What a wonderful,innovative hiking guidebook! As a hiker andPalm Springs resident, it is a joy to read Linda's prose that soappropriately captures our beautiful desert trails.

I amparticularly impressed with Linda's description of the IndianCanyons. Each year, HIKE FOR HOPE is held in these beautiful canyons,offering 7 different guided hikes to raise money to fund women'scancer research at The City of Hope. Linda understands the magic ofthose canyons and the wonderful spirit that exists there. Linda hasbeen a terrific supporter of this event... we met her because of herbook and our admiration of it...

During our drive out to Palm Springs, I skimmed through the book and map to find hikes that would be near our hotel. I read about six different hikes/chapters and then chose two that I thought would be close and not too long since I would be hiking by myself.

Not familiar with the area at all, the first thing I did after arriving at the hotel was ask the concierge where the nearest hiking trails were. I was told there were none.(The concierge could use a copy of your book.)

Back at my room, armed with your book I found one three blocks away. Perfect! I set out the next morning, found the trail easily and started up. What I enjoyed most while hiking was remembering what you had written about your experience and it was like sharing my trek with an invisible friend. I noticed the canyon below that you had mentioned and wondered if I would have admired it as much if it hadn't been pointed out in your book. When I reached the top with that incredible view of the Coachella Valley, I sat for a long time.I was looking forward to telling you that I had 'made it', it was worth the uphill climb and to say thanks because if I hadn't read about this trail, I would never have known it existed!

I had originally planned to run up the trail--that lasted about one third of the way up. But I did run all the way down on the way back. Yahoo!!!

I finished the rest of the book and intended to do a second hike but ran out of time. We did check out the famous homes listed in your book while driving around.

This book is a great resource for those who like to get outdoors on the San Francisco penninsula (particularly San Mateo county). I like to use it as a resource to find places to go when friends visit. It's a catalog of the often ignored foothills (and other areas) along the pennisula. Highly recommended. Check out Windy Hill (gorgeous panoramas) or any other part of the mid-pennisula open space district.

Excellent list of area trails

"The Pig War" was written as part of the "I Can Read" series of books for beginning readers. It tells about an event in 1859, when San Juan Island, in what is now Washington State, was claimed by both British trappers and American owners. Tensions were rising, when a British pig was shot in an American garden. The real potential for war existed following this incident. Eventually this was peacefully resolved, resulting in the establishment of the border between what is now America and Canada in that region.

Betty Baker does an excellent job of making this ultimately humorous event readable for young readers. This little book experienced a revival of interest during the Washington State Centennial in 1989. In my opinion, it's still a must-read for students in Washington.

The one drawback to this book is that the illustrations depict the local natives as Plains Indians, and not as Coast Salish. This is a minor distraction, since the story centers on the struggles between the white settlers.

History is rarely an engrossing subject for young readers, but Baker has managed to engage them with a humorous and simple text. This story of the Pig War on the San Juan islands is a must-read for any children from Washington State.

This is the best PNW plant and animal identification book on the market (and I have lot of such i.d. books). Lots of really good color pictures and detailed b/w's. Informative text on life history/cycles. Good index and well-organized. Great for helping children get going on school projects (the Latin names are there, but the text is plain English, flows well, and provides information that interests ordinary persons of all ages who enjoy the out-of-doors). Would make a nice gift for someone new to the area or otherwise interested in the topic.

I fell in love with wild plants at the tender age of 11 when I went to camp with my 5th grade class. We did plant identification and I became intrigued by all the wonderful plants in the NW. WHen I got home I poured through my mom's copy of this book. I had been seeing it on our coffee table since I was like a tot! I fell in love with plants. This book has beautiful color pics of all kinds of wonderful plants and animals. It's awesome!

After playing Poppy Hills in June 2001 I found this book to be both fascinating and exciting. The book brought back both fond memories of great shots and the disapointment of not so great shots. After reviewing the pictures and learning of the history I'm already planning our next trip! I recommend this book to anyone with a smattering of appreciation for a beautiful golf design.

Udo Machat, who previously brought us a terrific book (The Golf
Courses of the Monterey Peninsula) about golf on this fabled
landscape, has here concentrated on one of the three courses used for
the annual AT&T Pro-Am. Poppy Hills is a tough test of golfing
skills and Machat amply displays both in story and photographs the
subtlety and dimension of this world-class course. While the photos
are not of top professional caliber, they nevertheless complement and
offer good balance to the text. The excellent forward is by the
course's architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr. I recommend this book to
anyone interested in golfing literature. It's a good read and looks
great on the coffee table.

My husband and I keep this book in our car so that whenever we're in Portland we can grab it quickly. In addition to the alphabetical listing and descriptions of 200 reasonably priced restaurants, the book has an excellent index. You can look up restaurants by section of town or by the type / style of food you want. Cheap Eats has given us the opportunity to sample many different restaurants that we would never have found without it. Instead of picking the same places over and over, you can expand your choices...and eat well inexpensively.

My husband and I like to eat out at least three times a week, so this book has been very helpful in finding places that won't break the bank. We stay primarily in SE, but it includes restaurants all over town. Highly recommended.

While the fiddler's fakebook has a greater quantity of songs, this particular collection has consistent quality of songs chosen. There are so many great tunes in here, jamming out would not be quite the same without it. My personal favorite is "Lady of the Lake". Yes, I know there are two of them... but they're both good! Go figure.

After the "Fiddler's Fakebook" this is the tune collection to own. Hundreds of reels and jigs in clear notation with, usually, good chord suggestions. Little, if any, overlap with the tunes in the FF. Very durable spiral binding, sits easy on a stand or table. Includes many recently composed tunes including my favorite, Erik Sessions' "It Ain't the Heat, It's the Humidity." Many hours of playing pleasure, fast becoming a standard collection.

