Weather Books

While I will agree that the earth may be warming slightly, it is part of the ever changing planet on which we live. I don't believe for one minute that any change is due to humans and emmissions. It is fine for kids to want to explore new and better alternatives to help us in the future, but please stop making it sound like the planet will be ending soon.

A great book for children. Clearly illustrates the science of global warming in a way that is easy for children to understand. A Clean Sky shows children what is happening to our planet and gives many positive solutions to solving this growing issue. Highly Recommended!

My 11-year old daughter is discussing global warming in school and what we can do about it as individuals, a family and as a school. I was amazed to read about the kinds of things that are being done, including this whole idea about generating electricity using hydrogren and then capturing carbon dioxide. This makes so much sense, I don't understand why we aren't doing this everywhere. Thank you for your book, which was very informative and helpful -- for both me and my daughter. I think we both better understand about using hydrogen, capturing carbon dioxide and what we can all do about global warming.

As a parent of a 14 year old, I feel this book would be a wonderful addition to the library of a Junior High School level science class. This book is very informative and would definately spark young minds to take action and would also be an excellent resourse to suggest science projects. Children these days are definately in tune with these global issues and this book provided some answers and suggestions on how we can help the state of our planet.

It is refreshing to see science and engineering presented to children with the aim of interesting children in science and engineering, rather than trying to get them to adopt some particular point of view. This book is not at all a "scare story" about global warming, but instead is something much more interesting and much more valuable: an explanation that children can understand about what happens (good and bad) when we burn fuel, and attempts to engage their interest in the fact that science and engineering are the only real path to understanding and improvement.

I found this book to contain many useful tidbits of information, especially about prevailing weather conditions. The author gives insightful and non obvious ways for determining the approach of Santa Ana's which itself is probably worth the price of the book

This is a good book for those interested in cruising the west coast, you can always get something out of the book if you plan to make that trip up the coast, lots of good information to research and make plans from.

After cruising in the Pacific NW for the past two years using the Douglass and Hemingway guides and the Waggoner Guide, we were admittedly spoiled. If that's the quality you expect, you won't get it here. On the other hand, we couldn't find an alternative, and this is better than nothing. The harbor diagrams were nice, but there aren't enough of them and what there are don't provide enough detail. The landmarks mentioned in the text often don't appear in the diagrams. We also noticed inaccuracies, but this could be due to time. For example, the fuel dock in Morro Bay wasn't where the guide said it was. However, the woman at the Visitor Information Center also thought it was in the direction indicated in the book. (For others looking for it, it's across from marker 12, not beyond 18.)

From a recent sailing trip out of Santa Barbara through the channel islands I can tell you that this book is invaluable. His treatment of safe ports and refuges (arranged very well but conditions) was fantastic and kept us out of danger.

We have used Brian Fagans guidebooks from SD to SF for many years, but this is the best of the lot. We recently led a cruise to the Channel Islands, and made this a "must" for the cruisers, all of whom praised it highly. Really THE guidebook to coastal cruising in Central-Southern California---and a bargain!

A mix of a novel and science text, neither which is worthy of reading.

Floridians tend to associate El Nino with hurricanes, but the Pacific -born weather system also brings droughts and mudslides, even firestorms and epidemics.

Nash, a former Time magazine correspondent, explores the "teleconnectiveness" of wind, water and the world's ecological systems as she tells the story of the 1997-98 El Nino. She profiles scientists who research the mysterious weather pattern even as she describes it's effects.

Warm wet winters, hot dry summers - calling cards of the weather pattern El Nino. How something so huge, impacting so many lives across the globe was not recognized truly until the past couple of decades is one of the points that Nash tries to make. After the first few chapters, looking at historical meteorological records and the understanding of El Nino, she continues on and places this weather maker in a larger historical, social and political context. How El Nino and La Nina patterns can affect disease spread, the life cycles of other animals and coral, and the growth and destruction of civilizations are topics for exploration. For El Nino truly defies the traditional way of thinking about climatology and pulls back the view to the global scale.

Despite being so focused on a weather maker, the book is fairly jargon free. You don't need to know you isobars from your relative humidity. Some basic science knowledge makes it easier to follow many of her points, but you are not lost in geek speak. I did find that often she would talk about glacial formations using words that she never defines, which makes it harder to make a mental picture, but these problems are few and far between. I walked away with a better understanding of what is going on, and understand the how far we have to go in truly understanding this climate controller. A must for anyone who watches the Weather Channel.

Ms. Nash has done an admirable job of reconstructing the research background on this topic. Her book will certainly increase the public understanding of El Nino and meteorology in general. A downside for me was writing the book as if it were an article in a waiting room magazine e.g. p113 "Painted a gay red and white, these doughnut-shaped buoys sported whirligig instruments known as anemometers for measuring wind speeds and jaunty antennas....)" This is annoying to someone who is seriously intersted in this fascinating phenomenon.

