I met Jerzy on the corner of 86th street personally selling his book and chatting with passersby. I bought the book based on his radiant look. A man pursuing his dreams to the fullest with clarity and courage. The book is just as I expected. I encourage all those with the ability to explore the road less traveled (so to speak) to read this book!

I spent two weeks traveling through Cuba, staying with families and exploring the non-touristy world of the island. But Adamuszek, with the eyes of someone who grew up in Eastern Europe, sees a dimension of Cuba that my American eyes couldn't. Reading this travel memoir was fascinating for the author is not only insightful, but with delightful commentary observes the life of the Cuban people at a critical time in the island's history. For anyone who wants to read about adventure, politics, and the human spirit, this book will more than satisfy.

In 1994 Jerzy Adamuszek flew from Montreal to Varadero, but upon arrival he left the usual tourist track and began cycling around the country on his own. He was there just before Fidel opened the country to limited private enterprise and his deadpan account is a wonderful record of the way the country was in those days. This book isn't going the make you want to bicycle around Cuba - and Adamuszek himself doesn't recommend it - but it will reveal how Cubans away from the tourist enclaves really are. It's a classic in the bicycle travel writing genre.

This volume of readings for a year sets the tone for each week with a reading from the Torah. For each day of the week there is a selection of readings. These readings may be a single sentence, a poem, a paragraph, a teaching tale. They are a variety of traditional Judaica, philosophers, poets, Christians, Hindus, Buddhist, Taoist. They are so well selected that they create a coherent whole not a mishmash and reflect a deep, mature spirituality on the part of the collector. While the weekly cycle may target a Jewish audience, the book is so well put together that it can be recommended for individuals of any religious persuasion.

A concrete example of the variety. For week 28 (Leviticus 14:1-15:33) Sunday: Emily Dickinson, Jacob J. Halevi, Dag Hammarskjold; Monday: psalm, Talmud; Tuesday: psalm, Chasidic, Kenneth Hildebrand, Leigh Hunt; Wednesday: Talmud, Blaise Pascal, Sigrid Undset, Sir Thomas Browne; Thursday: Psalm, Yiddish proverb, Janet Harrison, Archibald Rutledge, Juvenal; Friday: Abba Kovner, Chasidic, Elinor Wylie, Helen Keller; Shabbat: Psalm, Lion Feuchtwanger, Clarence E, Pickett, Booker T. Washington, Albert Camus. Wonderful.

I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Chaim Stern, the editor of this book. He had a profound impact on my life. Through his prayer books and other writings, he has touched millions of people. Please, allow yourself the joy of being touched by his work, and buy this book! He is an inspired man who shares wisdom that will have a lasting impact on you. He was one of the greatest thinkers of our time. His passing is a tragic loss, since he remained so prolific. Yet, his words will live on and on. Please enjoy the richness of this book for years to come, and let his memory and influence continue forever!

This is a the work of a brilliant man--a compilation of thought and stories, poems and prose from the world's great thinkers and writers. Wonderful for anyone with any interest in contemplation of the great themes of life. Truly spiritual.

They say write about what you know...LeMonds knows the soul of the past and modern logger and writes with as unpretentious style as I've seen in a long time. He uses the language (always loggers...never lumberjacks) and shares with the reader the language and techniques of everything from falling, bucking, setting chokers, to trucking the logs. Furthermore, he does it based upon the real-life experiences of his family. You learn how they used to rig a spar tree and what went through the climbers mind as he accomplished this task 150-200 feet in the air. LeMonds also shares the future of forestry (hand-seeding, herbicides, fertilizer & thinning) to move the life span of high-productive crops like Douglas Firs from hundreds of years to perhaps as little as 35 years as well as what the modern equipment does now and probably into the future.. Perhaps you might find the short chronology of the work history of each of his family members in the logging business too detailed but it's more than worth the wonderful stories and perspectives that go with them. LeMonds acknowledges the scars on the landscape of the past but also the enduring scars on these tremendous men who contributed so much to this Country's development of the 20th century. I don't think one could ask for a more balanced view of this industry and have it written with such class. This is the best book I ever expect to read about this subject, which is so dear to my heart having been raised in a nearly identical community in Southern Oregon. Today I ordered a second copy to send to a dear friend still working in the woods.

