I am so glad I chose to give this marvelous book as a Father's Day gift. One could simply not go wrong presenting this to any loved one with Corps ties. Whether to purchase as a gift, or for yourself, I can't imagine being disappointed on any level. Historically accurate, and loaded with impressive photgraphs, it's too absorbing to just rest on the coffee table, but it's such a quality book, you'll fret about soiling it. I highly recommend.

This book is one of the most impressive I've ever seen. Very well put together with a wealth of easy-to-read information concerning the "World's Finest" United States Marine Corps. Designed with the class and style in which only the Marine Corps is capable of inspiring. (Thank you mom for this Christmas treasure!) Semper Fidelis!

This is a wonderful book on the Marines. Mainly a historical/traditions book. If you want technical information, get something like Tom Clancy's "Marine". Either way, this book is great. Overall, it is my favorite Marine Corps book. Tons of incredible pictures. Has chapters on history, today and tomorrow's Corps, even a chapter on dress blues. If you are or were a Marine, or just love the Marine Corps, you have to get it. You won't be disappointed.

Howard Coffin has established himself as the premier authority on Vermont and the Civil War. He has exhaustively researched Vermont's historical records including countless letters and diaries from the actual participants. He allows them to directly share their personal, heroic, sorrowful and inspiring stories and insights. It is difficult today to appreciate the pain and suffering which was brought home to every Vermont family during this Campaign. Mr. Coffin does honor to their memories and has provided a valuable research source for those interested in this period.

A powerful historical account of Vermont's role in the Civil War, The Battered Stars: One State's Civil War Ordeal During Grant's Overland Campaign by American Civil War historian and expert Howard Coffin (himself a sixth generation Vermonter with four ancestors who served with the Vermont regiments in the Overland Campaign) is founded on a wealth of primary sources and archival materials, including wartime letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts. The state of Vermont paid a toll in blood from the strife of the war, and the brutal battles are explored in detail as well as the resolve of those who stayed at home and did their best to keep the wheels turning. A welcome and much appreciated contribution to the growing field of Civil War Studies, The Battered Stars is a powerful, fascinating account highly recommended for civil war buffs, as well as anyone native to Vermont who wants to immerse themselves in the gripping saga of a watershed time of civil war.

All modern students of bark and skin boats begin with this book. The intial work on the native watercraft of North America.

While the book does not cover the watercraft of all North American First Nations, it does provide a broad range of information on craft from many Nations across the continent.

This book is highy recommended to anyone interested in the history of canoes or kayaks as developed on the North American continent.

FIVE STAR...By far, one of the best Civil War books I have ever read...Mr. Coffin's extensive research of newpapers and personal letters brings to life an often forgotten group of Civil War veterans. Previously, I was unfamiliar with the 2nd Vermont's spectacular role in the battle of Gettysburg. Mr. Coffin's easy to read, step-by-step approach to telling the 2nd Vermont's story from its inception thru its disbanding provides a wonderfully clear picture of what its brief tenure in the Army of the Potomac was like. I hope Mr. Coffin will take the time to write additional books on Vermont's role in the Civil War or other brigade histories. Great Book!!!!

I havent read this book in years. It was so good that I keep going to the library to take it out, but it is always gone,or someone steals them as fast as they get new ones. The author spent his whole life doing what I wish I could,Searching the fields and streams of NY. and getting paid for it. I want to buy one and keep it in my safe.

As a voracious reader of books on stars, I was wonderfully entertained by Edwin Howard's new book, Seeing Stars. The book is written in an easy reading style, full of interesting facts and insights about some of the movie stars who have dominated the screen for the past 50 years. What is most amazing is how Mr. Howard became friends with many of the stars that he covered. This is obviously a testament to his own personality and his ability to connect with stars as people and not just as Hollywood names. This is a must read for anyone who wants an inside glimpse of celebrities as diverse as Cary Grant, Elvis Presley, Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman or John Wayne. I even got several copies to give as gifts to friends who love the movies!

Seeing Stars: Memoirs Of A Professional Celebrity-Seeker is the personal story of Edwin Howard, a veteran newspaperman, television arts critic and former book review editor whose encounters with the Hollywood elite ranged from Cary Grant, William Faulkner, and Sophia Loren, to James Earl Jones, Jack Nicholson, and Ingrid Bergman, to Paul Newman, Hal Holbrook, Elvis Presley, and so many others. An amazingly candid and surprisingly insightful collection of memorable and autobiographical vignettes offering the reader a unique perspective on and into the lives of some of the greatest entertainers Hollywood has ever known. Seeing Stars is as thoroughly entertaining as it is informed and informative.

Edwin Howard's Seeing Stars is a celebration of a professional celebrity seeker, beautifully written with passionate insight for his abundance of subject matter - such as calling "John Wayne the Grand Canyon of movie stars" and Lucille Ball "the Niagara Falls." Throughout the book, Howard has seasoned his original interviews of some of Hollywood's most famous stars with personal observations and evaluations of their films and careers. This reader learned so much and was inspired to want to see again films in which the stars appeared. This reader-friendly book, with candid photographs of many of the stars, is a must for the cinema loving public as well as for theater/cinema libraries - and the personal book shelves of students studying these disciplines.

