Maine Books

I was very pleased with the book all the info in it was excellent!!!!

I enjoyed everything about this book. Not only are the trail maps well drawn but the descriptions of the waterfalls almost makes you feel like you are standing next to the falls as you are reading about it. One thing that makes this book unique to hiking books is the Historical Detour section at the end of each chapter. I enjoyed learning about the history of the White Mountain National Forest and the many stories about how these waterfalls got their names. I might add that the photography in this book is excellent. There are some beautiful shots of almost every waterfall mentioned in the book. Not only is this book goood for finding good waterfall hikes but it also makes for some relaxing reading.

I am an avid hiker of the Appalachian Mountains from the Carolinas to Maine. As such, I have purchased my share of guidebooks. Without a doubt in my mind, this is the best guidebook ever published. It reads more like a novel. I live in both Florida and New Hamphire and I find myself picking up this book to read for pleasure when I'm in Florida, 1000's of miles from the White Mountains. This book is efficient. As the title suggests, one can cover 100 waterfalls in 30 hikes, most of which are not very grueling. The book describes the waterfalls in detail but reads like a novel. It uses descriptions from early guidebooks as well, some over 100 years old! The directions to the waterfalls are clear and well written and include vital statistics like distance to each, vertical elevation gained, difficulty and altitude. A sketch map is shown for each hike (although one would use a separate topographic map for the actual hike). In addition, and I think this really separates this from other guides, a history is included for each hike of the area. These histories include Indian stories predating European settlement, stories of the early European settlements, the first grand hotels and even ski resorts. It truly gives the reader/hiker a sense of time and place. If you hike the White Mountains get this book!

This book inspired one of the best vacations I've taken (while closest to home!)exploring the waterfalls of NH. The directions and descriptions are accurate and easy to follow, and the falls themselves are exquisite--even in dry August weather, when we saw them. This will be a gift to friends, to be sure. Experienced hikers will appreciate it, but it's suitable for beginners. Not many geriatric hikes, however.

To my thinking there is not much more thrilling than turning a corner to find a spectacular and beautiful rush of water cascading over cliffs or through a rocky terrain. Who doesn't like waterfalls?!

This terrific guide to the waterfalls of New Hampshire's White Mountains details 30 hikes to 100 waterfalls, so many of the walks take you to several falls. A regional map pinpoints the thirty treks and a lengthy introduction relates waterfall nomenclature and origins, tells you how to use the book and offers tips to make your trip enjoyable. Detailed within four subregions (the Connecticut , Pemigewasset/Merrimack, Saco and Androscoggin watersheds), entries are 6-10 pages long and include location, distance, altitude gain, difficulty, access information, a map, trail and hike details, and a photograph of the falls.

An indispensable guide for waterfall lovers, particularly those travelling with kids.

The book concludes with appendices on regional geology and camping facilities, a bibliography and an index.

In the realm of veterinary literature, some books encapsulate the love and cameraderie between humans and animals with aplomb, and some hooooooooooooo!!!! A book can wheeeee wheeeeeeeeeeee wheeeeee! Some books are hoooooooo! Oh man. Sheeez. Get it together, Kirkman. Some books, like this one, some books hoooooo hooooooo. This thing kills me.

I'm so glad I bought this book! I have read it twice...bet you can't read it just once. Get a copy it is great for all ages!

I discovered this book from a review in the Maine Sunday Telegram. "Small farms and their close, personal way of living... come alive for us in Brown's humorous, compassionate stories of struggling farm life."
You get first-hand accounts of the doc trying to save an ox that's choking on a too large potato or rescuing a cow from a love-struck moose. It's all told with enthusiasm and wry humor.

I highly recommend this book. It belongs in my collection along with all my James Herriot books! It is heartwarming and very funny. Also, Dr. Brown explains certain animal diseases and conditions in an down to earth, easy to understand way. I am a farmer and I found that I understand several diseases of our animals even better now. I only wish the book was longer. I couldn't put it down once I started reading it and I was very sorry to get to the last page. I wanted to read more of those wonderful animal stories. I would like to thank Dr. Brown for writing such a great book, and I sure hope he considers writing another one.

