Green Books

I would like to start by saying Snoogy Cat, you do not know what you are talking about. Reg Green is a man who dedicates his life to getting out the message of organ donation. He uses the media attention to spread the word of donating life. Almost weekly he goes to meetings and conferences (at his own expense) to try and convince people to do their part to save lives. This story is one of compassion, love, and breaking barriers. Reg Green is witty and intelligent, and does his job in convincing me to do whatever I need to do for this cause.

I think everyone remembers hearing about little Nicholas, only seven
years old, killed by highway robbers in Italy. His family donated his
organs and started a rash of others doing to in Europe and throughout
the world. This is his story as told by his father. The wonderful
effect of that act made me want to give the book a better review. The
father's attitude made me want to give it a worse one, so it's right
in the middle. Maybe I would feel differently had I not read this
book directly following John Walsh's book. Walsh seemed like an
ordinary man doing his best to cope with extraordinary circumstances.
Green seems like a man who's enjoying all of the attention. His
writing style isn't great either. He flitters around topics in a
disjointed manner and goes about his mind's own ethical ramblings far
to often.

Gist: An extraordinary boy meets an extraordinary fate, producing extraordinary effects: After Nicholas, a young traveller to Italy, is killed, his parents' gesture of donating his organs ignites the gratitude of the world. Hammock-time: Requires no more than a long week-end to absorb via your hammock or beach chair. The book is fast-paced and relatively slim compared to the encyclopaedic nature of some non-fiction works. Substance: When the tragedy happened, I wept. When I saw the film starring Jamie Lee Curtis, I wept. And I wept again when I read this book. I thought at first it was because I'm Italian-American, but so many non-Italians around the world have been touched by the Greens' story. I had begun to lose faith in this world, especially dismayed by the New Thought/New Age field, with their greedy, plagiarizing (long dead philosophers are robbed boldly) authors, some truly inane ones sanctioned by Oprah, with their ineffectual techniques -- unproductive affirmations, visualizations, rigidity of mind that everything must have a reason, etc. etc. Yet the Greens, even though the father, Reg Green, is most likely an agnostic, restore my faith, refresh my soul. Something beautiful upholds this world, deeper than the surface chaos and craziness, and superficial philosophies that seek to explain life. A subtle chiascuro effect underlines this book: of deep dark pain playing against light-filled love. Reg Green's sense of humor creates a delightful poignancy. I sense many readers like myself will re-read the book. It's difficult to analyze, but I left sensing stronger than ever that an afterlife truly does exist. My heart goes out to the Greens, and to my fellow spiritual seekers who need a book like this to understand and experience the concepts of love, attunement -- concepts freed from the manipulative twists by a good ole guru network of popular authors who claim to know such truths. Complementary book: Can You Drink The Cup? by the late Fr. Henri Nouwen, is Christian-oriented, but it so lyrically and sensitively explores the universal experiences of love and grief, I enjoyed reading it, as what I'd term a sort of Seekers' Survival Guide, concurrently with the Green book.

As a liver transplant recepient almost four years ago, I had heard of the Nicholas effect. Shortly before reading this book, I discovered through a letter from my donor family that my donor had been inspired to sign his donor card based on Nicholas Green. This book is a stunning and true story of a boy's life, a family's grief and the heroic decision to make a difference to many others whom they did not know. Nicholas Green is still making a difference today becuase his story continues to ripple outward as when a pebble is dropped into a pond. I URGE you to read this book for yourself and prepared to be touched.

There is a verse in the bible which reads "Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil by doing good." Reg and Maggie Green have embraced this creed wholeheartedly. When their beautiful son was senselessly murdered in late 1994, instead of sinking into the depths of grief, they proved how well he had taught them about the power of love during his brief time on earth by using his example to save millions of lives around the world. If such a tragic thing were to happen to me, I hope that my actions would be identical to theirs. I thank Reg and Maggie for sharing little Nicholas with the world and I am sure he would be very proud of them (as we all are). Through their unselfish and life affirming actions, they have proven yet again that the power of good will never be overcome by the power of evil.

I have been very ambivalent about the organic culture and wanted to understand more about the origins of the organic movement, its significance, and the trends I observe it to be following.

Samuel Fromartz's account of the organic industry (as I have come to see it) was a solid introduction that I will have to probably reread to fully take in. Peppered with facts, figures, vignettes, anecdotes, and opinions, it is clearly the writing of the converted, rather than a deliberately skeptical examination. Nonetheless there is room for reflection and critical analysis - I flagged dozens of pages that gave me points to ponder and further examine. The book touches on related topics like local agriculture without straying too far from the topic at hand.

My one criticism, after moving on to other books about food agriculture, is that this book, when it was dealing with facts and figures, seemed get weighed down, but at the same time, seemed to leave identifiable voids of information. How a book could be both occasionally tedious, and occasionally too light, I'm not entirely sure.

When you think of organic foods, do you mentally picture aging hippies in co-ops, small roadside stands, and stores with counter-cultural values? That image was probably valid until the 1980's, but has rapidly been displaced since.

Organic foods sales grew at 20 percent per year during the 1990s, attracting the attention of the food business. In the process, organic went mainstream and became an accepted niche market at grocery chains and even big-box retailers such as WalMart and Target. The author's real question is whether this represents "progress" or "problem" for fans of simpler lifestyles and all things organic.

