This book is not very useful for the average visitor to Ireland (one month or less...). It only lists one B&B per town, if that; while the descriptions are very detailed, this does not give the reader much to go on. If you want a broader view, you will want to find a different guide. For my purposes (2 week visit), it was not useful.

I had the opportunity to use this book while on an extended vacation in Ireland. I had the use of several guidebooks, but this publication became the book of choice. I found the information to be timely and descriptions of the various B&B's to be accurate, including the personalities of the various owners. Only one time was I unable to contact a B&B using the information in the book and subsequent attempts revealed the telephone number to be disconnected. The guide offers a good selection of types, locations, and prices and is, in my mind, a "must have" guide when traveling in Ireland.

And contrary to another review, the auther DOES list more than one B&B per town. We used this book almost exclusively in booking a 14 day vacation, and we were never disappointed. The authors notes and reviews are spot on and reliable. There were no "surprises"; if she said a host took Visa, they did, if she said they didn't, they didn't. The very first recommendation we followed (Cloch na Scith in Spiddal, Co. Galway) was so well described that I felt instant recognition with the house and the owner who did - just as the author said - offer the warmest welcome in Ireland. Each recommendation was just as terrific and when we could not book in a desired house, as in Adare, the hosts of those houses made excellent, comparably-priced recommendations for us - and by the way, the author lists B&B's of varying rates, to suit every budget. Without exception, the hosts presented in this book were warm, friendly, professional and "vacation makers". I feel completely comfortable recommending ANY of the author's recommendations to anyone else preparing to visit Ireland...THIS BOOK is the one you want to work from. Highly Recommend.

I ordered this for use in my daughter's 6th grade science class in Oakland. Unfortunately, it contains no photographs of the birds--only text descriptions of viewing locations. So it's not useful as an identification guide. The general description should clearly state this. JM

I've used the guide to help plan three birding trips so far and found it to be an asset in preparing for the trip (e.g., understanding the location, what species to expect, and best time to go). Upon arrival at the site, I found myself using a field guide like NGS's Field Guide to Birds of North America almost exclusively to help sight and identify the birds.

Birding Northern California is not suitable as a true field guide since it lacks detailed graphics or photos of the close to 600 species that can be found here. While using the book, I also found the book to be "too wordy" to use as a reference. For instance, to find the best location in Northern California to view a Ross's Goose in December, you would need to browse a good chunk of the book before finding a spot (and it might not be the best location). Later I discovered handy reference information in the very back of the text (e.g., Chapter 7 provides a breakdown of "specialty birds" throughout the area with their respective ranges mapped for winter and summer). FYI - the Ross's Goose is included in Chapter 7 with the key sites. The last chapter of the book provides a complete listing, including specialty and more common birds, with a geographic region and month of the year to look for the bird.

Given the room for improvement in the book's organization, I would encourage the publisher/author to produce a 2nd edition. The ideal improvement would be to include a CDROM that structures the information by bird species (hey, a photo would be nice), the locations where the bird can be found with a relative ranking, the time of year (again with some form of ranking). Including a CD would also allow the reader to search over the information by species or location.

With the passion of a life-long birder and the precision of a former professor of engineering, John Kemper has written an exceptional, new site guide for northern California. Detailed information is given for 81 major locations from the Oregon border through Monterey, King, and Tulare counties plus the Kern River Valley in Kern County; Mono County and the White Mountains are included on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada

The book focuses on species of interest by listing "specialty birds" and "other key birds" at the beginning of each location description. Specialty birds include uncommon to abundant birds found primarily in the western United States, endangered or threatened species, and rare birds if the site is among the best for the bird. The text describes when, where, and how to the find the birds at each site, and this information was personally verified by John during two years of fieldwork preparing the book. Range maps and bar charts at the back of the book are cross-referenced to the best sites for each species and the time of year when each species occurs in different regions of the state. Readers will appreciate the easily readable, detailed maps and the clearly written site descriptions. Novices, long-time California birders, and birders from out of state planning their first or 100th trip to the state, will find the information needed to find the birds of interest to them and to plan successful birding trips.

