Oregon Books

My wife doesn't read. Period. She did however pick this book up and just after the first few lines, she was hooked! She couldn't put it down. It is her favorite now and she has since bought the other 2 books in the series. A must read! Heart tugging book!

Shattered Justice by Karen Ball: a review

Shattered Justice by Karen Ball
Book #1 in the Family Honor Series

If you're in the mood to read something that will pull you through the absolute worse grief by introducing you to multiple characters and then brutally killing them off one by one, then by all means read this book immediately. Once again, I have to say that the reason that I read Christian fiction is for the uplifting joy of realizing again and again that God is there. I guess I'm weak and need an escape and that is what I need fiction for, but I can not handle books like this. Shattered Justice is real life in a fictious story. Real things like this happen, life like this happens. This story does have some terrible turn of events and God does get to show his love and it does end on a wonderfully happy note. It's just not my cup of tea and make-believe. But with that said, I will be reading the other two books in the series to find out what else can happen in the lives of the Justice siblings. All of that said about the context of the book, let me tell you that Karen Ball is a great author. Her writing makes you feel the realistic-ness of the story, and truly feel a part of it. She can rip your heart out and make you cry, but also giggle and laugh with the biggest grin. Even if it is not your favorite cup of tea, give her a chance, every once in a while you need some reality and see it take grief into healing.

Warning spoilers" The writing style was very good. I was fine with the hero loosing his wife but when half of the book was about his children and they both die also I could only skim to the end and move on. I will definately try another book by this author. I am only writing this review so others can know that there are a lot of main character deaths. If I had known I would have steered clear from this book.

this is a phenomenal book that will tug at your heartstrings. i really felt like i was a part of the family while i was reading it, and will always remember how it taught me to be a better christian.

with a lot of drama. Get the tissue if you plan on reading this one. It brings a lot of the Word to life in the main characters. Inspiring and a very good read.
One man's loss brings him and the others around him closer to God.

This is undoubtably the most poorly-written book I have read in years. Paragraphs go on for pages, sentences are so long they lose their point, and punctuation has very little to do with standard English. I made myself finish this book because I wanted to understand the events, but I had to force myself through the writing itself. In addition, the author seems to blame everyone for this crime except for the ones who committed it. Perhaps she is trying to defend her hometown, or--as another reviewer speculated--she fell under the spell of the skinhead propaganda. In any case, I would never recommend this book to anyone. If you want to know what happened in Portland, look up old newspaper articles. It would be easier and more enjoyable reading.

While I'm sure that Angela Langer was not kidnapped by the skinheads of Portland, Oregon, some conclusions she offers in her book A HUNDRED LITTLE HITLERS seem to show the influence of this syndrome. Certainly, her title choice of LITTLE Hitlers gives away her point of view immediately that these dangerous skinheads and racists are "little" and therefore not dangerous.

For some reason, she has taken the side of the skinheads in the trial of the beating death of Ethiopian Mulegeta Seraw. Perhaps she spent too much time with the racists. Perhaps she was too enamored with racist propagandist Tom Metzger. Maybe she didn't like the SPLC's Morris Dees because he had been married four times before he brought charges against Metzger's American Nazi diatribes.

Who knows for sure? We do find out soon, however, that we are left with the flavor of Langer's sympathy for the racists who would, and did, attack any person of color, any immigrant, any Jew, at any time. She argues that these racists were not programmed by Tom Metzger and his propaganda, and that Dees was wrong and possibly evil in bringing Metzger to court.

Her anger is misdirected against the victim, the courts, the police, the legal system and the concerned citizens of Portland who combined to bring justice in this case.

Perhaps she now needs to be de-programmed.

by Larry Rochelle, author of HOME SCHOOLED

This is an interesting and disturbing book that is well worth the reading time. The book is disturbing on many levels, for the story it tells and, at times, for the author's own attitudes.

The initial story is a simple one, albeit the author is sometimes very insightful in her telling of it. Racists skinheads, egged on by their equally racist girl friends, have a chance encounter with not entirely sober Ethiopian immigrants, beat the heck out of some of them and kill another. This ultimately results in the usual round of plea bargains in which the defendant skinheads receive sentences that are probably lighter than what they were due, but in which justice is nominally served. These crimes also eventually result in what was probably a mostly politically motivated trial in which the Southern Poverty Law Center [acting on behalf of a relative of the murdered victim] squares off against two of America's leading propagandists for racism, Tom Metzger and son, and obtains a financially ruinous civil judgment against the Metzgers.

