Connecticut Books

This book is not good or bad, but it is okay but yet I could not put it down. There were some really good stories and them some that sound like a history textbook. I wished there were pictures of ghost orbs. Overall, it was a decent book but is a little overpriced.

This is a great book on Historicial Eastern Connecticut and lore. The
ghost stories only add to it. Most facinating stuff. Buy the book
you will love it.

I was hoping for something new about these stories, but there wasn't.
It was an o.k. book if you've never heard them before, but definately not worth the cost for so few pages.

We are fortunate enough to have met Donna Kent, and yet she continues to surprise and engross us with her command of the supernatural!! We have read many books, some more authoritative, some less, concerning paranormal legends and lore of New England, but this one still manages to tell nuances of stories we THOUGHT we already knew!! Donna's warm personality, combined with her considerable first-hand paranormal experiance, makes this a must-have part of any devotee's libray!! We can only hope and pray that she is working on Part Two already!!!

Steve and Nancy

While I enjoyed the book overall, I have to say that I was a bit offended by some things I read. I am a groomer, and in the story, the heroine makes it clear that she does not think highly of groomers. She visits a grooming salon, and much was made of the fact that the groomers were unprofessional, slovenly, and dumb. It was mentioned at least twice that groomers do not know how to "really" groom any show Poodle, and that all they do is "tie some bows on the ears and send them home." She doubts that groomers can do quality work on any show dog, especially since her Aunt Peg, a show dog handler, spent several hours doing a show trim on her Poodle.

Well, pardon ME. When a show dog handler can trim an entire poodle by hand, with no pieces sticking out, and scissor a perfect top knot, THEN you can tell me that the show dog handler has true grooming skills. As far as I am concerned, the extent of the grooming *they* do consists of mostly brushing and fluffing. I don't think it is necessary to snidely comment on the so-called "non-skills" of pet groomers just because the majority of dogs we groom do not end up in the show ring. Talk about snobbery.

Yes, I know this book is fiction, but apparently the author's opinion of groomers is not. This 'groomer-bashing' occurred in another of her books, and I just cannot ignore it anymore. I will be the first to admit that there ARE many slovenly, unprofessional groomers out there. But the things I read in this book offended ME, and I happen to be the consummate professional groomer. I work pretty darn hard, and I don't need some author constantly belittling my industry. It's certainly not fun to read.

The fact that I gave the book 3 stars despite this gripe? I guess I was feeling generous. Who would've thought a groomer had ANY redeeming qualities, right?

LIKE ALL HER BOOKS THIS ONE IS JUST SUPER , IT KEEPS YOU TO END ON YOUR CHAIR , YOU NEVER KNOW WHO DID IT OR WHY ! PLUS ON TOP YOU GET ALL THE ENTERTAINMENT OF THE DOGWORLD , WHICH SHE IS PERFECT REVIALING TO YOU ! IF YOU LIKE DOGS AND A GOOD MYSTERY THIS IS A BOOK FOR YOU !!

I was so delighted when I found this series. I don't normally pick mysteries, but am an avid dog-lover.
I do not agree that Melanie "...wear(s) on your nerves because she is so obstinate about EVERYTHING." She's tough; she's had to be, as most single parents do. She's also had a lot of change in her life just in the year that's taken place in the books.
This series, and author, are on my favorites list.

All of Laurien Berenson's Melanie Travis mysteries are entertaining and I've read most of them. My only objection is that Melanie Travis begins to wear on your nerves because she is so obstinate about EVERYTHING. There isn't just a few things she is hard headed about but everytime she comes up against something, she braces her feet. She is stubborn about her dog, her son, her job, her ex, Sam, her aunts and the list goes on. This becomes not only predictable but very boring. Melanie needs to become somewhat flexible and leave some of the pig headedness behind to make these books not only entertaining but more believable. Ms Berenson does an excellent job of transporting you to the dog show world, it's just that sometimes I wish she'd leave Melanie at home to grow up!

A colleague at school told me about this book -- she's from Vermont and had heard about it. We teach some Native American history in the fall and were having a hard time coming up with a good novel that every student in our 4th/5th grade unit could read and understand. (It's the first book they read -- you want everyone to feel successful.) There were other books that had been used in previous years, but these had somewhat stereotypical views of Native Americans (either as savages or the most noble people ever to walk the earth, but not as normal humans with normal feelings).

This book, however, does a good job of presenting human beings who have been influenced by history and culture. One way in which the author makes the characters feel real is by switching perspective, with each chapter being told by one of the two main characters. This gives us a chance to see what each character is thinking and raises issues of stereotype without buying into them (i.e., the white boy thinks the part-Native American boy must be a savage despite evidence to the contrary, while the part-Native American boy thinks the white boy is a dolt without knowing the struggles his family has faced). Of course, being a children's book, it ends happily for the two main characters. (You also discover in the author's note at the end that this story is based on real events and people.)