It is unfortunate that a subject, as important as this,could not have been treated in a more intellectural manner.It is unfortunate that a series of photographs have been utilizied to represent ethnographic material to serious collectors or researchers,when the written material is superficial, at best. This is,in many respects an unfortunate book when a more serious approach was needed. Any individual, when writing about an important subject, such as this, has a responsibility to be accurate and to provide information that informs and educates the reader. this book fails those tasks tasks in many respects.

This book is one that will stand beside any beautiful book on Indian History. The significance of this collection of Indian artifacts is remarkable. The photography of the items in complete medicine bundles, and the detail of the of bead work in moccasins, feathers in a Sioux-style bonnet and a Split -horn bonnet, circa 1870, would be of great bennifit to any artist who is looking to depict the true color and beauty of these rare indian items.This book was, "honered by the Printing industry of America as one of the outstanding art books created in 1992."Unless you want to drive to the Provincial Museum of Alberta to view this collection, It is well worth the price of the book to see this religious History of a great Indian People.

Before Bob Scriver sent this collection of materials off to the Edmonton Provincial Museum to be preserved for expert study, he personally paid for these photos to be made and for this book to be printed-- not so much to sell books, as to make sure all Blackfeet or persons who cared about Blackfeet could hold the collection in their hands. Scriver had known the Carberry family and knew that their collection went to the Field Museum in Chicago, where they were no longer accessible to the public. Something similar happened to the Sherburne Collection after it went to Gonzaga University in Spokane. Scriver knew that unless the materials went into the protection of a major institution, they would be separated and maybe destroyed. Therefore, he did the best he could-- as a man trained in music rather than anthropology-- to guarantee the future. The photographer, Marshall Noice, is particularly fine.

Of course, Scriver was self-indulgent when he included family photos from his album, but to him these materials were part of his real life and came from his friends and neighbors.

The fancy scientists are free to study the collection and render their judgments in later books. It was more important to Scriver that the school kids and elders on the reservation should be able to "own" these materials for $60 or a library card.

i really did think that the book was very very biased . obviously it was bound to be one sided " oh! we're soooo poor and oppressed". what i fail to see is that you beleive to be so rightious. you say there is a war, but that his death was caused by his/your oppression. even if there was a war it is acceptable to say that there will be fatalities.

What a treasury of facts! Read it even if you believe that the Anglo-Irish conflict's terrorists are Irish; perhaps especially if you do. Author Feehan's facts are devastating and he organizes them masterfully. His preface,"A Word To The Reader" is alone worth the book's price. Its chapters ("The Background" followed by "Caveat Emptor" (news media involvement), "The Beginning" (Sands' earlier life ),"The Young Man," "The Prisoner," and "The End") are jam-packed with revelations. Even the Epilogue contains stunners. The Irish gov't, by its deeds, reveals itself as a London-run Quisling operation. This book is a great read; but its historical importance derives from the uniqueness of its truthfulness regarding Sands and Northern Ireland. From it you will learn about integrity and understand why communities as disparate as, for example, Le Mans, France and Teheran now contain streets named "Bobby Sands."
For greater detail of the actual (mostly British) terrorists' identities see any of the compilations all of which are undisputed and mutually consistent. The most concise of them, available from Amazon.com, is "An Index of Deaths From the Conflict in Ireland: 1969-1993" by Malcolm Sutton.

Bobby Sands is a true hero of the Republican Movement and the fight to end British injustice in the north of Ireland. Due to government censorship of all press and media coming out of the north, many people either don't know much about the War, or don't know the truth to the stuggle that continues today. Read the book-if you don't know, don't know what to think, or want to know more. It is a wonderfully well written and researched book, and it is here solely to bring you the real story. Take advantage of it.

I bought this book and the Diving and Snorkeling Guide to the Cayman Islands sight unseen. Ususaly Lonely Planet has great books but not this time. This is a dive guide, not a snorkeling guide. Putting Snorkeling into the title is a blatent attempt to sell more books. There is almost no info about where to snorkel in Monterey or Northern California. Instead, the info is just about diving. Info about diving a site that is in 75 feet (etc..) of water has nothing to do with being able to snorkel it.

