Wyoming Books

I usually enjoy this author's books,but found the main characters a little unbelievable. The lead female character, Eliza, became quite unlikable as the story progressed, and frankly, annoyed me. The lead male character is written as a strong man with deep convictions, yet he seems to have no reaction when betrayed over and over again by the women he supposedly loves. Eliza's uncle commits a horrific crime in front of the sheriff and apparently is never even arrested. My opinion, pass on this one.

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 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 This book is a good 30 years out of date.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.

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

This book is fine for beginner climbers who want to hike the easiest and best known trails in the area.

Stone gives a brief (maybe too brief) description of over 40 hikes and good directions on how to get to each trailhead.

For those of you looking for longer, less well known, and more challenging hikes, I would recommend Hiking Grand Teton National Park by Bill Schneider. This book lists more hikes (easy, moderate, and hard) and gives more complete descriptions on what to expect on each hike.

As a seasoned hiker, I purchased this book looking for a few great day hikes. There are only 9 hikes in this book and none of them really qualify as hikes, more like long walks with no gain in elevation. I paid $10 and really felt like I wasted $10.

Desperate shallow book. It seesm to be written by someone who has not had a very interesting life. It is a tale of boring middle class people who live boring lives in a very boring place.
This book is shallow and lacks anything of interest. Soory I lied-it has a nice cover

In the very beginning of this book I couldn't get in to it. I was going to put in back on the shelf but I told my self give it a chance and I was glad I did. I really got in to the story. Imagining it all, but sadly I hadn't finished it just yet. I will finish reviewing it when I am done.

I purchased and downloaded this book, because audibles.com promised I would have an mp3 file that can be uploaded to my mp3 player. No way! Finally, after much effort, I learned from their tech support that the company's promise was a lie. The file I downloaded cannot be played on my mp3 player. I still have not heard the book, so I cannot comment on the content.

I am a teenager. I realize, of course, that by conventional standards my reading of this book may be frowned upon; however, I have read it, and I enjoyed it. With that out of the way, let's begin.

First of all, this story is short; it is more of a novella than a true novel. If my sources are correct, it was originally published as part of of a collection of short stories by the author, and was only released as an individual book only after the movie. Therefore, the briefness of the tale must be forgiven, as Proulx never intended for it to really stand alone.

I enjoy Anne Proulx's style of writing. It's very character-focused, as the previous reviewer mentioned, and yet she doesn't spend paragraphs describing the characters' physical appearances, or--God forbid-- over-analyzing their current emotional state. The prose is simple yet compelling, slightly rough yet beautiful, much like the landscape where the action takes place.

And speaking of action...this book is not all about the sex. Porn lovers, seek ye a different text; you will find few, if any, graphic elements here. The language can be rough, but it's nothing most people in this day and age have not heard. And, if anything, the few shocking elements in the book only help to illustrate the conflict the main characters face. The author, rather than spending valuable pages going on and on about Jack and Ennis' angst [as author Anne Rice is apt to do, however artfully], instead allows the reader to be put in a similar feeling of shocked revelation as the main characters; the action speaks for itself.

This is not a book that depends on the gimmick of "gay love" to be a powerful work. It is, rather, an account of two individuals struggling against their natures and the standards put onto them by society...a struggle which may ultimately lead to both of their destructions.

"Better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all"? Read Brokeback Mountain. Then decide if it's true.

First and foremost, this is a very quick read. As a matter of fact, Cliff Notes versions of books are usually longer than this one is. The screenplay for the movie was based on this, and to make it full length, parts have been added.

There is no part of the story that is not in the movie. If you have already seen the movie, then nothing is surprising here. The scene where Ennis attacks the rowdy people at the fireworks show and the scenes about the beginning of Jack's marriage are not here in the story. That being said, this story is not lessened by not having it.

Whereas the movie had a lot of great shots of the scenery, this book doesn't have that kind of pastoral flair. The focus is on the characters, their reactions, gestures, and speech. I thought this really well done.

This is a good story, but I would not recommend buying it as the size doesn't really warrant the money spent for a book. I would recommend purchasing the screenplay before buying this story.

First published in the New Yorker magazine in 1997, this powerful short story won the National Magazine Award for Fiction and an O. Henry Award. Exploding the stereotype of the cowboy, author Annie Proulx creates a passionate love story between two young ranch hands who believe their love and relationship are unique. Both are nineteen, and neither will entertain the thought that he might be gay ("I'm not no queer...it's a one-shot thing.").

In vibrant prose filled with unusual images of nature, Proulx depicts the intensity of their love, which first begins in a high pasture on Brokeback Mountain, where they tend sheep to protect them from predators, and sleep in a tent at night. From the outset, nineteen-year-old Ennis del Mar is so elated with the company of the equally young Jack Twist that he "felt he could paw the white out of the moon." When their attraction suddenly bursts into passion, they feel themselves "flying in the euphoric, bitter air, looking down on the hawk's back." And when, at the end of the season, they bring the sheep down the mountain, "the mountain boiled with demonic energy," and Ennis "felt he was in a slow-motion, but headlong, irreversible fall."

