This is a wonderful book about a family living and enjoying the natural world around them. I envy them. For a while, a person can escape their hectic, city living,and enjoy the life the author is sharing with us. I highly recommend it!

The gorgeous imagery of the West is what makes this so incredibly amazing. There are lightning storms, hail, floods, fires, grizzly bears, guns--even murder and intrigue. Who knew there was so much going on in Montana? I highly recommend this beautifully written book.

This is a must book for every reader that loves wildlife and nature. I felt like I was visiting an old friend by the way it is written. The way some of the wildlife are described gives the feeling of a personel relationship with them, such as the grizzly crippled by a gunshot.

The descriptions of what it is like to live in such a place could be right out of our country's past years ago.

The author does an excellent job of expressing her feelings about the natural world that surrounded her in this unusual place...a place so few have visited but so many dream about.

The way she described how the scientist conduct their field research to monitor the grizzly, wolf, mountain lion, and coyote gives us a view into their scientific world, but on a personal point of view with some very humorous stories.

If you've never been to a semi-remote place surrounded by beautiful mountains, variety of wildlife, or interesting people, buy this book and it will take you there.

Hello, this is not a review, but I don't see a place to simply email you with information regarding this book. I am the author/illustrator. The book has been distributed for the past two years by Chelsea Green Publishing of White River, Vermont. This is the same publisher who offers From the Redwood Forest. If you have trouble obtaining the Secrets of the Nest from them, please let me know. Secrets of the Nest continues to be a steady seller, and I think you will find it worth while to carry.
Thank you, Joan Dunning

A beautifully written, sensitive and insightful book which makes birds feel like intimate neighbors and friends. I have not sat around wondering what it would be like to be a bird, but entering that realm has been an extraordinary adventure. We began reading this book as part of a home-schooling science project. We expected to learn something, but had no idea how much fun it would be. My 12 year old son is enthralled and so am I. Even though birds had previously not been a particular interest of ours, we are now contemplating a backpacking trip in hopes of personally discovering some of the Secrets of the Nest.

For over forty years, Joan Liffring-Zug Bourret has photographed Iowa's Amana villages and the people. The 1959 image earliest in the series, originally taken on assignment for The Iowan magazine is of workers eating lunch at the Colony Inn. The most recent images are of the color cover of tulips and trees blooming in South Amana, and of the 1999 Maifest.

The book begins with photographs of the Community of True Inspiration, the religion of the original Amana settlers, their churches and religious followers. The next section is "The Communal Legacy" with villagers, villages and artifacts left over from the days when the colonists followed a system of religious communal life. In 1932 they voted The Great Change to a free enterprise system with a corporation owning the 26,000 acres, mills and various businesses. The people could now own their own homes. A photograph taken in 1982 shows "Those Who Knew the Communal Way," The elderly fifty years after The Great Change. A final section titled "The Winds of Change" shows the traditions of Germany as celebrated in the Maifest and an Oktoberfest. The Amana Heritage Society documents its historic past in several museums. Over 100 black- and- white images are in the book.

The color section, "The Beautiful Amanas, The Amanas in Bloom," has 13 photographs, ending with two views of the Native American Fish Dam on the Iowa river prior to the destruction of the dam in the floods of 1993.

A Foreword by Lanny Haldy, Executive Director of the Amana Heritage Society, and a Preface by Abigail Foerstner, photography critic, contribute to an understanding of the community and the photographs.

In her introduction, Joan writes, "the spirit of love and friendship, religious faith, and traditions continues today even through the vast winds of change in the Colonies and America.

An exhibition of the photographs complements the book.

"American Album" contains over 200 photos of every aspect of life in America from the late 19th Century to the early 20th Century. The selection ranges from staged portraits to shipyards to bustling cities to small towns and, finally, to Americans at work and play. These images will haunt you as you look into the face of a vanished America, but still see your own reflection looking back at you.

Imagine yourself lazily drifting down a placid river on a perfect summer afternoon, flanked on both sides by towering monuments erected by the architechtural geniuses of the ninteenth and twentieth centuries, their long shadows passing over you like the ghosts of the men themselves who labored over the planning, design, building, and occupation of these priceless pieces of history.

The sounds of the City surround you and the voice of your guide is almost an aria illuminating the stories behind the breathtaking views of some of the greatest architectural accomplishments of our time in the greatest city of all time...Chicago, Illinois.

Ms.Lindsay's knowlege and enthusiasm, not only of the architechtural importance of the buildings that line Chicago's famous River, but also for the nuances of their unique stories, their histories, and the personalities of the men who created them is contageous. Before you realize it, you are a convert to the wonder of this place and the energies and drives that built it up on the praire.

Ms. Lindsay captures the experience in "Chicago on the River", through breathtaking photographs which she took over the course of the thousands of trips she has made from the mouth of the River to the south end of the city and back, while illulminating and entertaining many many thousands and bringing to them her appreciation for this unique viewpoint.

Read the book and then take the tour...experience the world's greatest city from a truly unique point of view!

