Compared to most other Zep books available this one is extremely lacking in details. Information given about quite a few of the songs in this book can be attained by simply listening to the song lyrics. Some of Led Zeppelin's songs have been very well documented through the years, and that info is included in this book. But if your looking for the meaning behind more obscure song (ones that everyone and their dog already know the meaning behind) don't look here. If your a Zepp fanatic "The Stories Behind The Songs" is a waste of time and money. If your just starting to get into Zeppelin, and know practicaly nothing about the band this book has basic info that you can use.

I bought this book with the anticipation of learning all sorts of obscure Led Zeppelin trivia. I was also looking forward to finding out what inspired these guys to write some of the most memorable songs ever. I was dissappointed in both aspects.

To be quite frank, this book just isn't long enough. If you've never even heard of Led Zeppelin before its a pretty good start, but it reads like the instructions for operating a VCR.

There are a lot of good photographs in the book but the author or editor didn't even bother to put the album cover on the first page of the chapter about each album.

If you're really looking for more on the greatest rock band of all time, look somewhere else. Most Zeppelin fans will find this book lacking.

Even if you're a die-hard Led Zeppelin fan, you'll find yourself saying the above when you read this book. Quite interesting and well-written.

This is not an especially thoughtful book. Her thesis would seem to be that the simplicity of rural life is superior, but she does not offer much in the way of evidence. In fact, the story is really one of a greater reliance on modern things.

Linda Tatelbaum is a master at her craft. This should not be surprising, given that she is a professor of English at Colby College. Still, she imparts life to ordinary words, forming holistic images that invoke all the senses. It is easy to smell the freshly split wood and salivate over her home-made pickles. One can hear her footsteps in the snow as she struggles with heavy water jugs. One can even feel her aches and soreness and sadness as she stands sixteen feet underground at the bottom of a shallow well she has reclaimed, as she recalls the tragedy that wiped out the earlier homesteader who first dug the well.

On one level, Carrying Water is indeed a homesteader's chronicle, a story told with passion, sometimes with humor, and sometimes with anger. The author tells of victory and defeat, jubilation and disappointment. Mostly though, there is a peacefulness that transcends the impracticality of, as she puts it, "living in this space age when all things are possible, living for just a moment of every day as if none of the modern world had ever happened." It's hard to imagine a clearer representation of her simple but far from easy lifestyle.

On another level, though, the lifestyle simplicity itself generates a complexity in her life, as "alternative lifestyles provoke controversy." She describes the changes she and her husband had to make in their routines and their environment when they had a baby, and the trade-offs she has to make to live her professional life fully and responsibly while homesteading.

Finally, the author has some strong opinions, as one might expect. About trash disposal? Or the need for a new highway to by-pass a town? Anyone who has participated in town debates about such things will identify and enjoy Professor Tatelbaum's perspectives. Many readers, too, would support her position on speculative land development. Her resistance emerges in her maybe not so tongue-in-cheek proposal for a new ordinance. It would require, among other things, that before the developer may re-sell land, he must live on it for a year, grow or gather his own food from the site, serve on a town committee, and attend and clean up after every bean supper!

Carrying Water As A Way Of Life is an elegant, easy read that celebrates a hard but satisfying way of being.

I was drawn into this book by Tatelbaum's style. It's a thing of spare, unpretentious beauty, like a finely crafted Shaker meeting bench translated into words. Tatelbaum's book describes her two decades of experience as a homesteader in rural Maine. You don't have to be an arm chair back-to-the-lander to enjoy this book because the book goes so much deeper than a mere recounting of water fetched from a distant well or negotiating an unpaved road during "mud time." As a fellow Baby Boomer, I most appreciated Tatelbaum's unflinching description of her journey from idealistic hippie,("We live in a one-room cabin...built by hand in the woods. We eat from wooden bowls, drink from stoneware mugs, use chopsticks. Nothing metal, or plastic or china will ever touch our lips again.") to conflicted middle age, pondering the emotional and environmental costs of "selling out." Should Tatelbaum and her husband agree to hook up to Central Maine Power, now that the power lines are in view? Or continue using wood, kerosene and solar energy to run their homestead. Tatelbaum considers questions many members of our generation have forgotten in their stampede from the communes of our youth to the newest SUV, the bigger house, the higher salary. Thank you, Linda Tatelbaum for reminding me of the truly important questions, and that the answers are rarely black and white.

I used this book to pick out a couple of places to stay in Vermont, and regretted it. I should have been tipped off by the fact that every single review in the book is glowingly positive; a dead giveaway that the book is not independent. It seems very likely to me that this is one of those guides where the inns and hotels pay to be included, and may even write their own reviews.

The book is divided up by types of place, so there's a "Country B&B" section, a "Romantic Getaway" section, a "Lakeside" section, and so on. We booked one of the "Gourmet Getaways" and one of the "Farms"; the former was a disaster, but the latter was OK. The gourmet place, a fancy inn in Ludlow, was described as providing "sumptuous feasts" for breakfast, with "excellently trained and most personable" staff, and the option of picking up a "sophisticated picnic lunch". It's hard to imagine the editors actually ate at this place: the staff clearly hated the management and were close-mouthed and unfriendly (and we overheard the owner loudly berating one of the waitresses); the cooking was very good, but not extraordinary, and the picnic was ridiculous--for $25 a head we each got a nice little ash bucket with a quarter bottle of very cheap champagne, a chunk of cheese, and a hunk of bread.