Nash brings a complex subject to life through stories of the maverick, and occasionally ridiculed, scientists who hunted El Nino over the centuries. She has a delicate touch and paints vivid images of El Nino's glory and its fury, effortlessly explaining seemingly impenetrable science to make it relevant and, more importantly, interesting to the lay reader. Nash has a journalist's way of getting to the point, so there's nothing extraneous is this tightly written narrative. If you liked "Longitude", "Cod", or "Guns, Germs & Steel", or you're simply a fan of the Weather Channel, "El Nino: Unlocking the Secrets of the Master Weather-Maker" is one you don't want to miss.

This book was really well written, but i expected stories about people riding out hurricanes, not research flights. If you like knowing about how a hurricane is researched and forecast, you will like this book. I did enjoy the descriptions of damage done by hurricane Mitch, I just wish there had been more of that.

"Inside the Hurricane" is far more interesting than several other recent weather books (the horrid "Tying down the Wind" and the ho-hum "Eye of the Storm"). Author Pete Davies provides an exccelent account of Hurricanes Mitch and Floyd and the horrendous damage they wrought. He also sounds a dire warning about the near certainty that the Gulf or East Coasts of the U.S. will someday experience a catastrophe of epic proportions. Imagine, writes the author, if Mitch had followed the same storm track as Hurricane Irene, a Catagory 1 storm that deluged Miami not long after Floyd made headlines.

A lion's share of author Pete Davies's narrative involves the stories of the forecasters and storm chasers who track these meteorlogical beasts. And while their stories are somtimes interesting, they don't have the same power as the descriptions of the hurricaines themselves. Overall however, "Inside the Hurricane" is a decent book for weather-philes.

"Inside the Hurricane: Face to Face With Nature's Deadliest Storms", is worthwhile for anyone interested in learning more about hurricanes. This book concentrates on following the 1999 hurricane season, with an examination of the horror inflicted by 1998's Category 5 Hurricane Mitch, which killed at least 9,000 people in Central America. The author gives a riveting account of the power of Mitch, telling of its absolute devastion to the nation of Honduras.

The author concentrates on the Hurricane Research Division (HRD), the scientists who try to learn more on these powerful storms, and who fly into them for first-hand scientific observation,and the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the people responsible for making the forecasts as to where these dangerous storms will go. This is interesting stuff, especially when the scientists fly into the storms.

Unfortunately, it seems that that the author simply took info off his tape recorder and stuck it into the book, beacause a lot of the heavy science conversations which are included in this book do not have enough explanation or context.

This book is also hindered by certain editorial decisions. This book suffers from the lack of maps showing the tracks of the hurricanes the author discusses, especially because the author spends a great deal of time discussing the meandering nature of the hurricanes.

The book also contains some minor errors, some of which can be chalked up to the author not being a native American (e.g., describing as one of the highest points in Florida as "Disney's Magic Mountain", when everyone knows that he meant Disney's Space Mountain.) While these minor errors do not really detract from this book, and the above-average number of typos is not much of a problem, the real problem comes from the feel that there are times when this author does not go into needed detail. For example, the author talks about the rapid intensification of Hurricanes Opal and Camille, but while the author examined the rapid intensification of Opal, he made no such prior mention of Camille.

The author fails to provide detail in other areas. While expalantions are provided for some criticism of the media, we really don't know why the huuricane jocks at HRD are so critical of the Weather Channel's staff, especially weatherman Jim Cantori. This book has a slap-dash feel.

However, the descriptions of the hurricanes themselves surpass the author's limitations in other areas of writing. As a native of New Orleans, I've seen my share of hurricanes. One of my earliest memories is of Hurricane Betsy. I lost family in Hurricane Camille. I was one of the tens of thousands of people who evacuted, with my family, from 1998's Hurricane Georges, which was a near miss. I've done research on hurricanes for school, so I have a bit more scientific and personal knowledge than the general public. There are flaws in this book, but the postives far out weigh the negatives.

The author has not written the perfect book on hurricanes, but he is to be commended for spelling out the dangers these massive storms pose, for pointing out the lack of funding which goes into hurricane research, and for his skill in relating the tragedy which is inflicted on hurricane victims, especially the devastation of Hounduras.

Well worth the money, well written, very factual; one of the better books dealing with current science of Hurricanes.

