Aldo Leopold's timeless prose is illuminated in this fantastic coffee table edition celebrating the 50 year anniversary of publication. The photos follow the text and give light and meaning to this defining work of the modern ecological movement. The reader is brought directly into Sand County and shares Leopold's vision as to how a landscape can be healed and brought back into harmony when man's stewardship of the earth is encouraged. The additional essays on the environment by Ken Brower, son of Sierra Club founder David Brower, is icing on the cake! The perfect gift for my teenage son before he left for college.

Long considered the first book on conservation, this should be read by everyone. The author's love of land, wildlife and nature are fully expressed. Those thoughts are followed by philosophizing on conservation - ethics, practice, economics, etc. Written in the nascent stages of conservation in this country, a time when it was more thought than practice, the issues still resonate today. One sees the difficulties both in expanding environmental conservation as well as the pitfalls and errors made in the area (with all good intent) since the forties when Leopald wrote.
Portions of this were assigned when I was in college. Now, 28 years later, the entirety means much more. It should be required reading for everyone, especially lovers of the outdoors.

While Leopold's writing in A Sand County Almanac is timeless, Sewell's photograhs and Brower's introduction provide valuable context for this classic. I will be giving this gorgeous new volume to my fellow Leopold admirers as well as those friends and family I have been trying to get to read Leopold for years. It won't disappoint!

I recently reviewed a number of books on telecommuting and distance collaboration for a research center (...) and Dziak's book was the best I found on telecommuting.

While some other books dwell too much on details of home office setup (which this book does cover thoroughly in ch 4) Dziak is by far the most insightful about the real challenges of telecommuting, which are social issues of staying in touch. The book gives prescriptive advice in easily-digestable forms. Dziak is quite fond of top-10 lists, but manages to pack a lot of good content into this somewhat gimmicky format. My most-reference part of the book was his '10 Ways to stay on the corporate radar screen' (p. 181).

Michael Dziak's book is very thorough, and is a comprehensive guide on telecommuting. The check lists, forms, and practical tips are very usefull. This book offers so much for anyone operating a home office, it is a good investment even if they don't telecommute. I agree with other reviewers this is the desk companion or bible for telecommuters. I highly recommend it.

This is a good book. The design is very approachable, and the writing is quite readable - especially in an age when people would *like* to explore telework, but don't quite know where to begin. From Telework 101 to senior-exec-level concepts, it explains much of what today's teleworker - and even the at-home entrepreneur - needs to launch a fully-functional home office, without losing touch or professional stature with the corporate community.

I have a 5 and 7 year old. We all think this book is great! It's colorful and informative and Up-To-Date! One feature I enjoy pointing out to my kids is the little images which compare the dinosaurs size to a human child's size. That way we get an even better idea how big the creatures were.

Promising high interest and educational quality alike is this dinosaur 'field guide' for all ages, which packs in museum-quality dinosaur illustrations, expertise by two paleontologist authors, and details on dinosaur digs and places to see fossils in the field. Web sites, museums, and bibliographies are also included in this highly visual, appealing guide.

This is a great book, its got the most info on dino discoveries after about '95, plus interesting facts on previously known about dinos. Its also a very interesting and fun book to read, and is very educational. It has a cool fold out poster too, wich makes it even more fun. I strongly reccemend this book to any one of any age who like dinosaurs.

Probably one of the best wildland fire books I have ever read. In my 25+ years of firefighting this one captures the scenes of a wildland fire the best. The pictures are great and the narration and stories truly catch you up in the whole fire scene. Buy it for the pictures or the stories--but get a copy, You will enjoy it for years to come.

This coffee-table sized book has some incredible photos and a great human-interest slant on the world of wildland firefighting. There is a bit on the history of wildland fire in America and on tactics and fire ecology, but the author really shines when he describes the subculture of those who fight wildland fire, and why many of them forsake "normal" careers or social status to come back year after year. Wildland fire in rural America is one of the few paths to genuine adventure still available in the modern world, and is probably the closest thing to a positive rite of passage there is today. It is an opportunity to live and work in the wilderness which most people will never have. I've been there, done that myself and found this book of much interest. Although, with the catastrophic fire seasons of 2000 and 2002 this book is no longer quite up to date. Looking forward to a revised and updated edition.

