While the photography is great, it was limited to only a couple areas of Maine. I was hoping for more small town, quaint images. The only town featured was one that's not even on the map.

Stunning photographs and poetic/romantic writing. Makes me wish I had gone to Maine (during the summer of course!) while I was in college in New Jersey. This is a special book and it left me wanting more.

On the recommendation of a friend, my wife and I stumbled into a photo gallery in Deer Isle, Maine, last week during our vacation (we are from New York) to see the work of Terrell Lester, not even aware Knopf had recently published this book. We were, in short, completely blown away by his photos, all of which, and more, are collected in this remarkable book, along with four essays of varying interest. Lester's photos are like fine art, to be specific, like the best of the Hudson River School of painters back in the 1800s who created such vivid landscapes, saturated with reds and blues and yellow (and that's just in the sky). His photos of islands, mountains, rocks, lakes, surf, trees and spectacular blueberry fields blazing red in autumn are rich with emotion. They deserve to be, and in fact are, on museum walls. For the most part, they are reproduced well in "Maine: The Seasons," but in this case, you can't tell a book by its cover-- a wonderful (but rather too typical for a Maine book) photo of a father and a son heading off to work in their lobster boat. You won't be disappointed.

The only reason I took off a star is because...well, I have bathed in the warm waters of Roger Angell's baseball chronicling since the publication of his first such anthology, "The Summer Game," and I have bought every last one of the successor books ("Five Seasons," "Late Innings," "Season Ticket," and "Once More Around The Park"), and I really didn't need to see a lot of the essays contained in this volume all over again. Even if I think "Distance" is the absolute best and most humane essay you'll ever read about Bob Gibson, please: A third anthologising (it debuted in "Late Innings" and was recycled in "Once More Around The Park") was as excessive as some would consider a stolen base in the eighth inning when the thief's team was on the winning side of a 12-1 blowout.

But if you have never before approached even the edge of those waters, this is the book with which you want to begin; the editing and arranging of the material, appropriately enough into seasonal sections, is even better than "Once More Around The Park's" had been. Don't let my harrumphing about over-repetition of some choice essays deter you (I certainly didn't let it keep me from adding this to my library). If you are a newcomer to Mr. Angell's virtuosity (and if you are a newcomer, you should probably ask yourself where you've been all your life), from the loveliest book of baseball letters of the year. Peter Golenbock, in his oral history of the Boston Red Sox, called Mr. Angell "baseball's Homer," but Golenbock has it backward. With apologies to no one, Homer shall have to settle for having been ancient Greece's Roger Angell.

If you are familiar with past baseball books of Roger Angell you know you are in for another treat with his latest offering. Part of the book includes passages from past books, but, at least to me, it doesn't detract from this book at all. A good part of the book covers recent playoffs and World Series including 2002 and if you followed the games during the past several years, these parts of the book will have additional meaning to you. A lengthy section on former Cardinals' fireballer Bob Gibson and a visit with Smokey Joe Wood while viewing a college game between Yale and St. Johns with Ron Darling and Frank Viola matching up against one another are included as is a section on broadcaster Tim McCarver "There's a lahn drahve!", and another on a scouting mission with California Angels scout Ray Scarborough. Some of these offerings go back to the early 1960's until through the year 2002. In describing playoff and World Series games, Angell doesn't merely recite game facts as to who got hits and scored runs. He has a knack for making the reader feel he is there and tells the story with colorful prose. Here are a few examples: "The hankie hordes were in full cry at the Metrodome, where the World Series began." "We repaired to Milwaukee, where, on a cold and blustery evening in the old steel-post park, County Stadium, Willie McGee staged his party." Regarding Dennis Eckersley: "His eyes burning like flashlights as he spoke." "Luis Sojo, a Venezuelan, is thirty-four but looks as if he'd put on a much older guy's body that morning by mistake." After working on a screwball in high school to imitate Giants' pitcher Carl Hubbell, Angell said, "I began walking around school corridors with my pitching hand turned palm outward, like Carl Hubbell's, but nobody noticed." I could go on and on and on with colorful tidbits found in the book, but I don't want to spoil it for you. Suffice it to say, if you buy this book you are in for a treat. Don't speed read it. This isn't a book to be gulped. It is like a Godiva chocolate bar. This book is to be savored.

