Maryland Books

I have read and participated in the AWC staff rides of the battlefields and from that light these book can be instructive at they relate to events and field conditions. They are not for the casual reader or tourist. It is essential that the reader be versed in both the theory and tactics of the time before visiting the site and that you are to read these books while standing on the actual grounds.

These books supplement case studies at the AWC in tactical and strategic thinking. Observe the battleground as a military officer would and try to put yourself in the mind of the writer. What you will be reading are the after action reports written by the officers assigned to write them, of their viewings of events on the field. Beware sometimes these reports can be self serving so take that in mind.

Reading the reports and standing on location will help to give you an incite into field situations and problems that the military officer must see, recognize and solve. One key point to remember is that of communication is not what it is today. The field of battle only existed as far as the individual officer could see. He generally knew nothing of events occuring several hundred yards away let alone a mile or so away in real time. All he knew what what was right in front of him. He never sees the big picture that today's communications can provide or seek instant clarification of orders.

With this in mind and a knowledge of the methods of Civil War fighting these books are very instructive.

These series of books from the U. S. Army War College are the best available resource for conducting ACW battlefield tours - assuming that your purpose in touring battlefields is to study and understand the applicable tactics, strategy and terrain and to develop an appreciation for the objectives and efforts of the participants. If you go to ACW battlefields to gawk and gossip as an everyday tourist then an investment in these guides is unnecessary. If you have an active interest in ACW history, military history in general or fascinating chapters in human history, then these guides are remarkable values, "Best Buys". Helpful maps illustrate troop engagements and key terrain features, excerpts from the Official Records provide first person commentary from the participants at each "Stop" on your tour and concise analysis is provided to tie the story together. Thorough but not intimidating, insightful and objective, with no deficiencies noted. This particular guide is especially insightful in that the tour includes the Battle of South Mountain preceding Antietam and includes "Stops" in backwoods areas of western Maryland and West Virginia which are otherwise unrecognized as significant to the Battle of Antietam. A great way to tour a beautiful area of our country and understand in detail a significant chapter in our history.

If you are interested in the Maryland campaign of 1862, this is the book for you! It includes South Mountain, Crampton's Gap, Harpers Ferry and a good bit of detail on Shepherdstown.

Unlike the Gettysburg guide this book outlines the campaign on an "operational" as well as "tactical" level. Both of which are easy to understand and follow along if you desire to use this book as a battlefield guide.

The driving directions along with detailed maps, historical photos, and reports taken from the Official Records make this book a complete tour and reference package!

If you require an outstanding volume of work detailing nearly every aspect of the campaign, then look no further. I highly recommend this book as "must read" for anyone interested in Marse Robert's Maryland Campaign of 1862. It will also make an excellent reference tool for anyone who cannot make it to the battlefield. It brings the fields of battle to you!

The Antietam battlefield guide is the second of many Civil War guidebooks and continued setting the standard started in the Gettysburg guide. The book covers the bloodiest single day battle of the American Civil War and a Battlefield Park that has suffered very little from commercialization. In addition to Antietam, South Mountain and Harpers Ferry are included. This gives you a detailed understanding of the important battles leading up to Antietam. Antietam is a confusing battle; this is not a battle history as such. My recommendation is to read Priest's book "Antietam" before visiting this field. This is one of a number of guidebooks on the battle and is an option to employing a guide or purchasing a park driving tour.
The series format is directions to a point on the field, orientation, a general lesson on what happened in your view, followed by first person accounts of the action. These guides are designed using the general staff training concept of a Staff Ride. This is when a class is taken to a historic location, discuss what happened and see how the terrain influences the event. Staff Rides are designed to be intensive "on the ground" training coupled with physical observation in the hopes students will gain experience for later use.
I am not saying this to frighten you away from this guide but to tell you this is not a walk about and look at the monuments type of guide. This guide will have several pages devoted to the action at this point. It may contain a critique of the local commander's actions with possible alternates.
My experience is that reading the book prior to my visit works best. This allows me more time observing the field and less time reading the book. Of the tour options, a professional guide is usually the best but most expensive choice. The park driving tour is the best choice for a quick trip through the field to get the kids passport stamp. This book is the best choice for a serious student of the battle looking for a detailed explanation.

