Pacific University Books

I was very pleased to read this one for the second time. No doubt I was too young to appreciate its virtues twenty years ago. I look forward to reading more of his work, much of which will be new to me.

I found Rudin profoundly touching and an almost astonishing work for a novel so slender. Rarely in so few pages can a writer have illustrated his themes so emphatically and so artfully. Throughout Turgenev uses nature as a proxy for narrative description and as a result the novel has a very calm and controlled feel. The characters are bound by their differing natures and their development is shadowed by changes in the natural environment they find themselves in.
More importantly, to my mind, however is the way in which the character of Rudin exposes the central contradiction between a desire for truth and a desire for love. By his nature, as we discover, Rudin is unable to conquer love but is however able to remain true to his ideals, despite being unable to act upon them. To this extent Rudin is impotent, he is clear about what he wishes to achieve - to become a man of action - yet he is fundamentally unable to achieve such a goal. As such he is destined to remain unhappy. However, unlike others, he perceives this and so is able to remain truthful to his self and thus in contrast to those other characters in the novel that are destined to remain unhappy, as he too is destined, he at least discovers and embraces his true self and as such realises the higher being in him. A higher being so often alluded to by others.
In such a fashion Turgenev exposes this central dialectic beautifully. By positing Rudin amidst a decaying social setting and allowing his seemingly constant passage of self-discovery inadvertently to fuel the self-discovery of those who come into contact with him, Turgenev demonstrates how a synthesis between self-knowledge and self-sacrifice is essential before true love can be sown within one's soul. Rudin, by being so lucid regarding what he loves (truth), whilst simultaneously illustrating to all the futility of his love, shines a light upon the ready attainability of the loves of other characters. Thus those characters who sought to see in Rudin something approaching an ideal are shocked and provoked into attaining their own, real, ideals. It is only those who refused to see in Rudin anything but impotence, coldness and bluster who emerge unchanged characters at the novel's conclusion.
As of Rudin himself, his love (truth) is attained only at the cost of discovering that he is less a mighty oak and more a shallow tumbleweed (Rudin himself goes from using the Oak as an analogy for his feelings to that of a tumbleweed by the end of the novel). Perhaps it is this inevitable conclusion to Rudin's long search, the same search that befalls all of us, that provokes Rudin (in the Epilogue) to finally attain his ideal as a man of action and thus ensure that, against the greatest odds, his seed was not, after all, sown upon barren ground.

This is a simple parable, told within a beautiful story. We meet Rudin through several people's eyes and learn much more about him from the differences others see in him than we learn directly. It is facsinating to see the interplay between the man's fantasies and his facade. You are left with very profound and troubling unanswered questions about your own life and our tenuous connections to "reality." This is a powerful volume for anyone who is seriously and sincerely examining their own motives, especially if you are dissatisfied with your current conclusions.

_Rudin_ is a good novel by Ivan Turgenev, but altogether non-essential, unless you want to read all of his works.

The character Rudin is a fortunate young man in 1860s Russia, a man around thirty years of age, in the prime of his life. He is very much a superfluous man, like the man Turgenev wrote of in his shorter story "A Superfluous Man." He is all talk and no action. He has high-minded ideals but can not transfer them into deeds.

I suppose Turgenev saw many young Russian men of his generation who served as the basis for Rudin, the character. Natalya, Rudin's love interest, at least has the fortitude to translate her ideals into actions, but she is offered fewer possibilities by Russian society. She comes off more sympathetically than the title character, but she is female, and therefore a minor character in a Turgenev work. I found her more interesting, and similar to the female main character in _Oblomov_ by Goncharov.

The political edge on this novel is not nearly so sharp as that on _Fathers and Sons_. Mostly this seems a personal and emotional novel, rather than a political novel. A student wanting a general grounding in the major novels of Russian Literature can probably skip _Rudin_. On the other hand, if you read _Fathers and Sons_ and found that book very rewarding, you may want to take a peek at _Rudin_, to see what another (earlier) novel by Turgenev is like.

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Rudin is the lead character in this short novel, which reads like a play set in mid nineteenth century Russia. He enters into a provincial society peopled by the usual array of grand dames, eccentrics, local radicals, and beautiful / eligible debutant-daughter, with whom he (believes he) falls in love.

Whilst the characters and setting is characteristic of many European novels of the time, the story takes an unexpected turn. Rudin is a fateful character, and one whose shallowness and egotism is exposed by the young daughter who he seduces. Turgenev manages to present Rudin as a sympathetic character albeit imbued with the resignation that he is a 'superfluous man' (cf. 'A Hero of Our Times' by Lermontov)

The book is well written and deserves a place in the canon of nineteenth century Russian novels . Particularly recommended for anyone who has read Fathers and Sons.

This is the second of Delderfield's Adam Swann during the late 1800s and features his children growing into their various interests including the family haulier business established during the British industrialization age 1860+ Adam's wife, Henrietta, had taken the business reins while Adam fought in a war and lost his leg. Now she is attending their 9 children while they choose schools and vocations.