The author spends a reasonable amount of time giving us some background on the victims of this crime - people who were or are remarkably like most of our forbearers of several generations back. She also spends what is, IMHO, an excessive amount of time on the backgrounds of the perpetrators of the crime and their close associates. The theme in the latter set of minibiographies is how most of these thugs have had deprived childhoods resulting in total social disorientation.

The objectives of the book are three fold: (1) the author wants to illustrate for us the racist background of a part of the Western United States and how that historical background lapped over into the recent late 20th century; (2) she wants to illustrate how quickly neoNazism can take hold of a given subculture; and (2) she wants to deplore the civil trial against the Metzgers as a travesty of justice and an abuse of the judicial system. She is successful in making out a case for her first objective. She wholly fails in her second objective. And she is, unfortunately, partially successful in her third objective, while contradicting herself at numerous points along the way.

The author's concerns over the threat of neoNazism springs from a confusion of symbols with reality and, consequently, misses what should be a real concern. The skinheads in her story were unquestionably racists and clearly immersed themselves in Nazi and American racist [Klan] symbols and slogans. The point of that immersion was, however, to simply give their disgustingly violent and drug laden lives some magic signs to hang onto and to throw in the face of the world. They could have easily, and with the same degree of understanding and commitment, latched onto Satanists or Revolutionary Maoists or whatever other in-your-face symbolisms came their way. The real Nazis, the ideological Nazis, whose objective were well focused and executed were the Metzgers and their ilk. Yet it is exactly those people with whom the author seems most sympathetic.

The more critical error in this volume is the author's love hate relationship with the American justice system. On the one hand she seems to have some vague and sporadic understanding that justice is not a simple thing and that the procedures that in fact protect rights have grown up through trial and error [no pun intended] over centuries. The justice system is a tool well suited to its purpose. But just as a wrench can be correctly used to accurately tighten a screw, it can also be misused as a club when that is the goal of the participants in the process. In the instant case of the civil trial of the Metzgers by the SPLC the goals of all parties, not just the SPLC, were focused on something other than obtaining justice.

The author makes out a convincing case that the goal of the SPLC was to use the court as a political tool to crush those whose views it was ideologically opposed and to raise donations to its own treasury. Yet, one is left with the impression that the author thinks that the general objective of fighting racism is a good one, but that to utilize available tools in that fight is somehow slimy. Further, one should, apparently, never materially benefit from successfully waging such a struggle. There is a certain odor about this argument that reminds one of the "reasoning" of those tracts which denounce "International Jewish Bankers" as sometimes useful, but basically deplorable and dangerous.

While the author mentions, more or less in passing, that the Metzgers also came to their trial as a political stage, and that they elected to run their own case and "defend" themselves largely for that reason, she then seems to entirely miss the boat on the necessary implications of that kind of "I don't want justice, I want publicity" orientation by a defendant. Despite sentences and paragraphs to the contrary, one gets the impression that the author really believes that the case against the Metzer's for conspiracy to commit tort damages should have been transformed, at the initiative of the Court, into a constitutional case principally concerned with free speech. The author apparently feels, without very clear articulation, that defendants, who she herself illustrates to have made a career out of inciting violence, should have been exonerated from paying damage to a victim of such violence, despite their own utter failure to show that such incitements were usually general and nonspecific and were not directed to actually result in any particular violence at a particular time and place. IMHO it is one thing to maintain that the Metzgers case was winnable, had they stuck to and developed the facts illustrating that they had no direct connection to the subject murder. It is entirely a different thing to maintain the naively silly position that the Metzgers should not have been found to be guilty when they ran their case as a political campaign rather than a lawsuit. I am, however, left with the firm impression that the author believes they should have been found "not guilty" on some vague principal of abstract justice, regardless of how, or for what purposes, they conducted their defense.

This is an interesting book, well worth reading, for the factual descriptions it gives of those who pass through its pages. We get a real feel for what the lives of young street punks from the American nihilist underbelly are really like. We get some insights [not insights that many naive "idealists" well welcome, but insights nonetheless] into what ideological political struggle is really like. We get a fairly good, if somewhat too sketchy, look at the "radical right" racists subculture in this society. The strengths of this book are many, it is just the author's conclusions that need some work.

In my opinion, that is. I found it a bit hard to read because Mrs. Langer's prose wasn't flowing easily, but she did engage my interest and once I finished it, I was grateful to God--not just because I'd managed to read the entire book in less than 2 days but because I don't live in that part of the country!

(It's difficult enough living where I do, in the dirty South. I cannot imagine at all trying to eke out a living in the Pacific Northwest, which is as notorious for racism as is this area of the USA known far and wide as the Confederacy.)