Luvas' book provided an excellent itinerary for those who would visit the Antietam battlefield. However, it fails to help the reader understand the context of the given part of the battle to the whole. After positioning you at strategic points he simply reprints copies of the official reports from officers involved in the components of the battle. Since many officers' reports were comprehensive reports of the entire battle, and Luvas takes only a small section of the report for a given area of the battlefield, even the reports lose the perspective of context.

Another thing missing is a comprehensive map of the battlefield with his selected stops, again helping show the context of a given part of the battle with the whole.

As a native Mainer and longtime owner of the Maine Atlas and Gazeteer from DeLorme's, I had high expectations of the Maryland one. And I really had a need for it too - I commute there for business about 40 weeks a year.

I am very disappointed by this product. It has nowhere near the detail or resolution that the original Maine one does. (I think every dirt road in the State of Maine is clearly marked!)

I shudder to think about what the Gazeteer would be for a state like CA or AK ... somebody else will have to find out!

We bought this map/gazetteer in preparation for our trip to Maryland. I am satisfied with the quality of the atlas, it's easy to read and well organized.

The only atlas I've found which shows the whole penninsula. That makes it easy to find directions around traffic without using two or three maps. Wonderful for those of us who know the major routes but always wondered to where the side routes lead.

These state gazetteers make traveling the back roads a pleasure, and is a great value from Amazon.

I originally used Delorme road maps of NH, VT, ME & NY when I hiked extensively in the High Peaks of New England. They were EXTREMELY helpful in navigating the confusing mess of old logging roads, etc.

I bought this map while planning a cycling trip from Virginia Beach to Philadelphia. While it looks like it's probably the best thing out there which would give road maps of the entire state, it doesn't show as much detail as a local map would.

My book came as promised in the time that it was promised. I could not be happier. Brand new.

i bought this for my mother she loved it said it had great things in it. it arrived on time just like it said and was in great conditions

Excellent instructions for Baltimore Album applique book. Designs in this book are simple enough for a beginner but would make beautiful quilt for someone experienced in applique. Lots of colored pictures and design options.

Exactly like I ordered. Very pleased with product and quick delivery.

This is the book to have! You will love it if you want to really learn Baltimore Album. DG

Book arrived quickly and in good shape. The book contains many highly technical surgical passages which do not lend themselves to easy reading. Unless you have a medical background these passages can be overwhelming. Most readers will probably end up skipping these passages which comprise a large portion of the book.

In this book you will hear from Vivien Thomas himself. As wonderful as the movie was, it did take some dramatic license here and there. Vivien tells the story of the first "blue baby" operation very matter of factly. As you read the book you will discover that he played things pretty close to the vest. He was not one for dramatic outbursts or fits of temper. Thomas is a dignified quite man and his relation with Dr. Blalock was not all sweetness and light but they worked well togehter and became very close.

There is a lot of medical talk in the book. The squeemish may have trouble getting through the accounts of the experiments that were performed on the dogs. Don't let that stop you from reading this book. It gives you a wonderful insight into this modest, unassuming but brilliant doctor. He never went to medical school but taught some of the finset surgeons in the world how to operate. Happily, Thomas was finally given an honorary doctorate by Johns Hopkins.

If you have seen the movie, don't expect this book to play out the same way. This is real life.

Enjoy!

Very interesting to follow the challenges and choices that Mr. Thomas makes throughout his remarkable career. A bit of a distracted read if you do not have the technical background to understand many of the technical procedures that he used and helped to develop, but still a fascinating story.

Excellent autobiography of a relatively unknown giant of medicine who helped pioneer heart surgery. I bought this for my 12 year old child for a history project, and the text was way over her head, but it would be a good story for any high schooler who was interested in going into medicine.

The story of Vivian Thomas is one that every student in the health professional field should study. The simple elegance of his surgical ability combined with his ability to critically think transcend the commonplace notion of traditional medical school training.