Hard to believe Amazon.com can't keep their years straight when it comes to reviewing this series. Anyway, the latest collection of sports writing was all right but nothing special by the usual high standards. It's a smaller collection than normal, and there are a few hunting and fishing pieces that I couldn't get into. That didn't leave a whole lot, although what was left was pretty darn good. I particularly enjoyed the articles on the parents of a benched high school football player suing the school, and on the 1998 World Cup.

The 1999 edition of "The Best American Sports Writing" has plenty of moments that will enthrall avid sports fans and even those less avid who merely like a good story. The series is a national treasure, which collects the best sports related writing every year and puts it into a single easy-to-read volume. The sports included run the gamut from the traditional team sports of baseball and football to more extreme examples like mountaineering. The main requirement for inclusion is great writing, and that's wht this series delivers consistently.

The best articles in the 1999 edition include Thomas Boswell's account of Cal Ripken's voluntary stoppage of his historic games played streak, Steve Friedman's biographical article on tormented 2nd generation professional bowler Pete Weber, Allen Abel's hilarous tribute to the long-folded World Hockey Association, and Adam Gopnik's insightful explantion of why World Cup Soccer fails to excite American fans. As always, the quality of the reporting means that even if you have only a margainal interest in the sport described, you'll still find it entertaining.

Overall, another fine entry in an outstanding series.

As of 10/17/99 the consumer reviews for The Best American Sports Writing 1999 are actually reviews of The Best American Sports Writing 1998.

For anyone interested in reading this, I'd just like to share my thoughts. This bok was one of the more depressing things I've read. The entire premise, it seemed, was that the reality of life in and near rural Montana is desolate, hard, and filled with things that quickly turn anyone apathetic about their own life. Its stories contain some of the most hopeless and luckless emotions and situations, and they can quickly transfer over to the reader. At any given point, I could have put the book down forever and not care at all. This, I think, is the direct result of all of the main characters being desolate, powerless, numb males. They didn't care about the outcome of their lives, and I didn't care about their outcome either.

Sure, the writing style may be great from a literary standpoint, but let's be honest. What kind of person would want to read something so bleak - just because it's written well?

Simply put, Richard Ford is the finest writer of short fiction in America today. When first published in the 1980s, Rock Springs did not get the attention it rightly deserved, but since Ford has won the Pulitzer, this collection is once again being sapped up. This collection outweighs Ford's lates - Women With Men - because it has that one base ingrediant the other lacks: a heart. Ford tells a series of stories about the great American vastness and the sense of hopelessnes that seems to permeate much of the West. In doing so, Ford evokes character just as memorable as any in contemporary literature - including his own Frank Bascomb. This collection is a must read for aspiring writers who want to know how to create emotion without melodrama. Also, it creates voices rather than imitating them. A mark of a true master. When I first read this collection in college, it seemed like I was sitting around the fire listening to a storyteller. The characters are vibrant, the setting as gritty as they need to be, and the writing as polished as fine silver. Purchase this book and understand what the word "mastery" means.

Stark, beautiful, sad, mysterious, understated, real-seeming, drum taut. Almost word perfect. ROCK SPRINGS is easily Ford's best book.

I've taught creative writing and contemporary lit. at several universities. Some of the best prose ever written has been published in the past couple of decades. A few of my other favorite contemporary books in no particular order:

THE NIGHT IN QUESTION, Tobias Wolff (the richest, roundest, most mature collection of stories by the world's best short fiction writer); THE TAO OF MUHAMMAD ALI: A FATHERS AND SONS MEMOIR, Davis Miller (a remarkable, dreamy, beautiful nonfiction novel by a fairly unheralded American who's quite well appreciated in the UK: London reviewers have compared Miller's books to those of R. Ford, T. Wolff and Nick Hornby [HIGH FIDELITY, FEVER PITCH]); THE THINGS THEY CARRIED, Tim O'Brien (jaw-droppingly well written, timeless feeling); TRACKS, Louise Erdrich (for me, the best -- and most real-world mythical -- in her interrelated series of novels).