James Lemonds peels away the Bunyonesque macho image that has been falsely hung on the loggers of the Northwest and shown them as they are; broken down, disabled and discarded by the industry that exacted a terrible toll on both the workers and the forests.
Anyone wanting to research the human cost the industry extracted should start with this book. Death and disabilty rates beyond the range of nightmares were considered standard and acceptable, simply because the carnage took place outside the public view.
The hard work, honest efforts and caring that the workers brought to the job were repaid with lack of respect and now, lowering wages, no job security and disdain from the general public.
As bad as it is in Lemonds description, the list at the end of the book does not include all the co-workers of any current or former loggers that I have talked to who have read this book, nor co-workers of mine, who were killed on the job. The toll suffered by the workforce was at least equal to that suffered by the forests.
Lemonds tells the story in an even-handed, personal way through his extended family and community. This is a must-read book by any student of Northwest culture of the past century.

Logging in America's Northwest, an industry and occupation which arouses strong passions and polarizing viewpoints.

Jim LeMonds, though not neglecting the emotional and substantive areas of contention, focuses primarily on the human contribution and in some cases sacrifices of the loggers themselves.

This book should be read by anyone with even the vaguest interest in forest management and environmental issues. Although he is from a logging family, I feel that the author has been exceedingly fair in his description of todays industry and what the future holds for this industry and more importantly for logging communities.

To me the efforts and accomplishments of the people featured in this book, and the many thousands like them, are what has made our country great. It is ironic that their contibutions and in some cases sacrifices have not received the recognition that they are rightfully due.

Buy this book, regardless of your political viewpoint on the logging industry, and celebrate the spirit that has enabled all of us to enjoy the many privledges of being Americans.

I recently purchased DISCOVER! Volume 3 and I want more! Please send Volumes 2 and 3!

Having traveled and lived in the areas described in Vol.3, The Lower Mississippi, from St. Louis, Missouri to Memphis, Tennessee, and descended from a family of river rats, I can say that I've "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."

Reading Pat's book is like traveling along with her as she explores the Great River Road along the mighty Mississippi River. I was especially impressed with the with the book's scope and readability. Pat has included personal insights from area inhabitants, collected geographical, historical and societal information and spread it all liberally throughout the travelogue. This is one hard book to put down, and if you ever decide to visit the area you'll have plenty of reference material to use. You will feel like you know the place already, and have gotten your own t-shirt.

Jim Pankey USN (Ret.)

Rolling on the River.......... In a few weeks, it'll be road-trip weather, and we have some of the nation's prettiest highways at our fingertips--US Hwy 61 and several other state and county highways form the parkway known as AMERICA's Great River Road. Making that drive even easier is a new guide: "DISCOVER! AMERICA'S GREAT RIVER ROAD, Volume 1." This 240-page guide highlights the heritage, natural history and recreational activities available along the Mississippi River from St. Paul, Mn., to Dubuque, Iowa. It includes maps, historical and geological points of interest, bike trails, bird watching spots and short features on small towns, parks, and villages. ----STAR TRIBUNE, Minneapolis, Mn. April 1997

I live in Austin, TX and wanted to find out where I could take my dogs and let them really run. Well, not only did this guidebook tell me what areas allow leash-free dogs (and it turns out the Austin area has a lot more than I ever knew!), but it gave great anecdotal descriptions of the various trails, facilities, etc. I've taken the pups on four walks so far (I've had the book a month) based on recommendations in this book and the descriptions were dead on accurate.

