History Books

I buy, and recieve, hundreds of cookbooks each year. This might be the best cookbook I purchased this year. My publisher says that if someone cooks six recipes out of a cookbook, it is a major success. The first time I thumbed through Foose's book, there were several dozen recipes I wanted to prepare.

Foose got her start at the La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles, and moved on to several bakeries in Mississippi. However, where Foose shines in this, her first publishing effort, is on the savory courses that take place well before dessert-- Inside Out Sweet Potatoes, Lady Pea Salad, and Chicken Thighs and Dumplings to list just a few.

From the banana pudding she cooked for Oprah (in individual Mason jars) to Catfish in a Paper Sack, the book is filled with recipes new, true, and Southern

Excellent content and very attractivly packaged. Great gift for wives, mothers, grandmothers and new brides.

I paid full price for this book, not usual for me. I just did not like this book. I didn't like the recipts, nor did I like the stories.
It was just not my cup of tea. (excuse the pun)
And, what is a pompano? yes, I get it is a fish but I don't recall being able to purchase it in the shoprite.
I just didn't like the book I guess. ( PS, I was raised in the south).

This is a wonderful cookbook. The recipes are easy to make, and the book is very beautiful. Great pictures and stories. I read the whole thing from cover to cover without putting it down! Loved it!

Apricot Rice Salad, Watermelon Salsa, new fashion Cabbage Rolls plus a few concotions with burbon that you haven't thought of yet, its all in here. The author treats the reader with a small story about how the recipie came about, that reads like a book. All in all, the cookbook is delightful and the recipies will be your new old favorites. I have family on the west coast that I'm buying another copy to give to them, the recipies are delicious and so are the stories of how they got concocted. The author trained in france but this is her honest to goodness southern recipies, with a twist that makes them new again. Delightful.

This book is very usefull even for forign bird watcher as my self, it contents almost every family that exist in south america with mthe exception of pinguins.
Very nice writen.

Like all the Sibley books, this is comprehensive and well-written. A necessary and welcomed addition to any birder's library.

Have not found this book to be interesting. It jumps around and covers many birds at once. You have to spend time looking to find a bird and then it is not comprehensive enough. Would not buy this book again. Disappointing as I do use his bird guide.

This is a useful book about bird behavior written by a true expert. It's a bit like a textbook the way it approaches broad topics and discusses various aspects.

Like any textbook, I suppose, if you go into this book with a specific question and hope for a specific answer, you may not find it. However, if you were trying to write a school report or something you would certainly find lots of useful tidbits of information in the general area of your topic.

I'd say that rather than thinking of this as a reference book, you should think of it as background reading, to be taken in small doses, for the above-and-beyond birding enthusiast.

I'm not a birder, though it seems like an interesting hobby. But I just look at the birds at the feeders and birdbath in the back yard and think, "I wonder what that one is?" So, I bought "The Sibley Guide to Birds" (which is outstanding) on the recommendation of a birder friend, and that led me to this book.

On the one hand, it's a long, dense, scientific work. The years of effort and study that went into it is astounding.

On the other hand, it's an extremely entertaining set of answers to all of those "Why do they do that?" questions that come up when you're watching birds. For example, why do bird knees seem to bend backward? Well, they don't; the knee is close to the bird's body, and what seems to be a backward knee is actually the bird's ankle. The birds are in effect walking around on their tip toes.

If hundreds of pages of information like that, coupled with beautiful illustrations and great maps, all wrapped in an easy-to-use organizational scheme sounds interesting and useful, then get this book.

For a non-birder like me, it's probably more information than I really need, but I found it fascinating.

This book has a very detailed description of the whole event. Well written in a typcial novel style, the book goes through all the happenings in a manner that keeps the reader engaged though I felt this book could be shorter and still have the same sort of impact as it does.
An ideal book for a future movie script on an important event in the history of islam.

The "Siege of Mecca" is a book that every serious reader should read. If you are an advocate or a beach comber or a pretender, you don't need to read this book - you wouldn't enjoy it because it would not suit your interests or needs.

For "Serious Readers" (i.e. people who read everything including cereal box ingredient lists or those tags on mattresses and then think about it) the "Siege of Mecca" is simply a delight. It describes one of those weird historical moments (like the Bonfire of the Vanities) that seems to represent much more to the future than it did in its present. As far as this Serious Reader knows, Trofimov provides the most complete, dispassionate, and interesting description of this incredible act of stupidity and/or courage. It appears to be one of those "tipping point" moments in history to use the current hipster jargon.

