New Jersey Books

Never received this item. Checked the USPS tracking of it and it was said to be delivered but never was. Twenty bucks down the toilet!

I have shelves filled with books backgroundng Asbury Park's history; but this new one best captures the live music scene that emerged in the 1960s and '70s as musicians tried to define a rock-and-roll sound here.

Anders Martensson smartly divides the interviews with performers ~ black, white, male, female ~ into the period before they met Springsteen, and then after. Plus, he's included updates. Martensson also provides enough explanatory paragraphs to link the passages that are purely transcribed interviews; they are remarkable for their honesty as well as the variety in the individual voices you read on the page.

Any chance of podcasting a couple of these?

What contributes to making this book a valuable addition to anyone's collection are Jorgen Johansson's photos. All stunning in black-and-white; all revealing portraits. Because of its photojournalism quality, my favorite is the one of Lance Larson on the roof of the Wonder Bar. It captures an Asbury Park I know well.

Helen-Chantal Pike
"Asbury Park's Glory Days: The Story of an American Resort"

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Agent Rachel Porter has been reassigned to Port Elizabeth, New Jersey. A wealthy socialite has been murdered and the police notified Magda, by the owner of the local "roach coach" canteen from which Rachel buys her lunch. After the police have gone, she notices Magda wearing a very light, but very warm, shahtooosh shawl; a highly illegal product. Rachel's hunt for the source of these shawls takes her from penthouses to strip clubs, the Mafia and a very dangerous import operation.

This book was a selection of my East Bay Mystery Readers' Group and much more cozy than I would normally read. The plot and behavior of the characters really stretched my limit of credibility. Rachel sets off on this investigation completely on her own without sanction; okay I can live with that. But everyone is completely willing to tell her anything she wants to know and coincidences drive the plot. I finished it, but shaking my head with disbelief all the way through, particularly with a completely absurd action by the protagonist at the climatic scene of the book. This just did not work for me.

As hard as it is to believe, UNSAFE HARBOR is Jessica Speart's 10th mystery novel to feature Rachel Porter, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agent who, ironically enough, is a fish out of water. Speart has a penchant for setting her Porter novels in exotic locales, and interestingly enough it is Porter's transfer to the Port of New Jersey after 2005's RESTLESS WATERS and her residence to New York City that provides Speart and Porter with their most exotic story background to date.

Speart has wisely and skillfully balanced the familiar and the exotic in each of the Porter novels, and it is the combination of these elements that makes UNSAFE HARBOR arguably the best novel to date in the series. Porter, stuck in the doldrums of Port Elizabeth, is intrigued when she arrives at her office to find that the operator of a local canteen truck --- who is also an acquaintance of Porter's --- has discovered the body of a woman who is a Manhattan socialite. The body was clad in a shatoosh, a shawl fashioned illegally from the fur of Tibetan antelopes. Porter, investigating the illegal import of the shatoosh, learns that the presence of the highly prized garment is not limited to a single body but is a status symbol among the Manhattan elite.

Determined to put an end to the importation of the garment at its source, Porter follows a trail that leads from the penthouses of Park Avenue to sleazy Eighth Avenue strip clubs, from the Diamond District to the Garment District, and ultimately back to the ports of New Jersey, where Porter finds that an incident from her past is about to have dangerous and deadly implications in the present.

New York suits Porter well, and given the width and breadth of the city, it will hopefully serve up enough themes for future novels in this series for some time to come. An activist who cares deeply about animal preservation issues, Speart continues her practice of incorporating facts about animal abuses into her book in a manner that contributes to the narrative as opposed to interrupting it, so that the reader comes away from the story both entertained and educated. This is a series that deserves a wider readership, and with UNSAFE HARBOR, it should get one.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

This book could be 100 times better if there was half of the info and better organization. You buy this book to tell you "what are some good trips around the DC area" but it doesn't tell you that at all. YOU have to figure out where you want to go then this book gives you some basic info about every city or attraction in neighboring states. But I could get all that information from the internet! What I want is information organized by length (short trips, long trips), types of attraction, and "reviews" -- i.e., good or bad. There is almost none of that. It is just a catalog of every city in 7 states that has some tourist activities. No what is good or what is bad. What is good with kids? What about day trips? Or afternoon trips? Or trips with your dog? Nada. Kind of useless book, which is sad because a usefull book that was well organized would be great.