Dogs, Larry D. Hodge has concluded, are like American Express Cards. "Some people won't leave home without them," says the Mason free-lance writer. That's the idea behind Hodge's new book, "The Texas Dog Lover's Companion" (Foghorn Press, $20.95). Hodge has "the inside scoop on where to take your dog" in the Lone Star State. It's the seventh "Dog Lover's Companion" volume from the California publisher. Hodge, who writes about travel and the outdoors for a number of Texas publications, including the San Antonio Express-News, says a guide for dog lovers didn't initially set his tail to wagging. He writes in the book's introduction: "Traveling dogs are a common sight in Texas ... What's the big deal? In Texas we just tell the dog to get in the back of the truck with the kids." Editors at Foghorn Press pressed him. They wanted listings of Rover-friendly restaurants, festivals, hotels and motels. They wanted to know where pet owners can walk a dog without a leash. Hodge approaches the subject matter with humor and humility. To conduct research, Hodge traveled mostly with Sport, a Rhodesian Ridgeback/handsome stranger mix, and sometimes with Samantha, an Australian blue heeler mix. The author, who confesses to sneaking both dogs into a Corpus Christi motel that doesn't allow pets ("We spent the entire time keeping them quiet"), was "surprised at how many motels openly welcome dogs." At more than 600 pages, "The Texas Dog Lover's Companion" is well-researched. You can bet Hodge did his homework, ranking park areas by a system of paws - four paws being the, er, cat's meow. The lowest rating is a fire hydrant, or as Hodge writes, "That means the park is just worth a squat." Two parks in San Antonio got 31/2 paws - Martin Luther King Park and Southside Lions Park. The latter "is as good as it gets for a dog in Texas," Hodge says. Another South Texas favorite is Dwight D. Eisenhower Park. "It has great walking trails and great views of the San Antonio skyline," Hodge says. The biggest surprise in researching the book was "how many closet dog people are out there who keep a dog at their place of business all day ... everything from book stores to dress shops to restaurants to motels. "The minute I said something about doing a guide book for dogs they would turn and get real friendly," Hodge says. In all, the book lists more than 400 places to chow down, hundreds of places to stay the night and nearly 500 parks, beaches, forests and wildlife areas, as well as doggy do's and don'ts, safety tips, rules of dining etiquette and hints on avoiding pooper- scooper faux "paws." Plus, "The Texas Dog Lover's Companion" is illustrated with delightful cartoons by Phil Frank.

The carpet in the back of my sport utility vehicle is still full of coarse, reddish hair, and I'm in no hurry to clean it out. That's where Rosie, our six-year-old Golden Retriever, used to ride. We took her to parks and beaches when we could, which in retrospect was not anywhere near often enough. Rosie was part of our family. She was our first "child" and later, Deputy Mom and Big Sister to our daughter Hallie. Like all good dogs, for her the term "unconditional love" was redundant. Last summer, as Hallie played in our front yard, someone driving a blue pickup truck ran over Rosie when she ran out in the street. The person who did it--Hallie says it was a man (only in the sense of his gender)--kept driving. Rosie was left writhing on the pavement with a broken back. Using a blanket, Linda and I got her into my truck and rushed her to an emergency veterinary clinic. After looking at an X-ray, the vet said there was nothing we could do for her but put her down. So, with the wisdom that only sad hindsight brings, if you have a beloved family pet, do things with it as frequently as you can, while you can. And buy a copy of a book funny enough to dry the tears from my eyes when I think about Rosie and the kind of person who would hit a 75-pound dog and not stop, while a little girl watched: "The Texas Dog Lover's Companion" by Larry D. Hodge (Foghorn Press, 656 pages, $20.95). The book is the first-ever Texas travel guide for people with dogs. It lists places where dogs are welcome, rating them on a scale of a fireplug (suitable only for "dewatering" your dog) to one to four paws, depending on the dog-friendliness factor. A good book offers more than its title suggests, and "The Texas Dog Lover's Companion" is a good book. What makes it good is that Hodge has personalized it, crafting it as something of a Texas-only version of "Travels with Charlie." Unlike John Steinbeck, whose faithful canine companion was Charlie, Hodge traveled with two dogs, Sport and Samantha.

