Excellent book! Author Kathie Weir describes hundreds of enriching things for parents and children to do in the greater L.A. area. As a longtime resident of southern California, the author has visited most of these sites with her children, so her descriptions include a personal and honest touch; for example, in evaluating one museum, she writes, "Most of the under-twelve set will be happier elsewhere, but if you have one of those super-brainy, bored-with-everything, and a bit off-beat teens, this museum is IT." I liked her warm, down-to-earth writing style. Most of us---who think of famous amusement parks when we think of L.A.---are not aware of the area's wealth of museums, historical sites, wildlife preserves, train rides, gardens, annual events and much more. For instance, I was surprised to learn that Southeast Los Angeles has a Civil War Museum. The Union Army was stationed on the West Coast during the Civil War, and the Officer's Quarters of Drum Barracks now serves as a museum. The book lists many other places as intriguing as this. A Parent's Guide to Los Angeles is also very well organized. The author divides Los Angeles County into four areas, lists the sites by geographical section, and includes clear driving directions to each one. In fact, she devotes a whole chapter to tips on driving in L.A., offering helpful advice about coping with freeways and rush hours. Weir most definitely understands what it's like to travel with children, which gives her book even more credibility. She writes, "Parents never know what might strike a child's fancy" and confesses that when she took her children to see the great sights of Europe, the part they talked about the most afterwards was feeding the pigeons. How true this rings for anyone who has traveled with children! "An afternoon at a playground followed by hotdogs, cooked in the park's firepit can be a cherished memory for a kid," she advises. I was impressed with her attitude that sightseeing is a valuable form of education for children, but that "every family is different and every child has his or her own interests." This book provides a wide range of choices for any family's individual needs. I highly recommend this book.

Finally -- an all-inclusive source of information for favorite aunties (to stay that way) and god-parents too! Although I have no children, I have scads of nieces and nephews who visit from back east; plus my friends have children who sometimes like hanging out with me (and I with them). For years I have cut articles about "fun places to go" out of newspapers and magazines and stuffed them into drawers, until I have no drawers left. But no more! This fun and well-written guide has it all and is geared specifically to children and their grown-up buddies, not just vacationing families. I especially enjoy the photos taken by the author's children, which prove they really did enjoy these places. Not only do I recommend this guide to vacationing families, I also sing its praises for Southern California adults with young friends and relatives who visit often.

I have found this book to be totally enjoyable, humorous and was extremely helpful when we took our grandkids to visit friends and sightsee in the L.A. area. I have many friends who like to travel and I will certainly recommend this book as a real time saver while in L.A. Excellent!

Please don't go to Yosemite without this book!!!!!
It tells you everything you need to know. With or without a camera,this one you must have.

I love this book!! Thank-you to Michael Frye for taking on this project. I hope he goes to other national parks and writes more books. Michael not only shows photos and tells where to get them, he goes into great detail about what time of day, type of film, use of filters, depth of field, exposure... everything a "professional photographer-in-the-making" can use.

...It has illustrations for all kinds of photographic techniques including advice on seasons, film, lenses needed, important time of days etc. Definitely worth buying it. You can finish reading this book in couple of hours in car while somebody else is driving. i did the same. In my opinion it would really help if the authur included some kind of readmap you can follow so that u can be at right places at right time. (although considering the vastness of yosemite, i am sure it will be a difficult job) All in all great little book. i would recommend to buy it in advance...to take full advantage of authur's suggessions.

A fine book, evoking a lot more than just thoughts of fiddles. It brings back a lot of memories. There's endless stories winding on late into the night and square dances at the fire station with bright lights and cake walks. It's playing rhythm guitar while sitting on the porch hypnotized by the "play of the fiddle", playing those simple little tunes over and over and over, breathing life into them till they break loose and come alive. Reading Jerry's book was like stumbling into an attic full of memories.

There's something hypnotic about the sound of a fiddle, and Jerry weaves his own spell. All those countless, nameless, fiddle players were drawn to it and just couldn't ever get away. Way back "up the holler". It seems like the devil got hold of them & wouldn't let go. It's like sitting around a campfire, deep in the woods, listening to the baying of the hounds and just wondering what's really out there. Lot's of mystery up in the mountains and those old fiddle players felt it and made it sing out. Jerry really loves his fiddle music, but I think he really loves the spell of the mountains even more. Seems to come out best in the sound of a fiddle, played on the front porch, all alone, nothing but that fiddle sound, a full moon, and the deep silence of the endless woods. That fiddle music just floats in the silence. The hills don't care, they just sit there, and the fiddler plays on, just hearing that sound, going on and on and on...

