"A Renaissance In Harlem", is one of the better history books I have read this year. In fact it is one of the better books that I have read in a long time regardless of genre. There are many reasons a book like this goes unnoticed, however to mention any of them, instantly is to be branded with the various labels created by simpletons. If you enjoy reading History, read this collection of work, it will not disappoint.

As part of the New Deal, the Federal Government paid several thousand writers across the nation to write about what they observed. The collection of stories that is included in this volume all center upon Harlem and its so-called Renaissance. These essays are written by some writers that are well known, and by several who cannot be traced to this day. They all share a level of excellence that can result when talented people write about a place they are a part of. This collection is not a romanticized view of Harlem, The Apollo Theater, or any other landmarks you may know. The stories are stripped of all pretense, they each are small documentaries of what life was like for those who lived, worked, exploited, and were exploited by Harlem's unique population. It would be easy to dwell on portions of this book that would raise the anger that remains associated with various groups. This may be part of the reason this book was not embraced. Free Speech is a difficult taskmaster, and this may explain why these stories found their home in the archives of The Library Of Congress until they were finally brought to the light of day.

You will read of what, "Rent Parties", rapidly became once they were fashionable. The life of, "Thursday Girls", will leave you as numb as the stories of John Steinbeck. And for those who may think that the exploitation by today's televangelists is nauseating, come to know, "Father Divine", who entered Harlem in a one off custom built Dusenberg.

"Amateur Night at The Apollo", will bring insight into this famed theater that is as important as the polished versions so often written of this landmark. Fatso the Slickster, Big Bess, and Kingfish will entertain and sadden. And the story, "Finger Waves and Nu Life Pomades", will roll as smoothly across the minds eye as it does the ear.

My favorite part of the book was the manner these writers recorded the spoken word. They wrote what they heard, and while at times a reader may pause to get in step with some of these street poets, the language is priceless. This speech was a centerpiece of the stories of street vendors and the songs that made their days pass and their goods sell. Men and women who had their street music they would adapt as the blocks they passed changed, and the colors and religions of those who lived there changed as well.

This is a wonderfully collection of a piece of American History. No brief comment can do the work of these writers justice, and certainly is not enough to thank those who found, collected and edited the lives into this book.

It is a treasure, a gift, and a literary time capsule.

We just returned (9/8/99) from our first trip to Puerto Rico and enjoyed using this tour book. We are especially pleased to have read their section on Karst County (page 181) and made it a point to travel in that area. Their section on Old San Juan was especially informative.

I was a professor at the Univ. of Puerto Rico during the 1980s, and return occasionally for scientific work. I also teach a Tropical Biology course every other year that includes spring break in Puerto Rico. I've read about eight guides to Puerto Rico and nearby islands, and I think this is the best in terms of accurately reviewing history, culture, and some of the biology and geology. The photographs are extraordinary, and really capture the island in all its facets. This Guide also gives the best information about each town's history and points of interest. It probably devotes the least space to casinos and cruise ship information, but I see that as a strength. I want my students to develop some understanding of the history and culture of Puerto Rico, even though it's a biology class, and I have found the first couple chapters of the Insight Guide do a better job than any of the drier academic sources out there. If you want to buy a guide to Puerto Rico for your own enrichment, this is the one to get.

Known for their numerous photographs, researched facts, and great coverage of historical and cultural items, the "Insight Guides" series has covered almost every nation on earth with wonderfully. Their "Insight Guide to Puerto Rico" was especially much more fascinating to me since they covered a lot of things and places I did not know about my homeland.

Beautifully binded, full of colorful photographs and drawings, and informative, this guide allowed me to explore more towns, sites, and places that are usually off the beaten track for a normal tourist. Their coverage of Puerto Rico's satellite islands: Vieques, Culebra, and Mona, was very interesting, and I was happy to see Mona in photographs, because it is rarely captured in photographs.

The chapters on Old San Juan, Ponce, and the Karst Country were also all informative and refreshing, making my trip much more entertaining. From the island's plethora of important rum distilleries (world's biggest producer of rum) to a brief discussion on local dialect, the editorial staff at "Insight Guides" did an excellent job of representing this beautiful Caribbean island in all its' splendor.