Other than finding Mrs. Langer's prose stumbling at times, my only other problem is her seeming sympathy towards these racists,
in particular Tom Metzger. The man lost nearly everything and I cannot say that I feel sorry for him; he deserved it, I guess,
even though those skinheads clearly acted on their own initiative.
They saw a black man, knocked him to the street, kicked him when he was down--as all cowards do--and beat him to death with that bat.

The act itself doesn't surprise me--at the time it did but I didn't know so much about the pitiful history of lynching in this
so-fair land of ours--but having read all I could on the subject of racism, racist murders, and hate crimes, now nothing surprises
or shocks me in America.

May God have mercy on their souls!

Murder happens all the time in this country. A brutal murder that's movitated simply by racism and committed by a Nazi skinhead in the United States, though, is quite another matter. In 1988 a Nazi skinhead by the name of Kenneth Mieske beat the head in of a Ethiopian immigrant by the name of Mulugeta Seraw over a minor disagreement that gets out of hand. Elinor Langer's fine book provides the background, the pathology if you like, of this disease that allows violence against people of other races to continue in our country.

Langer begins with the murder and then traces the roots of the movement in Portland that gave rise to the neo-Nazi skinhead movement in her state. She also looks at the poverty, submerged anger, drug use and philosphy that feeds the anger that leads to events like this. In many respects, Langer's book (which began as a series of ongoing articles about the case) provides a glimpse into America's darker side. We discover how the movement began, how it spreads and how it takes root in communities outside her own as well.

While it isn't necessarily the easiest book to read, it's compelling and thoughtful. It's not lite reading for the beach but it's the type of book for those interested in how society makes a wrong turn as it grows and matures. Her coverage of the trial, the evidence and the feelings of those involved gives a borad perspective into what fans the flames of monsterous acts in our world. A Hundred Little Hitlers frightens me worse than any Stephen King novel or the latest "Resident Evil" movie could because it's about the world around us.

I ordered and read all of her books - they are quick reads, enjoyable, and very entertaining.

April Henry has written another excellent book, I agree with the good reviews. What I liked was plate numbers, it makes the book last longer and makes you think. In Circle of Confusion, I also spent a good couple of hours looking at the art of Vermeer. Great fun.

I found the book to be a very pleasant mixture of seriousness and humor. Claire is undeterred in her search for the solution to this mystery, yet endearingly down to earth. Many of the characters are weird in a humorous sort of way, while not intending to be.

For those who know Portland, OR, Claire's searches there add the interest of 'following' her around as she goes to familiar areas.

I found the plot both coherent and cohesive. It didn't strain my sense of logic as some mysteries do. The situation described in the book could, and no doubt does, happen in real life.

This is a must have!! Excellent writing...very good characterization. I simply love her main character, she could be my best friend!! A book very well done.

When a friend's son needs a bone marrow transplant, she asks Claire Montrose to help her find a lost daughter. Claire feigns pregnancy to gain entrance to a secret and expensive adoption agency. There, she learns of terrible secrets the doctor is willing to kill for. The clock is ticking for the friend's son and Claire tracks down the families who may have adopted the daughter. Claire is an engaging character who, at times, seems unaware of her beauty and wit. She's a regular gal who feels out of place with her new boyfriend's high society pals. This is the second of the series and loses a little focus as the author pulls threads from the last book, which are a little diluted in this story. None the less, very readable.

My suggestion is to plan a whole afternoon for this book, because you won't want to stop once you start. Divorced parents Ellie and Tucker Grant receive an ultimatum from their two runaway sons. Their chilling note reads: make up and get back together, or we're not coming home. Ellie and Tucker are horrified when they realize the boys have taken off into the Oregon wilderness, using skills Tucker has taught them. That's no consolation when they consider the dangers lurking in the wilds. Their eldest son Sammy died in a horrific accident and they don't want to lose their other two beloved boys. Of course Ellie and Tucker follow them, Tucker with his perky, jealous girlfriend, and Ellie with her soft, city-slicker boyfriend. But there is enforced time for Tucker and Ellie to think, to talk, to share, to cry together. All things they didn't do after Sammy died and their marriage broke down. Unfortunately the land isn't kind to them, and all sorts of dangers lie ahead before they can get safely home. Get your tissues and read, read, read. This is another weepy, honest, emotional and romantic Catherine Anderson winner.

First off I'd like to clear up any confusion that a previous review may have caused. "Always in my heart" is NOT part of the Coulter/Kendrick series!! Hence the reason the main characters are Tucker and Ellie Grant, not Coulter.

Anyway, the story starts off with Ellie Grant missing her boys. They're at the their father's and Ellie is trying to find ways to occupy her time until they get home. She receives a call from Tucker that the boys have run away. And so begins the search for the boys. I won't go in to too much detail, suffice it to say that while finding their children, Ellie and Tucker find their way back to each other as well.