As with all Delderfield books, this is a real winner--a hard to put down book.

Adam Swann, founder of transport giant Swann-on-Wheels, sits beside his aged father's deathbed as this sequel to God Is an Englishman begins. His family with wife Henrietta is growing up - indeed, his two oldest children have already left the nest. That leaves six at home. Adam and his beloved Hetty have their hands full with the challenges of rearing the rest of their brood, and of continuing to provide help and guidance to those they've already launched. For Adam there's also the challenge of guiding the business he built from nothing, using a stolen ruby necklace as his starting capital, through an era in which technological advances are driving social change at a sometimes dizzying rate. Does this book take place in the 20th Century? Not at all. It plays out between 1878 and 1889.

Adam Swann is a surprisingly complex character, a man of business who nevertheless cares deeply about the social ills of his Victorian world. His relationship with Henrietta, and with his company's regional managers (whom he considers his other family - not at all the typical attitude for an employer of that era!), drive many of the story's threads. The rest are taken up by the Swann children's passages into adulthood. This richly detailed and wonderfully authentic historical novel can be read on its own without difficulty, as I can attest because I read it without first reading God Is an Englishman. I'm now eager to do that, however!

This is one of those "family saga"/"sweeping epics" that I would have eaten up when I was in high school. There is more interwoven historical detail than bodice ripping, but otherwise this book is right up there with John Jakes's Bicentenial series and other books of the 1970s school of historical novels. Meaning that the men are all strong, the women are all lusty, the hero is moral but misunderstood, the villans are evil and usually deformed. The characters don't have much depth, but there are a lot of them, and separate plots involve each of them. Unfortunately, while the story is interesting, the writing is a little much. This is a typical sentence (yes, one sentence):

"It was only then that he remembered the fearful risks Avery was running by coming here, a man with a double murder charge hanging over him and no means, at this distance, to establish his innocence, for who would be likely to believe that a rake like Avery had shot a man in self-defence after a whore had squeezed him dry, and afterwards fled into the night in the back of one of Swann's frigates as far as Harwich, where he had bribed a Dutch skipper to carry him to the Continent."

Whew!

I gave it three stars because I think it is a two-star book for adults, but would be a four-star book for younger readers. If younger readers stil read historical fiction, this would be appropriate -- it is definitely PG and the history is interesting.

If you enjoyed 'God is an Englishman' by the same author, you will want to continue reading about the saga of Adam Swann and especially his family in this sequel. Both novels are what one might label `industrial fiction,' or books that treat England's economic transformation during the 19th century and its social consequences, along the lines of a Dickens novel. Although I was attracted to read both novels for this reason, even if one isn't interested in the economic and social aspects, the story itself, based on the interpersonal relationships of a varied list of middle and lower class characters and especially the entrepreneurial Adam Swann, is intriguing enough to keep reading to the end. And `Theirs was the Kingdom' was the stronger of the two novels in this sense, especially in developing how Adam's children reached adulthood, the career paths they followed, and how they came to meet their spouses. If you want to learn the basic story line, see the reviews for 'God is an Englishman.'

who would have thought such an 'old book' would be such an easy read....AND...VERY... interesting.... a MUST.... my thoughts come back to it often....

I stumbled across this book in the Santa Cruz Public Library in 1980 and it has always stuck with me.
Highly recommended, often quite funny.
Indeed this George Kennan is the great uncle of the cold-war diplomat of the same name (I believe), who passed away on this day at the age of 101.

I couldn't put this book down. On a par with Shackleton's story. Well written, fascinating account of a two year Siberian expedition in the mid 1800s.

i picked this book up from a homeless bookseller in manhattan for a dollar, figuring it might be worth a try. and it was - i read the whole thing!

it's major pluses: it's written in a surprisingly modern style. i've read other travelogues of the time period, like melville's omoo and typee and others, and this one was FAR better. perhaps it's that the author is not pompous or trying too hard to be "literary." he tries a little bit, but mostly he just sticks to the facts and tells the story. and the story on its own is interesting enough - travelling all around eastern siberia with wandering natives on dogsleds and reindeer sleds, living in yurts and eating funky foods, starving at times, camping under snowdrifts at fifty below zero, and mostly just observing and interacting with native peoples who (i have a strange feelings) may not even exist any more. and all this set in the backdrop of such an interesting time period in our history - just after the U.S. Civil War.

other point of food for thought: the guy did his travels at AGE TWENTY!!!, and wrote and published the entire book by age 25! this strikes me as quite odd, because his whole style is...so mature...and intellectual. you'd think you're reading a book by a forty year old (at least). and to this that seven years before he travelled to siberia...he was just thirteen.

anyway, all in all a good and interesting book, good in a way for light historical reading, but nothing to shock your boots off...

Telegraph operator George Kennan signs on to build a telegraph line across Siberia in late 1800s. Very good American example of understated adventure writing, a genre probably perfected by the British.