Pete Davies spent the 1999 hurricane season with the scientists of the National Hurricane Center in Miami as they studied a series of fascinating and intense hurricanes and struggled with budget limitations that are, in these times of surplus, increasingly inane and unforgivable. Davies' writing is vivid and gripping; his descriptions of the devastation of Hurricane Mitch and the experience of people in the midst of the storm are absolutely unforgettable. Davies also flew missions with the NOAA's P-3 hurricane hunter aircraft and gives a good feel for the combination of raw excitement, pure terror, and occasional boredom of these epic flights. One thing missing from the book were any charts, maps, or diagrams; an appendix containing the Saffir-Simpson scale would have been nice. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in hurricanes, which should be anyone who lives in the United States. Even if your state is out of the reach of hurricane damage (and few actually are), the devastation caused by these vast and increasingly dangerous storms can cause economic disaster and human suffering on a scale not exceeded by any other natural disaster. And after reading, contact your congressional representatives and express to them your dismay that funding for important research remains at pittance levels. Too often Americans brainlessly run around chanting "We're Number One!" when what is really needed is a good long look at how money is spent in this country and who truly benefits from government funding.

great pocket guide to forecasting the weather in the near-term future. (ie, 2-4 hours in advance) this would be an excellent companion for any outdoor enthusiast.

"Instant Weather Forecasting" reads like a zen field guide to weather prediction. It begins like most books of its kind with basic weather terminology and definitions with a few black and white diagrams and a couple of nifty charts of cloud types and wind force.

But the heart of this book is the 24 color cloud pictures which follow, each with its own chart to tell you what type of weather is following based on wind. visibility, precipitation, cloud covering, temperature and air pressure. The pictures are grouped by weather (i.e Sky associated with bad weather, sky associated with no immediate change, etc.) By no means exhaustive, it still makes for an excellent field companion.
Also recommended, Basic Essentials: Weather Forecasting, 2nd Edition(ISBN 0762704780) and Braving the Elements (ISBN 038546956X).

This is a short, pamphlet book with 20-30 full page pictures of clouds, accompanied by technical information that would supposedly allow you to look at the sky and predict the weather. I don't think so. The weather wizards book discussed the progression of cloud formations and is a much better book for this purpose. I found this book to be at one too technical and too simple. Had the author placed the photographs in the order one typically observes the change from high to low to high, or warm cold warm, and discussed what is happening within these systems and how the clouds reflect that, this could have been much better.

This book rates 5 stars IF you use it for its intended pupose only.

Very fast. No mounds of text to crawl through. Find the photo and sky that most closely matches what you are seeing, factor in a couple of additional points, and your predictions for the next several hours, or a bit more than that, are likely to be as reliable as any other source you may have.
This little book should be an essential resource at sea.

Downside? More than half a day or so, and accuracy of your prediction will decrease. While this is always true in looking at weather forecasting tools, be certain to keep this in mind when using this very nice quick resource.

Highly recommended.

INSTANT WEATHER FORECASTING by Alan Watts (NOT the philosopher Alan Wilson Watts, by the way) is a handy and important quick reference guide that's simple to use. Simply match the sky you see with one of the photos in this book and you have a dead reckoning weather prediction for the next six to twelve hours.

It may not be a weatherfax, but for those of us who sail and depend on our informed instincts INSTANT WEATHER FORECASTING can be a lifesaver---especially in having a sense for local conditions.

I purchased this book specifically for technical information on creating outdoor mosaics. I was particularly interested in recommendations for grouting, adhesives, materials, etc. The majority of the book is taken up with lovely pictures and projects, but the technical portion is given the short shift at the end of the book. I'd recommend other books if you are just starting out and are looking for good, detailed information.

The book is mainly devoted to showing various projects made by the authors. Very nice and inspiring, as they do wonderful work, but if you are looking for in-depth instructions or practical knowledge, this is not the book. Try Encyclopedia of Mosaic Techniques by the same authors, instead.

This book had a great chapter on technical information and weather proofing outdoor mosaics. Was extremely helpful in determining which products I should be using on my own water feature and protecting it. Well worth the effort and time to have it sent to Australia for this chapter alone.

Brilliant book written by two of the most experienced mosaicists in the UK. I was so impressed, I attended a Mosaic Workshop course in London in October 2002 which was taught by Emma Biggs. I am now using this book as a reference for the techniques demonstrated on that course, and I thoroughly recommend it. It contains some very specific technical advice regarding weatherproofing. The advice is based on years of experience, so the techniques are eseential to follow to ensure longevity of the mosaic works. I was a total beginner last month, but feel competent and full of confidence with outdoor mosaic now. I certainly recommend this book for inspiration and reference for those who have done a bit of mosaic work.

This is a fabulous book! I have been a creating outdoor mosaics for over 15 years, and I have finally found a book that gets it correct! They have great step by step instructions, and suppliers listed as well as fabulous pictures! Five Stars!!!

Right from the acknowledgement --"David [Gilbert] has been a close friend . . ." we learn the author has a pro-radical viewpoint. Who is Gilbert? From Wikipedia -- "After eleven years underground, he was arrested in 1981, along with members of the Black Liberation Army and other radicals, after they killed three people in an armored car robbery. He is now a well-known prisoner in upstate New York, serving a 75 years-to-life sentence for his role in the robbery."