The documented answer is some of both. Fromartz is a highly accomplished business journalist who takes a (mostly) unsentimental look at the business of marketing organic foods. Interviewing small and large merchants plus the `man on the street,' Fromartz discovers that organic is profitable and growing, yet at the same time poses a risk to traditional fans who are unlikely to shop at big boxes for the food they know and love. While the mainstream consumer `discovers' organic, the core organic customer may be wondering if she can trust anyone, anywhere, any more. This dilemma, the author notes, resembles putting up "a neon sign for an organic Twinkie."

After an entertaining and excellent investigative look at the business of organic, Fromartz holds out hope that both kinds of organic - mass market and small market - may find ways to thrive. For the core customer, related values like humane treatment of animals, fair market pricing, and sustainable agriculture may become more relevant indicators of value than the simple phrase `organic.' These savvy shoppers may continue to trust the small, unique brands and identities of traditional organic suppliers.

Meanwhile a certain amount of industrialization, mass-market methods and persuasive advertising messages can be expected to boost sales of anything termed `organic' in the aisles of a mega-retailer near you, where the organic business is currently booming.

Whether you like your organic "all natural" or with "always low prices," you'll be likely to find it readily available. Which type you choose will say a lot about your personal values and expectations.

Armchair Interviews say: The good news, from the author's point of view, is that at least you'll get to choose! In a free market, our choices define our future opportunities.

I enjoyed this book. It was a great introduction to the organic world.

"Organic Inc" by Samuel Fromartz offers a good introduction to the natural food movement. Written primarily for a popular audience, the book combines research with short histories, case studies and profiles of prominent personalities and companies that have shaped the industry. Although the author's frequent interjections about his own personal experiences and infatuations with organics becomes somewhat annoying, overall the book succeeds in granting insight into the organic movement, its foundational ideals and the possibilities for the future.

Mr. Fromartz provides a brief history of organic farming as an alternative to a deeply flawed agro-industrial production system. We learn that organic methods were developed for ideologically diverse reasons but tends to produce nutritionally superior foods when compared with conventional farming practices. Although yields are usually smaller, the author discusses how organic strawberry farms in California are an example of how organics can outperform when allowing for decreases in energy and fertilizer input.

Mr. Fromartz profiles some of the small organic farmers whose deference to health, environment and community were shaped by the 1960s counterculture. A small but vital network of farmers, distributors and retailers supported a fledgling movement that defined itself by remaining outside the conventional food system. The author describes how such farmers often devised creative marketing strategies by catering to specialty restaurants or selling their produce directly to the public at farmer's markets. As health and safety concerns about pesticides and rBGH growth hormones caught the public's attention, organic farming has become more widespread, emerging as an increasingly important survival strategy for more and more beleagured family farmers.

Mr. Fromartz traces the rise in popularity of pre-packaged salads and refrigerated soy milk to discuss how mass market success has created divisions within the organic community. The development of large-scale organic enterprises has intensified competition and shut down smaller, less efficient producers. Regulation has become a contentious issue, with small farmers seeking to hold large farmers accountable to maintaining high standards. As supermarkets such as Safeway and Wal-Mart have begun to add organic sections to their stores, issues of local production, fair wages and sustainability are heightened. Yet, the author is upbeat in his assessment that small farmers can continue to find their niche by satisfying the needs of the more sophisticated organic consumer.

I recommend this highly readable and informative book to everyone.

Can big agribusiness and local organic farming co-exist and thrive? Samuel Fromartz' new book, Organic, Inc., is a fascinating journey through American agricultural movements, starting around the turn of the century, when farming was still a small-town venture and tracing its development into agribusinesses whose products are now found on most American tables - and the movement into locally grown, organic foods, which represents not so much a return to the past as a return to wholeness and healthy living.

The problem seems to be that the organic movement itself is being challenged by the very agribusinesses it once eschewed. There are really few ways to farm sustainably (which will in most cases mean organically and without genetically modified foods or chemicals) AND use the systems that have come to mean "factory farms" - livestock confined for their entire lifetimes in areas so small they cannot turn around or lie down (chickens, for instance, and pigs), never mind see the sunshine or walk around and enjoy fresh air, eating what they would eat if humans were not around.

Agrisystems, as they exist today, are basically unhealthy - and unsustainable. But they are profitable, and make it easy for "food" (if you want to call it that) to arrive at your table packaged neatly and processed to death. Rare are the children being raised today who knows what "food" looks like in its natural state. Do they know what a carrot or beet looks like, while it's growing in the ground? Do they know that the hamburger they eat comes from a being that has a face and makes sounds, and may (depending on your viewpoint) be sentient?

Being removed from the source and sight and smells and knowledge of how your food comes to you - how it was grown, and what has happened to it all along the way - makes for some dangerous possibilities. We cannot know (or control very well, despite so-called legal safeguards meant to protect us) where our food has been, before it reaches our table, unless we have grown it ourselves (which is not easy or possible for most people) or have bought it from someone in our community whose farming practices we know - and could actually go there and see.

Fromartz comes from a reporting background, and knows how to dig out factoids that will leave you breathless for the sheer scope of what has happened to our food and our food production systems. It should leave you with both concern and hope, at the end.

Organic, Inc. Is not exactly the "story of food" but it truly is the tale of two different visions for how food is produced and made available to consumers. One (local biodynamic farming) is sustainable; the other (multinational, corporate agribusiness) is not.