Cathy Gohlke won the Christy award in 2007 for her first novel, William Henry is a Fine Name. I can't imagine a more deserving story.

Thirteen-year-old Robert Glover loves fishing and skunking and skinny-dipping with his best friend William Henry in Elkton, Maryland, 1859. Life is just as good as it can be, except for the howling dogs that wake him at night, his parents' muffled arguments, and his father's middle-of-the-night disappearances. Robert discovers his father is involved in helping slaves flee the south, and his mother--having grown up on a tobacco plantation in North Carolina--views slavery as a natural part of life.

Robert's mother receives word her father is dying, and she and Robert travel to North Carolina. Robert has never met his grandfather, but once the man is healthy, Robert cannot help but dislike him. He sees cruelty he never imagined on Grandfather's tobacco plantation. Back home, slaves are free, but in North Carolina, they are property. Robert must choose between his parents' differing beliefs, and his grandfather's new affection. He searches to know what is right and what, if anything, he can do about it.

I found this book touching and fascinating. I felt as if I was experiencing the Underground Railroad myself. Robert's character is so real and his journey and growth so powerful, he becomes a friend. I want to read more about his life and the wonderful way he lives it and am thrilled there is a sequel, I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires. I highly recommended this novel.

WILLIAM HENRY WAS a FINE NAME by Cathy Gohlke was a good novel to say the least, and, it makes history and the Underground Railroad come to life. I am not by any means a history buff, but now that I am getting older, history is more interesting to me, and this book flamed the fire for knowledge. Read this book and then go to Ms. Gohlke's newest book, "I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires" to complete the story. This newest book is even better than the first!

This well-written book is definitely worth your time! With a combination of believable characters with personality and an interesting story of the Underground Railroad, Cathy Gohlke has written a wonderful piece of Christian fiction. I will recommend this book to my friends.

Great book, sent promptly and in very good condition.
We are reading this book in our book club.

This historical fiction, which follows 13-year-old Robert Glover in 1859, would be good to read with teens for discussions about such topics as justice, slavery, abolition, and the Underground Railroad. Although not graphic, the book does contain some disturbing imagery and adult themes (the book alludes to white men violating female slaves, and several children are the product of that), but they're central to the story and expose the evils of slavery.

Although there are villainous characters in the story, the characters in favor of slavery are not portrayed as one-dimensional. Some of the characters are kind to their slaves but treat them with compassionate condescension. Robert's mother, who grew up on a tobacco plantation in North Carolina and whose ailing father still owns slaves, believes that slavery benefits everyone involved because slaves are not intelligent or capable enough to handle the responsibility of managing their own lives. Robert's father doesn't share his wife's views and works for a man who "took up some of the notions of the Quakers" and freed all of his slaves before Robert was born. Robert wonders where his father has been going in the middle of the night and why he keeps his wagon off the road. He also notices that men go out with packs of dogs hunting for runaway slaves following his father's mysterious late-night outings.

Robert is torn between his parents' conflicting views and is also greatly influenced by his best friend, William Henry, who is black. When Robert and his mother need to suddenly travel back to her childhood home, Robert must decide what he personally believes about justice and what he's willing to sacrifice so that others might have it.

Robert's faith is influenced by his father and others he meets along the way. I was very moved by William Henry Is a Fine Name, and it's definitely a book that stays with you. The historical details made the story come alive, and I'd like to know more real-life stories of those who conducted and traveled the Underground Railroad.

What a great book! I thoroughly enjoyed the photos and write up regarding the home and farm within this publication. A keeper.

Requires several readings, first to view the images, then read the accompanying text and realize what inventive ideas have been introduced: hooked rug chickens and corn cobs! But the mesemerizing effect of a story unfolding over the course of a year in the lives of two hand crafters of beauty and aesthetic tranquillity draws you into their lives as the farm moves through the seasons. Satisfying visit to a work in progress, a potpourri garden transformed into a white garden. Wooden scarecrows crafted from twigs and discarded garden implements. Stunning visuals

This book is enchanting. I'm amazed at how the two artists/gardeners have fused together their art and lives. The many photos are lovely and full of wonderful, earthy ideas. I only wish I could step through the pages and experience Seven Gates Farm first hand! Instead, I will be content to allow the book to be a life-long inspiration for me. Thank you, James and Dean.

