These two authors have taken much of the guess-work out of fly fishing new trout waters in Arizona. Their combined experience and knowledge have been put together to aid both beginner and experienced fly fishermen. Virtually every productive trout water in the state is covered, along with tips, techniques, directions, and tackle needed to be productive. The book is both fun and easy to read, plus extremely educational for the fly angler seeking to fish Arizona's trout waters. This is the much needed book that every fly fisherman/woman in Arizona has been waiting for. If you are even thinking about fishing in this state, read this book!

I would like to commend the authors for a great job on a book that has given the Arizona resident like myself a new outlook on fly-fishing. I am excited about using the plethera of information that I have, and cannot wait until I can put this information to work on my next outing. Thank you Charlie and John for a job well-done!!

Reading Arizona Trout Streams, I thought my spots were being exposed. But as I got into the feel of the writers tone, I felt as if I were reading something written by a friend who was sharing his secrets. The book is punctuated by Arizona Fly Anglers names, friends of the authors who wrote the book. A nice touch. Certainly most people like to see their name in print, especially a book on our subject. Organized by geographics, the pages move from one stream to another in good form. Not all streams are listed, just the ones that are well known, and a few that aren't. One of my favorite streams is listed. The author gives it a poor rating, and for this I am happy. It seems that his idea of a small stream rating and mine do not closely match. That is ok by me, life is not black and white. There are some streams that I haven't even heard of. I know the area where they drain, but I haven't heard of them through my information channels or in my wanderings. I have a log, even one a little more in depth than I show you online. I check the insect hatches in my notes, and the hatches listed in Arizona Trout Streams is dead on. My knowledge of entomology is limited, but what I do know, I can say that it certainly matches the book. That my friends is a great feeling because I feel so lost when it comes to the Latin part of flye angling. I would have paid more for color pictures, but the black and white photographs are excellent. The pictures in the book look like ones that we have all taken. For instance, the Haigler Creek photograph is what I am talking about. A good look at what the stream really is. There is a section on Lee's Ferry that has been fully researched. The history of Trout strains at this tailwater are discussed along with flys and techniques used. I am impressed that I could have learned so much from a paperback book written on my subject. (my ego, has been deflated! just kidding.) Again, what a great book. Arizona Trout Streams is a must own for every Arizona Fly Angler and anyone who wants to know more about our Trout Streams. If you are thinking about coming to Arizona, go and purchase this book. It will make your knowledge of our streams match even some of us who have fished here our whole lives. Thank you Charles Meck and John Rohmer for making such a great book. I have been sweating it for a long time, and now I know that I am indeed learning many things, along with some new streams.

What is a hotspot and why do I care? Why should it matter to me where money is spent in finding and protecting the earth's resources? These questions, for me, were answered in John Charles Kunich's book "Ark of the Broken Covenant". In words and phrases aimed at dissemination of information, John Kunich allows the gentle reader to enter into a world of Global warfare. 'To maintain the legal status quo for the hotspots is to sign a death warrant.' Issues that up to now were not in the forefront of the mind are explained in such a way that by the time you are finished reading you also are ready to take up the cause to make sure that no more of our precious resources are decimated. Everyone needs to know what we are allowing to go to extinction because of our ignorance. You need to read this book. You should have read it yesterday.

This is the most important book I have ever read. The future of
life on Earth is at stake, and John Kunich brilliantly explains how the law has been unable to stop the mass extinction now underway. He painstakingly describes the international laws and the laws of dozens of foreign nations that attempt to preserve biodiversity, and he leaves no doubt that all these laws have failed miserably. But more than that, Kunich has a proposal for how law can still save the day, and the planet. I've never seen anything in print as phenomenal as the concluding chapters where
Kunich makes the case for his alternative legal approach. Sheer
genius!

"Ark of the Broken Covenant" is an in-depth examination of the world's biodiversity "hotspots" and why current international mechanisms fail to protect them. The book lays out a practical approach to minimize future species extinction.
In the book, Professor Kunich persuasively argues for a shift from a worldwide species-based strategy to a prioritized location-based strategy as a means to have the greatest effort with limited resources. Going beyond the normal academic approach of stating a generalized solution to a problem, Professor Kunich offers a complete solution, starting with proposed legislation, to a viable means of implementing the strategy in the U.S., to workable incentives for third-world nations to support it.
"Ark of the Broken Covenant" should be the game plan for preserving endangered species. It is a must read for environmentalists, lawyers, scientists, poltical leaders, and concerned citizens.