Fromartz carefully traces how we got where we are, without suggesting where we will go in the future. However, his bias for a sustainable natural foods future is clear - and it's one I share. If you care about what you eat, how it got here, and whether you will be able to find more like it tomorrow, you should read this book, think about what it means, and DO something about what you believe is the best course of action for a world where what we eat determines how healthy we and our future generations will be.

Yours for extraordinary dining -- for everyone,

Nancy Boyd
www.find-great-organic-gourmet-foods.com

Playing pool has not been one of my hobbies, nor has it even engaged my interest. Bob Watson's interesting story has changed my mind, and I may have to try it soon! I was compelled to finish it in one sitting. His story, with not only a background in the pool hall but explicit tips on how to play the game well, is more about human interactions, the expected and unexpected. He has shown that until one really gets to know another person, perceptions can blind us causing us to miss out on a wonderful life experience. I highly recommend this read to anyone, whether you're a pool shark or not!

To be honest I'm not a pool player, I don't like reading and I don't really read books in English unless I have to because English is not my first language. But in spite of these facts I read this book at once and really enjoyed it. The story is easy to read and it takes you to the world of kindness and real friendship, two things everyone wants to have in his or her life but not everyone has. Bob Watson is talking about pool with such respect that it makes you respect the game. The story teaches us that this game is more about gathering together and having a good time rather than winning regardless of anything. Author makes it clear that pool is not shooting balls in the pocket, it's painting on the canvas and to be a real player you'll have to be an artist.
Thanks to this book now I'm trying to play pool myself and of course it's not easy but I met a lot of great people in the pool hall which makes the learning process easier and much more fun.

i'm not a big time pool player, but after reading this book i suddenly cought myself on the idea that i just wanna go to poolhall and spend an hour or two hitting the balls. the passion for the game, all the caracters in the book have, is very addictive. they so truly enjoy just beeing in that athmosphere, just holding the que, just playing the game! it's not about competition, it's about the love to the game, sharing that love to others.
i couldn't stop reading, coz the language is so easy and the caracters are so real - it's true life and i'm sure you'll find a lot in common between the caracters in the book and the people you know (even if they don't play pool :))))
by the way, i was trying to use some of the techniques discribed in the book, and i got news for you - it works!!!!
so if you are just starting to learn how to play or you already big pool fan or you are just looking for a good book to read - "PAINTING ON GREEN CANVAS" sould be your first choice :)))

the passion and enthusiasm with which the author writes about the game of pool are both obvious and infectious. i challenge anyone who reads this book to not run right out to your nearest pool hall. this book is simultaneously an easy-to-read guide for people who wish to master and an open love letter to the game of pool. the writer's skill level is evident but more impressive is the ease with which he is able to make that skill level seem attainable. it is clear that whoever taught this guy how to play also infused him with a great respect for the game and has in turn made him an excellent teacher.

This is a fantastic story and very inspirational! Its a captivating and fun read, I could not put the book down... great work!

As a young teacher, this book has been unbelievably helpful in crystalizing my thoughts about playing and teaching. A lifetime of violin study with a master violinist and teacher in a single volume, absolutely priceless. Along with
The Suzuki Approach,
The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance, The Inner Game of Music,
The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music from the Heart, The PracticeSpot Guide to Promoting Your Teaching Studio: How to make your phone ring, fille your schedule, and create a waiting list you can't jump over,
and What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body: The Practical Application of Body Mapping & the Alexander Technique to Making Music,
this is the foundation and core of my violin/viola playing and teaching philosophy and of my studio.

What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body is extremely helpful as well since we all need to play the piano!!

After seeing the positive reviews on this book, I decided to go ahead and get it, as I realized despite my having played viola for such a long time, I don't own a single tome detailing the principles of good technique and playing.

So far I've gone through sections dealing with left hand positioning (the frame) and intonation. The writing is clear and engaging; Galamian observes many times it is important not to lay down arbitrary rules on how things should be done - unless there is a compelling reason. I like how the sections contain exercises that are written out - the provide a concrete method to achieve the results he discusses. The photos of hand positioning are also very descriptive.

I can tell I'm going to refer to this book again and again in the coming years - it is so nice to have it reinforce what I've heard (and often forget!) from different teachers! Definitely recommended!

I'd like to add that I found this book for about $20 less at Shar Music - but at any of these prices it's completely worth it!

I would recommend this book to any musician. Although it extensively covers bowing and left hand technique, the most important aspects are in how to practice and master your art. The variations suggested can be used by any musician on any instrument and will take you to a new level of technical control.

I would not suggest this book for a beginner, this material is best learned from an experienced teacher. Advanced students and teachers should all have this book in their book collections.

As a former violin student of 9 years who moved towards piano instead, I have found this book immensely valuable in helping me as a Suzuki parent of a young violinist myself. If you have a child moving into the Kreutzer etudes, or in Book 7 or later in the Suzuki series, this book is a godsend. At this point in your child's studies, you have no doubt been listening to many great artists, and wondering how they attain the immense variety in tonal coloring, or how they actually implement such amazing shifts, or complex bowing techniques. This book, with its pictures, is outstanding in deconstructing these motions. While it is highly analytical in parts, the book is also excellent in addressing the body's motion as a whole - in showing the coupling between the hand, elbow, shoulders, violin... using well known extracts from etudes, caprices, and solo works as practical examples.

It most definitely helps to be an advanced instrumentalist in reading this book, as the author certainly presumes that the reader has a trained ear. The sections on how to practice will also be appreciated by those who have worked in intensive Master Classes, and have carried back from these classes some improved practice habits.