My only concern about using this book with our students is that although the reading level is listed as being 3.8, the use of dialect by the white boy might be difficult for some readers. Nevertheless, I hope to use this book with at least a small group of readers this fall. It is an engrossing and well-written book.

This book is BORING. I found myself forcing myself to read it for a school project. My advise: Don't Read It.

The writing is exceptional, the friendships hard-won in this fine historical exploration of settler and Native American relations. A substantive, gripping read!

Considering the depiction of Native Americans in books, so much has changed since I was the age of our twelve-year-old daughter, Lillian.

In several new books for young readers, the narrative vantage point has been very decisively shifted to place native characters in the point-of-view position, in the center of events instead of serving as "colorful" parts of the scenery. I've recently read aloud to our daughter Lillian two new young adult novels with Native American themes, Louise Erdrich's The Game of Silence (HarperCollins, 2005) and Liza Ketchum's Where the Great Hawk Flies (Clarion/Houghton-Mifflin, 2005).

Liza Ketchum, author of Where the Great Hawk Flies, also traces her ancestry to Native American forebears. Ketchum, who has written fourteen books for young readers, is the great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of the Pequot midwife Margery Daigo (or Dogerill) and her husband, Joseph Griswold, who lived near Randolph, Vermont, during the eighteenth century. Ketchum's novel takes place in a small (and quite fragile) Connecticut River-valley community still in upheaval as a result of a so-called Indian Raid in 1780, when British soldiers and Caughnawaga warriors from Quebec burned houses and crops in Royalton, Vermont, and killed or captured a number of villagers.

Ketchum's new novel begins in 1782, two years after that raid, when the War of Independence has ended and Vermont is still a separate republic.

Alternating chapters between point-of-view characters -- Daniel, son of a white father and Pequot mother, and a white boy, Hiram -- Ketchum's novel enacts a confrontation between cultures, demonstrating the wariness and even outright racist hostility between Euro-American and native townsfolk on the New England frontier.

This back and forth structure is exceedingly successful in dramatizing a basic truth: different people can see and feel the same events in entirely different ways. My twelve-year-old reading companion noticed that early on we both winced when we came to a Hiram chapter, as his hatred of his "dirty Injun" Daniel is so vehement, a result of terrible fear. Lillian said that although at first she really disliked Hiram and found what he said about the Pequots to be lies, later she was especially happy because she'd seen his thinking change from the inside. The book concludes with a hard-earned reconciliation, more visceral and powerful because shown from more than one vantage point.

Like Erdrich, Ketchum draws upon her native characters' traditional language, which as she acknowledges in a note the 1638 Treaty of Hartford (Connecticut) made illegal for Pequots to speak. While no longer used as widely today as Erdrich's Ojibwe, the miraculous survival of ancient Pequot at all is a testament to the importance of stories in carrying languages through time and through social and cultural upheaval.

Lillian pointed out that both books combine "small stories" about everyday childhood incidents, like learning to make a canoe or build a wigwam, or bickering between siblings and neighbor kids, with the "big stories" of war, eviction from homelands, and deadly epidemics. She wondered if a novel for adults would include those small stories, and if it did, whether the everyday parts would relate to kids.

We enjoyed our conversations about why these are superb books for her at this time in her life.

I must admit that I don't understand how young adult books are categorized in terms of age ranges, as these two novels are suggested for middle school readers, whereas they seem in no way stylistically or thematically too "juvenile" for high schoolers. Indeed I'd readily use either novel with my community college students.

Ketchum's book offers fresh, vivid, engaging instruction in the hard lessons of history, teaching via the tactile pleasures of narrative instead of by lecturing or hectoring. In conveying the lives of children, Ketchum gives us new ways of understanding our origins in the past and the huge challenges that face us now as a nation of parts, rarely a unanimous whole.

A fun little mystery, this novel is narrated by Mark Twain's secretary, Wentworth. While in New Orleans, Twain & Wentworth end up being asked to help solve a mystery, which is basically the meat of the book. The ending felt a tad rushed; the final "aha!" moment seemed to come out of nowhere to me, but all in all, this was an amusing mystery, and the use of Mark Twain as protagonist was rather clever.

