Eugene Meyer's book on Maryland is a fascinating look at various parts of the state, with an emphasis on the human interest stories that bring it to life. I moved to Maryland a year ago and reading this book brings me much closer to feeling like I've been here for awhile. One criticism: where's the map? Maryland is a geographically complicated state and a map would have provided a great service to understanding where Mr. Meyer's was writing from and off to next.

Maryland is a geographical diverse state that offers mountains, magnificent waters, and communities that range from small, intimate villages to large, thriving cities. In Maryland Lost And Found...Again, Eugene Meyer provides the armchair traveler with a guided tour of the state and explores the people and places that made Maryland special both in the past and the present. His essays touch upon Maryland's relationships and features including megalopolis, Appalachia, the Chesapeake Bay, the Deep South, the industrial North, rich farmland, a major port, the nation's capital, as well as the primary car and rail routes carrying East Coast interstate traffic. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Maryland's "The Free State" history, geography and demographics, Meyer's engaging, informative, and "reader friendly" text is enhanced with black-and-white photographs.

I have lived in Maryland my entire life (with the exception of a few years between 1985 and 1994), and through the years I've done a lot of travel writing. This is an absolutely fabulous book: a must-read for anyone interested in the fascinating quirks and hidden stories in Maryland's geography and history. I think I'm familiar with just about every history/travel book that's been written on "The Free State," and this is certainly one of the best, and perhaps the best ever. Utterly fascinating and delightful reading.

This is a well organized and indexed fire science text which is a useful reference for anyone who works with hazardous materials on a daily basis. It explains DOT regulations and how the regs are actually related to the chemistry of the materials. It explains the chemistry behind proper transport, handling, and storage of most major commodity chemicals and offers guidlines for emergency planning and response. The author does a good job of introducing/reviewing the concepts of chemistry with a clear focus on reactions which can lead to disaster. Two flaws: the writing is repetative, at times you can sense that the author/editiors were a bit tired of the text or in a hurry to get it to the press. The illustrations are O.K. but the black and white photos are AWFUL. Mr. Meyer, if you read this, go back and re-do all the photos for the next edition. I work at a RCRA TSDF and have found the text very useful for myself and our new employees who have studied chemistry but do not have a firm grasp of DOT and fire safety.