All-in-all, this is book not to be missed, particularly by the supportive parents of maturing artists.

this is a MUST for any violinist who is serious about playing the violin. This book has solution to all of the problems that a violinist faces, in addition, this is a great leaning tool, lines from major concertos are used as exemples. again, this book is a must for anyone who's serious about playing the violin or even becoming a concert soloist.

This is a great book. A really insightful, inspiring, honest and empowering account of somebody who cares about the planet, its people and its food.
I've shown my friends this book as it traveled with me. If I could I'd borrow you mine. Just get it!

This book provides lots of good info on what's really going on in the food supply, as well as suggestions on getting good food.
It also made me feel better knowing that there are lots of other people who care about the quality of our food.

"What is for supper?" is a short question with a long history of many answers. "Why is it for supper?" is more recently and less frequently asked. One long answer is The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, a fresh evaluation of how the other half of America eats, that is, the other half of one-percent.

Sandor Ellix Katz, author also of Wild Fermentations, examines our food choices, challenging us as would a moral philosopher, and inspiring us as might a romantic poet. But unlike poetry and philosophy, his texts are thoroughly researched and extensively footnoted. Scholarly without being stuffy, he ponders the social, political, ethical and environmental consequences of the foods we choose to eat, of the foods we choose not to eat, and of even our very acts of choosing. Food for thought about food.

Each chapter offers a wholesome essay that can be read independently of the others. Though inexpensive for a book of nearly 400 pages, its binding is especially durable. If separated physically from the whole, the leaves of each chapter stay bound together. This reviewer speaks from experience, having extracted entire chapters in this manner to distribute among friends.

Such portability is an appealing feature precisely because the topics are so diverse that few readers could possibly find the entire book relevant to their lives. Chapters such as these: Seed saving as political statement. Seeking and drinking raw cow's milk as acts of civil disobedience. The corporate takeover of natural foods, and the USDA makeover of organic foods. Whole food as healer, and processed food as killer. Medicinal herbs, including marijuana, as not just alternatives to pharmaceuticals, but their very basis. Pure and free water as birthright, now imperiled by pollution and privatization. Gardening as a means of reclaiming Eden. Vegetarianism as an act of compassion in contrast to carnivorous cruelty.

Vegetarians will be especially sensitive to and maybe even appreciative of the author's discussion of vegetarianism. Katz, a lapsed vegetarian, weighs the significance of life as a vegetarian among omnivores. The reasons for his own vegetarian apostasy are especially edifying. The chapter "Vegetarian Ethics and Humane Meat" begins almost with a confession: "I love meat. The smell of it cooking can fill me with desire.... At the same time, everything I see, hear, or read about standard commercial factory farming and slaughtering fills me with disgust." Whether filled with desire or with disgust, the author writes with humility and clarity. And charity. He continues: "I hold great respect for the ideals that people seek to put into practice through vegetarianism."

Katz acknowledges that vegetarians will brand "humane meat" a contradiction of adjective with noun, yet he nobly and duly presents the gist of vegetarian ethics and effectively distills into a few pages what we'd expect from an entire book.

This emerging moral vocabulary is one whose etymologies can be attributed to vegetarian evangelists and animal liberationists. Their shouts of protest and their cries of lamentation have been heard. Many meat eaters grown uneasy with their own complicity now seek the lesser of several evils. Michael Pollan, the eloquent author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, too deserves credit for expanding this lexicon.

Pollan, however, is less forthright about his own omnivorism than is Katz. Instead, Pollan applies his considerable intelligence merely to rationalize and bolster his considerable decadence. For Pollan, meat's taste trumps its waste. Rather than renounce meat as a superfluity, he chooses to denounce its cruelty. So thanks to Pollan and to his readers whom he has rallied to the cause, many herds of open-pasture cows and many flocks of free-range hens are now being spared the horrors of the feedlot and the factory farm. But that is small comfort to the cows and the hens still prodded on their death march to the slaughterhouse.

Pollan hunted a feral pig to write about it. Katz slaughtered a farm-raised pig to eat it. For Katz, writing is an afterthought to eating, as when he describes in necessary detail the physical difficulties of slaughtering a pig or a chicken. And Katz's book, in contrast to Pollan's, is one of few about food in which narrative use of the first person is welcomed and warranted. This is because Katz's life experiences and his resulting perspectives both are so very unique.

For instance, Katz expresses disillusionment with the pharmaceutical industry, yet he admits to his dependence upon their pills and potions for treatment of his AIDS. He even chronicles the long struggle of his unsuccessful attempt to survive and function without those pills and potions. Such candor about being poz is rare, and a testament to the author's integrity. Let's hope that Katz copes well with AIDS, and that he lives a long and healthy life, long enough to complete his third book, and fourth and fifth and sixth.

- Mark Mathew Braunstein [[ the reviewer is the author of Sprout Garden and of Radical Vegetarianism ]]

I loved reading this book and feeling like a radical because of my food choices! Sandor Ellix Katz writes well and has great stories relating to food. This is a great book for those interested in healthy fermented foods and local, seasonal eating.

Katz has a charming style of writing - frank, yet humble and highly readable. His book "The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved" is a well-documented compilation of the issues we face with regard to our food, and an account of those individuals and groups who are making positive steps toward curbing an erosion of culture and nutrition. If you only read one book about food and activism, this should be the one - I wish I could afford to give a copy to everyone I know.

