There is no easy way to identify a plant to species, but if it is in California it is far easier to use this volume than the others. Although it was written in 1925, the line drawings are for me priceless. Be advised that names change in 75 years even if plants do not, you will need a modern flora to reference the old name. HIGHLY recommended, but technical.

This is an excellent guide. Very comprehensive, however you must have formal education in botany and plant ID in order to effectively use the guide to key plants to genus and or species. Not recommended for the average person. Just people who are plant nerds!

This book is an excellent botanical key listing a huge number of plants. It is not your average "audubon" guide, since it requires you to key out the plant in question using botanical systematics. Definitely a good reference book, but hard to use casually to find out what that tree is in your front yard!

This book is extremely powerful, i just by chanced stumbled upon the story in a literature book today and it was an experience i will probably remember for the rest of my life. The simple, spare way that Thurber presents his point jars the reader to the bone and makes him tremble with fear, yet inspires him to create art and laugh and sing. This is probably one of the greatest works humanity has every created, a true treasure for child and adult.

This treasure of humanity was practically a Bible and also a constant "coffee table" book in our household when I was growing up in the late 50's and 60's. This is one of those rarest of books that will simultaneously break your heart and make your spirit soar. It only offers (see Thurber's dedication to his daughter) "a wistful hope" - but it will inspire you to nurture every ounce of genuine hopefulness you can muster.

This book had the most impact on my 1940s and '50s childhood. I grew up with it, looked at it time after time, pondered it, felt it. Who said "A picture speaks a thousand words"? James Thurber had a wonderful silent way of reaching the heart. I recommend this book to all parents with children, and to all grown-ups. Of everything I have ever read or seen, this is my #1 book of all time! Please have it out on your table always!

In Lazy Daisy, a young girl considers her messy room a masterpiece with its mountains of toys and piles of clothes, and a closet to match! Daisy considers herself with some pride as being the laziest girl in the world with a marvelous mess to prove it! Then Daisy's grandmother gets lost in all the mess and soon the entire town is buried in junk. Will Daisy learn her lesson and clean up the town before it's lost forever? Will Gramma get her dentures back? Enthusiastically recommended for young picturebook readers, Lazy Daisy is an original and entertaining story by David Olson that is showcased by Jenny Campbell's light and lively drawings.

It's always a bonus when adults actually enjoy the books they read to children and Lazy Daisy is definitely one of those books that entertains both groups. The rhyming verse is very funny - David Olson is a creative writer who concocts a hilarious combination of words to tell Daisy's story, and the comical illustrations add a perfect touch to the impending catastrophe. I can't wait to read his next book!

This is a TERRIFIC book for kids! ALL of us have gone through the "CLEAN UP YOUR ROOM" issue with our kids. This book puts a hilarious spin on the consequences of living in a big fat mess! Your kids will love it..you will love it! This is a FIRST BOOK for both the author and the illustrator...and it was selected as an AMERICAN BOOKSELLER PICK OF THE LISTS for 2000! Both author and illustrator need to be congratulated for a fine piece of work, and I look forward to seeing the next one!

The poetry of James Tipton collected in Letters From A Stranger is unique, engaging, splendidly crafted, and enduringly memorable. A Stray God, Or A Thump In The Night: A stray God, or a thump in the night,/or a cathedral bell far off/begins its steady prayer,/coming closer and closer until/I wake on this damp hill and realize/the bell that woke me/is this very heart,/a prodigal sound come home.//Putting consciousness together, I do/simple things: "two and five make four,/and then ten"; still nothing, nothing but/the mother of breathing/beneath me, nothing but the fragrance/of hill, the head of stars in the cool night,/nothing but the rivers inside pulled awake/by the Pope on the moon, by the mist/at the edge of a woman in another galaxy.

James Tipton's Letters From a Stranger is a dense and delicious book of poetry in which the reader joins the author on a journey that rambles, yet closely examines the essences of what constitute life, loving, and belief. It is a work of contradictions, searching yet grounded; hungry yet consumed; concerned with metaphysical matters yet held to time and place with a crafted and careful naming of those things that are Tipton's life. We are invited to join in a dance of bees, high desert sage, Colorado canyon landscape, Peruvian tourism, longing, loneliness, and loving.

