Maine Books

This book has photos of around 350 wildflowers with a paragraph describing the pertinent details of each. They are arranged by color and are very easy to use. If you are looking for help separating extremely similar species, or want range maps, this is not the book for you, but for putting a name to the flower you just found it is excellent.

Windjammer Cooking takes you on an incredible voyage along the Maine coast, from pine-covered islands to fishing villages and remote harbors. Something about the sea air just makes you hungry and this beautifully illustrated cookbook will satisfy the appetite of even the most confirmed landlubber. Come sail with the twelve beautiful vessels of the Maine Windjammer fleet and you'll be able to feel the sea breeze and hear the lapping of the waves on the hull. With more than 60 recipes and a complete guide to hosting your own lobster bake, you'll experience the tastes, aromas, and sights of one of the most beautiful sailing grounds in the world.

Contains the DVD "Come sail with Us."

"Jean and Spencer know food, know boats, and have each been sailing the spectacular coast of Maine for decades. They have truly captured the flavor and the magic of the Maine Windjammer Fleet in this gorgeous new volume."
--Linda Greenlaw, fisherman, novelist, and best-selling author of six books including The Hungry Ocean and Recipes from a Very Small Island

"This book is a voyage in itself. . . but at its heart--as at the heart of every vessel--are mouth-watering recipes and descriptions of the fragrances that rise from the schooners' galley stoves, providing unforgettable sustenance and comfort. From French Toast Soufflé to Beef Stew to Citrus Cilantro Salmon with Pineapple Mango Salsa, there are more than 50 ways to feed your palate and a myriad of ways to feed your saltwater soul."
--Jon Wilson, founder and Editor-in-Chief, WoodenBoat magazine

I am a student enrolled in the Forestry Program at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. I borrowed this book from a friend to use on a project and found it to be one of the most valuable resources I used this year. It is easy to follow, and the illustrations are very precise. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Maine plants, espececially if he or she is researching in the winter, when the leaves have fallen off most of the plants.

I love to snowshoe, so I got this book in anticipation of a snowy Maine winter. It has some wonderful ideas of places to go for a satisfying snowshoe treck! It gives good directions, has topo maps, and also gives tips on the level of difficulty. It tells you the scenic highlights of each trail, whetting your appetite for each & every one. There aren't enough weekends in a Maine winter to try them all! It even offers info on nearby motels and grocery stores (so you can pack a lunch). Looks like it offers a lot of information for the cross-country skiier, too. I've snowshoed for years, but this offers a multitude of new ideas of wonderful places to go. Now I can't wait for the first "heavy dumper."

When I first received the spiral bound book I must say I thought I was going to be disapointed. But once I started delving into the contents of the book I was more than happy that I had made the purchase. Coleman uses this book as an opertunity to offer updated information and further detail on winter harvesting for market with very specific varieties for each vegetable, methods and timelines for production and well outlined information on marketing and cold weather covers and high and low tunnels. I highly recommend this book as a permanent reference on every serious gardener's and small farmer's bookshelf.

A real "Down East" book about a real Down East fisherman, his life, trials, and stories. Reads great and I found it hard to put down. Being from Maine it reminded me of my childhood lobstering with my great grandfather and my great uncle. The memories just kept streaming in and this book is a keeper!

I purchased a copy of this book at the local library sale. I found Jennie and Alick great characters, and wondered at their circumstances. It is a great story of love, mystery and people coming to a new country. The pride of becoming Americans and their children born on American soil. Glad to know that there is more to this story than just the one book

This book is beautifully written and describes parts of island life from a summer resident's point of view, in addition to the deep feelings caused by the loss of a son who is now buried on the island and has, thus, become part of the island's history. Amazingly, there is nothing sentimental about this book; just heartfelt. Highly recommended to anyone who shares an interest in Maine's island heritage, or summer residents' place in it, or how one family has coped with their personal loss and incorporated it into Maine island culture. Thank you for sharing these very personal feelings and stories with a larger audience.

King's vision of vampires that don't live in far-away Europe...only small town America. I read this as a younger man and re-read it later. It still carries the intense frightening quality now as it did then. King readers as well as any avid horror readers should love this book.

With the amount of vampire media currently flooding the market, I found it refreshing to pick up Salem's Lot. It is not a perfect book, as it's one of King's earliest, (his second? I believe) but it still packed a punch.

The writing style is interesting and like many things about this book, faintly reminiscent of Dracula. I found it an easy read and one of the things I like about King's style is his frank way of writing. It is slow in some places and moves quicker in others, but overall I felt gripped from the opening scene and couldn't put the book down. There were plenty of parts that got my heart racing, sitting up in my seat and hoping the creaking on the stairs was just one of the cats.

It describes small town life as it is and it's interesting to read as death spreads along all the intertwined threads of a small town. One of the most frightening things about this book is that it could conceivably happen. There are plenty of small towns in the country, and if a vampire were to inhabit one of them, I don't know that anyone would notice for a long time.

A lot of the ideas in this book are ones that repeat themselves often in King's writing, like the precocious young boy, the writer protagonist, the haunted house, and of course, the Maine setting. (Write what you know, right?)

There are a lot of similarities to Dracula, and King never makes a point to disguise that fact. I would recommend reading that before reading Salem's Lot, so that you don't miss the "inside jokes." At some points I wish he had been more original in his ideas, but all the same I found it to be an excellent book with all the creepiness one should expect, both supernatural and mundane. Evil in all its forms is presented in this book, from child abuse, alcoholism, adultery, and vampires in their truest, most wicked form. These are vampires as they should be: evil at its truest form. (No glittering, sparkling, or dazzling.)