This is a great overview of the most popular Monterey/Carmel dives, with accurate dive information/directions and good guidance regarding levels of expertise. I've sent this to "warm-water-only" diver friends and made a few converts -- it's not shy about the cold water (easily dealt with by proper gear), but shows off the majesty of kelp beds and the delights of diving with seals, sea lions and sea otters to advantage.

More experienced buddies who thought they knew it all about particular dives have been skeptical watching me (a relative novice) pull this out of my bag, but after review commented that it's an excellent resource for dive planning (e.g., depths, navigation, surge, what to look for). For a tourist to the area wanting to get in a bit of diving, a great resource to supplement a local guide. For us locals, a nice addition to word-of-mouth, an end to playing "guess the species," and a great resource when arguing about where to dive next time .

I regularly dive the monterey area and I was looking for more information about the area, and the north coast. This book was great! Beautiful pictures and great information. The book works very well for deciding on a place to dive, and is a great reference for finding new dive sites.

Wil Carson is a troubled young man. There is no doubt in The Rainbow Singer that the Troubles in Northern Ireland have turned a regular teenager into a very confused and angry person. What there is confusion about, however, is the target audience for this book.

Essentially told in the voice of a 14 year old, heavy metal loving child of the 80s, The Rainbow Singer is one man's reflection on what his life was like as a youth. From his present-day jail cell in Wisconsin, Wil Carson (our main character and narrator), tells the story of a one month long church-sponsored multi-faith trip from Ulster to America that he took part in when he was 14. Designed to bring Irish Catholic and Protestant youth together, the trip puts Wil in the strange and confusing world of Milwaukee.

The story relates the tension between Catholic and Protestant students, romantic awakening and a brush with homosexuality. In short, The Rainbow Singer is a coming of age memoir set against the backdrop of the Irish Troubles. Where it succeeds is in the quirky and sometimes funny perspective of a headbanging teen. But where The Rainbow Singer fails is, sadly, more noticable.

The book is a very fast read because the voice of Wil is somewhat unsophisticated. This is good in that it is true to his character, but it makes the book read like a YA novel. This, again, would be fine if the book was aimed at a youth audence, but the large amount of violence, swearing and sex in the novel prove taht it is definitely an adult book. The Rainbow Singer took about 1.5 hours to read and was not developed enough to be truly satisfying, nor is it light enough to be fun and airy.

All in all, The Rainbow Singer could have been an interesting look at a teenager's perspective on Catholic/Protestant tensions in Ulster, but ended up being toothless and bland.

Since I have a Web site in which I can express views on books I recommend, I rarely post an opinion here at amazon.com. But I have to question the previous reviewer's comments. First, just because a narrator is 14-years-old, it does not automatically make it a young adult novel. Fiction can be written from any perspective, any age. Moreover, the narrator of the The Rainbow Singer is NOT 14-years-old. He is retelling the events that happened when he was 14 from his prison cell fifteen years later. And yes, that does make it a bit of page-turner because you want to know what he did to end up in prison during his trip to America.

This novel is so pertinent to the anniversary of September 11 - because it really explores what makes hatred, especially hatred that lasts for centuries. So while the target audience is not Young Adults, it certainly wouldn't hurt them to read the novel.

My full review can be found at: [URL]

Simon Kerr's debut novel, The Rainbow Singer, is at once both poignantly funny and tragic. Wil Carson, the book's engaging narrator, is a product of his violence-torn environment, a fourteen year-old boy on the verge of manhood in Ulster, Northern Ireland, hanging around with the UFF--Ulster Freedom Fighters--his gang of Protestant-born mates, terrorizing the "Taig" (Catholic) families in the local neighborhoods.
He's fascinated with American movies and heavy metal music and jumps at the unexpected chance to spend a month in the "relative peace of the unwild midwest USA." The catch - the scot-free vacation in the States is courtesy of Project Ulster, a joint effort between the local Protestant and Catholic churches to show a group of unimpressed teenagers (ten Protestants and ten Catholics) that there is a path other than the familiar one of violence, prejudice and hate.