Tipton's restlessness is a discomfort and an example of one seeking and finding a connection through the stuff of the world, a world that is chocked full like a vivid dream, unfettered and embracing. These Letters are ones of love for they expose the author inside and out, a challenge to what we are willing to give away to strangers. The language of Letters From a Stranger is ecstatic and surreal with images of love and the landscape interspersed with pieces of personal information.

In It Is True That I Lack Focus, we find a man examining his strengths and weaknesses outloud. He confesses, "It is true that I remain clumsy...", but knows what is good in himself and for him. As honest and local as one can be in Those Evenings When All of God's Conundrums he admits,

"...what I lack in purity of spiritual intention I compensate for in purity of desperation; and some compensation, unexpected, sets in, like the subdued pain in the ring finger from the bite of the Black Widow six weeks ago;"

Again Tipton looks to find how his happiness might be made in Being Stubborn,

"Being stubborn is the only thing that ever brought me is this place I have come to, where caught in God's own curfew I wander through this late house, realizing longing is the hardest wing of the gossamer child?" from-- What Is This Place I Have Come To?

Here is the tale of a man who has abandoned the comforts of one life or several, to find that which is dear and true about life, love, and his inner being. It is informative that we are told Tipton has a dog, named Ananda, a cat, named Gosi, and lives in Glade Park, Colorado on top of a mesa. It is through how we are told these things that the craft of poetry lives and opens to us like the flower to Tipton's beloved bees. His abstract as those words are, these poems are immediate, emotional, and full to the top of loving and life. These Letters are missives sent out without need of recompense. They make the world a richer place for us all

His poems made me laugh and cry and remember what poets are supposed to do. Tipton is among the best because he writes for all of us. His poetry arises from the longing that makes us human beyond the labels, the money, the education or profession. Having nothing to do with poetic vanity, intellectual games or self-indulgence, it is accessible to everyone. Whether you are a lover of poetry or one who has never found it appealing, I hope you will treat yourself to this rare and wonderful book.

When I first started researching the Vietman war, I happened to come across this book at the library--exactly what I was looking for since I wanted to understand the individual experience of the infantryman. I had been warned by veterans that a lot of inaccurate books were out there, and since the writer's credentials were simply that he was a high school teacher, I first read it with a somewhat skeptical eye. As I continued to read memoirs and histories and speak with veterans, though, I also kept coming back to this book. Finally I just broke down and bought it. Though I've only spot read various passages throughout the book, it is even-handed, always rings true, is consistent with other information I've gotten, and offers factual information to set things in context (I wish there were a little more of that). Ebert has done a great job getting vets to talk--not always easy--now maybe he should create an updated edition to flesh out the coming home aspects. I hope this author still teaches high school.

Those who have read history about the Vietnam War are kidding themselves if they don't include "A Life in a Year--." This is the war as seen through the eyes of the lowest common denominator--the "grunt." Having served in the infantry in Vietnam and trusting Ebert's editing of what was individual braggadocio by some interviewees, I think this is an accurate portrayal of what Vietnam was like for thousands of soldiers and marines. Nothing fancy, nothing cute, nothing outlandish--just like really being there day in and day out. Straight shooting from basic to the freedom bird. If this was required reading before Vietnam I am not so sure the volunteer rate would have been as high as it was--but then we had to live Vietnam so such a book could be written.

I've read many books on Vietnam and this is the best yet if you are interested in the real life of the grunts. A very down to earth and human look at the Vietnam experience. From prior to induction to return home. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the real nitty gritty of the average guy in Vietnam. As I said, best I've ever read!!!

Truly, Jenny Gerhardt has a lot of heart.

Though she makes some bad decisions and often lacks the confindence that could have reinvented her in the magnified binocular-eyes of society, Dreiser's love for the character shines and we, the readers, grow to love her also. Several glimmers of why Dreiser is the transcendent novelist that he is peek out from the fast moving story of Jennie Gerhardt.

"She was not, like so many, endeavoring to put the ocean into a tea-cup or to tie up the shifting universe in a mess of strings called law."