Along with "Wild Fermentation" Katz's books are both inspiring non-manifestos, and practical guides to revolutionary living. Katz has quickly become one of my favorite authors and persons.

The author made it sound so real.It made me beleive again.Its a great book for the whole family(especially those that are young and young at heart!)

Oh man, My daddy got me this book two years ago and for the longest time I was like "Yeah, right Santa Claus, pffft . . ." and I threw the book in my closet. Then this christmas I was sick with the flu and I found it again. Having nothing else to do I began to read it and was sucked into the vast imagery and delicate artwork found within it's pages. It's many fanciful scenes involving the growth of Santa and his escapades in the mushroom forest and various other psychotropic locales dovetailed nicely with the effects of my cold medecine. An awesome tale of the jolly fat man if there ever was one . . . .

I am adult who still longs to believe in the myth of Santa Claus: that a jolly old man is still roaming the earth in his airborne carriage delivering happiness to all of the good Christian boys and girls out there. But as a buddhist, I have always stood outside this tradition and wondered if his life was relevant to my own Chinese background. But with this book the universality of santa's benevolence is brought home to all. May all the faiths buy this book for the Holiday season and the Chinese New Year!

I have been following the stunning art of Sienkwiecz since I was a 13 year old, when he was illustrating for Marvel Comics. Imagine my surprise when I saw this, with such detailed artwork. I have a feeling that years for now, this will be considered one of his major pieces of art. Not to mention that it has the origin of Santa Claus as well!

I read "Santa, My Life and Times" with my two boys, ages 4 and 6, over the week prior to Christmas. We took advantage of its longer format to spread it out over several nights, one or two chapters at a time. While I was at first worried that the youngsters' short attention spans would wane, the story, writing and illustrations are so rich that their interest only grew with each night's installment, dovetailing perfectly with their mounting anticipation of the holiday. I wish there were more longer-form children's books out there that offered such depth of experience for my whole family. We'll be reading it again next year, for sure!

This book, out of print for 25 years, is now back in print (I received an early review copy of it this past week) and is basically unchanged, but it is still great to see the book back in print. The scholarly look at Sasquatch by author Green is sober and well-researched. Green, once a skeptic who even put hoax stories on Sasquatch in his newspaper, became convinced in 1958 when he saw tracks in the Bluff Creek area and began to receive reports. Now, over 4,000 reports later, he is thoroughly convinced. The earlier book review I gave for this 492-page tome still stands.
This is a classic for a whole new generation of researchers and is excellent source material for anyone interested in the subject. A worthy edition to any cryptozoological library.

Having been interested in the Bigfoot/Sasquatch phenomenon since I was a child of eight, I have read everything on the subject that I could find. This is "the Bible" of Sasquatchery as far as I'm concerned. It is extremely readable due the author's journalistic background. John Green has performed exhaustive research on this very controversial subject. He provides an historical background on the subject and numerous interviews and incidents. Whether you're a believer, skeptic, or open-minded, this is a very interesting and readable book.

A must read for all interested in the subject. This book never gets old. If you live in the USA or Canada, you'll probably find a sighting near your hometown, or in your state. John Green has arguably the largest private database of Sasquatch sightings on file. His background in journalism comes across in this masterpiece. Will definitely hold the interest of anyone looking for an extremely good read.

This book, clocking in at a whopping 492 pages, is the starting point for many researchers' interest in the subject of Sasquatch. Canadian Sasquatch researcher John Green's writing style is comfortable and assuring, and gives the reader true insights into his longtime research efforts, as well as a virtual catalogue of sightings from all over the United States and indeed in some cases, the world. He examines the old Indian legends, as well as the implications that entails in the modern world. This great book is out of print for the moment, and a bit expensive to purchase, but publishing company Hancock House is republishing the book next Spring at a more affordable price, so if you have a chance to purchase this book, do so.

This book is THE classic for Bigfoot enthusiasts. It is comprehensive, detailed, and hugely entertaining with its scores of fascinating case studies. Mr. Green's writing is calm and collected, yet conjures up great atmosphere. This is the book you'll keep coming back to.

I was a little disappointed in this book, I thought it was a list of things to do. It was more like vague suggestions with web sites to check out. Several of the web sites were no longer working. I didn't find a lot of new information that I have not already read about. This is more of a beginners guide for going green. I would have gotten a lot more out of it several years ago. So if you are just starting to find options for going green, this is a book for you.

Most people want to do whatever they can to make the world a better place and protect the Earth. For them, marching in demonstrations or engaging in direct action is not an option. What to do? In subjects ranging from Air to Water to Food to Global Warming, this book lists many web sites with more information to get the reader involved in protecting the environment.

Perhaps the reader just wants to find out what sort of recycling facilities are in their town. One of their first stops should be to www.earth911.org. To look for reusable or biodegradable diapers, visit www.organicbebe.com. The Wildlife Conservation Society (www.wcs.org) has a very distinguished record in conserving endangered species. For those who have compost heaps, Starbucks will give you their coffee grounds. Details are at www.starbucks.com/aboutus/compost, or talk to your local manager.

A handy wallet card on produce and pesticides called "The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides" (bring it with you when shopping) is available from www.foodnews.org. A good site on global warming is www.climatestar.org. The Busy Person's Guide to Greener Living can be found at www.greenmatters.com. Do you have stuff you no longer need that someone else may want? Before that trip to the landfill, visit www.freecycle.org. Adopt a lobster (and help ensure a continued supply of lobsters) at www.lobsters.org, the Lobster Conservancy.