From the very beginning of the trip Wil is persecuted mercilessly by two Catholic boys, Seamus and Peter. He makes a halfhearted effort to resist the fighting, antagonistic urges inside, instead throwing himself headlong into the awkward pursuit of Teresa, one of the Catholic girls.

A series of run-ins with the Catholic boys on Project outings makes the situation increasingly more volatile. But it's not until he's encouraged by his fifteen year-old American host and friend, Derry "the Hulk," that Wil begins to lose control and the "tit-for-tat" feuding spirals into an inevitable act of horrifying violence.

The very heart of terrorism is laid open by the unique, engaging voice of Wil Carson. Simon Kerr has brought to life an intense, sharp-witted boy you'll want to hate, but can't help but love. The Rainbow Singer is a graphic but necessary read.

The art is terrible. All the characters are ugly; one wonders are these the gods? Odin and Frigg are pure Asian. Odin looks like some ancient Korean bad man, and Frigg looks like a geisha girl. If the illustrations mean anything to you, pass up this book.

I picked up this book and the Usborne Greek Myths and Legends when I was about 8 or 9. I had gotten interested in Greek Mythology and wanted a book, and this one was right beside the Greek one. To this day, this book is one of my favorites.

This was the book that got me interested in Norse legends and mythology. For those of you who don't know about it, I think it is for more interesting than the Greek or Roman myths that are all that most people know.

This book is chock-full of some of the most interesting tales I've ever read. Even as an adult, I go back to it every so often to re-read some of the stories. It presents them in a way that even a kid can understand and enjoy. The art is also one of my favorite parts. The subjects definitely do not appear Norse (their only flaw), but the lavish scenes and rich colors more than make up for this. Whenever I think of a scene from Norse mythology, the Rodney Matthews's illustrations are the images that come to mind.

This book will always be my standard for Norse mythology, and it will always have a place on my shelf.

This is the book that drew me to Norse Mythology in the first place. The illustrations are absolutely beautiful, and the stories are all very good too. Heck, I would recommend this book on its illustrations (by Rodney Matthews, by the way) alone, but I don't have to. YOU NEED THIS BOOK!

Perhaps the author should have written a history of the Northwest, and northern railroads. I found very little of the persona of James J. Hill in this. It is a very historical narritive, not very biographic.

«The wealth of the country, its capital, its credit, must be saved from the predatory poor as well as the predatory rich, but above all from the predatory politician» - James J. Hill.

In her 1962 lecture, «America's Persecuted Minority : Big Business», Ayn Rand distinguished two types of entrepreneurs, whom Burton Folsom Jr. was later to label «economic» and «political»: «self-made men who earned their fortunes by personal ability, by free trade on a free market» and «men with political pull, who made fortunes by means of special privileges granted to them by the government.» And according to her, James Jerome Hill was an arch-representative of the former group, because he built his transcontinental railroad, the Great Northern, «without any federal help whatever.»

Michael P. Malone's admiration for Hill, on the other hand, is much more moderate (and for those who think such moderation unjust, he is kind enough to direct us to Albro Martin's «highly laudatory» two-volume biography of Hill, *James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest*)

For instance, he puts the phrase «self-made man» in quotation marks when applying it to Hill, for, he says, Hill's fortune «sprout... from the rich seedbed of federal subsidy»: by completing his first large scale project in time (the Manitoba railroad), Hill managed to reap the «seventh largest of the original seventy-five railroad grants», located mostly in the fertile Red River valley. Therefore, Malone says, we should forget the «hoariest, and most mischievous, of all the many legends surrounding Hill»- the one perpetrated by Ayn Rand and, after her, Burton Folsom Jr.- which «rhapsodizes about how he built a great transcontinental line without the benefit of a federal land grant.»

Was Hill therefore just another political entrepreneur? I don't think so.

First, Malone here seems to be conflating federal subsidies and land grants. A federal subsidy, in my understanding, is a transfer of money or produced goods, which by its very essence involves a forced redistribution and is therefore immoral. A land grant, on the other hand, consists in the granting of a non-improved natural resource to its actual developer, in a good approximation of the Lockean ideal of acquisition through labour. What makes it a form of «federal aid» is only the government's assumption of the power to acquire land by some non-Lockean process (i.e. by fiat, or in this case, purchase from another government that had acquired the land by fiat.)