For English readers, the writing may seem just a bit ragged. Trofimov's grasp of the English (American) idiom is a bit . . . lubricated, shall we say? It slips just a bit now and then, but Mr. Trofimov's facility with English is much better than my skill with his native language, so I'm quibbling here. Sometimes his expressions are quaint, quirky, or merely violate the grammarian's whip, but in the spirit of Strunk and White, it nonetheless works. Get over it and focus.

This book also provides one of those incredibly interesting tangents on the Global War on Terror. After you read this book you realize that there is a lot more going on than the New York Times, National Public Radio, or the current Presidential Administration is telling you. This is flip: If you like the really "good" restaurants, the ones even the cool guys don't talk about, this is the book for you. The "Siege of Mecca" is the truth, or at least the Current State of the Art.

I highly recommend this book.

Purchased: May 2008 (Kindle)

Pro: Fast-paced, concise story of an intriguing event. Illuminates the present state of affairs by presenting convincing evidence that the leader "...Juhayman's multinational venture,...was a precursor of al Qaeda itself."

Con: Considering how hard it is to get accurate information about Saudi Arabia, I was initially suspicious that I was reading another "A million Little Pieces". I suggest scanning A Note to Readers at the end of the book to better understand how information was gathered.

Overall: Buy it now

Overshadowed by other world crises in 1979, especially in Iran, the siege of Mecca has been largely forgotten. But it should not have been forgotten because it has set the stage for much of the terror that has ensued in the last 28 years. It was not exactly the birthplace of Al Quieda and Bin Laden but it gives a great insight into the trouble nature of the extremist regime of Suadi Arabia and how Saudi Arabia made a 'deal with the devil' by bringing in extremist cleric to help root out the more extremist people who had taken over the mosque. Rumours that a relative of Bin Laden was involved, the story of the beheadings of those who had participated, the claim that the French special forces called in to help converted to Islam so as not to 'offend' the Saudis and the story of the assault on American embassies throughout the Muslim world in the days that followed are all covered here.

The book begins with a discussion of the history of Saudi Arabia and its extreme religious foundations, its apartheid like legal system for men and women and the origins of the Wahhabi movement. THen the story jumps forward to describe the radicalization of several groups of Muslims, including Juhayman Said al Otaibi and his brother-in-law Muhammad bin abd Allah al-Qahtani as well as other gulf Arabs and even some African-American Muslims. On November 20th, 1979 this group of men invaded the Al-Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca, the Grand Mosque, and in the battles that followed some 250 people were killed. Saudi National Guardsmen were shot down easily by the well armed and trained rebels. This necccesitated the regimes work with the conservative cleric Sheikh Abdel Aziz al Baaz and the calling in of non-Muslim foreigners to help with the siege.

This is an expert story and the author not only tells it well but relates its history, its context and its aftermath, trying to show how this was pivotal in the increasing rise of Islamist terror in the Middle East that eventually culminated in Sept. 11.

Seth J. Frantzman

I was prepared to dislike this book, suspecting an "action pack thriller", full of loopy historical inaccuracies, if not outright fantasy - all because of the jarring black and red cover. Instead I found a lean, scholarly, and almost certainly dispassionately accurate account of one of the more important and not very well understood events in the last quarter of the 20th Century. It is written in a fast-paced action style, flipping back and forth among the major actors in this drama, but that enhances and does not hinder his story. Ramifications of this siege are affecting us today.

Mr. Trofimov knows his subject well, amazingly well. He deftly describes the numerous disparate historical antecedents to the taking of the mosque by Islamic fanatics, and the reactions of the major actors. The Ikhwan, the religious brotherhood which was instrumental in Abdul Aziz's conquest and consolidation of what would be the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and his decision that they overstepped their limits, and so he had to mow them down with borrowed British machine guns in the early `30's, leading to a sense of martyrdom in the remnants of the defeated communities. America was tired of "foreign adventures," Vietnam being the prime reason, and therefore the CIA was severely constrained, with the coups it directed in Chile and Iran very much in mind. There was the Kingdom itself, being overwhelmed by the "future shock" of oil revenues, and the attendant rapid "modernization," with its own ills, inevitably leaving some people behind

As with many events of this magnitude, ironies abound; they are described but not overplayed. The Royal Family must obtain a ruling from the Ulema, the chief religious body, that force can be used to remove the rebels, yet philosophically, the Ulema is in large measure in agreement with the complaints of the rebels. For days virtually no one knows the exact identify of the people who seized the mosque, so the United States insists it was Iran, and the Shiites; meanwhile Iran is insisting it is the United States and the infidels. Perhaps the best trained Arab force that could assist the Saudis is the Hashemite Jordanians, but they can not be used since they were once rulers in the Hejaz, were defeated by Abdul Aziz, and if they returned, "may not leave." Eventually the Saudis turned to the French, "because they were discreet and could keep a secret," which also proved false.