This book details the creative designs of two artistic guys who purchased the nineteenth century Seven Gates Farm in Keedysville, Maryland. If you like country, Americana, and crafts, you will love this book. Hundreds of full color photographs tour the farm during each season of the year. The reader can see how the farm changes when the landscape is covered with different plants and the house is taken over by a new crop of crafts and collectibles. These artists must have incredible cupboard space to house their thousands of knickknacks and antiques as new ones are brought out for the season or holiday. The vintage flags unveiled for the Fourth of July I found to be some of the more interesting displays. The farm is near Antietam, so the Civil War heritage is very important in these parts. One of the flags displayed was used in a Civil War battle.

The book also gives the reader step-by-step instructions and hints for making crafts or collecting antique/vintage items. Some of the things you can learn to create are myrtle topiaries, cold frames for getting a head start on the growing season (also through the use of bell jars), creative table decorations, miniature gardens, herb-covered eggs, rustic twig scarecrows (very cute), scented water, summer vinegar dressings, and angel shoes for Christmas ornaments. You can also learn a little bit about collecting rag dolls, calicoes, miniature log cabins, and blankets. I liked seeing the changes through the seasons, but I think it would have been more effective if the book pictured each of the main features (the greenhouse, wash-house, smokehouse, vegetable garden, etc.) in order for each season so the changes are more evident and the reader can easily flip pages and compare a different area for each season. As it is, some areas are not even covered for each season. The map on the inside front and back covers is helpful for following the landscape of the property. Anyone interested in crafts will enjoy this book.

A beautiful fact filled book - decorate your home, inside and out, cost effectively­wonderfully written, excuisite photos, creatively designed.

I had traveled to Reston, VA with my dogs to go to the Pet Fiesta while there I picked this book up and used it to travel all over the Washington D.C. area with my dogs. I am so glad that I did because I was not sure what I was going to do after the Pet Fiesta was over and this book opened up lots of options and lots of ideas for future trips.

I advise taking a pen with you so you can write in additional things that you find that may not be listed in the book. While at Old Town Alexandria today we ate at an Irish restaurant that had a doggie menu that was not listed in the book but was a must go to if you travel there.

I loved this book and only wish that there was one for my area.

I bought this based on the great reviews, so perhaps it was a let-down because I had high expectations. This is a guide book with a slight dog orientation, but honeselty, I didn't feel like this really gave me much valuable information about living and traveling in the DC area with a dog- other than telling me where parks are (info available on many web sites). The actual dog-friendliness of the parks, and rating system seemed totally off with how I would have rated parks. Seems like they are rated more for person-appeal than dog-appeal.

But maybe I'm just biased as I have a hound and value FENCED off-leash parks above all :)

I highly recommend this book to dog owners who love to take their little four-legged friend(s) everywhere. It is well organized and the writing style used is perfect for dog lovers.

It covers almost all the parks in the Washington D.C., Virginia and Baltimore. Have you ever looked up a park on a map and it looked huge and perfect for your dog, and when you got there, you and your dog were very disappointing with the park? Well, the review for each park is quite accurate. With this book on hand, you can look up a park and find out if it is suitable for your dog before driving there. It covers important information that a dog owner needs to know about the park/area - such as the poop scoop law and the leash law.

It also contains information (ie. hotel, restaurant, pet stores, etc...) that is very useful for dog owners who like to take their pooches on vacation with them.

Embedded into the book, you will find dog adoption information. The book encourages suggestions from readers. I've already written to the publisher suggesting to include information on various rescue organizations and local animal shelters - a way to help promote pet rescue/adoption.

I bought this book when it first came out for a friend of mine who was moving to Baltimore with her dog. Two years later, I borrowed it from her when I discovered I was moving to D.C. I found it enormously usefull for choosing a dog-friendly neighborhood with good access to parks. The authors understand the basic qualities of a good dog park: safety, space, a group of 'regular' neighborhood go-ers, and access to a good espresso bar for weekend dog walking. Overall, the writers do an excelent job.