This is a wonderful book. It's small (it really can fit in your back pocket), it's well laid out, and the reader can pick their level of involvement. It is very highly recommended. Saving the environment does not get much easier than this.

Whether you are young or old, rich or poor, environmentally challenged or conscious, teacher or student, computer savvy or not - you will like this book. It provides real-life resources and contacts, anecdotal examples and insight on how YOU, the reader, can easily help sustain Mother Earth. Great for students of all ages!

As is the list of environmental problems so overwhelming and the scale so global, so is the feeling that one person can't make a difference. And, even in the trying, the choices are so many and the information so contradictory, that it's hard to know where to start. Here, at last, is the logical successor to "50 Simple Things...," better, more evolved, and yet easier. A wealth of choices that can be tailored to match what you feel you CAN do now, what you MIGHT feel you can do later, and what you SHOULD be telling your friends-- in short, a compendium of answers on a scale that any of us can comprehend.

This little book is simply amazing! It is a wealth of information,contacts and web sites regarding the environment and ways we can do our part to help. It is like the spark of desire, that hopefully, ignites the fire of action, encouraging us to seek out and "embrace a more environmentally friendly lifestyle". It is witty, informative and easy to navigate. A perfect gift and an exceptional manual for a meaningful life.

No need to summarize the plot; others have already done so. This is another terrific novel by the author of "Morte D'Urban" and fans of that sadly-neglected work will find this one equally enjoyable.

Powers has a talent, rare in American literature, for subtlety. His portrayal of Joe Hackett, a somewhat aloof, well-meaning but complacent Catholic priest, is a masterpiece of nuance, as realistic a character study as any I've encountered. One wouldn't think a book about the everyday goings-on of a suburban clergyman (everything from fund-raising to attending retreats to petty diocesan politicking) would hold much interest for the lay-reader, but don't let the subject matter scare you: this is a book about faith, redemption, and the wins and losses faced by all of us as we grow older (and, purportedly, wiser).

J.F. Powers's characters are built incrementally, as much through what they say and do as by what they leave unsaid and undone. The dialog here is snappy, the plotting is swift, the humor is wonderfully dry (the first chapter alone is a quiet riot), the observations of human nature are acute. The writing is razor-sharp; not a wasted word or imprecise thought to be found. And this without the stylistic bells and whistles so many writers feel the need to employ in order to "prove" their literary merit. It's not often I say that I hated to see a book come to an end, but in this case, it was true. In many ways, the novel ends just as Hackett's life is beginning.

Keep Powers in print. Read this book.

This final entry--1988 marks its long-delayed arrival--in a lengthy career (starting in the mid-1940s) of scant fiction marks the end of the postwar, triumphalist, yet marginalized, Midwestern Catholic parish--and notably here, rectory--intrigues that Powers excelled at conveying. His scale, being so focused, gains accuracy and depth by its concentration upon detail. Like a model railroad set, the 1:150 (or whatever!) ratio means painstaking attention to fidelity. Such realism to the untutored eye appears grotesque or caricatured, but to an aware observer reveals a nearly exact fit of form with content.

I give it four rather than five stars as I have re-read (and reviewed here, "Morte" and the thirty stories in their original three volumes as well as the collected reissue) all of Powers recently, and I believe that his many strengths as a writer are at times clouded slightly by his tendency towards oversubtlety. A forgivable fault in an era of so many authors straining for the obvious or what critics call "overdetermining" their subject, but Powers tends in all his work towards lengthy passages where not much goes on at all, but in which an editor could have polished the presentation and refined the craft even further. Powers appears to have been his own worse enemy and his own most scrupulous critic, on the other hand. Be it as it may, Powers makes nearly all of his peers look hasty, scattered, and undisciplined by comparison.

Action over the course of a priest's youth, coming of age, and gradual rise from curate to administrative assistant (when that word did not connote a secretary or receptionist) and then pastor comprises the narrative. Less verve here than the worldlier, more urbane Fr Urban had, but perhaps in his principled if compromised (the whole crux of the tension) fidelity to the needs of separating "Church from Dreck" Powers reveals that the need for reform Fr Urban realized while Vatican II was still in session (so to speak) by the end of the decade became all the more apparent as the slow slide downhill accelerated. Set by its conclusion around 1968, if offhandedly, the Catholic Worker roots of Powers and his conservative radicalism stand his fictional main character in good stead as priests wander off, parishioners ignore crusty priests' reprimands, malls open on Sundays, the hillbilly's war machine thunders on in the small town press, and guitars with cant supplant chant.

This novel, like his earlier (sharing with it a clumsy if rarified referential title) "Morte d'Urban," (1962), suffers from arid stretches, where the humor is so deadpan, the pace so true that the inert nature of our own shared experience with the clerical protagonists appears too neatly aligned. Dullness enters. A VD quarantine warning takes up one and a half pages verbatim. A few sample sermons from Father Felix (who helps out saying weekend Masses) summarize the stultifying, yet sincere, homiletics of a certain, less soundbitten, age. So with Powers, who in this novel had been criticized as a man out of time, with figures he identified with whose era had passed them by. Joe is only in his mid-forties. He seems much older. This may be a sign of now-diminished respect, when the maturity demanded of authority figures gave an earned dignity and a bit of unearned noblesse oblige to the clergy in smaller towns where the collar still mattered. Joe Hackett manages to get through the routine, and out of the limelight that had once courted his counterpart Fr. Urban, this parish priest does his best balancing God with Mammon, as the demands of a new accounting system make fundraising all the more essential, even as this pulls at the Gospel admonition that it's better to give alms in secret. How to square this with the need to make accountable freeloading parishioners when the Archbishop's needs come payable on demand? Out of such quandaries, Powers raises his own quiet art.