Armstrong Encore is the best cycling book I have ever read. It does not insult the cyclist intelligence like most other cycling books I have read. It gives in-depth information of day-by-day following the 2000 Tour. It give explainations and insight that can only come from the pro's themselves. This kind of coverage is not found on TV or videos.

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I've read many books about cycling races over the years and this has to be about the best. excellent in-depth coverage of Lance Armstrong and the US Postal squad as they attempt to repeat their previous year's victory. I could hardly put it down. in fact I'm already reading it for the second time.

I think that this book is wonderful! I am a student of Dr. Anthony York's and we have utilized this book in our classes. The Bible As Literature discusses the Bible in a manner that helps the reader actually read what is/was written without all the religious jargon. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is curious about "The Bible" or to anyone who thinks they "really" know what the Bible states.

It is difficult to separate the literary and religious aspects of the Bible, but the authors' focus is on the book "as literature" and in the space of 357 pages (in my copy of the 4th edition - 432 according to Amazon.com), they cover literary forms and strategies, historical and geographic settings, the major components of the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha and Pseudoepigrapha, and issues concerning the text and its translation. A valuable final chapter considers the religious use and interpretation of the Bible. Although the book is concise, it manages in its 18 chapters and 3 appendices to be comprehensive and is consistently readable. I find the sensible, scientific approach credible and while it frequently causes me to reflect on my religious beliefs, they are not seriously undermined by this liberal approach. I do not know of a better introduction to the Bible.

This book is great. I have Dr. Anthony York, one of the authors of this book,in class, and his book is wonderful. It really helps to see the various opinions of the bible. It is also great for people who want to study the bible as literature and not from a religious stand point.

Since this is a Fodor's guide, you get decent coverage of lodging and dining at the end of the book. What makes the book worthwhile, though, is the photographs. They are plentiful and great. Most are current color photos, but some of the vintage black-and-white (some from Ansel Adams) are excellent. Many of the wineries are shown as well as different aspects of the wine-making business. Even street signs and other everyday activities are included, making it a down-to-earth tour guide and photo book. Very appealing to the eye.

This is a great book on the wine country. Full of some of the most informative prose regarding where to go, how to get there and what to expect. Doerper sets out mini "tours" of the area. My wife and I mapped out our trip by the book and had a wonderful time. The book was right on. Highly recommended!

I would highly recommend this book to anyone visiting Napa and/or Sonoma Valleys. We were able to trust the information in this book and it did cover a lot of information, from: restaurants, vineyards, antique shops and farmer's markets (plus much more). To the author John Doerper, thank you for making our holiday very enjoyable by writing candid and factual information for this guide book.

Ethel Waxham is, beyond doubt, absolutely charming. The story of her courtship by John Love, a Wyoming sheep baron, is the focus of these collected journal entries and letters. Their correspondence betrays an endearing, down-home, extended Western romance heavily seasoned by John's devotion, Ethel's wry humor, and the quick intelligence of both.

The two of them met in Wyoming, in 1905, when Ethel accepted a teaching assignment there. After the school year was over, Ethel left to continue her education, and subsequently took teaching assignments elsewhere in the country, adventures documented by her letters to John Love. It is evident that Ethel felt keenly the conflict between a poorly-paid, but independent career, and a more comfortable but narrow married life.

Meanwhile, John Love was apparently building a sheep empire. His adventures were of a more dangerous variety: rounding up and taming wild horses, herding sheep in the middle of Wyoming snowstorms, travelling 80 miles through horrific weather to spend a day or two by Ethel's side.

The two principals in this play are engrossing enough. However, there is a whole extended cast of characters contributing sub-plots: Ethel's close circle of college friends and co-teachers, who write to her from the four corners of the US. Their letters provide a glimpse into the lives of young, educated, intelligent, ambitious, and surprisingly (to this reader) modern women. Among them were socialists, vegetarians (Ethel herself!), suffragettes, women pursuing graduate degrees and medical degrees, women teaching in Paris or Texas or California or Illinois. It is inspiring and encouraging to be reminded that women were doing such things long before the Baby Boom generation "invented" women's lib, slowly pushing out the social and political barriers to what women could be and do.