This book is such a great read, full of humor and amazing life experience! Doctor Brown has a genius sense of humor and a wonderful heart. This book will have you laughing out loud but it is also an intelligent peek at the life of a very gifted man. Don't pass this book up, get a copy for everyone you know and get it in your libraries!

In 1981 I made my first trip up the Allagash Wilderness Waterway with a friend from Freeport Maine. He loaned me copies of two books written by Gil Gilpatrick, Allagash and The Canoe Guide's Handbook. Reading these two books were the best thing I did to prepare for this trip. They made this trip so much more interesting, while at the same time answering all my questions.

These are Allagash Bibles. I used them to prepare for my next 5 trips up the Allagash. No one knows this Wilderness Waterway better than Gil Gilpatrick. The next time I do this waterway, I will first read the latest updated version of his insightful guides.

"Allagash" is the first of two books which Maine Master Guide, Gil Gilpatrick, has self-published about the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. The second, "The Allagash Guide," was published about ten months later. The two books serve two separate, but overlapping purposes. "Allagash" is comprised of three parts. The first part is basically how to make an Allagash canoe trip. It is very similar to "The Allagash Guide," absent the packing lists. The second part is a history of the Allagash, told in alternating fact and fiction, the latter serving to fuel the reader's imagination about what life was like for the men working the lumbering operations in the early 20th century. The third part of the book is a fictional rendition of the life of the Wabnaki Indians, which inhabited the headwater lakes from the time of the retreat of the glaciers, some 10,000 years ago. They left no written history, only archeological evidence of their culture. Gilpatrick weaves his story around this evidence and gives voice to those early Native Americans.

Gilpatrick likely realized that this first book, for all its colorful characters and lifelike historical fiction, left potential Allagash adventurers with critical gaps in planning an Allagash trip. The result was "The Allagash Guide," which provides a comprehensive guide and multiple checklists for planning a trip. "Allagash" provides the background information that will help you understand what you are seeing when you stumble across locomotives in the forest, and the remnants of locks, steamships, and derelict farms. And, since the Allagash is now preserved more or less as it was when the earliest inhabitants lived there, why not make the effort to understand just who those people were?

Gilpatrick's two books are complementary. If you are planning an unguided Allagash trip, "The Allagash Guide" is mandatory reading. If you want a little help understanding what you're seeing when you paddle through, then get "Allagash." Also, "Allagash" is wonderfully illustrated with historic photos of the boom times on the headwater lakes.

For further reading pick up a copy of "The Wilderness from Chamberlain Farm" by Dean Bennett, which provides a rigorous history of the Allagash, as well as of the founding of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. If you still haven't had enough, get Henry Thoreau's "The Maine Woods," which describes his remarkable exploration of the East and West Branches of the Penobscot River and their headwater lakes from a naturalist's perspective.

Thoreau's guides were Penobscot Indians. Gilpatrick's two excellent books will be yours.

having been to the allagash wilderness 6 times to canoe from churchill dam to the end at st. francis, this book is excellent. it gave me info on the area that i previously didnt have, plus reminded me it's time to do the river again. the allagash is unique due to it's remoteness, and of course it's beauty. i sorely miss the clean air, and the wildlife, etc. great book!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went on a trip with the author this past summer and before i went with my dad, we both read the book. It was a very good book and especially useful for anyone planning on going on a trip on the Allagash. Gil has been guiding trips for years, and knows every part of the waterway like the palm of his hand. If you have ever traveled the Allagsh, reading this book will bring you back to the river because the third part of the book is a trip down the river with a modern day family. Great book!

This lovely picture book, whose tall thin shape reflects its subject, is the fictional journal of a lighthouse keeper's daughter in 1855, Birdie's tenth year. Hopkinson, author of the highly acclaimed SWEET CLARA AND THE FREEDOM QUILT, returns with evocative prose that captures the roar of the sea, the lonely isolation of lighthouse life, and the terror and exhaustion of managaing the lights alone in a fierce storm. Root's brooding pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations reflect era, setting, and emotion. An author's note reveals the inspiration for Birdie - four heroic lighthouse women and girls, including the Maine herione, Abbie Burgess.

