historical native American figures. This is a creative and very original book, highly recommended.

Mr. Baldwin's book was very readable. It was a telling and insightful look at a most important time in American history. I only wish my high school American history classes talked more about the everyday lives of real people; I would have remembered a lot more about the Revolution other than Washington crossed the Delaware! As a direct descendant of Captain Piggot(t), it was all the more fascinating to me.

This book made the revolution, the frontier and my ancestors come alive for me. Carl Baldwin is a storyteller in the grand sense of the word. If I would have had history teachers like this, all of my classmates would have went into politics, teaching or writing. Mr. Baldwin, may he rest in peace, was a meticulous researcher. His description of the period was excellent, as was his knowledge of the characters. As I read, I followed his characters to the American revolutionary warfront and back. On the frontier, I followed the author up and down the Missippi. The characters are as big as life. Not only has he told us about the heroes we already know about, he has painted a portrait of my courageous, steady and true ancestors, Captain James Piggott and his wife, Frances James Piggott. Frances is a real life heroine and I am proud to be descended from her. I loved the book and I am so grateful that Carl Baldwin wrote it.

Most of us who enjoy nature have relied upon "bird books" or other guides to the species at one time or another as we inquire about our surroundings. These dull but thorough reference books often make their topics LESS interesting, quelling the interests that they're supposed to serve. We look up our bird, animal or plant and then move on having learned little more than its Latin name. Ugh.

This book shines like a beacon to future nature writers as it uses every description as the basis for a prosaic mini-essay; rewarding curiosity with enlightenment, fascination and delight. Imagine a reference book so enticing to read that you can't stop reading with just one description. Instead, the object of your curiosity serves as a mere starting point in the book; the first page of what often becomes a genuine sit-down-and-read-it experience.

If every nature writer put this much love into their topics, the trails would be overrun with enthusiastic hikers. Here's hoping that the author visits your neck of the woods soon, and provides you with the same exuberant writing he's given us here in the Pacific Northwest.

Unlike cut and dried Siera Club and Audubon field guides that attempt (unsuccessfully in my opinion) to regiment nature, this book contains information that falls in the category of lore. Not only are the pictures good, but the text sparkles with knowledge of the Northwest's flora and fauna and the author's own good humor. Put this in your backpack next time you head for the Cascades or Olympics and you will not be disapointed.

Mr. Jackson did excellent research for this book. I have numerous ancestors mentioned in the book and even had a picture of one that I had never seen before. Anyone interested in the history of the Western Mt, Idaho and Eastern WA area, will need to read this book. I hope that the Author publishes more material from his research.

From the book, I found out that the Metis of the Pacific Northwest formed many communities in that area. My great-grandparents were born in Walla Walla, WA. and we were told that they were French- Canadian and "Black Irish". I read that in Walla Walla, is where they founded communities and that they hid there ancestry and called themselves French-Canadian. So, on reading this, I found out that the missing part to my full heritage was actually a mixture of French and Native American Indian. I owe a great gratitude to Mr. Jackson. Thank-you!!! Sean

I enjoyed this book thoroughly, from it's interesting tidbits on historic uses of plants, to the explanations of known toxic principles within plants. The cautions about harvest, use, and overuse are well-stated. The descriptions enhance the line-drawings, and each plant description comes with an excellent photograph, making this a terrific guide for identification of wild edibles!

I just got this book (fourth printing, 1998) in my mail, and I can testify that it's well worth the money. It's a really good field guide to plants of The Far North, be it Alaska or Finland.

In addition to excellent pictures (which really show you clearly how to tell this plant apart from others) you'll frequently run across a sentence that goes something like "So-and-so says in his/her book that it's edible after it's been dried /boiled /whatever, but my taste tests implied ...".

Truly outstanding research and practical information, both on medicinal and culinary uses of these plants, make this an invaluable addition to the library of anybody interested in plants in the Far North.

Great work, Janice!

Sam's book, written from his cabin 100 miles north of the arctic circle, is a contemporary adventure story par excellence. I'm a recent University graduate in sustainable agriculture now living in Alaska. I appreciate Sam's view of living with the land, not just upon it.

Edge of Tomorrow By Sam Wright Reviewed by Frank Kadish

Few people are able to synthesize their lives from being born and raised in the west, to being a scientist, to become a minister in a free thinking liberal church, to an be outdoorsman and to put into practice his philosophy by combining it with living off the land as our ancestors did. My wife bought the book at our meeting of our group interested in communing with nature. I spent the last three hours reading it in one gulp. It has been as satisfying an afternoon as I have had in many a year.

Sam structures his philosophy and experience with the calendar and the events of the year in his in his cabin just below the Arctic Circle. His wisdom comes thru the stories he tells and the parables that he creates. With his wide-ranging experience in life, his story becomes an adventure of the mind.

Get the book and enjoy.

Not only is it one of the more delightful books I have read recently, it could very well be the best autobiography ever written by a lifetime resident of my hometown.

"The Eighth Lively Art" is at once a colorful history of Seattle in the 1950s, a thoughtful exploration of the artistic process, and a celebration of the connections that exist between people.