Gilbert in the book is quoted as saying he is a "political prisoner." I wonder how the families of the dead Brinks workers feel about that statement.

I've read many negative things during the 2008 election race about William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. You will not find them in this book.

An example of the bias. During the Days of Rage, a Chicago city lawyer named Richard Elrod ended up paralyzed. See page 112 of this book and you will be told that Elrod missed a flying tackle against a running protester, injuring himself. This is a one-sided and cursory explanation. Elrod, now an Illinois judge, has an entirely different story. The alleged perpetrator of the stomping on a prone Elrod maintains his innocence, and a jury acquitted that person. But thorough discussions of the incident are available on the web that discuss the case in detail; I came away with the feeling from independent reading that the prosecution botched the case by allowing a biased witness to take the stand. I suggest the reader interested in the issue should do some internet research if he/she wants to properly evaluate the case.

Unless I missed it, I did not see any of the eloquent statements attributed to Dohrn over the years. The book discusses the "Flint War Council" and says that Dohrn "praised the recent murders" committed by the Manson family. That's all. Why did the author not note her infamous quote: "Offing those rich pigs with their own forks and knives, and then eating a meal in the same room, far out! The Weathermen dig Charles Manson." As others have noted, those victims were Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, a middle-aged couple -- Leno was stabbed 12 times with a knife, and 14 times with a carving fork. Rosemary was stabbed 41 times. Perhaps a more careful researcher can verify the internet allegation that Dohrn also once led a celebration of Elrod's paralysis by leading her comrades in a parody of a Bob Dylan song -- "Lay, Elrod, Lay."

The author, Dan Berger, is said to be a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. I hope his dissertation committee scrutinizes the work he presents there. This is a book with only one view, and apologia for the Weathermen. This book has limited usefulness.

a fascinating recounting of one of the more exciting, fresh, and daring movements of individuals known as the weather underground. This book recounts the early history, motivations, and background of social struggle taking place during this period of social struggle.

Particularly interesting was the authors discussion of racism and the role it played (and plays) in American society. As well as the very deep analytical attention towards class and priviledge and the role it plays in a class seperated society.

The individuals in this story are real with all their strengths and weaknesses intact. The author leaves us, the reader, to make our own conclusions about what the movement known as the Weather Underground means to our current reality.

This was a thorough history, drawing on a number of sources and directions; but Berger keeps it rather readable. Casual? No. But approachable. Scholarly? Yes. But not egg-headed. It furnishes the reader with an overarching historical narrative, as well as dipping back and forth with another, contemporary narrative involving the interviews and friendship between a former Weatherman and the author. Few of my questions are left hanging by the text, with one particular exception: I would very much have had an appendix reproducing the texts of the WUO communiques and published works. Berger refers heavily and excerpts some, as I recall, but I would very much liked to have been able to flip to the back and read a whole communique.

This is an engaging read that manages to strip back propaganda from both sides of the line and tells the story both in the WUO's own words and through the mouth of an historian.

Berger's history of the Weather Underground is meticulously researched, and his writing is straightforward and clear. Weatherman is portrayed in a compassionate but unromanticized light. This important book is a must-read for everyone with an interest in 20th century social justice movements.

The Politics of the Weather Underground
Volunteers of America
By RON JACOBS

In 1997 Verso published my history of the Weather Underground, The Way the Wind Blew: a History of the Weather Underground. Weather Underground member Bill Ayers' memoir Fugitive Days, published by Beacon Press in 2001, followed. Two years later, the film The Weather Underground, directed by Sam Green and Bill Siegel, was released. The film probably received the greatest amount of coverage in the mainstream media, although the unfortunate timing of Weather Underground member Bill Ayers' memoir (September 11, 2001) certainly provided his book with its own share, most of it negative.

There have also been novels written where the WUO figured prominently (most notably The Company You Keep by Neil Gordon Viking 2003), a pamphlet written by political prisoner David Gilbert (SDS/WUO, Students For A Democratic Society And The Weather Underground Organization, Arm the Spirit 2002) and the comparative study of the Weather Underground and the German leftist armed organization, the Red Army Fraction, by Jeremy Varon (Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies; UC Press 2004).

AK Press of Oakland, California is adding another book to this growing library of Weather Underground literature. The book, titled Outlaws of America and written by up-and-coming radical author Dan Berger, is an important complement to the earlier works. The first history of the Weather Underground Organization(WUO) to be written by someone whose age parallels the ages of the children of WUO members and many other "sixties" activists (Berger is 24), this well-researched and detailed work provides a perspective on the most well-known group in the militant wing of the anti-racist and antiwar movement. The book is essential to understanding the history of the 1960s, as well as the present movements against racism and imperialist war.

