Douglas Winter Books

When I decided to start collecting coins again five years ago I heeded the advice I heard from many, 'Buy the book, before you buy the coin' and it has paid off time and again. Douglas Winter, a recoginized expert in American Gold coins, and James Halperin have created a book that is a MUST HAVE if you are collecting Carson City Gold coins. Fact filled, informative and up to date, this is a book that is the BEST resource when it comes to Gold coins minted in Carson City. I use it time and time again and never go to a coin show or attend an auction without consulting it first. Bravo Winter and Halperin!

A wonderful book with accurate, awesome information that
will definitely please the reader of this book. Doug
Winter and James Halperin are two of the highest regarded
experts on mintmarked gold known today...
Pick it up! You won't be disappointed.

This is an excellent historical and numismatic review of the Carson City branch mint and coinage. The book is extremely well-written, interesting, informative, and timely. Anyone interested in gold coins, Carson City branch products, or coins in general should find this an exceptional and easy read and an indispensable resource. Kudos to Doug Winter; please publish more!

Over the past year, I have become acquainted with Mr. Winters books on gold coins. I found them to be insightful, informative, and just plain fun. Unfortunately I was unable to get a copy of his first Carson City gold book, Gold Coins of the West. When I found out that he was updating, I immediately put in an order. When I finally got it, I read most of the book the first night. The first part of the on the Gold Rush and the founding of the Carson City Mint, and its subsequent political demise was interesting history, even for the non - coin collector. If you have any desire to learn about Carson City gold coins, this book is invaluable and will probably become the ultimate source book. The book is full of insights about the market and availablity of Carson City gold. If you have an interest in U.S. minted gold coins, the books by Doug Winter are an absolute must. Even though you may not be able to afford the coins themselves, Mr. Winters' books are the next best thing.
The only disappointment I have with this author is that he hasn't written a comprehensive, all-inclusive, volume on U.S. gold coins. Hopefully, he will....SOON!

As with other collectors of Carson City Gold Coinage I too eagerly awaited my copy to arrive. To have the knowledge and experience of Doug Winter at your fingertips, when considering the purchase of any CC Gold, provides the information needed to be an astute collector. His indepth analysis of each denomination by date is invaluable when making a determination whether a particular example is below, average, or above average for the grade and to what degree it is a date and/or a condition rarity. This book is a must have for anyone who is interested in the collecting of Carson City Gold Coinage.

Sailing Away from Winter


After reading the first page of Sailing Away From Winter I immediately realized that I had forgotten what a good writer Silver Donald Cameron is. Unlike many sailing adventure books, Cameron shies away from writing a glorified log book but rather makes the reader feel that he is in the cockpit of "Magnus" and experiences the joys of sailing in a fair wind on a sunny day to the unending frustration of a finicky and somewhat unreliable diesel engine that is maintained by a bilge dwelling scurvy crew of evil Norwegian trolls.

While slipping southwards from his homeport of D'Escousse, Silver Donald makes port in such historic Nova Scotia locales as Canso, Halifax, Lunenburg and Yarmouth and then onward to crossing the Bay of Fundy and entering our "beloved" neighbour, the United States of America. Here we learn that like most Canadians, not many Americans on the New England Coast are fans of President George W. Bush as evidenced by many bumper stickers "Needed: One florist to send two Bushes to Iraq"

One common thread in Cameron's many works is his love affair with Cape Breton. During the entire southward voyage Magnus pursues long time friend and fellow Cape Bretoner's Jim and Carol-Anne Organ, of Port Hawkesbury, aboard Seaduction. In the Abaco's the crews of the two Cape Breton vessels rendezvous and share many colourful yarns after cruising more than 3000 miles away from their beloved island. If there's one thing about Cape Bretoner's as the song goes "One thing I know wherever I go there's always friends from back home".

From a sailor's perspective I found that Sailing Away From Winter can be used as a reference book for those of us planning to navigate the Intracoastal Waterway while keeping company with the family pet, a travel guide of good marinas along the ICW, and maybe most importantly a guide for diesel engine repair. As any seasoned cruiser knows: The sailing is the easy part of the cruise, it's knowing how to fix things that really count. Well done Captain.

"Sailing Away From Winter: A Cruise From Nova Scotia to Florida and Beyond" is the true-life memoir of Canadian columnist Silver Donald Cameron, who dared to make his dreams of a sea voyage come true. With his wife and their beloved dog, he traveled more than three thousand nautical miles in 236 days, visiting towns dotting the coast from Nova Scotia to Florida, crossing the Gulf Stream, experiencing the Bahamas, and much more. A vividly detailed recounting of the joys and perils of navigating the ocean in an aged Norwegian-built ketch, the camaraderie shared with other cruisers, and much more. Highly recommended.

Douglas Florian creates delightful and clever descriptions not only in words that appeal to all the senses but sometimes in the placement of the words on the page to help illustrate the poems. My daughter and I love this book, our favorite of all Mr. Florian's work.

An excellent collection of poems about winter - the joys and woes. A favorite is the poem by the same title, Winter Eyes. Rich language and stunning imagery in a deceptively simple form. I'm sending it to my mother, who recently left Minnesota for New Mexico, she can always have the best of winter with this book.