Gillian Slovo is unapologetic in her rather petulant story of a neglected childhood. While her parents pursued Communism and pushed against the apartheid government of South Africa, all the while earning a good income with her father's lawyering, she and her sisters suffered especially her ambitious mother's indifference, imprisonment and lack of home life "quality time".

Ruth First, daughter of Polish Jews, ambitious in her own right and extremely intelligent and sharp-tongued, married Joe Slovo, also Jewish, of Russian origin, with struggling parents. It was a climb up for him, with the steady rise of his income as a lawyer in post-WWII South Africa under white rule. His children lived well, enjoyed the blacks as servants, and attended private schools. The parents ran hither and to as Communists tend to do.

What makes this book uncommonly candid from a red is that the daughter, while unequivocally defending her parents' "struggles", openly begrudges their self-absorption and cause-related time-consuming party activities. When her parents become wanted criminals, the father escapes over the border and the mother ultimately goes to prison. Understandably, our writer, the daughter Gillian, is annoyed. She and her siblings avoid mentioning their parents in any of their schools, but her Russian-Jewish name betrays their origins, their parents' political proclivities, and brands the daughters as traitors.

The inside battle of any political movement will always take its toll on the activists' children. This part of the book is almost comical in its self-centeredness, but we all can relate if we have had parents with any reasons for indifference or neglect.

What I enjoyed was reading how her parents had come to such political ideas, why they dove in to the blacks' cause so valiantly, and how they throve on the injustice to others. When push came to shove, the mother takes the daughters to England, since the Communists and others of their ilk have made South Africa a blood bath for whites. To this day, the nonblacks of that country are fleeing in huge numbers, not the least of which are the descendants of the persecuted Jews of Russia and Poland, who classify themselves as "white", yet still oppressed in spite of great economic priviledge.

The effect of Communist ideas on emerging nations has been catastrophic, but rare is the book that tells openly how devious and traitorous its proponents can be. The end result always seems to send them scurrying out of the nation in which they had once prospered, to go to yet another free nation and stir up further unrest.

Rest assured that they would not move into a black neighborhood in England or America, no matter their anti-apartheid views!

Thanks to Gillian Slovo for revealing the inside scoop on these infamous Reds.

i only read a small portion of Every Little Thing - having sat sobbing throughout A World Apart - the poignant movie version.

i followed the comings and goings of both joe slovo and ruth first, and was myself in exile in lestho, when father john osmond had his hand blown off by parcel bomb; in detention, when albie sachs had his hand blown off in moçambique; under restriction back in johannesburg, when ruth was assisinated in moçambique; in my second stint in exile in botswana when jeannette and katryn schoon were murdered by parcel bomb in angola.

the pathos deliverered in A World Apart wrenched my insides apart, for many of the questions gillian had for her father, my own daughter - separated from me being in exile - she in johannesburg, she pleaded me for, for clear answers. her young enquiring mind was never satiated with whatever i had to proffer.

the sad thing about these situations is that we have no clear answers - no magic solution, for when gross injustices prevail within a "civilised" society, some of us who heed the call - take up the challenge to right these inhumane wrongs. we are forced to forgo our own comforts and loved ones. the call of the multitudes, far exceeds those of our own personal loved ones; for we reach/strive for that day, when all our children - black, white, brown or yellow will be able to live as proud children under one free and democratic governement. only then will we all be opportuned to live out their dreams and aspirations as proud citizens of the world - an integral part of humanity ...

and it was this message that tore at my gut, my heart ... my troubled mind - that made me feel a little more proud of the many sacrifices so many of us were forced to endure. that our children and loved ones had to be denied our love and support and guidance that we as responsible adults/parents should have been fulfilling, can never be repayed; for within our offspring, the emptiness of both parents being there for them - when most needed has come and gone ...

A great read that poses the difficult question: what ought to come first--one's children, or one's cause? Especially challenging when the cause is the end of apartheid. Gillian Slovo is bitter that she didn't have her parents because they were busy trying to free South Africa. Understandable from an individual point of view, but the contribution of the Slovos to the anti-apartheid movement was invaluable. I don't know the correct answer to the question, but I do know that this is a good and engaging tale.

This book is very well and sensitively written. It gives a very vivid picture of Ruth First and Joe Slovo, two very strong willed people who were dedicated to the anti apartheid struggle in the dark years of apartheid in the last 40 years before the first democratic elections in 1994.

Here we get a true picture of how ths couple had sacrificed their family life for what they had believed in and how this had effected their relationship with their eldest daughter (the author). One cannot help but empathize with the author who makes no bones about the neglect that her parents had towards her relationship with them and how she truly wanted to know more about her parents who were rather secretive towards her.

The book makes very exciting reading. My main criticism is that there is a tendency to jump backwards and forwards in the past. There seems to be a problem of continuity of style as passed anecdotes are retold at different stages in this biography.There is also a tendency to repetition. This tends to marr a rather good book which is recommended to all those who are interested in the history of the freedom struggle in South Africa.