Hodge could have written a simple, to-the-point guidebook, but his Steinbeck-like opus is full of observation and insight into Texas as well as the human and canine condition. Writing about a park in Houston, for instance, he mentions that he went to a nearby branch library to re-read a passage from the classic novel, "Old Yeller," by the late Mason writer Fred Gipson. Hodge and his two dogs put 25,000 miles on his sport utility vehicle (Hodge says his Sport appreciates the fact that Detroit bestowed her name on a whole vehicular genre) in researching "The Texas Dog Lover's Companion." Following a 20-page, philosophy-filled introductory overview on traveling with dogs (and in which Sport and Samantha are brought on stage), Hodge covers the state region by region. He and his co-researchers sniffed their way across the state, checking parks, places to eat and sleep and even places where you can take your pet shopping. Hodge found most of Texas pretty accommodating when it comes to dogs, but it's clear that he didn't mind leaving Lubbock in his rearview mirror. "Unfortunately, for dogs there are few positives," Hodge writes of Lubbock. "Dogs must be leashed everywhere, and we could find few places that actually welcomed them. For dogs, anyway, Lubbock seems destined to remain a stop on the way to someplace better." One "someplace better," he wrote, is Amarillo. Hodge likes its climate and friendliness -- to people and their pooches. Hodge's guidebook is a sometimes funny and always entertaining and useful travel reference even if you aren't traveling with Rover. If a hotel, eating place or park won't accept dogs, who would want to go there anyway? As Hodge writes, "Texas is going to the dogs. And it's about time." Hodge's book is a delightful salute to Texas and to dogs, from Old Yeller to Sport, Samantha and -- in sentiment, to Rosie. "It's the land that brings out what's inside us," Hodge quotes one savvy Big Bend resident as saying about her corner of Texas. "There's a beauty and clarity I believe you find only in open spaces." And, Hodge adds, "in the eyes of a dog."

A beautifully illustrated book written by Omar S. Castaneda who was born in Guatemala and teaches writing at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. The artist, Enrique O. Sanchez was born in the Dominican Republic and has worked as a graphic artist for Sesame Street. Together they create magic.

Esperanza is a girl who is learning to weave with her grandmother, Abuela. On the day of the Fiesta de Pueblos in Guate, they decide to reveal their work to the world.

"Esperanza, however, wore her favorite huipil: it was a white blouse with red, blue and green threads in the rectangular collar. Under that, the colors bled into silver and blue, and hidden within the intricate designs of the blouse were tiny quetzals flying freely in the threads the way they once flew in the great forests of Guatemala."

They have to take a bus and then finally they arrive in the city. Once Esperanza starts to hang up her work, people start to look at the elaborate weavings and some even take pictures. She sells all the items and her grandmother is very proud of her.

A loving story that follows in the tradition of Guatemala's legendary artisans.

Buy it! For a delightful experience of a grandmother and granddaughter and how they grow closer through sharing of talent and love, you should read this one.

After returning from a solo trip to Guatemala, I was looking for a way to give my children a sense of what the country is like - not just what I saw there, but what I felt, being among the Maya. This book provided me with the tool I was looking for. This touching story weaves the importance and closeness of Mayan family, the responsibility that Mayan children must assume early in life, and a bit of the mystery surrounding the people into a wonderful tale. Reading Abuela's Weave to my children was one of the only times I have ever cried over a children's book.

The kids liked it, too.

Tom Engelhardt's The End Of Victory Culture is a thought-provoking, historical look at how the concept of defeating a less-than-human enemy was part of American culture. Ingrained in that was the mission to defeat that enemy. The trouble was, the enemy was human, be they the Native Americans the colonists and later the American government displaced. We also had this mindset that we were always on the right and they were always wrong, therefore, they had to be defeated.

One element was to exaggerate the atrocities committed, meaning that yeah, some of it happened, but not in the large scale depicted by the white leaders to drive home the point that we had to kill these unholy, ungodly, . Colonist Mary Rowlandson's accounts on her captivity and the massacre she survived was the archetypal demonizing of the "enemy."

Victory culture nestled itself cozily in new visual media--the movies and television. Basically, the enemy performed some horrible atrocity on innocent whites, and it was up to the heroes to punish the enemy. The enemy would be defeated, more often than not killed, and everybody would live happily ever after. Straight and simple. It was in straight black-and-white (the issues as well as the early programs before colour TV and film came into being).

Engelhardt argues that between 1945 and 1975, the ends of WW2 and Vietnam respectively, that victory culture ended
Pearl Harbor gave plenty of opportunity to dehumanize the Japanese as an enemy, along with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

The Cold War was where it all went into overdrive. The Communists were now the enemy, and that paranoid ideological struggle into the unknown carried through not only into Korea and Vietnam, but into movies, TV shows (Twilight Zone), comic books (Tales From The Crypt, MAD), and even toys (GI Joe).

