Berry Books

The stories went right over my head. I knew that there was supposed to be some sort of meaning to them, but they were pretty bizarre. They are like portraits of ordinary life with a twist of weirdness. I figured these stories were supposed to have some kind of moral, but it escaped me.

And the characters all seemed ruthlessly unhappy, so much so that I became depressed myself. They didn't need to be recklessly happy, but their lives were so messed up and in the end, their problems were unsolved, and that's why it was so depressing.

This is a collection of stories that need to be read and re-read so that one can understand the meanong of them. Because I certainly don't.

In his classic simple language Jackson describes the costs of our current way of doing agriculture. He focuses on soil loss with emphasizing the fact that our dependence has gone from "soil to oil" for energy and fertilizer.

This book outlines Jackson's idea for a perennial, herbaceous, polyculture agriculture that mimics the natural environment instead of our current annual, herbaceous, monoculture. Jackson also gives a broad view of decentralizing our societies and distributing people across land according to its ability to support them in the proper concentration.

The critiques of current agricultural practices is well done but simple enough for the laymen to understand. Simple computations are used to illustrate the ecological and financial costs of capital/oil intensive agriculture.

The discussion of values and religion in chapter 8, though it has a good direction, is lacking in comparison to Jackson's other topics.

C.J.J. Berry's "First Steps in Winemaking" was such a smash hit that he was inundated with requests for more recipes. He responded with "130 New Winemaking Recipes." Berry certainly delivered what the title promised, and tens of thousands of home winemakers were better off for it.

Most of the ingredients are mainstream and easily found. Some are rather obscure outside of England. But every recipe is clear, unambiguous and makes decent wine.

While there is no duplication of recipes between the two books, there are variations of the same. But each variation produces its own unique wine with its own bouquet and flavor, and that makes each recipe unique as well.

The beginner will not find the detailed explanations of the basic steps in winemaking Berry's first book was so noted for. He was not rewriting his first book. He was adding to it. The title should warn the buyer that this is a recipe book, not a primer. But beginners will love and cherish this book anyway. When used in conjunction with "First Steps...," it doubles the reader's collection of recipes. And, perhaps most importantly, the recipes are presented alphabetically instead of by the month the primary ingredients are harvested in England (see my review of "First Steps in Winemaking" for it's presentation format).

This is a solid addition to any home winemaker's library. You may not ever want to make onion wine or oak leaf wine or any of the more esoteric wines found herein, but isn't it nice that you can if you want to? (Incidentally, onion wine is very good!)

If you'd like to expand your vinous horizons, buy this book and use it. You certainly won't regret it.

When I found out my great-great grandmother came from Quaker stock I was glad to find this book. After reading it I was scared to death that I would never find anything on her family! Don't let this happen to you!

Oh, you think I'm kidding. But I'm not. Let me quote from page 32, emphasis from the book itself:

"LEARN THE ELEMENTS OF THIS MONTHLY MEETING WELL. FOR IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DO ANY VALID AND COMPREHENSIVE RESEARCH WITHOUT MONTHLY MEETING RECORDS. THEREFORE, IT FOLLOWS THAT THE MONTHLY MEETING OF AN ANCESTOR MUST BE KNOWN BEFORE ANY MEANINGFUL RESEARCH CAN BE DONE. WE CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS POINT ENOUGH."

This is the general tone of the book. All capital warnings are placed throughout. The above paragraph, by the way, is just telling you that you have to know where your ancestor lived and worshipped to be able to find out more about them. In reality, not so scary, eh?

Now, this book has its place. It has some informative background on Quakers and Quakerism, a nice biblography and a brief rundown on repostitories of Quaker Meeting records. Also, it reflects the year it was written in (1987) which was just prior to the popular boom of genealogy, and so its dryness is not atypical. However, it should have been so much more.

There should have been more on migration, and what that means to the researcher. For example, as soon as one of my ancestral Quaker families was all nicely settled in a town with great record keeping, they would pick up and move to the frontier! This was very common for Quakers who, for various reasons, wanted to move away from societies based on other religions. There should have been at least one migration map. The only maps included are reprints of certain meetings locations from an 1860 book, which to top it off, have no actual land behind them, leaving you with no more than a bulleted list.

Although I know the subtitle of this book is "Finding them in Quaker Records" I think one or two paragraphs should have been spent directing researchers to other records you would be likely to find Quakers in. You will most certainly find an ancestor or two in 'Loyalist' records of various kinds (as if you weren't pro-war, that immediately made you a loyalist during the revolution.) You will find them in court records (the Quakers even had their own courts in the 17th century colonies.) You will find them in land records and every other sort of non-religious civil record out there. You just have to keep in mind that your ancestors were Quakers, along with the implications of that, as you search. To be honest I was very surprised that the Quaker Courts and Loyalist angles weren't even mentioned here as they are specifically relevant to Quakers.

They also should have covered emigration records. Before 1800 many Quakers emigrated together, and the first ships to come to the colonies because of Penn are well documented.

Also, there are several times in this book the authors do not go into detail on subjects. They do not offer you reference, but refer you to other works which are usually difficult to find. They also do not approach Irish Quakers, which is a mistake, as Ireland was home to so many Quaker emigres of the 1700's. You will often find that an English family fled to Ireland first before making it to the colonies.

Besides being sparse, in the end this book does more work telling you what you're NOT going to find rather than what you WILL find. The last chapter itself was placed to give the reader 'words of encouragement' but then just goes on to tell you how difficult your search will be. An appropriate ending to this book, but inappropriate for an author trying to inform and interest a reader.

