This book is obviously a labor of love. The authors know the area well, and in detail. They appreciate all the layers of culture, from prehistoric through Etruscan and ancient Roman right down to modern life. I spent a week bicycling in Lazio using this guide, and was never disappointed. In addition, you will want to have a good map (e.g. the TCI 1:200,000 map) and perhaps a restaurant guide if eating well is important to you.

This is a plain print book, with few illustrations or diagrams, but with a useful table to help you find places that interest you (e.g. Renaissance gardens).

A pity it's out of print.

Loved this book. First, the pics are outstanding. Oversided and clear, much better than what you usually find in books. Second, they tell their story very well, including the many close calls. Like the time they had to leave the bay of this small island when a sudden storm came up, and had to quickly make exact mathmatical computations of the channel or they would have been killed. The whole book gives a very good "real time" account of what it was like making the voyage -- the storms, having waves break over your head, seeing the first iceburgs in the convergence zone, being alone in the beauty of Antarctica.

Very informative review of a critical global environmental issue. Very accessible for the non-expert but also lots of detail for those with greater knowledge. The fantastic pictures, graphs and charts really put things in perspective and make details easy to understand -- as does the great chronology and glossary. The book has a fantastic set of contributors including leading scientists, policy-makers, environmental advocates, indigenous representatives, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Porgramme and the Minister of the Environment in Canada.

It is indeed difficult to believe that this book was not compiled by Brown himself, because its selection, structure and organization is ideal. This collection of Brown's writing captures GMB's spirit and artistry just as well or better than any of the work that he himself compiled. It is perhaps a better portrait of the poet than his own autobiography. The poet never seems quite comfortable writing about himself at any great length. This book presents Brown's life, family, influences and beloved Orkney as he experienced them. It is a glimpse inside his spirit in many ways. Brown offers commentary and stories that offer insight into his poetry (with the related poem included). There is a section on various Orkney characters (including his parents) that is extremely touching. Other sections include, writing about the months of the year, Orkney folktales and history as well as various episodes from Brown's life. It all forms a very coherent whole somehow, and paints a vivid picture of Brown and life in Orkney. Throughout Brown's writing is superb and his images are wondefully evocative. Oddly enough, this collection of largely unpublished work may be the best place for the uninitiated to eneter Brown's world. For those already familiar with Brown's writing, it is indispensible.

"Northern Lights" takes its title from the magazine of the same name, published in Missoula, Montana, which according to the editors of this fine collection of essays "publishes Westerners who write about the West." While you may expect it to be a book comprised mostly of nature writing, it proves that Westerners have other things on their minds besides an environment of natural beauty that was so recently still "wild." True, the essays are often marked by a sense of loss at the encroachment of civilization and the land use policies that have resulted in overgrazing, deforestation, pollution, and depletion of natural resources, not to mention the brutal displacement of native populations.

But it's not a jeremiad either. For all that has been lost, there is an insistence among these writers on a kind of redeeming integrity that can be found in treasuring what is left. And there's also a good deal of humor. Edward Abbey's diatribe against cowboys and ranchers' access to public lands is uproarious. So is Bill Vaughan's "Notes from the Squalor Zone," about a kind of Western-style hillbilly existence on the fringes of some unnamed city, referred to only as the Valley of the Liberals. There are essays on playing poker, drive-in theaters, western cooking (SOB stew and "prairie oysters"), an old-time hardware store, and the Russian origin of tumbleweeds. More sobering subjects include editor Donald Snow's "Ecocide" and Frederick Turner's "Wounded Knee III."

Lest anyone assume that western writers are typically male, roughly one-third of the forty contributors are women, including Gretel Ehrlich and Judy Blunt, writing on subjects ranging from girls riding horseback to breast cancer, coyotes, Native Americans, winter camping with at-risk youth, ranchers' wives, and why working men don't wear wedding rings. And Louise Erdrich provides an introduction.

A brief summary like this can only brush over the surface of this wonderfully rich book. You come away with a sense that the subject is much too vast to encompass in a single volume, and in the face of all this diversity, stereotypes and cliches about the West soon evaporate. I happily recommend this book to anyone interested in the high plains and mountain states, and in hearing the voices of men and women from a wide range of backgrounds, whose life journeys find them somewhere in that landscape. For books along similar lines, I recommend Frank Clifford's "Backbone of the World" and Ian Frazier's "Great Plains."

This is accepted among lighthouse fans as the first comprehensive book on Canadian lighthouses, coast-to-coast, ever to have been published. Over 200 lighthouses are covered. Noted lighthouse historian Dr. David Baird provides historical details and maps. The more than 300 images include some lighthouses that no longer exist.

This book belongs on the shelf of every lighthouse buff. It would make a great gift for any Canadian sailor. Buy a second copy as a carry-on when sailing in Canadian waters and share the information an each lighthouse as you pass. It will add so much to your journey.

The endpapers of this book feature an 1848 map of lighthouses on the Great Lakes. The evolution of the Lighthouse Board and the Fresnel lens are accompanied with historical photos as the book moves toward the 20th century. There are even some sequential photos of early training exercises for keepers and rescue workers. Readers then get to meet some of those keepers and their families, not in dry biographies, but in colorful accounts and memoirs. Once acquainted with these brave men and women, the tour of the Great Lakes lights begins, and sometimes I think that you see these lights today through their eyes. There is a pride in those that have been lovingly preserved, and a sadness for those in ruins. Each light covered has its historical significance and photo; some lights have more than one. A great many of the shots are aerial views, all in all a treat for any lighthouse buff.

This award winning picture book is the story of Kataujaq, a young girl living in Canada's arctic who loses her mother to a sudden illness. Kauaujaq greatly misses her mother, and several years pass with her dealing with her grief on her own. It is explained that the people of her village like to play soccer out on the sea ice under the moonlight, using a caribou skin ball stuffed with moss and fur. Her grandmother tells her that the thousands of thin strands of light moving about in the northern lights above them are really the souls of those that have passed on, playing soccer with a huge, frozen walrus head. This greatly consoles Kataujak as she feels her mother's presence, and no longer feels as lonely.

Full of Canadian content, the text and illustrations realistically convey many aspects of life in Canada's north. Highly recommended as a read-aloud for children in grades 1-2.

Author, Nancy White Carlstrom and illustrators Leo and Diane Dillon have combined their talents to create a truly beautiful bedtime story for the young child. Nancy White Carlstrom whose family moved to Alaska wanted to create a book that was reflective of the flora, fauna and traditions she found there.

Included in her lovely poem are both animate and inanimate items as mountains, rivers, trees stars, moon, moose, wolves, bears, foxes, and mice brought to life as members of the family, grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, cousins, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers. The book supplies a profound and visual picture of our inter-connection with nature and each other that are frequently found in Native American folk tales.

The Dillons are well reputed children's illustrators who specialize in illustrating stories which fairly represent many different cultures. Their illustrations in this book are outstanding and really I would love to have some of them framed. This book as other outstanding children's book could serve as a coffee table book for adults to leaf through and drool over.

The book is for children though and it provides a wonderful warm feeling for children as they nestle into their bed on a cold winter's night or even in the summer. How special it is for children to know they are loved by many different family members as they fall asleep.

For many years this classic book was out of print and difficult to find. This is a rich and complete anthropologic study of the varied native cultures of northern California. Long before Kroeber brought Ishi out of the woods, Dixon spent his life researching and living among the disappearing native cultures of northern California. First rate source book!