If you are looking for the best travel guides to Puerto Rico, this book and "Lonely Planet's Guide to Puerto Rico" are the two best travel books to this island. Don't forget to pick them up before your next visit to the island.

It's always a pleasure to read a book by an author who knows how to put a paragraph together. Dorothy Johnson comes through. Her sentences flow like water pouring out of a pitcher, and the chapters fly by. You're finished with the book before you know it.

The book is loaded with personal stories of the men and women who emigrated over the Bozeman Trail and those who went to Montana over other routes as well. The book is not strictly about the Bozeman Trail alone. It is also a history of the gold fields of early Montana, the Plummer gang, the vigilantes, etc.

The book covers the important Indian fights at Forts Phil Kearny and C.F. Smith, but is limited in that only one map of any kind is provided, and that is a regional one.

In the annals of American western history the Bozeman Trail through the Wyoming and Montana has a special notoriety for violence and peril. The Bozeman traveler faced hostile Native Americans, outlaws, hard climates, and wilderness solitude. Yet it was the trail favored by prospectors seeking their fortunes in Montana's gold fields, as well as the gamblers, highwaymen, "professional women", and merchants who sought to capitalize on the miner's needs and vices. Dorothy Johnson's classic history begins with the creation of the Bozeman Trail in 1862 and follows the events of 1863 through 1868. The Bloody Bozeman showcases some of the most colorful personalities and memorable events to ever grace the annals of the American West, and Dorothy Johnson is a born storyteller making the days of the Bozeman Trail fairly leap to life off the printed page.

This book presents traditional and non-traditional Caribbean foods in a simple and clear manner. It is an excellent choice for anyone interested in the new, fresh and exuberant Caribbean cooking. Many of the recipes can be reduced in calories by the substitution of simple ingredients. If you like this book, you'll love Angela Spenceley's "A Taste of the Caribbean Cookbook" which also includes a chapter on Bartending in the Islands. Her other cookbooks, "A Taste of the Virgin Islands" and "Just Add Rum! Cookbook" are fabulous and well worth the addition to any good cookbook library.

We have fond memories of our honeymoon at the restaurant and inn owned by the authors in the British Virgin Islands. Our memories of the wonderful "dining experiences" rank high among those of our blessed honeymoon. The cookbook lets us "taste" a few of those memories here at home!

The Wedding was a novel that portrayed many different aspects of race, romance and discrimination. I loved how I felt I could relate to the characters in the book. They were interesting, well developed and entertaining to read about. What I enjoyed most of all were the life-like situations that took place. I felt it correctly displayed history, although at times some of the passages proved to be a bit graphic. I would recommend this book to older and mature crowds who wanted to learn an about African- American history from an upfront and confident perspective. This book really gave me an idea about what was truly going on with African- Americans, their way of living and their attitudes towards life in America in general back in the 1950's through the 1960's. The writing style is interesting and descriptive and the book only makes you want to learn more.

The Wedding was a novel that portrayed many different aspects of race, romance and discrimination. I loved how I felt I could relate to the characters in the book. They were interesting, well developed and entertaining to read about. What I enjoyed most of all were the life-like situations that took place. I felt it correctly displayed history, although at times some of the passages proved to be a bit graphic. I would recommend this book to older and mature crowds who wanted to learn an about African- American history from an upfront and confident perspective. This book really gave me an idea about what was truly going on with African- Americans, their way of living and their attitudes towards life in America in general back in the 1950's through the 1960's. The writing style is interesting and descriptive and the book only makes you want to learn more.

Dorthy West is a wonderful writer. I have enjoyed reading "The Wedding." Her writing style is very unique and pleasing to the soul. She writes with tonz of emotion and really knows how to get her readers hooked. She puts many descriptive similies throughout her story such as, "He withdrew in this awkward manner not because it was his wont but because he found he could not tear his eyes from Gram's, gripped as he was by the implacable irony in them that seemed to strip him and pin him to the wall like a bug in a case." This book protrays many interesting issues. Some are slavery, class, race, and gender distinctions within family, gender, and marriage.