"The loveliness of seventeen is centuries old. That is why passion is almost sad."

"So this little household drifted along quietly and dreamily indeed, but always with the undercurrent of feeling which ran so still because it was so deep."

I admit to you, I have never been very interested by the sometimes dry prose offered in the writing of earlier time periods. But Dreiser seems to me a rare gem in the world of early 20th century fiction.

However, the one reason I am writing a 4 star review is because of the ending of this novel. After several mini-climaxes, the book ends. --just like that. With a grim display of "if only". And although most, if not all of us, identify with that theme, I felt like I MUST have read 366 pages for something other than that.

However, I would still recommend it. It is a delicate work of art whose power and beauty cannot be denied.

Most of us know the genius of Dreiser, the lyrical capabilities of this author is astonishing. He humanizes literature, the characters posess complex personalities and physical appearances. He takes the aesthetic beauty of the surreal and the honesty of harsh reality and combines these potent elements into a story of life, almost more believable than our own. This story follows Jennie Gerhardt, a young German girl living with her poor family in Ohio before the turn of the century. Honest but hard work puts her into the path of Senator Brander a benevolent mature man, but his ardent passions soon destroy Jennie, and her life is tainted with shame. She leaves her home, and life take her on many journeys, mostly unpleasant. This story chronicles how one mistake can change your life, and the domino effect takes place, constantly misplacing your life as you try to escape the past. I would also recommend "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" by Thomas Hardy

It seems each time I finish one of Dresier's works I think it is my favorite. Such is the case with Jennie Gerhardt, at least until my next Dresier. This heart-wrenching saga takes the reader through Jennie's life from cleaning houses with her mother, bearing a child by a US Senator and living and loving a man beyond her society class. Lester (the man she loves after the Senator), for his part, is unwilling to marry Jennie and is cut-off from the family and it's millions for loving someone "below" his class in society. Jennie remains true to herself, following her heart and the dicates of a harsh scoiety. She makes amendes with her father and is the only child to nurture him through his final days and death. She takes her daughter away from Chicago and leaves Lester so he can reclaim his family fortune. Her daughter dies, leaving her alone but the strength of Jennie's character comes through when she adopts orphans, for if she isn't nurturing she isn't living. Dreiser drives home his theme of fate and how some can dictate it while others are a slave to it. But even this distinction isn't black and white. Lester seems not to care what fate has in store for him until he takes it into his onw hands and marries the society girl he arguably should have married before he hooked up with Jennie. Alas, Jennie never mastered her fate. She was punished for loving two men from the upper-crust of scoiety instead of taking the crusts that high-living classes would toss her.

It's Grandma's birthday and she's taken Katie to one of her favorite places, the art museum. As Katie looks at The Luncheon by Monet, it looks so real and inviting that she thinks she can actually smell the flowers. A bouquet would be nice for Grandma and so she steps over the frame into the picture..... James Mayhew has written a wonderfully imaginative story that will introduce youngsters to the impressionists. As Katie moves from picture to picture, meeting Renoir's Girl with a Watering Can, playing with Monet's son Jean in Field of Poppies and dancing with the ballerinas in The Blue Dancers, children will explore the beauty and magic of these and other paintings. His simple, gentle text is combined with creative, detailed illustrations that transport kids, along with Katie, right into the pictures. With an afterword about the artists and their pictures to expand lessons and discussions, it won't be long before you're taking a trip to the museum!

We discovered this book at the D'Orsay Museum and our son immediately loved it. We also found that it was a wonderful tool to draw in a child such as our nephew that has learning difficulties & an attention deficit. Both children enjoyed the artwork and discussing museum etiquette. We were so impressed with this book that we purchased the other two in the series at the Lourve!

I found this book at the Museum Shop in the Louvre. I stood there, flipping through the pages, laughing at the text and admiring the illustrations. I said I was buying it for my children but I really wanted it for myself.

Katie Meets the Impressionists is a fun story with beautiful illustrations, a great way to teach children about Monet!

This is a great telling of what is often an untold battle. These Marines went through hell and back and this is an excellent telling of their hardships.