This is personal history, however, not political, and it has all the intimate appeal of narratives which are not varnished, interpreted, collated or generalized by the historian. Peek inside the classrooms, boarding-house bedrooms, and isolated ranches where Ethel and her contemporaries lived, taught, and wrote warm missives to distant friends under dim lamplight. They are our pioneers.

When John McPhee published his now-classic RISING FROM THE PLAINS, he introduced Ethel Waxham Love in the first paragraph. All through the rest of the book he interwove her story with that of her son, Wyoming geologist David Love and the geology of the Great Plains. When fan mail came rolling in, readers wanted to know more about the "slim young woman" who stepped down from a train in Rawlings, Wyoming one fall morning in 1905.
LADY'S CHOICE is Ethel Waxham Love's story. Her granddaughters, Barbara Love and Frances Love Froidevaux, have collected her writings -- journals, letters, poetry, essays, stories -- present them in combination with letters from her friends and classmates as well as from the man she would marry.

Her story begins in the Fall of 1905. She has graduated from Wellesley and spent the Summer working as an assistant to her doctor father in Denver. When she gets the opportunity to teach in a log cabin schoolhouse in Wyoming, she accepts the offer. Her first journal entry describes her journey into the wilds of Wyoming by train, stage coach and wagon. With a sure pen and a sympathetic eye she records her impressions of the land, the people and events. Her observations are those of a sharp mind (she had earned a Phi Beta Kappa key at Wellesley, specializing in Greek, Latin and French), her descriptions are those of a major literary talent.

Of one acquaintance she writes, "Mrs. Butler. . .is a little war-horse of a woman, with a long, thin husband. I'm telling you about her because she has been improving him for twenty years and it is beginning to tell on him."

Her year in this community is surprisingly eventful, considering the isolation and the seeming lack of resources. But Ethel is a resourceful person, full of imagination, the kind of person who makes things happen. She visits friends, attends church services and "sociables," and dines in local restaurants. There are dances and suppers and school entertainments. And there is John Love, the man she will marry after the five-year courtship that is recorded here.

She is enchanted by her surroundings. "The color of the white hills against the pale of the blue sky is most exquisite i the world. The cedars are gray with snow, the sagebrush white clumps of crystals. Where a long way off the sun touches the tops of the snow-covered hills there are shines a streak of silver. A whole white world was there, rising around us, as far as we could see; there did not appear to be such a thing as direction. Everywhere the whiteness, everywhere the hills. Where the stubble of the fields of the range rose above the snow,there was a shading of gold over the white. . .and when the full moon shines out of the deep dark night sky, the hills are like shining silver."

You, too, will find a lady to love in these pages. Her journal begins as she stands on the threshold of her life, emerging from the chrysalis of a protected girlhood toward the challenge of womanhood. Here she records a land, a people, a life, a love, welcoming them as unequivocably and eagerly as only the young do.

LADY'S CHOICE eclipses others of its type. It not only showcases the lady's life and the choices she made, it reveals a true literary talent and a rare human being. Wallace Stegner (ANGLE OF REPOSE, SPECTATOR BIRD, CROSSING TO SAFETY)once spoke of the "inextinguishable western hope" expressed by writers of history as they look at the world and at humanity's place in it. Ethel Waxham Love's letters and journals provide a major contribution to that hope as well as to the history and the the belles lettres of the American West.

(c)2002 Sunnye Tiedemann
(Ruth F. Tiedemann)

Excellent book covering the lifes and loves of the two major characters. Not only good reading, but a very good insight into the manners, culture and living conditions in the early 1900's.

I do recommend the book. The first part was kind of boring but when it gets into the tour itself that's when the emotional part starts. Wilcockson and Pelkey do an excellent job bringing the excitement of the tour to the reader. They are the anchormen, narrating the action. But the fact that we also have Andreu's diary pages there too, that gives us the action from a participant point of view. Tons of useful information, a lot of interesting details. If you like biking, this is the book for you. On the other hand, if you cannot tell the difference between a 55 and an 11 you better get something else to read.

