North Dakota Books

I learned some things from this book, but it does amble on like a boring textbook sometimes. The stories of the the families were very interesting. My great-grandma's cows in N.E. SD ate cockleburs during the depression, and trying to hit water during a well drill was distressing.

trying to bridge the gap betwwen art and anthropolgy she has done a fine job of presenting her work and making it easy to understand for a moron like myself.

I can only comment on the Kansas section of this book, but that leaves a little to be desired. It seems that Knapp found the most popular trails but didn't dig too deep. Another problem is his tendency to list utterly boring rides on semi-maintained doubletrack. If someone buys a mountain biking guide book, it means they are looking for the real thing, not some flat access roads. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of alternatives to this book for cyclists in the midwest so I still have to recommend it as part of your collection, if for nothing else but the states you do not live in.

I bought this book for my daughter to bring to Guatemala to give to her host family. I thought it would be good because it was written in English and Spanish. The book is very colorful with nice pictures, but unfortunately who ever edited this book forgot a few facts. The biggest of which is a two page spread on the state fish. It says the state fish is a northern pike and it has a drawing for children to learn to draw the state fish. Too bad the fish they are actually drawing looks like a steel head trout and nothing like a northern pike. There is even a color pic of these so called northerns, but they don't look anything like the dark green and white spotted fish I know a northern should look like.

The other big error is the map in which major cities of the state are listed. It puts Stanley and Medora, boths towns of a few hundred people as major cities, while eliminating both Minot and Dickinson, which number in the thousands (yes, these are the big towns in North Dakota)

I emailed the publisher about these issues, they never got back to me. It seems to me, that a book like this, should have the basic facts correct.

This guide is adequate as an introduction to the trails. I used it in pre-trip planning. The descriptions for trails within the TRNP units are skimpy on details such as total elevation gain and GPS coordinates. Ultimately, I left it in the car when I went backpacking. Maps and aerial photos would really enhance the guide. It also largely ignored the issue of water in the back country of the park, although it does mention sections of the MDH trail where water is an issue.

Clay Jenkinson's "A Vast and Open Plain" should be a great read - it includes day by day journal entries of the five journal keepers of one of the greatest expeditions in American history: the Corps of Discovery, who traveled from Saint Louis, up the Missouri River, across the Rocky Mountains, and then down to the Pacific Ocean - and back again, fighting weather, hostile inhabitants, rotting food, and uncharted wilderness. But I have two major problems with the book.

First is the endless notations by editor Clay Jenkinson. From his 35 page introduction (bear in mind this is a LARGE book, with rather small print in two columns) to his footnotes which frequently occupy more than half the page, he is everywhere, and the book tells more about him and his strong opinions than about the Lewis and Clark expedition. Second, with few exceptions, the three journalists who were not Lewis and Clark frequently seem to have compared notes; it is the rare day when one of them (usually Ordway) says something that no one else says, or even uses different wording.

One of the interesting things in the book is that weather observations are made each day (although temperature readings cease after the company's thermometer breaks); Lewis and Clark and their men apparently didn't realize either how hot or how cold what is now North Dakota could get, nor the number of mosquitoes that would plague them (when they leave Fort Mandan in April of 1805, there are days when literally the only thing remarked upon is the mosquitoes).

Another point of interest are the personal letters and the lists of provisions and trade goods provided in the book. The letters give a better idea of the inner life of both Meriwether Lewis and William Clark than their journals do; the journals, after all, were intended to be presented to President Thomas Jefferson when they returned to Washington, D.C. The list of goods, and the descriptions of whom they were for, and to whom they were ultimately given, tells us even more about the men of the expedition.

The journals entries make clear the feelings of the Americans towards the Native Americans they met along the way. By today's standards they were incredibly racist and intolerant, treating the people they met like (rather dim) children, and mocking their religious ceremonies. They seem to ignore the fact that without the help of those people, the expedition wouldn't have survived. But hindsight is generally clearer than the view on the trip, isn't it?

For historians and college students, this book might be a good gift. But for people looking for a good story, there are better Lewis and Clark books available. I realize that Jenkinson's intent was only to show what happened to the Corps of Discovery on the days they were in what is now North Dakota. But even the native North Dakotan feels cheated out of "the rest of the story" when the Corps moves into Montana and the entries end until the return in 1806.

If you're a Lewis and Clark fanatic and don't mind endless footnotes, and the wretched and inconsistent spelling of the journal keepers, this is the book for you. Most of us will find ourselves endlessly bored or annoyed, and only occasionally fascinated.