A new dynamic also came, of the enemy hiding behind some citadel or bunker, such as the Forbidden City or Kremlin, with only large posters of the leader representing the human face of the enemy. Thus the enemy couldn't be destroyed.

Vietnam demonstrated once and for all that we were fallible, and for a while, we were in a funk. And with My Lai, WE became the massacring enemy, the Vietnamese the colonists. The concept of victory culture was turned on its head with that event. And think about it: we lost Vietnam for the same reasons the British lost the American War for Independence. History has come full circle to America.

This book came out in 1995, and early on in the book, Engelhardt makes a well-worn but important point: "with the end of the Cold War and the loss of the enemy, American culture has entered a period of crisis that raises profound questions about national purpose and identity." Ponder that passage, and what's going on today in the world.

The main thing to ask today is, do we really need to have an enemy and a war to unite the people together? Peace and harmony can do the same thing. We do not need victory-for-one-side culture anymore. What we need is victory-for-all culture.

I've spent 2 years reading on this topic for my dissertation. This is far and away the best book on the subject - full of insight and wonderfully written.

"Is there an imaginable 'America' without enemies and without the story of their slaughter and our triumph?" (p. 15) This is the question at the heart of Engelhardt's remarkable blending of popular culture studies and military history.

In its outline, the thesis is straightforward: a long-established racially-exclusive national myth of bloody but righteous American retaliation to treacherous foes unraveled in the three decades after World War II. The new limited war strategies of the nuclear age forced awkward "containments" of this myth. The battlefields of Asia and, in particular, of Vietnam, led to "reversals," in which increasing numbers of Americans came to conclude that the familiar patterns that had helped to define national identity had been turned upside down. It is in the details of his argument that the author is at his best, making unexpected but genuine links between Mr. X (George Kennan) and Malcolm X; between the Mary Rowlandson captivity narrative of 1675 and the My Lai massacre of 1968; between the Strategic Air Command and Rod Serling; between V-for-victory signs and peace signs; between Chewbacca and Edward Teller; between Charles Manson and 1950s comic book culture.

Engelhardt brilliantly explores the complex connections between the games of American children and the broader national culture. That Engelhardt himself, born in 1944, was embedded in the post-war childhood culture is simultaneously a source of the book's greatest strengths and its greatest weaknesses. On the positive side, he draws upon autobiographical reminiscence in an understated and thoughtful manner. At times, however, he risks confusing the disillusioning of a generation (his own) with the end of what he calls "victory culture." The myth of American innocence is indeed a powerful one, but Engelhardt perhaps exaggerates its coherence and pull in the pre-December 7, 1941 world. The boundary lines of any national story are always fluid, and it was not only the Civil War that tested these boundaries in earlier eras. I also wonder whether it may be too soon to conduct post-mortems on victory culture. Engelhardt sees efforts to reinvigorate the tales of American exceptionalism in the post-Vietnam decades as tortured and ineffective. His comments about yellow ribbons, POWs, and new myths of victimization are intriguing, but my sense is that the metaphorical circling of the wagons will continue. Americans are not yet ready to see themselves as part of a vast human comedy.

Adams' poetry rocks! Anyone who can appreciate traditional forms and witty allusions but who also wants poetry to be to voice of the cultural moment will want to get Adams' first collection.

In "For Pandemonium," for example, Adams juxtaposes, or, perhaps more appropriately, appropriates, the primal post-lapserian (Miltonic?) city with/for both an urban (industrial?) love gone wrong and the limits of poetry itself.

Adams' poetry is smart and touching, often funny but always witty. I really enjoyed reading it. It is diffcult today to find a modern poet that writes both meaningful and fun poetry.

I recommend this one highly! It's formal without being snobbish (in fact, sometimes the form sneaks right past you, a subtlety which more poets should only be able to manage), but it has free verse too, for those of you who are fleeing in terror from any of the sneers which occasionally characterize the New Formalism. There are no sneers here. The book contains a number of love poems (not sentimental even at their most painful, though), and a number of "epistles" from the incarnate ET's of the Heaven's Gate cult (both poignant and funny), and a number of--I guess they'd be called "other poems." On a purely mundane level, this is certainly the book I'd reach for after a betrayal in love, but it's much more than that too.