This lovely picture book, whose tall thin shape reflects its subject, is the fictional journal of a lighthouse keeper's daughter in 1855, Birdie's tenth year. Hopkinson, author of the highly acclaimed SWEET CLARA AND THE FREEDOM QUILT, returns with evocative prose that captures the roar of the sea, the lonely isolation of lighthouse life, and the terror and exhaustion of managaing the lights alone in a fierce storm. Root's brooding pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations reflect era, setting, and emotion. An author's note reveals the inspiration for Birdie - four heroic lighthouse women and girls, including the Maine herione, Abbie Burgess.

This lovely picture book, whose tall thin shape reflects its subject, is the fictional journal of a lighthouse keeper's daughter in 1855, Birdie's tenth year. Hopkinson, author of the highly acclaimed SWEET CLARA AND THE FREEDOM QUILT, returns with evocative prose that captures the roar of the sea, the lonely isolation of lighthouse life, and the terror and exhaustion of managaing the lights alone in a fierce storm. Root's brooding pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations reflect era, setting, and emotion. An author's note reveals the inspiration for Birdie - four heroic lighthouse women and girls, including the Maine herione, Abbie Burgess

This book made me smile. I have known Deborah Hopkinson since I was born, and I am now fifteen. I think she is a wonderful writer and comes up with really clever ideas for books. I never knew there was someone that actually took care of the light house, I thought it was just there. She has a way of writing fiction that teaches readers at the same time. I also loved her other book, SWEET CLARA AND THE FREEDOM QUILT. When I read her books, I can sort-of hear her reading them aloud, telling the story of Clara or Birdie. She will always be dear to me and I hope that she keeps writing books for a long time to come. --Angela Kieran-Vast

Allison never lets the reader of this well researched fast paced historical drama off the hook. From Maine to Hawaii he carries us through the dynamic period just before the Civil War. What emerges is a portrait of a seldom explored time in our history when giants walked the land and sailed the seas.

CHASE is a page turner. It is in the rank and carrys like flavor and fragrance of James Michner and Jane Austen. I can see a movie or better yet, a mini TV series made from CHASE.

In this historical novel, William Allison uses a spartan but powerful choice of words to tell the story of George Chase (who actually lived from 1806 - 1855) and his wife (1811-1893). The story of their lives takes the reader from Maine to Hawaii. It is not only action packed, but extremely interesting in its presentation of the era. I couldn't put this down and am hoping there will be a sequel.

"Chase" takes places in the early 19th Century when America was beginning to understand the horrors of slavery. George Chase is forced to weigh his own ambition and political aspirations as he witnesses firsthand the humiliation of slavery and the abusive power of captains on the whaling fleet. "Chase" is a well researched book about a rare indidivdual, "a politician with a conscience".

"A Day's Work: A Sampler Of Historic Maine Photographs, 1860-1920: Part 1" is compiled with annotations by Maine historian, author, cattleman, and businessman W. H. Bunting who labored for almost 30 years assembling his collection of historic photographic images of the people, buildings, activities and landscapes that comprise Maine's history, commerce, and communities. Each of the 225 black-and-white photos is accompanied by a narrative caption that are as entertaining as they are informative. From a lumber batteau working on a log jam, to an eccentric cobbler traveling from island to island by sailing scow, to trains wrecks, hootchie-cootchie dancers, coastwise cargo schooners, and so much more, readers are treated to unique perspectives captured by a camera's lens and documented life and work in the state of Maine during a sixty year span that begins in 1860 and ends in 1920. Also available in a hardcover edition, "A Day's Work" is especially recommended for academic library Regional History reference collections in general, and Maine's community library State History collections in particular.

My only objection to this book is that it's a tease waiting for the third book. Sometimes I wish it were more integrated topically, or at least that the index were more expansive. But few would want to miss any page. Each reads by itself, with valuable insight (and entertainment). The printing, layout, author's style, comprehensive research, and especially the photographs are all wonderful. In a way, the non-topical approach is exciting too: the penultimate in "coffee table" books. One never grows tired of it, rarely if ever skips a section, looks forward to the next session, and cherishes it as much as the spectacular first volume.