Yep, it's a pretty good tale.

Gerry Milnes knows more about the tradtional music of West Virginia than probably any other writer on the subject.

This book presents a delightful look at the history of West Virginia fiddling, profiles of the players, and the culture in which this music thrived. It is well researched and presented in a very engaging style. Of particular interest to me were his profiles of some of the musical families of the state. In addition to his look at fiddlers, other folk music traditions are covered as well, including a look at the fretted dulcimer players and builders of the region. There are many helpful and interesting photographs as well.

Also recommended: "Fiddles, Snakes, & Dog Days," Milnes documentary film on the same subject which features the playing of many traditonal West Virginia musicians.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Milnes provides good descriptions of the history and the cultural contexts for fiddling in West Virginia. He provides especially good descriptions of dances. My favorite part of the book dealt with some of the traditional beliefs and practices associated with fiddling. There are fascinating traditions that fiddlers continue to use, and there is a wealth of folklore associated with the instrument. Milnes also provides a fine history of dulcimer music in Appalachia, and his work provides a corrective perspective about this instrument as he challenges the degree of purism and perhaps "snootiness" that is associated with fiddling.

This fine book will give the reader a good look and feel for the Big Bend of Texas.

Although I am a native Texan, I have never visited Big Bend. Through the author's experiences with the people he met along the way, Big Bend has become more than the awesome pictures. I'm planning a trip. Bill Wright is a wonderful writer as well as photographer - I hope there are more books to come. Sounds as if he has travelled the world.

Though I am a native Texan, I have never visited Big Bend. After reading about it and all the people the author met along the way, I long to be back in Texas. I laughed, I cried and thoroughly enjoyed this book. I especially enjoyed reading of the author's own experiences and hope he will write another book about his own life - sounds as if he's traveled the world. The photographs were wonderful.

I loved this novel! The telling of the story from alternating points of view is engaging and well-done. I especially enjoyed the characters arriving in the US at New Orleans & going to St. Louis (during 1840s)-- a change from immigrant stories beginning in New York.

Ruhama Veltfort's The Promised Land should be added to the list of Great American Literauture of the 20th Century. As an African-American woman I was expecting (a friend recommended the book to me) to read a "good" novel about a group of people I know little about. I started the novel with an open mind and trust in my friends' choice in literature and finished the novel with a deeper understanding of myself. The depection of the Polish experience and the Jewish culture was sincere, exciting and riveting. I was able to recommend the book to several Jewish acqaintences who validated its authenticity. The development of the characters was powerful and Veltfort's insight into the human mind taught me more about how people can react to situations in fiction as well as in "real" life. I was glued to the book and read it in one sitting. I cannot say enough about Veltfort's mastery of her art.

This is a most beautiful and original book. I have never read one quite like it, but would greatly like to. The narrative line is strong, the characters very real, the places come alive in all their smells and sights, and it is a fine piece of storytelling. One has to say this up front, because this is a book about mysticism, about the experiences and ecstatic knowledge that lie beneath the forms and rules of a religion, and about how a creative spirituality can arise in individuals that leads them to break out of the boundaries of their inherited culture. In other words it is an intellectually serious book. It steers clear of sentimental spiritual claptrap. In the story, terrible things happen to people we have grown to love. But it is neither an 'intellectual' book (i.e. inaccessible, hard work to read) nor a grim one. The narrative is strong because we care about these people and they are on a great quest, but also because the earthy details of their lives are as important to the author as their mystical experiences. One of the joys of the book is to look at a familiar scene - the American South and the frontier West - through unfamiliar eyes. E.g. Chana, the leading female character, only slowly understands that the black women with whom she does the chores in a rich Jew's house in St. Louis are slaves. The most terrible thing for these believers is not perhaps the pogroms or the starvation or the Indians, but the dangers inherent in the freedom and prosperity of the new land. "How am I to raise my sons here...?" asks one father. "Here there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, and all are gone to the devil in their crazy pursuit of riches." And the elder son himself says, "I ain't a Jew! ... I don't have to be nothin' I don't want to be. What else are we going West for?" If I have any criticism of the book it is that the ending, which brought tears to my eyes, nonetheless seemed to half-sidestep some of the issues raised about prosperity and keeping the faith. The beautiful spareness of the language of the book, without a wasted word, was too spare for me at the end. But perhaps, then what I really want is the sequel, about the survivors and their granmdchildren, and how they preserve the unity of body and spirit in the dangerously prosperous times in which we live.

