did you know that boxwood, the ever present suburban hedge, is mildly poisonous? i didn't! a very useful book to reference for what not to touch, eat, or annoy.

"Peterson's Field Guide to Venomous Animals and Poisonous Plants" is the first thing to be packed in one's backpack.It is essential to every hiker, camper, naturalist, hunter, bird watcher and nature lover. There are a hell of alot less hazards than benign plants and animals (although this varies somewhat according to region. The Mid-Atlantic and Northeast US has it easy compared to the Southwest) and while most people could identify a few, it doesnt make sense not to learn the 2-3 dozen major ones to avoid.

The book is up to Peterson's usual high standards in a field guide. It covers mammals followed by poisonous plants, shrubs/trees, vines, ferns and fungi. There are color photographs but the black and white drawings are the way to go for IDing. Most people will not read the entire book unless they're a hardcore naturalist or really, really bored in front of a campfire. I recommend checking out the hazards in your partiualr area icluding AT LEAST the following: 1. All poisonous snakes and their look-a-likes 2. Black Widow and Brown Recluse spider 3. Tics and Scorpions 4. Bees, Wasps, Fire Ants 5. Poisonous Plants including the Big 3: Poison Ivy, Oak and Sumac 6. Poisonous Mushrooms (not so you can learn which you can eat, but to understand the severity of eating just one wrong one)

There's alot that won't apply to you(save those for a rainy day) and some hazards are less hazardous than others. For example, the short-tail shrew is listed, but most people need not live in fear of "killer shrews". But knowing that their bite has some bite to it, maybe you'll avoid juggling those cute furry creatures. Also, large mammals aren't included, though bears and mountain lions can seem pretty hazardous to me in some situations.I recommend supplementing your reading with "Bear Aware" by Bill Schneider and "Mountain Lion Alert" by Steven Torres. In addition, I wouldn't trust this book solely to gather a gourmet wild mushroom feast, either. I've seen some books topping 1,000 pages on edible shrooms and they still might not be complete. Its best to leave the shrooms alone!
Finally, there are a few diseases found outdoors worth researching: Giardia, hantavirus, rabies, and lyme disease among others.

Also recommended: "Peterson's Wild Edible Plants" and "Medicinal Plants".

Before you dash out into the woods and pick some plants you think are edible, you might want to get this book and know definitely what will kill you, or really mess up your body. Excellent info, bright color pictures, and written for an easy understanding, this book should be in any nature enthusiast's library, right next to Newcomb's Wildflower Guide, possibly the best plant identification guide around.

Just when you thought there were no more plant identification guides to be written, Peterson's came out with this interesting little guide. In its pages you will find the many thousands of uses that numerous cultures have found for North American plants. From dubious cure-alls to modern cancer drugs, this guide describes them all, and their poisonous look alikes. If you already have Peterson's tree or wildflower guides, be prepared for a bit of Deja vu - there is considerable overlap in both text descriptions and illustrations. Also, don't set up your folk remedy pharmacy just yet - this book doesn't give dosage advice for the vast majority of species it describes. The authors are very strident in saying that this book is for information only, not clinical advice. That said, you will find innumerable fascinating tidbits of herbal lore between its covers.

I have just recently become interested in learning about the wild plants of my area and this book seems to be the most extensive resource about medicinal plants available. I like it because it is clear and concise, contains information on plant use and history, has color photographs to go with each entry, and includes poisonous look-a-likes and possible side effects of otherwise safe plants. I do, however, find the organization to be a bit confusing. For instance, it is simple to find the section on plants with yellow flowers, the pages are color coded, but difficult to differentiate between sections for button like composite flowers and dandelion like flowers. This results in a lot of time spent looking at pictures of yellow flowers. I much prefer the orginization of the Peterson Guide to Edible Wild Plants, which is similar but more clearly labled. I also think that the line pictures in that book have many benifits over the photographs contained in the medicinal plants field guide. The drawings offer well focused close up views from more than one angle if neccessary, this is not always possible with photos and a few pictures in the book are fuzzy. Overall I think that this is an excellent resource book.

