South Dakota Books

As a fan of the Carl Wilcox series and having read all the previous novels, the author has done his readership damage by marrying Carl off! Part of the glamor of this series has been the sort of sexiness of a well-meaning, intelligent bachelor who solves murders in very interesting and creative ways in an era before today's technology. Carl has shown his interest in women through out the series and that idea of romance draws the reader in. As a female, his allure as a bachelor detective took me in -- always wondering about whether there would be a conquest or not. For me, the best Harold Adams can do is write out Hazel, Carl's wife, in some calamity that Carl can deal with and solve!

In mystery writing--as in all fiction writing--when you pull apart the hardcover buns, there should be a sizeable slab of conflict inside. Sure, depending on how the author or readers like it, condiments such as plot, characterization, and blah, blah, blah, can be added to enhance taste. But conflict is the "beef" of all fiction. Harold Adams' book has small meat.

The writing is tight, the history and scenic descriptions accurate and well-done, but everyone gets along. A stranger dies in the beginning, but no one is ever threatened again. The protagonist gets along with his wife, the local cops, the local residents, even the suspects. What's the point? There's no urgency. I only turned the pages out of curiosity to find out when something good might start happening. It didn't.

Okay. I'm exaggerating. The book is not that bad. Give it three stars. Lovers of pure whodunits may give it four. But for me this was no Whopper. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.

This is the first Harold Adams book that I've read. The mystery is set on the northern plains during the Great Depression. Carl Wilcox and his new bride are honeymooning when they hear a gunshot and scream. They stay and solve the mystery. I enjoyed the book a lot and recommend it as light summer reading. I plan to read some of his other books as well.

I was not only disappointed by this book, but irritated by the style of writing which seemed to be a combination of the poor sentence structure of a high school freshman to the dated expressions of a senior citizen. You gain little insight to the personality of the main character or his bride. The plot is too pat; town folk interviewed are oh so eager to talk about characters in suspicion, and the police are too relieved to hand the murder investigation over to complete strangers. The only saving grace are physical descriptions of the local area, and the beauty of the river area where the characters camp and canoe. Once I like a book and discover there are others in a series with the same character, I'm ready to read the rest. I will certainly pass on this one.

This book serves as a good introduction and overview of the major laws governing business in the U.S. However, more than just an intro to law, I believe the authors' intentions (if not made evident by Amazon's description) were teaching the reader how to think like a judge or lawyer, by giving them the legal foundation necessary and laying the groundwork for specific laws, not giving thorough and exhaustive coverage of the laws themselves, which takes a much bigger book. Through its presentation of many case files used to show a real-life judicial decision-making process pertaining to the topic at hand (contracts, employment law, etc.), I believe the book does a good job at developing these principles of (common) law. The only problem is, they leave most of this part up to you, merely presenting the cases but not discussing them, instead talking about some major laws in the bulk of the text. But it matters not, as long as the cases themselves are useful, which they were. For complete coverage of the ACTUAL laws (particularly the intricacies of statutory law and also the uniform commercial code (which, for a business law book I found sorely lacking no matter the intentions)), I guess I will have to look into getting one of those dreaded bigger books.

The book has no color at all, everything is in black and white; also the case files found in the book are briefed and are poor reflections from the orginal public documents. I had to buy this book for a college class, it was cheaper here than in the school book store but I feel the book is only worth $20.

McAdams, et. al. provide an interesting mix of economics, law, business, and ethics in this textbook aimed at upper level undergraduates. This interdiscplinary approach is especially appropriate for business courses which should examine these issues from multiple perspectives. My only reservation is that perhaps too much emphasis is placed on the legal dimension within the text.

Very interesting! Gives the wonderful history of Marghab linens, the trials and tribulations that this remarkable and perfectionistic woman endured! LOTS of photographs! I especially like the fact that it lists the NAME OF EVERY SINGLE MARGHAB PATTERN! This is a TRUE TREASURE for a Marghab Collector!

This book lists almost 300 Marghab linen patterns but only has a color picture of 32 of them. I thought I was getting a book that contained photos of all of them.

After paying $160+ for this book through an Amazon seller, I found out it can be purchased directly from the SDSU Marghab Museum for only $65.

This book is the story of Very Marghab. It is NOT all about Marghab linens as I had hoped. Not enough pictures of the patterns or linens.