When I first picked up a copy of Michael Thoele's Fire Line, I was quite skeptical, having served 5 years in the late 1990's as a Region One Firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service in Montana while working my way through college to earn an engineering degree at Montana State University. All too often, Books, Documentaries, and movies leave much to be desired when it comes to correctly describing the world of Wildland Firefighting and the characters that inhabit that world. After having read the work completely, I must say that I am very impressed. I have read it now more than a few times, and still return to it when I feel the need to keep alive all the wonderful memories of the unique people that I met and the experiences that we shared.

Having started out as an "Engine Slug" on the Gallatin National Forest, and having worked my way up and around the fire eschelons-- serving as a helitack crew member, eventually earning my quals as an Incident Commander, and serving my time as a Rookie Smokejumper in Missoula, I have seen and done much that Mr. Thoele accurately describes. I think what makes the book work so well is that the author lets the book be itself. By this, I mean that many of the stories and photos are those related to and given to the author. The research for this book is absolutly top-notch, [as it MUST be], and takes nothing away from the fast-paced, hard-hitting, gritty and spine-tingling stories related by the author.

In my opinion, this is the finest book currently on the market that documents Wildland Firefighting in the western United States, both in scope and depth. It is a fitting tribute to all Wildland Firefighters, Past, Present and Future.

This is an absolute must have if you are looking for a quick explanation of all aspects of ocean life. The authors have done a thorough job of making short, detailed explanations to almost anything you might be looking for. This book is basically a fun to read encyclopedia of marine life.

While not intended primarily as a textbook, I have used SeaLife as the text in my introductory oceanography class for the past two years. The authors present their ideas clearly and the illustrations are well done. An adequate index is furnished.

although not a "complete" guide, a wonderful book for every sea-loving creature! wonderful pictures and informative text for every amateure or pregraduate student

"The Man Who Planted Trees" is a wonderful short story about the fictional life of a man who singlehandedly restores a valley to life by becoming the Johnny Appleseed of Trees. More importantly, its about a man who, having suffered the loss of his wwife and only child, chooses to live a simple life in anonymous service with little but his own resources and his love for trees. The short-term effect is almost unnoticeable; long-term its staggering.

The wood engravings that accompany the text stand out and mirror the book's theme of asutere simplicity quite beautifully. Its a wonderful book for children, nature enthusiasts, gardeners and those looking for hope that follwoing one's heart and living out of love, rather than fear, can ultimately make a difference.

This is a wonderful read. It makes a great bedtime story and it is also beautiful (the wood carvings) and inspiring. This is good for people tired of reading what is wrong with the environment. The Man Who Planted Trees is kind of like a sophisticated Lorax book. Anyway, buy this book and enjoy it!

Jean Giono's inspiring story of the "man who planted trees" reached me some days ago as a birthday gift from my two sons.They thought it an appropriate gift for me probably because I am now engaged in an effort to grow trees in some land which I bought as a barren waste land. I found the book extremely inspiring.The interesting thing is that there indeed are unsung heroes and heroines in many parts of the world who do do such inspiring work without thought of reward.Some months back I read in Indian newspapers about a poor couple in the Karnatak state of India who decided to plant trees to assuage their sorrow in being childless.As they had no land of their own they decided to plant trees on the roadside.And ended up with magnificent avenue trees on miles and miles of the road near their village. There still seems to be hope for mankind!