I can't imagine a more dynamic, life-affirming, entertaining group of books than those I've listed above. Happy reading, everyone!

Wildlife by Richard Ford is about a family who moved to Great Falls, Montana. In Wildlife, there are three members in the family, the father is Jerry, the mother is Jean, and their son is Joe. Jean is an alcoholic and she is cheating on Jerry. Seven-teen year old Joe is caught in the middle of all the problems. I would recommend this book for others to read because it is a very interesting book, and it has many strengths, and weaknesses that I like.
The strengths of Wildlife are that it is fiction, but it seems to be a true story. It seems to be a true story because it explains what families really go through. It shows that everyone has marriage problems, financial problems and social problems. Even though some people are having affairs they still live with each other for the sake of their children.
The weaknesses of this book are that it has a great deal of depression. A lot of terrible things happen to the family, Jerry and Jean do not get along, because they do not love each other anymore, but they are still living together for the sake of Joe. I believe that Jean is the one that causes all these problems, because if she does not have an affair, or drink too much then they would all just get along. The thing that I do not like about this book is that it is too tragic, and I do not like it when families fight all the time.
I would recommend this book for others to read because it gives good advice to young people. It tells them not to make the same mistakes most people make in their family lives. I believe if you are going to love someone forever, and are planning on spending your entire life with them, you should be respectful, honest, truthful and trustworthy with each other. I believe that people that have experienced problems like the characters in Wildlife will enjoy this book because they can relate to it. I really enjoyed this book because it is very interesting.
Richard Ford has written Wildlife, which is about a family who has many problems. The wife has affairs, drinks too much and hates her husband. The husband works hard all day to support his family but, is not appreciated. The son is seven-teen and is caught in the middle of the problem. This is a really interesting book and I would recommend that everyone reads this.

This novel is about a sixteen year old boy named Joe. Him and his family have struggles. Joe and his family move to different places to find themselves the right place and the right jobs. They finally settle in Great Falls, Montana. They move to Great Falls because the father thinks it is a great idea and they can start new and fresh there and he can find a job. In first hand, they move to Great Falls because where they use to live, the father does not have luck with jobs and is not working. Him thinking that moving to Great Falls might bring him luck. At Great Falls Joes has not friends. He is really close with his parents, especially his father. His father is like his bestfriend.
Jerry, which is Joe's father, he is a really great athlete. He can play any sport. The best sport that he liked and was a pro at it was golf. Jerry was a pro golfer.He liked to play golf because others found golf difficult and he thought it was an easy sport. He liked to discuss the game. He was a very patient person and people enjoyed being around him.
At Great FAlls, where he thought he might have luck, at first he had a job at the air base and he touch golf at the clubs. Joes mother, which was Jerry's wife did not have a job at Great Falls. In Lweiston, she was a bookkeeper for a dairy company but in the other towns that they had lived in she was a subsitute teacher.While they were in Great Falls, the fires had began. Jerry had to leave to work for the fires for couple of days. While Jerry was gone, his wife had an affair with a man
named Warren Miller. When the husband comes back she tells him. They end up splitting up and Joe stay with his father. When Jerry hears about the affair, he sets a fire at Millers house. But Miller does not do anything. Jerry hopes that Miller will do something, well he asumes that he will do somthing bad to him since, everything at Great Falls has been negative. Also Jerry gets fired from the club because they think that he steals things.Than again Jerry finds a job, but he does not stay long at that job either. At the end he works at a sportting goods store.Joe's mother lived in a different town. Joe would get
letters but he would not know where she was and what she did. Than later on Miller dies from being ill. After that Jerry's wife comes back and they work their difficulties out and
they stay togather.
This was an interesing book. At first it was boaring than it got interesting.