Stuarts description of trails is to the tee. I am an avid hiker amongst the islands and have looked and used several books on hiking Hawaii, and none compare to Stuart's. I hiked Ko'olau Summit Trail in early September, I had Stuart's book to guide me. The book starts the trail off on the La'ie Trail which intersects with the summit trail. In his notes he states that one can hike the trail from Pupukea, but it is very overgrown and muddy. Haa, I thought . I have hiked some overgrown trails in my day, how bad can this be. Let me tell how bad it is! It was just about the worst hike I have ever been on. From Pupukea to the La'ie Trail junction was some of the worst trail conditions I have ever encountered. What little trail there was, was overgrown so badly that it took us two full days (16 hours) to hike approximately 15 miles. Needless to say once we got past the La'ie Trail junction, his book led us effortlessly to the Schofield-Waikane Trail. I actually thougt about going to Kipapa Ridge. whew! If Stuart says its overgrown it is, if he says it is beautiful it is. His book is easy to read, follow, and understand. I would highly recommend both his hiking books over all books covering trails on the Hawaiin Islands

I tried to like this book. But the more I tried, the more disappointed I was.

I've gone back and forth with myself over whether this book ought to describe more trails. After all, ten backpacking trips, four of which are in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, seems a bit spare. I decided not to give this book a lower rating since I did buy it because it says "backpackers" in the title, and looking at other guide books and maps has convinced me that there are probably a limited number of multi-day trips available on the islands. Nonetheless, you should keep in mind that it's a bit thin for its price tag. Looking at similarly priced titles on my bookshelf, I would expect twice as many trips and more descriptions of branch trails and day hikes beyond the destination campsites.

The trail descriptions themselves are good. The overviews are enjoyable and include major landmarks along the way. The overviews are then followed by overly detailed route descriptions. They go so far as to tell you to "Pass a mango tree on the right," and they count the number of switchbacks you ascend or descend. This is useful for unmarked or unmaintained trails, such as the dayhike to Pu'u 'O'o, but unnecessary filler for many of the other trails.

Most disappointing were the maps. The book has island-level locator maps that show you the general area each trip can be found. But there are no overview maps to give you a feel for what each trip looks like from start to finish. And the detail maps are themselves problematic. They have no color coding, so the reader is left to decipher a map showing gray text on top of gray topographical features on top of gray contour lines. And like a AAA trip planner, the maps are oriented so that the trail runs up-and-down the page without regard for the cardinal directions. For the Mauna Loa trip, North rotates over four maps from the bottom left of the page to the top of the page.

The book's one saving grace is it's photography. 16 pages of beautiful pictures will help you decide which trails appeal to you. Halape, on the beach in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, looks like heaven on earth. And after looking at the pictures, I'm pretty sure that I'd like to dayhike the barren Mauna Loa or Haleakala, but I don't want to camp there.

I have taken this book (or photocopies of relavant information) on all my backpackings throughout the Hawaiian islands. This includes hikes and backpackings on Oahu, Kauai, Maui, and Hawaii and have hiked in parks such as Kokee, Kalalau, Haleakala, and Hawaii Volcanoes National Parks. Fabulous information regarding trail routes, how to get to the trailheads, and what permit and important information any experienced backpacker needs to know. I've led backpacking groups, too, with this information. Stuart Ball has been there and knows his stuff. Highly recommended by the Backyard Oahu website!!

Anyone thinking of overnight stays in the Hawaii backcountry should have this book. In it is info about getting to the trailhead, negotiating the trail itself, and more. I've used it for trips across Haleakala, to Halape, and up Mauna Loa. Don't leave home without it. [g]

An engaging and captivating read. I sure wish someone like Mr. Pierce had taught history at my high school! This guy breaths life into history with humor, passion and brilliant insights. Pierce obviously loves history and manages to make it all come alive through his deft wordsmithing. As I delved deeper into the book, it became obvious that before ever writing a word, Pierce must have spent many months doing his research (including tracking down, across the Northwest and around the country, living descendents of his historic, eccentric characters.It is also a friendly read. Each eveninig before bed I'd devour another chapter. Sadly, after I finished the book I found myself foraging through the table of contents, like a depleted tin of almond roca, in hopes that just possibly I had overlooked a morsel or even a crumb of his delightful tales of Seattle's historic characters, charlatans, swindlers, realtors and hustlers. Bravo Mr. Pierce!

