Park Books

"City Heat" is an eclectic mix of skilled prose, thought-provoking poetry, and wonderful illustrations. The collection is a masterpiece from one the South's best humorists and storytellers. Each piece is a gold nugget in its on right. This is a "must buy."

William Park has the talent, sense of humor and noogies to tie together some wonderful writing that constantly leaves you wondering what's fiction and what's real, with marvelous illustrations, poetry and memoirs. Sometimes subtle, sometimes outrageous, this book will take you on a fascinating journey through this guy's yearnings, fascinations and oddities.

"The Duck Hunter" and "Florida Bound" are beautifully written stories about the South. The accents and remarks of the men on the front porch of the hotel in "Florida Bound" are funny, yet ring true. The ending of that story is terrifying and yet almost poetic.

A good read. I especially liked "The Third Game." I don't play chess, but could easily follow what the author was saying about the game, and about the dangers of success. I liked the way the story dropped back into history for the key, then roared into the climax.

A lover of both variety AND substance, I frequently growl over ingredients missing in many popular literary genres. Short stories vary, scene to scene, but lack the novel's gravitas. Humor and art seem perpetually oil and H2O. Where are those sytheses of prose, poetry, reflections, evocative art that stir my heart? City Heat is surely one.
Following Norman Mailer and Truman Capote (inventors of the "factoid" and the "non-fiction novel" respectively), Will Park has crafted one swell "book-pie," tasty and relevant and personal and poignant. This savory dish melds all that stuff I love, tossed in with some art for relish, a taste of memoir (listen up, Oprah!), a dash of Everyman and several cups of imagination in a melange so rich and compelling as to solicit a swoon if inhaled too fast.
Yet the prospect of reading straight-through is inviting. Each selection is a wonder, reviving new interest while transporting the reader light-years from the previous selection (though City Heat is NOT a work of science fiction--or porn, either, despite the tittilating title).
I was thoroughly satisfied to have touched and been touched by the psyches of kids, warriors, concubines found unexpectedly in swamps, foxholes, asphalt jungles. Wow.

This is the classic guide book for the Tetons. Many pictures and topos are provided to help route finding, however most topos are for the more difficult routes. The text is very descriptive. The book is heavy so be prepared to make photo copies before your climb.

exactly what I was looking for. All the detail I needed and more. Please send my thanks to the authors for the great beta.

Excellent book. Clearly describes hundreds of routes with climbing topo's and ratings. Highly recommended.

If you are looking for a comprehensive, detailed, easy to understand reference guide to the history, approaches and routes of the peaks of the Grand Tetons...look no further. Complete with Topos, black and white Arial photographs, and hand drawn route diagrams, this guide is a "must have" in any mountaineer's quiver of guide books. The book opens with a history of the Grand Teton Range and introduces readers to the men and women who explored and developed many of the modern routes enjoyed by all today; particularly the "bold" first accents of the early Teton pioneers Paul Petzoldt and Glenn Exum. The meat of the book can be found in the remaining pages covering everything from, recommended equipment, mountain safety, to detailed accounts of the climbs and approaches on all the jagged peaks of the Teton Range.
As a climber of 20+ years, I found this book to be extremely helpful on my trips to the Tetons and highly recommend this guide to anyone entertaining the possibility of climbing or hiking in the Teton Range. Whether you are a seasoned climber, or are considering cutting your teeth in one of the most spectacular mountain ranges the United States has to offer, consider this resource a must!

A good climbing guide is a personal friend. You spend hours reading about possible climbs, adventures awaiting for you. There is much pleasure in browsing a climbing guide, remembering the climbs you have made, those climbs not completed due to severe weather or other reasons, and all those climbs you have yet to try.

My Teton guidebook has particular value as I always inscribe notes about my climbs: the date, my companions, the weather, route finding tips (or conversely, where I went astray), elapsed time, and other items of interest.

This third edition, 1996, is more than four hundred pages. It is much to bulky and heavy to carry on a climb. But it is a remarkable reference of virtually every climbing route in the Teton Range. The descriptions are detailed and well-written. I have not encountered any climbing guide that is comparable in detail and scope to this work by Leigh Ortenburger and Reynold Jackson.

The number of routes and variations on the favorite peaks can be overwhelming. The most commonly used route is highlighted. Route descriptions range from easy scrambles to difficult climbs requiring substantial technical skill on ice, snow, and rock. Numerous excellent black and white photos with climbing routes overlain are scattered throughout the texts. Also, there are many detailed ink drawings of more difficult climbs.

For climbers new to the Tetons, the authors have listed more than 130 of their favorite routes ranging from easy scrambles to severe climbs 5.12 in difficulty, as well as difficult technical ice climbing routes.

