Washington Books

This is a thorough examination of these very-detailed textiles and the people who make them. I'm thrilled with this little 'gem' of a book! Thanks!!

This would be a very beautiful book at any price, but Amazon's price on it is a real bargain. This 85-page folio has over 100 high quality photographs taken of textiles that are currently part of the British Museum's collection. Gina Corrigan, the book's author, has been leading study groups to China since 1973 and has a special interest in collecting and researching traditional Miao textiles, which are rapidly disappearing as China marches toward modern economic development. Corrigan has collected many of these fine craft textiles and transferred them to the British Museum.

The book begins with a brief introduction to the history of the Miao people that describes the weaving, dyeing, batik, embroidery, applique and other processes used to create the stunning traditional costumes they wear. This is followed by detailed photographs of whole garments and closeups of their decorations accompanied by descriptions of the techniques used to produce them. The garments are highly original and come very close to being individual works of arts.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in the textile arts.

This was a GREAT book. I really could not stop reading it!

This book catches your attention right from the start.. darkness. You feel for the main character and, you follow him on an adventure no one would want to have brought upon them. It's well written and, it's easy to read. You can relate to the main character in many ways.. because although he has been injected with a serum that is causing the majority of his problems.. you can see that he is also just a teenager with his emotions on overload. This book teaches you that, serum or not, if you let your emotions get the best of you.. you can get lost in an endless, losing battle directing you towards darkness.
I would love to read a sequel to this book.

I discovered this book in architectural school, and was intrigued at the way Zevi clarified everything I was then dealing with in vague ways in architectural school. The invariables, or "anti-rules", as Zevi calls them, are each given seperate chapters in this book. Listing of Functions, Asymmetry and Dissonance, Antiperspective Three Dimensionality, Four-Dimensional Decomposition, Cantilever, Shell and Membrane Structures, Space-in Time and Reintegration of Building, City and Landscape are all ideas present to varying degrees in various buildings at various times in history. Zevi shows how they can be used in a more deliberate and integrated fashion, no matter what the budget or funtion of any given building. He illuminates how these ideas are present in the architecture of times historical and times more recent, and underscores the value of non-conformist buildings for the enrichment of society.
This book gave me a tremendous creative boost at just the right time in my life and it's influence continues in my work. Marvellously illustrated with three-dimensional drawings and with photos, it presents a summation of the thinking of a great and scholarly mind.

This book is by far one of the best books I have read in a while. It is simple and to the point and Zevi does not hold back. It is a little dated, but all of his seven principles are able to be directly applied to the current state of architecture. This should be a mandatory reading for all architecture students. His opinions of the tendencies within society to praise the priciples of Symmetry, proportion, and order, show how architecture has been plagued by standardization and repetitive forms throughout history. A great book for anyone who is troubled by the generality of architecture (with great exception to the current masters, no less)and would like to see the boundries broken.

Burl Barer's latest true crime book "Mom Said Kill" is another example of his superior talent. This case is terribly sad, with so many more victims that just Mr. Heiman - Jerry's mother, his children, the youngest of the Opel children and from my POV Heather Opel as well. He brings up social issues such as the handling of juvenile crime in our society as well as (obviously) parenting methodolgies and how they can impact the lives and futures of our children. Highly recommended.

I have been criticized for writing what appears to be book reports and spoiling murder mysteries. Unfortunately, the true crime books are all about real people and the truth is out there regarding the circumstances of their crimes. The title says a lot about the Barbara Opel case who is also a prime candidate for the worst mother in the world regarding the Jerry Heineman case in Everett, Washington. Burl Barer is an excellent true crime reporter who prefers to write about crimes that don't always get much media attention. Maybe because this group of characters would be more appropriate on the Jerry Springer Show than anywhere else.
Barbara Opel is quite a manipulator, con-artist, and quie frightening to her own children. Her case is one on par with Diane Downs easily involving a murder for rich scheme which backfired so badly that it is almost laughable except for the victims involved.
Barbara Opel robbed her children of a lot more than just a normal, stable childhood and loving environment. She brought them into this world to use them in her own schemes for quick money no matter who it hurts.
After all, she allowed her thirteen year old daughter, Heather, to have sex in her own home with a seventeen year old boy who she recruited for her crime.
This case reminds me of the Gertrude Baniszewski case in Indiana where she used the neighborhood kids to torture her young boarder. Fortunately, Barbara Opel was never bright enough to carry out the scheme herself but used her own children which should have been taken away by the state children's services long before they were harmed not only physically, psychologically, emotionally, and sexually by their own mother.
I recommend reading this true crime book because most of the books out there are repetitive and redundant with the same stories that you are actually comparing which writer is better at grasping the whole story.
Burl Barer doesn't write about those cases but writes about the familiar environment of Washington state.

This is an author that knows her stuff! Thanks for a well researched, fascinating read!

Mara Cherkasky's book on the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington D.C.(2007), so inspired me that I took time off on a late, cold afternoon earlier this week to walk the "Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail" through the community. The trail is a 17 stop walking tour that takes about two hours to complete. The tour comes with a guidebook prepared by the D.C. Office of Cultural Tourism. Cherkasky helped design this walking tour, and it tracks many of the people and places discussed in her book. The book and the tour taught me a great deal about the city in which I have lived for 35 years.