I wasn't entirely sold on Tucker's character. He's supposed to be this big manly man, but he's a little overly sappy for my taste. And I don't entirely buy that they didn't know they still loved each other. Ok sure they'd been through a horrible time, but that's 20 years of love that they just thought had died? Not possible.

Overall I love the story!! I will definitely read it again and again!!

This is now one of my most favorite books. I will read this over and over. I loved it, this author is one of the best. I will continue to read her books after such a wonderful read with this one. She draws you right in with the characters and you love and grow right along with them. This particular book struck close to my heart because I have boys of my own. I would recommend this to everyone who enjoys happy endings and isn't afraid to laugh out loud and cry along with the characters.

Ellie and Tucker Grant have been divorced for three years, ever since the death of their oldest son Sammy. Now their two younger sons Kody and Zack have taken matters into their own hands, and have run away from home, leaving a letter to their parents informing them that they will not come back unless Ellie and Tucker reconcile, and end this insanity that started ever since Sammy's death. They want their home and their family back.

And so the journey starts into the mountains in Oregon, as Tucker tracks down his kids, with Ellie coming along to help in any way she can. The journey is adventurous, sometimes funny, sometimes suspenseful, sometimes heart wrenching, but most importantly it is a journey of the heart and soul, as both Ellie and Tucker come to terms with the past, the hurt, and their undying love for each other.

I loved this book. The issues were not dealt with superficially, as would be the case in some other books, but rather in a realistic and in depth manner. A poignant, moving, romantic, and adventurous read, as Tucker and Ellie find their way back to each other, and to their kids.

The journey of the heart and the soul.

Ellie and Tucker Grant had a marriage made in Heaven. Both are each other's first love, having been together since they were teenagers, and marry soon after. But the devastating loss of their eldest son rips a barrier in their relationship, and in the end, Tucker leaves and they divorce. No longer able to deal with the memories, Ellie sells the family home and moves a few hours away, taking their two sons with her.

Three years later, while the boys are staying with their father, she gets a call from Tucker, and finds that the boys have run away to the mountains of Oregon and will only come back if the parents work out the kinks in their relationship so they can be a family again.

When each parent brings a "significant other," the boys resort to "Parent Trap" antics to get rid of the superfluous adults. Stuck alone, Ellie and Tucker must rely on each other to find their children and bring them back to safety without killing each other in the process. As they spend time together, they finally realize that the lack of communication after Sammy's death took its toll on the whole family, and they are being offered a second chance to be a family again.

While a great premise, the story is very slow, with far too many long passages of dialog between the parents. How many times can they have the same conversation? And the dialog does not ring true, particularly for Tucker - it is so syrupy, that it's hard to reconcile such a macho man making constant poetic declarations of love. It is fraught with emotion that will bring tears to your eyes, but could easily have been trimmed by about 150 pages and been more compact and believable.

Caught in corporate downsizing, Todd Fielding was out of work and desperate. Todd and her husband Barney had spent lavishly never expecting the paychecks to stop. In the month's since her layoff, Todd heard the same thing over and over again, she was over qualified. When she received a call from the Brindle Times, Todd was over the moon. Okay, so the job was on the other side of the mountain and Barney had to say put in order to finish his dissertation. They would find a way to work it out.

Todd's job was two-fold. She did the editing, layout and any computer troubleshooting that was necessary, as well as helped Ruth, her boss, with a special centennial edition of the newspaper. The special edition would choreograph the history of Brindle. During her research, Ruth had uncovered the truth behind a fire in 1888 that killed four people and wanted to publish it.

While working for the paper, Todd learned of a series of teenaged girls that had disappeared over the years and recently, a fourteen-year-old named Jodie Schuster had disappeared. When she started writing articles about the disappearances, no one wanted to hear it. The residents of Brindle didn't believe that there was a predator living among them.

When Ruth provided a similar, but much older pattern of disappearances, the two women start investigating. With the help of a ghostly presence, they uncover the truth. A community icon was kidnapping girls that reminded him of the love he couldn't have. He cared for them for a time, but they invariably died. He would bury the girl and then start looking for a replacement.

The Price of Silence has a little bit of everything, dysfunctional families, complacency, ghosts, kidnapping and murder, courage, truth and love. It is an excellent psychological mystery and well worth reading.

