John Waters Books

Beautifully and flawlessly written. John M. Fitzgerald is a master of suspense.
A fantastic read. I devoured it in one hour.

Spring Water is a masterfully crafted novel in verse by poet and attorney John M. FitzGerald.
It is suspenseful, scary, funny, thoughtful, poetic, visually haunting and moving at the same time.
The pages that belong to the diary of the protagonist Joe Smith have a dreamlike quality that stays with you long after you've finished reading the book. On the back cover Robert Nazarene compares it to "The Silence of the Lambs", and I agree. I highly recommend it. I couldn't put it down.

Helene Cardona, author of The Astonished Universe

Loaded with good local cruising information not found elsewhere. A must if you are cruising GreenBay/Door County.

Excellent for Cruising Green Bay. Everything you need for a successful sail.

I've lived within 10 miles of the Susquehann River for the last 19 years. I have driven along(or near) the entire length from Baltimore to Williamsport and then all of the North Branch and most of the West Branch. Anyone traveling along US 15 has seen the features mentioned in the book.
The book does a wonderful job of conjuring images of the land and people(past and present) along the river. I am leaving the Susquehanna behind due to relocation and I am glad to have the book to bring me back whenever I need to "see" the "river of dreams".
A must read for a someone living in the watershed, or anyone interested in one of the truly most beautiful areas of North America. The Susquehanna River Watershed in its glory rivals other, more celebrated, rivers such as the Columbia, Mississippi, Ohio, Yukon, for beauty and soul.

I've spent the last 23 years enjoying the beauty of this river; not quite understanding how it has been tried and tortured over the last 400 years. Great writing, and a wonderful story to be told. For those in the Tri-State (PA,MD,NY) area, a must read.

WIthout this knowledge, you won't truly appreciate what Philadelphia, Columbia, Baltimore and other areas are today, or how they achieved their stature.

As a long time resident of Tidewater Virginia, I found the book fascinating. I dimly remember the Washington to Norfolk daily steamer in the 1950s, and this book does an excellent job of detailing the many, earlier Bay steamboats that preceded it. The book has a wealth of detail: steamboat dimensions and furnishings, individual landings (piers with passenger and goods storage), steamboat races, and a well written, readable book about a time -- now long gone -- when there were little or no passable roads on the Western Shore (and much of the Eastern, as well) of the Chesapeake Bay and the steamboats were the only reliable transportation link to the wider outside world of Baltimore, Norfolk, Washington and Fredericksburg with their railroad terminals and stations. The book also has excellent maps and black and white photos to further amplify its contents. HIGHLY recommended for the student of area history or just more familiarity with an age now receding further into the mists of time. An easy, enjoyable read at an affordable price....

This book is a real treasure for anyone interested in the grand old steamboats that used to ply the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. The story follows George Weems as he struggles to establish his fledgling steamboat service on the Chesapeake, George's son Mason L. Weems who turns the company into a highly successful business, and Henry Williams who pilots the company through its most successful years and then - seeing an uncertain future for steamboats - sells the company to the Pennsylvania railroad in 1904.

Not only did the late Mr. Holly tell a great story, but he also filled the book's appendices with an incredible wealth of information on the Weems line and its steamboats. This includes information on the individual boats and the routes and landings they served, as well as representative data on the operating and construction costs of the vessels, minutes from several stockholder meetings, and a history of the Weems family. Moreover, the evocative photographs of the steamboats at work are worth the price of the book all by themselves. All in all, a great book.

Richard Maurer's new book chronicles Powell's second expedition through the eyes, words, and illustrations of Fred Dellenbaugh - a 17-year-old boy from Buffalo, NY who, along with some rowing experience on the turbulent Niagara River and a facility for drawing, had the gumption to make his dream come true. This story is very well written and quite compelling and will appeal to those who love adventure stories set in the Old West. The photographs and illustrations are remarkable. My hats off to the author!