James H. Hallas's book 'Killing Ground on Okinawa' is one of those books that should be in any decent military history library. Having previously read his account of the fighting on Peleliu, 'The Devil's Anvil' I couldn't wait to read this account of the battle for Sugar Loaf Hill. I am happy to say that I was not disappointed in this book.

The author allows the Marines who took part in the fighting tell the story and its incredible to read what these blokes went through for what looks like a very small piece of Pacific Island real estate. The accounts of the fighting men are detailed and to the point and you are forced to sit back and think of how these men endured this hell, it is almost beyond the comprehension of today's generation.

The narrative is full of details but the real guts of the book is the first-hand accounts by the men involved in the assaults against the well constructed Japanese defensive positions. Not only were the Japanese well dug in and protected but they used their firepower and weapons to great advantage. They wrought destruction upon the advancing marines. Men and machines were continually being knocked out with no gain being made against the determined Japanese defence.

Finally after a heroic night attack the marines secured a toehold on Sugar Loaf but then had to hold against Japanese counter attacks and massive counter fire from artillery, mortars, machine guns and snipers. The casualty list for the marine units were massively high causing some questioning of the strategy and tactics used by the Army High Command. In over seven days of fighting the 6th Marine Division suffered over 2,000 casualties fighting for this pimple of a hill which secured the Japanese Shuri Line.

The only fault that I could find with this book was the standard of the maps and photographs. I am sure that they could have been of a higher calibre. Overall this is a great story of combat, dedication, bravery and Espirt de Corp. I think it is one of the better combat accounts of the Pacific Theatre that I have read in some years and I am certain that anyone interested in the Pacific War would be fascinated by this account.

This book is another amazing account of a ferocious battle engaged by the US Marines at the close of WWII at terrible personal sacrifice. It ranks among the best narratives I have read. If you want to take a trip into the trenches of Okinawa with the men who bled their, this book is a must read. The story is fast paced, action packed, gripping and heart rending. I cannot imagine what the outcome of the Pacific war against the Japanese would have been without the sacrifice these brave young men made on behalf of freedom.

Although I am no longer a Christian, this is a great Bible for African American Women. I especialy enjoyed the essays in the back.

This outstanding bible opened my eyes to how the Bible really relates to me, an African American woman. It affrims the presence of Africans in the Bible. It also helps to correct the distortions that were taught or told to my people for so many years. I use to believe in the Bible through blind faith, and thanks to this beautiful book,I now believe through knowledgeable faith. The Women of Color Study Bible is an excellent bible, which brakes down every book in easy to understand language and helps connect us (African Americans) to our African decents. Like never before in history, we women of color have our own bible to teach our families, the true meaning of God's word and his plan for our salvation. I leave my copy out on my coffee table, and six of my friends have already bought it, because they love my copy so much. We have formed a women of color bible study group, to discuss and learn more about God's word from this wonderful book.

I have never had a book that is as enlightening as this. I love the Bible. We as African Americans haven't been taught about our place in biblical history, but because of the extensive research by this group, we now know. Thanks so much. Anyone that reads this Bible will certainly be blessed. Get ready!

A more detailed view of Lewis and Clark's relations and attitudes toward the Indians. Interesting insight into Sacagawea's true role within the Corp of Discovery. A must read for any Lewis and Clark/Western history buff.

AS an author of a Lewis and Clark book, I can appreciate the research involved in writing a good book. Dr. Ronda has written the definitive book for understanding the interactions between The Corps of Discovery and the various Indian nations they encountered. He explains the politics behind the numerous interactions, some friendly others very contentious. For a Lewis and Clark buff, this is a MUST HAVE addition to their collection.
I totally enjoyed this book!

This book is a great follow up to Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage, and builds on his great synopsis of the journey. Readers will gain a greater appreciation of the rich Native American cultures that were instrumental in the success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. After reading this book you will walk away with a renewed sense of awe regarding the journey, and a new found respect for a culture that has been all but destroyed by the "white man's progress". An excellent, gripping, insightful and exciting read. Involves some advanced terms and concepts that add flavor to a general understanding of this most fascinating period of 19th Century American Histroy.