The farm was described a little more accurately--the views were truly incredible, and the cooking was home-cooking, wisely not praised in the guide book.

At the gourmet place, in Ludlow, we met up with a couple of friends from Britain. They'd booked on our recommendations, but had bought a guide book anyway, and we were alarmed to discover a much harsher evaluation of where we were about to stay. In the end, we enjoyed ourselves enough--good company and Vermont scenery can overcome most ills. When we shop for a vacation now, though, we always look for a guide book that seems willing to criticize.

This book has been an invaluable source for my business - New England B&B Reservation Services. What I like most is that many of the places I have called out of this book have been gracious and professional. I have to make a lot of "cold calls" in this business when I get requests for areas outside of my listings. It is nice to know that my call will be received well. We only carry those hosts who offer exceptional hospitality, so if I don't have a good conversation with the bed & breakfasts and country inns, then I cannot recommend them to my clients. The descriptions set forth in this book are generally true and honest. When I visit the places personally, I already know what to expect.

So the concept of this book is pretty cool. I know I'm always wondering what the meaning is behind a song's lyrics. *Especially* Bowie's songs because the guy is such an intellectual that a lot of his stuff is filled with crazy references to random philosophers and artists, and a fan like me rarely knows what he's talking about. Jean Genet anyone? Kahlil Gibran?

Unfortunately, this book does a really crappy job of telling the stories behind the song. The author really doesn't know much at all; basically I learned nothing new in this book that I didn't know already. You can find out the same kind of information by browsing around FAQs on the net, or going to alt.fan.david-bowie and asking a question of the people there.

The only thing saving this book from a 1 is that it has pictures, and it takes you along the whole discography path (well, up until 20 years ago at least), and what can I say, Bowie's had an interesting life. If you buy this, though, be prepared to return it... it doesn't do much of a job of serving up the stories.

Before I even owned this book, I knew it didn't deserve 5 stars. A David Bowie book written in 1999 should go a little further than 1980's Scary Monsters! Many Bowie fans will argue that Scary Monsters was his last good album. This statement is prejudice and wrong. Chris Welch needs to realize that 3 pages covering nearly 20 years of music does not earn a book 5 stars. If the publishing would have been delayed a few months, Welch could have written another sentence about "Hours...". However, Welch makes the reader think about things that would usually be overlooked by other biographers. Yet sometimes Chris can get carried away. (My main reason for giving it 3 stars.) For instance, the review of "Fame" is out of control. Now, "Fame" is a great song and deserves a lengthy review since it's David Bowie and John Lennon together. Unfortunately, this certain review is filled with garbage and nonsense. That's the only real bad review in the book that I can recall. Every Bowie fan should still buy it, and there are some quite enjoyable pictures in there as well!

Well, not every David Bowie song, despite what the title says. No, this covers Bowie's RCA period, from Space Oddity up to Scary Monsters. Each section is done per album, and before the song-by-song analysis and description, there is a detailed history of Bowie's life at that point. Bowie's better-known collaborators are given decent print, especially Mick Jagger, Marc Bolan, John Lennon, and Tony Visconti, as are influences such as Kraftwerk for his three Berlin albums, Stanley Kubrick's 2001 for Space Oddity, and George Orwell's 1984 for the Diamond Dogs album. Bowie's inter-album projects, such as his movies and plays are also included in the history. And there's a good deal given about his early life before Space Oddity.

There are certain insights into Bowie concerning his art. He even said, "I don't like a lot of my albums... I like bits and pieces. A bit of it works exceedingly well and a lot of it only works." This mirrors somewhat my feeling on his lesser albums, such as Diamond Dogs and Young Americans, but not on his spectacular ones such as Hunky Dory, The Man Who Sold The World, or Low.

Many of the stories behind the song are revelatory for those not in the know. I wasn't totally aware of the 1984-theme that pervaded Diamond Dogs apart from the "1984" song, but "We Are The Dead" (in 1984, Winston Smith's words to Julia before they are caught by the Thought Police) and "Big Brother/Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family" are two other songs that contribute to that.

To take an example from my favourite 1970's Bowie album, Hunky Dory, I learn that Bob Dylan wasn't exactly happy with the playful tribute "Song For Bob Dylan" because Bowie referred to him by his real name and described his voice akin to "sand and glue." Ouch! However, as I learned, the song was actually calling for Dylan to go back "to writing songs for the 'revolution' and to scour his scrapbook for inspiration if the muse is not upon him."

And it's peppered with colour and black-and-white photos. At the end of the book, a chronology from 1947 to 1980, and a singles and album discography are included, with song listing and album issues and reissues included, as was done under Ryko for the albums being explored in this book.

In the end, Bowie is revealed as a great songwriter, wordsmith, and artist whose creativity knows no bounds, even if he did alienate many of his fans with his shifting musical directions.