If you have pre-1800 Quaker lines you are going to have to buy this book. There are no other books like it on the market. Just don't be intimidated by it. Instead, use its core information and not its commentary.

I have sometimes thought that a good description of the difference between Europeans and Americans is that Europeans built Western Civilization from it's beginnings and Americans fulfilled it. Thus many characteristics which Americans think distasteful(like factionalism) are scars left from centuries of labor. Americans built their land with many of the most important lessons already learned by others. Likewise many of the things Europeans dislike(like shallowness)come of the lack of that. The difference, and the jealousy is like that between a seasoned veteran and a talented newcomer.
In any case Stuart Miller provides an overview of what he precieves as the differences. Many of them show traits in his personality that I do not possess. He seems to feel to be horrified by the thought of the centuries of war piled around him in a way I was not. For instance he found it disconcerting the intense preperations Switzerland made(sixty days food supply, every man in the militia, etc). Personally I always found that attractive as a sign of the "yeomanly virtue" of taking responsibility for one's own defense. I also thought it an attractive bit of edginess to a people that might otherwise seem unbearably respectable.
And he found the European habit of constant debate equally disconcerting when he was apparently raised in an atmosphere of consensus. On the other hand I do often take pleasure in debate. And the "pseudo-animism" he describes of placing a mystique in objects does strike a chord in me-I get shocked by the idea destroying a book. I also have a respect for tradition. In other words I have many characteristics that the author would call "European" rather then "American". On the other hand in some ways I am different. For instance while war is interesting to me both as an intellectual subject and a source for stories it never seems to dig as deep into me as the author says it does into Europe and I don't really have "historical shell shock" that the author describes. Nor do I think much about vendetta. The idea of historical grudges seems barbaric to me, and feuds caused by political extremism often seem opaque to me.
Much of the picture of Europe the author gives is really a picture of "the grungy old world". Americans are perhaps more like Australians then Europeans in having been able to build a new society with the lessons already learned by others and have some of the same outlook on life. Some of the traits the author notices however, can be noticed equally in Asians and Levantines. Perhaps what makes Europe different is the competeing and complementary worldviews of "Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem"(or classical and Hebraic thought), mixed with and reinforcing, or straining against the normal order common to men.
Besides the less pleasant features, the author describes a great love for beauty and an instinct for elegance which is worthy of appreciation. Americans create lots of useful things but may be less capable at creating beautiful things. Acording to the author, they are even better at making themselves appear beautiful and their women are better trained in that. That's as may be. I do know a French accent sounds well in a female voice.
Much of all this in the authors work can be called stereotyping. But a culture(or cluster of cultures)would have nothing to define it unless it had something in common to itself that is different from other cultures. This book is an illuminating work. And if it is only one person's perspective, ultimatly all works of this kind must be so. It is well worth the getting.

This book has some good things about it. It has a pretty good list of children's films and would be a helpful resource to many parents looking for a movie to watch with their kids, the descriptions of the films are good and the rating system is constant and easy to understand. However I think the author really messed up in the selection of a number of films listed in the book. The publisher's description says that the films are intended for children to preteens however there are films that many parents would not find appropriate for their children to watch. The author list films like: Heathers, Napoleon Dynamite, Cruel Intentions, Rebel Without a Cause, James Bond films, Circle of Friends, Pretty in Pink, and Crazy/Beautiful, just to name a few. Just because young people are the main characters in the film does not make it a child friendly movie. I have nothing against these films and some of them are in fact some of my favorite movies of all time but none of these films were in intended for child audiences. If this book had had a teen section these films would be totally appropriate however this was not the stated intention of the book.

I was looking for a resource to use in an Anglican and/or interdenominational setting for prayer services. Unfortunately, only a little was adaptable for either purpose.

I bought this book on recommendation (thanks a lot, Bob). This is not the book you want to buy if you've already had success in journalism (I'm a freelance magazine and newspaper writer).

I found most of the examples to be what I had already learned in school and just by taking various workshops. A lot of his samples are "duh" to those of us who are looking to deepen our writing skills.

Rescue on Parrot Island is short and not exactly a meaningful or thought provoking book for children. But if your child is a rescue heroes fan, he or she will love it. The book includes spinning wheel graphic effects on each page which make it fun for all kids. My 5 year old requests it about once a week.

I bought this as a reference for a college programming competition since we were allowed printed material but not Internet access. I have a degree in Mathematics, but even I forget some basic formulae on occasions (again, what was the formula for the area of a cone?). It's an alphabetized reference of basic high school mathematics theorems and formulae. The areas include (non-abstract, real) algebra, Euclidean geometry, plane trigonometry, and just a little bit of calculus. It also includes some elementary formulae from physics (mechanics specifically) and statistics. It doesn't bother thoroughly explaining the concepts, so I wouldn't use it as a piece of learning material. Instead, it is designed to be a quick reference. Definitions are presented, formulae are included where they are needed, and there are occasionally examples with solutions. If you're studying pre-calculus mathematics, this would be a handy reference and would save you from having to dig through your textbooks. It might also help when studying for the ACT or SAT, but there are better resources. If you're in calculus, you won't get much from it, however. Only the very, very basic integration formulae are included. Also, it's not quite enough to make it through an introductory statistics or physics class since some important items are omitted. For certain people, specifically someone needing a quick reference for pre-calculus mathematics and only need formulae instead of explanations, it works.