I have only a few complaints. One - due to the impossibility of visiting every park in this populous region more than once, I've found that the park's ratings can heavily reflect the day and time of the visit -- not necessarily what the park is like on a typical weekday at 6pm. Also, some park ratings reflect a nice place to go with a small dog on a leash, you won't necessarily have the same experience with your massive Great Dane tugging at every new smell. The writers also disapprove of dogs being off-leash, and rate more lowly some parks that are true jems for those of us with larger dogs that require more exercise.

Overall, a great guide, and certainly unique. A must for all dog owners in this area, particularly if you moving to this region.

This is one of my favorite books ever. Really. I moved to the D.C. area with my lab three years ago, and while we were used to having dozens of places to go for various reasons or times, I didn't know where to begin to find good places to take her around our new home. This book was a godsend for finding fun places to go, especially because I found the reviews to give a me a very accurate idea of what sort of place we were going, including what sort of "feel" it might have for dog-friendliness. Some of the features of the book I have found extremely helpful are:

* Birds-eye maps showing where the reviewed locations are in the counties covered (perfect for finding a park near odd places that I might run errands)
* How strict the leash law is followed (this is a biggie for me -- while the authors point out excellent reasons to use the leash, they very helpfully suggest where we can get away without it)
* Rough idea how crowded the area in question might be, and how easy or difficult to get to (varies of course by time of day and season)
* Whether there's a place for doggie swimming

In my area (Sterling/Ashburn, VA) I've found the book to be amazingly comprehensive for my local and outlying areas, and find that the park descriptions have always given me a pretty accurate idea what to expect. The book covers a wide enough range (including some pseudo-local vacation destinations) that I've used it on countless occasions to find nice stopover while on short trips outside my "home turf". Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys finding varied places to visit with their pups.

I knew Bruce as a phibeta kappa at the University of Md. I "reviewed" this book . I picked it up and set it down. Bruce is/was a talented individual but I thought the length and time involved was too much ( as Shaw remarked on Joyce).Great talent. Great length. In interpretation, realize Bruce's mother also died in his youth. Art imitates life.

After "The World as I Found It," this novel just left me bored. The character development is good but labored. I found the endless descriptions and musings of a young man whose mother has died simply tiresome. I could not finish the book

Reading this book reminds me of growing up in the 60's... particulary how weird it was visiting other kid's houses. At that age, I pretty much thought the rest of the world lived the same way I did (compulsively clean Mom), so it was like visiting a foreign country when I'd see other kids bedrooms, and smell the differences between my house and their house.

I hadn't really thought about stuff like that for 20 years... and reading this book brought it all back home. Very, very enjoyable and very, very funny (but tragic-fun... the best kind).

I'm Bruce Duffy's daughter. Many people found this book to be a "dissapointment" and have racial slurs, and just be a "weird" novel. What no one realizes is that although exaggerated, some of these events actually happened. Its such a raw, real book. My Dad wrote something for himself, hes been through so much emotional childhood pain and this book was a release. He didn't care much what anyone thought of it. It was mainly for him, a sort of therapy. I think that it was quite brave of him to write a book and not focus on whether or not it would be comparable to "The World As I Found It." If he had gotten caught up in that, it wouldn't have been literature, simply a fake attempt at depth and masterpeice. I found this book, because of the motives behind it (and I won't lie...because I understood it better than his first novel, seeing as I am 15) to be much more profound than any "classic" contrived novel.

--Lily Duffy

The World As I Found It (Duffy's first book) was a strong, irresistable book, which got behind you and pushed you headlong through the story of an opaque philosopher. It was great, and I wondered how Duffy could follow it. Last Comes the Egg could easily have been titled The World As I Found It too, but what a different world it is. Gone are the lofty havens of great thinkers, the vaulting halls of Cambridge and the battlefields of Europe. Instead we have suburban Maryland in the sixties, a place coming from nowhere, and not going to anywhere either. And in place of the sheer power, we have a very subtle, quiet story, which opens itself up to be explored.