The introduction, some sixty pages, is quite good. Major topics include a history of Teton climbing, descriptions of great climbs and traverses, details on the national park service policy, and a discussion of the difficulty rating system. The section on Teton weather and climatology is both helpful and sobering. Also, on more than one occasion I had reason to appreciate Ortenburger's and Jackson's bushwacking hints for those canyons without maintained trails.

I have used A Climber's Guide to the Teton Range for many years beginning with the first edition dating back to the 1960s by Leigh Ortenburger. In the intervening years a condensed version, an extended version (volume 2), and a second and third edition have been published.

This third edition is really quite exceptional and I highly recommend this guidebook to anyone planning to climb in Grand Teton National Park.

A theatre writer, Riccardo Molteni, cannot write anymore because his wife, Emilia, does not love him anymore. Moreover, she despises him, all of a sudden.

The search for the reasons which led to this sudden change of feelings, makes Moravia rewrite a modern versin of Ulyse's myth. In a few words, Penelope did not love Ulyse anymore, though she remained faithful to him even before he left for Troja. Why did she not love him? Because the king's behaviour was not masculine enough towards her admirers at the court.
Therefore, Ulyse wins his wife's contempt and consequently leaves for Troja to free himself in a way. After the war, he postpones sine die his return to Ithaca, obessed by the same thing: Penelope's contempt.

When he finally decides to go back home, he knows he has no other solution but to violently kill all Penelope's admirers, in order to get her admiration and love.

And this is how Homer can be well combined with Freud. The moravian style, vivid and direct, manifests itself in this novel, keeping alive the pleasure of your reading.

I think Alberto Moravia is one of the greatest Italian writers of all times. All his novels deal with important issues our society has to face, problems we all have. Many of us will recognize ourselves in his characters.

It will be a very challenging reading that will make you ask a lot of questions about yourself and your life. Enjoy it!

After a second reading of Contempt, I feel compelled to call the short, tautly written novel a masterpiece. Told from the perspective of a neurotic egotist, the narrator accounts how he "sacrificed" his literary writing career to debase himself in the tawdry task of writing screenplays so that he can afford to lavish his wife with a bigger more opulent living quarters. The narrator convinces himself that not only does his wife not appreciate his "sacrifice," but that she no longer loves him. It's horrifying to read this narcissist's account of his marital disintegration because you begin to realize that he is projecting his own lack of love toward his wife (a pefectly fine, loving woman) and you realize that he is so emotionally arrested that he is incapable of loving anyone. Further, a close reading reveals that the narrator never sacrificed his writing career for his wife's opulent tastes, but rather is debasng his writing talents for his own greedy materialistic acquistion.

Many see Moravia's novel as the quintessential example of "modernism," the movement that emphasizes the human limitation for self-understanding and the understanding of others. Also, the novel explores Freudian themes of projection, paranoia, and the powers of the unconscious.

The novel is fast-paced save for a few chapters where the writer and director indulge in long-winded discussions about the mythical exposition of their film but overall the novel is a real page-turner full of suspense and psychological realism.

If you enjoy this suspensful novel told from the point of view of an unreliable narrator, I recommend Asylum by Patrick McGrath, Despair by Vladimir Nabokov, and The Horned Man by James Lasdun.

somehow there is a new found celebration for contempt and everything associated with it. a year and a half ago, godard's contempt was finally re-released; a couple of months ago, two new books about casa malaparte allowed us to view the importance of the film's setting, most notably capri and it's culture, but now this new publication of moravia's contempt will allow everyone to view the masterpiece it truly represents.

Finally, someone had the common decency to reprint Moravia in translation. And they also picked the best titles. Il Disprezzo (The Contempt) is the best, most honest, unflinching look at the disintegration of a relationship that I have ever read. Last released in the States in the 1950's under the title A Ghost at Noon, this is the same excellent translation by Angus Davidson, who translated almost all of the authors works up until his death in 1990. If you've ever experienced the conclusion of a long-term relationship and for some masochistic reason want to remember what it was like, this is the book for you. I guess that's not a ringing endorsement. But trust me, Moravia's penchant for psychological details is so devastatingly on-point, you'll find yourself nodding nauseatingly at the pathetic delusions and convoluted rationalizations taking place between the couple. It should be noted that this isn't the book's only focus. Quite uncharacteristically, Moravia tackles popular culture and the highbrow-lowbrow dichotomy in a darkly humorous fashion. I haven't seen Godard's film adaptation but I understand that it is an incredible achievement in itself.

Moravia's writing which I would not have encountered were it not for these elegant new paperback versions of his work is open to the bone. His honest revelations through his all too human characters are poignant, pointed, and penetrating. To any one interested in looking deep inside themeselves and their relationships: I recommend Contempt. Prepare to squirm.

DESERT by Jack Dykinga is published by Harry Abrams, Inc., a company that publishes high quality art books and not, for example, vacation tour guide books. DESERT is 143 pages long, and contains 83 full-sized color reproductions. Dykinga uses a 4X5 camera, resulting in a higher quality image.

