I read this book the same week that I read Paddleing the Vermillion Sea and Running the Amazon. Although Water and Sky will never get the coverage and sales of the other two, it is vastly the superior book. Without the angst and pretense of Waterman or Kane, Kesselheim tells a warm story of adventure, conducted on a human scale by credible people. This one deserves to survive as a classic.

For those of you who yearn to paddle in the barrenlands of Canada this book is for you. Alan and Marypat paddled down the Peace River and wintered over on the shores of Lake Athabasca. They traveled north on the Dubawant and Kazan Rivers to finish in Baker Lake. Danger - if you read this in the winter months it will lead to severe cabin fever!

Elizabeth Gibson's novel of Northern Ireland, "The Water Is Wide", is an exquisite piece of work, full of controversy, soul, faith, and the realization that we all have prejudices - and we all can change.

The book centers around the life of Katherine Hamilton, an English major at the New University of Ulster in Derry. The year is 1969, and Northern Ireland is in civil war. Katie, who was raised to believe that all Catholics are bad and that the North should always belong to the Queen, is thrown into the middle of the conflict along with many of her friends. Throughout this period of social unrest, the group struggles to find compassion, forgiveness, and hope in a land seemingly destined for bloodshed.

A beautiful gem written with grace, poise, and love, "The Water Is Wide" is a story that you won't be able to put down. As you travel through Katherine's journey of self-discovery, you will find yourself re-evaluating your own life - and finding that you, too, can change.

Touching look at a group of college students attending the New University of Ulster during the turbulent late 60s/early 70s. Follow Kate, Deirdre, Sheila, Roger, Liam and Jack as they struggle with what it means to be Catholic, Protestant, Irish, Christian, just and loving in a world that has, sadly, changed little since then.

Planning a Northern California wedding from NYC was made possible by Ms Doumitt's book! The places she recommends are really wonderful, and from caterers to photographers to you-name-it, this is a helpful wealth of information!

This book was a informative delight to read. I was able to find the gorgeous winery to have the perfect wedding. The book also helped me find a wonderful photographer and a delicous caterer. "Weddings" is just a fabulous book for anyone who wants to know more about the most perfect place in the world to have a wedding.

I think that it would be very hard to classify this as a picture book. The text is truly tremendous and the accompanying illustrations were excellent.
I certainly look forward to collecting the books in this Time-Life series.

This is one of those rare books which explores both the micro and macro of the period. It discusses the major historical events of the time in great detail. But it also paints a picture of everyday life of the common man/woman. The information is abundant and accompanied with vivid graphical representations which aid in learning about this place and time in history.

This was the first Catherine Cookson book I've read. It was also the saddest. It seemed that bad things just kept on happening to her, although the book did have a good ending. It sure took a long time for her to find happiness. Catherine Cookson is my favorite author because her stories are so realistic and almost everyone of her books I've read so far have made me cry.

...in this typical Catherine Cookson page-turner. The orphaned Emma is brought to live with her reluctant grandmother on a country farm. Life is hard. Emma endures very hard work, the abuse of her employers, and suspicion of her Spanish background.

Emma's great beauty and strenth of personality cause some men to love her and some men to hate and want to punish her for seeing through them. Circumstances force her to accept marriage from a decent enought young farmer Barney but her life is harsh, and she must endure the hatred of her brutal brother-in-law Luke, who eventually punishes both Emma and Barney in a particularly horrific fashion.

Emma must also bear the heartache her selfish, promiscuous daughter brings to the family, but she remains a good woman, working herself to exhaustion on the farm when her husband becomes disabled, and refusing to become bitter. I wish Emma had been allowed to use her Whip in a more dramatic, rescuing fashion, like Ayla and her slingshot in Clan of the Cave Bear, but it tends to serve more as a symbol in this novel.

Emma's relentless hard times depressed me more than usual, I don't think the other Cookson heroines suffer quite this much, except maybe Katie Mullholland or Tilly Trotter.

In any event, this is another superb Catherine Cookson I'd highly recommend.