Second, the lands granted to the railroads actually owed most of their value to the building of the roads. As Clarence Carson explains in *Throttling the Railroads* : «the lands granted [however fertile] were worth little to nothing on the market at the time they were granted.» This was so because cultivating those lands would have been economically hopeless without the cheap transportation to population centers provided by the railroads.

And third, Malone's metaphor makes it sound as though Hill's fortune merely grew out of the «soil» of federal subsidy by some natural, automatic process or, to mix metaphors, a snowball effect. Actually, the building of the Manitoba railroad is only chapter 2 of the biography, and there are 6 more chapters to go in which Malone himself offers ample illustration that the building of Great Northern and the rest of Hill's achievements did not simply «sprout» from the government's bounty.

Whatever the motivations for Malone's very mixed final estimate of Hill, he does grant his subject a certain number of admirable character traits, which confirm Edwin Locke's conclusions in *The Prime Movers*. For instance, Malone singles out the following as Hill's distinctive traits in chapter 4: «his remarkable mastery over every detail of what was now a far-flung operation, his vision of the inevitable triumph of transcontinental through-carriers [together forming Locke's virtue of «independent vision»], his insufferable [Malone again...] iron will and work ethic [Locke's «drive to action»], and his recruitment of an able coterie of men [Locke's «love of ability in others»].» And this is only Malone himself trying to summarize Hill's virtues : the book offers much more concrete material for you to make your own identifications and corroborate Locke's analysis.

The flaw of *Empire Builder of the Northwest*, in my opinion, is that it is merely interesting and informative where, given its subject, it could have been epic. Malone himself is no great enthusiast of economic freedom: at one point, he refers to «the simplistic bromides of laissez-faire». Moreover, the book only offers two maps, which makes following some of the descriptions rather difficult. However, if you do not have the time for Albro Martin's longer work and are frustrated by the mere 22 pages in Folsom's *The Myth of the Robber Barons*, Malone's book remains a good introduction to the life of an immensely productive and hardworking man, who was also a voracious reader, a faithful husband and- as the opening quote reveals- a «true believer in the virtues of unfettered capitalism».

A new favorite of our staff..and recomended to our members who would like to understand the Northwest in a brand new light. Malone is an excellent writer and this book a gem !

Irish-Americans love affair with terrorism continues with this book with Jimmy Breslin (who should be ashamed of himself) adding his endorsement of the bearded killer.Adams may or may not have some talent as a writer but I suspect his shady past adds a sick and decayed glamor in the minds of his fans, particularly in the US which has a distant and romantic view of IRA violence. On an ironical note I wonder how many Irish-Americans who died in the WTC were Noraid members.

Gerry Adams delivers an impressive and memorable collection of short stories in "The Street," a gathering together of many voices, experiences, and outlooks from the 'trenches' of the 'Troubles.' For thos unfamiliar with Gerry Adams only from his political stylings--"An Irish Voice," or "Free Ireland"--you will be, I think, properly surprised at Adams' literary voice presented here and in his other collection of short fiction, "Cage 11."

There is no avoiding certain facts. This book is, obviously, written about Catholic Belfast, namely set in the communities around the Falls Road and Ballymurphy. Moreover, again predictably, there is a pronounced Republican slant to most of the contemplations that occur in this stories.

Having said, having offered that bit of necessary observation, let me say even more emphatically that Gerry Adams presents a versatile, powerful multitude of people, powers, and feelings in these works. I was deeply impressed, not only by his spare and aching writing style, but by his ability to involve so many situations and sentiments in these works. If you're expecting a load of rehearsed Sinn Féin clichés, you would do well to think again.

We have old women at odds with their church, fathers trying to sort out a computerised beurocracy, rows in the home, hurling memories, and stray dogs. Adams' gives the whole repertoire of humour, tenderness, violence, and uncertainty that, IMO, does very much for Belfast what Joyce did with _Dubliners_. I'm not willing to debate the supposed 'literary' achievements in comparison of these two writers, but I will say that Adams--in emphatic Belfast idioms and allowing vivid descriptions to come from his various characters--declares an Ulster world that no political commentary, ever, has come close to describing.

