Wisconsin Books

When the Wisconsin Garden Guide first debuted in 1975 it achieved an impressive status with home gardeners, professional landscapers and horticulturalists throughout the state. Now in an updated third edition and again available to Wisconsin's gardening enthusiasts, Jerry Minnich's exceptionally well written and superbly presented compendium is a complete and total guide to growing flowers, lawns, herbs, vegetables, fruits and nuts. Jerry covers every aspect of the gardening experience from soil evaluation, composting and mulching, to weather, insects, pets, and disease control (without having to resort to herbicides). Of special note is the informative chapter dedicated to indoor gardening. The Wisconsin Garden Guide is further enhanced with a segment on tools and sources, as well as a "gardener friendly" index. The Wisconsin Garden Guide is a core, essential, invaluable, comprehensive reference for every personal or professional Wisconsin gardening collection.

Excellent tips, easy organization, a few nice anecdotes,
and written with a positive and independent spirit.

Now in a completely updated sixth edition, Wisconsin Off The Beaten Path: A Guide To Unique Places is an exciting travel guide to enriching one's Wisconsin vacation, whether one is relaxing for a single afternoon or weeks on end. Divided by region, and offering maps, unusual accommodations and attractions, as well as lists of county and state parks and unique museums, Wisconsin Off The Beaten Path is an excellent and enthusiastically recommended guide for any Wisconsin native looking for an entertaining day trip or weekend adventure, as well as the out-of-state vacationer looking for something fresh and new in what the Badger State has to offer!

Now in a fully updated and expanded fifth edition, Martin and Daniel Hintz's Wisconsin: Off The Beaten Path continues to be the premier guide to the unique places of the Badger state, often referred to as "America's Dairyland". Like the earlier editions of this invaluable guide and reference, Wisconsin: Off The Beaten Path is replete with detailed, user- friendly maps; chapter listings of restaurants, accommodations, annual events and popular attractions; a "fact block" provider at-a-glance information about the state including major newspapers, recommended reading for kids, public transportation, climate overview, population figures, and fun facts. Wisconsin: Off The Beaten Path is enhanced with numerous sidebars listing historical facts, geographical tidbits, stories and legends about various attractions, trivia, suggested day trips, and first-person anecdotes about the authors' experiences while researching their guide. Whether you are a vacationing traveler just passing through, or a born-and-bred native looking on a little recreational excursion, don't leave home for any Wisconsin destination without your own trusty copy of Wisconsin: Off The Beaten Path.

The book proivdes a nice walk through of wisconsin waterfalls. The author also did a very nice job with the photos.

I met Pat Lisi and his wife at a photography class for the Women in the Outdoors program last fall in Appleton WI. He taught us patiently how to use our cameras, and I ended up having my photo of a Red-Tail Hawk published! His book is wonderful. We take it with us as we travel, and you wouldn't believe how many waterfalls you pass by as you travel, without knowing you are so very close to one. Without this book I wouldn't know where they are--so now we check the book, stop by the falls, and date the page in the book as we visit. Its a great book, a great gift for anyone, especially yourself! Thanks Pat for the book, and for the photography tips.

Kadushin, Raphael, editor. "Wonderlands: Good Gay Travel Writing", University of Wisconsin, 2004.

The Delights of Gay Travel

Amos Lassen

Raphael Kadushin has compiled nineteen gay writers' personal reflections of travel in "Wonderlands" and it is a pleasure trip of a read. The title could have used another form of the word "wonder" and it would have fit perfectly. "Wonderlands" is wanderlust of features. The authors represented here are a mixture of established gay writers and the best of the new writers and they all have one thing in common--the excitement of travel. They write of all over the world and each manages to find something unexpected.
The writing is uniformly good--so good that it makes the reader want to book a flight and get away from it all. The entries all seem to share a link and that seems to me to be that we all travel because we are looking for something. What we find, regardless of what it is, turns out to be a surprise. To me "Wonderlands" was such a surprise--19 surprises in fact--I got to share everyone's and not even have to pack.
Edmund White takes us to the Sahara and Tim Miller talks of sleeping all over the world. Michael Lowenthal has an encounter in the highlands of Scotland and Mack Freidman goes to the wilds of Alaska. Syria is visited by Robert Tewdwr Moss and Edward Field has tea with Paul Bowles in Tangier. Colm Tobin writes about an adventure in Spain and Wayne Koestenbaum tours Vienna and sees both sides of the cultural scene there. For Philip Gambone, Asia offers him a new start while Raphael Kadushin spends spring with the Dutch. There are also selections from Brian Bouldrey, Bruce Shenitz, J.S. Marcus, Boyer Rickel, Mitch Cullin, Alistair McCartney, Matthew Link and David Masello.
The anthology is compelling and I felt as I learned about a place, I learned about the author and myself as well.