The book describes 312 species of flowering plants, chosen from among about 2000 species of flowering plants native to a region that "includes the western parts of Minnesota and Iowa, all of North Dakota and South Dakota and Nebraska and the eastern parts of Montana and Wyoming." In other words, it's a guide to the most prominent flowering plants in the large geographic sector called the Grassland Province, which is a wide north-south belt of grasssland extending from Alberta and Saskatchewan south to Texas.

The books presents a color picture, usually about 2-inches by 2-inches square, for each species. It also gives the common name and scientific name, as well as a paragraph of the most important information about each species.

A particularly useful feature is that the book is divided into separate sections for grasses and ferns, yellow flowers, white flowers, red flowers and blue flowers. So, if you find a plant whose name you don't know, all you have to do is whizz to the section for flowers of that color. And there you are, unless it's a rare plant.

There's a good index and a small but useful bibliography.

The latest edition of l992 is an excellent companion for wildflower and grass identification on the high plains of Montana. The photos, descriptions, text and organization make it easy to use for the amateur wildflower enthusiast.

Wisdom Of Stones is really good. I am Australian and I loved it. I don't know why everyone is complaining about the first 30 pages . I thought they were great. I also recommend The Further Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn. Greg now resides in Australia again. Welcome home Greg. John Baranyai

This is typical Greg Matthews, which means that it's superb. This story begins in pre-WWII Australia, but it's mostly a war story, with an especially vivid rendering of a prisoner-of-war camp. There are about 30 pages near the beginning that don't work (no conflict, no action, no nothing) but the rest of the novel is so great that it has to get five stars.

I found the book very interesting and informative. Ms Town has portrayed Margaret Bulkley as a very tanacious person. As each chapter commenced I eagerly read on wondering if the masquarade would be exposed. The book provides educational information as to the struggles of an ordinary person in a difficult situation. All of us can learn from her adventure. Hats off to Ms Town for an enlightening and entertaining book.

In With A Silent Companion, novelist Florida Ann Town recounts the remarkable journey of Margaret Anne Bulkley, a young woman born in nineteenth-century Ireland. Margaret's heart is broken by the constant threat of poverty, but her spirit is awakened by the challenge of two gentlemen. She enrolls in medicine at Edinburgh University and, after years of dedicated study, becomes a surgeon. Margaret's struggle and triumph is made all the more exceptional because she does it disguised as a man. With A Silent Companion is inspired by a true story uncovered by years of meticulous research into the life of Margaret Anne Bulkley (a.k.a. Dr. James Barry). This is an intriguing, fascinating, historical novel of gender, poverty, determination, and accomplishment. This is the stuff of which movies and mini-series are made. Highly recommended.

This is an excellent book with a well written narrative discussing the history and modern situation of the American Wood Duck and its Asian cousin, the Manadarin. This book is a must read for anyone wanting to learn the natural habits of these great waterfowl. Furthermore, the pictures are simply breathtaking. Highly recommended.

For anyone interested in woodies or mandarin ducks there is not a more delightful informative book available(I know because I have them all I think). Well written, beautiful photography,a real joy to read.

Father Dumoulin's magisterial two volume history of Zen Buddhism is the standard English work on the subject and come highly recommended for any student of Zen of Eastern religions who wants a scholarly overview of the subject. My only caveat would be that this is NOT a history of Zen thought in the sense of a detailed analysis of the various philosophical doctrines of the various schools of Zen. Such a work would be much, much larger than this one. It does, of course, deal with these issues, but only in a very basic way, as one would expect from a general history. In short, it is the best general history of Zen available.

It's a real shame that this book is out of print. This is one of the great, classic studies of the history of the development of Zen. Volume 1 (this one) covers the antecedents of Zen in India to its development in China. Volume 2 covers Zen in Japan. I've only read volume 1, but I learned a lot about both the history of Zen and also its philosophy. Dumoulin is one of the great scholars of the history of Zen, and although he is not always philosophically acute, you will get some genuine insights into Zen doctrine by reading this. (Of course, according to Zen, the doctrine isn't really what's important!)