At the end of the season, they separate, and over the next twenty years they both live as straight men, seeing each other rarely, and keeping their love a secret. Ennis has never forgotten the time when he was nine and his father took him to see the remains of a gay man who was tortured, then beaten to death with a tire iron. His father laughed about this atrocity, regarding it as appropriate punishment for the man's violation of the "western code."

Proulx concentrates on themes and on the intensity of the men's love story, subordinating everything else, including her imagery and character development, to it. The dramatic ending conjures up images from the beginning of the story on Brokeback Mountain and ties all the details together, while the thematic line "If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it," which is first spoken at the story's turning point, is repeated in the conclusion for emphasis. Inexorable forces act on Ennis and Jack throughout the story, some forces originating in nature and some coming from other men--and Ennis and Jack just "gotta stand it." Mary Whipple

This is a very disappointing book. It tries to cover a very broad and very disconnected area of the United States. There are nine states crammed into its pages and each state hardly gets any coverage. A lot of great attractions, restaurants and lodgings are missed as this book tries to cover from Oregon to Iowa! In order to be a helpful travel guide, it should be split into a least two volumes. As it is right now, it is not worth the money.

I recently checked out every guide book I could find on the subject of out of the way places in Wyoming. This one was without question the worst. It is a random collection of disorganized, unhelpful information. To see how a book with this title could have been done well, check out Scenic Driving Wyoming, by Laurence Parent

I have no objection to a book about an event which is written by a person who was close to the primary actors to that event. I do have an objection to books that are overtly skewed toward telling only one side of a story. Case in point: this book. The FORMER doctor named John Story is a sexual predator who preyed on the trust and ignorance of the women in the tiny community of Lovell Wyoming.

Ms. Wagner's book is told from the perspective of a family friend, she was and is still an undying supporter and advocate of John Story's innocence. Her accounts are not factual, her rendition of the events are anything but objective and her generous inclusion of unfounded conclusions becomes quickly nauseating within the first few pages of the book. Story's sexual deviance and abuse of power in victimizing his own female patients, from age 13 to 50+, when he was these women's "trusted" family doctor is inexcusable, sickening and freakish, Ms. Wagner's attempts to dismiss as lies every single one of the similar accounts reported by the dozen or so women and teenage girls who came forward as his victims is unbelievable.

Many of the women were unrelated and about half of them did not belong to the Mormon Church, so Ms. Wagner's attempt to categorically diagnose why these women all lied under oath and penalty of law destroys her credibility as an author. She would like us to believe there was a conspiracy to frame Story. She attempts to vouch for his character, veracity and innocence without any factual basis other than her own opinion. She makes him out to be a saint, who never did any wrong, this wonderful man, loving and doting husband, father and family doctor. In contrast, she would have the reader believe that the Mormon Church was able to brainwash a dozen women, some of which were not even members of the Morman Church, turning them into lying, vengance-seeking women scorned by their failed advances to seduce their family doctor is a web of flimsy, transparent attempts at making excuses for the unexcusable. If only there were a shred of evidence to support her far fetched theories and excuses, but there is not any. None cited in the book, perhaps becuase there is none in existence? Regardless, the author's own opinions, wishful thinking and beliefs, are NOT credible sources of factual information when the information came to her as hearsay, through second and third hand accounts.

If you want a well written, objective book, get Jack Olsen's book "Doc." He tells both sides, with extensive information from both Story's pathetically devoted wife, Marilyn Story, as well as a number of Story's victims--both women and children--who suffered sexual intrusions at the hands of Story during their annual gynecological exams. Olsen's book explores how Story was able to use his position of trust and power as a doctor, to ravage and rape the most intimate, private area of a woman's life--her reproductive health, her sexual genitelia, her innocense and, most precious of all, her sexuality.

This is not a book but rather a cardboard pamphlet. It lists some of the birds of Wyoming but not all. For example, it showed a Bohemian Waxwing but not the Cedar Waxwing. Both species are in Wyoming and if you didn't know that and you saw a Cedar Waxwing and you checked only that source you would assume that it was a Bohemian. To me, incomplete information is just as bad as incorrect information.

I had ordered this "book" as a gift for someone that is just beginning birdwatching and I thought it would help to have just the Wyoming birds in it, but after looking it over I felt it would confuse the situation much more than it would help.

I'm really sorry to give such a bad review, but there are many wonderful bird books out there and this is not one of them.

Why was this book published? The premise--to rephotograph sites that Stimsom had already photographed decades earlier--is hardly original. Prospective buyers should be aware that this is really nothing but a coffeee table book, and it is substandard even for that genre. The rather mediocre photos are only loosely tied together by commentary that is hardly more than poorly written fragments. Even the used book price... is excessive, considering the paltry contents. Even compared to other works in the coffee table book ghetto, this one is surprisingly shallow.