This book has been mostly written by relatives of Bowman County's military men and women who served our country during WWII. Some of the individual entries are very long while others are only a paragraph. Along with the individual's information, there is a photo. The book does not have an index of names, but the stories are in alphabetical order by surname. It has only 84 pages and is in hardback. You would want one for your Family Tree.

This is an informative book which is also an easy and pleasant read. However, it lacks heart. It tends to be a listing of events rather than the story of the events.

I'll be honest: I've not finished the book...but don't think I will. Author is boring me with background & never getting into subject which is supposed to be Crazy Horse. His research leaves much to be desired. It's no wonder people hate history when it's this boring.

For the most part I enjoyed this book. I did however get a bit tired of the " well there is no evidence so we dont know for sure attitude. perhaps a trained historian could have done a little better. Better than Sandoz book!

In 1942 Mari Sandoz published her biography of Crazy Horse. Some, like Stephen Oates, the famous Lincoln biographer consider it the best biography ever written. However, several scholars of American western history find fault with the fact that she often did not cite her sources, and she wrote only one version of events of which several varied accounts exist. However, it's not enough to simply avoid these to flaws in order to make a book "one of the most accurate accounts of the Oglala Chief," as this book is billed on its back cover. The author also needs to bring up some new information based on new sources. Add to this that Sanja tends to make his own definitive statements about debatable topics, and what you end up with is not of much value.

First off, I or anyone else who has ordered most of the books available on the subject [...]could have just as easily written this, ie there's nothing new here. It is based largely on secondary sources, and though Sajna lists some unpublished sources in his bibliography, I don't see where he used them. He even quoted authors like Stephen Ambrose who himself relied on secondary sources for his book Crazy Horse and Custer.

Second, Sanja while claiming to separate fact from myth, comes up with some uncorroborated ideas of his own. One in particular that stands out is his statement that"[s]peculation about Crazy Horse's sexuality also might be fueled by the fact that he did not marry until after Hump [his hunka brother] had been killed and that among his friends as a boy was Woman's Dress...a well-known winkte..."

I suppose this is the kind of "juicey tidbit" that appeals to readers of the 21st century, but it shows a huge lack of understanding of Native American culture. A close relationship between a warrior and his, what we might call, protege, was not at all unusual. And while Woman's Dress did seem to display some effeminate qualities, that is not the same as being a Winkte. A Winkte was a more or less self-proclaimed homosexual, who dressed either in womens' or mens' clothing as it suited him. However, he spent most of his time with the women doing womens' work, though he could join a war party if he chose. There are various notions of how Woman's Dress got his name (as with most American Indian names) but it is not because he wore dresses. And, need I add, that by all accounts Woman's Dress and Crazy Horse were hardly bosom buddies.

Sanja has every right (though one would question why he cares) to speculate on Crazy Horse's sexuality, but in doing so he should make sure he has something to base it on.

The fact is that it is rather pointless for anyone to claim that they have written "the most accurate account" of Crazy Horse's life. Everything we know about Crazy Horse, with the exception of his death and military records that might refer to battles he took part in, is necessarily based on oral history. Those who knew the history are long gone as are those who interviewed them and recorded it.

Readers can, however, read Sandoz, the Hinman interviews, Neihardt's interviews with Black Elk, as well as the wonderful collections of letters and eye-witness reports compiled in books like The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse and The Death of Crazy Horse, and come up with a much better idea of the "facts" than you will find in this book.

No photos exist of Crazy Horse, and little was written about him during his lifetime. He, himself, left no written record. Much of what we know about him is a collection of highly romanticized and sometimes apocryphal stories told by friends, foes, and rivals. These have been grossly exaggerated and sometimes outright made up through the years. Sajna attempts, by using only verifiable primary sources, to separate the fact from the fiction. This reflects his long career as a newspaperman. Where he can't nail down something for sure, he presents all ideas and allows the reader to draw his/her own conclusion. This scholarly attempt is to lay down the true facts of this remarkable man's life, an extremely difficult task owing to the dearth of verifiable material on the subject. An excellent, scholarly work. It is high time this man was depicted realistically, instead of romantically.

I was disappointed in this book. I have long been fasinated by the life of Ta-Sunka Witko (Crazy Horse), and have read everything I could find on the subject. This isn't a bad book, there just is nothing new said in it. I'm not sure why Mr. Sajna felt the need to write it.