I read Dellenbaugh's reprinted "Canyon Voyage" (the much abbreviated title) as a young man in the flatlands of western Kansas in the 1960's. The romance of the period of Dellenbaugh's youth, and the Powell Expeditions in particular (1869-72), stimulated in me an ongoing interest in the history of the region. I have read the edited and published diaries of most of the participants of the two expeditions, and continue to invest in an array of scholarly and coffee table books that even remotely address the subject. My annual crossings of the Colorado and Dirty Devil rivers to pursue research interests in southeastern Utah never fail to regenerate my own wish to have participated in such an epic adventure. Thus, when I saw the notice of publication of Maurer's book about Dellenbaugh on the second Powell expedition, with the expression in the title "the true adventures," I was expecting something on the order of D.D. Fowler's book about Jack Hiller's, another expedition participant. That is, a pretty serious biography of the man and a pretty faithful reproduction of the daily diary kept during his time in the field. Well, it might be the former, but it is certainly not the latter. Unlike the other expeditioners who kept diaries, Dellenbaugh's original diary has never been published. Perhaps this is because his 1908 "Canyon Voyage" was a timeline-based (albeit compressed) narrative and researchers may have believed there was nothing more of value in the original diary. While Maurer read the diaries of all the participants, including Dellenbaugh's, as well as Dellenbaugh's "Canyon Voyage" and the earlier "Romance of the Colorado River," Maurer's timeline is even more compressed than Dellenbaugh's. Consequently the book lacks the rich detail of Dellenbaugh's diary and earlier publications. For example, unlike the present book, the consecutive daily diary entries of "Looked for the Major today but of course he did not come; carried the rations over," "Looked for the Major again," and "Still waiting,"conveys a real sense of frustration at being in the same camp, on the bank of the Colorado, day after day, laying up under a boat to avoid the oppressive August heat, with nothing to do, waiting for the Major and Prof to come in so the party can continue the trip down the river through the Grand Canyon. Maurer acknowledged that in the writing of the book he "sometimes resorted to the methods of historical fiction to flesh out some of the stories" and that "footnotes would be out of place in a book like this." Thus despite having the best possible materials at hand from which to draw, this book was never intended as a scholarly work. In that context, the writing was a success. Maurer did locate some great historical photographs and drawings not published elsewhere, and that alone is an important contribution. More than that, though, the book was a really entertaining read. I can well imagine some person, like me once, never having heard of either Powell or Dellenbaugh, picking up the book and just marveling at what they did. And, interest aroused, they have an avocation.

The author of this book, Larry McCabe, is re-releasing books that have gone out of print for one reason or another. This particular book is an old friend. After I received it, I went into my library and found a copy. It has been in print in one form or another for 25 years. Most instruction books don't last anywhere near that long. First, this book (as the author warns) is not for beginners. You need to be familiar with the movable blues scales we all use. If you are playing out, and feel comfortable with the whole neck, get this book. The style of lead is closer to Gatemouth Brown and Freddie King than anyone else. If you don't know who these men are, buy their CDs. You are in for a treat. Please read the author's introduction. There is a lot of good info there. The Tab system is the older style. It should take about 30 seconds to adjust. It's actually easier to read than the current form. If you consider yourself a Rock guitarist instead of Blues, you really could use this book. If you use these solos as a "how to", instead of just memorizing them, they will give you some new weapons. You know, for scaring the heck out of other guitarists.

In this book, ex-Surfer Magazine editor Matt Warshaw captures the voice of surfing. By picking out the essential moment in a dleuge of interviews with the each of history's most influencial surfers, Warshaw exposes the true soul of surfing. This book touched me deeply.

I marvel at the number of African American children's books that can be used as effective teaching tools, yet are no longer in print. Lucille Clifton's ALL US COME CROSS THE WATER is one such literary work. Published in 1973, the book serves as an excellent springboard to writing, empowering blossoming writers to write from the heart. This work also serves as in invaluable resource to embrace diversity. ALL US COME CROSS THE WATER confronts a thought-provoking question that (in spite of DNA testing and technological advances) continues to haunt many black Americans: "From which African country is our ancestry rooted?" In a colloquial, humorous, yet candid way, Clifton addresses this seemingly timeless question. She brings to the forefront that Africa is not a country, that it and its people and cannot be generally classified. This work conveys that it is the role of the family extended to pass down the history to the children, rooting them in all aspects of their heritage. Clifton's work heralds the importance of reaching out to community to empower the individual and ultimately the collective body. Should you purchase this work for classroom use, before presenting it to a young audience, ensure that background information is conveyed. For example, Dahomey, a powerful West African Kingdom during the 17th century referred to in this work, is today called the Republic of Benin. Reference to Ujamaa, the little boy and main character in the story, sleeping in the same bed with his father conveys the family-bed concept embraced by many families across cultures. Verbs and nouns do not agree on every page; yet the writing style proves artistically effective. (Creative instructors can also use this work to highlight the formal use of verb/noun agreement.) A great vintage resource to spark investigative research into one's ancestry, ALL US COME CROSS THE WATER is worth the purchase for use with young learners!

"Willard Water" will amaze you!

This is the story of an incredible scientific breakthrough, developed by award-winning chemist John W. Willard, Ph. D.

In addition to the personal testimonies from those with relief from pain, and healed burns and injuries, this water is "a proven synergist for antibiotics, removes burned-on carbon from engine parts, and has numerous industrial applications."

Highly recommended for everybody who drinks water!

... This will be your bible if you, like me, are studying water chemistry. Stumm and Morgan made a compendium of water chemistry, useful, easy, and full of real examples reviewed in detail. Each time I need to find a formula, a factor or constant, or just a quick look for a doubt, the first book I always took is this one. I truly recommend you this book.