Particularly memorable is the piece "The Mountains of Mourne" where Adams comes closest to representing a Protestant, lower-class voice in his character 'Geordie.' This story is probably my favourite, with it's vicious and sentimental contests of words between two men, painfully similar and painfully apart. As Geordie and 'Joe' take their van across Co. Down unloading drinks, meeting Gaelic speaking hermits and confronting invisible lines of nationality on the landscape, they converge in a strange understanding that maybe, oh so maybe, on a small level represents a way of peace.

I love these stories. I've read loads of fiction but this is one book I've never forgotten. Gerry Adams has a real gift for storytelling, there's little doubt for me. I showed this book to a friend of mine from El Salvador, and he commented that political writers were often the best fiction writers in his country. Gerry Adams achieves an arc of awareness in these works that'll put genuine light on ordinary lives in extraordinary circumstances.

As a final thought, if you can read Irish, Adams has an edition he wrote (originally?) of these stories called 'An tSráid.' It's a very different experience to read these short stories in Irish.

This book is full of political commentary with good use of non political stories as well as in your face political stories. The use of everyday people who move through their own days and lives is positioned in direct opposition to the "Troubles" that are a part of their lives. Whether the story is about two men from different sides, or a grandmother waiting up for her grandson, you see that the people have a mission and it is to help each other understand or just get through the days. There is also social commentary on the lives of these Irish Catholics who are the poor class in Northern Ireland. These stories are wrapped around less obvious commentary that strikes one as just plain good story telling. It is the way the book is set up that may bring you to a greater understanding of the way things are seen in N. Ireland. Gerry Adams loves his country and you can see it and feel it in the descriptions of his surroundings and the simple people he knows. I loved these stories and am even more admiring of the man who wrote them. He is a man of his people.

This is a good resource, although I prefer Uva's Weeds of the Northeast mainly because of its superior pictures. Some of the pictures in this book aren't very helpful for identifying plants. For example, I couldn't recognize first-year burdock leaves from the pictures. Some common northeastern US weeds are missing too, although that complaint can't also be made from the Uva book. The writeups are good though, and I'm sure it'll be a reference I'll use.

Strangely enough in Canada this book has "CANADA" writ large under weeds with the "& northern united states" in small letters on same cover!! Anyways, I bought this book because it is so clearly indexed by both seedling and adult stage (categorized by leaf type, and then subcategorized by flower color). It has very clear photos, so I am not sure what the other reviewer is talking about. The photos include separate photos of flowers, seeds, whole plant, and sometimes leaves and other distinguishing characteristics (ie leaf attachment in the grasses). There are a few places where a better photo of leaves would help, esp if the plant is in the between seedling and flowering stage.But compared with the three other books I have on weeds, the illustrations are much more precise and easy to reference.

This is definitely a book written for crop farmers, since there is more information on how much it depreciates crop yield ("Reasons for Concern"), than how to get rid of the weed for gardeners.However, I think that once you can identify a weed, it is very simple to find info (chemical, organic etc) on how to deal with it.

One feature that I find excellent is "Similar Species", which includes a photo.I find that this helps remove doubt in identification, or gives a hint where to look if one is mistaken.

Seeing as how I am trying to identify weeds in order to find edible ones rather than eradicate them, I would have appreciated an "edible/poisonous/inedible" designation for each plant. However once I have identified it, I can then refer to a more detailed book such as "Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide: by Elias & Dykeman" to see if the plant is edible and how to prepare it.

The main reason I am giving this book 4 stars vs 5 is that it seems to be lacking some fairly common weeds. I cannot find deadly (climbing) nightshade in it, which grows here in Montreal alleyways. Nor could I find goldenrod (Solidago L.). I really don't understand how such common weeds could be left out.

Basically an easy to use reference guide that is handy to flip through and consult while out in the field.

This reference guide aids in identification of weeds at all stages of growth. The easy to read text is complemented by excellent photographs. A must have if you need to know what the weed is.