"A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court", as probably everyone knows by now, is the sophomore effort by writer Peter Heck. It follows his earlier successful Mark Twain mystery "Death on the Mississippi". This book showed a lot of promise from page one, with the introduction of George Washington Cable as a featured character. Heck did not spend a lot of time explaining who Cable was, a decision which pleased me. I knew immediately that Heck had done some homework on New Orleans history and I sat back, eagerly anticipating an interesting and sly mystery full of bold, well-written characters and inside jokes on New Orleans historical figures. What I got was something less than that. The story, a vague and meandering tail involving the poisoning death of a prominent white Orleanian and the black cook falsely accused of his murder, was indeed an entertaining one, but offered nothing new to the now-bursting ranks of the New Orleans mystery subgenre. Writers plotting mysteries set in the Crescent City now offer us one of three choices; murder against a Mardi Gras backdrop, old family intrigue or corrupt politicians. Sometimes, if they are especially clever, they will mix and match these story elements, but for the most part, they are simply not that clever. For me, the mysteries that work best are the ones that use New Orleans as a setting, but accept the fact that Orleanians have to make groceries, pick up the laundry, clean out their rain gutters and fight traffic like the rest of us. Some writers present a New Orleans whose residents do nothing but fling beads from Mardi Gras floats, run for office and go to fais do dos with their old Cajun families who have so many secrets they are fairly flowing from the closets. But I digress. As a favor to Cable, crotchety old Sam Clemens and his secretary, Wentworth Cabot, fresh off a murder investigation on a Mississippi riverboat, decides to find evidence to free the black cook. Along the way he meets Buddy Bolden, considered the father of modern jazz (although no recordings of his work exist), Marcus Keyes, Tom Anderson and "the widow Paris", whom you will recognize if you know anything about New Orleans history. If not, I'll keep the secret. It obviously vexed author Heck to no end that voodooienne Marie Laveau the second died in 1887 and was not available historically for this 1890's romp through the old quarter, because he felt the need to recreate her in the guise of Eulalie Echo, whom the characters spend the rest of the book self-consciously calling "`Lalie". Get it? `Lalie Echo = Marie Laveau. Jeez. The mystery seems to be going along nicely until... The mystery is solved Perry Mason-style, when `Lalie Echo calls all of the principle characters together at a voodoo ceremony and tells them that Damballah, the snake-spirit, knows one of them is guilty and will haunt their dreams unless the guilty party confesses. Then the guilty party confesses. Sheesh. Overall this book was fun, but not very challenging. A good read for a rainy day or a long bus trip, but don't make a point of rushing out to get it. Patrick Burnett King of the Soapbox Derby

Mr. Heck has a very good grip on the world of Mark Twain and New Orleans in this book. His discriptions of the wonderful foods on this City made me hungry the entire book. Mr. Heck weaves a very good mystery. He also understands the culture of the time and explains it very well. The author captures Mark Twain's humor in his characters, many times I laughed out loud. Mr. Heck's books are worth the read.

Doggin' Connecticut is a well organized and informative book about places in CT to hike/visit with your dog. It has interesting historical information about each place and useful information regarding the terrain, trail markings, length of time and/or distance for hiking, type and general amount of "traffic," and availability of water for splashing and swimming for the dogs. Directions for getting to each place are also included. There are some "typos" in the text from time to time, but the meaning is generally clear.

This is a great book, it has all the pertinent info you would like to know when hiking with your dog, as well as some great hikes that are dog-friendly. We especially like to know ahead of time if there are any entrance fees, water availability (for the dogs) and what the hiker traffic is like and these are all within the hike summary. We definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking for some good places to hike with their dogs in Connecticut.

This book is a good quick reference to have. It is a bit informal and the pictures are bad. Also, there are not maps to locate the parks. I am glad it is not the only one like this that I purchased.

I enjoyed this book and return to it often. The beautiful photos offer one a glimpse into the way it was (and should still be) along with excellent descriptions and floor plans of many of the houses. The only thing I would have loved to have is more current pictures of the best kept houses, along with more biographical information on some of the lesser known architects in the book, such as Christ-Janer, whose houses truly piqued my interest and left me wanting more. I took this book with me to New Canaan and it was very helpful in my meanderings through the town. If you live in the NYC area or plan to visit, I wholeheartedly encourage you to buy this book, take a day to drive to New Canaan, drive around the town, and take a tour of Philip Johnson's Glass House (buy tickets in advance).

New Canaan was a household name according to a 1953 issue of House and Garden magazine: it referred to five architects who designed houses for themselves and their clients in New Canaan, Connecticut. An introductory essay provides the history, recounting how the town became the figurehead of a new modern movement in housing experimentation: chapters which follow analyze the structures and works of Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John Johansen, Philip Johnson and Eliot Noyes. Black and white interior and exterior photos abound.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

William Earls reveals an interesting fact in his introduction: that a small group of brilliant young architects uniquely designed houses for themselves and others in this conservative small town in the post-war years. The book details thirty-seven modern houses though it has to be said that nine were demolished. Each house starts on a spread with photos, floor plan and a brief description.