I really enjoyed this book. I don't like reading long books so this 240 page book was a perfect length for me. I liked it for many reasons. It brought up many issues and situations that happened during the time when slavery was being abolished. It not only gave a strong description of the story, but of the true life blacks had to live by. It opened my eyes to new ideas about inter-race relationships and gave me a better understanding of what marriage is. At the end of the book Dorthy West states that, "Color was a false distinction; love was not." It also gave me a new meaning of what love is and that it's what is in the inside that counts.

I would recomend this book to anyone who is wanting a quick and easy read. It is a enjoyable and relaxing book. It might not all make sence in the beginning, but it all comes together in the end. I know that it has changed my prospectives on some issues and mabey it will change yours too.

John McLoughlin is called -- by vote of the Oregon legislature -- "The Father of Oregon." Yet the government of the United States deliberately invalidated his claim to his Oregon home.

McLoughlin helped the early pioneers get a foothold in the Oregon wilderness, then was accused of keeping them in poverty for his own enrichment.

He was a compassionate man with a violent temper. McLoughlin was loved, hated, respected, reviled. And now he is the subject of a thorough, honest and compulsively readable biography.

In one sense, this book is an unexpected treasure coming from this writer, who is a respected author of history and fiction for young readers (including a work for young people about McLoughlin), not a traditional writer of biographies for adults.

"Outpost: John McLoughlin and the Far Northwest" is the work of Dorothy Nafus Morrison, an accomplished historian. "Outpost" is a major historical work designed for the general reader and for historians. But it is also a natural step in her development as a writer. It is an astonishing tale, exceptionally well told.

I was very disappointed in this book. The recipes and crafts didn't seem nearly as well perfected as in the authors other books. For example, applesauce cinnamon ornaments did not include glue (which makes them much sturdier, smoother, less breakable, and resistant to bugs). Had the author done any checking whatsoever, she would have learned this -- but seemed more eager in rushing to press than in perfecting the recipes/projects. I was very disappointed.

Marcia Adams Heartland is a beautfully done cookbook.Ihave all her books and watch her tv shows.Irecommend it to any one who is a fan or just likes to eat good food.I am waiting for any new ones to come out.

Are we on a wait too? for how many Months???

I'll admit that I picked up this book expecting a more in-depth analysis of the various trevails of the Clinton administration as well as Bill and Hillary themselves. If you're considering the book for this purpose, you will probably be best served elsewhere. However, if your interested in the daily give and take between the White House administration and the press you'll find it entertaining. If ever there was an argument for reducing the federal beauracracy, this is it starting at the very top. Kurtz succeeds (whether he intended to or not) in proving that there are so many people involved in any particular issue that the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing. He also succeeds in showing that the true power of the White House lies in the Press Secretaries office. And those responsible for telling the public what's going on...the press...is caught in the middle.

What Kurtz fails to do is write in a style that reads easily. He seemingly jumps from o! ne anecdote to another with little to connect the two. I found myself wondering why he's telling a particular story and what it had to do with the story before. In short, he writes this book as a column with limited space.

The presidential flacks had done their job. For 1997, at least, their spin had carried the day.
-Howard Kurtz, Spin Cycle

In a story that is utterly devoid of edifying moments and chock full of quite depressing ones, these
final lines of the book are the most shocking. For it is only as you read them that the full realization
hits home that Howard Kurtz's justifiably jaded and cynical look at the way the Clinton administration
manipulated the press and the public in order to cover up or blunt scandal was written before the
Lewinsky scandal broke. Commingled with the shock though is the sudden comprehension that the
Clinton Administration was uniquely well prepared to deal with such a scandal, having spent the prior
seven years honing their obfuscatory skills on a whole series of equally disturbing and potentially
damaging scandals.

In fact, as Kurtz notes in a hastily tacked on Epilogue, one that subsequent events were to wholly
outpace, in the deposition that Bill Clinton gave in the Jones case, on the weekend that Matt Drudge
broke the Monica story, he revealed that he had in fact had sex with Gennifer Flowers. In other
words, on the very first occasion that most Americans saw Clinton, the infamous Super Bowl night 60
Minutes appearance, he lied to us all, with Hillary at his side, and it worked.