The Mount Pleasant area is located about two miles north of the White House on the 16th Street corridor. It is bounded on the south by Harvard Street on the north and west by Rock Creek, and on the east by 16th Street. Mount Pleasant features many narrow, winding and hilly streets, in contrast to the grids that prevail in the rest of Washington D.C. Even though it is close to the center of the city, Mount Pleasant has a certain isolation to it, tucked in as it is behind 16th Street and Rock Creek Park. The booklet for the walking tour I followed aptly describes Mount Pleasant as a "Village in the City."

For me, the Mount Pleasant area signifies a lively, diverse community in which people of many origins,backgrounds and religious faiths, including whites, African Americans, Latinos, and East European immigrants, share their culture and bring the best of their experiences to create a neighborhood with place and purpose. But Mount Pleasant has seen many changes over the years. Beginning as a private estate, Mount Pleasant then was sold to and settled by veterans following the Civil War. For much of its history, Mount Pleasant was a middle to upper class white enclave. Over the years, African Americans and refuges from Latin America moved to Mount Pleasant, attracted in part by the home prices which tended to be less expensive than elsewhere in Washington D.C. With the riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in 1968, Mount Pleasant experienced difficult times, but the community restored itself through local effort. During the 1970 and 1980, Mount Pleasant shimmered with community activism. The area remains diverse and alive today with large old homes, many churches and landmarks, and a colorful retail district on Mount Pleasant Street. There is, however, a hint of returning gentrification. Mount Pleasant was also famous for its streetcars, which were replaced by buses in 1961. The community observed a period of mourning when its streetcars were abandoned, a feeling I understand well.

Cherkaskys' book picks up momentum as it moves along. In five chapters of photographs and commentary, she describes the early estate history of the community, the building phase of the late 1800s, businesses, organizations, and people in Mount Pleasant's days as a "streetcar suburb", everyday life in Mount Pleasant in the mid-20th Century, and the community's current status as an urban village, which Cherkasky describes aptly as a "Distinctive Place in the World."

The most impressive landmark to me was the old "House of Mercy" located deep in Mount Pleasant near Rock Creek Park. (p. 40) The House of Mercy functioned for many years as a home for wayward girls, including unwed mothers and young prostitutes. After several changes in its roles, the property today has the more pedestrian role of a day care center. The House of Mercy is about mid-point in the walking tour. It is also the landmark most difficult to find, and I almost passed it over in my walk as twilight turned to dark. Mount Pleasant was once a center of music of every kind from hillbilly to the blues. Bo Diddley and Jimmy Dean were among the many singers who called Mount Pleasant home (pp. 89-92). Mount Pleasant Street teemed with nightlife. The area features many small distinctive parks, including the Park Road Triangle Park (p 93) and Lamont Park, (p. 126), a former turning point for streetcars. Streetcars once were everywhere in Mount Pleasant and they receive great attention in this book. Mount Pleasant Street, with its bakeries, shops, restaurants, Latino bodegas, community celebrations and nightlife is at the heart of the community and of the book. I enjoyed reading about these and other places in Cherkasky's book and then seeing them for myself when I walked the community trail.

I have read several books in the "Images of America" series that describe various D.C. neighborhoods. This book is the best I have found in the series on Washington D.C. in terms of showing a neighborhood in its complexity and history, rather than as a collection of interesting old buildings. The book and my walking tour gave me a fresh and inspired look at a familiar city.

Robin Friedman

Blending human & natural history, this book has opened me to an entirely new way of experiencing Mt. Rainier. I love the trail descriptions, & the auto tours are filled with information. A MUST HAVE for anyone visiting the Mountain!!!

If your interested in Mt.Rainier,this is the book for you.Written by Jerry and his wife Gisela with illistrations by Larry Eifert, this book is great for if your interested in any aspect of the mountain.The interesting true storys make this an enjoyable book for even casual reading.Jerry Rohde is what is called a Home&Hospital teacher.He teaches children that can not go to school their school assiments.I had to go into this program due to surgery and luckfuly ended up with Jerry.He's a great guy and a great historian and I am glad to be one of his students.

I wish all guide books were as well researched as this one. Each hand drawn map has GPS waypoints on it plus all the major features and a reference to the USGS/Green Trails Map. Locations of nearby campgrounds and supplies. Plus a very nice rating system so you don't get in over your head. There are 2 maybe 3 overlapping trails with the "Kissing the Trail" book but that's ok. Wish I had thought of having a career of riding my bike and writing a book about it. Way to go John.

These two books are the bomb(S). The directions and the descriptions of the rides are spot on and most importantly the selection of the rides (if you like truly remote, tough, and stunningly beautiful adventures) is tremendous. My copies of these books are dog eared with love and mud. Trust me you cannot go wrong with these books - and I've biked all over the country - or biking in the Pacific Northwest July - Sept - Amazing! Too good! Be prepared for some long drives from Seattle (2hrs each way) but the memories will last much longer. Enjoy! I hope Zilly goes on to write books for the rest of the country...