This book contains great travel writing by some of todays top authors. This is not a sex travel writing, but is eroctic at times as well as humorous and gives the mind plenty to comtemplate. We need more books like this one. Get it and take a trip.

Despite the title, Brodsky's work does take us back, back to the feel and joy of a youth spent in the North Woods and the places where youth ought to be spent. Great reading for those who just want to revel in the beauty of words descibing beautiful ideas.

This book is critical to any Nebagamon lover's library, alongside such works as Willy Stern's "There's an Old Southern Saying" and Brad Herzog's "States of Mind."

Great book, great memories, especially for anyone who's ever spent a summer in the North Woods. If the words "Sawbill," "Muggs Lorber" or "Upper Diamond" mean something to you, you'll find yourself reading these poems again and again.

Environmental History is a growing and much-needed field of Academia. John Muir, a peaceful yet titanic figure in America's own enviromental movement, like Rachel Carson, like, in his own right-Teddy Roosevelt, is a Pioneer of this movement. Professor Steven J.Holmes. Lecturer in History and Literature at Harvard University, has produced a deeply poignant book about this deeply thoughtful man, i.e. in Muir's "formative" years, wherein his Scottish roots clashed, then melded and germinated beautifully with the ever-more wild Wisconsin of Muir's American years. Yet this child of Dunbar, Scotland, was to, even at the "tadpole's age" of five, begin having transformative and even existential experiences, mostly derived from and spawned by the "Wilderness," by Nature, but too by Muir's love for his beloved mother. According to Holmes' carefully-documented and sourced biographical history of Muir, the young Lad had, even at a VERY young(before age 2)age, an UNCANNY ability to interact with, respond to, and above all, Deeply TRUST his Mother-especially, began when John Muir was just two months of age. Yet to me, with Mother Earth being THE all-powerful and nurturing, kindly force that this species MUST needs be recognize(i.e., Patriarchal societies are NOW too destructive, for Mother Earth to sustain, much longer), these Youthful, formative instinctive developments on Muir's part would become incredibly important in and to that "ecocentric perspective,"(182) as Holmes terms it, that would dominate this quixotically wild but peace-loving man's entire Life's viewpoint, all to the LONG-TERM betterment(IF we can only LISTEN-NOW, if not SOONER) of this Nation-State, and this species.

I have been an admirer of John Muir since I was a young child. This book is excellent in the way in which Steven J. Holmes captures the essence of a man who continues to inspire persons of all ages and backgrounds with his life. It offers intimate glimpses into Muir's experiences as well as a new perspective into understanding Muir as a universalist humanitarian and hero.

Only made possible through the efforts of the nonprofit organization Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association (WWOA), One Hundred Years Of Wisconsin Forestry: 1904-2004 is the story of how, after Wisconsin's forests were devastated by indiscriminate clear-cutting in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Badger State forest landscape was able to rebound to cover almost half the state, along with the consequent cultural, economic, and ecological benefits to Wisconsin wildlife and populace. Here recounted is the dedicated struggle by many people over many decades. Their collective efforts to influence governmental policy (both state and federal), along with the educating of private owners of forestry lands, have help to bring Wisconsin forests back to life. Enhanced with a 16-page insert of full-color photography, One Hundred Years Of Wisconsin Forestry is an essential and valued contribution to academic library American Forestry and Environmental Studies reference collections -- and should be made a part of the collections of every Wisconsin high school and community library system in the state.

Flawlessly translated from the original Hebrew, 1111 Days in My Life Plus Four is the true-life memoir of a boy who lived in hiding for nearly three years in Nazi-occupied Zloczow, a small Polish village now in the Ukraine. Hidden with his family and a number of other Jews by a Catholic family, he survived and moved to Israel in 1957. 1111 Days in My Life Plus Four reveals his inner life and the permanent impression his past years of hiding left upon him. A dark revelation of the difficulties of coping with the painful past, 1111 Days in My Life Plus Four is vivid and recommended for Holocaust studies collections.

This easy to use guide has good descriptions and easy to follow maps. Since I was not familiar with many of the back roads, it was very useful. The authors write with an easy style and help you get into the feeling of the areas by providing interesting bits of history.

50 Hikes In Wisconsin: Walks, Hikes, And Backpacks In The Badger State is an excellent and recommended guide for any enthusiastic hiker looking to explore trails found in all four quadrants of Wisconsin. An overview chart offers at-a-glance information of all 50 hikes, while the text proper presents in-depth maps, flora and fauna information, the history behind the trails, and more. Only loop trails have been selected by co-authors and outdoor enthusiasts John Morgan and Ellen Morgan. Black-and-white photographs round out this informative and very useful resource.