My main objections to this field guide were the illustrations. Artistic renderings are often beautiful, but fail to portray the animal in question with accuracy. Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius)is a case in point. Although I have not observed this animal at sea myself, I spoke with a number of fellow fishery biologists who have spent time at sea as marine mammal observers and no one has ever observed a bright yellow Ziphius in the field. All observed a base color of grey with this genus, at least in the northeastern Pacific. The Tasmacetus rendering is most likely based on the J. Mammalogy (1976) paper by Watkins wherein an unidentified ziphiid whale (probable Tasmacetus) was observed from a bluff overlooking the sea in New Zealand. Useful plates were those showing all similar cetaceans together; eg. all oceanic dolphins without prominent beaks, all oceanic dolphins WITH prominent beaks etc. The ziphidae plates show male Mesoplodon characteristics, but that is to be expected since solitary female ziphiid whales, especially Mesoplodon sp., could be virtually impossible to identify. My own field guide preferences use photographs rather than artistic renderings. Other problems: The distribution maps to not reflect the full distribution (extralimital observations/strandings) of many species. An example: Psuedorca is shown as a species with a distribution much further south than observations/stranding records indicate. The text does suggest that 'numerous records' exist outside of the more tropical distribution shown in the map. Note also that many of the dolphin renderings are positioned so that the dorsal fin is right where the pages meet. We did get a chuckle over the photograph showing what you should wear when watching whales, but that can be explained by our 'silly scientist' bias. One note for potential whale-watchers: do not allow your binocular strap to lie right on the skin of your neck while at sea as you can wear painful wounds into your neck through a day of whale-watching. Make sure your shirt collar or other clothing lies under that silly strap! Voice of experience!

This book clearly deserves more than five stars for the great joy it will make available to you in the future by encouraging you to do more cetacean watching.

One of my pleasures is planning and taking trips to the various whale, dolphin, and porpoise rich areas in the world. When there, I spend as much time as possible on the water enjoying the views. I was particularly delighted to see that this book opens the doors to locales that I did not know about. As a result, I now have three times as many places to visit as I thought I did. Having seen the unusual species that I have missed, I now see the world much differently. That's a great gift to receive from a field guide.

Most people are unaware of the fascinating and beautiful mammal life in the oceans and rivers (yes, some dolphins live in rivers) around them. Although I live near one of the world's best cetacean watching areas, I would estimate that fewer than five percent of the people I meet have ever gone to observe the wonderful sights that are just a few minutes offshore. This guide can help change all that.

With a heightened sense of our aquatic co-species, I think that all people will have more respect for them and interest in preserving their habitats and populations.

Many people have a chance to go boating on the ocean, and see something that interests them. What is it? How should they approach it? I hope that all ocean-going boaters will buy a copy of this book to address those questions.

This is a beautiful book to hold and behold. The drawings are luscious in their subtlety of color and shape.

As a way to identify cetaceans, I cannot imagine a handbook that could be any better. The book is filled with dozens of clues for each type from length, shape, coloration, presence of typical parasites, behavior, breathing patterns, and other physical characteristics (like the shape of the teeth or baleen, blowholes, tails, heads, etc.). With so many observational points to consider, it would be very unusual to make a mistake. So the casual cetacean watcher can quickly be able to perform like an expert.

After you have finished enjoying this wonderful book, I suggest that you plan your next trip to watch cetaceans. If possible, I suggest going to some location that you have never been to before. Even if formal party boats are not available there, you can go out in the least expensive way and rely on your handbook to guide you into a better understanding of what you are seeing.

Appreciate the natural grandeur and beauty of the cetaceans . . . always!

This durably jacketed guide to all known cetaceans contains easy to use identification information and illustrations. This is THE take-along field guide to use if you are going whale watching or traveling anywhere you want to know about the whales, dolphins/ porpoises you are seeing, as well as some explanation of behaviors and how they live. We used it in Antarctica; it's field tested. José Kirchner

After reading Inside Passage,I felt my soul was baptized by the beauty of Alaska and the author Michael Modzelewski was the minister who administered the baptismal ceremony for many poor polluted souls. My outlook of life has been changed since then. Every day and every minute I live is full of beauty and purity like Alaska's blue sky. I would like to live in inside Passage every summer!

In this wonderful book, Mr. Modzelewski reverses the saying that "A picture is worth a thousand words." With the style of a poet using compressed, precise sentences the author gives us vivid word pictures of northern nature. You don't read this book as much as see it unfold with great force and beauty across the mind's eye. In the days since finishing "Inside Passage" I've come to the conclusion that Mr. Modzelewski is really a modern shaman, drawing direct power and grace from the land and animals. That's why the prose pictures are so clear, for they are unfiltered by Ego. By surrenduring himself to the wilderness (instead of trying to dominate it like most men that write this type of book), the wilderness rises up to show itself directly through him.