I found the section of the French involvement particularly fascinating, since it dispelled the rumors that had dominated this topic, and described in an authoritative manner the exact nature of the fairly limited intervention (3 men, and supplies). Characteristically of Trofimov's account, he states the facts which he could ascertain, but does not speculate whether Barril, one of the three Frenchmen, actually entered Mecca.

Equally important was the depiction of the immediate ramifications throughout the Muslim world, who blamed the United States, in large part because of Khomeini. US Embassies in Libya and Pakistan were burned, with loss of American life.

John Burgess, on his CrossRoads Arabia website, pointed out some (relatively minor) flaws in Trofimov's book, citing the reason that the Bedouin were settled was not, as Trofimov contends, to better perform their ablutions, but rather to stop their raiding. I'd add a couple of my own: the Nejd would never be described as the "central Arabian highlands" (p14), and, of course, 1400 is not the first year of new century, 1401 is.

On a personal note, I traveled by road in the Asir, from Abha to Taif, one week prior to the taking of the mosque, and may very well have passed some of the participants. On that trip, at a police checkpoint, was the only time in my 20 years in the Kingdom, that a Muslim did not give the proper response to my "As-Salaam Alikum" greeting; the followers of Juhayman believe(d) that a Muslim should not respond to an infidel when he gave the traditional greeting.

In Trofimov's summing up, he correctly identifies Juhayman's deed as only one of the currents which lead to the formation of Al Qaeda. He also points out a second one, arriving from Egypt, in the person of Ayman Al Zawahir (who had been inspired by the execution of his hero, Sayyid Qutb). Of course, a third could easily be postulated: the unintended consequences, a/k/a "blowback" in CIA jargon, of America and Saudi Arabia funding and arming Islamic fundamentalist to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. And a fourth: the CIA coup against the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953.

Epilogues can be used to examine some of the "what ifs" of an event. One of the rumors concerning Juhayman's capture stated that he had asked: "But where are the armies of the north"? Trofimov does not cover this, and only alludes to the self-delusional nature of individuals who succumb to millennial dogmas; the alleged Mahdi believes that he is "bullet proof," with the attendant fatal consequences. How many of my fellow citizens believe in the "rapture," the postulated end of the world when Christ returns, and would actually like to hasten the date? And "what if" they took concrete actions to accomplish this goal? Our own Juhayman...

Trofimov account is almost certainly the best account we will ever have on the seizure of the mosque in Mecca in 1979, and is highly recommended.

I am impressed by the writings of Robert Louis Wilken in this history book. He tells us that the purpose of his book is "to depict the pattern of Christian thinking as it took shape in the formative centuries of the Church's history."
His purpose leads me to believe that he understands that the Bible is the central factor that appeals to all the religious writers from the very beginning to the present time. I cannot help but to be aware that the central theme for anyone will be to understand what God has helped man to write in this great book, The Bible. Readers should come to an awareness in the introduction of this book that we need to understand the history, rituals, and the text to have the proper knowledge of Christian history in order to convey facts and thoughts to all concerned people.

This book explores Christian beliefs and practices, shown in its major Latin and Greek writers, through the first seven centuries of the church's history.

Each of the twelve chapters is devoted to a particular theme, such as worship or social ethics, but the discussion is wide ranging, and themes tend to flow into one another. "Spirit" is a good word in the title since the material isn't treated in a systematic way. At the end, the reader has less an analysis and more an aroma of early Christianity.

The book isn't a critical appraisal--it's a loving appropriation. And it's clear Wilken loves his subject matter deeply. This is a beautiful book, written with depth and style.

It is hard to believe that this book is by the same man who wrote "The Christians as the Romans Saw Them". What a difference 19 years makes.

This is one of the most inspiring books I have ever read. I must have highlighted the whole book since I found almost every sentence edifying.

I had become accustomed to reading the Church Fathers from an apologetic or polemical standpoint. This book made me realize how I had overlooked the faith and piety of the Early Fathers. Prof. Wilken shows among other things how they sought to ground their all their arguments Biblically, and how little Christian doctrine actually owes to pagan thought, other than perhaps a few philosophical terms.

If you really want to understand how Christian doctrine was shaped by faith and inspiration, and not by cerebral distillations, you simply MUST read this book.