In the novel wildlife, Richard Ford writes about Joe and his family's life. The story takes place in Great Falls, Montana, in the fall of 1960's. In reality, all the events happen in three days, however, the family feels these three days are very long time. The family members struggle and divide over many issues.
Jerry, the father, is a professional athlete; He can play every sport. In addition, he was a baseball teacher. He is a handsome, innocent, honest, and educated man. Jeanette, the mother, is two years younger than Jerry. She is a pretty, small woman who has a good sense of a humor. She worked as a bookkeeper, and a substitute teacher in math and science. Also, in Great Falls, she worked as a swimming teacher. Jerry and Jeanette met in college in 1941. Jeanette loved Jerry and simply decided to marry him. She followed him from town to town even to these of them she didn't like, for instance, Great Falls. Their only son, Joe, is a sixteen years old teenager. He is a very quiet and peaceful person. He never argued with his parents and expressed his opinion.
The family struggled emotionally and financially. Emotionally, the members of the family miss the love between them. The parents started to lose understand each other. For example, when Jerry stated to argue with his wife, he said, "You've changed your thinking, now, haven't you, Jean."(24). Jeanette started to sleep at the couch and Jerry slept alone in his bedroom. In addition, the family struggled financially. The father lost his job and left home to go fight a fire, which suddenly happened in the town. The mother started to teach swimming. She met a man and fell in love with him. The son became alone and afraid of what's coming in his way. One time, when he was talking to his self, he said, "Death was less terrible at that moment than being alone."(131)
The family separated and everyone of its member went in a different direction. After Jerry left home for the fire, Jeanette loved another man, Warren Miller. Warren didn't love Jean but he wanted to have some fun with her, as he always does with all the women. Jeanette decided to move out by herself. She forgot everyone, even her only son, and started thinking only about her future. One time, she told her son " You have to give things up. That's the rule. It's the major rule for everything."(123) Joe got lost between two sides, his mom and his dad. He could see his family breaking apart and couldn't do anything. Many reasons have worked together to lead Joe and his family to a bad situation. Starting with moving from town to town because Jerry wanted to find a better place and a better job. Finally, ending up with Jeanette leaving home.
Wildlife is a very interesting novel and easy to read. Richard Ford used easy words and wrote in an understandable language. In addition, Ford viewed the story from first person point of view, Joe. Joe was a very detailed character; He explained every little event happened in the most three wild days of his life. As Jerry said to his son, when Jeanette was leaving home, "This is a wild life, isn't it, son?"(143). Jerry really meant the words he said and Joe agreed with him. Wildlife is the kind of novels I love to read because it summarizes most of our life problems. Life is full of surprises, as I read in this novel, but I will try to get over the bad ones. I recommend this novel to everybody, especially to teenagers, because it's a meaning full story.

Want to know where the real seat of control lies in the US government? Then this book about some of the most powerful men in the history of the House of Representatives is an excellent (although short) resource. I now have a much better appreciation of the need to ensure control of that body is in the hands of truthful, focused and principled people.

The book needs a re-write, though. It stops (was published) before the full impact of Newt Gingrich's term could be evaluated.

Read this book and you'll have a new respect for the workings of the House of Representatives and, by extension, the federal government - something like controlling chaos!

I thouroughly enjoyed this book. It covered each topic just enough with a good balance of political, social, and personal aspects and how the three inter-related and affected the subjects. For someone just beginning to understand the history of the House, it is a great book to read.

Ever wonder how 435 egomaniacs get even a few bills done in
Congress?

The Cheneys supply the answer in this book of excellent
vignettes on several masters of the US House of Representatives. Meet
Clay, Polk, Stevens, Blaine, Reed, Cannon, Longworth, Rayburn and
Gingrich as they work their will on their members to controll the
legislative process.

By examining the role of congressional
leadership through history and historic personalities, this book both
illustrates how the House has changed and how the nature of power
hasn't. These men relied on personal relationships, codes of honor
that won respect and a willingness to exercise power (ie, risk tough
battles, reward friends and punish enemies) to run the House.

Both
the history buff and those interested in leadership studies will find
this book interesting. Though well written, the book is short. I
think that it could have delved into more detail of some of the
political battles these men faced and still been fascinating. Maybe
Dick Cheney will have the time to expand upon this theme as Vice
President -- there is a lot of opportunity for writing while jetting
to and from foreign funerals (as John Nance Garner -- FDR's 1st VP --
said "the job's not worth a bucket of warm spit!).

Thic book is adequate for emergency medical information, but is not a good quick reference in the midst of a true emergency. In most things, it is quite lacking, and other emergency "handbooks" seem to be more user and cost-friendly. Although this book is part of my library, I found little use for it when I worked as an emergency small animal veterinarian.