My personal favorites are among the "others", with my all-time favorite being "Cerberus at the SPCA." I can't think of another poet who could combine the three-headed dog guarding the way to hell with the concrete and urine of the animal shelter, and it's an incredible combination; an appropriate treatment for people who abandon or negelct their pets might be to be tied up, preferably in the animal shelter, and have this poem read to them until they understand what they've done...Cerberus surveys the ranks of the damned in hell in just the way that visitors to the shelter look upon the caged animals, before he's caged there himself; that it's in Dante-esque terza rima only adds to the power of the poem. Cerberus says "I recognize that terror and that trust." So do readers of Adams' poems.

"Epistles from the Planet Photosynthesis" is masterful in its use of traditional and free verse forms. From Sapphic stanzas to sestinas, from sonnets of extraordinary beauty to a canzone whose repetitions reunite a splintered family, Mary Adams' poems demonstrate the ideal marriage of form and content. Confident and versatile, the poet is capable of heart-wrenching intensity ("What I Should Have Told You"), rare compassion, and genuine wit (see especially "Cerberus at the SPCA," a poem of humor, grace, and metrical virtuosity). Perhaps my favorite poem is one of the best villanelles of recent memory, "Queen of Grieve," in which form, image, and sound combine with unforgettable results: "She ruled a ruin, did the Queen of Grieve..." In all, a first book of singular vision and most impressive skill.

Crosslines Essential Field Guide to Afghanistan tells the full story about Afghanistan in a way I can't find in any other book. Whether it's politics, culture or humanitarian information you're after - it's all in there. I never realised how big those Buddhas were that the Taliban blew up until I saw a picture in this book! If you want to understand more about the country at the centre of world news, this is the book to buy!

CROSSLINES ESSENTIAL FIELD GUIDE TO AFGHANISTAN

Published by CROSSLINES Global Report and Media Action International (formerly the International Centre for Humanitarian Reporting-ICHR)

The Crosslines Essential Field Guide to AFGHANISTAN Is the only detailed guidebook dealing with the current situation of the country available in English. Although certain elements in the book have been overtaken by recent events, the field guide is still essential reading for all journalists, aid workers, diplomats and military personnel operating in the region or otherwise interested in Afghanistan. Journalists and relief workers from the BBC, TIME, UNHCR, UNICEF and other media or aid groups have already informed us that the Essential Guide to AFGHANISTAN is the best thing going for quick and informed background information.

The book features over 500 pages of political, humanitarian and military analysis, biographies of key Taliban and opposition players, essential information briefs on agriculture, medical relief, environment, culture etc. as well as all regions of the country, street maps, advice on health and security, phrasebooks in Persian and Pashto, contact details for diplomats, aid agencies and journalists. Specially commissioned essays written leading experts analyse the country's political, military, humanitarian, and cultural situation. All country data was collated through first hand field research the editors.

The editors are Edward Girardet (a journalist and former correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor; also author of Afghanistan - the Soviet War) and Jonathan Walter (a former officer with the British Army's Brigade of Gurkhas, and editor of the World Disasters Report)

This book was made for the use of relief workers working in Afghanistan. Aid for Aid participated in helping provide the maps for this book .

This is excellent reading at home and on the go. You'll want to buy two of these just so you have one at home, and one you can really rough handle on the road. :) If you're into medicinal herbs or you just love knowing what's what out in the wild, this guide is number one! A MUST! You need it now.

This book was so fabulous, in fact, I give it more than five stars, I give it twenty! It is because of this book that I now want to be an ethnobotanical chemisist. This book has such pep and drive, just the Introduction and Preface make you want to go outside start a weed garden, picket the FDA, and go to college for seven years to get your degree in botanical chemistry. You don't believe me, but I'm serious. READ THIS BOOK! If not the whole book, at least the Introduction and Preface. It'll give you SO much energy.

This is one of the better field guides available for identifying and determining the usefulness of many medicinal plants found commonly in the Eastern and Central US. This guide is recommended for beginners and experienced medicinal plant enthusiasts alike. A must have book for the novice in this field.