Washington Books

This is a great guide to trail running in general and to the trails of Washington. It will appeal to the hardened veteran, the novice, or even the armchair runner. Walkers and hikers will also find it a good resource. General trail running information, equipment, cautions and rewards are discussed in the front section of the book. The trails are regionalized for quick access. Through use of maps, elevation charts, photos, and difficulty ratings it is easy to tell at a glance which trail fits your time frame and energy level on any given day. Rather than a bland description, a bit of history, geology and humor is included to make each trail more personal and enticing. The photos give a great preview of the beauty of each trail. If this book doesn't help you get off of the asphalt and enjoy the beauty and spirituality of the wilderness I don't know what will.

As someone who has run a number of the trails described in this book I would say it's a "must have" for anyone who wants to explore some great trail runs in Washington state. The author does a wonderful job of describing the trails, rating their difficulty, highlighting points of interest and even suggesting alternative activities at the same location (e.g. shorter nature trails) for our non-running family and friends!

All the trails I run are covered in this book, and there are dozens described that I can't wait to explore. As an additional bonus there are numerous tips from the author on what type of gear and supplies are useful to a trail runner and tips and tricks to get you "there and back again."

I really liked how well Seattle was described, though in a very general manner. Small glimpses of the city were given and well critiqued. Very helpful, even for relocation.

This is as good as a guidebook can get.

It is concise- it is not a encylopedia volume to lug around town; It is informative- with history of the city and its surroundings, the book is very thorough and written very very well; It is well illustrated- restaurants, hotels, attractions are color-coded differently and there are a ton of great illustrations that really do justice to the charm of the city.

Despite having grown up in Seattle, this book opened my eyes to a whole new world of places to go and restaurants to check out that I previously didn't see.

I would like to shake the hand of the man who put together such a fine guidebook- I have one for the Washington DC area as well!

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You won't find many of the usual right wing nut jobs reviewing this book, because it is very hard to libel documentary evidence. In law, we say "res ipsa loquitor," or "the thing speaks for itself." And this book has delivered the goods: documentary evidence in spades. If you don't come away from this book convinced that at the very least there is a prima facie case for indicting the US military high command, up to and including the shrub and Darth Cheney, on charges of aggravated war crimes and crimes against humanity, then you just haven't paid attention, or, worse, you are part of that portion of humanity--Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pinochet, Pol Pot, etc.--that thinks there is nothing wrong with torture and that, in fact, we should use it more. If that is the case, you will find plenty to warm your heart here.

This book is a great collection of the records of the Bush administration's torture policy. Seeing as it is a collection of documents obtained through FOIA some of it is redacted. This redaction lends the book that air of "what are they trying to cover up." This book would be great for research.

The introduction sets it all out in a nice brief synopsis. Thus, this book has little author influence as to opinion. It allows you to see for yourself.

Adolf Cluss, Architect; From Germany to America.

Even as a coffee-table book, Adolf Cluss - Architect will hold its own, given its graphic layout, excellent illustrations, and readable format. But it is far more than that. For a student of the history of Washington DC, one interested in German-American life, or one with an interest in the public architecture of the 19th century, a reader will find this book hard to put down.

Adolf Cluss admittedly is not a well known name outside of architectural circles and therefore it may surprise the reader to learn that a German immigrant conceived of and directed the construction of the great and splendid Arts and Industries Building of the Smithsonian Institution as well as other public buildings and elegant private mansions in Washington, many of which have escaped the wrecker's ball and are still standing. He put his mark on the skyline of Washington during the latter part of the 19th Century. He was a master of decorative ornate brickwork and soaring spires and seemed to abhor the solid, unbroken plane of any vertical surface. Much of his inspiration seemed to have come from the buildings in his hometown of Heilbronn, Wuerttemberg in Southwestern Germany where he was born in 1825.

He came from a long line of master builders and craftsmen, the son of a prominent builder in their city, and though not wealthy, Cluss's father believed in practical education for his sons. Young Adolf was a tall, handsome and intelligent young man, and perceptive to not only the physical world around him but of ideas and social conditions. On the cusp of the massive industrial revolution that would reshape Germany, he and other young intellectuals became involved with the problems facing the masses of old-line workers - saddle and harness makers, barge operators, etc, who faced lean times as their jobs were replaced by machines.

He joined in with other young men of like radical mind and became involved in the progressive political thinking of the day. They staged rallies which by and large were ignored by the workmen but attracted the attention of ultra-radical thinkers such as Karl Marx. Father Cluss apparently thought it prudent to hie young Adolf off to the New World to afford him a change of scenery but most certainly to keep him out of trouble. He escaped just in time for within months the abortive revolution of 1848 had broken out and many of his contemporaries were imprisoned or had to escape Germany under considerably less favorable circumstances.

Marx apparently saw young Cluss as the most likely of likely recruits to his cause and began a series of correspondence which continued long after he was becoming established in Washington as an up-and-coming architect and designer. Marx perhaps would have been disappointed with Cluss in later years as a leader of world revolution as he became thoroughly enmeshed with the life and times of the "ruling" classes in Washington, acquiring both fame and wealth as a result of his work.

The book provides not only a detailed biographic portrait of his life but displays excellent photographs of his work as well as detailed architectural drawings, street maps and many peripheral photographs of the Washington DC of his day. The cover alone is striking - a portrait of the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building done in a way that captures minute detail that only old-time large format plate film could do.