This should have been an interesting editorial concept but I thought it had all the signs of a quickie production not helped by a rather bland design. The distribution of pages to each house varies quite a lot (most likely depending on what images were available). Philip Johnson's Glass House estate gets sixteen pages, Frank Lloyd Wright's Rayford House gets six pages but Marcel Breuer's demolished Mills house gets a spread with one photo. The book's title refers to the Harvard Five and they have the most houses but twelve architects are actually featured.

Many of these houses are standing and occupied but there is no contemporary reference to them. The author rightly says that private homes are not open to the public but surely it would have been worthwhile to contact the owners and ask them what they thought of the house and were there any technical problems in living in a 'modern' house that is now some decades old. Some owners would probably have agreed to allow a photo of their house so the reader can see its contemporary look.

Because the screen size is only 133dpi so many of the photos are grey and also much of the cropping does not bring out the best in these buildings. I wish more thought had gone into the design. Some photos have nearly unreadable text on them, captions are sometimes white out of a photo while others are placed (correctly) underneath the image.

Certainly this is an interesting idea for a book but I don't think it really comes off.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

"The Blue Laws" is a window into the state of the law in early colonial New England, as a historical matter. As such it provides a basis for comparison with law today to judge how far we've come. From that point of view I found it quite enlightening.
The old English was sometimes a little difficult but it gives a basis for the evolution of our language since the seventeenth century.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in the evolution of our law and language.

Just a basic copy of the starting 'confederacy' of towns banning together to establish justice in the new america. The copy quality was a bit lacking in some places. A better job could have been done in the book's physical quality.

It certainly is interesting to see how 'justice' (or the concept thereof) has changed from 1650 until now. Read this book, see where we were. Look at the courts today and see where we are.

Determine for yourself which society is closer to what should be. Then determine which society is closer to what you think is right.

G.T. Martin takes the readers on a fascinating expedition in the Saqqara area, in search of the lost tombs of general Horemheb and chancellor Maya, two of the most powerfull men during the reign of Tutankhamun. The author discusses the re-discovery, structure and decoration of the tomb of the two dignitaries, as well as the tombs of the Tias, relatives of Ramesses II.

Geoffrey Martin gives an overview of 15 years of archeological digs and restorations in the Saqqara (Memphis necropolis) area. His descriptions are accessible and include enough background material on the age without it becoming a distraction. The book gives an excellent view of the work being done by modern archeologists, and often hints at the large amounts of research that go on outside of the field season.

I hope a future work will describe the work being done since this book was written.

"A Century in Captivity" is an excellent book and provides a lot of interesting information on the history of the Newgate and Wethersfield prisons in Connecticut, but when I started to read the book I expected to read about Prince Mortimer himself and not the details of two very significant prisons. The author admits that there really isn't a lot about Prince's life to go on and includes what he can here and there, but that doesn't excuse the poor choice for a title, which I think was meant to add shock value in order to sell books.

In "A Century in Captivity...", the author tells a fascinating story about a rarely seen part of American history...life behind the walls of Connecticut state prisons in the 1820s and '30s. It is, of course, much more than that. The story explores societal classes, the legal and penal systems, living conditions and slavery in eighteenth and nineteenth Connecticut. Often working with what he admits are the smallest fragments of documentation, the author succeeds in providing interesting observations on fairly obscure details on Prince Mortimer's life, while at the same time keeping the story moving forward. Well researched and well presented...highly recommended.

Professor Susan Lombardi vowed when she got tenure that she wouldn't be on any more committee at the college. Unfortunately she gets asked to be on the committee to decide tenure for Abby Gillette. Abby is a very controversial teacher. Susan's will be the deciding vote.

A group of supporters of Abby's start causing trouble on the campus. And when a suspicious fire sends one of the committee members to the hospital and then another is found dead in Abby's office, Susan must try to find out who is behind all this. Could it be the group of supporters?

Susan begins to dig deeper into everything to try to sort things out. Can she do so without becoming the next victim?

I really enjoy this series. Susan is such a fun character. The college campus setting is so entertaining. It's a great cozy and you'll devour it in no time! I highly recommend this book.

Is there a worse torture than being stuck on a committee? Being forced to smile politely as fools blather away and sententious nonsense is expounded ad nauseam? Well, it could be an academic committee, where the rigid Political Correctness of today meets the rigid pure curriculum of yesteryear. And then ... one of the committee members could be murdered. If our heroine doesn't manage to extricate herself altogether, she at least pulls her colleagues--her innocent colleagues--out of this last circle of hell, and that makes for a great story!