Here is everything that a field guide should be and contain--small enough to stick into a pocket but comprehensive, definitive, dependable and well-illustrated. Pictures, descriptions, locations, uses, warnings. Foster is not only an herbalist of the first rank but one of the finest plant photographers out there clicking. His gorgeous Healing Plants calendar is on my wall; the verdant photos provide daily pleasure. Herbal preparations as alternatives to synthetic drugs are increasingly chosen. St. John's Wort for depression, Saw Palmetto for prostate treatment, Goldenseal for a multitude of symptoms. Not typically thought of as herbs, trees are also a part of our living pharmacy and 66 are included here. Ginkgolides extracted from leaves of the Ginkgo tree (ginkgo biloba) are the best-selling herbal preparation in Europe. Aspirin derives from the willow. Amongst shrubs I learned that Hawthorn leaf and flower preparations are used in Germany to treat congestive heart failure, based on at least 14 controlled clinical studies. With increasing usage, many plants are in danger of being overharvested. Conservation is necessary to preserve a viable natural community of plants that can and may help alleviate human suffering. Stopping plant thieves is a law enforcement challenge but easy identification of plants may save others of us from bulldozing a patch of ginseng for a house site. It is noted that Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida) "is common in eastern Kansas but it is very rare in western North Carolina at the eastern extreme of its range. The plant might be judiciously harvested in Kansas, but in North Carolina it should be left alone." More than just a field guide, Medicinal Plants and Herbs is an essential reference book for our personal library. The value of this big little book can hardly be overestimated.

Foster is great at painting images of NASA, the Senate, and the workings of a shuttle mission. He goes even further with surprising the reader with the looks of the inside of the mysterious asteroid, and the grand climax of the asteroid sailing away at the speed of light to an alien planet called Cocytus.

The descriptions of the ancient alien machinery is uninspired, and the beauty of the world that comes across in the game is noticeably absent. Brink's crystal madness is understated, and instead of becoming a raving, screaming madman, as he does in the game, he sort of states that he has a problem with Boston Low and lets it go at that. I was extremely disappointed in this book.

I enjoyed this book a lot. Even though some of the personalities lacked realism, it still had a very good plot. Starts out slow, but later you get sucked into it. Anyone who is crazy about reading books should definitely read this one. It should become a movie! Lastly, It also serves as a hidden guide to finishing the video game!

This book is a nice piece of science-fiction. The Dig has all the characteristics of a space opera with enough information to keep your feet on the ground along with enough mysterie to keep you holding the book in your hands instead of putting it down for a break everyonce and a while. However there was one draw back, this entire book was based on a computer game! I played the game befor I read the book and I ended up with not enough surprise to keep my eyelids open, The entire expierence was almost ruined for me if it wasn't for Foster's originality. I would recomend this book for whoever hasn't played the game. It is a very mysterious novel that is definately a five-star. I hope I see more of Alan Dean Foster.

Please avoid this book by all means. I'm not sure how the author justifies this book as being a guide to the Vision Quest. There is NOTHING in this book that is even remotely similar to the Vision Quest Ceremomy of the American Indians. This is an insult and a rip-off of our spirituality.

If you want to learn the true meaning behind the sacred ceremonies of the Lakota peoples, then I would most strongly recommend your read The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux: Black Elk, Holy Man of the Oglala or Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux or Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux by Black Elk, John Gneisenau Neihardt, Vine, Jr. Deloria.

This book clearly speaks to people who increasingly find something missing - either through a tiny crack or glaring hole - in their life; perhaps direction, karma, a clearer sense of what this is all about, whatever you want to call it.

I only considered a vision quest a sci-fi novelty, something good for stories, not real life. This book changed that perception forever. The author describes the process and the results many people found as they went through thier own vision quest.

I plan on going on one in 2001 through a related organization. This book clearly communicated a possible solution to that 'missing something' many people feel these days.

The only minor criticism I have is that in my opinon, the authors poetic, mystic and self-agrandizing descriptions and metaphors go a little overboard - a little heavy-handed for my taste... perhaps that's only since I haven't been on a vision quest, I don't know. This in no way diminishes the clear and no-holes-barred message delivered straight and to the point for the majority of the book. Don't let this stop you - it's worth every penny and more...

There is a mountain we all must climb. Some of us never see the mountain. Some of those that do see cannot make the climb. This is a very personal collection of stories of individual journeys - journeys that attempt to solidify the bond between the body and the mind. It is also a universal pattern, as we begin to see in "Vision Quest", that we who call ourselves "human", must find and connect with our personal mythos. Always different in its instantiation, always the same in its requirement. And always there.

This book is published by Fireside Books, a part of the Simon&Schuster empire. They are also the publisher of "Coyote Medicine", which I panned pretty heavily in a review last year for being unsubstantial and largely anecdotal in its evidences. "Vision Quest" is also anecdotal, which means that Foster and Little could have cut and paste, publishing those stories they saw fit to tell their side, and leave out the rest. However, there are two things that are quite different about their style which makes this book a smashing success. First, they held nothing back, so far as I can tell. Some of their customer's journeys weren't success stories at all. Some were clear failures, and some were still just hanging on to bare existence. Their message still came through. The second point is that these stories can only be told in this fashion. Science is not clearly in the picture here - skirting the edge. There's no way one can publish statistics on this topic, saying "of so many voyagers, x percent achieved total succees". No, this book is about mythology. And as false as the stories are that comprise mythology, their lessons are deeply engrained in the body - no, the spirit - of every one who dares to be human.