In a previous volume called The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (1984), Robert Louis Wilkin, professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia, explored the broad and deep antipathy that developed in the first five centuries toward the Christian movement, at least as that was expressed by the cultured elites. He presented the views of the pagan critics with both sympathy and understanding, devoting one chapter each to the views of Pliny the Younger, the physician Galen, Celsus, the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry, and the Roman emperor Julian. In a short epilogue, Wilkin acknowledged that Christians responded to their critics: "There was a genuine dialogue, not simply an outpouring of abuse. The credit goes as much to the Christians as to the pagans." In this present volume Wilkin explores the emergence of what eventually became a distinctly Christian view of God, the world, the self, and human history.

Although his task requires him to consider the history of theology as it developed in the early church, and its relationship with thinkers of Judaism, Greece and Rome, Wilkin warns us not to be be overly preoccupied with intellectual ideas. The Gospel, after all, does not intend to make us smart, but to transform our hearts, minds, and our very lives. Early Christianity appealed to history, reason, ritual, experience, and most of all to the Scriptures, all with the goal of authentic faith expressing itself in true love. What we seek is not barren knowledge but the very face of God (see Psalm 105:4). In his panoramic survey Wilkin describes how we know God in worship, the sacraments and the Scriptures; the struggles to define the Trinity, the nature of Christ, and creation; the relationship of faith to reason and the church to broader society; poetry and icons; and then the nature of Christian virtue and the spiritual life. From start to finish the book is a feast of the early Christian fathers, with special emphasis on Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, and Maximus the Confessor. These forbears are, as he says in the last sentence of the book, "still our teachers today."

This book left me feeling very torn. On the one hand, it was really a great read. On the other hand, it seemed that there was an underlying agenda that the author refused to admit (or realize). At times, it seemed a little like Bart Ehrman's book--only half the story gets told to bend the conclusion. Of course, Wilken admits that he is not telling the whole story, but he leads the reader to believe that he is being fair. Allow me a few examples. Wilken admits that Augustine is the giant of early Christian thought, and quotes him in every chapter, and on almost every subject. However, when he begins to talk about free-will, there is no talk of Augustine, and Wilken says that all the early fathers believed in free-will. While Augustine may have been in the minority, the average reader (to whom the book is written, as purported by Wilken) would have no other idea. Also, Wilken talks about the monothelite controversy. Usually, he deals with all the bishops and emporers on both sides of a debate. However, in this discussion, he fails to mention Honorius, prelate of Rome. This would be unknown to the average reader, but seems (to me) that it would be important enough to mention. There are a few other, mostly minor, examples of things like this. It all seems to be an apologetic for Roman Catholicism. While that's fine to write an apologetic for your church, telling half the story is deceitful.

That being said, the book is a good read. It flows well, and is enjoyable. Technical terms (usually Greek or Latin words) are explained and used in useful ways. The book contains a good amount of information, yet is presented in an understandable way and is made easy to remember. It isn't just another book on early church history--it traces other things like poetry, etc. Another underlying theme is that knowledge of God is not true knowledge until it is experienced. It seems simple enough, but Wilken explains it quite well. And to this end, I agree with another reviewer, that there is a devotional, not just academic, use for this book.

The negative side of this review shouldn't deter anyone from reading it. This book is a great read, but it needs to be read with discernment (of course, everything does).

A "must read" for any boy who craves adventure stories. No elves or dragons or monsters - just a real picture of life of a small boy on the Indiana frontier. If you enjoyed the Little House on the Prairie books you'll love this.

This is such a good book to share with modern Hoosier children. It gives them a taste of what life was like for some of the early pioneer children living in Indiana. I have read this book to my fouth grade classes for years, and they always love it.

The Bears of Blue River is a book I can heartily recommend parents to buy and read to their children. This book, about the many pioneer outdoors experiences of young Balser in the 1820's, is a great way to introduce youngsters to life in a simpler, yet challenging time. My children are captivated as they hang on every word of Balser's bear hunting exploits in the forests of the then-young State of Indiana. My Mother, who is 91 years of age, purchased the book for my young son, and wrote in the forward "Your Grandpa Wayne liked these stories when he was a boy". Eighty-five years later, his 12 year old and 4 year old grandsons are equally enthusiastic. Don't miss this one for your sons!

What a great book! My husband enjoyed the book when he was a boy. We shared it with our children. They loved it,too! Great adventures.

