An excellent book. The simple yet powerful description, together with the well-illustrated pictures, contrasted well the tensions experienced by those who knew of imminent death from the unsuspecting city who carried on life as though they had many more days ahead of them.

My admiration and respect went to Captain Aime Le Medec, Vincent Coleman and John Gammon who proved to be men of integrity by the choices they made, knowing full well the high price that they might have to pay for their choices.

A wonderful book, filled with pictures, of what happened after the Titanic sank. There are terrific stories of the survivors and how those who drowned were recovered and sent to Halifax for burial, or held there until their families came for the bodies.

There are photos taken of the scene with literally hundreds of caskets on the boats as the bodies were recovered. Halifax has a Titanic musuem there with artifacts and other things of interest that even those with a casual interest will appreciate.

This book is must-reading for those who are really into this event.

Becky has provided an indepth picture of Littleton, North Carolina. From her detailed history of founding fathers to individual family histories she has made this small town come alive. I have especially enjoyed finding information about great great great grandparents and the revealing of new found cousins. The only way Becky can top this is to do another like book covering the years from 1921 to 1990 as it would be the cream of the crop as far as genealogy is concerned. Thanks again Becky for all your hard work.

This book helped me prepare itinerary for my one-month journey from Halifax to Vancouver that I'm planning to take in May 2000. I checked prices and some telephone numbers mentioned in the book with those I found on different web sites and despite the fact that the book is four years old it's still useful and accurate. There is everything you need to prepare for such journey: routes and costs, facts about country, practical advices (transport, festivals, food, time, hotels,...), history about Trans-Canada railway, mayor city guides and plans and least but not last route guide and maps with short description about small towns along the routes.

This is THE ultimate canadian rail travel book. I would even recommend this book for those driving through Canada. The author gives advise (very detailed) on where to eat, sleep, sight-see, and so on. I urge everyone to find this book at your local bookstore and thumb through it. Then buy it here. At the end of the book it even guides you along the train journey by listing the significant sights along the way (such as....at Mile marker 26 towards the south, you'll see the cemetary containing 145 victims of the Titanic). Best of all, it displays all of the VIA Rail timetables and how many calendar days each leg of the trip takes. This is especially useful for those on the CANRAIL pass package. YOu can literaly plan your entire itinerary from this single book. The size allows you to easily stow it in a small camera bag or purse. The PERFECT Canadian travel book.

Ok, I'm back. This is my second review of the book, however this time it's based on my real experience traveling with VIA from coast to coast (Halifax - Vancouver) and using this book on the road (oooppss...rail). While preparing my itinerary I used this book as a main source of information when deciding how much time I'll spend in each city and where I'll be staying. VIA web site is of course the place to pickup the latest timetables, calculate the price of the tickets, and make a reservations... (I found timetables at the end of the book still useful on the board of the train when I needed to quickly find out the distance to the next station).

I put three books in my backpack, two travel guides from NELLES (guides to Atlantic and Pacific provinces) and this one. The guides from NELLES are good with lots of facts about the country and with nice photos, however I found "Trans-Canada Rail Guide" far more suitable for people traveling across Canada by train. Also the book is as valuable on board of the train as well in the downtown of the city. I rent the book to several fellow travelers in coach class and each one of them told me how great it is.

The organization of the book is simple but efficient, for example in PART 4 City Guides and plans you can find for all mayor cities short descriptions of the following: History, Arriving in...(by air, by train), Local Transport, Orientation and Services, Where to stay, Where to eat, What to see, Moving on (by air, by train). If you are real rail enthusiast you'll have fun reading PART 5 Route Guide and Maps with description of small stations and places marked with mile markers so you can be "smarter" then others guessing what it is or where you are. Some prices mentioned in the book are the same even today but in general are higher. My average expense for the mid-range hotel or B&B was 55 CAD per night (including tax), entrance fees for museums and other events are in general higher, anything from 10 to 50% higher, food 10-20%, buses and taxis 10-20% , train tickets 10-20% (the cost of my Canrail Pass was 408 CAD including tax). If you need any additional tips or information about the trip you can send me a message to my account on Yahoo (see member page). Today I found out that second edition of this book is published so check it out!

Brilliant description of the harbor explosion and its historical impact. Some great character background and a strong narrative. The priest is just too pathetic a character to draw much sympathy--others fare little better, but despite the chaos, the book is still interesting. Biggest letdown is the tendency to instill too much 1990s self-asorption, psycho-babble, me me me mentality into a different era in history, when the outlook and lives of people were quite different than they are in the North America of today. Still, a more appealling work overall than most of the fiction I've run across the last 10 years.

This book I cannot recommend enough!!! My interest in "BURDEN OF DESIRE" was first kindled when I heard Mr. MacNeil talk about the 1917 Halifax tragedy on National Public Radio a few years ago. I was intrigued because I had never heard of this tragedy before. Then around Christmastime, I bought and read "BURDEN OF DESIRE". I became so wrapped up in the lives of the main characters (each of whom Mr. MacNeil creates with a full-bodied and multi-dimensional personality) that I felt as if I were a fly on the wall, watching events unfold.

I give Mr. MacNeil special kudos for the way he created the main female character. From the way he wrote this novel, you'll feel that it is a real woman confiding her inmost thoughts in her diary.