Two things make this book different than the one I got published 8 years ago. The first, and probably the greatest, is that Berger had access to the research and work that went into Green's film and my book. In addition, he also had much greater access to many of the personalities involved in the Weather organization. Green had a similar access. Things were a bit different when I was writing my book (1990-1997). Queries I sent to those members in prison were returned to me by prison officials, never having reached their intended recipient. Only a few individuals who had been in Weatherman/WUO were willing to talk with me and only two were willing to go on record. Others were willing to tell me if my story was accurate or not, but refused to discuss any specifics. One reason for this was the timing of my queries. After all, many Weather members were still unsure of their legal status and, politically, the US Left was still reeling from the effects of the incredibly reactionary Reagan era--a period that saw many members of the militant US left imprisoned and its infrastructure destroyed. In addition, hardly anyone that I approached knew my politics--which were a cross between the countercultural anarchism of the Yippies and the new communist movement of the 1970s. Berger and others have mentioned that my book helped to make it okay for WUO to be discussed as a force in US radical history. I was sent dozens of emails and letters from people telling me their stories as members of WUO or other militant groups after my book was published verifying this impression.

The other major difference between my work and Outlaws of America is that Berger writes from the perspective of today's generation of radical activists. (Indeed, Berger is co-editor of the recently released collection Letters From Young Activists.) His perspective is that of an anti-imperialist who came of age in the 1990s, not the 1960s and 1970s. This obviously provides a different perspective simply because the face of US imperialism has changed, with the end of the Soviet Union and its allies, and the rise of two worldwide movements against Western capitalism--the anti-global capitalism surge and the Islamic movement against the west. Both of these movements have varied strains and are only semi-consciously aware of the connections they share. Besides providing a different perspective on the WUO because of the difference in the historical situation, Berger's viewpoint is one that is not laden with the personality conflicts and ego battles that are part and parcel of every "Sixties" activist's recollection of the WUO. On top of that, Berger's historical distance means that he sometimes places his emphasis on words and actions that have more importance now than they did when they occurred. This tends to provide a more congruous history. At times, his words may seem too uncritical, but as another historian who was accused of the same thing, it is my belief that most of those who make this criticism are either fundamentally opposed to WUO's politics and analysis or are still stuck in a past that most Weather members have apologized for over and over.

Outlaws of America begins with a gripping description of Berger's first visit to Attica State Prison to interview/converse with former weather Underground member David Gilbert, who has been in the New York prison system since a conviction for his involvement in the tragic failure popularly known as the Nyack Brink's robbery. Berger obviously has a tremendous amount of respect for Gilbert's commitment while simultaneously understanding the tragedy of his position. In fact, each chapter begins with a quote from Gilbert--a technique that provides the reader with a glimpse of Berger's general perspective while never merely repeating Gilbert's take on things.

Much of the book's beginning is a general history of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the dissipation of that organization into Weatherman, Revolutionary Youth Movement 2, and SDS/Progressive Labor. Using an academically-trained critical eye, Berger analyzes key documents published in the SDS newspaper New Left Notes and explicates the role these writings had in the political development of Weather. His generational removal from the times allows for an analysis that accepts the fervent anti-racism and struggle against white privilege that would become Weather's theoretical backbone at face value. This is important to Berger's history. Once he establishes these elements as the basis for Weather's politics, Berger is able to provide the reader with a history of the Weatherman/Weather Underground Organization that would make its former members critically proud.

Given this, one might argue that while Outlaws of America might make former WUO members proud, it certainly couldn't be a good history if it accepts their political premise. After all, how could such a history be at all critical? To Berger's credit, it is the very fact that he uses the yardstick of Weather's essential political stance as the measure by which they should be judged that this history works as well as it does. It is apparent from his writing that his interviews with former members caused them to look at their actions and political words in relation to how well they measured up to their emotional and intellectual commitment to fighting racism, imperialism, and the white privilege these isms provide to white folks in the US.

As an activist who sees things differently than Weather did in terms of emphasis on fighting white privilege, I am more than willing to admit that it was their focus on this element of US society that made me aware of the phenomenon of white privilege and reminded me to fight it in myself and the larger world. On the other hand, my relationships with workers who also happened to be white led me to draw different conclusions about the way the phenomena of racism, white privilege, and economic exploitation interact in modern capitalist society. Of course, I was (and am) but one of hundreds of thousands pondering these questions. And they are important questions, to be sure.