Many of the images are merely of flowers or of pretty scenes. Here, there is no attempt to produce a photograph of artistic merit. However, this slight shortcoming is overwhelmed by a number of novel and creative photographs.

For example, JOSHUA TREE AT DAWN AFTER SPRING SNOW discloses a dark cloudy sky, tinged with purple, a shadowy snow-covered desert, and a grove of snow-covered Joshua trees--all cloaked with pre-dawn shadows. It is difficult to tear one's eyes away from this photograph.

DAWN ON THE PANAMINT MOUNTAINS and CRYSTALLIZED SALT FORMATIONS are two photographs that continue with the artist's experiments (successful experiments) with pre-dawn photography of the white desert. Here, the whiteness is not from snow, but from white salt.

Jack Dykinga has also focused his attention on cracked lakebeds (dried mud). CRACKED CLAY AND THE MESQUITE FLAT reveals a fascinating heart shape in a patio-like area of cracked sand. The cracked mud area abuts a region of desert that is soft sand.

Another fine shot, MESQUITE FLAT SAND DUNES AT SUNRISE, features a patio-like area of cracked sand, each pentangle of cracked mud is covered with warty clumps of earth. An open area in the middle of the cracked mud patio contains an open area in the shape of a diamond. At the center of the diamond-shaped open area is a small growing bush. The diamond-shaped area with the little round bush resembles an eye.

RACETRACK AT SUNRISE and RACETRACK AT SUNSET are fascinating images--the most unusual in this book. Each shows millions of tiny pentangles of cracked mud, stretching off into the distance. In the foreground are a couple of flattened areas resembling thick ruler-lines. The flattened areas were produced by small boulders, somehow propelled over the mud by the wind. At one end of each ruler-line one finds a boulder.

Again, if one is able to tolerate the abundance of conventional "pretty" scenes of flowers and sunsets, one should purchase this book, if only to view the seven great photographs discussed in this review.

Mr.Dykinga's skill as an artist is further demonstrated by his book, STONE CANYONS OF THE COLORADO PLATEAU, also published by Harry Abrams, Inc. STONE CANYONS is especially distinguished by its focus on a park called, Vermilion Cliffs (Paria Canyon, The Wave, Coyote Buttes), a park that is rarely the subject of published photographs. STONE CANYONS also uses the style of depicting scenes just before sunset (or just after sunrise), when all but a thin line of the horizon is steeped in shadow. Stand aside, David Muench, here comes Jack Dykinga.

There is a knock at my door and here is the UPS man delivering my order from Amazon.com. Among the books: Desert, The Mojave and Death Valley Photographs by Jack Dykinga, text by Janice Emily Bowers. I barely had time to read more than a page or two of the text before it made me want to go straight to the photos to see the place she was clearly, and intelligently writing about. And I was not disappointed: It was overwhelmed with joy of at being able to share the keeness of Mr. Dykinga's fine and perceptive photographic vision of that place. This is a more subtle body of work than the previous books based around his photographs.

The Sonoran Desert had a similar effect on me years ago and expanded my sense of what ilandscape photography could be. Stone Canyons did not have as great of affect on me as the first book

More than anything else, the images in this book remind me why the large format camera is such a tremendous aid to seeing something more clearly and perceptively than you can with the naked eye. even more so than a 35mm or medium format or easily portable digital gear can. Some of the photos even have a sense of humor to them and when did you last see that in a photograph of a natural landscape? The reproduction of the images appears to be first rate and the design and typography of the book match its contents in quality.

In short there are wonderful things to be found in this book.

This book just shows how spectacular a desert can look with the magnificent photos around the Mojave desert and Death valley of emptiness, stark flowers and blooms and just superb landscapes. It'll give you some inspiration to find something to look for even in a desert.

I know I will as I will be going to Ayer's Rock (Uluru) in Australia in a few months and it's also a big desert!

This book is a beauty, some of the most beautiful photographs I have ever seen.

I spent the first week of September in southern California this year, and on Sunday before Labor Day I drove from Los Angeles up to Death Valley. I hadn't been there since I was a child and I have to say although it is a desolate and lonely place (and 114 degrees at Furnace Creek the day I was there) it is also one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The sand dunes at Mesquite Flat alone are worth the trip.

Everyone should see it, but if you can't buy the book. My copy came shrinkwrapped in plastic which I really like, the last thing you want is to buy a nice book like this in a bookstore where someone has spilled coffee on the pages.

As I went through this book, I kept asking myself, am I looking at the dessert or am I looking at the landscape photographs of Jack Dykinga? I've been to the Mojave and to Death Valley and I don't remember them looking so beautiful.