Reading "Kinds of Minds", by Daniel Dennett, may make some of what I speak of more clear. Humans differ from other animals because of our recursive patterns of thought. This recursion - the ability to subject the mind to analysis by that same mind - is both a blessing (in that it helped with our survival), and a curse (in that endless recursion into a black hole of despair is a definite possibility). Your mythos is the terminator to this endless analysis. Some call this "God". Some of us have no name for it, but all the same, it must be there. Foster and Little recognize this, and at the same time, they are quite sensitive to the lives on the edge of our grand society who need, but do not have, this connection.

Knowing full well that the connection itself does not assure a comfortable place, they nonetheless have created a venue for people to make this voyage of self discovery. This book is a brief recounting of many of those voyages. It is also an invitation to the rest of us to follow wherever that path leads.

Read this book.

This book will appeal only to people who have vested interest in playing down the effectiveness of herbal products - such as pharmaceutical companies, physicians and others who wouldn't make any money if people didn't need their services any more and were able to heal themselves or maintain good health naturally through the use of herbs.

The title of the book is a misnomer. Tyler doesn't offer any information on how to use the herbs - as a matter of fact, from the way he describes them, you'd be sure he never ever touched, or tasted any herb. Tyler does his best to downplay or completely disparage the effectiveness of every single herb mentioned, and when he is unable to prove that the particular herb is ineffective, then he states that even though the herb was empirically effective, there is no sufficient research to back it up.

The book is basically loaded with information on why you should not bother using any of the herbs listed in this book - either because in Tyler's opinion they are ineffective or they could be dangerous. And for the herbs that have been proved effective and were in use for centuries, Tyler states how "pharmaceutical industry" lost interest in these herbs. Of course they lost interest - how wouldn't they if they cannot patent herbs that are available everywhere? If they can not make money, why would they still be interested? And to state that this book is free of commercialism, just "honest" herbal - what a joke!

Pollen is put in the same category as "peacock's excrement" and to "moss grown on the skull of a man who had died by violence". After listing some nutrients, Tyler states, "None of the identified constituents of pollen has been linked to any significant therapeutic activity as advocated by its enthusiasts."

For burdock, which is a blood purifier, Tyler further states "in spite of its long use as a folkloric remedy, no solid evidence existst that burdock exhibits any useful therapeutic activity."

About Chickweed, Tyler writes: "Despite the fact that it is prominently listed in almost every catalog of herbs currently available and also that many writers describe it as a valuable herb, I can think of no good reason to allow space to this worthless weed. ... Let's not waste any more time and space on the imagined medicinal value of this ineffective herb." (On a personal note, chickweed is a popular herbal supplement for weight loss...)

And, well, I can only suggest that you invest your money in some other, decent and honest, herbal that actually offers some useful information regarding the use of herbs.

I enjoy Mr. Tyler's monthly column in Prevention magazine and expected this book to be similar in scope and format. I was disappointed to find that it wasn't; much of it is written in medical terms but I can't imagine it being detailed enough for use by a physician or phamacist. I found the book I was looking for in "The American Pharmaceutical Assocation's Practical Guide to Herbal Health" (don't let the title scare you, it's straight-forward) by Andrea Piece. I do appreciate Mr Tyler honest assessments concerning the use of herbs; however, for me at least, this could also have been a much better book than it turned out to be. I will continuous to enjoy his magazine articles though.

Varro Tyler is not the kind of herbalist who recommends apanoply of plant materials to cure every ill. On the contrary -- hewill warn you away from a number of dangerous herbs you'll find trumpeted on the Internet or sitting temptingly on the health food store shelves, and explain why others, while not unsafe, will not do what they ads claim.

Tyler's monographs are interesting as well as informative. In a few concise paragraphs he gives the history of each herb, from its earliest uses right up to what is claimed for it now. He explains the pharmacology of each one in detailed but clearly understandable terms. He tells you what to be careful of -- if you have a certain condition, or take certain pharmaceutical drugs, for example. And, most important, he tells you whether or not it's safe and whether or not he thinks it will work.

Tyler is quite conservative. He cites scientific studies (all meticulously referenced) as evidence for everything he says. He tells you whether the studies were well-crafted or poorly done. He explains why "if it's natural, it must be safe" is not true. But if Tyler says it's safe and probably does what you need, it's worth trying.

With all of the claims for herbs we're bombarded with these days, this is a book I wouldn't be without. Check it before you buy anything, and you'll avoid both putting yourself in harms way, and wasting your money.

Although not as scholarly and thorough as Steven Foster's book on Echinacea, this book is a good introduction to Echinacea.