January Magazine crime fiction editor J. Kingston Pierce takes us on an effervescent journey through Seattle's ... er ... eccentric history in his latest history-related book, "Eccentric Seattle." In his introduction, Pierce describes how Seattle came to be. "Thus the city was born," writes Pierce. "It would prove to be a fast-growing but troubled child, which didn't always play well with others." This troubled-child aspect is where Pierce leads us. We learn about mail-order brides, a nutty Pulitzer Prize-winning Seattle poet; anti-Communist witch hunts in McCarthy-era Seattle; the first woman mayor of a large American city; rumrunning during Prohibition and so much more. Pierce, the author of "America's Historic Trails with Tom Bodett" and "San Francisco, You're History," has written extensively on history in general and the history of Seattle in particular, so, in "Eccentric Seattle," we believe him when he tells us that he learned "long ago that history isn't merely about dates, places, and statistics; what gives it life are the people who charted its course, whether they were empire builders or avaricious businessmen, eristic newspaper editors or erratic preachers, artists or murderers." In "Eccentric Seattle," Pierce introduces us to all of them. -- from January Magazine, December 2003

Eccentric Seattle: Pillars And Pariahs Who Made The City Not Such A Boring Place After All by longtime Seattle editor and author J. Kingston Pierce is an engaging regional history of the great city of Seattle, Washington. Kingston Pierce's keen interest in unusual aspects of history are reflected in the sometimes bizarre anecdotes (mothers urging their children to stuff salt up their noses, scores of proper Victorian ladies forced to climb 8 to 30 foot high ladders) he's gathered and included in Eccentric Seattle, stories stretching through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to present a rollicking composite picture. Eccentric Seattle is a fun and informative collection for tourists or residents of Seattle to read through, and a highly recommended contribution to American Regional History.

Seattle's current self-indulgent concept of itself is of a comfortable, jets-rain-and-flannel-shirts backwater now finally being forced to wrestle with the fact that it's become a "big city." But as J. Kingston Pierce's subtitle suggests -- and his interesting and entertaining history reveals -- that vision of Seattle's past, if it was ever accurate, was at best only an interlude between the Emerald City's rowdy origins and the fast-paced *urbs* we are today.

For much of its early history, Seattle was a quintessential frontier town. And from that standpoint, many of the people to whom the author introduces us didn't really strike me as that "eccentric" at all. On the contrary, they seemed like the fairly standard character types one found in many American frontier settlements: the brothel keepers, the moralists, the criminals on the lam, the get-rich-quick artists, the Horatio Algers determined to make a fortune through hard work, the people who failed Back East and came west to start over, and, inevitably, the politicians.

Though these characters are familiar, Pierce does a fine job weaving them into the interesting tapestry that is Seattle history, and showing how they continued to affect the city even after its frontier days were long dead.

I for one can hardly wander through a city without wondering what kind of history took place there, what it looked like 100 years ago, and how it became what it is. The "sense of place" is very important to me. I understand Seattle a lot better for having read this book. Pierce has given faces and stories to many of the names that stare back at us from building fronts and street signs, uncovered important landmarks (literal and figurative) in the city's history, and generally done a good job proving the argument his subtitle asserts.

If, as Winston Churchill suggested, how clearly you see the past shapes how clearly you'll see the future, anyone interested in the future of Seattle (or, less pretentiously, anyone simply interested in some entertaining true stories about places that may already be familiar to you) should definitely get to know this book.

The book was put together in an informative and easy to read way. It's a travel log, for anyone wanting to visit the Nez Perce Trail National Park, plus it gives a summarized overview of that happened. I loved the author's method of narrating the story of what happened, with easy to read maps and tables of information. Her list of references was also impressive. More detail will require further reading, but this is a starter. What is missing from her story is what this band of renegades really was. They were outlaws, shunned by their own Nez Perce Nation and what is also missing is the national impact of this unfortunate Indian outbreak had on our Country. That is why I didn't rate the book higher. It's a view into history "through rose colored glasses", which is quit in style today, but that gives the starters on history a dangerously biased view. Real history is often painful to read about. These Indians were not heroes. Hundreds of innocent people were murdered and the real Nez Perce almost lost their wonderful Idaho Reservation because of this War. Congress was in a complete uproar. They were also opposed by other Indian Nations, specifically the Bannock, Shoshone and the Crow to mention a few. This is the story of a national disaster and tragedy. The real heroes were often those they attacked and the horse soldiers that had to chase them. Still, as a travelog and guide to 80% of the historic sites along the Nez Perce Trail, this book is a good starter. I also loved the historic photographs, some of which I have not found anywhere else.

The story of the Nez Perce bands of Wallowa Oregon is one of the saddest of the expansion period of the American West. Driven from their homelands by a sneaky treaty they never signed, several bands of Nez Perce were moving reluctantly onto the new, smaller reservation. But a few angry young men left camp, on their own, and killed a white man they knew to be bad to Indians. The U.S. Army responded and thus began the pursuit of the Nez Perce, across Idaho, to Wyoming, and then Montana, over 1100 miles. Eight hundred Nez Perce men, women, and children walked and rode hoping to find a new place to settle where the Army would no longer pursue. But the Army did pursue, and finally caught up with the Nez Perce on a cold October day in Northern Montana, where after a 5 day siege, Chief Joseph finally surrendered to save those that were left, cold, sick, and tired. This book follows the trail, and recounts the history as told by several authors and particpants including General Howard, Yellow Wolf, and some Army Scouts. It is the one book you should read first. Then get out and drive the trail that the Nez Perce rode. I bet you can't drive it in one summer, but they rode that distance, moving camp every day, with the Army shooting at them when ever they didn't move far enough. Chief Joseph wondered when will the white men ever tell the truth. Why is the Indian not allowed to live under the same laws of freedom as the white man.