The story all happens in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, in a middle-class neighborhood of nobody in particular. Into this life of complete unimportance are thrust the children, who, like their parents, cannot accept their own insignificance, and struggle to find a place of importance in a world that is indifferent to them. In a very different journey of discovery, these children seek in themselves to find who they are, even as they look around them to discover what role, what performance other people like best. And in this microcosm of identity and conformity, the attentive reader will find pieces of himself (and herself) scattered around. And hopefully they will come away with a better understanding.

I found the book tremendously rewarding, and a powerful window on adolescence in America. Duffy aims for and hits the real heart of the end of childhood, and brings out what everyone feels as they teeter on the edge of adulthood - "Wait - I thought there was something more..." In the emptiness of real life, we are shown how everyone finds something to latch onto, to call important, to be their own special illusion. We make ourselves into heroes, protecting our precious, fragile eggs, until some few of us find the strength to let it fall.

I really enjoyed this book. It kept my interest from page one thru to the end. And the end was a surprise. I did not successfully guess the murderer and the story gets exciting near the end which makes it hard to put down. I give it a high rating for enjoyment and suspense.

Fans of cozies will enjoy watching school teacher/amateur sleuth, Maggie Olenski, expose a killer. Maggie's much needed vacation at Highview Inn, Maryland takes a nasty turn when an employee and former student is found murdered. Maggie is determined to find the killer, and with the help of her new-found friend and quirky side-kick, Dyna, unravels the mystery. Author Hughes weaves an interesting plot and keeps you guessing right up to the end.

I really enjoyed this book. It kept my interest from page one thru to the end. And the end was a surprise. I did not successfully guess the murderer and the story gets exciting near the end which makes it hard to put down. I give it a high rating for enjoyment and suspense.

Resort to Murder met my criteria of a spell-binding mystery because it kept me totally absorbed. I wanted to know how the plot unfolded and continued to read until I learned the identify of the murderer and why that person felt compelled to take such drastic steps. An added bonus was being able to relate to the setting because it is near where I live.

From the first page, I was "sucked" into this book. The characters were interesting and real. I found myself thinking about the characters and the story throughout my day. I couldn't wait to see what would happen to Maggie next. I really liked the fact that Maggie is a teacher - I could relate to her thinking (I'm also a teacher) as she solved the mystery. The author wrote a suspensful and thrilling mystery. You'll love it! I've told all my friends about it!

Peter is a working class successful writer who has become blocked and so begs his well heeled wife (Katherine) who is 8 ½ months pregnant to set him a task. She does which is to tell stories as they sail around the Chesapeake Bay (a 200 mile long estuary on the Virginia and Maryland coastlines) in their boat called Story. During of which we discover how they fell in love in the 60's but not met up until the 70's and why they are having babies now as they hit 40. But this is only one of three other love stories in the novel. One is the love of landscape and the other is of sailing. Both of which are powerfully evoked throughout the novel. Their love story, landscape and sailing are then effectively linked to their families. Hers being local old money who have shaped the land since before the USA was founded and his being boat builders who have shaped access to the water since coming over in the 19th century.

Katherine's family are open, generous friendly and sophisticated so accept and support the whims of Peter and Katherine to sail around the Bay. Likewise Peter shy and intense and Katherine open and bright are deep friends and in love so we like the characters and join in the physicality evoked by the writing. However these are but three of several strands in the novel, two others are a political thriller and an eco-mystery. The first explores the CIA-KGB spy games as the SALT talks dirty tricks play out in the local area. The second looks at the environmental damage being done by illegal dumping. Both story lines are linked firmly with Katharine's ex husband and her charming but wastrel brother but not as you expect.

