List price: $29.95 (that's 30% off!)
It's exciting to find new authors that catch my interest as much as Ed & Norma Mixon. Hopefully there will be more books with the Mike Rains character.
If you are a fan of Deaver, Sanford, and Patterson I believe you will be delighted with the Mixon's Harvest. I will be keeping an eye out for future books.
List price: $19.95 (that's 30% off!)
In short, a big disappoint for shark fans. Instead, check out Shark Attacks : Their Causes and Avoidance by Thomas B. Allen.
My husband comes from a GREAT story-telling family and this book feels like it belongs in our family tales!Who would believe a book about the near-disappearance of shark fishing in Nicaragua would be SO compeling?
The central characters are not men at all but bull sharks that live, breed, and hunt in the Caribbean waters of Nicaragua's east coast. It is the "most willful and aggressive of all tropical sharks" and what makes it unique and worthy of a book, is that "like no other shark, it possessed the ability to cross from salt water to freshwater, hunting far upriver". That means that the bull shark can be found up the Escondido river near Bluefields or more impressively, 60 miles up the San Juan river, all the way to Lake Nicaragua. It is as the author says "shark where shark should not be - in fresh water, on human territory."
The book tells the tale of this shark and the men who hunt it, as they have for generations, - bravely, in open dugout canoes with hand held lines. The sharks are hunted for their body oils, the fins are used to make soup and the skin is tanned into leather. Poverty means that resource management is non-existent and overfishing means that the shark itself may soon be gone from its last great freshwater holdout - lake Nicaragua.
Fear and greed, the author says, are the two most common human emotions the bull shark elicits. Perhaps it's fitting then that this also best describes the pervasive feeling that one gets from this rough and tumble area. History has a part to play. In the 17th century Bluefields was the capital of the British protectorate - the Mosquito Coast - which stretched the length of Nicaragua's Caribbean shoreline to Puerto Cabeza in the north, and beyond into what is now Honduras. This explains how a town with an Anglo name exists in a Latin country. Slaves from Jamaica were brought in and their descendants are now the large, patois/english speaking Creole population. Co-existence with the Miskito, Sumu, and Ramu indians has not always been peaceful but the natives of this area have at times pulled together, usually in the face of some external threat, whether natural as in the many hurricanes that have devastated the area, or man made as in the political tribalism and battles between Sandinistas and Contras.
This story of sharks, at sea and on land, makes the place most appropriately named SAVAGE SHORE. Yet in an irony fitting for this book, the area is also the focal point of Nicaragua's tourism industry.
List price: $19.95 (that's 30% off!)
Unfortunatly the book follows the current trend in bird guides of using more than one illustrator. The result, though well done in some other books, often results in a clash of styles, and worse, inconsistancy. This book is illustrated by twelve artists and suffers a little from the latter. The work here is uneven, some of the illustrators being better at capturing the look of the birds than others. The proportions, build, and "facial expression" are not correctly drawn for many species. Experienced birders will have fewer problems translating what they are seeing in their binoculars to what is on the color plate. But beginners and more casual observers may encounter some frustration. For example, the figure of the Citrine Flycatcher on plate 62 resembles the bird only in general color pattern. This species usually appears brighter, and you would not be far wrong if your impression on seeing it, is of an all yellow bird. Also, given the head size, the body should be shown slightly larger and more filled out. The folded wing is incorrectly drawn, as are those of every other bird on the plate. Though not unique to this guide, many of the species that have olive or yellow-green upperparts are shown too dull and gray. The White-eyes on plate 70 for instance are bright, trim little characters, that may remind North American birders of Wood Warblers, not the dull, misshapen things depicted.
My guess is that so many illustrators are being used to save time, and perhaps the money needed to pay a really good one to produce 70 or 80 plates. Whatever the reasons, the result here are some illustrations that betray a lack of knowledge of the form of birds that really shouldn't be in a modern field guide. Not with the high standards achieved in other works, which this book otherwise seems to meet.
Despite these problems, all of the plates are adequate for identifying the birds, indeed, many are quite well done, and the authors and artists have produced a work of lasting value. It certainly will be a useful book in the field or reference on the shelf.
As a final thing worth mentioning, many reviewers here have commented that, owing to its use of dialect (something which Mark Twain uses in every single one of his writings, which is part of the reason why he was such a great writer - not to mention why he is the true father of real American literature), it is hard to understand. If these assertions have bothered you, however, rest assured: they are mightly over-exaggerated. The dialogue, though prevalent, is minor, and the meanings of the words are usually obvious - even to children; after all, one must remember who Twain wrote this book for. Most children who would read this book would probably already be familar with these elementary colloquial phrases from the many King Arthur stories derived from Malory. And, even if not, Twain foresaw this - and was helpful enough to include a useful appendix.
Like many of Mark Twain's books, this is another satire that makes fun of the values that society holds to be important. In this story, Mark Twain points out how people place so much importance on outer appearance. A prince and a pauper, who, despite their outer resemblance are very different people, switch places, without anyone noticing. There is more to a person than their looks, and this is one point stressed throughout the novel.
The one complaint I have about this book is that there wasn't enough written about Tom Canty, the pauper who became a prince. I found his situations much more interesting than those of the true prince, but this was only a minor point.
I would recommend this book for ages 12 and older. Younger people could read the story, but miss the underlying meanings in certain situations. I wouldn't call this book a "Must Read" but it is a good introduction to classic literature.