In 1953 I started first-grade in southern Indiana. My teacher, Pearl Monroe, read Charles Major's 1900 Bears of Blue River to us. She, also, read it to my father in a one-room school house. It was my favorite book. There was one sad part in the book where Mrs. Monroe always cried. She would have an older student finish the chapter. In about 1980, I read it to my kindergarten age son. I also cried when the Polly died in an explosion that killed the dreaded Fire Bear. About five years ago, in a used book store in Colorado. I read it to my father who was in his 80's. Together we enjoyed the memories it brought back. This year I started teaching fourth-grade at the Odessa Christian School here in Odessa, TX - having just retired after 21 years with the pubilc schools. I just finished reading this marvelous adventure story to my class. They all acclaimed that it was the best book they ever heard read. I highly recommend this book and the sequel, Uncle Tom Andy Bill. Donald Potter

This is another book I read cover to cover in one sitting. I'm sad that it's over. The thoughtfulness and ethics and, well, honor of the writer touched me. Lots of cool insider info without compromising security. No bitchy backstabbing. No gratuitous back-slapping either. A very easy read that I couldn't tear myself away from. A couple months back, the current president was in my city for a couple of hours and the amount of disruption to traffic was startling. I now have far more appreciation for how difficult these visits are and how much orchestration they involve.

I wanted to get a little more background on the life of a Secret Service Agent. I found this book filled with interesting tidbits of information. It was an easy read that I found entertaining, as well. His recounts of what it was like working around the Reagan administration, the Pope's US visit, etc. kept me interested for several hours worth of reading. It personalized some of the details that the public often may not realize.

This book is well written with just enough detail to keep you in every scene. It hooked me from page 1 and kept me interested all along.

If you have any interest in the presidency of Ronald Reagan or the Secret Service, I highly recommend this book. The tone is very matter-of-fact, but what comes through is what an honorable person Joseph Petro is. He lost out on a possible N.F.L career when he was drafted for the Viet Nam War, but our country, and especially its elected officials during the time of his service, gained a great deal.

A very engaging book.

I found this book extremely enlightening as to what life as an Agent in the USSS will be like. Petro does a wonderful job at writing about what he is allowed to disclose yet still keeping the reader engaged. If you are interested in the USSS, you should read this book during your application process since little is know about the Service.

I grew up on the south side of Chicago during the 80s and had many friends who were "taggers" and got up every chance they got. They had spray-cans, hollowed-out deodorant sticks somehow replaced with ink, fat markers, Griffin, and who knows what else. Though I myself wasnt a graffiti artist or writer or tagger, this book is a great ride down memory lane for those of us who grew up on the streets. For those of us of a certain age, this book, "Subway Art", along with movies like Breakin' I AND II, Beat Street, original hip-hop and old school house music were all of a specific time and place. This book will make you want to break out the Pumas with the fat laces, bring out the tile and start back-spinnin', but it is also one of the the earliest, most definitive and detailed books on graffiti ever.

Wow, this book just took me back to my days in the Bronx and the 2 line.
All the greats are in this one..Doing those T and B's and hitting the yards, and dodging the DT's Now those were the great days of the BRONX.
Long live
MIKE170..TAV 1..ALE..AJAX..SUPER SEX..BLADE..COMET..FUZZ..POPEYE..
MIKE 170....

I started doing graff back in the late 90's; I was 14 at the time and to be honest with you; like all great writers we were all toy's at one time but has time went by and we got better with our skills, we all have read this book at one time or another. On with the book review.
This book is just simply AMAZING...you have old school pieces from the Godfather of Graffiti: SEEN, BLADE (which he has painted 5,000 trains during the golden age of the MTA in NYC; since I saw the graffiti scene on the trains at the tender age of six and seven in NYC, I was simply amazed at that age on how people could sneak in at night and do this with spray-paint but I digress), LADY PINK, and the list goes on. If your just starting out in graffit, this is a great book on to connect letters, bubble letter's, block's, and some old school color schemes, though I would not call it the Bible of Graffiti, it is pretty darn close to it. Check it out.

This classic book, along with "Broken Windows: Graffiti NYC" is all you need to know about NYC graff. Anyone up needs both of these books. Knowledge is king!

Subway Art. What can I say? This, Style Wars, Beat Street, Break Dance... they all had their influence on me (& a whole generation) back in the day.

Hip Hop isn't what it used to be, though. Most of what we hear these days is mixed up with R'n'B, commercialised, repackaged and shipped for your dissatisfaction. If you ask me... when it comes to Hip Hop, stick with the old school.