Inside Passage is a book for the ages. An awe-inspiring piece of work that has left me both breathless and wanting more. Each image is created with such care and heart, the spirit of a "warrior" and the heart of a "man" shines through in each page. Inside Passage will leave an idelible mark on both the reader and the readers soul. A must read for anybody who has ever had a dream or a person seeking refuge in the majestic landscape of the Alaskan wilds. Modzleweski presents a totally-balanced account. Unlike many authors who've left the city for the wilds he doesn't "deify" Native Americans. He describes each Kwakiutl he meets as an individual with different life-styles, education-levels, and manners of speaking. Inside Passage brings out the raw and harsh natural laws man must live by in the wilderness, but intertwined within that plot is a story of unharnessed adventure and a life worth living. Having visited the Inside Passage the past two summers, I can say that the author brought the area totally alive! In the economical and passionate-style of a poet, Modzelewski goes far-beneath the surface of an awesome place. Most of all, he takes the reader on a spiritual VisionQuest-where as he describes it:"The Inside Passage is real dream country. Even on land you are moved. The tides that carry the great whales move the bulk of your thoughts just as effortlessly. On the islands, the surrounding sea enters your subconcious, creating a rippling mirror that reflects reality from many perspectives. There is no concrete to fix attitudes, harden dreams. The world around you constantly flows in many levels, swirling deep fathoms into you, loosening holdfasts and safeguards, stirring up sediment, provoking protean change." Reading this book changed my life. Now I see the world through un-biased eyes. Life is a challenge and a blessing, I accept it with passion and un-dying gratitude. Mr. Modzelewski has opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed, and for that I am forever en-debted to him. This book will change you; I guarantee it!

Skip the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty! Mittelbach and Crewdson know their stuff and their share it in all the fun and interesting details you could want. This is the "big apple" down to the core. I used to live in New York and was excited when this book came out.

This is, hands-down, the best book I've found yet on the non-concrete parts of this concrete jungle I call home. The illustrations are 1st rate, the maps are very helpful, and the travel directions even help you get there --- like most New Yorkers would --- by public transit. All five boroughs are included, and the book is chock full of tasty morsels about the City's natural side.

Whether a native New Yorker or visiting from out of town, if you have the interest or the inkling to find hundred foot trees, tidal pools, salt marshes, Native American caves, hilltop vistas, or even just learn which wildflowers grow between the sidewalk slabs or which trees are tough enough to stand up to the stress of city life, this book is for you.

This book is a must have for anyone who has ever lived in or visited New York. It is extremely well-written, witty, and as well it is filled with interesting facts about New York.

I found this book hard to grade, but easy to read. Stories are the best way for people to learn, and this book has six interesting ones (about Josiah Wedgwood, H.J. Heinz, Marshall Field, Estee Lauder, Howard Schultz, and Michael Dell) describing entrepreneurs pulling themselves up by their bootstraps to create major brands. As a book of engaging business stories, this is a five star book. In terms of the insight you will get from these stories compared to the potential insight you should get, this is a three-star book. I compromised the two to come up with my grading.

If you want to learn about today's brand-building challenges, other books handle that subject much better. If you want to learn about how the Wedgwood, H.J. Heinz, Marshall Field, Estee Lauder, Starbucks, and Dell businesses got started, this is your book. The material is handled much like historical fiction (except the facts are meticulously gathered and documented), and you will find the going easy and pleasant.

If you like Horatio Alger stories, you will find those here as well. I suspect that exhausted entrepreneurs on long plane trips where their computer batteries have run out will find this book helpful in recharging their personal batteries. As Winston Churchill once said, "Never give up." That's the key lesson here. Through trial and error, these entrepreneurs kept trying until they found formulas that worked.

The choice of examples is a little flawed. Five are consumer branding examples and only one is a business example (Dell). Of the consumer branding examples, you will find that most are about selling to the higher income people. That gets a little repetitive.

The explanation of the examples is also incomplete. Considering that this is a business book, there is relatively little financial information other than annual sales and occasional asset turnover ratios. Qualitative example are helpful, but they are more helpful with more pinning down. For example, when you see the profit margins that Wedgwood had, that explains a lot about why the company could afford such lavish promotions. Without similar information on Heinz, you wonder why he was so successful in making sales but went bankrupt. Presumably, he had low margins.