William Carter's extraordinary, exhaustive history of Preservation Hall is a love letter not only to New Orleans' venerable rebirthplace of traditional jazz, but to 40 years' musical and personal lives of those watching over it and playing in it.

Carter covers all the bases tracing the Hall's timeline: its creation, mission, musicians and the songs and lives they preserved. He recalls the Hall's strong-willed, soft-hearted entreprenuers, Larry Bornstein and Allen and Sandra Jaffe. He carefully charts musical and personal histories of band members and local legends like trombonist Jim Robinson, drummer Cie Frazier and irrepressible pianist 'Sweet' Emma Barrett (who judging from her spotlight among several breakout pieces, was often sour, bitter, or salty). You realize, as it stands amidst seedy strip clubs and franchises like Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, Preservation Hall exists for those loving the music for what it does for and to them, not the flash it throws at them.

Carter writes that 'enjoy' has the impact in New Orleans 'achieve' has in the rest of the country. But as 'Preservation Hall' winds down you see those words as synonyms describing the feisty comeraderie these heritage musicians brought their work. You come to love their quirks on and offstage, (Carter splits his postscript between hilarious band anecdotes and heartfelt celebrity tributes). You see and hear joy they brought audiences worldwide, including US presidents, Supreme Court Justices and icons like Woody Allen, Frank Sinatra, and Mick Jagger. The Hall and its music helped draw tourists back to New Orleans when the city rebuilt its vacation trade on its jazz and party history. You mourn as original band members, for whom the Hall and its tours provided their long-running work and steadiest income, pass from the scene followed by their manager/mentors, Bornstein and Jaffe.

The book justifiably praises Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory, Buddy Bolden and other legendary New Orleans jazzmen, whose spirits pervade every block of Bourbon Street and whose legacy the Hall preserves, not exploits. But sadly, it also charts unkind potshots from modern band members like Dr. Michael White. His disparaging comments about 'a bearded, pot-bellied guy standing there blasting Louis Armstrong solos at 90 miles an hour" seem aimed at Al Hirt and Pete Fountain, men who also loved classic New Orleans jazz, took it mainstream and whetted American appetite for it during the early 1960s "folk music" boom. This is an example of what is at best provincialism or what Carter calls 'Crow Jimism,' a reverse descrimination (acknowledged and hinted at in some of Jaffe's printed interview remarks) where every older black musician is thought more authentic, and thus better, at his instrument than his white counterpart.

'Preservation Hall' will delight those wanting to understand more about New Orleans' rich jazz history, or wanting an historical recreation broken up by hilarious anecdotes and great music. If the book came with a complete musician's list and discography (or better yet, a sample CD!) it would have been perfect. But everyone reading 'Preservation Hall' will rest it hearing New Orleans jazz in their minds, or wanting to.

This is a wonderful book. Mr. Carter has done an excellent job
describing the origins and growth of Preservation Hall, the citadel of traditional New Orleans jazz at 726 St. Peter St.
He profiles many of the musicians who played at the Hall, and manages to do it in such a way that the reader keeps turning the pages. I usually run out of steam about the middle of books like this one, but that was not the case with this one.

If you enjoy traditional New Orleans jazz, and have ever been to or plan to go to Preseration Hall, you gotta read this book.

Without a doubt, the funniest taxonomic work on Ichthyology you will ever come across- and extremely and extensively informative to boot. Even the preface is a delight to read, where Love discusses the intelligence of fish (stupider than the stupidest mouse to ever live), if fish sleep, how their names relate to Communism, if they will harm us emotionally, and Love's relative intelligence when compared to other marine biologists. Then he goes through, fish by fish, all the main species off the Pacific Coast, from BC to SoCal. (If you're looking for fish from the Gulf of Alaska, you will be disappointed.) He begins with Myxini and Petromyzone, moves to Chondrichthyes, and then onto Osteichthyes. (Hagfish, Lampreys, Sharks and Rays, and Bony Fish- for fish are actually four different creatures, as separate from each other as Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals are from each other.) Each section looks at the identifying characteristics, distribution, anatomy, commercial fishery, and extra tidbits, still with that trademark humor. And then there's a bit of the parasitic at the tail end of the book. Perhaps my favorite line: 'Your average hagfish can take a bucket full of water and almost solidify it with slime in a few minutes. (I don't know about you, but that makes me proud to be American.)'

If you have any interest at all in the fishes of the Pacific Coast, this is THE book. I recommend it to the students in my Marine Biology class as one of the most accurate and fun (!) works they will find. The information is up there with the classics by David Starr Jordan, whose books are now collectables. Dr. Love, who is legendary in the world of Fisheries for his research and publications, has added his distinct sense of humor to the usually dry descriptions of fishes. If you are interested in Marine Biology of Fishes you need this book.

I recently read Mr. Wells' book retelling his experiences in the Pacific during WWII. I was very impressed with his story telling ability and thoroughly enjoyed the book. I have known Mr. Wells most of my life and had no idea that he had been, seen and done the things that he described. This book makes you realize just how great the heroes of WWII are, and how everyday "Joes" rose to the occasion that was presented by just being there. They made us all proud of their tencaity, grit and courage. I am an avid reader and highly recommend this book. I read it on a cross country airline flight..I just couldn't put it down. What a wonderful reading experience.

Art Wells, a Marine on the USS Pennsylvania on December 7, 1941 relates his experiences on that day and during the rest of the Pacific War in "The Quack Corps." Included are Mr. Wells Pearl Harbor experience, where he was wounded, his time on the Pennsylvania after her repair, time on the USS New Mexico and the time he spent with DUKW's in the invasions of Saipan and Okinawa. An extremely interesting and informative book, one that is not to be missed!