Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp, garden columnist for the Indianapolis Star on Sundays and Tom Tyler, past Extension Educator and horticulturist for the Purdue Cooperative Extension Service in Indianapolis collaborated to pick more than 175 ornamental plants that do well in the Hoosier landscape. Detailed information on each plant including the "when, where and how" to plant is included. Although not every plant that does well in Indiana is listed, this book provides a great starting point. A must for long-time Hoosier residents and new arrivals as well!

If you're planning a trip to northwest Montana, this is the book to buy! This became my bible planning my family's vacation, and included all the information I needed including accommodations, activities for kids, area events and recreation. The book includes a history of each area,which I found of special interest. It made planning my trip so easy to do...I highly recommend it!

This book was the only source that I could find that would provide such detail on things to to do in the Traverse Bay Region. It lists tons of resteraunts, lodging sites, and things to do (very detailed social night life section). I only wish they would rate the lodge sites and resteraunts. That may have been a tall order though, considering how many they list.

This unpretentious literary travelogue provides an excellent window into a number of top American crime writers and the (mostly urban) areas they inhabit. Williams' 1989 circuit of the U.S. is a kind of crime fiction grand tour, as he visits thirteen established and up-and-coming authors (only one of whom is female) in ten locations, each of which gets about 20-25 pages or so, as follows:

Miami >> Carl Hiassen (Lucky You, Stormy Weather), James Hall Louisiana >> James Lee Burke New Mexico >> Tony Hillerman Los Angeles >> James Ellroy, Gar Anthony Haywood San Francisco >> Joe Gores (32 Cadillacs) Missoula, MT >> James Crumley (Bordersnakes) Chicago >> Sara Partesky, Eugene Izzi Detroit >> Elmore Leonard (Be Cool, Cuba Libre, Pronto, Pagan Babies, Riding the Rap) Boston >> George V. Higgins New York >> Andrew Vachss

Williams is clearly a believer in detective fiction as social portraiture and commentary, and like myself, he's most interested in what is generally classified under the catchall terms "hard-boiled" or "noir." That is to say, crime novels about the everyday criminal world, as opposed to semi-mythical world of "The Godfather," the serial-killer world of Hannibal Lechter, or the cozy world of crime-solving cats or little old ladies. Williams tends to stay in the cheaper, and thus seedier, parts of the places he visits, and tries to get the writers to show him around, show him their world. In addition to touring the seedy side of America, Williams often takes side-trips of a musical nature--as befits his music journalist career. His contrasting of a (white) cajun fete with a (black) zydeco dance is one of the truly telling parts of his journey. The conversations with the writers are intermittently interesting, although it's interesting to note that many of them came from impoverished backgrounds and came to writing by accident. Another similarity is their rough treatment at the hands of Hollywood. Most of the writers are extremely forthcoming and open with Williams, the most notable exception being Higgins, who comes off as a pompous ass in comparison to the rest of the book's subjects.

Some twelve years after Williams' trip, it's rather amazing to find that 12 of the 13 writers are still going strong, with a string of books to their credit from the intervening years. Indeed some, like Carl Hiassen, James Lee Burke, James Ellroy, and Elmore Leonard have gotten considerably more famous. The one writer who isn't still producing is Eugene Izzi, who was found dead in 1997, hanging from his 14th-story office window in what was ruled a bizarre suicide...

Since writing this book, Williams has gone on to write crime fiction himself, including the 1983-set London novel Faithless, and a collection of stories set in the Cardiff underworld, Five Pubs, Two Bars and a Nightclub.

This atlas, like other products from DeLorme, provides high quality maps. It contains very useful information and detailed maps of the entire state. There are no city maps in the atlas which is its only flaw. Larger metro areas like Des Moines, Iowa City, and the Quad Cities ought to be shown in greater detail.

I found this book of maps to be great for finding public hunting land. The only set back that I can think of is that it can be sometimes difficult to tell some of the different roads. I wish they made one for Minnesota. I would buy one.

The photographs in this book are extraordinary - pictures that represent the real beauty of the state of Iowa. The landscape varies from the 500 foot bluffs over the Mississippi River, tall hills and deep valleys, beautiful autumn colors; to the expected rolling hills of Grant Wood and the big sky over the prairies of tall grass. There is so much variety in Iowa, which this book captures in color-saturated photographs. My only consideration is I wish that there was more description of the places which are pictured. Photographs are either identified briefly by their titles, or not at all.

Jackpine Savages is a very humorous biography about the life of teenage boys in the 1950s. It will bring back memories for men especially who were growing up in the 50s in a small town or rural area, this taking place in northern Wisconsin. The writing consists of chapters focused on topics of interest including school, sports, getting a job, and skinnydipping in the north woods. Interspersed in the humor are some valuable life lessons which adults can appreciate and from which youth can benefit. Because many of today's teenagers are interested in life in the 50's, they should especially enjoy this 170 page book.

This book reads like a comic book with a whole bunch of characters taken from second world war movies. They are all rolled into one character: Johnny Zero. It seems to be written in the genre form with little regard to plot . . . a lot like much of the non-realistic fiction akin to writers such as