Wesley Wehr recounts his life as a young man in Seattle in the 1950s where, as a student of music composition at the University of Washington, he was befriended by such luminaries as painter Mark Tobey, poet Elizabeth Bishop, and actress Margaret Hamilton. He meets painters Morris Graves, Guy Anderson, and Helmi Juvonen, all of whom become lifelong friends. He has encounters with famous twentieth-century figures like photographer Imogen Cunningham and composer Ernest Bloch who offer there wisdom, hospitality, and encouragement.

The book is divided into chapters that focus, for the most part, on individuals he has known and people he has met. The artists convey their ideas about life and love while sharing their personal experiences with and approaches towards the composition process. Wes Wehr also relates his own, often unsuccessful, forays into music and painting during this early stage in his life.

For those of us who have grown up in Seattle, this book is a reminder of how this place has shaped our own sensibilities. How many of us, like the young Guy Anderson, wandered through the Burke Museum as a child looking at Northwest Coast Indian Art or, like Wes himself, spent our late teens hanging out on the Ave?

This book is, most significantly, about the power of friendship. I am so accustomed to living in a world where everything is assigned value based on net worth or earnings potential, I often lose sight of the things which have truly enriched my own life. After reading Wes' account of the various friendships he has established and maintained over the years, I recognized more clearly how very important such friendships have been to me.

I have really enjoyed this book. For the first time I feel an insight into the Northwest Artists that I have not felt before. It really leaves me asking for more. I hope that Wes will follow up with more details on these incredibly interesting people and their respective relationships with each other. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in artists and their lives, as well as anyone looking for some honest, open and fun reading.

The first time I got the book from a Chinese Muslim scholar, I began to search what i am Intersted and i got it. I t is about a Islamic sect Xidaodang in which I am one member.Mr. Lipman has been in Xidaotang once and did some research on the group.His book shows his description and study are not only successful, but objective as well.He has his own unique view on Chinese Muslim...

Most Americans don't know squat about Islam itself, let alone Islam in China. Yet today there are about 15 million Muslims in China, centered mostly in the northwest (Xinjiang province), along the margins of the old Silk Road. And they aren't just an insignificant minority: in the Middle Ages, for instance, Chinese Muslims played a central role in bridging the gulf between China, the Middle East, and Europe, bringing goods and knowledge both ways. (...)

Jonathan Lipman's "Familiar Strangers" explores some aspects of Islam in northwestern China from the first arrival of Muslims there in the 8th century up through the 20th. Like most similar histories, it revolves around two major dilemmas that have constantly faced Chinese Muslims (as opposed to non-Chinese Muslims living in China): first, is Islam compatible with Chinese culture? and second, can Chinese Muslims themselves properly be considered Chinese? China's "host" culture has always tended to absorb alien peoples and faiths -- whether they're Mongols and Turks (the so-called "barbarians"), Buddhists from India, or whoever. There were always strangers lurking at the gates of China, drooling with envy or burning with ambition, but almost every one of them who managed to break through eventually assimilated and became, in effect, Chinese: in fact, many sought to do so in the first place. But Muslims were an exception. Their Islamic faith forbade them to have the same kind of relationship with traditional Chinese culture as other groups: for instance, ancestor worship and reverencing the emperor were antipathetic to Islam. Consequently, Chinese Muslims were, while not complete strangers, "familiar strangers", ethnically Chinese, foreign by affiliation.

Lipman's history isn't a comprehensive account of Muslim culture on the northwestern Chinese frontier. Instead, it examines how Chinese Muslims reacted to the complexity of belonging to two cultures at once. Lipman explores, for instance, Muslim reaction to acculturation policies under the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Muslims' role as "strangers in bad times" during the Ming-Qing cataclysm in the 1640s. Chapter 3, "Connections: Muslims in the Early Qing, 1644-1781", analyses the introduction of Naqshabandiya Sufism into China in the early 17th century and the struggle between two rival forms of it -- the orthodox Khafiya and the radical Jahriya -- in the 18th century, the latter a branch of revivalist Wahhabism, the earliest modern version of so-called Islamic "fundamentalism". Chapter 4, "Strategies of Resistance," explores the period between 1784 and 1895, looking at three large-scale Muslim rebellions against the Qing state. Chapter 5 examines Muslim "Strategies of Integration" during the Nationalist period and under the People's Republic. Finally, Lipman sums his findings in chapter 6.

The book is a scholarly read and not always easy going. If you don't have much previous knowledge of Chinese history, start elsewhere. But if you've got the background, it's a great read.

This slim volume is fascinating, easy to read and beautifully illustrated. While it is not a thorough scientific treaty on the subject and doesn't provide information on the locations of ALL old growth (something I kind of expected from the title) it is nevertheless an exquisite introduction.
Having contacted Larry Eifert about the book I have to also say that he and wife Nancy are extremely friendly and helpful, not only pointing me in the direction of other information and advising on the best places to visit but also sending me further of his works gratis! In particular, a wonderful little chart describing the creatures and plants of the Redwoods which was the perfect suppliment to the Field Guide.

Field Guide to Old Growth Forests isn't a scientific treatise on old growth forests, but a guide to accessing and appreciating them, blending a science guide with a travel handbook. A review of the natural history of old growth forests blends with the author's pen and ink drawings and tips on where to find the remaining old growth forests.