The photographs and maps in the book are a plus, and I enjoyed them very much. The book was printed on such high quality paper (similar to that used for diplomas) that the images are on the same paper as the text. This permits the book to have many more illustrations than similar-sized business books.

The point about earning trust in the book is easily explained. At the time when these entrepreneurs were getting started, their largest competitors usually provided poor quality products, sometimes had inappropriate brand images, often failed to offer decent guarantees, and typically acted in self-serving ways. Earning trust isn't too hard if others are scoundrels or incompetent. Above all, these entrepreneurs stood for decent human values, and got that point across in one-to-one situations. I'm not sure that point comes out clearly enough, even though it is certainly present in each example.

Those who think the Internet age is unique will find the comparisons to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England and the transportation improvements in the United States to be valuable contrasts. But each age brings its unique changes. Entrepreneurs should seek to grasp those changes, but also see what others have missed. I think that the Starbucks concept could have been successfully innovated in the late 1950s. It's just that no one did it then.

After you finish enjoying these stories, I suggest that you think about the values that your organization stands for. Are those values presented and delivered in ways that make your organization more trustworthy than any other? How else do you have to be superior in order to establish a burnished brand image?

Be serious about giving people the best you can possibly provide!

This highly readable business book profiles six successful entrepreneurs from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Each profile (Josiah Wedgwood, Henry Heinz, Marshall Field, Estee Lauder, Howard Schultz, and Michael Dell) details the milieu of the era and offers insight into the environmental business factors that each of these business builders faced.

It is this holistic approach to the subject of each profile that makes the stories so compelling. Using her command of history, Ms. Koehn outlines the period view of each of the products (pickles to perfume) and vividly draws the reader into the strategy of each of these entrepreneurs' approach to the market and building their brand. It is the power of these stories that gives the brand message such import. All of these people had a great number of competitors in their market niche but their focussed approach to the brand associated with their goods or services is what set them apart.

Ms. Koehn uses some excellent demographic and financial information (indexed to today's dollars) that provide the backdrop for the scale of the success each of these entrepreneurs' achieved. This provides just enough quantitative information to provide texture without clouding the real story in statistics.

As an executive in the software business today, I found a great deal of comfort in the fact that the challenges I face in today's competitive marketplace are not new. In fact, with great courage and resolve, they have been solved again and again in differing but similar ways over centuries.

Brand New is a brilliantly written book about entrepreneurs, brands, consumers, business history, and socioeconomic change. The book explores these subjects through the examples of six entrepreneurs-Josiah Wedgwood, H. J. Heinz, Marshall Field, Estée Lauder, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and Michael Dell-and the brands and companies they created during times of economic and social change: Wedgwood during the Industrial Revolution, Heinz and Field during the Transportation and Communication Revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Lauder, Schultz, and Dell in our time.

Koehn is a perceptive historian and biographer as well as an astute analyst of brand creation, entrepreneurship, and organization-building. She explains how the entrepreneurs in her book were able to understand the economic and social change of their times and anticipate and respond to demand-side shifts. This understanding, she argues convincingly, enabled these entrepreneurs to bring to market products that consumers needed and wanted and to create meaningful, lasting connections with consumers through their brands. Koehn also focuses on the importance of these entrepreneurs as organization builders who understood that their success depended on developing organizational capabilities that supported their products and brands. Her book is very well-researched throughout, and uses primary archival documents extensively in the historical chapters on Josiah Wedgwood, H. J. Heinz, and Marshall Field. Koehn also brings her entrepreneurs and the stories of how each built his or her company and brand to life with her talent as a biographer and historian.

The book's emphasis on drawing lessons from both past and present offers many valuable insights for those interested in coming to a better understanding of brand creation, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial management, and organization-building. Koehn's emphasis on the demand side of the economy and on entrepreneurs and companies making connections with consumers through the brand distinguishes her book as an important work of business scholarship on brands and entrepreneurship. A lively, interesting, and engaging read, Brand New is also valuable reading for anyone interested in business, economic, or social history or biography of business leaders. I highly recommend it!