Outlaws of America explores the final years of Weather in greater detail than its predecessors. In addition, Berger provides considerably more detail about the law enforcement activities arrayed against the WUO and its allies. This is one important part of the text where the element of time works in the author's favor. Not only is there more information regarding the law enforcement activities against the 1960s and 1970s popular leftist and anti-racist organizations, it is also much more accessible. This fact combined with Weather members willingness to discuss their years underground helps Berger flesh out the facts of State repression against the New Left, Black, Latino and Native American organizations, and especially the WUO. As regards the final years of Weather, the fact that many more former members feel safe in discussing the activities and politics of the group provided Berger with an opportunity to uncover the material. Of course, unless he asked the right questions, he would not have discovered what he did. Fortunately, Berger not only asked the right questions, he found enough former members willing to discuss their answers with him. Consequently, the reader is provided with the most complete explanation to date of how and why the Weather Underground Organization fell apart. Like every other aspect of its existence, the fundamental reasons were political. The stories and discussions in this section are instructive for today's movements as they struggle with questions of class, race, and gender.

Berger's best writing occurs when he weaves the modern-day reflections of former WUO members into his narrative text. He does this so skillfully that those reminiscences never come off sounding awkward or irrelevant. Sometimes these reflections merely add a bit of physical detail, while more often they provide a contextual insight into what these women and men were thinking while they lived and took political action underground. This is what makes this book different and useful to the historian, the "sixties" buff, and the political activist of today. These people lived the life of clandestine revolutionaries and this book proves that they made the choices they made because of their politics. It wasn't because of some guilt due to class privilege, nor was their choice related to some psychological occurrence of their childhood. Even more than the previous works about Weatherman/WUO, Outlaws of America brings it home, especially to the US reader, that people do make choices (life-changing choices) based on their politics. This in itself is revelatory in a culture that thinks politics begins with the Republicans and ends with the Democrats.

There's some criticism in these pages, too. To be sure, it's criticism from a left perspective, and that's a good thing. Those to the right of the US Left--and there are many--will read this book only under duress and rarely with an open mind. The reviews of the aforementioned works on the subject attest to that. Although I hope that Outlaws of America is read by people of all political persuasions, it's clear that it is intended for the growing left/anarchist movements of today and the New Left with its roots in yesterday. If those of us in that readership are to learn from history, it's very important that we critique that history. It's even better when that criticism comes from a variety of viewpoints. I hope this book, besides being an excellent read, sparks a new element in that conversation.

(Reviewer's note: March 6 marks the 36th anniversary of the deaths of Weathermembers Diana Oughton, Terry Robbins, and Ted Gold in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion.)

Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's new collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net

I had the pleasure of having Judge Stein for my law school class last fall. She was an excelllent professor for Civil Procedure, really connecting with the class. Despite her extreme politicl views, she never injected any of them into the classroom setting. Thai Jones's book chronicled his family's pursuit of sticking up for ideas in which they believe. While I do not condone the violence that other group members used, I admire Judge Stein's courage to stand up to those she opposed.

I read "A Radical Line" in a single weekend and it really was as advertised - a crash course in American protest movements. My parents lived through the sixties and they have bored me for years with stories from "back in the day". Reading this book - written by someone in my generation - showed me why that ancient history is still important today - maybe more than ever. The author tells the story through the people in his family, and when he describes the anger his parents felt because of American atrocities in Vietnam, it reminds me of the way I talk to my friends about the war in Iraq.

It is quite a feat to tackle writing a book about your parents and grandparents without succumbing to sentimentality, or in some people's case, bitterness. Thai Jones succeeds in keeping an even-handed, slightly amused tone to his family story, and some family it is. His parents, Jeff Jones and Eleanor Raskin, were two members of the Weather Underground, and the author was himself born on the run, so to speak. His first memory is of the FBI hauling his parents away when they were finally busted and he was age four. I don't envy him that memory.

And prior to Jeff and Eleanor were their respective parents, radicals of the Old Left, with their own strong opinions, which didn't necessarily match up with those of their offspring. That inherent tension gives the story some of its punch.

Of course, the most dramatic part of the book is the tromp through the New Left, SDS, and Weatherman (later, the Weather Underground). Jones draws on family memories, other participants, and reliable sources, but there may not be a whole lot new here for anyone who has read other memoirs such as Bill Ayers' or seen the Weather Underground documentary. Still, he provides yet another perspective which helps us triangulate on that over-heated era.

My main cavel about the book is its scattershot time-line, which bounces back and forth between different family members and different years. No doubt, some of this is done for dramatic effect, but it undercuts one's ability to get a clear picture of the linear order of events. And the confusion is made worse by Jones' almost exclusive use of first names for the main family members. A little journalistic insertion of last names, now and then, might have kept me better on track.

When all is said and done, I couldn't shake the feeling, from Jones' account, that both of his parents had a screw loose in the judgment department. The author's mother succumbs to the more revolutionary than thou guilt-tripping of the Weatherpersons, and leaves her first husband and abandons her law degree. At the time, I'm sure, it seemed like the right thing to do, but when you get right down to it, she flipped and joined a cult.