Dykinga's style reminded me of the work of Eliot Porter, with modern film stock. Most of his pictures have the same subtle quality, created by the use of analogous colors, that is, colors near each other on the color wheel, and varying only by tint or small changes in hue. A Dykinga picture almost always has one dominant hue like brown or tan or blue, and the hue rarely feels intense, even if it's a field of California Poppies.

It's obvious that Dykinga's work utilizes a large format camera. Everything is in sharp focus from foreground to distant mountains, thanks to small apertures and the ability to twist the light through his camera. This means that the picture is not going to immediately draw your attention to one aspect of the scene by controlled focus. More likely, the viewer will have to work his way through the picture, discovering things along the way.

The layout of the book seems to be well considered. Quite often two plates with similar subject matter will face each other and there is a synergistic effect from the comparison. For example, I delighted in examining two facing pictures of desert sunflowers. In both cases the yellow orange flowers have a hilly background, but one group of flowers is pushing up through dried-out, cracked clay, while in the other picture the flowers are growing from a small body of water collected for a brief time from rainfall. The mud and the water are both magenta in color but the textures are completely different. The thoughts that arose from the juxtaposition were not only about the variety of the desert but also about the nature of color and vision.

I suppose one reason that I never saw the dessert the photographer portrays is because most of the pictures were taken at the golden hours of sunrise and sunset. To have been that many places in the desert at just those times would have taken me months and months. At the very least, I can be a philistine and thank Dykinga for saving me a lot of time.

As to the text in the book, my feeling is that it probably has to be included for marketing purposes. Janice Bowers' essays seemed poetic and show that she loves the desert, but like most such commentaries, they do little to illuminate the photographer's work. I suppose the essays are worth reading once. The pictures on the other hand can bear many, many viewings and add something to the sense of the place each time.

I finally concluded that I was looking at the desert through Jack Dykinga's eyes when I viewed this book. I resolved to return to the actual desert again and see if I could continue to see it through his eyes.

Great book, I've read it numerous times and every time I enjoy a different aspect I overlooked in the past. From the author's obsession with Frank Sinatra, his driving and dining experiences, to his detailed and gastronomical adventures in baseball parks across America this is one of my favorite road trip books

This is one of the best baseball books ever written! Even non-baseball fans will enjoy reading about his epic road trip on a shoe-string budget. A must read for all true baseball fans!

I have owned the book "Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks" virtually since its publication in 1989. As a baseball fan for many years, I had always myself fantasized of taking the trip Mr Wood did to every baseball stadium in America. Bob Wood's book is quite simply, one of the best books I have ever read in my life. It is a combination of baseball, travel, thrill seeking, and a trip of pleasure that every baseball fan can dream of. While reading the book, I could feel what it would have been like to sit with Mr Wood in his car on that trip. Despite weather, a robbery of his possessions in Northern California, a tight budget, and incredibly long drive, and an impending baseball strike that threatened to wipe out his dream of getting to every stadium, Bob Wood perservered and finished his journey. He achieved his goal through it all, and provided an exciting book that any baseball fan who has ever dreamed of taking the trip should be proud to read. I salute Mr Wood and his accomplishment. While is is now 18 years after his trip, it remains my favorite book of all time, fiction or non fiction. Bravo, Bob, you have created a masterpiece. A book that baseball fans and any readers should be proud of and salute you for.

I first read this book when it orginally came out. As a baseball fan It was awesome. Bob Wood lived every true baseball fans dream to see them all. I felt like I was riding along with Bob through out the whole book and his adventures.

I read this book in the late 80's and have re read it. It is the ultimate baseball fans road trip. I could just imagine myself riding along with Bob as went to see them all.

Must rate this volume as the standard reference on the topic. This current edition supplants Ripley's "Artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War." I actually own copies of the original and revised editions. There are a few notable updates, making the second purchase worth the expenditure. While I have found some minor omissions in the listings (particularly discussing some of the poorly documented Confederate gun makers), the authors seem to leave few stones unturned.

A comprehensive source of information on the field guns used by both sides of the american civil war. Provides each weapon's history and statistics. Extremely informative.

No civil war library should be without it.

An excellent companion to other book The Big Guns by Omstead and Wayne E. Stark and Spencer C. Tucker which covers the big guns of the conflict.

"Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War" is the definitive reference work for civil war cannon used in the field. Nothing else approaches its structured grouping and organization of the diverse and confused world of American Civil War field guns. However, this is not a book for everyone since it is quite focused on the specifications, manufacturing origins and methods of the tubes themselves, not on the tactical employment, range charts, the batteries, or the projectiles they fired. (Understandably, many readers will be shocked if they don't realize this before purchase--including me!)

It is hard to over emphasize what a fine job the authors have done in bringing order out of chaos. Their encyclopedic inclusion and explanation of all known types solves many riddles. The complexity and nuances will still require considerable study by the reader to reach a full understanding, but at last it is logically and rigorously catalogued.