This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. Coming from the Southwest, I almost feel like I know these characters. I read a story anytime I need my spirits lifted. My thanks to the author.

What a terrific book! This is a great book full of BULLoney. The book is written just like you were sitting there with the boys around the campfire. I swore I about busted a gut laughing...

Sederwall's great sense of humor, and ability to tie short stories into one big hoorah, is incredible. If you like Jeff Foxworthy's style of jokes, you'll love "Puncher Pie & Cowboy Lies." You don't even have to be a cowboy to enjoy the chuckling humor of this book. You almost feel like your in a comedic Louie Lamour! A definite must read!

This is a great catalogue for those seeking info not accessible by the normal public, like how to be your own mortician.

its an incredible resource guide for people looking for almost any kind of fringe information. i always thought i was pretty much ahead of the curve when it came to hidden or bizarre material, but i grossly overestimated my breadth of knowledge after reading Outposts. everything from sex art fringe politics drugs--its not only a great sourcebook but many of the publishers listed have EVEN more great books...amazing

Review w/cover scan is located at the above URL

If you should ever find this book at a local bookstore, make sure to snatch it up. Mr. West's ideas on humor go straight through the brains of those he is writing to. Why would a helicopter manufacturer respond to his letter requesting a small gunship helicopter to be used to ferry important people from small South American countries while carrying "about 1,000 pounds of an agricultural substance"? Because the people he is writing to don't understand the meaning of the word "person". To them, we are all just numbers, and we get the same pat answers to all of our questions. The joke, however, is on us for ridiculing these people while at the same time buying their products, giving them votes and paying their bills!

Bruce West is one crazy nut. Stupendously wacky. Had me laughing so much I got removed from public transit. This book has changed my life. I have promised myself to be more subversive than ever. A sample from Outrageously Yours: To Mr. John G. Smale, President, Proctor & Gamble

I am writing to express my profound satisfaction with your excellent product, new "Bounce" We operate a large Kennels here, and since switching all the dogs' diet to 'Bounce', we have observed a marked improvement in several directions. In particular, the animas are of a more contented disposition, their coats are healthier...

THE REPLY from PROCTOR & GAMBLE:

Dear Mr. West, ... Since our product Bounce is a laundry fabric softener in sheet form for use in the dryer, I am someshat puzzled by your enquiry...

I found this as a close-out and fortunately picked it up. Mr. West has us laughing so much that we were crying. I hope he hasn't given up letter writing!

another well-written bio on the one and only ernest hemingway. key west was/is a colorful place and so was ernie. i enjoyed this one. damn near felt like almost being there and enjoying a beer with ernie.

Of the many books about Hemingway, this is one of the most enjoyable I have yet found.

I discovered it when I was living in Eanes Lane, about 2 houses away from the Hemingway House, in Key West.

This book is one of the few that is really able to convey the atmoshphere of the place--imagine how quiet it must have been down there in the 30's, before A1A connected the Keys and EVERYBODY could get down there; Think of the parties Papa threw for his pals who came to visit; the sometimes beautiful, sometimes brutal weather; the sunsets, the fishing, the original Sloppy's.

I lived in Key Wierd for a couple years, and love it, but Papa's days MUST have been THE days! --Imagine bar hopping with Dos Passos or being able to sail over to Havana--the music! The nightclubs! The beaches! The Girls!--I digress, but you get the point. The recent release called "Hemingway's France" does very well describing the atmoshere of his Paris days. "Papa, Hemingway in Key West" does the same justice to the very productive and legend-shaping time he spent in Key West.

As well, there are several pages featuring a very good selection of photos from those days; including a couple black and white reproductions of great Waldo Peirce paintings in his typically loose, energetic style.

This is one of my favorite Hemingway references, and I turn to it repeatedly.

This is the first book review I've ever written, and it is because I know Hemingway fans will really enjoy Mr. McLendon's book.