Much of the book talks about the historical time and setting of the life of Ta-Sunka Witko, but not about the man himself. In his preface, the author states he only used primary sources in writing this book. A quick scan of my bookshelf shows at least 6 books which are either sources sited in Mr. Sajna's book, or books which site those sources. While I found no particulary new information on the life of Ta-witko, I did find a lot of irrelevant speculation, and references to Lakota life, and the historical times, but no real biographical information. For example, in the chapter "Indian Boyhood" Mr. Sajna writes: "While still a boy, Crazy Horse most likely also was initiated to the real horrors of war. But how, where, or when that may have occurred is impossible to know."

The historical information presented is well researched, and appears accurate, but if I am reading a book with the subtitle "The Life behind the Legend" I want more specific information about the man himself. Perhaps a better title for this book would be "A Historical Context for the Life of Crazy Horse".

This book is absolutely, downright strange. The persona used to be a radio wave, and is friends with an American Indian who travels the galaxy in a bark canoe. They live on a freezing planet, called Candle, where a host of strange things occur. Despite this highly original story line, the book is ruined because it is written in a style that makes it close to impossible to comprehend. Major events occur with very little introduction and not much explanation. Most of the book seems to be the persona whining about one thing or another, or talking about some esoteric technology (not yet developed yet obviously) which leaves the reader 100% mystified.

I will admit that Warpath forces a tighter suspension of disbelief than many S.F. novels.

The writing, however, is superior!

I would much rather have a off-beat, or even odd, alternate universe written tightly and with a very enjoyable style than most of the poorly-written, but straight-line extrapolation, SF novels one runs across.

Daniels writes fluidly, engagingly, and I felt very connected to the characters, the plot, and the alternate universe he created. I'll admit that some fo the universe conceptualizations were hard to accept, but have you every tried analyzing the universe A.E. Van Vogt created in "Slan"? It's got more inconsistencies than one could shake a cliche at, but in the end it doesn't matter because you enjoy how it's written, and you have a good time reading it. Warpath and Daniels writing affected me that way. I want to read more, and have two Danniels books on pre-publish order here at Amazon based on his entertaining and professional writing style.

Since I stubbornly refuse to stop reading a book no matter how bad it is, I suffered through the whole thing. Between the ridiculous premise that's completely unbelievable, the lousy writing style, and the lack of anything remotely resembling a plot, the book easily rates instant-dumpster status

Good grief... how do you justify having Indians paddle about between the planets in canoes as the basis for a modern SF novel? There's usually plenty of elements and devices in the plot of any SF novel or story that you just have to let go of - there's no sense wasting any of your mental energy trying to determine the legitimacy of the physical sciences portrayed within their pages. Just take a break from reality and enjoy the book, that's what reading SF is all about. But Indians in canoes traveling between the planets? If it had been marketed as juvenile SF, I wouldn't be so harsh about it, but it wasn't, so I'm not cutting it any slack.

Anyway, as my previous statements imply, the book combines many of the common elements associated with native American Indian culture, animal gods and the like, being one with nature, canoes (yeah, right), and lots of stupid white people, into one seriously bad SF novel. What was sort of funny was that even though these space traveling white folk were living on a distant planet, they totally lacked any real technological capability? They were using sheet fed printing presses to publish the local newspaper, and culturally still seemed to fit the backwater image of the average southern hillbilly with a racist attitude towards anything that didn't look Caucasian. Maybe they traveled there using rafts made by binding tree limbs together?

The real unfortunate thing about reading this book was that I had to review it for a local newspaper. The editor for book reviews was a friend of a friend of the author. So with no real way to slash the author for writing a complete piece of garbage, and not damage my relationship with the book reviews editor, I did what I had to do. I wrote a pretty basic review of the book that did little more than outline the plot elements, collected my fee, and never went back for another book to review for fear of getting a reputation for delivering nothing for something! THE END...

Egads, these reviews are appallingly negative. "Steal this book and then burn it"? This must be one crap-fest, this wacky Indian book here. It must suck something fierce, no? I admit, the summary is probably turning you off. I felt the same way; I found it in a used bookstore and giggled. Indians in space on birchback canoes?

However, that summary and most of the reviews here can't tell you how good this book is. They don't mention the sheer inventiveness of the novel; Daniel has half a dozen good ideas weaved in and out, along with themes of imperialism and cultural sensitivity, and a sly satire of secular humanism to boot. On the surface, it seems like a future-western, with white folk facing off with Native Americans, but to be so simplistic does the novel a disservice.

Now, it is true that sometimes it seems like Daniel is stringing his book along more on pathos and cool sf ideas than by actual plot, but my enjoyment never suffered for it. I loved the exhilaration of creativity; why should mere logic come into the picture? Daniel is brilliant, and should he ever control and direct that brilliance, you can be assured that nothing less than a masterpiece will result.