Honestly, this is one of the finest non-fiction cycling books on the Tour de France that one could own. While the photographic clarity is outstanding, the foldout "in-scale" maps are supurb. Authorship is genuine, descriptive, and insightful. A must for any library!

This book provides the reader with a fascinating insight into the behind-the-scenes operation of one of the World`s major sporting events,the TOUR DE FRANCE,and also the miraculous comeback from cancer by Lance Armstrong. It is presented in a straightforward,easy to read style,a characteristic of author,John Wilcockson`s writing manner,and I personally found it very hard to put down.(I read it in 2 days!) The daily stage entries by Frankie Andreu are always humorous,as in the previous year`s CONQUESTS & CRISES(The 1998 T de F) and provide a light-hearted alternative to the darker side of a currently,much-maligned sport. Another of John Wilcockson`s books I would thoroughly recommend to any cycling enthusiast is, WORLD OF CYCLING. A 30 year retrospective of Velonews stories. All three of the above-mentioned books get a 5 star rating from me.

Here are six essays by John Ashbery about six of his favourite minor poets, ranging from John Clare, born in 1790s England, to David Schubert, born 1913 in New York. John Brooks Wheelwright and Laura Riding are included, from the early 20th century, as is Raymond Roussel (a French precursor to anti-novelists, a specialist in parenthetical labyrinths, and endlessly detailed descriptions of bottle-labels). We have, too, the doomed author of "Death's Jest Book," the 19th-century poet Thomas Lovell Beddoes.

These essays are engaging and readable, informed and informative without being pedantic. There are anecdotes, too (about Riding, most notably, who is aptly diagnosed by Ashbery as "a control freak"). We notice that half of the authors are homosexual or possibly so, most either committed suicide or had a parent who did so, three were affected by mental problems, and the majority were ardent leftists (Riding being an exception).

To this reader, the two Johns, Clare and Wheelwright, are the most immediately endearing, and David Schubert's disjunctive colloquial tone does fascinate. Some of the comments about the gang of six do shed some light into Ashbery's curious methods: Clare's mucky down-to-earthiness and Beddoes' elegant, enamelled "fleurs-du-mal" idiom both being "necessary" components of poetry, in Ashbery's view. Some of Wheelwright's elastic sonnets have a Saturday Evening Post-type folksiness that is often found in Ashbery's own poetic inventions; Schubert's poems (in Rachel Hadas's words) "seem(ing) to consist of slivers gracefully or haphazardly fitted together." An aside: Look at the first two lines of Schubert's "Happy Traveller." Couldn't that be John Ashbery? About Raymond Roussel, whose detractors accuse him of saying nothing, Ashbery mounts an impatient defence that reads like a self-defence: "If 'nothing' means a labyrinth of brilliant stories told only for themselves, then perhaps Roussel has nothing to say. Does he say it badly? Well, he writes like a mathematician."

We learn that Ashbery is not fond of E E Cummings, and he is unconvincingly semi-penitent of this "blind spot": Cummings, with his Herrick-like lucidity, his straightforward heterosexuality, and his resolute nonleftism, would not appear to fit nicely into Ashbery's pantheon. Ashbery even takes a few mischievous swipes at John Keats -- rather, he quotes George Moore doing so. Ashbery will doubtless forgive his readers if our enthusiasm for the poetry of Keats and Cummings remains undiminished.

There is much in the poetry explored by "Other Traditions" that is dark and bothersome; but there are felicities. These lectures form a fascinating kind of ars-poetica-in-prose by one of America's cleverest and most vexing of poets.

Every once in a while, I come across a book that opens up new doors for me. They introduce to me to areas of life that I otherwise might never have encountered. Other Traditions by John Ashbery is just such a book.

I have always had a love for, but limited knowledge of, Poetry. It was Edward Hirsch's great book How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry that first introduced me to Ashbery's work. He is, in my opinion, one of the greatest living poets. Therefore, I jumped at the opportunity to read Other Traditions.

Other Traditions is the book form of a series of lectures given by Ashbery on other poets. Ashbery writes about six of the lesser-known artists who have had an impact on his own life and work. All of them are fascinating. They are:

-John Clare, a master at describing nature who spent the last 27 years of his life in an Asylum.

-Thomas Lovell Beddoes, a rather death obsessed author (he ended up taking his own life) whose greatest poetry consists of fragments that must often be culled from the pages of his lengthy dramas.