Mountain in the Clouds: a search for the Wild Salmon
By Bruce Brown

This book touched me. I don't read much non-fiction, and what I do read is usually skills-based How-To stuff about carpentry or plumbing or growing mushrooms. This book though, being non-fiction affected me to a surprising degree, and I know exactly why: location, location, location.

A book like this can touch me precisely because it and I share a common experience. I've seen salmon jumping in the Dungeness; I've been to the campground on the Fork of that river. I've tasted wild Chinook and Chum and I can tell the difference. I've seen the stripes on a mating chum in its Redd, and smelled their dead bodies lining a stream channel in autumn. So, this is a book about my experience of Salmon as much as it was the author's - and because of that it was entirely poignant, touching upon the experiences of my life and things that were significant to me. That's what got me.

But if it weren't for that - I suspect that the compelling yet fact-filled tone of the author would have done it just as well. A pioneering novel in the genre of "ecological history," he strikes the delicate balance, so precarious that most of the time you're poised on the front of your seat expecting to find out that all the salmon are dead and you just haven't heard about it yet. Yet, woven in with these truthful accounts of the state of affairs of the plight of modern fish are settings if great beauty, people who are good folks, and experiences of such great meaning that reading through them you could swear afterward that that had happened to you too; rather than just having read it in a book. The author's gift here is very apparent, and his creation is artful, inspiring, education yet provocative and beautiful: if only because he is able to give an accurate portrait of something that I find to be one of the most gorgeous (and delicious) parts of nature in my neck of the woods.

If you haven't seen a salmon in Washington: this book will bring you here. If you have seen them, or have seen them your whole life: this book will bring you much, much more. There isn't anyone I know of who couldn't or shouldn't read this book - if only because it brings them a little closer to the Olympic peninsula and in doing so that much closer to me, and my heart, which was always here and probably always will be.

The book did make me want to go out and slap everyone involved in Washington Fisheries before 1985, slap the fisherman and the gill-netters, slap the moneyed lobbies and the trollers and the loggers and the dam-builders and the pulp mills. I'd slap the people too - just for not doing anything about it if they did know about it; and slap them twice if they didn't. I wouldn't slap the Indians - they got screwed over just as much as the salmon; and I wouldn't slap the salmon themselves - if the river dries up or they're eaten, how could you blame them for that?

The salmon don't depend on us; this book opened up the raw world of hatchery fish in a way I hadn't even been aware a controversy existed before. Being a scientist, I tested some of my own theories and found that they held up under scrutiny, so I can say: Yes, salmon hatcheries are bad for salmon. If you want to restore salmon, tear down every hatchery in existence right now. And its not even like they had nobody out there doing different things: the Canadians scrapped their hatcheries decades ago and have stronger runs because of it. Why do we have to keep doing the same wrong thing over and over again?

Part of me wants to think that its because our culture can't stand a freeloader: and if you're fishing the stream, and doing so keeps you from having to join the money-economy, that isn't tolerable. And anything that generates money is more important than everything that doesn't. Even though you can measure an industry based on the number of salmon it kills: to most people, that doesn't matter as much as the number of jobs it creates.

We're selling our souls to buy lipstick and blush - starving our hearts for the sake of fingernail polish. And in a week, all that pretty will be gone and we'll have to deal with the stark reality that our culture has just whored itself out for nothing, and nothing is exactly what we'll have left. Maybe this is how we're going to go, maybe this is our society's way of committing suicide. But why do we have to take the whole world with us?

"We're going to ride this bike until the wheels fall off."

... and they will; and the salmon will be a legend like the wolf or the grizzly bear or the mammoth, and eventually we'll forget them entirely, and never know that once there was a different way of being which wasn't toxic to the world or to ourselves.

... And yes, that emptiness in your heart day in and day out IS because something really is missing; and you won't find it in stuff, or other distractions, or even religion (which is to real meaning as fool's gold is to true wealth). But then again, who care's right? `till the wheels fall off indeed.

Dominic Ebacher
ebacherdom.blogspot.com
071101.1234

Experience wild salmon leaping up the wild rivers of the Northwest. In western Washington, salmon still return from the ocean to spawn deep within the Olympic Mountains. This book is a classic on conservation and wildlife. Pre-dating the current concern for salmonids as an endangered species, Brown engages the reader in the unique environment of the temperate rainforest of the Olympic Pennisula. He describes the people and the fish that are the central players in this life and death drama.

My husband bought this book and I just picked it up on a whim. The book spins a lovely web of the aesthetics of nature, the factual information about Mount St Helens and a personal reflection on one individual's place in the enormous cycle of nature. I enjoyed Colasurdo simple but elegant prose, her meticulous research, which I was glad to see gave credit to scientists and historians with every fact, and her personal insights and revelations.

I read this books during an absolutely insane Christmas season (I own a retail store so Christmas is always particularly draining) and it really helped me put everything in perspective.

This book was written by someone who grew up with her summers in the shadow of Mt. St. Helens who revisits the area years later, after the eruption. It was a very reflective, somewhat moody book, that I enjoyed reading. Good descriptions of the area as it struggled to recover from the incredible devastation.