I am a big fan of Kate Wilhelm's Barbara Holloway books, but have not always been as impressed with her others. I had a difficult time getting started with this book, but eventually became snared by the remarkable character development: Ms. Wilhelm, who appears to be in the middle stage of her life, has written very convincingly about two women who are at opposite spectrums. Todd, the main character, is young, multidimensional, ambitious, capable and confident. Ruth Ann is nearing the end of her life, and is also portrayed as energetic, intelligent and attractive. I was charmed by the relationship between Ruth Ann and Maria, her longtime companion/housekeeper. The book resolves a little too conveniently, but I have to say I enjoyed reading it. Her descriptions of the central Oregon desert are lyrical, and I especially appreciated Todd's comment about a sunset being difficult to capture in art or photography "because it is a process, not an event." So true. As a former Oregonian, I loved reading about Oregon's beauty. Good read. Karen Knapp

This is a subtle, walking pace novel that's really about conscience and what tension does to a small town.
If you are looking for a rip-roaring thriller with twists and turns, this is not it.
The setting is beautifully described, as are the characters in this book. It is nicely drawn, and explores the parts of the mind that work when we aren't paying attention.
It's an old fashioned novel; a good book for contemplating.
Certainly not for everyone, but a good read none the less.

Wilhelm is an excellent writer, and a master of psychological suspense. This book is no exception. However, I found it a little less satisfying than her best; a couple of the characters didn't quite ring true.

The plot is one Wilhelm has used a couple of times before: an attractive and intelligent young person who is at loose ends as to what to do with herself, and not quite sure of her life's direction, winds up through chance circumstances in a small town where something is deeply wrong, and no one wants to talk about it.

That's part of the problem I had with this book, though; while in past books such as "Skeletons," the secret has had to do with the past and is hidden by an older generation, in this book, the problem is ongoing and yet people are still ignoring it. Teenage girls keep disappearing - and no one pursues them or suspects them of anything other than running away. While that might have been the case half a century ago, in these days of entire organizations built around missing children, and pictures of missing children on every milk carton, and TV shows about searching for missing people, it just didn't seem likely to me that in a single village, 5 or more teenage girls would disappear and no one would be raising a stink, not even their parents, until our protagonist appears. And that in a relatively small town, no one prior to her would have noticed the similarities between the girls, nor figured out what other things were going on right when the disappearances started.

It also seems unlikely to me that the kidnapper could be doing the kinds of things they are doing, and not have other abnormalities show up in their behavior or personalities, that no one else would ever think that there was anything odd or unusual in the way this person behaves or things they say. (I'm not giving away who it was; that's why I'm avoiding saying she or he.) I think that people who are this sick show signs of the sickness in more than one way and generally aren't able to completely compartmentalize their lives. It's one thing if the person is a loner and doesn't associate with their neighbors at all, so that no one ever talks to them much; it's different if the person has a regular job and talks to many people every day and goes to social events: some other sign that something is WRONG with this person would show up. So I found the characterization of this person a little unrealistic, and the behavior of the neighbors a bit unbelievable.

Nonetheless, it's a well-written story and lots of action for our heroine and her husband. And I know that many people like this kind of suspense and think that there ARE completely hidden monsters among us, and those people won't have the reservations I had about the realisticness of the villain.

Oregon, home of and a favored setting for author Wilhelm, is the background for this dark tale of murder, hypocrisy, and lies. Brindle is a small town that appears on the surface to be a haven of peace and quiet. It is quite the opposite as Todd Fielding soon discovers.

Todd has come to Brindle to work for the local newspaper while her husband, Barney, pursues his doctoral degree in a nearby university town. Newspaper owner Ruth Ann Colonna is planning a special edition of the paper featuring Brindle then and now. So, Todd busies herself becoming acquainted with her new community.

The superficial serenity of Brindle isn't interrupted by the sudden disappearance of a young girl. This sets Todd to wondering - she does more than wonder when she discovers that five other girls have mysteriously vanished during the past two decades. What is even stranger and rather frightening is that no one seems to care about the whereabouts of the girls.

Newcomers to any place who start probing are seldom welcome, and Todd fuels a fire that threatens to get away when she decides to write about the girls' disappearance. Ruth Ann seems to be her only ally, and Barney is often miles away.

Voice performer and Audie Award winner Anna Fields successfully captures the outrage, fear, and determination of Todd as she seeks to uncover the truth. A more than satisfying listening experience!

- Gail Cooke

I was very satisfied with the service amazon.com provided for me. I had boughten a textbook and recieved it days before they said it would be delivered to me. Thank you amazon.com!

I bought this book to use to teach myself fundamentals of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry becuase I had not taken them as an undergraduate student and needed to know the fundamentals for post-graduate work. I have found this text very helpful and relatively easy to follow as for as text books go. The progression of lessons from section to section is excellent. It is a lot of information jammed into one text, but done well.