But all this are themes for the real focus of the novel which is about the art and mystery of writing and story telling. So over the 14 days of sailing we move in and out of the stories of Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn, 1001 nights of Arabian Tales, Odyssey as they shape and are shaped by the love story landscape and sailing. We meet the narrators as characters finishing their own stories and shaping the novel as we do as reader-characters. This means that the narrative moves through a whole range of formats (plays, short essays, monologues, puns, wordplay etc) and genres (love story, social comedy, thriller, family saga, etc) with us and the unborn babies as narrator commentators along with the characters who know they are in a story. And we know their fates outside the story itself.

Don't expect a quick read as its 655 pages and small print but do expect an intellectual tour de force and a page turner for what is mediation on writing that races along driven by the reader's identification with Peter's writers block, and their immediate parenthood while the multi-layer story entertains and stretches. Clearly a banquet that lingers in the memory when many beans on toast novels have been long forgotten so highly recommended.

Barth is a fine writer who does a marvelous job in creating believable and likable characters. it was fun to sail with him and his yuppy friends in the Chesapeake. (A non-sailer would miss much of the action and pleasure of this novel) The story of the couple and the boat would make a fine but smaller novel. Barth's politics are those of aca- deme and perhaps intrude too much into what is supposed to be only a story...not an effort to convert those who are not PC already. But he sure

can write and OH, I do love KISS just as he does.

Set me a task indeed! It has become the catch phrase my wife and I use to pull ourselves out of a funk... and reading this book will pull just about anyone out of theirs. Following Peter and Kate's sailing adventure over the course of the last 14 days of their pregnancy (with twins) is a celebration of life. Don't be daunted by it's length! It's like reading multiple books in one: a travel book, a play, throw a little espionage and environmentalism into the pot and meet some of literature's greatest characters along the way. Get through the first 50 pages, then sit back and enjoy the ride. By the end you'll find that you just don't want it to end.

I'm 5 pages from the end of this book, but I'm postponing reading them because I just don't want it to end. Like The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, this book is escapism at its most extreme.

The framing is phenomenal, mirror images abound, pairs proliferate, and while things constantly remain at the edge of confusion, Barth always reins you in just before you teeter off into chaos. So deft with words, and even more so with their meanings, Barth has written what is quite possibly my favorite book of all time.

Of the maybe five novels of Barth I've read so far in my young life, this is probably my favorite of them all (Sot-Weed Factor does run a close second, however) if only due to the laziness factor since I didn't feel I needed a doctorate in English literature or mythology to understand everything that was going on. All told, on the surface this is probably one of the lighter books he's done . . . it's basically about a couple (teh wife's eight months pregnant) going out sailing in Cheaspeake Bay and to pass time they start telling stories. Except it's about everything else too and slowly the novel starts to incorporate local history, the knots of the characters' lives, mythology, plays, short stories . . . you name it. For someone not of Barth's skill this would come off as a tedious academic exercise merely to show the author's genre bending abilities. Once in a while it teeters toward that but manages to stay on the right side of the line. What helps is the sheer exuburance of the book, the people all seem to like each other (not that there isn't conflict), folks are happy with their lives, never before has Barth managed to create a more three dimensional set of people or given them a more realistic world to inhabit. It's just genuinely enjoyable to read, especially as the stories and stories-within-stories start to bounce off each othere. There are echoes of several of Barth's earlier works here, I spotted definitely Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera (and the Sot-Weed Factor is mentioned) so for long time readers it's a bit of a revisit with old friends. Is the book probably longer than it needs to be? Yeah, but if long books are your problem than you shouldn't be reading Barth. The main couple Peter and Katherine are sometimes a bit too precious for words (the constant renaming of the babies got annoying real fast) and in spurts there is just too much love going around but I can't really level that as a flaw now, can I? Politics does threaten to creep in every so often but it's dated eighties style politics now so I didn't pay much attention to it. Overall, it doesn't break any vibrant new ground for Barth but serves as a fine summing up of his strengths and his skills, the man can tell a decent story and he can write the pants off just about anybody (and no, those aren't the same thing) so if you want a fun "literary" novel that won't overwhelm you with all those nasty post-modern tricks those oh so erudite authors love to pull on unsuspecting readers, this might just be what you're looking for. Just stay away if you're allergic to mythology, if you want to read Barth it's not something you can easily escape from. But I like it anyway.