On so many levels, this is a well-written and beautiful story. Read "BURDEN OF DESIRE" and savor it. You'll be glad that you did.

Based upon an actual event in history I was swept away, brought into the web of this story, constantly wanting to read on to what was next and what I expected did not happen, great ending!!!

Great book I reccomed reading the way of the Shaman first though.

Joan Halifax has done an great job of taking important clips of information from various interviews done with various shaman from around the world. Such famous shaman as Black Elk (from Black Elk Speaks) are contained in here. She shows the similarity between all shamanic traditions as well as the differences with specific rights. Her selections of what she included were very smart, and also gives you insite as to what future books to buy, and what to avoid. A must read!

this was a preety good book. It is about this guy named Garland Bunting, who has been engaged in caturing and prosacuting men and weomen. To do so he has droven taxi cabs and whatever else you can think of, to get these people to stop selling elligal liquer.he has learned several tips from huntes, they told him that coons can find a illigal monnshine bussnues any day of the week, so from that day on he decided to start raising coon dog's, so that he could catch the scum of the earth (as so he says) who are selling this illigal liquer. This man is 57 years of age and he is of a medium hieght, he has been doing this type of stuff for over 30 years. In north corolina it is illigal to sell liquer on sunday's so the people who are acaholics are always out looking for liquer on sunday's, and that is whern garland is out busting peoepl most of the time. I would recomend this book to any body that is all I have for know thank you for reading my review.

I grew up in Tidewater, VA, and I've travelled many of the roads and known the sorts of boys Wilkinson writes about. He really nailed that regional culture, and his ear for dialogue and dialect is finely tuned.

I grew up not far from Ahoskie, NC, one of the towns author Alec Wilkinson visits in his book. I was astonished at the accuracy of his portrayal of the people and way of life in rural eastern North Carolina. Wilkinson makes no judgments and draws no conclusions. He simply writes a wonderfully detailed and honest portrait of these people and the politics & life of the moonshiners and revenuers of the swamplands. In the past few years this rural way of life has quickly vanished - pressed from the east by the growth of the tourist industry and overdevelopment of the Outer Banks, and from the west by the rapid growth of the Research Triangle. Moonshine has been replaced by homegrown marijuana. Most small farmers have been bought out by corporate farms and the small towns have become bedroom communities for larger metro areas, with people in Gates and Northampton counties working as far away as Quantico and Williamsburg, VA. I've loaned out my copy of "Moonshine" so many times it is falling apart, but I've never found another book that so accurately describes the world I grew up in. For my transplanted Yankee friends here in the Triangle it has been a great introduction to the rural South. The first Wilkinson book I read was "Midnights", his description of a summer spent as the night patrolman in a small coastal town in Massachusetts. I was struck by his powers of description, and the honest effort of researching his subject by spending many long hours on the job. It is also a fine book. For anyone interested in a slice of life, or just great writing, I'd recommend this book without hesitation. Ken Strayhorn Chapel Hill NC

I found this to be a very interesting history of the Ormond Hotel. However, it was not only a history of the Hotel, but also a history of the town of Ormond Beach.

I was particularly interested in the history of the Santa Lucia Plantation. The log cabin, Talahloka, which is still standing, was my family's home in the early 1950's. A distant relative was also one of the owners of the Ormond Hotel.

The pictures were superb and brought back many memories. It was almost a tearful moment to see the pictures of this beautiful structure being torn down. I wish it could have been restored instead of destroyed.

This book answered questions that I had about the Hotel and it's history.

On December 6, 1917, two ships in the harbor at Halifax, Nova Scotia, collided. The resulting fire soon led to a massive explosion that destroyed the ships, much of the harbor, and a good part of the surrounding city. The scope and impact of the tragedy is almost unimaginable. And yet, according to author John Griffith Armstrong, the event is largely forgotten by Canadians and almost universally unknown to Americans. That's too bad -- not only for the sake of the people killed or wounded, but also for the lessons we can still learn from the event and its aftermath today. Armstrong's book shows us why.

As the author notes early in his book, the Halifax explosion, to the extent it's been studied by historians at all, is generally approached from a sociological viewpoint that concentrates on the event's impact on the people of Halifax. Armstrong's brief is different. He analyses the effect of the explosion and subsequent investigation on the Royal Canadian Navy.

In so doing, he's created a surprisingly interesting story that, while it gets a little bogged down in the minutia of inquiry transcripts quoted at length, nevertheless develops a number of themes that are still relevant today. For example: the tendency of military and political bureaucracies to obfuscate, shift blame, and throw others to the wolves in order to protect themselves (and the difficulties military and civilian bureaucracies have in communicating with, or even understanding, one another); the dangers that result from unclear divisions of responsibility; the ease with which opportunistic politicians can manipulate and enflame public opinion; and much more.

It's also very interesting to see the developing institutional ethos of the Royal Canadian Navy, which had existed as a nominally independent body for less than a decade at the time of the explosion.

On the whole, this book is a study of bureaucracy, legal proceedings, and institutional evolution that frankly may not appeal to a lot of people. But for students of disasters, institutions, the navy, or just an overlooked chapter in Canadian history, this title has a lot to recommend it.