I used this book for a year-long course in chemistry as a nursing major. It is excellent for the clear and concise way topics are presented. It is also good because it provides numerous practical examples of how chemistry applies to allied health sciences. The section on biochemistry presents difficult topics in an easy fashion. At least one semester of Introductory Chemistry is assumed in order to use this book. An excellent book overall!

I had to buy this book for a college chemistry course. The book is well written with plenty of examples and (mostly) good explanations.

When I first read the reviews I have to admit I was wary of the reviewer who said there were many errors and typos. But now that I have the book and have been through 5 chapters, I can't believe how many mistakes there are. It can make things very confusing.

A definition for one thing transposed with the definition of another! answers to example questions transposed with each other!
wrong answers in the back of the book! The book is indeed rife with errors.

The book could be a great one if these errors were addressed. If the publishers don't care about the mistakes, I should think the authors would.

I am back in college, studying Organic chemistry. This book is a Seventh Edition, but wait, its rife with typos. Not just misspelled words, but errors in equations, answers in the back and other annoying things that you would think would be worked out by a SEVENTH EDITION. Did they hire and editor? Did he know how to do math? Did the author check his work? It is so poorly done. Its like an easter egg hunt in a mine field. We had to get chemistry for dummies to supplement it, because the text is unclear, and well, like an easter egg hunt. I found 3 typos in one chapter, and several typos all through the book. No one from Thompson Publishing would return a phone call, and the survey on the companion website: well that was just for fun, I guess. No one has responded to that either. I brought it to the attention of the department head at my college and he said he was unaware of any typos. I would not recommend the book, unless the publisher can publish a list of know typos and post them to the website.

Anyone looking for a general guide to the Northwest--particularly the cities of Portland, Seattle and Vancouver--won't be disappointed by this glossy publication. It's also quite useful in planning for a trip to the whole area. We liked the information on in-town transportation which we used to navigate Seattle and Vancouver especially.

There are a couple of important categories of information that are less comprehensive and useful. We found that the Internet was a much better source for hotels and restaurants. The guide does list some possibilities in each category, but it doesn't approach being a full list. Our favorite hotels on the trip--the Ace in Portland and Hotel Max in Seattle--didn't make the cut for the guide, but are two of the best rated hotels of their kind (moderately priced) on the Net.

All guides have some limitations as does Eyewitness. Still, this is a beautifully illustrated and useful publication, worthy of consideration by anyone traveling to the NW on vacation.

This is a wonderful guide to the Pacific Northwest. If you're traveling beyond any one city (i.e. Portland, Seattle, Vancouver) this is the guide for you. Done in the traditional Eyewitness format with glossy pages, wonderful photos and diagrams, it provides a great overview of the cities mentioned and the region. The only drawback as a travel guide is its weight. Very heavy to be tagging along on a visit, yet due to its quality, I put up with the weight. If visiting only a few areas, photocopy the pages for your own use to lighten your load!

PACIFIC NORTHWEST (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE) is a great book, as it puts the cities of Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver together in one place. I really enjoyed the part about the cuisine of the general area, as well as the Lloyd Center Mall. However, even though the book deserves five stars, there are a couple of flaws, such as there not being any maps of the bus and light-rail systems in these cities, and a lack of discussion of major shopping areas such as Capitol Hill in Seattle or any mention of Portland's various independent record/tape/CD stores; in fact, the only major shopping areas really described in any kind of detail are the aforementioned Lloyd Center Mall and Pike Place Market. However, there ARE plenty of illustrations and photographs, so you DO get a visual feel for what the different areas are like. Overall, this is a five-star book whose only flaw is glossing over certain things that might be important to some people in order to cover other aspects of the Pacific Northwest.

I have used a number of Eyewitness books in my travels and have found them all excellent. They are a great help in trip planning and very usefull while traveling.

We picked the Eyewitness guide to the Pacific Northwest for a recent trip to Portland and Seattle in part because there were few other options: the Fodors, Lonely Planet, and Michelin Green Guides all seem to be out of print and dated. Like its brethren, this Pacific Northwest Eyewitness guide is strong on visual information, and weak on description.

The book has lots of pictures and good maps, helping you get around and then recognize your goal or destination once you get there. But descriptions and explanations of specific places range from a few sentences to (at most) a few paragraphs for the major sites.

For example, for Seattle the section on Pike Place has great visual information to help you find your way around the market, but just a few sentences each on the Pike Place fish throwers and the original Starbucks. And while the Space Needle gets a few pictures and two columns of text, and the relatively new Experience Music Project is also given a nice two page spread, other fascinating experiences like the Seattle Underground Tour in Pioneer Square are not even mentioned. I'm sure Lonely Planet had that one.