The need in fiction for a jolt, a spark, a spin off from the quotidian to the profound nestles, certainly, in Powers. This, however, moves along leisurely, and often nothing seems to happen for chapters at a time. Then, you understand that this accurately limns the trajectory of a recognizably human life like our own. You can see Powers' study of Joyce in his preparation of the slow ascent to epiphanies, such as Fr. Joe Hackett's finessed blessing of a scruffy draft resister who steps to tie his shoelaces while the padre finagles praying over his head and out of eyesight or earshot as the young man prepares to flee to Canada, on the pastor's unspoken advice but according to his moral example.

Re-reading this nearly two decades after it appeared, I admire Powers' critique of not only the institutional Church and its compromises with the world, but of his own admission that holy Joes only go so far in their own zeal in battling for their losing side. They must do so, vowed to do so and called by their Maker, but Powers recognizes in his own mellowing how annoying piety and phariseeism can be for the rest of us. Not for nothing is an early battle Joe engages in at the seminary, much to the disgust of some classmates and the suspicion of his rector, over the necessity of wearing a hairshirt.

Constructed in part from stories written over the past (two of which appeared in the last of his three thin story collections, 1975's "Look How the Fish Live," the novel does let its seams show. I wonder if parts of this novel were left too long on the shelf, or in hibernation. Yet, this is how Powers wrote. Very slowly, spending days pondering if a character would use the term "pal" or "chum" in referring to a confrere. Such was his state of mind, and more power to him. Probably a patron saint of scrupulous writers, if he is canonized as he deserves! His friend and colleague Jon Hassler eulogized him as "a saint with a bad temper." Hassler notes how Powers could strain so long over a detail that a reader, even an informed one such as himself, might miss the very nuanced finesse.

The extended battle of the story that was "Bill" for Joe to learn his new curate's name appears tedious and unbelievable, a shaggy-dog tale after a few pages of the many devoted to this embarrassing and rather cryptic episode. The story earlier published as "Priestly Fellowship" enters the novel mostly unchanged, but again the dive into the post-Vatican II uproar appears muted, if perhaps less dated for its lack of topicality to specific changes so much as the persistent lack of clerical fidelity. Yet, as the novel lengthens, the episodes do build upon possibilities tucked into these two stories, and while they unfold in off-handed and perhaps overly-controlled fashion, they are truer to the texture of everyday life for being so controlled. Holiness comes, if at all, minutely slow. The lack of histrionics or forced symbolism remains despite the uneven pacing in his longer works Powers' greatest talent. Powers knew when and how indirect first-person voice carried his stories; his shift in and out of his protagonist's minds is at its best in the imagined reverie Joe lets himself into as he pitches in the yard with Bill to let off steam. As with Urban's similarly prosy--both exaggerated and ordinary-- temptation at Belleisle in "Morte," the priestly heroes let their deepest selves emerge when they pretend they are just like the rest of us. Powers, and we, know better.

A final word, quoted from one of his students in Commonweal on his death in 1999. In the novel, out of his collar on a much-needed vacation, Joe passes himself off at the hotel bar as working for a "big concern," in "life insurance." The firm? "Eternal." Sort of a multinational, he admits, although he works out of a local "branch office." Powers explained when asked in class why he wrote so much about the clergy, and if he was anticlerical. "I'm not anticlerical. I simply look for a story that elucidates truth. If a human being buys an insurance policy, that's not much of a story. But when a priest buys an insurance policy, there's something going on that needs to be said and I want to say it." It took him nearly fifty years to write it.

This book was nominated for the national book award in 1988 for fiction. It is the story about Father Joe Hackett who as a young man was an athlete and a bit of a partier, and then he became a priest out of saintly ambition but becomes overly fond of the drink. Joe is a strange hero for a novel. Powers' daughter Kathrine in her introduction to the current edition states: "Written over an increasingly dark time, Wheat That Springeth Green was shaped by my father's growing conviction of the progressive and irredeemable absurdity of things. He was a connoisseur of the dull, the mediocre and the second-rate, and of the disingenuous and fraudulent, but now it seemed that their dominion has truly come." This book captures much of that sentiment - Joe in his own life and in his interactions with most of the other clergy in this book. Though Powers is more famous for his earlier work Morte D'Urban, I personally find this book much more enjoyable and Joe, though he has more visible faults, a person you can relate to more easily. I have known priests in my life that were mirrors of both Joe and Urban and yet I end up seeing a lot of myself in Joe.

Joe desired to live a holy life; he wanted to be pious and devote. He desired to be a man of prayer, serving the world. In chapter 6 Out in the World (previously published as The Warm Sand) Joe, in his last year in seminary, became known as a holy roller and was avoided his last year in school. His first assignment is with a priest who is a truly pious man, and when he criticizes him in front of some other clergy he experiences great remorse. Through this event he tries to change his ways.

Personally I can really relate to Joe; there is much in his small successes and more frequent failures or setbacks. This book is excellent. It was a labour of over 25 years of writing and rewriting. And having read some of the earlier versions of some chapters published as short stories, it was worth the wait. Powers, being the wordsmith he is, crafted and recrafted the stories together into a fabulous novel.