The best book I have ever read on the life and times of Hemingway. Extremely insightfull into the man and his life after key west.

Phil Sheridan lacks a worthy biography, but this is the best around. It focuses on the post-Civil War period but ( I think)
could have done more to save the General's reputation from that of a 'bigot and Indian hater'.

For example, the unfair ascription of the so-called proverb 'The only good Indian is a dead Indian' is not challenged, I wonder when it ever will be. From my own limited research, I have found the first recorded public use of this phrase by a Montana politician in 1868, one year before Sheridan is supposed to have uttered similar words. Further, Sheridan's brother Mike also traces the phrase to Montana, saying 'some fool' ascribed the words to Sheridan. Finally, we only have the hearsay evidence
of a single witness (ie someone told someone else who wrote it down), written down 20 years later, that Sheridan used the words at all.

There is of course the larger accusation, that whatever Sheridan said, this is how he felt. Hutton effectively refutes that charge, I only wish he had come out and roundly stated it somewhere in the book. Sheridan shared the objectives of his contemporary humanitarian critics - he wanted Indians to settle down on reservations and adopt white ways, or just live of the bounty of the government. Where he differed was how he treated 'hostiles' or recalcritant Indians. Sheridan believed in waging war on the Indians just as he had made war in the Shenandoah Valley - devastate the enemy's resources, limit his power to make war by depriving him of supplies, with the added extra of rounding up families to be taken to where they white soldiers could watch them.

In essence, Sheridan was given a dirty job, and did in the only way he knew. But he had no especial hate for the Indians - he was not a Himmler figure, as some have made him out. He was fair to Indians who kept the peace. For example, he adjudicated in a dispute between Indians and cattlemen who had leased reservation land. Despite his personal feeling about development, he came down firmly on the Indian side, and thanks to him, the cattlemen were given 3 months to remove their herds, which humbered hundreds of thousands head of cattle.

Sheridan also sponsored early efforts to study Indian lore and customs, and was instrumental in preserving Yellowstone National Park for the nation.

In short this man was not a saint. He had glaring defects - for example, he aggressively defended subordinates even when they were in the wrong, he looked after cronies in the Army and outside. But he was totally uncorrupt in a corrupt age (his personal fortune was quite small at the end of his days, even though he could undoubtedly had many opportunities to enrich himself illicitly). Also, one feels that someone who said "If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd live in Hell and rent out Texas" can't be all bad! Right or wrong, he had a certain spirit, that Little Phil!

If anyone wonders how Custer could have been so driven to relentless pursue Sioux and Cheyenne to the Little Big Horn one must understand his mentor Phil Sheridan. As Hutton points out, Sheridan aggressiveness from his men and he could inspire them to such great lengths that one Union Soldier at the battle of Five Forks shot through the primary artery in the neck starts to seek medical help only to be blistered by Sheridan. Although mortally wounded, the young man turns to continue to attack and then immediately collapses to his death. The picture of the angular red haired cadet Sheridan at West Point looks just like the devil and his temper was evident there as he almost bayonets an upper classman that chews him out on parade. Sheridan applies his aggressive nature to the Indian campaigns such that if he is unable to capture the Indians (typical), he systematically destroyed their way of life by eradicating anything they needed to exist. Whether its buffalo, horses or village food stuffs, Sheridan essentially does to the Indians what he did to the Virginia Shenandoah valley during the Civil War where he or Grant made the comment that "a crow would have to carry rations if it flew over the valley" after Sheridan got through. Sheridan's effective Indian campaigns were often fought in the winter when the Indians had less food and were less mobile. Custer and Terry's campaign was desperate from the start since it started in the summer when the opposite was true. Hutton demonstrates Sheridan's black and white side and his Victorian views when Sheridan refuses to trade six horses for a captured white woman because he imagined her to be too sullied by the Indian braves and thus unfit for civilization. Hutton states in his introduction that he hopes that his daughter never has to meet a man like Sheridan which if he were your enemy it would be a relentless challenge without rules of war.

It is time we had books that celebrate the great HEROES of freedom like Grant Sherman Sheridan ect instead of the cowadly likes of Quantrill and his gutless backshooting ilk who would have run from a Blue Coat drummer boy or a Federal Army nurse!
It is about time that Americans honored those who stood and fought for freedom and WON. This book is a fine start.