Bottom line: this Eyewitness guide to the Northwest can't be beat for its photos and useful maps, but as with any Eyewitness guide it helps to have an additional supplement--a friend who can show you around the area, or another guidebook--to make up for what the Eyewitness lacks in details. Buy this guide primarily for the pictures and maps, and then keep it as a souvenir when your trip is over.

"BLACKTAIL DEER HUNTING ADVENTURES promises to be well received by deer hunters. His slow and thorough approach allows Murphey lots of time to savor the art of hunting and provides plenty of experiences to talk about. Interwoven among the stories are plenty of his own observations about what works and what doesn't. Part of the charm of Murphey's book is that it covers the mistakes he made as a young hunter just getting started."-- Mike Stahlberg (The Eugene Register-Guard)

I've read BLACKTAIL DEER HUNTING ADVENTURES with a great deal of interest and enjoyment. It's fun to read while at the same time containing a lot of solid "how to" information. The book depicts a young enthusiastic outdoorsman who made a lot of mistakes in his early years. It shows the same young man maturing into a responsible, successful hunter with a deep respect and love for the wildlife resource. He has written this book in a manner which will help the young reader to avoid the mistakes which he made and give older hunters cause to reflect on how they conduct themselves while in the woods. As a bow hunter who grew up hunting Whitetail deer, I know Murphey's methods for hunting Blacktails can also be applied successfully to Whitetails. Murphey's final chapter on the future of hunting could well be the most important message he delivers. Hunting rights are no longer something that sportsmen can take for granted. They are under attack from all directions, and unless hunters realize the danger and are willing to become involved in the political and legislative process, our children and grandchildren will never experience the thrill of opening morning, or of having a four point bust out of his bed and into their sights.-- Rod Harder (Executive Director Oregon Sportsmen's Defense Fund)

I found BLACKTAIL DEER HUNTING ADVENTURES to be very interesting. I felt like I was in the woods with you. I could almost smell the woods and see the trees.

I greatly enjoyed reading BLACKTAIL DEER HUNTING ADVENTURES. Your work really counterbalances a lot of the anti-hunting and anti-trapping sentiment which is so strong especially here in California.

At first the book seems nothing more than a compilation of Murphey's various hunting escapades. But a closer review shows chapters laced with tidbits and tips taken from personal experiences. --Bill Monroe (The Oregonian)

I was very disappointed with this book as it was presented to me as a book of historical facts. Well, maybe if you have never known anything about anything.

This book is strickly a novel. It is to be read just for pleasure. It is a great book if you want to follow a woman who traveled by herself in a wagon train, which was NOT allowed.

The author sold it as the frist wagon train to leave MO, that was done in 1841 not 1843 as this man wants you to believe. He talked about not having a trail to follow yet on the other side of a river crossing, the wagon train would have to back track to pick up the trail again?

And I love this one, in the back of the book, the writer has a member of the wagon train beginning the city of Sacramento, wasn't that Sutter?

And at times the book was redundant. At times I was thinking okay, let's go already.

As I said, this book is strickly fictional with not much historical value. So read it as a pleasure book not if you are looking for correct information about trail passage.

I loved TJ Hanson's book "Western Passage," which is a detailed story of a young woman, Abigail (Hanley) Meacham, who heads west as part of the 1843 Oregon Trail wagon train. I was delighted when I saw another book published by TJ Hanson, "Oregon Country," and could hardly wait for it to arrive after I ordered it. I was terribly disappointed that this is the same book as "Western Passage," except with updated appendixes including pictures of pioneer's tombstones and a little extra research. You don't need both books. Get this 2nd one, "Oregon Country," if you are interested in the extra research -- get the earlier version "Western Passage" if you want a cheaper version of the same story, with a little less research in the appendixes.

I am still giving this 5 stars, because the book is a terrific story, but please please be aware that it is the exact same story as Western Passage. I just wasted $33 for something I already have.

I'm still waiting for TJ Hanson to write more about Abigail's life in Oregon, after she made the adventurous trip.

This is the story of Abby, who is recently widowed and determined to finish her husband's dream of starting a new life in the Wallamet (now spelled Willamette) valley. The story follows her through her journey to Independence, getting her wagon purchased and stocked, hiring the fur trapping mountain man Jacob to man her rig and off on the trail to Oregon. This is not a page turning, racy sit on the edge of your seat type of book. This follows every bit of day to day business, from how they made their food, hunted, crossed the rivers, and kept not only themselves but their livestock alive.

The trail follows the western plains, over the Rockies, through Idaho into Oregon's Blue Mountains and finally through the Columbia River Gorge on the way to the end of the trail at Oregon City. Although I mentioned some might not find this a racy page turner, I was thoroughly fascinated and had a hard time putting the book down. The historical detail, even of the day to day part of living on the trail was fascinating -- the buffalo stampede was just heart stopping.