-Raymond Roussel, a French author whose magnum opus is actually a book-length sentence.

-John Wheelwright, a politically engaged genius whose ultra-dense poetry even Ashbery has a hard time describing or comprehending.

-Laura Riding, a poet of great talent and intellect who chose to forsake poetry (check out the copyright page).

-David Schubert, an obscure poet who Ashbery feels is one of the greatest of the Twentieth Century.

The two that I was most pleasantly surprised by are Clare and Riding.

Clare has become (since I picked up a couple of his books) one of my favorite poets. He is a master at describing rural life. I know of no one quite like him. Ashbery's true greatness as a critic comes out when he depicts Clare as "making his rounds."

Riding, on the other hand, represents the extreme version of every author's desire for the public to read their work in a precise way--the way the author intends it to be read. Her intense combativeness and sensitivity to criticism is as endearing as it is humorous.

Other Traditions has given me a key to a whole new world of books. For that I am most grateful.

I give this book my full recommendation.

This book is much smaller than I thought it would be, but this only enhances its gem-like charm; from its rich cover to its finely homespun interior. I thought at first I had heard it all before from Ashbery, in his short Schubert and Roussel essays, and in comments dropped in Reported Sightings; but even when covering the same ground he subtly brings forth new worlds. It's refreshing to hear him talk of these beloved poets, like a tour through the comfortable rooms of his mind, which of course also offers countless insights into Ashbery's own career of poetic journeys. I recommend this book to both literary scavengers of the past and arcane poets of the future, but especially to the intriguing combination of both living a dream right now.

This book tells the traditional story of Sleeping Beauty with magnificent language, accompanied by spectacular illustrations. As in the original, Sleeping Beauty's mother is told that her dream of having a child would finally come true and that she would have a baby girl. The Queen did have the baby girl and her husband was so pleased he threw the biggest and grandest birthday party. He invited all but one person and not inviting her was the result in a terrible spell cast upon his daughter, Briar Rose. The spell was to put her to sleep on her 15th birthday, in which it did, after she touched the spinning wheel. Only a handsome man could wake her from the spell, and many years later that is what one man did. By kissing her, she returned to life and brought the whole castle life back with her. What catches the reader's attention in this particular book is the depth and colors of the illustrations. The position of the text also is very relevant in this story. Each picture is extremely detailed and shows that a great amount of thought was put into completing each page. It is very unique that the placement of the words on each page is located in some form of an opening. The text is placed in open skies, doorways, and blank walls on each page. In the beginning of the book, when the tone is darker, opening words are placed in a smaller and darker area; when Sleeping Beauty is awoken, the tone is much livelier. An example of this transition is relevant on the first two pages of the book, from the time when you are told the Queen could not have children to the time she has given birth to a baby girl. The first picture has dark colors and the trees are scary, close together and representative of a dark tone. With a turn of the page the tone takes a great positive change with open skies, doves, and vibrant colors. The text on both pages is in the middle of the darkness and then in the middle of a window. The position of the text and the illustrations are key factors in determining the over all tone and mood of the story. This book tells such an amazing story with the pictures that words are not even necessary. Children can read this book and better understand because of the colors and detail that each picture possesses. The doves that are used on the page of the birth of Briar Rose and the end of the book symbolize her life and what joy she lived. The colors in general are also used a symbol for joy and sadness, with such powerful colors meaning and representing happy times.

Trina Schart Hyman entranced me with her illustrations of Snow White when I was just a child. This book, with all its wonderful depictions, is equally as rich and magical. I have always loved the way her drawings looked and she was a direct inspiration for me to take up illustration when I got to college. I definitely reccomend it. It is a lovely, well-written tale and anyone, young or old, will love it.

As soon as you see the cover, you will know this is an edition of Sleeping Beauty that you will want. You actually feel the joy of the baby's christening, and the hurt and turmoil of the wicked fairy's curse. The scenes in this book are medeieval looking and it even shows some of the seasons that pass. This might not be the way that you see Sleeping Beauty often depicted. The princess, Briar Rose has long red hair and she wears a knife around her waist, in true medieval princess style. This is definetly a good change for the story. With it's expressive wording and beautiful, unique illustrations, you will want to check out her other books such as Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and some others!!!!