I enjoy Minnesota Trivia and am glad I bought it. It's not one of those parody books that poke fun at Minnesotans, but rather a bushel basket full of facts about Minnesota life. The six chapters are Geography, Entertainment, History, Arts and Literature, Sports and Leisure, and Science and Nature. My kids and their kids take it off the shelf to see if I can answer the questions (1,296 of them) about Kettle Falls, Prince, Red River ox carts, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Bronko Nagurski, or Sister Elizabeth Kenny. I'm glad it's on my shelf for snowy days. As a matter of fact, I have two, one for my own notes and one for the kids to use to ask the questions.

For those who ride on motorcycles in the state of Mississippi, this is a great book to have in your saddle bags. It gives interesting insights into who, what and why things occured.

This guide book gives you all you need to get to an area to climb and leaves just enough out that the fun in finding the area is still part of the climbing trip. Great route discriptions, this should be a must for your guide book collection for when you are off on that wild road trip you can stop and get some climbing in before or after you have crossed that great void known as Kansas.

Having discovered the Off the Beaten Path series while planning a vacation to South Dakota, I didn't hesitate to pick up the Missouri copy to see what I was missing in my backyard. I'm really glad I did! Even though I've discovered many things since moving to Missouri, this book has helped me discover quite a few new places to explore. The book has broken Missouri into concise geographical sections, so when planning a trip, you only have to look at the section of the state where you'll be travelling. The usual topics of lodging shopping, and restaurants are covered very well, but what I find most interesting are the little-known cultural artifacts highlighted in the book. If you're planning a trip to Missouri, or live here and want to discover more of your home state, this book is highly recommended. One warning though: you'll never look at any interstate, especially I-70, the same again!!

I felt the guide was well researched and well planned out. The book makes it easy to find what you are looking for and gives just enough information for each item that you look up. If you are going to be traveling in the SouthWest, this is the guide for you.

This guidebook will come in handy for your area travels. I enjoy the detailed maps that are inside. I have upgraded to Mobil Guidebooks over the AAA Guidebooks. This book is full of information including all resorts and hotels and restaurants and area sites to visit.

This book is well organized, well written, and very informative. If you're interested in neuropharmacology, you should definitely get this book.

This is a must-have book on the most important topic in the world, MONEY.

All of Dowd's books are of key importance.

Reviewed for The Wilderness Record, publication of the California Wilderness Coalition.

Most California environmentalists are familiar with the works of David Rains Wallace, having read his award-winning The Klamath Knot, the superb natural history of the greater Siskiyou region, or The Turquoise Dragon, an enchanting eco-thriller that takes the reader from the Bay Area to the Trinity Alps and Kalmiopsis wilderness areas. If you enjoyed these or a dozen other of his books, you will appreciate The Monkey's Bridge.

Wallace's latest natural history treatise looks at the region that linked North and South America some three million years ago and the amazing mix of flora and fauna that surged back and forth across this land bridge. His knack for bringing an region to life makes it a delight to learn about hundreds of species, volcanoes, plate tectonics, and gomphotheres.

But Wallace tells more of the story than just the natural history. He begins with the adventurers who sailed from Europe and conquered some, but definitely not all of the native peoples of Central America. Next are those trying to find a shortcut from the Alantic to the Pacific, including the French attempt to build a canal at a cost of an estimated 22,000 lives. He then brings in the naturalists, from those with the first explorers to Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace.

Much of the story is embedded in geology. The fossil record in North and South America led evolutionists to recognize the importance of this land bridge, and the revolutionary theory of plate tectonics gave us the mechanism to explain how the bridge formed.

But what really brings this book alive is that Wallace has been there, from his first three-month journey in 1971, a return in 1987 for a "gaudy bird-watching trip," and repeat visits during the last decade. He climbs the volcanoes, claws through the dense rain forests, and snorkels the coral reefs. "Big marine toads plopped in and out, acorn woodpeckers called 'Kraaaa! Kraaa' in the pines, and a flock of parakeets flew shrieking overhead," he colorfully writes.

As you surely imagine, this is not a totally happy tale. Wallace discusses the "island ecology" theories of habitat fragmentation and loss of species. He mentions the recent extinction of the flightless, grebe-like poc and the golden toad and recounts the decline of the harpy eagle. But he also describes efforts to reverse this loss of habitat through programs like Paseo Pantera ("the path of the panther") that is a major element of The Wildlands Project's strategy to protect the biodiversity of the North American continent.

Wallace clearly is in awe of the complexity and diversity of the Central American rain forest. "Sometimes I think the human language, or simply human mentality, hasn't evolved yet to the point where tropical rain forest is comprehensible or describable," he writes.

But with The Monkey's Bridge, Wallace has made a great start.

A great preview of "The Bob". Very good, concise information in a very readable format. I especially liked the sections on wildlife and history. Makes you want to go to Montana tomorrow and see the country, even if it is January and you hate snow. I can hardly wait for the summer and a visit to the wild country of "The Bob".