This book has been a big help for me in my practice

I really wanted to like this book. It has a lot going for it: two troubled main characters, an intriguing setting (an island on the Mississippi River), some sex, a crotchety old man, and some of the best descriptions of a place you'll ever read. Ford is definitely a writer of power. I felt the importance of the setting in his detailed attention to every tree and rut in the road, yet I couldn't find a strong motivation for the two characters to be there. Robard Hewes is a lost soul, similar to other Ford characters (a lot like Quinn in *The Ultimate Good Luck*, but less self-confident) who goes south for all the wrong reasons. Robard I can sort of understand, but Sam Newel, the law student from Chicago searching for meaning in his life so he doesn't become like his father, just doesn't fit, and once he arrives on the island, he doesn't really DO much, except go on a fateful fishing excursion with the crusty old Mr. Lamb. I enjoyed reading it, but I'd probably not read it again. A little more focus would've greatly improved this first book by a wonderful writer. It should be read by all first time novelists to see how well setting and characterization can be done (and also to see how much a writer learns in comparison to his later work).

Richard Ford's first book, A Piece Of My Heart, scored big with reviewers across the country, but has largely been ignored by the reading public.

All the more a pity, since this book deserves a large readership, perhaps even as much or more so than The Sportswriter or Independence Day. If there is a fault with this book, it is that it flows too easily. It is the kind of work that can be devoured in a few hours. It reads so smoothly that it's rich detail can be easily overlooked.

The cinematic quality of this work cannot be understated. The sometimes stark, sometimes lush and haunting landscapes of this novel are so rich in description that they are seen effortlessly and because they flow so easily, the unwary reader is tempted to speed ahead like a traveler on the interstate, driving at breakneck speed through breathtakingly beautiful scenery.

Ford's characters are quirky and so three dimensional that they rise up before the reader with startlingly familiarity. I suspect that Ford loses many of his more urbane readers with the grittiness of these characters--their down home rustication and the sense of danger inherent in their ferocious living of lives from moment to moment.

For those who plunge into this work with abandon (as I did on my first reading), one warning: slow down. Savor the power of each scene. Don't go crashing through from page to page like a tourist in New York with one day to see the Metropolitan Museum. Enjoy each wonderfully crafted scene and avoid the temptation to read through at breakneck speed.

The amazing juxtaposition of whimsy, darkness and doom are quite extraordinary in this work. The plot, ostensibly, revolves around the actions of Robard Hewes, an uneducated but shrewdly obsessed and compulsive character who drives from his dusty desert home in California to his past in Mississippi in pursuit of Buena, a wanton married woman whose siren call is enough to overwhelm Robard with an inexplicable burning desire.

Sam Newell is Hewes opposite. Newell, a severely depressed man down from Chicago on the suggestion of his lover for some ill-advised convalescence as a guest at her grandfather's island hunting camp, is filled with self loathing and unintentionally invites the scorn of almost everyone he encounters. Newell, on the verge of commencing practice as a lawyer has broken down and drifts rudderless throughout the action of this work. Nevertheless, he is an important character and his short musings on his childhood are remarkably evocative and superb and this along with the stark nature of his intellect give insight into the workings of Ford's mind and the detached alienated characters that evolve in his later works.

Mark Lamb (the grandfather), his wife, and TVA (his cook and handyman), constitute an extraordinarily quirky and wonderfully drawn backdrop for a good part of the action in this novel. Lamb is one of the most endearingly cranky old men you will run across in any short novel. The odd domestic scenes that take place on the island are redolent with humor and are brilliantly drawn.

I cannot recomment A Piece Of My Heart too highly. It is a must read for those who appreciate good literature.

Great explanation of engine teardown, machining, parts selection, cleaning and assemble. Good information on improvements. Well worth the price.

The photographer does an excellent job of using his subject to tell his thoughts. By keeping some photographs on a long exposure, he also shows the fleeting nature of these somewhat depressed settings. Also a strong use of color to illustrate the cultural setting and importance despite the deprived economic environment. Of high importance for anyone interested in the deep south and the heritage of the mississippi delta.