What Howard Kurtz really ends up detailing for us is just the long dress rehearsal before the big show,
in which the Clintons and their spin machine worked out all the kinks in their act. By the time the
Lewinsky scandal broke, they understood that all they had to do was deny initially, demonize liberally
(both accusers and investigators), leak pre-emptively, and acknowledge belatedly and they would be
able to so desensitize the press and the people that Bill Clinton would ultimately survive. And so, as
the tawdry mess reached its foreordained conclusion, we had the hitherto unimaginable situation of a
credible rape charge (by Juanita Broaddrick) against the President of the United States, which he did
not even deny, but which the press chose not to hound him with. He had finally just beaten them
down to the point where they didn't have the heart to pursue another scandal.

Then, in a moment which nearly redeems him, Clinton left office in a blizzard of bartered pardons and
other final acts of contempt for the staffers, supporters, and voters who had excused everything he'd
ever done. It was the final (...) gesture of a man who clearly understood that he had so implicated a
nation in his treachery that he had become untouchable. To judge Bill Clinton at that late date would
have required people to face all of the excuses and allowances that they'd made for him in the
preceding eight years, and that was not going to happen. It was all just so brazen that it was hard not
to admire the in-your-face flourish with which he departed. Howard Kurtz does a fine job of charting
the early years of the Clinton scandals, but there was so much more yet to come.

GRADE : B+

Spin Cycle is a must read for anyone interested in the White house "communications" office and the tailoring of political "news" for the press and those who follow politics. Although the book is ostensibly about the "spin" the White House puts on their own press releasses, statements, and news stories affecting the president perhaps its most valuable service is to show how the Clinton White House has trivialised the presidency by operating in thier campaign mode. Kurtz shows the cynicism of modern politics through the White House release of non-stories and minor stories and announcements as if they had some significance other than to provide a daily story about supposed actions and decisions made in the White House.

I am about to make a move to Arizona, and I thought this book might help ease the transition. I was disappointed to find that the book covers a lot - but nothing in enough detail to be helpful. The information on weather, employment, and useful phone numbers, etc. can be found on the Arizona state website for free. I suppose if you have no other resources available, this book might be useful, but I was disappointed.

Very worthwhile. I moved to Prescott, Arizona, from the East Coast several weeks ago, and I found this little book to be helpful. It has information about all all sorts of practical things, such as registering your car. If you plan to move to Arizona, I recommend making the small investment for the book. Compared to what the move is going to cost you, the book is virtually free, and you will be glad to have it.

My father recently moved to Arizona and I purchased this for him a few weeks before he made the move. He had found it to be very helpful. It contains all of the essential information that any newcomer to the state might need. It is well written and seems to be very current.

If you're a newcomer to the state or considering moving to Arizona, then I'd recommend that you consider purchasing this book.

I have mixed feelings about Ms. West's novels. On the one hand, she writes remarkable well about the human condition and even her shortest stories translate into volumes in the mind. On the other hand Ms. West's constant references to skin color and class are contrived and nauseating. It make on e think that maybe she hated her own warm brown skin. These stories are interesting. Some are underdeveloped mostly because she was so very young when she penned them. It's a worthwhile book but it didn't make me a fan.

This collection of short stories were interesting to read.Some were intriguing,others were okay, and some were suspenful.I enjoyed her writing about middle and upper middle class African Americans that are often neglected in popular literature. Some pieces were autobiographical but they span from the 1920s -1980s.Provides the reader with an intereting insight to an African AmericanNew Englander's perspectives but ultimately illustates that we are all part of the human community.This is good reading for a rainy day, a snowy day, or any day!

Would-be writers would do well to read this collection of seemingly simple stories and sketches. It takes great talent and understanding to write such effortless, fluid prose. Once you've read the short stories, the reminiscences are a fascinating reflection of how an author mines her own life experiences to create art. As well, this pioneer of black literature has painted historical mini-portraits of life for so many people -- some of whom were born to slavery and freed within the author's own lifetime. It's too easy to forget that not so very long ago, black people weren't even considered citizens, but merely property. This is a lovely book, a prime example of elegantly simple writing. Highly recommended.