NO author of Maine historical and cultural subjects writes better, or has done more comprehensive research. I would certainly include it in the parcel I would assemble for exile to Boon Island.

I pray for the author's health, happiness, and continued productivity. He is the best of Maine writers and scholars, and sets the best example and model for the generally motley group of Maine "writers", especially the very narrowly-scoped academicians who slavishly follow fixed models of interpretation and presentation. I'm sure Fanny Hardy Ecstorm, Elizabeth Ring and James Baxter (god bless their beautiful souls) are smiling at this wonderful, wonderful writer.

BOOK REVIEW

A Day's Work: A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs, 1860-1920, Part I, annotated and compiled by W. H. Bunting. Sponsored by Maine Preservation, Tilbury House Publishers, 132 Water St., Gardiner, ME 04345, 1997. 380 pp., oversize, paperback, $35.00

This is a wonderful book, so don't let the title drive you away. You must read halfway through that forbidding title to find out that it's about Maine, farther yet to learn that it's photographic, and "Part I" leaves you dangling. I would have called it Maine at Work, 1860-1920: Photographs and Text; the rest is superfluous--and I have added the word "text" because the text is just as delightful as the photos. I am writing this review because it's a book that people who love Maine shouldn't miss.

I have been summering in Maine for about forty years. The mountains and the skies and the rockbound coast make one constantly aware that Maine is different--the most northern and most eastern state in the USA, with a thousand of miles of shoreline and huge expanses of forest wilderness. Its wild geography has shaped its people and determined how they live. Vestiges of the past are everywhere, from the old docks and windjammers and lighthouses to the barns and sawmills and huge piles of firewood. If one wants an understanding and a feeling for those old times, this book is for you.

William Bunting's fascination with these historical photographs is communicated through the text. He has spent decades immersing himself in local history, and he not only explains each photo but goes behind it, delving into the history and significance of what is shown. If you want to know how to make hard cider, see p. 150 opposite the superb photo of the farmyard with a pile of apples by the old barn. The complex process of logging in the wilderness and getting the logs downriver to the mills and eventually by ship to market is followed through many photos with descriptive text (see pp. 34-44, 86-88, and more). Many buildings in Boston and points south were built of Maine granite; here you can see the granite cutters and the ships and men that carried that heavy cargo to market. Would you like to know and see how in the old days lobster fishing, seining, dip-netting, and canning were done? Or railroading, hunting, or harvesting ice? They're all here, and much more.

Start reading at the Introduction, a fine evocation of Maine today in relation to the past, and a convincing demonstration of the value of photos as historical documents. You will also discover that the author raises cattle and is a bulldozer operator, which doesn't quite explain his mastery of local history (this is his third book) but puts him closer to the down-to-earth people in the pictures. The introduction takes you directly into the text; there are no breaks or chapter headings. Bunting explains that the book is like "taking a journey," one that he took himself--and fortunately it has a good index. I began by looking up the places I know best: Waldoboro, Boothbay, Edgecomb, Casco, Bath, Damariscotta, but the book is a trap--once in, it's hard to get out. You go from photo to photo and from text to text.

The content of the pictures and text is absorbing, but I have said nothing about the aesthetic quality of the photographs. These old black and whites, from the days of heavy cameras and glass plate negatives, have a crispness and wealth of detail rarely seen in today's polychromatic action photos with artificial photo-effects. Many of them were taken for the purpose of making a record, and they project an authenticity that makes the viewer a participant. They have the grip of reality. The photos are worth the price of the book, and the text multiplies their value.

A Day's Work (Part I) focuses on many economic aspects of life in Maine in the late eighteenth and early twentieth century. The author, or annotator and compiler as he calls himself, says that some topics will appear in both volumes, but Part II will emphasize the pulp and paper industries, cotton textiles, coopering, axe manufacturing, etc. Perhaps he's waiting to sit down with the photographs and see where the journey leads. If it's anything like this one, it will be worth waiting for.

Herbert S. Bailey, Jr.
Fearrington Post 248
Pittsboro, NC 27312

Wow! Once in a while a book comes along that is so satisfying that one wonders if you really read it. I can't praise the author enough for bringing to life the life of Maine 100 years ago.