The chapter list is as follows: 1. Fundamentals. 2. Federal 6-pounder Guns and 3.67" Rifles. 3. Confederate 6-pounder Guns and 3-inch Rifles. 4. Federal 12-pounder Field Howitzers. 5. Confederate 12-pounder Field Howitzers. 6. Federal Napoleon Guns. 7. Confederate Napoleon Guns. 8. Parrott Rifles. 9. 3-inch Ordnance Rifles. 10. False Napoleons and Gettysburg Replicas. 11. The Small Ones. 12. Boat Howitzers. 13. James Smoothbores and Rifles. 14. The Rare Ones. 15. Too Big for the Field. 16. British Rifled Cannon. 17. Carriages. 18. Conclusions.

The chapters are well illustrated with photographs and schematics of the gun tubes. There are also detailed dimensional specification tables, and some estimated production counts of various types. Following the main text is an extensive set of appendices that serve as a catalog of known foundries, inspectors, designations, foundry numbers, weights, and locations of known survivors,

I highly recommend this work to anyone who wants to be able to identify nearly any Civil War field gun he/she comes across. However, I don't recommend it as a detailed work on the employment of Civil War field artillery--that is not the objective or nature of the book.

Note: The companion work for the heavy artillery is "The Big Guns. Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon" by Edwin Olmstead, Wayne E. Stark, and Spencer C. Tucker. It follows the same format and style, but its availability is limited.

Book was not what I expected it to be. I anticipated a thorough study of specific artillery types with color plates and detailed drawings, and with specific histories, usage, success, etc. This is not what I received. It was a hugh disappointment, considering the high price I paid for this book.

A very concise and thorough (almost an encyclopedia) book of the weapons of the civil war.

Great overview of the valley history and key players who influenced the culture and its success. Ashley's recommendations on restaurants are eclectic and fun as well.

Highly recommended. I bought some for gifts as well.

Larry Laurich, CEO DRC Computer Corp

This book delivers as advertised. A great summary of Silicon Valley. If you've just arrived in the valley it is indispensable. Pick up this book and spend your time learning, visiting and eating through the locales mentioned. (They should hand this out to incoming students at Stanford, and at the immigration line at SFO.)

Minor quibble, the book suffers from "young journalist syndrome," where its history, anecdotes and insights are a synthesis of the bibliography in the back. However, kudos to the author for reading more valley history than 99% of other writers. He is headed for greatness when he finds his own voice.

I've been involved with the tech business for 15 years and know my way around the places and companies in the valley. I found this book hugely entertaining and informative. At first look, it seems more like a travel book or specialized city guide than anything else - which is fine and a worthy accomplishment. However, there's a whole lot more....Ashlee lays out the history of the valley and the reasons why it has developed into the technical center of the world. Along the way, he provides easy to understand explanations of the technology and how each invention and advance launched new ventures or opened new markets. Finally, he delves into the personalities of both the key individuals and companies, which, for me at least, ties everything together and makes it a much more interesting and enjoyable read. Highly recommended....

Like technology? Like history? Like good writing? OK. This is your book. A little bit travel guide, a little bit history and a lot of fun, Ashlee Vance brings his truly unique and refreshing writing style in a book that is required reading for anyone involved in the technology industry.

I suspect they will be using this as a text book for some course or another at Stanford, and then Ashlee will become a full professor and his head will get really big and, well, that will be that. But read it anyway.

This is a great little book. Part historical overview, part travel guide, it's written in the breezy, easy-going style of Vance's columns in The Register, the best of the online IT rags (except that the book has been carefully proofread, unlike a typical Register story). In less than 250 pages Vance has covered almost all of the important historic events and personalities behind Silicon Valley, and provided a great set of tips of places for visiting, dining and drinking. There's even a good list of books and web sites for further reading.

I've lived in the Valley for nearly 15 years, and yet learned a fair amount from this book, including several places to visit that were new to me. There were only a few curious omissions: e.g., Halted gets a mention, but Fry's does not; neither does Buck's in Woodside; and surely Frank Drake should be mentioned in the section on the SETI Institute? - but otherwise the text is remarkably accurate, despite having condensed many complex histories, each worthy of a book in its own right, into paragraphs or pages. Vance clearly did his homework. My only historical quibble is with his description of the demise of SGI. I thought it was mainly done in by cheap graphics chips from Nvidia and the like; Itanic was just the icing on the cake.

The book mentions his web site and claims additional information can be found there, but so far there isn't anything new. Hopefully that will change over time. Another concern is that quite a bit of the information in the book will date fast; I hope Vance and his publisher refreshes the text (or the website, or both) regularly.

If you live in the Valley, visit the Valley, or you just want to know what the heck the place is about, this book is for you. And if you're a geek too, it's a must-read.