Jones' father, one of the most macho gun-wavers of the Weatherman leadership, can't keep from buying stand-out-in-a-crowd used cars, all while living "underground" and trying to remain inconspicuous, of course. This recklessness is topped off by his growing dope plants on an apartment fire escape in Hoboken, apparently to make a little cash while on the lam. This, needless to say, catches the eyes of the authorities and they're on the run again.

All in all, A Radical Line is an entertaining read. Slight flaws and family quirks aside, it provides a compelling portrait of two and a half generations of rebels.

These people were evil, violent and remain unrepentant to the present day. There is nothing to be gained by reading this poorly-written account of their misshapen lives.

This is a wry, smart book. Jones cleaves historical and personal stories into an astonishing narrative -- one that spans a century of American power and protest. That he does so at all is impressive; that he does so without any navel-gazing self indulgence is a miraculous breath of fresh memoir air. Jones' book is a stark and often critical look at his own family line, as well as a brilliant contextualization of everything from moral outrage and political movements to sex, drugs and car chases.

Sable island, something out of a myth, it is thirty miles long and barely a mile wide at points, a smiley face shaped sand down off the coast of Nova Scotia, the graveyard of hundreds of ships. It is an eiry place, the kind of thing that should'nt exist, a natural marvel. It also has a herd of wild horses too boot.

This well written and fascinating history tells both the natural history of the island and the history of the wrecks and disasters around it. The island has shifted throughout history, since it is just a large sand bar, but this book brings it to life. For anyone interested in maritime history or the sea or natural phenomena, this is a wonderful reag.

Seth J. Frantzman

I've not read many books that have done such a respectable job in bundling the past, with its deadly history, the present, encapsulating research and discoveries, and the portents of the future. Often inhospitable, shifting, and ever dangerous we may be losing a piece of naval navigation lore and beauty to the relentless re-shaping by the ocean's fury and the, seemingly, irreversible onslaught of global warming that will eventually raise the ocean levels enough to shroud an historic place of incomprable beauty, fear, and destruction.

A must read for "The Perfect Storm" crowd, those interested in maritime lore, and everyone who can 'see' the effects of global warming. Enjoy!

Sable Island is undoubtably a fascinating subject, and so it must take an exceptional talent to write such a uniformly dull book about it. I bought this book on a whim hoping it would live up to the mild acclaim paraded on the cover, but I've had to force myself to finish it over the last few days. The previous reviewer is spot-on regarding the topics covered, but he fails to mention that De Villiers managed to leach almost every ounce of interest from them. The only spark of vitality comes from other writers who De Villiers quotes extensively and to his own detriment. The book also lacks any sense of organization and I found myself repeatedly puzzled over how the chapters, not to mention the contents of the chapters, were supposed to be tied together.

Authors Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle have produced an interesting book on the history of the Canadian island known as Sable Island. One could be forgiven I believe for thinking the place uninteresting and unworthy of a nearly 250 page book, the island described by some as a "desolate and barren and storm-swept sandbank in the North Atlantic." A crescent shaped island, with arms at east and west reaching to the north, the center bulging towards the south, it is the last lonely outpost of land between Canada and Europe (or Bermuda). Located a hundred miles south of Nova Scotia, it is a mere thirty miles long and at its widest less than a mile wide. A treeless place, it is an island of dunes - some bald, most covered in vegetation - and small ponds. Not a particularly high island, on the north beach dunes reach 85 feet in height, but on the south beach they are rarely more than 8 feet high, considerably shorter than some of the waves that occur during the many gales and storms of the region (though waves that rarely reach the island directly - at least at that height - owing to numerous sand bars miles out to sea around the island). What fame the island has is generally not from it scenery; located on major shipping lands, in an area that is frequently prone to storms and fog, and often not very visible far out to sea, the island has been described as the deadliest piece of real estate in Canada, with hundreds of wrecks having taking place in its waters, fully ten wrecks for every mile of coastline. An additional dangerous feature of the island are its spits located out to the east and west (washed over too often for much in the way of vegetation) which extend between four and nine miles out, as well as the submerged east and west bars, which extend out to eighteen miles - though a massive storm can radically change the size of the spits and bars overnight.

The authors spent a great deal of time discussing the geology of the island, introducing many concepts of that science. Sable Island is an island of sand - not rocks, shale, slate, boulders, or really much in the way of soil - as indeed the name Sable is the French word for sand. Geologists have pegged the island's age at around 15,000 years and they believe the island represents a by-product of the glaciers that once covered Canada, that originally Sable Island was the terminal moraine of a glacier's advance (though much of that original sand has since been moved by wind and wave). The island has not been a static one, changing in size and shape numerous times over human history. Many believe that the island will eventually vanish, its sand vanishing into the depths of the Gully, a huge canyon cut in the continental shelf that almost touches the tip of the island's eastern bar, massive in size (largest submarine canyon in the western North Atlantic at 25 miles long, 10 miles wide, and 8,000 feet deep). There is a great deal of debate over whether the island is moving east, moving west, growing, or shrinking, a subject covered a length.