Kate Kennedy fills this whodounit with enough steam to heat a Russian bath house in January. Best of all, try to guess the surprise ending. I didn't. Maybe you will. But I wouldn't bet on it.

This girl can write! A must read on the beach this summer.

Just don't let your young children near it. Parental guidance advised. Hot!

Even though this book start's with a girl's disappearance and ends with a murder trial, it's not really a mystery. Instead, it's a peek into the lives and thoughts of dozens of characters in one small town. Each character is treated with respect, even when they don't respect themselves. With many short chapters, End Over End is a quick read, but it will resonate with you long afterward.

There are some books that tap into an under used vein of human compassion. Such a book is Kate Kennedy's "End Over End". Set in rural New England, the book traces the multi-layered, intersecting lives of a community caught in the net of a small town tragedy. Ivory Towle, a fourteen year old girl is murdered, her body found months later by town boys walking their dog behind a neighbor's farm. In this carefully woven story, Kate Kennedy realizes the lives of people often overlooked, threading the needle and drawing each image perfectly through the eye. You see Ivory, rebellious, dreamy caught in a growing-up-too-fast world yearning for Blake, the boy she's forbidden to see. Here are the teenagers gathering at the gravel pit lit with car headlights, listening to heavy metal or country, radios blasting, stoned and plenty more where that came from. You meet the parents as driven and lost in their way as their kids, trying to keep it together in tiny ranch homes or trailers, doing shift work, their dreams cinched by the mill or the factory. You meet everyone in town who has been touched by this event in staccato chapters that pile up images, dialogue, detective detail all toward the final resolution refusing to leave any stone unturned as the crime is sifted through the eyes of everyone it touches, victims and slayers alike. Though this book is set in rural New England, it is any small town where the roads peter out to mailboxes, where the kids have a gravel pit or Spangler's Store to hang out in and grab a bus to school and think maybe a high school diploma will be their ticket out and, if not, marriage and babies and now the boys don't even have the draft anymore to make men of them. In "End Over End" Kate Kennedy has revealed an Our Town every bit as dense and accurate as Wilder's. Here are the mothers, fathers and children as well as the teachers, the lawyers, the police, the undertaker, the newspaper man. Each has a voice and a claim on the world before us and each is given time center stage. If you need good guys and bad guys with the case neatly packaged and solved, this is probably not the book for you. But, if you want to finish a final page and have the very last scene, indeed, the very last word swim before your eyes like the after image of a compelling dream, then, by all means, this is the book for you.

This book, which is built around the murder of a 14-yr. old girl, is remarkable. The short chapter approach, which navigates unpredictably among numerous points of view, kept me interested and tense and expectantly galloping forward. The effect of the many points of view was prismatic, and allowed me to experience the story in its many facets. The characters are portrayed with compassion, the imagined details of their lives making them seem familiar: like family, like neighbors, like ourselves. The way the author weaves the characters together through and around the death of this young woman reminded me of the interconnectedness of all lives. The fact that we are left to decide for ourselves "whodunit" brings us face-to-face with the elusiveness of truth--a humbling, even painful, experience. Also challenging is having to decide what and who is truly evil, since the writer delivers the characters to us in true-to-life complexity. Readers of this book who hear news stories or read newspaper accounts of tragedies similar to the one protrayed in this book will find it more difficult to jump to conclusions about "whodunit," or make assumptions about the people involved. For making us more compassionate, challenging us to think for ourselves, and all the while entertaining us with a well-paced and well-written book, Kennedy deserves our gratitude, and our congratulations for a first-rate accomplishment.

No home movies, no photo albums, no old songs warm myheart more than traveling through New England to some of the very places described in this book. That's where my memories lie. That's where my father took me, and his father before that.

And while I have moved away, there are two great reminders of a childhood that I can only describe as ecstatic. A picture on my wall of E.B. White. And Hickoff & Plumley's book about the best places to fish. Some I've been to. Some I was taken to by these authors.

For those of you who are not as nostaglic and wistful about New England, let me with all honesty say that this book will serve as a superb and practical guidebook. And for those who have a little something more connected to the region, this book is a blueprint for irreplacable memories.