Alas, I have been asked by my publisher to write yet another book on Chief Joseph. I wish to do it well and respectfully, and, if possible, break a little new ground. So, I may be one of ten people on earth who has travelled the Nez Perce trail, both known and unknown, from the Wallowa all the way to Tonkawa, with requisite sidetrips to Nespelem and various relevant sites. All in all, I've put about 10,000 miles into this enterprise. And here's the hard truth: Cheryl Wilfong, whoever she is -- and God bless her researching soul -- has made this trip possible. She has broken the route down into three categories -- mainstream traveller, for the pavement folk; adventurous traveller, for the dirt road folk; and intrepid traveller for the white-knuckle, high center clearance, "I don't need guard rails" folk. I did it mostly on the adventurous/intrepid roads. And I can say, unequivocally, that she has created a work that will not soon be bettered, and which is absolutely invaluable for any Nez Perce afficianado, from the casual traveller to the "I only come out of the archives to breathe" geeks who are researching the familial ties between Wahlatits and Yellow Bull.

By the very nature of the task, she has a few errors, and they can put you in harm's way, such as having you travel 1.8 miles to a crossroads in the vast emptiness of Montana's back country when the actual distance is 11.8 miles. But these errors are so few as to be remarkable in their infrequency. Overall, she takes you mile by mile, dusty crossroad by dusty crossroad, rutted mountain pass by rutted mountain path, and conducts you on an assiduously researched journey of the trail that the Nez Perce followed from their homeland in the Wallowa and Snake/Salmon country to their exile in Oklahoma.

I could give you endless specifics, but here is the bottom line: you cannot take this trip, or any portion of it, without this book. You can forget your Josephy, misplace your Haines and your Lavender, or trade your Greene and your McWhorter for extra gas money. But you cannot -- CANNOT -- take this journey without having this book on the seat next to you.

Take it from someone who stopped at every pile of stones, every remnant of rifle pit and breastwork, every old campsite and every battle and staging area; who walked the high country trails near Lolo and the lowland campgrounds on the flats below Fort Leavenworth: You absolutely must buy this book if you choose to retrace any of this journey.

The Nez Perce Historic Trail Foundation and the National Park Service should canonize this woman.

End of story.

This is an excellent work which I plan to use as a tool for planning vacations over the next summers. The history is concise yet accurate and supplements works by Helen Addison Howard (Saga of Chief Joseph), Merrill Beale (I Will Fight No More Forever), Alvin Josephy (The Nez Perce and the Opening of the Northwest), L. V. McWhorter (Yellow Wolf & Hear Me My Chiefs!) The maps, side trips, and road condition guides are useful. Classifications of roads for vehicles and travelers described as mainstream, adventurous and intrepid are unique for this type of history book and assist in planning based on the type of vehicle one might be using. Reminds me of hiking books. A knowledge of geography is vital to understanding history. Wilfong aids amature historians visiting the areas to view and get a better understanding of the physical conditions both the troops and the Nez Perce found in this tragic chapter of American history.

This is the most interesting and useful book on California glaciers, particularly in the High Sierra, that I have come across.

Author Bill Guyton is a Cal State Chico emeritus geology professor who has apparently done glacier field work, especially in the Palisades region, but the book is well written in a manner accessible to anyone with an interest in the topic.

Besides the general (apparently conventional but still evolving) history of California's Ice Age glaciations, a topic covered in a number of books on the Sierra, Guyton focuses on the details of prior epochs' alpine glaciations - the lower Northern California mountains and the southernmost documented glaciers that occurred in the San Gabriel Mountains just east of Los Angeles.

The most interesting section for hikers is Guyton's inventory of current high country glaciers on Mt. Shasta, in the High Sierra and some tiny ones in the Trinity Alps. Reviewing the calculations of other geologist and applying his own knowledge and definitions Guyton determines there are currently (as of 1998?) 509 California glaciers. Actually he counts 108 actual glaciers and 401 "glacierets". To me the "glacierets" category really represents what are presently (for the time being) permanent ice patches which are the remnants of previously active, i.e., flowing, glaciers. Given the rapid retreat of most Sierra ice it seems possible that each year one or more of the 108 "true" glaciers is becoming a "glacieret" each year. The winter of 2004-2005 was an extremely heavy snow year in the High Sierra, but by September, after an unusually warm spring and typical summer, the Yosemite high country did not seem to have significantly more end-of-season snow cover than usual although the September meadows were a bit greener and more mosquito infested than I would normally expect. Therefore I don't think anyone anticipates any of the "glacierets" will expand to become glaciers again in the near future.