As for the "Illustrated edition," It is worth noting that there are not a lot of illustrations actually in the book. I enjoyed this copy because of all the extras, the two short stories, an introduction, an afterword, and deleted scenes, but anyone buying the book for the pictures should just get the paperback.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a great book from beginning to end. Another one of Stephen Kings books that I could not put down. From the beginning it got me interested enough so that I needed to read as much as I could at each sitting.

Ben Mears spent part of his youth in the small Maine town of Salem's Lot and has returned for the purpose of writing a book and laying some ghosts to rest. But instead of confronting childhood fears and conquering them, he faces something a lot more solid and dangerous in the form of vampires. Ben can scarcely believe what is happening, and telling the authorities would be more likely to land him in an asylum than it would be to get any real help. So Mr. Mears and a small group of acquaintances do their best to handle the problem themselves.

Salem's Lot is Stephen King's second book and one of the things that I found impressive is how much he had grown in his ability to tell a story after publishing Carrie (not that Carrie was bad by any means). He does a good job of populating the town, giving the various characters distinct personalities, and investing the reader in what happens to them. Some people have complained that the pace is too slow, but if you're a regular King reader then you know that he always spends more time fleshing out characters than a typical horror novel would offer. The tension definitely ratchets up in the second half of the book and is mostly sustained until the end.

The one thing I would change in this novel is that there are probably a few too many passages speculating on the nature of evil and other philosophical questions. While it's interesting up to a point, there was one section in the last third of the book when it really interrupted the buildup to the climax without adding much at all. This certainly didn't ruin the book for me, but a bit of judicious editing would not have hurt it either.

Salem's Lot is an easy novel to recommend. The characters are interesting, the story grabbed me, and it was an enjoyable read all the way around. If you're looking for non-stop suspense and thrills you may be disappointed but that would be true of most of King's books. For everyone else, it will be one of the more enjoyable vampire novels you're likely to read.

Unlike most hard-core Stephen King fans, I have been reading his books in no particular order...just whichever one I can get my hands on next. Thus, I happened to read the entire Dark Tower series penned by King before I happened onto this novel. In that series, I learned more about Father Callahan, who was first introduced in this book. By reading things so disjointed, I figured that "Salem's Lot" was just a book about vampires who had to be expelled from a small town. Once I dove into this text, however, I realized that the true genius of this novel has nothing to do with the vampires themselves, but more so how King sets up their appearance.

The biggest thing that surprised me about this book was that actual vampires do not appear until the last 100 or so pages of the novel. They are hinted at many times earlier, but never fully exposed/explained. However, at least to me, that is where King makes this story so scary. Pretty much the entire first half of the book is devoted to trying to capture the small-town feel of Jerusalem's Lot but examining its citizens, their relationships, and the day-to-day events of the little town. Thus, when the great evil is unearthed towards the end of the novel, it makes it all the scarier that the evil is coming from such an out-of-the-way place, a type of place usually reserved for a slow, uncomplicated life. That, not the vampires, is the most interesting theme of the novel.

Of course, in typical King fashion, the characters are also very well-written and interesting, thus easy to root for (or against, in some cases) as they fight to extinguish the evil in small-town America.

So, although "Salem's Lot" was first published way back in 1975, it is still a thrilling read even today, as small-towns still exist all over America...small towns where he feel safe and never think anything can hurt is. In King's universe, that is not so, which is what makes this book so frightful.

One of my favorite things about John Irving is his character development. His accomplishments in delving deep into the souls of his creations and slowly letting them emerge onto the pages keeps the reader captivated through the novel. The plots are bizarre, yet real, and the characters become fixtures in the reader's mind long after the book is finished. Superb work!

I must admit that the book just was not good enough to hold my interest. I am an avid reader who is interesed in many sorts of books, and while the book deals with issues that may be hard for some readers (abortion and adoption), the amount of charecters and Irving's constant backflashes and side stories really did me in. I wished it could have been better, but for people who really like a challenge, you should definately dive right in.

Maybe it's the fact that it was my first book by John Irving, but I truly loved The World According to Garp, and I have not been able to find that feeling in any of the books that followed in my list. I liked A Widow for One Year (guess what, my second...), I didn't care much for The Fourth Hand, which I found lame. I liked this one, which I have not really read, but listened to in the truly splendid reading by G Gardner. But I never cared too much for Homer Wells, another main character of Irving's to whom things just seem to happen. I don't know how else to put it, but I could not help imagining Homer in this book as a never-smiling character that lets his life decide for him. Indeed, I am not sure I recall instances where Homes laughs or even just smiles.

The book is, also, endless. I liked the first part better, but the second part, which tells the story of Homer as an adult, felt overlong. Irving writes really really well, but there are too many well written but uneventful pages here.

I found the "message" of the book about abortion well delivered, but I doubt it will change anybody's mind on the matter. It will most likely shock some and sound perfectly reasonable to others.

Overall, I am happy I purchased this audio book (again a VERY good reading), but (unlike for Garp) it's unlikely that I will reach for it again. I was sort of happy when I got to the end and could move to another listening.

This book is a wonderful read; engaging and well written. What is remarkable about it is that the writer is able to depict men so well; how they think, how they behave. All the motivations and emotions are covered with each male character which was especially appealing to me because I actually believe that after reading this book not only had I felt a sense of accomplishment in reading such a wonderful story, but I had a sense that I understood men better, too. Highly recommended.

I generally read the book after I have seen the film. I do this so I am not disappointed in the film/screenplay. Generally the book proves to be much more entertaining than the movie. The movie was fantastic, the book a delight to read.