All in all a very good tale of a courageous woman with "sand" as Jacob called her, able to live up to and exceed the challenges of the Oregon Trail to reach her destination and achieve her dreams of a new life in Oregon City. I especially enjoyed the last of the tale, as Abby sees the Columbia River for the first time and her reaction to the beauty of that river. I am fortunate to live in the Pacific Northwest and have traveled many times along that glorious river, and the author brought all of it magically to life -- the rapids (which are long gone due to dams), the basalt cliffs, the waterfalls, Beacon Rock are all there for the reader to experience along with Abby.

This was a first rate book and I highly recommend for any lover of historical fiction or for one interested in the Oregon Trail.

One of my favorite authors as a child was Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House books. I loved reading her books which often gave great and exacting how to's (how to make maple syrup, how to use a pig bladder as a balloon, how to twist hay into sticks when you run out of wood, etc.). I loved the idea of heading out west with nothing but some good horses and a covered wagon with just the essentials. In fact, while many had Barbies that were getting dressed for their prom date with Ken, mine was hitching up the horses and riding along with Jane West to the great unknown.

My brother sent me a copy of Western Passage by T.J. Hanson. I'm still trying to figure out if the fact that it is a large print edition was intentional or not since it was for my birthday.

If you liked reading Laura Ingalls Wilder and her descriptions, then this is also a book you will enjoy. In this book, you follow the heroine, Abby, every step of the way from Independence to Oregon City. And I mean every step of the way, from learning what kind of supplies would be bought, to taking a wagon across a stream, this book follows along with the first wagon train along the Oregon Trail. You are really right there. Even though this is fiction, it reads like a really good journal.

I think everyone who lives in Oregon is a little bit fascinated with the Oregon Trail. Forth grade, if you go to school in Oregon, is spent totally studying the trail. You visit the nearest trail sites (which are everywhere), learn to make candles, and write fake trail diaries. It's a lot of fun, and ever since then I've been fascinated with the trail. Living across the river from Oregon city and going there everyday fuels that.

But I've only been able to find historical fiction about the trial written for kids and young adults. This always bothered me, because while those books written for kids may be great, they're not of an adult perspective on the great migration west. So I was thrilled when I found this book.

This is the story of Abbey, who I think is a fictional person. She endured tragedy while homesteading in Ohio and heads to Indepdence on her own to fulfill her dead husbands dream of going to Oregon. While I think the idea of a woman alone on the trail, even with hired help like Abbey has, is not historical accurate, this book is great. The descriptions are trail life is very alive and emotional, and I could really feel the emotions of the travelers as the first saw the great northwest. It is called great for a reason.

This book is very good and obviously well researched. I recommend it for anyone who loves historical fiction. I do wish I knew though if there ever was a woman who traveled without a husband or male family all the way to Oregon City, or if Abbey is a made up person entirely. I was always taught that any woman on the trail had to get immediately re married if her husband died, or if her father died and she was of marriageable age. The journey was too just much for people on their own, and woman, by the social conventions of the day, where not permitted to band together with other woman and go with friends as men were.

So I may never know if Abbey's situation was possible or not. The author obviously knows his stuff, so I'll defer to his expertness. The only thing I didn't like about this book is it really shows that the hope that Oregon City represented to travelers has just been hopelessly wasted by the economic depressing the city (well, town really) is currently in. Its not the authors fault in any way, but Oregon City is a pretty depressing place now.

Five stars for this wonderful book, that I've spent years searching for.

I also recommend along with this "Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847 (Dear America)" by Kristiana Gregory, which, even though it's a young adult book, is a great historical look at the Oregon Trail.

I have been a fan of the "Streetwise" calendars for years -- a folding laminated city map that always folds nicely, stays firm and fits easily in pockets, purses, etc.

On the reverse side, it also has a wider regional map, which is helpful to put your travels into context, especially if you use the map alongside tour books that often point out destinations outside the downtown region.

This is a laminated, card stock map that fits easily in a pocket. Very easy to manage. Amazing detail for its' size.

I like these laminated, folding maps. They have good detail and fit in a purse. Never go out without one.

This is a good and inexpensive resource for Portland. It easily folds up to fit in a small purse or pocket. It is also waterproof and easy to read.

I have a couple of these Streetwise Maps now and find them a joy to use. In Portland there are a few streets I can't find, so an index of some kind would be good. But generally they are so easy to work with - no complicating folding schemes - that I would recommend getting one today. I also have an Artwise Map of London by the same company. Terrific!