This was the first book that I have read in the Fancy Jack Crossman series and I can honestly compare it favorably to Cornwall's Richard Sharpe series of books.The author does a great job of bringing these characters to life and in describing in great detail the poor conditions that the soldiers lived.
Fancy Jack is a SGT in the British Army stationed in the Crimea 1854-1855.He is part of an SF type unit composed of a wide variety of interesting and roguish type characters.You have a female sniper,an American who is not only a first rate barber and doctor but a highly skilled killer,Ali the fearsome Turk, and a wide variety of other characters.
Fancy Jack's background is that he is the Bastard son of a professional Army officer whom Jack despises.Jack instead of obtaining a commission in the Army enlists under a pseudonym and rises to the rank of SGT.I will stop here.But if you like adventure,action,and interesting characters then this book is for you.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, set during the Crimean War (1854-1855), which focuses upon Sgt. "Fancy Jack" Crossman and his ragtag peloton (platoon) of (misfit) soldiers. Fancy Jack is actually the illegitimate son of a lord who opts for anonimity in the ranks as opposed to being an officer. He is in charge of a peloton of possibly the most unlikely band of soldiers, including a Turk, a Canadian (or American), and a sharpshooter who is actually a woman. They are the prototype of today's special forces, acting as saboteurs behind enemy lines, destroying a Russian crane, as well as performing the less savory tasks of hunting down a band of renegade British army deserters and gathering evidence of a British general's corruption and incompetence. Towards the end of the novel they participate in the attack on Kertch Harbor, but this is the only "traditional" battle that they see.
The author does an excellent job conveying the hopelessness and the futily of the Crimean War--the squalor, the mud, the entrenched lines which cannot be broken, the incompetence of the generals and the waste of lives, as well as descriptions of those Britons who went to Crimea as sightseers, along with servants, picnic baskets, wine, wives and mistresses, to witness the battles. I also like that Kilworth spends time describing the British class system and how it permeated the army (the younger sons of the aristocracy often went into the army as officers; their rank was purchased rather than awarded according to merit), thus keeping the officers forever separated from the men in the ranks and causing a great deal of anomisity on both sides.
I also like that the author has taken the time to develop his characters thoroughly. Readers have a good sense of exactly who Fancy Jack is, his strengths and weaknesses both as a soldier and as a human being, his strained relationship with his father, his love and admiration for his half-brother, his complicated relationship with Lavinia Durham (told with plenty of humor), an old flame now married to an officer, his uncertain feelings about his cousin (he comes across as a bit of a nerd), his good relationships with his superior officers (except Pirce-Smith) and with his peloton. The other characters are also fully developed, from the insecure whiner Wynter to the boastful (been everywhere, seen everything, done everything) Gwilliams to Peterson, the woman sharpshooter. They rag on eachother, pick on eachother, squabble just like siblings, yet when they have to operate as a unit, they do so. This unusual blend of war and personal relationships makes this an interesting change from the usual war novels, which tend to focus much more upon the fighting than the soldiers. I shall look for the earlier novels, and look forward to the further adventures of Fancy Jack and his peloton. Highly recommended.

If you love being outdoors in winter you will love this book. A college level text that takes you out into the snow to study ecology. An exciting text for amature naturalists, teachers, outdoor leadership people and biologists.

A pretty complex book but if you already understand the basics then this would take you to the next level. Chapters are:
Winter ecology
What and Where is Winter
Life, Winter and Adaptation
People and Winter
Experiencing

Written almost 25 yrs ago its interesting that others are now jumping on to the wagon talking about the possible coming Ice Age. Very interesting and insightful and more than a little scary. The one bad thing about this book is that is so out of date with current weather imagery and information. And of course the Internet was not born yet. Just reread it for a 6th or so time and that was my only complaint was the technology. Very good book for fans of "The Day After" book and upcoming movie.

This is a wonderful book that chronicles the Arts and Crafts movement in California. Telling of The Mission Inn, Roycroft, Batchelder and many more. This book is wonderfully illustrated with plenty of color photographs. The book is from a exposition at a Museum. An overall great book.

This final installment in Douglas C. Jones' trilogy about empire-builder Roman Hasford puts a fine, if rather sad, cap on Hasford's life. Who would have thought that the boy who witnessed the pain and death of the Civil War in "Elkhorn Tavern," then learned the power of entrepreneurship in "Roman" (or "Roman Hasford," in paperback), should wind up such a bitter and battling old man? If not for Jones' excellent writing and extraordinary gift for capturing the details of a scene, Hasford's tale might have been too hard to take in its entirety. Jones ranks right up there with Larry McMurtry ("Lonesome Dove"), A.B. Guthrie ("The Big Sky"), and Ron Hansen ("The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford") in creating stories that appeal not only to lovers of western historical fiction, but to those who thrill to the crafting of an eccentric character, a deftly woven plot, and finely wrought sentences. This is not fiction for half-attentive Louis L'Amour fans; it's much, much better than that. Jones has a keen sense of drama, an easy-going style to his prose, and an obvious love for the heritage of Arkansas and the West that comes through on every page--sans pathos, without the need for comic interludes of bodice-busting romance, and without making latter-day judgments on the actions and thinking of his historical characters. Jones isn't just a terrific genre writer; he's a wonderful writer, period.

Despite little previous knowledge of this subject, I came away with profound respect for both these coins and the men who struck them. This book was extremely well written and done in a way that it appeals to all levels: rank amateur such as myself or professional coin dealer like my friend John who read the book at the same time I did.

This is the 3rd of Doug Winter's books that I have bought and it is the best by far. I have already commented on his work on Dahlonega gold and I stand behind my critical comments on the photos. Whether the original pictures were good is beside the point. We can only judge the work we have in front of us and that work had lousy quality pictures regardless of who was responsible. Intent is nothing in this regard; finished product is everything. His work on CC gold was much better, for although again no pictures were in color, nevertheless the quality of them was good. Here, however, all things come together to produce an excellent work. The population analysis, the discussion on strike, luster, etc. are everything we have come to expect from the foremost expert on gold coins. I consider this book invaluable whenever I consider buying New Orleans gold and consult it religiously before making a purchase. The photos are excellent, are all in color, and provide a succulent icing on an already delectable cake. I hope he publishes an update on Charlotte gold soon with the same results.