One of the best features of the book for either hikers or car tourists interested in seeing actual glacier phenomenon is the section "Seeing for Yourself" that describes in detail a drive across Yosemite National Park from Glacier Point, over Tioga Pass and down to Lee Vining with suggested stops and day hikes to see both formerly glaciated landscapes and some living glacial remnants.

Guyton emphasizes the long run view of geologic history and refers more than once to the fact that periodic advances of California's alpine glaciers, followed by their total disappearance for long periods, has been the normal situation for eons. In doing so he subtly provides a reality check on some of the hysterical end-of-the-world global warming hoopla that pervades the media.

The book has lots of useful black and white photos plus a section of color photographs as well as typical geology text diagrams of glaciers and related phenomenon. There is one map showing the maximum extent of California glaciations and a map-like diagram of Mt. Shasta's current glaciers, but some more detailed maps of current glaciers in the two most described areas - the Palisades and Yosemite's Tioga Pass region - would have been useful. I'd also like to see some "then and now" comparison photos of some of the glaciers.

Highly recommended for hikers, climbers and amateur naturalists who want to know more about the glaciated landscape and Ice Age glacier remnants in California, particularly in the High Sierra.

I essentially agree with the previous review, with the exception that the absence of references to J. P. Schaffer's work on glaciation in the Sierra Nevada should not be viewed as a problem with the book. Speaking as a glacial geologist who has worked extensively in the Sierra Nevada, the public should know that Schaffer's work has repeatedly failed to pass scientific peer review. Until it does so, it would be irresponsible for other authors, like Guyton, to present it in any publication purporting to be a synopsis of current scientific thinking. Guyton has done a very commendable job of summarizing the latest CRITICALLY REVIEWED thinking on timing and geomorphic effects of ancient glaciation in the Sierra. I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about modern and ancient glaciers of California.

Bill Guyton, professor emeritus of geosciences at Cal State Chico, has
written an excellent book designed to teach people with little
knowledge of geology about the glaciers of California.

The book
discusses glaciers and ice ages in general, discovery of glaciers in
California, glacial chronology, and techniques used to determine ages
of glaciations; then goes on to describe ice-age and modern glaciers
throughout California. As a bonus, Guyton has included a chapter
about the controversy surrounded formation of Yosemite Valley and a
field trip through Yosemite on which readers may see glaciers and
their effects on the landscape.

Though the book is fairly complete,
well researched, and certainly well written, Guyton might have
discussed general concepts of glaciation a little bit more thoroughly.
In addition, Guyton omits recent highly controversial (and perhaps
faulty) research done in Yosemite by Jeffrey Schaffer (see _The
Geomorphic Evolution of the Yosemite Valley and Sierra Nevada
Landscapes: Solving the Riddles in the Rocks_, 1997).

The book,
however, is an excellent book for anyone wanting to learn more about
California's glaciers.

Buy this book! It is destined to become a collector's item. Prof. Emeritus Bill Guyton of Cal State Chico laboriously reviewed perhaps hundreds of research papers on California's past glaciers and he has presented his synopsis in a highly readable, enjoyable book. For his effort, I give him 5 stars. Unfortunately, he was a compiler, not a field glaciologist, so he has seen very little of the total past-glacial evidence. More unfortunately, for the Sierra Nevada, which easily contained the vast bulk of past glaciers, roughly 80-90% of these glaciers - essentially those on the west side - have been grossly misinterpreted with regard to size, thickness and age. Indeed, the USGS mapped some "old glacial deposits" from aerial photos, but if you hike to these locations, you'll find no glacial evidence whatsoever. Because this book contains soooo much downright poor glacial mapping, the information in this book rates one star. (This is NOT the author's fault.) As I said, buy it, for decades from now, people will want to know what was believed at the end of the 20th century. Bill had planned to incorporate my preliminary, new-view research into his book, but the editors nixed it. As Bill wrote me, the editors said that he "should stick to generally accepted ideas and information. People reading my book would not have the background to judge the controversy, would not be interested in it, and including it would be a distraction." (We must not let the public know that science has raging controversies.) Had my book, The Geomorphic Evolution of the Yosemite and Sierra Nevada Landscapes, been in print before Prof. Guyton's book went to press, perhaps there would have been a better chance of my ideas being mentioned in it. I now take professors, geologists, geographers, and students into the range and make more converts every year. The new interpretation, based in part on well-known laws of glacial physics (which all west-side mappers have ignored), ultimately will win out. Still, there is strong opposition, perhaps most vociferously by a youthful professor, Doug Clark, who has yet to visit my 300 sites of glacial and uplift evidence. To quote Peter Birkeland, who reviewed my book (Quaternary Research, 1998, v. 50, p. 201): "In the spirit of fair play, the answer to all of "Schaffer's views lies in the field, so I challenge interested workers to put the book in their rucksacks, hike through the Sierra Nevada, and make up their own mind. How lucky we are that this is the best way for geologists and geographers to resolve controversies." And, none other than Prof. Guyton is urging me on. He is an honorable man.