Meteorology and oceanography around the island are very well covered, with much discussion of global currents and wind systems. The island is very windy, with average winds at 16 miles an hour, gales of up 85 miles an hour routine, and winds of over 120 mph recorded during hurricane-strength storms. It is also wet - annual precipitation is 55 inches, mostly rain, monthly averaging between 3.6 and 5.7 inches - and foggy (July routinely boasts upwards of 20 foggy days and one June had 126 straight hours of fog).

Numerous animals call the island home. For decades the island was known for cattle that had been let loose on the island, though they were all harvested by the 1630s. More famous -and still present - are the ponies of Sable, owing their existence to the politics of the Expulsion (or in French the Grand Derangement or Great Upheaval) of the Acadians in the 1750s. The authors go into a great deal of detail on horse genealogy, firmly showing that the horses bear genetic (and historical) relationships to horses from Acadia. At various times rats, rabbits, cats, dogs, and foxes plagued the island though all have since been removed. Native animals include many species of insects (including three endemic moths and a beetle), a unique nematode, an endemic freshwater sponge which lives in the island's numerous ponds, the Ipswich Sparrow (a subspecies of the Savannah sparrow, breeds only on Sable), numerous nesting seabirds (mostly gulls, terns, and sandpipers), and seals (mostly gray and harbor). The walrus once occurred on the island but has been extinct since the mid 17th century though for many decades afterward their tusks were collected from the shifting sands.

Much of the book (I would say over half) dealt with the human history of the island. It was comprehensive, going all the way back to debates over whom first saw and may have landed on the island, whether they were Viking, Basque, or Portuguese. There was much confusion in early maps over where the island was, its exact shape and size, and indeed who owned it. At various times the island was called Fagunda Island, Santa Cruz, and Isola della Rena (rena being Italian for sand) before the name became Sable Island (or Isle de Sable) in 1601. Unfortunately, most of the human history of the island is associated with the numerous shipwrecks, many of them with few if any survivors and at times hundreds of lives were lost, leading eventually to life saving services and lighthouses being set up on the island. Much of this made for exciting reading, with many first person accounts quoted of shipwrecked sailors and those involved in life saving.

An interesting book, I would have liked some pictures though.

This is a fun book! But it is not an adventure story of the like of Robinson Caruso. When one thinks of islands, the most likely image is of a romantic, heroic struggle against, and with nature. Well, some of the narrative is that, but there is much more, perhaps too much. It is a political, social, economic, cultural, geographic and geological history book. If you have a degree in history (as I do) it will probably be more pleasurable reading. Without a background in historical terms and events, it might be confusing at several points.

At times the language roams into the realm of what I will call "fractal minutiae." That is, one wonders if the levels will go as deep as quantum physics, or ever stop. The lineage of families who had political or de facto control over the island at various times, the legitimacy of their claims, and what happened to them and their heirs occupies too much space. This seems unnecessary. There were a couple of chapters I forced myself to get through.

Nevertheless, there is much about the work that is compelling. One is left with a deep feeling of respect for the powers of nature and the island itself, a seemingly living, evolving entity whose fate is in doubt.

It would be nice to have the whole collection, which I plan to do for my granddaughters. Either to read to them, or have them read on their own, as it's easy to understand. I enjoyed reading it myself.

These Equiox and the Solstice books are cute and fun to read, at the end of the book are crafts and ideas to do with your children for the Equinox. I also like all the history it has in it, I learned quite a bit myself!! :)

My son has family members that celebrate both Christian and Pagan holidays. I found this book and others are a great way to put all of our traditions in a historical and equal light. We've been reading it since he was four but I recommend it for 1st graders and older doing a few pages a night.

Another reviewer said this book has crafts or ideas at the end. NOPE!!! It is a set of 1 page stories about how different cultures in the past waited for the suns return. I liked the short tale at the end and the page that explains the science of what makes the seasons change.
Overall, I found this book too boring to hold the attention of my kids. I expected some fun ideas for the season and the book didn't include any.

Some of the facts were fun and the author nicely tied them to modern day.
"Romans gave presents to their friends and relatives, like we do now at Christmas." The pictures were also nice and bright.
This book is completely non-denominational, which is a nice change but not what I expected from the title and description. Sadly, I was kind of hoping that this book would be a good introduction to Yule for kids. It is not!
The part about sacrificing llamas made my kids angry. I don't really like that they now have to bring that one point up every time we mention Yule.
While this book isn't a total waste, it is not at all what I had hoped for. I look forward to seeing good books that will actually explain the old holidays to kids. This book just doesn't do it.

great way to explain pagan rites to Children. We will use this in our children's circle. Also briefly mentions Christianity in relation to pagan symbols