Gjerde's premise is interesting--there were two groups of immigrants to the upper mid west in the mid to late 1800's. One was "Yankee" from New England and the other foreign, particularly Germans, Swedes, Norwiegens and some Irish. The latter formed isolated, insular communities and tried to reconsturct communities based on a shared religous, cultural and linguistic commonality. This was looked on with alarm by many Americans, who worried that these folks would not assimilate and were dangerous to traditional American republicanism. Unfortunatley, Gjerde sounds much more like a sociologist than a historian, esp. when he comes to describe the "tension filled" families of those from Europe who (to Gjerde) were too hard on their spouses, made their children work without paying them for it (horrors!) and perhaps had loveless, unemotional relationships with their spouses (though Gjerde provides no credible evidence for this last concoction.) He also has a Berkeley professor's view of the farm----he continually describes the work as onerous, arduous, brutal, drudgery, etc. He never considers the joy and satisfaction from working the land, even if it is at times hard. I suspect the nearest Gjerde has been to a farm is the produce section at his food coop.

Although there are some merits to the book, Gjerde's poor use of evidence (relies on novels as factual evidence instead of, well, facts!), his overuse of academic jargon, ridiculous depiction of children and the family, and omiting a discussion of populism make this book one to avoid.

Gjerde has written a useful book for understanding the conflict immigrants experienced while trying to recreate their native cultures in the American Middle West amid the materialism and individualism they encountered in the process. Gjerde terms it "complementary identity": the immigrants (German, Irish, and Norwegian are who Gjerde focuses on) viewed themselves as Americans enjoying traditional republican freedoms while practicing their native traditions and rituals. The tension resulted in large part because there was no way the immigrants could keep American commercial values from invading their communities, no matter how isolated they were. The main weakness of the book is its structure. The chapters start out dense and abstract and end the same way with hard to grasp conclusions. The guts of the chapters, though, are easy to read and contain enjoyable examples from diaries, letters, and newspapers. Another weakness is that Gjerde paints a picture of the American migrants as being materialist nativists of all one mind set, which is simplifying the situation too much. Having limited knowledge of the subject matter, I found the book enjoyable if at times difficult to read.

This book covers only very well known locations and only of rocks and minerals suitable for lapidary. This book is a good 30 years out of date. In my own state, I have been to every location listed and 90% of them do not exist anymore or are no longer accessible. In addition, I know of several other areas that are well known but not listed. Don't waste your time with this book.

The other reviewers are exactly right; use Eckert's information as a basic starter only. Speaking for the Oregon, Washington, and Idaho locales, I have had to use a lot of imagination to figure out where Eckert was trying to point me. There just isn't enough specific information for some listings, and for others, "current events" (i.e., development) have long since overtaken the rockhounding locales.

One thing that would have helped when marketing this book would have been a little explanation of what is different from the last volume. I patiently counted up all the sites listed for Oregon in the new guide, then counted the ones in my old book, and there was no change! In fact, I don't think a single site in the book was updated, added, or removed for Oregon. I suspect very few locales were updated, period.

There are no pictures, and the maps are only very vague; many times, a rockhound locale will be referred to as near a city, and the map will just point to that city. If the books weren't so expensive, they would be at least useful if you were trying to put together a complete picture for a state that you intended to rockhound to 100%. But I spent $20 on a used copy of an old edition and still felt a little gypped.

Where the book does help is in pointing you to a series of gravel bars on a river or major creek. For example, the Oregon section pointed me toward Vinemaple on the Nehalem River, and I used Google Earth to pinpoint some likely gravel bars. It turned out, however, that there were barbed wire fences and No Trespassing signs everywhere; I would have had to put in a canoe or kayak to get to his suggested spot. However, knowing that Vinemaple was good once, way back when, was useful, and when I got access to the river way above the Eckert site, I found what I was looking for.

This series is one of the most poorly conceived mineral guides I have ever seen. The author obviously knows very little about minerals e.g. "quartz rock crystal" and his maps are so poor you would be lucky to find anything using them. I agree with a previous reviewer who said "do not waste your time with these books." L. Dee, Geologist

Just finished hiking the Centennial Trail. Found this map to be more frustrating than helpful. The elevation countours are in metric! That wouldn't be so bad, but the interval is so large that the countours are really not that helpful in describing the topography. Also, the Centennial Trail has been rerouted in some areas, so this map wasn't current. I'm not sure what the alternative is, but just be aware that this map is very frustrating.

it is stupid , crazy , wild ,ect..

We were expecting more than one (1) plastic covered piece of paper folded four ways. The product is VERY overpriced.

Being a avid motorcycle rider I decided to borrow a couple of books from a friend of mine. One of these books was Where to Motorcycle In & Around South Dakota's Black Hills. The drab cover and exhausting title did not look promising but curiosity got the best of me...could the book be as bad as the cover? It is. Boring writing and pacing by an author that has no idea how to write for pleasure. The author is nothing more than a person that lives somewhere near Sturgis, South Dakota that has connections to get a book published.

Do yourself a favor...save your money. If you travel to Sturgis or the Black Hills area then ask some locals where to ride, eat, etc. Everyone in the area can tell you the same information that appears in this book. Otherwise just use the pages as fill in the bottom of your bird cage.