This guide is a great companion for anyone seeking unique and clever discoveries in the mid-atlantic region. The book dives into nature, history, unique facts and unknown charms that most travel guides hardly touch.

This appreciation of Atlantic lifeguard traditions could have become a non-fiction summertime classic along with "The Beach: The History of Paradise on Earth" by Lencek and Bosker and the shark attack narrative "Close to Shore" by Michael Capuzzo. The book falls short because Hesse, a fluid writer, surrenders too much of the book to discordant voices.

On the positive side, Hesse organizes the book by months, alerting readers that the ocean and the guard's job change as the season progresses. Hesse offers interesting contrasts of his era--the 1960's and early 1970's--and now. The equipment has improved, as the modern plastic torpedo buoy seems much safer than the belt tethered to a shore point that he had to wear. His dramatic narrative of a rescue in which he severely hurt his hand when over-zealous tourists tugged him to shore too fast and too soon demonstrates the risks of the job. Other strong passages are about his mother's efforts at lifesaving in their beach community and about an argument after a nearly botched rescue. The best passage describes his courtship of a beachgoer who was entranced by phosphorous. Would that all the book's discussions of women shared the tone of this section.

These passages suggest that had Hesse trusted himself to write the whole book, the product could have been a classic. Instead, he inserts lots of passages from a plethora of former guards from his beach. This technique appeared to much better effect in "Working" by Studs Terkel and "Casino" by Nicholas Pileggi. Here, there are too many voices to keep straight. The statements, coming from different time periods, clash in tone and emphasis. Many are banal. They do not coalsce into a coherent narrative about the job. And too many passages (from others, not Hesse) consist of bragging about sexual conquests. Flirtation at the beach is part of summer, but these voices make it smutty. One guard describes an encounter with some young girls: "No one tried to rape them or anything, just a little grabbing." Another guard theorizes on the surprising lack of venereal disease among the patrol. Such sections prevent the book from being family reading. Indeed, the book would convince parents never to let teen-aged daughters even talk to the guards.

A new edition of the book in which Hesse focuses on himself and his longtime bench partner Andy Baran and their adventures on the beach would make much finer reading.

Book was a litte inspiring, but I would not recommend it
for a new Christian who is not been tutored by the Pastor
of a blble believing and teaching Church.

Were the police truly interested in catching the murderer of Candy Short? BURIED MISTAKES, the true-crime account of the slaying of an unrenowned small-town girl, asks that crushing, rhetorical question. Ultimately a hard-working detective, coming out of retirement, reviewed the "unsolved" case and proceeded to nab the culprit, the victim's husband. Was it that detective's own family-violence childhood that drove him to catch a wife-beating killer? BURIED MISTAKES author Michael Kaplan seems to ask: Is justice enough cause to motivate us to do the right thing, or must there be a personal stake in the issue?

This is a fine historical listing of NJ minerals and mineral assemblages that were considered good (rare/unusual/etc.) enough for exhibition in 1876. I wonder where the exhibition collection is now?

Having hailed from this part of New Jersey, I was very interested in learning of its history and development. The book was very informative, but I wish it had contained even more information, particularly about Fort Monmouth. All-in-all, I felt it was very well done.

this book covers a fair number of small rivers in new jersey. It has lots of background information on the towns they run through, but it seems to be aimed more at people who are "exploring" the rivewrs by driving near them in a car. If you're really interested in canoeng in New Jersey get Edward Gertler's Garden State Canoeing-it's fantastic and covers details about every conoeable stream in the state. This book (Exploring....) is better for sight seeing.

This is a book with lots of pictures. Every single page has atleast one picture on it, then a small blurb of the picture. This is the content of the entire book. It mostly skims through the history of the school in just 127 pages. Small book to cover 100 years of history. I graduated from GCU and do appreciate it. If you are looking for in-depth information this is not the book to get.