This is a book that belongs in every thinking-person's library. Clear and elegant writing in addition to the critical topic makes this a book to give all your friends!

As do many books with subjects attempting to cover the entire "Pacific Northwest," this book focuses primarily on a certain area of the PNW. In this book's case, it's Oregon (no offense at all to this wonderful state). The photos are all small, black-and-white, and obscure. There are MANY photos of feces in this book. While it's helpful to know feces identification, it's more important to identify mammals by species identification. Perhaps I'm lucky, because I get to see more actual animals in the wild, rather than only their droppings. Some mammals in the book are not even pictured at all. Some of my friends have never even seen a nutria (coypus) or a marten in the wild, so pictures of them (and other animals) would have been helpful and more aesthetically pleasing to them. I've seen wolves in eastern Washington and a brown stage black bear in western Washington which the book does not address. On the other hand, the bat and shrew sections were extensive and thorough. Overall, the book is interesting and is scientifically well-organized. Included is ample, specific information on habitat, behavior, and breeding.

If you live in the Pacific Northwest and want to identify the wild mammals you see, this book is very helpful. However, there is a lot more to the book than just good descriptions of mammals. Stories about each creature bring to life the animals you may never encounter. Chris Maser is clearly fond of his subjects and tries hard to help the reader get a feel for their lives. It is fun to just open this book at random and read a few pages about vole or bat you never knew existed. I have several mammal identification books. This is the best one.

Silberstein and Maser have written a must-read book for anyone interested in local community-planning with a definite sustainability twist. I read it for a paper on sustainable participation and found it to be quite easy to read; plenty of case examples and thought-provoking ideas make sure of that. I especially liked reading about the everyday problems that are so common in community-planning, it makes it easy to relate to. I rate it a four, since I'm saving the five for a fantastic book yet to come...