And damned good fishing spots and tips.

I had the pleasure of attending a seminar by Steve Hickoff last winter. I bought this book from him at the seminar, and have used it a lot more than I ever thought I would. My family and I were on vacation at Sebago Lake in Maine recently, and the information in the book on Sebago Lake, the Crooked River, and the Presumpscott River was invaluable. The maps of the Crooked and Presumpscott rivers especially allowed me to get up early, get to a good fishing spot, and even catch a couple of fish (all before the rest of the family even knew I had gone fishing). I really like the Crooked River, it has become one of my favorites. As an earlier reviewer stated, this book gives you the information to get to the good spots, without wasting a lot of time driving around. The book also provided information on what sections of the rivers were fly fishing only, and the local regulations for taking trout and salmon. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who plans on doing any fly fishing in Maine, NH, and Vermont.

FROM THE MOUNTAINS OF VERMONT TO THE ALLAGASH IN MAINE TO SEACOAST OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. HICKOFF AND PLUMNEY KNOW WERE IT'S AT. FROM THEORY TO FLIES TO PRACTICAL INFO. THEY NOT ONLY TALK THE TALK, THEY WALK THE WALK. I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ANY FLY FISHERMAN RATHER A BEGINNER OR A EXPERT. TIGHT LINES, STEVE, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

I travel around New England regularly and usually have a fly rod in my car. It is always frustrating when I have a couple of hours of free time and I spend it trying to figure out where to fish instead of spending it fishing. This book has all you need to know to find a spot and catch (and hopefully release) some fish. Unlike some books the authors don't limit themselves to only one kind of fish or claim that every spot they talk about is going to rival the best place you've ever fished. Highly recommended for anyone who gets the privilege of fishing in New England!

Jeff Howe has written an excellent book of stories and poetry that reflect one man's journey through his soul. The author takes you to bittersweet or comical places and lands you right back on your feet.
His down to earth philosophy and intelligent and artistic imagery transport the reader in a magical way. I was enchanted by reading this collection of his thoughtful and skillfully written pieces. I highly recommend this book to anyone from Maine to California and beyond!

Jeff Howe's poetry is amazingly versatile, and stimulating. When you sit down with this book, turn off the TV, rid yourself of distractions and get ready to take a journey. You will find some of the best imagery, you are liable to find in poetry today. The work ranges from subtle romantic visions to the biting realities of the world today, on almost every page you will find yourself saying "I can absolutely relate to that!" You don't need a Phd to understand and enjoy this work, you only need some place to curl up, a cup of hot coffee or cocoa and a few hours to spend in another world! An absolutely fantastic work of poetic art. Jeff Metz

Although there is no single common theme through the book, it's easy to get caught in its stream of conscience. Each poem is its own gut punch, a flash of light, a quiet chuckle and varies enough to keep you reading to see what comes next. Howe's creations range from several tremendously clever spoofs to the simple pleasures of "Falling Snow." He writes about himself, his journey through life in outrageous and brilliant language weaving images of nature with earthly passions. Howe has an uncanny way of scooping memories up into time pockets, draping them over the page in his unique writing style. By the end of his book, I felt as if I had lived the life of Jeff Howe myself. Or, perhaps, just a little over an hour of it.

I was born and raised and Maine and am always concerned about reading someone's book about Maine. Well "From Here to Never: Time Travels from Maine" has restored my faith in books about Maine.

The author has done a great job describing his life experiences in Maine using well written and sometimes very unique poetry. I would recommend this book to anyone who lives in Maine or wishes to live in Maine.

When I was in Elementary School this was my favorite book. I would check it out of the library and read it time after time. A great story about a boy taken in by the Indians in Maine and his adventures.

Young Indian boy separated from family. Experiences childhood growing up alone in woods.

I read this book many times, as a child. It's a timeless story that would appeal to young boys. I'm always surprised it doesn't show up in many lists of noteworthy children's literature. It should.

Excellent book for Elementary School age children. The book is probably best suited for boys who want to read about the adventures of a young boy who was separated from family and had to learn to survive in the Main wilderness assisted by Indians. Hope you enjoy reading this book.