Anyone who has not read J.F. Powers is missing a major American voice in letters. This review will not be adequate to even speak of his skill.

Complete lives are sketched with the faintest of references, such as a family who the hero, Father Joe Hackett, brings from the city to remind his comfy parishioners of the trials of the poor (shades of the "holy poverty in the city" mantra so common from my youth). He tells their entire story with three unconnected lines sprinkled as a leitmotif throughout the narrative.

The hero's interior monologue is both revealing, and surprising. Throughout the novel faint points of challenges and grace (and simple, just-sufficient grace) carry the reader along with Father Joe's eventual conversion (rededication?). This is the story of a bumbling soul who eventually inhales the breath of the Divine.

Every person I've ever given a J.F. Powers book to has thanked me (Catholics and non-Catholics alike). Highly recommended, for this is monumentally great literature.

The best of the series of books published by The New York Review of Books are all the works of J.F. Powers, who died in 1989. Powers' novels and stories are almost entirely concerned with Catholic clerical life in the midwest. I hadn't read his last novel, Wheat That Springeth Green, and I was happy to find that the new edition contained an introduction by the author's daughter, Katherine Powers. Wheat That Springeth Green is every bit as fine as Morte D'Urban, his first and only other novel written some 25 years earlier, and a National Book Award winner as well. In its treatment of character and plot the latter novel is theologically perhaps even more complex.

Joe's character is cast from the first pages: as a toddler he gets attention from his parents' friends merely for declaiming at a party "I go to church!" We also learn of his parents' antipathy towards the parish priest's intoning on the subject of the "Dollar-a-Sunday Club," an attitude that Joe will inherit, and which becomes a theme that will be played out in a number of surprising ways. We also sense something of his aloofness in these first chapters as well. He doesn't keep up with many friends, but he does seem to know the value in keeping up appearances: "Joe just smiled at Frances and everybody, so they couldn't tell how he really felt about being in the sack race..." Joe is a good athlete, even in grade school, and the race he really wants, but doesn't get, is the sprint.

Much of the story revolves around Joe's relation to money, so that even an early adventure (described in nearly pornographic detail) involving his first adult relations with women is later understood to be subsumed by his larger pecuniary obsessions. His sexual sins, or at least the memory of them, turn out to be something of a red herring: at the seminary he asks his instructor, "Father, how can we make sanctity as attractive as sex to the common man?" a question that (rightly) earns him nothing but mirth from his fellow seminarians. We are given hints that as Joe grows older he succeeds in overcoming his youthful scrupulosity. After a stint at Archdiocesan Charities he is assigned to the parish of St. Frances - a name shared by his childhood infatuation and a co-traveler in that youthful adventure. So as far as sex is concerned, there is in his maturity there a sense that all is right with Joe, if not the world. That this is the case is dramatically reinforced by the nearly hopeless entanglements of an ex-seminarian, some of which leads to misplaced retribution that Joe patiently, even faithfully endures. These episodes are magnificently structured, displaying in Joe's life a kind of fate that is worked out through choices made less in freedom than with a concern for propriety and in service to principles that are neither his own, nor of the church in which, as he says in other circumstances, he does so much hard time.

Other obstacles to holiness, as perhaps they always must, remain. Although his basic attitude is good, the reader realizes that the young Father Hackett has refused one halo in favor of another when he refuses to toady up to either the priest in his parish or to the archbishop in his archdiocese. Money matters are everywhere in evidence: the rectory built by Joe; bribes offered by parishoners; purses collected on behalf of retiring priests; inheritence; a collection drive that is farmed out to a private firm - in which Joe will take no part. All this points to beyond the contradiction in one man's character to a paradox that is funamental to our very being. How do we care for an abundance which is most fully ours when we least consider it our own?

Joe's misappropriation of his own nature, and indeed human nature, leads to a truly heinous transgression in one of the final chapters. That this transgression is committed and then resolved in secret, without comment from Joe or even the narrator, points toward a God who is as truly all merciful as he is unnoticed even by lesser beings working on his behalf. I would guess that the true thorn in Joe's side is also Powers', and while reading I several times wondered whether the crux of the story wasn't inspired by his frustration at watching baskets and plates passed through the pews, week in and week out, for a lifetime.

Very highly recommended.

My daughter loved this book, in fact the whole series is wonderful. There is so much information and detailed pictures, It's almost a shame to let a child color them in! lol I like to color them with colored pencil as well. The pages are nice and thick. A great gift!

This is a beautiful book that an older kid could really appreciate. I bought it for my 3 year old because she's very into horses right now but she will not do it any justice. An older child with artistist ability would love turning these black & white images into stunning pictures. Would work great with colored pencils as the pages are much nicer than the usual "crayon" type pages of kids coloring books.

Very realistic pictures for children or adults to enjoy coloring to their heart's delight. Focus can be realistic or fantasy colors. Nicely done.

This is a very good coloring book. John Green is an excellent artist and with a little colored pencil or crayons the pictures come alive. I bought this book for myself, and I love it.

Page after page of beautifully drawn horses in various poses, many of them are action poses.

A few of the pictures feature riders but most are just of the horses--which was my preference.

The drawings are large and easy to color, and there is also lots of background with mountains, trees, rocks and even rivers/streams.

I am an adult colorer, but I think anyone from about the age of six would enjoy coloring in this book.

I highly recommend it.