A friend loaned me The Checkered Years, and after reading it, I purchased two copies, one to give away and another to lend and ultimately to keep in my library. From the day-to-day writings of Mary Dodge Woodward, the reader begins to understand the central role of weather in the life of the early Dakota settlers - the awesome cold, wind, and heat; the blizzards, drought, and flood - all matter-of-factly but beautifully described in an unpretentious diary. The diary entries give a hint of the tremendous effort it took on Mary's part and that of her family to build up a large wheat farm, and along with that, the uncertainties she faced as a widow growing old. I wish the book had more background information in its introduction and more diary entries that, even though they probably would have seemed repetitive, may have given more focus to the people mentioned in the selections.

This book Shows most of the well know landmarks in Chicago and many more obscure but beautiful Statues,Buildings,etc. It is More Picture than text making it an Ideal gift for foreign visitors to remember their vist to our beautiful City.

I found this to be a good guidebook, but one glaring omission really has me ticked off. The most famous, and considered by many to be the best steakhouse in Chicago, completely ignored! Mr. Savage, apparently, has no idea that the extremely famous Morton's of Chicago exists!

I was hoping this would be a more thorough listing of mountain biking areas in the Great Lake States, but it's not. It sticks to only what it considers to be the classic trails.

I moved to DuPage County 3 years ago. Having lived in Alaska, I enjoyed scenic hiking. However, it seems that no one knew anything about hiking or bike trails in the area with the exception of a few forest preserves.

Mr. Hochgesang's book has a thorough list of places to hike and bike in DuPage county. Mr. Hochgesang also gives various other pieces of useful information such as maps, parking areas, facilities, what you might see on a particular hike, area history, etc.

The book has 23 sections, each describing at least one place and the various trails (some sections describe several if they are close to each other). The book is slightly outdated, with the information being from around 1994. Despite this, it is still an excellent book to get acquainted with the various parks, forest preserves, and trailes in DuPage County, Illinois.

Many new trails added in Lake County since this book was published. Needs to be updated with new maps.

I found this atlas useful, but I would be hard pressed to call it a topographical atlas. For a publication of its size, it offers decent detail, but leaves out useful info like road names. I found it difficult to use once I left the US highways and state routes. Also, the map scale is difficult to find.

To be fair, this was the first book on the subject that I have purchased so I really don't have much else to compare it to. I do have to say that with this book I found many trails I never knew were there. Some of them right in my backyard. This book gives a lot of background on the areas as well as contact information. This contact information I think is important to obtain good maps from the parks and districts where the trails are located. That leads me to the biggest problem I had with the book. The maps appear to be hand drawn sketches. This is fine in most instances but I can think of a few times when I would have killed for a good map :) Ah but that is part of the adventure isn't it. Anyway with this book you will find many trails in the state and overall I think it is a worthwhile purchase.

The book is not a masterpiece by any means, but was interesting for me since my husband Todd Burdell and I are the ones that found the victim, Lynn. Imagine our horror when, after fishing at the lake, we try to put out a "brush fire" to be good samaritans, and wind up finding in the fire was a woman with her head gone... The author definitely took liberties with dialogue, since he never even asked us what we saw when we found her, or asked about our reactions. But I do believe he states this in the book that he was going to take liberties with certain conversations. Still think the book would have been better if he had interviewed some people in Litchfield where it happened!

A chronological account of life on the prairie for one young woman in the early 20th century. Delivering babies for early Dakota homesteaders was a demanding duty for a young woman who also had her own family to care for. There are surprises and tragedy in this little novel based on the life of the author's own mother. Ms Gemberling (Manger) has changed the names (Langer for Manger) and the decendents of Minnie Vinger Manger (Mindy Vinson Langer)will enjoy guessing who is who. A good read for the family, friends and residents of Williston, Grenora, and for those who remember, Bonetrail, North Dakota.