I found this book to be incredibly well written. The background and history given on each species helped me to better understand how and why certain birds have ended up in California. I also really enjoyed the author's own personal journal entries. It's always nice when an author in a reference guide helps to paint a picture through their eyes. I am an avid reader and a novice birder and this book has been very helpful. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a detailed guide to birding in CA. As an Oregon resident I have found that this book is still helpful even outside of California.

Although the book contains aloot of information, is is also lacking a lot
of information regarding many of the local species, information that I was
specically looking for. Examples would be the Red Tailed Hawk, the flicker
Red headed Owl and many small birds that habitat this area. The book did
provide some information but not a complete digest of Nor Cal birds in the
western Cascades.

Evens and Tait have produced a veritable undergraduate course on the ecology of birds of California. But dont be confused -- this is not meant to replace a field guide. This is the deeper stuff: bird ecology, feeeding, nesting, associations between species, landscape ecology. And Evens and Tait have successfully and elegantly downloaded a lifetime of learning and listening and watching the region's birds between two covers.

This is a must-read for anybody studying bird environments and impacts, and for anybody preparing a birding tour of the state. It is as good a state guide as exists in the US on one region's rich ecology and communities of birds. Evens also has a highly readable engaging style, as well so you can turn to this over and over.

Beginning and intermediate birders will enjoy this introduction to the birdlife of the most ornithologically diverse state in the union. Not an identification resource or a site guide, this thick little book instead introduces the birds against the background of their ecology and biology, treating habitats rather than individual species.
Unfortunately, the book could have been edited more rigorously than it was. There are spelling errors ("ocine" for "oscine," "nivasus" for "nivosus") that an adept proofreader could have caught, and the discussion of endemism and evolution in the front matter is oddly oblique, never completely wrong but often just a little bit off: readers may well end up wondering why the terms "sister species," "sibling species," and "sister species" all occur in one paragraph and whether there is any difference. The Inyo California Towhee is said to be a "remnant population of a once more widespread species," but that formulation could be applied just as accurately (and just as confusingly) to any other population of California Towhees. The author knows what he's talking about, but the editor could have helped say it better, more clearly, and more precisely.
But the book is still highly recommended, as are all the other titles in this excellent series.

Selma Lagerlof is too little known in the English speaking world. This book is profound and deeply moving.

It began with a story about one Ingmar Ingmarsson. He had a big heart to forgive his wife who had murdered their own baby. He dared everyone in the town by taking his wife who had just released from the prison to the town church, bearing everyone's look on them. But the story itself is not about him, but his children.

The first Ingmar had 3 daughters and 1 son. His eldest daughter married a moneyspender man, so after his death, the family of Ingmarsson got bankrupt. His son, young Ingmar wanted to be a teacher and did not care to buy back the Ingmarsson properties that had been lost. On the same time, a new wave of Christianity came into the town. It's the wave that telling everybody to pack up and go to Jerusalem because that is the only place in the world that will survive a doomsday. So everybody in town started to pack up their things.

But still, the story was nothing about Jerusalem. Ingmar's sisters and their families prepared to go, and also Young Ingmar's love. And the story was ended by farewell from the people that were left in town and those who were leaving. But the story itself does not seem to be connected one another. The heart of Big Ingmar, the dubious and kind-hearted Young Ingmar, Ingmar's sister life, and finally, the farewell. The story seemed to be cut down, and with faraway related ending.

I love Selma Lagerlof, but I don't understand her Jerusalem. What was she thinking, what was the topic itself, what was the message, I don't understand.

This is really a message to the previous reviewer, Rowena Suryobroto. It seems that you have missed THE SECOND HALF of the novel! ( Jerusalem has often been published in two parts, and the second part begins with the group reaching Israel.) Start looking for the second part right away!! Judging from what you thought of Selma Lagerlof's other works, you'll absolutely love Jerusalem, it's every bit as good as The General's ring. With the same insights into people's minds and hearts, Jerusalem is a story of goodness, love and loyalty, and of people ( finally ) realising what's important to them personally and standing up for that, no matter what others may think. Without giving away too much I'd just like to say that the ending is everything you might wish for, it leaves you fulfilled and with a smile on your face and in your heart.

Selma Lagerlof's Jerusalem is one of my favourite books of all time. Anyone who speaks more than one language knows that to read a book in a language other than your native tongue can be a tiresome challenge. As a native English speaker, I was a little wary of reading this book in Swedish. However, the characters were so engaging, Lagerlof's descriptions of life in 19th century rural Sweden so beautiful, that I forgot that I was reading in Swedish. Even if you can't read the original I would recommend the English language version. Tales of separation and conflict surrounding differing religious beliefs are universal and Lagerlof depicts them brilliantly.