Patients in the hospital at Sells, Arizona, are away from what they're used to drink and eat. So they're served traditional foods. Respecting the traditional link to nature and people keeps up physical and spiritual strength. In contrast, in the 19th century, Zuni boys and girls were sent to Carlyle, Pennsylvania. They didn't feel part of a community or nature. They'd felt both in the southwest. They never made it back home. They died from loneliness.

In the southwest, life has always been about getting along with nature and people. One traditional way that southwestern cultures do this is through dance. Music sounds within the dancer. That energy joins the dancer to all creation. So the dancer becomes linked with human energy, such as ancestors and future generations.

The dancer also links to natural energy, such as rain clouds. This is why the Hopi rain dance brings rain. In fact, the Hopi say that their corn, grown unirrigated, and their way of life, in harmony with nature and people, will save the world. The Apache also got through war, reservation poverty, depression and censorship by drawing energy from community, nature, and prayers.

It should be no surprise, then, that a southwestern work of art has a link and use too. Pottery stands for the sacred earth bowl. Traditional designs keep the tie strong between past, present and future generations.

HERE, NOW, & ALWAYS comes out of an exhibition at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Along with artworks, such as beautifully useful basketry, pottery and weavings, there are also audios, videos and writings of southwesterners on ancestors, community, cycles of nature and people, and survival.

Southwesterners believe they didn't come from somewhere else. They've always been here first, right from the start, along the Colorado, Gila, Rio Grande, Salt and San Juan rivers. They'll also be the last. For example, the Hopi believe that the life of their people began at the Grand Canyon. That also will be their final spiritual home.

As an anthropologist and an information professional, I highly recommend this book for anyone researching or studying Native Americans, historical or contemporary. What makes this an essential reference tool, in my opinion, is that it provides a variety of perspectives -- many of the authors are Native American, in addition to anthropologists, historians, etc. One must keep these various biases in mind when using this resource, but this diversity of voices is an example of what makes this source unique. Additionally, the entries offer many great historical summaries but with a focus on contemporary Native America that is difficult to find in other Native American reference tools that tend to focus on the pre-contact and early contact period lifeways and history of various tribal entities rather than modern issues and tribal life.

This book is a keenly interesting look into the ways, the works, and the world-views of the early inhabitants of what today is Southern New England. Dr. Bragdon writes not in an historical style, but rather in the ethnographic tradition. Thus, her chapters are sometimes rather slow going unless you're an anthropologist. There's a lot of jargon. It's still a great read for the non-specialist, however. I would like to recommend keeping a dictionary handy, for times when the esoteric nomenclature of anthropology becomes as impenetrable as a pre-colonial flock of passenger pigeons.

The book is not divided up by tribe, as one might expect. Instead, Dr. Bragdon has divided her work by conceptual paradigms, or by umbrella descriptions of features of life shared by all the peoples of the land under discussion. Chapters delve into cosmology, ritual, or social relations, as well as "Kinship as Ideology," "Metaphors and Models of Livelihood," and "The Quotidian World:Work, Gender, Time, and Space."

By the way -- if you don't read fairly carefully at the beginning, you may miss something important. Dr. Bragdon has chosen to employ the term "Ninnimissinuok" as a blanket term for members of ALL the local Algonquian tribes. Just be aware that that what the word means -- otherwise you might waste a lot of time scratching your head, wondering who, exactly, these Ninnimissinuoks are supposed to be. I mention this because it's not nearly so well-known a term as, for example, Narragansett, or Wampanoag -- but perhaps it should be. The author demonstrates it's validity, and it's importance.

The bibliography at the end of this book is worth the book's price, all on it's own. There's a discouragingly large amount of poorly researched, pseudo-mystical writing out there, on the subject of Native Americans. Well, you won't find any here! All the cited works I've tried to locate have been of an extremely high caliber. The bibliography alone could keep you happily reading about the native peoples of Southern New England for many, many moons.

Again, this book can be a little steep going at times, if you aren't trained as an anthropologist, but it's worth the effort. Definitely two thumbs up.

Joan Leslie Woodruff is one of the most refreshing, original voices in current American fiction. Her books rank well in the company of such writers as Barbara Kingsolver and Amy Tan. "Neighbors" is a quirky story, humorous yet spiritually deep. The Native American sensibilities are authentic, derived from the writer's ancestry and her experiences in New Mexico. The heroine, Dana Whitehawk, moves from Los Angeles to New Mexico, where she discovers that some of her 'neighbors' are not ordinary folks. The beauty of Woodruff's tale is in the language. She explores the boundary between magic and reality, leaving readers to make up their own minds about some of the book's questions. Both comparatively short and generally upbeat, "Neighbors" is a good read for someone with a tight schedule who would like a "feel good" book. If you like this one, try "The Shiloh Renewal" -- it's topically different, but told with similar skill.

A hilarious and heartfelt detour through New Mexico's hinterlands. Its portrayal of the protagonist's pueblo neighbors leaves more stereotyped "colorful native characters" whimpering in the dust.

Joan Leslie Woodruff writes with a voice that warms the heart and makes the reader smile. I couldn't put this book down. The characters are quirky and entertaining and the story held me in its grip from page one.