Seeing Stars' introduction is a perfect tune-up for what is to come - by first defining what an interview actually is: "biography in a hurry"... and very informative about where the word interview comes from: "to see each other" from old French. The book's opening chapter on Mae West, who invited the author up to her apartment, whets the appetite to read on. In subsequent chapters, one is introduced to sharp, witty and appropriately catchy chaper titles - salt and peppering the interviews to follow. With Howard's flare for words, his interviews are absolutely delicious! The chapter on Patricia Neal will bring a tear to the eye. Wait until you read the final words Howard writes about Elvis Presley!

Let's hope Edwin Howard doesn't stop seeing more stars in the future. This 260-page book seeks a celebratory sequel.

This book made me realize that radio is not just about playing music. It is about sending and reciving waves to make the public happy.

This book focuses on the history of radio from 1899 to 1954 and thus has nothing to do with RCA's CED VideoDisc system, but one of the key figures in the account is David Sarnoff, so a lot of the early history of RCA is covered. In addition to Sarnoff, the book focuses on the technical radio pioneers Edwin Howard Armstrong and Lee de Forest. In some respects this book is a reflection on the development of the modern computer, as parallels can be drawn between these radio pioneers and computer industry figures Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison.

Read some years ago & book now lost. Fascinating in that it vividly displays the genius, sometimes luck, unstinting effort, inspiration, and often the "happy" accident that is part of basic effort when one breaks ground in a new quest in pursuit of a dream. Much of this history could not be repeated in our 2000 world because those opportunities no longer exist. An example is Sarnoff's success in getting meaningful work at the tender age he did in the story! Mankind's unflagging quest goes on but in different ways. The first way of making news available at the instant it occurs certainly shrunk the world. The process continues. Recommended highly for the radio buff of any age!

If asked to name a World War I novel most Americans would almost certainly say "All Quiet on the Western Front". Thanks to our rather uniform public education system, Remarque's novel has earned a place in American culture as the quintessential novel of The Great War. It deserves its reputation as a landmark of 20th century literature, but unfortunately its success contributed to the disapearance from memory of Thomas Boyd's "Through the Wheat". Without moralizing about the cost of war, Boyd brilliantly depicts its horrors and their effects on the psyche of a young American Marine. If you want to understand the Combat experience -- the noise, dirt, distraction, sweat, blood, stench of war -- this is a novel you must read. It is a tragedy that it is no longer in print.

Thomas Boyd's "Through the Wheat" was written by a former newpaperman and the book is fairly easy to read. The writing style was such that you though that it was a true story being told to a friend. He was better known when he was alive for his historical novels. But I think this novel was his best.

Thomas Boyd was an interesting man who died from a brain tumor thought to have been caused by his being gassed during the WWI. He came back the war disillusioned and ran for public office in New Hampshire or Vermont as a communist. Mr. Boyd died suddenly in his early thirties and left behind a wife and a daughter. One of his collections of short stories Points of Honor(light) was made in a successful silent movie.

I'm not sure that I read the same book other reviewers read. Although the novel had moments of painful realism, it was, for the most part, a jingoistic, cliched, disorganized, and poorly written account of the Korean War. One hopes for more for the long overlooked soldiers who fought in Korea than the self-congratulatory officer worship of this novel. I can only hope that this inspires a more gifted writer to address the topic.

Don't let the title fool you. This book is not about dogs. Dog Company is the phonetic alphabet designation for D Company that was used by the U.S. armed forces in World War II and Korea. Dog Company Six is the kind of book that many will want to read at least twice because it's so good. It's a novel about Marines in combat written by a Marine combat veteran. The prose is spare and to the point. The combat scenes are realistic and exciting. The book begins with an inexperienced infantry captain struggling with fears and doubts about his ability to lead Dog Company into war in Korea. As Dog Company fights its way through the Inchon Invasion, the battle for Seoul and the Chosin Reservoir - some of the most honored and storied battles in U.S. Marine Corps history - the commander matures into a tough, capable and brave captain of Marines. Author Edwin Howard Simmons is a retired Marine brigadier general who also fought his way up and the down the Korean peninsula in the same battles. His dialog is true to the Corps and his combat scenes have the realism that only a man who's been there can write. Dog Company Six isn't just a book about war and killing. It's about bravery, sacrifice and dedication to duty. Dog Company Six isn't just a book for and about Marines. It's an entertaining story, well told and deserving to be read by a wide audience.

This was book was recommended reading by my local public library. If you have any doubts that our top military men are intelligent and aware, read this. I write for a living, and I think Simmons is a top-notch thinker and writer.
This is the first book I have read about the Korean Conflict, and I found it to be a fast-paced, well-written account of what it was like to be on the fontlines in Korea. If you like Stephen Ambrose (e.g., "Citizen Soldier"), you will probably like this book.

This is a book for Civil War buffs. The first half is interesting because it focuses on the raising and training of soldiers -- something not usually covered in other books of the genre. However, the author presents this material as a compendium of research tidbits rather than a story. The tale turns compelling and the writing more interesting when the Brigade meets its appointment with destiny at Gettysburg.

I read this book because I discovered that my great great grandfather fought with "A Co." 13th Reg. 2nd Brigade. A frenchman in the "Irish" company. Great detail on the volunteers who signed on for a quick nine month adventure and found eight months and two weeks of boredom and in the last weeks of their enlistment had a heroic march to get to Gettysburg and then to meet Picketts Charge, great story, even better knowing it is true.

Excellently written account of the day to day lives of the volunteer soldiers of the 2nd Vermont Brigade and of particular interest to me in that my great great grandfather was Freeman Sunderland, a member of CO.K, 13th Reg. and mentioned in the book. Thank you Mr. Coffin!