Oregon Books

This is a GREAT book. It is easy to read and well-written. You will enjoy reading it if you have to study Lewis and Clark or just to improve your knowledge about the Trail. There are three extremely interessant parts:
- The focus on the Northwest at the time of the Trail
- How people have been celebrating the importance of the Expedition / Centennial, etc...
- The conversation between Lang, Conner, Zinn and Abbott
Plus: pictures punctuate the book / useful for people who are not from the Northwest

A very enjoyable book covering the Union Pacific RR in the PacificNorthwest area. Well researched, and full of historic information, outstanding B&W photographic work and period track diagrams. Highly reccomended for anyone interested in the UP or northwest railroading.

This book on the University of Oregon gave me great insight into the school and the area around it. I know next to nothing about Eugene, Oregon and now I feel I know it a bit better. The sections on Campus housing and dining were great as were the academics section of course. I was pleasantly suprised to find that there were sections on guys and girls, diversity, and athletics in addition to all of the more academic sections. All aspects of a school are important so it was good to get a better feel for the culture and this bok really helped with that.

Ed Osworth is an author with a dream of a better world. In his world people are smiling all the time. People are polite, considerate, thoughtful and able to turn off the mind-numbing effects of television.

This self-described "Joy Professor" indeed professes in a brief volume that starts with an explanation of how we lost that sense of joy we had as children and ends with a plea for tolerance of other's personal choices.

Unstoppable Joy! is a mixed bag with examples of how Osworth arrived at his joy but very little about anyone else. "The Law of Perception," is the book's strongest argument and is well explained. Some of the rest of the work rehashes the various methods you've read about as you searched for that illusive pot of gold at the end of the dogma. Yet Osworth is able to turn much of that theory into sense by adding in his Law of Perception.

Readers will discover how many times they are subjected to fear mongering courtesy of the drug companies and be given a means by which to recognize the ways in which they have been trained to view the world as a threatening place. By introducing these concepts early, the author makes the explorations of forgiveness, living in the present, and other staples of the self-help genre seem fresh and attainable.

In this day of financial crises, war and dishonorable politicians Unstoppable Joy! gives its readers something of a chance against the odds.

On Memorial Day 1948 an Oregon city of more than 18,000 residents was swept away in a matter of hours. Manly Maben's "Vanport" does an outstanding job of telling the story of the swift rise and astonishing destruction of the largest World War II housing project in the United States.

Portland, Oregon was one of the communities that saw spectacular growth during the Second World War, mainly due to Henry Kaiser's decision to make it one of the principal locations for construction of Liberty Ships. Kaiser realized that the thousands of workers he was attracting to the community would need places to live, and so Kaiserville, eventually rechristened Vanport City, was born. The development was another marvel of the US's capacity to mobilize to meet the needs of the war effort. An entire city, complete with grocery stores, schools, a library, a post office and a police and fire station rose in less than a year's time.

The decision that doomed Vanport was made at its birth. The townsite selected was in a flood plain very close to the Columbia River. It was protected by a series of dikes, but when one of those dikes gave way at the end of May, 1948, the city vanished in a matter of hours. Although the death toll was never conclusively documented, at least 15 lives were lost.

Although Maben's book covers the destruction of Vanport quite extensively, it also tells much about the life of this wartime community. In some respects the ultimate company town, Vanport was progressive in many ways, such as offering one of the first 24-hour community day care programs. The city's life was brief, its impact on the region was lasting. Many of the displaced residents stayed on in the area. Vanport College eventually evolved into Portland State University. This remarkable story is well-illustrated throughout with photos from the Oregon Historical Society's files. "Vanport" is a valuable contribution to the history of the region.--William C. Hall

This is a great collection of Catholic Liturgical music that I have used in 2 different churches. It has traditional sounding music as well as gospel and contemporary sounds. There is also a great CD available of this collection.

Good read for those interested in how their ancestors ate -- especially if it is known one of them was among those who went west using this paticular route. Highly recommended.

"Readers who enjoy action packed westerns in the genre of Louis L'Amour will find the book hard to put down."...Country Bookshelf: "Worth a critical read", Paul Pintarich, Book Editor, The Oregonian: A corking good novel about the early west", The West Magazine. "Filled with excitement and drama", Bookman's weekly

The title says it all. This book is the best book I've found for quick plant selection. The plants, shrubs, and trees in this book are proven to perform well in the Pacific Northwest. I've enjoyed how detailed the information is in regard to growing and care for each plant. It has taken a lot of the guess work out of figuring out what to buy at the nursery. My only disappointment is that it neglects to include a section on herbs, and there is only one photo for each plant. I would have like to see a photo showing each plant up close and a distance shot that shows the mature size. Photos are inconsistent sometimes showing a plant up very close and sometimes showing the full mature size. The book is also somewhat pricy compared to the similar book Best Garden Plants For Washington And Oregon, but the information is much more thorough.

After living in the West for four years there were two things I could count on above all else. First, the issue of water in the West. It is a given that everyone, and I mean everyone, has a strong opinion on water, or more aptly, the lack thereof, and what to do about it. Second, the consistently high quality of a publication known as the High Country News which is published in Paonia, Colorado. Thus, you can imagine my delight in receiving a copy of this book dealing with Water in the West and containing articles written by contributors to High Country News over the past fifteen years. It's kind of like getting a two-for-one deal. And what a deal it is. For anyone remotely interested in the history and current status of what editor Char Miller rightly calls the West's most precious resource, water, this book is indispensable reading. The list of contributing scholars and journalist is impressive and provides the reader with insightful analysis and historical context that is rare in this age of mass-produced trivia. My favorite chapter is titled "Taming Glen Canyon Dam" and contains an article on how, in 1993, the Colorado river almost reclaimed Glen Canyon Dam and accomplished what Edward Abbey and a host of activists have struggled to do since 1963. The entire contentious issue of Glen Canyon Dam is covered in a balanced manner and worthy of the reader's time. Ah, but there is more, much more. Come go with me to visit the Northwest and read of the Salmon Crisis; the proposal to tear down eighteen dams; and a plan to unleash the Snake River. From there we will travel to Arizona and Utah to learn of the follies and successes of the Central Arizona and Central Utah Projects. These Federal water projects are your tax dollars at work. From the deserts of Arizona and Utah we will go to Denver and Las Vegas and see what the urban areas of the west have in mind for the limited amount of water available. The chapter on Native American Water Issues is refreshing in that, for once, we learn that the Indians have won some court battles that have the effect of giving them back that which was, you guessed it, taken from them in the first place. Take all of this and wrap it up with chapters on Watershed Restoration and Water Allocation and Management, plus a comprehensive introductorly overview, and you have a wonderful primer on Water in the West. This book is one tall drink of water. Oregon State University Press and High Country News are to be commended for making it available to all of those that care about this precious resource.