Gordon's despriptions vividly depict emotion, and she writes like no one else.

Her narrator, Willie, is burdened with the weight of parental expectations. "You would be so good at the violin if you practiced," his mother says. "Your teacher says you have potential."

Willie is the kind of kid who hides in the outfield, hoping no one hits the ball his way. His own expectation: I will screw up.

I loved this book. It's full of big ideas -- how families fall apart and come together again, how art and music are essential, even a touch of political activism. This book also holds a quiet wisdom. You find your passion, then let's see about potential. In the end, it shows children they can be important, too.

I'm looking forward to the sequel.

This story is about a boy who has a boring life, and he has nothing to do this summer. His Aunt Bridget calls and wants him to come stay the summer with her in the city of Gloria. He goes and meets a lot of new friends, and plays on a baseball team at the Gill park. Willy the boy really likes the park. After a few days of being there Otto Pettingill says hes going to sell the park. Willy helps save the park and otto dies a few days later.
HE leaves the park to willy.

The Gorillas of Gill Park was a really good book. It was about a boy named Willy, who over the summer went to visit his Aunt Bridget in Gloria. His parents were reluctant, but Willy had nothing better to do, so they let him go. Willy's aunt makes costumes for people, and her current assisgnment is to make 30 gorilla costumes. Aunt Bridget's apartment is across the street from Gill Park. In the park there is a mysterious music maker. Willy can hear this music in his room. The next day, Willy goes to the park and meets some kids who play baseball. Well, these kids need one more player,so Willy agrees to play. Willy has a great adventure with baseball, those 30 gorilla suits,and finding out who the mysterious music maker is. So come along for the ride!!

Ah, eccentric old millionaires. Where would children's literature be without their kindly loopy presence? Why we wouldn't have brilliant books like, "The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin or "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler", by E.L. Konigsburg, that's for sure. If children's books have taught us anything, it's that millionaires are often kindly (unless they're villainous developers) and that they like to set up elaborate games and clues for their child friends. "The Gorillas of Gill Park" features a slightly different kind of millionaire. He has all the usual characteristics: A home full of objects he collects, odd habits, a love of art, etc. He doesn't set up an elaborate game in this particular book (though its sequel is another matter entirely). Instead, it is through his kindly intervention that our hero is able to do a public service to the community and learn how to be his own separate person. There are many things to love about "The Gorillas of Gill Park". I just wish there had been more gorillas.

Willy Wilson doesn't think he has much of a personality. But getting shipped off to spend the summer with his eccentric costume-making Aunt Bridget might change all of that. When he comes to live with her in the large city of Gloria and right across the street from the fabulous Gill Park, Willy finds all kinds of new and exciting things about this home away from home. The park constantly pumps out wonderful music via its eccentric millionaire musician owner Otto Pettingill. It's filled with alternative baseball player kids, one of whom recruits Willy to be a first baseman right off the bat. There's Lisle, the odd little orphan who belongs to Otto and constantly does her own thing. There's also the fact that Aunt Bridget is now making gorilla costumes this summer, so the apartment is full of black fluff. Unfortunately, just as Willy starts getting comfortable with his new home, tragedy strikes. Otto Pettingill is going to sell off the park to a man who wants to turn it into a shopping mall. Lisle is being adopted by parents who don't fit her personality in the least. And Otto Pettingill himself has disappeared entirely. It's up to Willy now to save the park, save Lisle, and find the mysterious Mr. P before it's all too too late.

The writing in this book starts out a little slow, but eventually you get into it. What Ms. Gordon does particularly well is conjure up rather disgusting but effective descriptions. Lisle is reported to wear a cap of a particular color. "It might have been red once, or orange, it was hard to tell - now it was sort of the color of tonsils". It's almost a pity that a color picture of that same cap appears on the book's cover. Kids will undoubtedly check and double check it for an idea of tonsil colorations. It would have been nice if that could have been left entirely to their own imaginations. The story plays out at a fast clip, balancing the big story (the imminent destruction of the park) with the subplots (most centering around Willy's work on the baseball team). When the park plot wraps up a good 50+ pages before the end of the book, the story stalls out a little. You feel like you've experienced the climax and that the end should be a lot sooner than it is.

And look, if the word "Gorillas" appears in your book's title and you sport a picture of one on your cover, title page, and bookflaps, people are gonna want gorillas. Lots of `em. And unfortunately Amy Gordon is skimpy with the gorillaness of it all. Towards the end of the tale the gorillas finally play a little more into the plot, but not enough to justify their absence beforehand. There were other small problems with the story as well. For one thing, the book is entirely reliant on the reader wanting Lisle not to return to the uptight guardians millionaire Otto Pettingill inadvertently placed her with. The problem is that while our hero, Willy Wilson, is enamored of the wild child, the reader can't see her good points. She's the kind of child hero who when she's been repeatedly saved and helped by kind-hearted Willy, still hasn't the slightest problem with calling him a coward when he doesn't want to play his violin for her. She's charmless, is the problem. A nasty, mean, runty little thing without a speck of manners or pleasantness in her body. She's smart, sure, but not the kind of person you particularly feel like rooting for. She's been kidnapped by Pettingill's representative? Hooray! Throw away the key, so say I.