I was brought up in Melbourne, Australia, and did quite a bit of graffiti there during the 1980s. Melbourne had plenty of weird & wonderful characters who were into graff back then. The vast majority have gone their separate ways. But there's always the rare psycho who's still bombing (I'm not referring to the younger generation - but to old school dudes who are still around). There's also those who got into graphic art and made a career for themselves out of graff.

I recommend checking out some of the original Vaughn Bode cartoons for yourself through a simple Google search.

Additional to this, I recommend Getting Up: Subway Graffitti in New York" by Craig Castleman. It has some pictures of trains and so on, but it is more for the reader. A copy was stolen from a local library near me - go figure.

And if you're ever in NYC... Check out the Hall of Fame. It's located on the corner of 106th Street and Park Avenue.

Ivan Doig is one of the leading writers of the modern American West. I have read, and thoroughly enjoyed, at least four of his novels. THIS HOUSE OF SKY is a memoir of Doig's youth in the hard-scrabble high-country of central Montana in the 1940s and '50s. Despite the hardships Doig's parents encounter, the book is a heart-warming story of decent, hard-working people who personify the pioneer spirt and work ethic so central to our myth of the American West. THIS HOUSE OF SKY shows that in large measure that myth is grounded in reality, although it also betokens some of the places where reality trumps the myth.

As grand as Doig's story is, the telling of it is less so. THIS HOUSE OF SKY was one or Doig's first published works; so far as I can tell, it was his first book-length work other than edited anthologies. For my taste, in THIS HOUSE OF SKY Doig is too idiosyncratic in language, style, and syntax; ultimately, the book seems overly contrived. Especially grating is the frequent use of nouns in various verb forms: for example, "epitaphed", "prowing", "monumented", "embered", "croupiered", and those few are just the tip of the iceberg.

After reading THIS HOUSE OF SKY, I read "Heart Earth", which Doig wrote 15 years later as a sort of continuation of his memoir, a kind of appendix to THIS HOUSE OF SKY. "Heart Earth", too, has a distinctive style, but it is much more accomplished and less mannered. Likewise, Doig's novels, for the most part, are better written than SKY. So, to demark SKY as a less mature work of Doig's, I have given it but four stars, despite the richness and wonder of the story itself. But having said that, if you love the West and treasure stories (especially true stories) of plain, straightforward, hard-working folks who just lower their heads and do what has to be done, with wry humor and gumption, you undoubtedly will enjoy THIS HOUSE OF SKY.

This magnificent book is a must read for anyone who cares about humanity; who loves people and wants to ride with them. It is more than that. It is the feel of Montana, of the West, of the people who built this country and the hard, blistering work they did. Don't miss this book. You'll love it and hate when you must put it down.

Of the three best books I've read in 2007, this probably ranks number two. It took me a little while to get into it, but the wait was well worth it. Ivan Doig is a magnificent writer and his talents are well displayed in this book. The other two books were The Good Old Boys, by Elmer Kelton, and The Missouri Riders, by George Banks.

This book was one of the few memoirs I have read when in the end I placed the book down and sighed "wow." What a wonderful story. The author rolled experiences together in western Montana with his dad and grandmother and turned it into a lovestory for fathers and grandmothers, for people of Montana, and all that using very little dialogue. (That gave the book a sense of truthfulness, as who can recite full conversations that took place years ago?)

The constant struggle with man against nature, man against man and man against himself come alive in these pages. Despite many obstacles of every kind, his father never abandoned him and sacrificed what he had to to raise his son and to give him what he needed. Montana and its bittersweet closeness never leave the reader; its isolation and wide open sky are always in the background. Thus the title is so perfect for this beautiful memoir.

This was my first Doig book and I will definitely read more of him. I definitely consider this book one of the top ten in American 20th century writing.

This is my all time favorite book. Period. Beautifully written, thought-provoking. It will make you want to move to Montana. It will make you love open sky and a horizon that goes on forever and the importance of family.

This is the best book about Vietnam helicopter piloting that I have ever read. Mr Johnson makes you feel as if you are sitting next to him in the cockpit of a Huey. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in helicopters or the Vietnam experience.

The episode about flying a Huey with food and ammo into the midst of my surrounded battalion, 2/12th Cav, just outside Hue brought back a lot of memories. We wouldn't have survived the day without that support. I describe what it was like on the ground, but it was just as bad in the air.[[ASIN:1591144345 Lost Battalion of Tet: The Breakout of 2/12th Cavalry at Hue Still, thanks to some brave and daring pilots and crews, we survived. I never could determine how many helicopters and crews were lost trying to help us. Whatever the case, they will never be forgotten by those who were there and survived.