Of course, there's a lot to enjoy about this book. Each chapter begins with a picture of a person who appears in that chapter with a quote or sentence from that person that explains something especially important about their personality. The drawings of each character are credited in tiny tiny type to one Mr. Matthew Cordell. They're simple little pictures, rather sweet and simplistic. Mr. Cordell has done a nice little job (and I'm not just saying that because he's married to a school librarian). The characters in the tale aren't exactly three-dimensional (the plant guy speaks entirely in plant-like metaphors, the French woman with a Miss Piggyesque accent, etc.) but there are some surprising moments. I liked the bad-guy vegan or the fact that a little old lady could be a xenophobic moron. There's not a whole lotta depth to the book, but at least it's still a lot of fun.

It needs more gorillas though. A lot more. One can only pray that the sequel, "The Return to Gill Park" will contain some increased primate appearances. Altogether this is a good book for kids already into baseball in some way, shape, or form. It requires a knowledge of the game but still has enough action and adventure (not to mention a very realistic conjuring up of a truly fictional town) to justify its existence on bookshelves everywhere. Not the first book I'd think to recommend, but a nice read all the same.

I picked up this book not expecting to finish it due to the fact that I never have the time to read. I soon found myself caught among the memorable characters and the storyline. I could not put this book down!

From Willy first going around Gill Park to the teary ending....

this book is fantastic!

Great book for any roller coaster enthusiast. Lots of pictures, interesting facts and just a fun read. Wish I could go back in time and ride those coasters and some other really cool rides Traver designed which are also mentioned in the book.....

This is an amazing book. I wasn't so much interested in the life of Harry Traver, but the legendary coasters he built. Too bad there aren't any of them around today. I have heard the stories of the great rides they were and my grandparents actually got to ride the legendary Crystal Beach Cyclone. A fabulous peek at the great coasters of days gone by.

The photos and history in this book go beyond any other book in my collection. I had to pay dearly to get this but it was worth it. For a coaster enthusiast who loves the design, construction, and riding of coasters, this book has it all.

Richard Munch has done a wonderful job writing this book about Harry Traver, a man most people have never heard of. However, true coaster/amusement park enthusiasts know how important his name is to the amusement park industry. The book contains a detailed personal and business history of Traver, with information gleaned from family and many other sources. It's hard to figure how the author did all of this, but the proof is within the covers of this outstanding book. Dozens of b/w photos of Traver's legendary coaster creations, complete with track layout plans and thorough descriptions, bring to life his contributions to the advancement of the wooden roller coaster. The book also contains photos of some of Traver's business papers and promotional materials. Munch also weaves into the text the relationship Traver had with the 1920's coaster team of Prior and Church, who are responsible for several historical coasters, including the still-operating San Diego "Giant Dipper". This book is like a trip through time. The only other book like it is Robert Cartmell's "The Incredible Scream Machine" which in itself is the most comprehensive book ever written on the subject of the history of roller coasters. If you're not too interested in coasters, then you'll find the book to be an interesting curiosity, but if you're an enthusiast, you'll love it.

I am actually Harry Traver's great-granddaughter. Of course I never got the chance to meet him. But from what I have heard and read about him in this book, he is an amazing man. His son Spencer Traver and my father John Traver shall continue to keep his tradition alive. This book is a must-have for any roller-coaster buffs. Enjoy!

This is a wonderful book that was a joy to read! This is the second book that I have read from this author. The first one was 201 Atwater. I highly recomend both to read! It is a great story, in a great setting, very well written, and an easy read. It is hard to put down and I am so looking forward to her next book!!

I could tell you about the exquisite hours I spent reading unable to put this book down....or I could tell you about the number of tissues I used while reading...or I could tell you about the joy I felt in my heart as I read this fantasic book, but instead I'm going to strongly suggest you read it! It isn't often you will find this quality from a writer, Marion's first book 201 Atwater was heart warming and just plain wonderful. She stepped up her game with Honeysuckle Hill and I thank her for a book I can share with my neices as well as my mother. It left me wanting more...so Marion I'm waiting!