I have read several good books by VietNam era helicopter pilots and this is the best so far. Mr. Johnson has a knack of putting the reader in the seat next to him and makes us realize just how dangerous his job was. I particularly enjoyed his use of flashbacks to his flight training days and how he worked them into the moment. It is a wonder that any of the Army helicopter crews survived a full tour. Heroes all. Highly recommended

It was 5 years ago since I was first introduced to the legendary helicopter named "Huey". She is a lovely aircraft which teachs you the helicopter flight and also forgiving one.

I like to thank Mr.Johnson because he had let me know why this helicopter which I am lucky enough to fly with is called legendary. As a military helicopter pilot I am thrilled to read every page, every line. Tom A. Johnson did a great job, he conveyed the past, he conveyed the priceless experience about emergencies. Furthermore, I felt as if I dated back to Vietnam Era and I was one of the pilot on his formation.

I sincerely hope to meet Vietnam Huey Pilots and I am so eager to listen their stories. Land safely Guys,whenever&wherever.

Cem KURKCU
FW&RW Army Pilot

An engrossing, fast moving story of a 1st CAV warrant officers experiences mid 1967-1968. Tom does a great job of explaining the elements of helicopter flight and flying tactics. The year he experienced had a high degree of combat, frequently against NVA, rather than VC. He writes well, has a story to tell, and tells it well.

I've read some other helicopter pilot's stories who served in the same III Corps AO I did in 1967 (with an assault helicopter unit, but not as an air crewman). The intensity level written about here is yet another level above what we were experiencing pre-Tet.

Like all the warrants I remember, he saw himself as a pilot rather than an officer, and measured others by their piloting skills rather than their rank. We enlisted men loved them for that. Officers with real skills (not surprisingly, the minimum AFTQ score - equivalent to an IQ score - for a WOC was higher than for an officer candidate).

I think you'll find this book a real page turner.

Before I picked up this book, I had no idea what a detailed and interesting history lay behind the explorations of the Arctic region. This is a truly fascinating book about man's determined quest to explore one of the last unexplored regions of the world.

This is a story of the search for the Northwest Passage, that elusive waterway that would let ships sail over the north of what is now Canada, instead of having to sail around the tip of South America. Even after the British had determined that the icy arctic conditions and the maze of islands made the Northwest Passage worthless as a commercial shipping route, they were still determined to find it anyway. Ship after ship headed to the Arctic to find the passage, sometimes spending two or three winters trapped in the ice, with only a few warm summer months each year in which to explore before the winter ice returned. Many men died, mostly because of the remarkable inability of the British Navy to learn from its mistakes, or more importantly, to learn from the natives, who had lived in the Arctic for thousands of years. The British sailors wore wool instead of fur and sealskin, refused to hunt (they didn't even know how), suffered from scurvy from their impractical diets, and hauled extremely heavy sledges over the ice with man power instead of dogs. Not only did the British fail to learn from the natives, but the natives also got less than their fair share of credit at the time for helping avert death and starvation for hundreds of expeditions over the years.

This is also a story of the quest to reach the North Pole. Early explorers held the belief that the top of the world was an open polar sea, and tried to sail all the way to the pole. Once that theory was abandoned, explorers tried other ways of getting there. One allowed his specially-designed boat to become trapped in the polar ice and then played a waiting game as the boat drifted with the ice. Another tried to float to the pole in a balloon. Many tried and failed to walk to the pole over the hundreds of miles of ice. And even when two explorers claimed to have seperately reached the pole in this fashion, their claims were dubious.

While this book is long and a bit heavy at times, it is worth it to stick with it. Pierre Berton has done his research, and he is an excellent writer. I look forward to reading more of his books.

This hefty door-stopper details the first century of Arctic exploration, from the intrepid but failed first expedition of British Navy commander Sir John Ross to the flawed triumph of America's Robert Peary, whose expedition to the North Pole made him an international hero -- though it was revealed decades later that Peary had faked his data and probably never actually reached the pole.

Berton was a great writer and historian, and he makes each of the explorers and their expeditions come alive in fascinating detail.
Tragically, most of the expeditions were failures that resulted in strandings, lost ships, horrible deaths from scurvy and starvation, and the loss of countless seasons that could have been used to further human knowledge and instead were spent waging a desperate battle just to survive. The march of human folly is on display in page after page of this book.

If you like history and are interested in explorers and what makes them tick, you will enjoy this book.