While most of us wonder what we would hear if "these walls could talk," Marion Marchetto comes right out and tells us. Now maybe you think the idea of having a house narrate a story is a cute gimmick - for most writers, it would be just that, a gimmick, but for Marchetto, it's darn near an art form. 201 Atwater was a wonderfully refreshing surprise of a novel, offering ample proof that Marion Marchetto is a writer's writer, yet even I wondered - just a little bit - how well the house as narrator approach would work the second time around. I needn't have given it a thought because Honeysuckle Hill immediately proved to be even more enchanting and beautiful (yes, beautiful) than the author's debut novel. Not only does this book present a wonderful story revolving around a group of individuals you quickly grow to love, it magically takes us back to a culture and society that is all but forgotten and lost to us forever.

This book and its characters will touch your heart, while the poignant ending will likely have some reaching for the tissues - not out of sadness, but out of joy. Marchetto's fiction explores the worst and most painful of times alongside the best of days, but Honeysuckle Hill, just like 201 Atwater, left me feeling joyous and almost giddy after I finished it. How many novels have you read that inspire such strong feelings of joy and love of life in your souls? Not many, I wager. I can name at least two, and they are both the products of Marion Marchetto's imagination and craftsmanship.

It was just an old, ramshackle house on a hill, standing out in the middle of nowhere, but Merline Madagascar was drawn to it and the honeysuckles that strove to conquer the encroaching vegetation all around it. Ever since her miscarriage, Merline had been depressed, but something about this place communicated a sense of love and comfort to her. When her husband Daniel surprised her by buying the place, Merline began to emerge from her dark funk, throwing herself into the repair and improvement of the house and making big plans to open up a bed and breakfast or restaurant in its revivified environs. If you've read 201 Atwater, you already know that Merline is an interior designer specializing in historical restoration - and that she is blessed with the ability to actually communicate with old houses. This newly reborn structure, which is soon dubbed Honeysuckle Hill, doesn't communicate directly with Merline, however (although it serves as the novel's more than capable narrator); rather, it is the spirit of a long-dead Indian maiden who speaks to Merline in the hope of righting an historical wrong involving her life and death. Initially, Lillianoah begins revealing her life's story to Merline by entering her dreams; in this way, she is able to give Merline a first-hand look at her long-ago life among the peaceful Pootatuck tribe so many years ago. As the two grow closer and begin to communicate more directly, a powerful but bittersweet love story emerges.

Legend has Lillia sacrificing her life because of her love for an Indian brave, but this is not true at all - and that, plus the house's companionship, is what has kept this wonderful spirit here on this plane for so long. It makes for an eloquent testament to the eternal passion of her true love. Although a brave named Fox Hunter loved Lillian since they were children, the man who captured the Indian maiden's heart was an Englishman named Noah (which is why she took the name Lillianoah for herself). This bittersweet love affair was by no means the end of her story, however, even though it came to completely define her life (and death).

As Lillianoah's complicated story gradually emerges in Merline's consciousness, her own life gathers the momentum that it had been missing for too long, with certain elements of it clearly paralleling the past life of her new spiritual friend. As exciting and fulfilling as Merline's life soon becomes, however, this is really Lillianoah's story. For the reader, it's as if he is a welcome guest among the Pootatuck village, as Marchetto brings the whole tribe, not just Lillianoah, to life. The aboriginal Pootatucks (or Putatucks), members of the Algonquin Nation, once lived in and around the valleys of what is now western Connecticut, but they eventually migrated to Canada to escape the encroachments of white settlers. Having been largely amalgamated into neighboring tribes over time, their language and culture had been all but lost, even among many a Native American expert. However, a surprise discovery on the grounds of Honeysuckle Hill promises to help bring the story of Lillianoah and her people back to historical life.

There's no way to pin this novel down to one genre or another, as it consists of far too many different elements. Marchetto excels at every one of them, mainly because her characters are almost as human and real as anyone you're likely to meet. I thought 201 Atwater was a fantastic novel, but Honeysuckle Hill is even better. Its greater length allows Marchetto to delve even deeper into the souls of her characters and thereby draw us ever more closely into their intimate story. Sentimental yet never maudlin, uniquely presented in terms of narration, and bursting with life and love and loss, Honeysuckle Hill is a novel to be treasured.

Hey everyone!

I am a huge fan! I read "201 Atwater" last year, and I was hooked. The characters are captivating, and it really feels like you are inside of this house! It totally comes to life, and I was so immersed in the character's lives and the life of the house itself that I could not put this book down until I found out what would happen next.

I am about to buy an older home in Knoxville, and I plan to renovate it. So reading this book was a double joy for me. It was great seeing a story so intricately and passionately weaved around an older home's restoration and history.

If you plan to read only one book this year by an "as-of-yet-undiscovered" author, then I highly recommend that you read Marion Marchetto's latest novel, "Honeysuckle Hill."

Mary :>

I have read this latest offering from M. Marchetto, and as with a previous book, 201 Atwater - - - , many surprises to keep you steeped in
the mysteries of years gone by.
BRAVO!! Well written, with plenty of intrest to keep you mind focused.
J. R. Zichichi ; Guilford, CT