Reviewers: Liz Clare, co-author of the historical novel "To the Ends of the Earth: The Last Journey of Lewis and Clark"

Very rarely the reader is so moved by a book that he simply starts thinking about it around the clock. It is such a powerful book. For two weeks I couldn't think about anything else than Arctic and those people confined by and in the ice for often several years.

It is the book you will never forget. It is so powerful narrative.

Reader get accustomed with names like Lancaster Sound, Admiralty Inlet, Gulf of Boothia, King William Island etc. Reader feels urge to see those strange locations on a map.

I bought and read this book just out of curiosity about arctic exploration and the men behind the quests...I was very much awed at this spellbinding tale of adventure,loneliness,deprivation,life,death and above all the courage and determination of the individuals involved in the Artic explorations....I had no idea at all what to expect and after the first chapter was hooked till the very end...I recommend this book to anyone interested in history,explorers,'firsts'...I gave it 5 stars on everything...I wish there were more photos but the drawings were good and the maps explained a lot....READ IT !!!

This excellent book, first published in 1988, stands as a fitting memorial to the prolific and accomplished writer Pierre Berton, who passed away at age 84 as recently as November 31, 2004. It details the events and personalities of Arctic exploration over nearly a century, beginning in 1818 with the first British naval expedition of John Ross and Edward Parry, and the related disastrous first naval land expedition led by the oddly ineffectual John Franklin. It concludes with the strange twentieth century tales of Robert Peary and Frederick Cook, both of whom claimed to have reached the North Pole, though neither could prove actually to have done so (nor had they). Along the way we meet a host of players, including the indomitable Lady Jane Franklin, Admiralty puppeteer John Barrow, the underestimated arctic masters Edward Penny and John Rae; Robert McClure, M'Clintock, Charles Francis Hall, Sabine, Nares, Greely, Elisha Kent Kane, Nansen, Amundsen, a number of memorable Inuit personalities and a host of others.

The great strength of this account is the repeated demonstration that the outcome of almost every event in the drama depended ultimately on the characters and personalities of the major players, their strengths, weaknesses, flaws and ambitions, and their capacities to learn from the experiences of their predecessors and their Inuit contacts. This gives a Shakespearian, if not biblical, dimension to the history, which is ably exploited by Berton. The book is as much about explorers as exploration.

Berton's well-detailed sources include the numerous accounts of the explorers themselves, their biographers and ghost writers, and much archival material - letters, original field notes, official reports etc, all woven together in a skilful and compelling synopsis. The book can be heartily recommended!

A few matters are missed among the vast number of items covered, for example James Cook in HMS Discovery, shortly before his death in Hawaii, reached Barrow Point, Alaska, from Bering Strait in 1780, setting the target for Franklin and others exploring from the east. One would like to have read the story of the Oval Office "Resolute desk", donated to the American Presidency by Queen Victoria in 1880, and constructed from timber salvaged from HMS Resolute, a ship mentioned frequently by Berton. The icebound Resolute was abandoned at Bathurst Island, Melville Sound by the British in 1854. She released the following summer and was later found adrift in Baffin Bay by a US whaler, sold on to the US government, refitted and returned to the British with a gorgeously attired naval band, much panoply and splendid one-upmanship. Also that Amundsen eventually disappeared in the arctic in 1928 while on an aerial search for the wonderfully zany General Umberto Nobile and his downed dirigible Italia (watch those late-night movie listings for the excellent film Red Tent (Krashnaya palatka), in which Peter Finch plays Nobile and Sean Connery Amundsen). Most of all perhaps, that the first expatriate to fully traverse the north west passage (on McClure's Investigator to Banks Island in the west and Intrepid from Barrow Strait in the east, with much walking and sledging between the two) was Lieut. Samuel Gurney Cresswell, in 1853 (he departed for Britain ahead of the other former Investigator crewmen with the news that McClure and his men had traversed the elusive passage).

Many original works of relevance have appeared in recent years. Notable are the excellent commentaries and reprints of the first Franklin expedition journals and paintings of John Richardson, George Back and Robert Hood edited by C. Stuart Houston (Arctic Ordeal, Arctic Artist and To the Arctic by Canoe), and David C. Woodman's studies on the Inuit memories of Franklin and his lost crews (Unravelling the Franklin Mystery - Inuit Testimony and Strangers Among Us ( all published by McGill Queens UP). Also the hard-to-find and indispensable arctic chronology of Alan Cooke and Clive Holland (The Exploration of Northern Canada - Arctic History Press), a first version of which was used by Berton. Many others are well covered in Amazon.com documentation.