The only person to be personal friends with both Ulysses S. Grant and Karl Marx, the enigmatic architect Adolph Cluss lived in two worlds: the Germany of his youth, which he left after the failure of the 1848 revolutions, and the young American republic, where he came to organize workers and stayed to rebuild its capital city. Scholarly yet accessible, this eloquently illustrated volume illuminates the varied facets of Cluss's previously forgotten career. It puts this remarkable architect back on the historical screen.

Hubertie Pruyn Hamlin was born into an influential Dutch family in Albany, New York near the turn of the century. Her first hand account both of her priviledged life and the dynamics of her family's influence in Upstate New York affairs is absorbing.

For homeschoolers using the Charlotte Mason method, this book offers an invaluable first hand glimpse into New York State history.

Highly recommended!

I truly loved this book. I am a twelve year old girl who on my way home from camp last summer stayed in a hotel called the Desmond in Albany, NY. In the gift shop, I picked it up and my mom bought it for me. I have read all 370 something pages and it is really hard to put down. It tells of "Bertie" and her childhood. She associates Lent with her cousin's birthday because her cousin is now older. I felt the grief she felt in losing her father, for last Spring, the same thing happened to me. She tells of being so happy that she finally got a dress that was red, and not mourning colors. You wish that you had a brother as nice and kind as to buy you treats for good report cards as Jack was. You see the influence Hattie and Jack had on her life. Gosh, it seems like your'e just there

Eisenberg's prose is poignant and percise. She cuts through the circumstance and gets right to the heart of what it really feels like to be alive. The stories are vivid, easy to read, touching and above all real. In particular Mermaids, The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor, and Rosie Gets a Soul hit a resonant chord within me. I finished the book the night I bought it, and had re-read half of it by morning. One of the most satisfying purchases I've made in years.

Just when I was sure Deborah Eisenberg's short stories couldn't get any better than the genius found in her earlier collections, I read this perfect book of short stories. Her use of dialogue is more innovative than any I've seen in contemporary writers and the depths of her intelligence and sentiment are staggering. I would reccomend this book to anyone and everyone. Some of the stories demand rereading and all are classics of contemporary literature.

In laughs, this book has both quantity and quality. Ver didn't spare even a single paragraph from his uniquely cynical sense of humor. He also understands that the funniest stories plausibly combine human avarice and stupidity in a way that makes us feel confident in our own superior wisdom. To this end Ver spawned a very elaborate alternate history from a single common blunder: A general (George Washington) accepted the crown which his troops offered to him. Because of this America became a third-world rathole ruled by a misreable line of despots and demagogues. Their Machiavellian plots are a comedy of errors, but the people are a herd of sheep who refuse to see how their leaders manipulate them. They gladly abandon prosperity and happiness in order to advance the scams of a few craven, petulant chimps. We laugh because this happens all the time, but we Americans love freedom and we're too smart to be tricked into giving it up- aren't we?

i had to read this book for year 8 english class. our teacher, mister cambell, usually gives us boring hifalutin stuff to read, like "grapes of rath" or "to kill a mockinbird", so i must say i expected the worst. but this book was really hilarius and great, i love it! its about a prince called prince johnny, exept this prince isnt from one of those snotty european countries like england, hes the prince of the U.S.A! thru some amazing coincidense america became a kingdom and now they have a big palace in philadelphia with lots of servants and guards and everything, its amazing! there are also some evil religious fanatics called enochians who want to distroy america, they are really nasty and remind me of dr laura. johnny sets out on a crusade to blow them to kingdom come and show them whos the boss. i recomend this book to everyone who likes funny parodees my mom is calling me to dinner i have to go now

This brief essay, completed by professor Róheim just before his death in 1953, is a good source of information about Hungarian and Vogul material, since there are lengthy transcription from ancient Latin, Russian and Hungarian documents, not avaiable otherwise. (Róheim sustains that the Hungarians are identical in origin with the Vogul in Western Siberia).

However, the analysis of all these material, based on Freud's psychoanalysis, isn't very memorable. Indeed, it is shalow and without interest.

The book has 6 chapters:

I. Hungarian myth and Hungarian history, p. 1
II. The Hungarian origin myth, p. 11
III. The meaning of world-surveyor-man, p. 30
IV. North American parallels of Vogul themes, p. 38
V. Totemism and shamanism, p. 48
VI. Individual "double" - clan "double" - national god, p. 51

After the sixth chapter (p. 69), Róheim summarizes his conclusions:

1. Fragments of ancient Ungric mythology survive under the guise of history in the Hungarian Medieval Chronicles;
2. All these fragments are totemic origins myths;
3. The mythology of the doe, of the Milky Way, and the returning hero god who was also the chief of the migrating birds was the common property of the Hungarian and Vogul tribes;
4. A peculiar feature of the exogamous two-class system of the these tribes was the identity in name of one moiety and the tribe as a whole;
5. Dual-hero myths in this area frequently represent two tribes, or nations, or moieties;
6. The Magyars originate from the Mós moiety of the Vogul;
7. The representative hero of the Mós moiety is Gander-Chief or World-Surveyor-Man, and he is probably identical with the God of the Hungarians;
8. Analysis of the Vogul Gander-Chief reveals that myths are composed of two elements: a) the son in the Oedipus complex, and b) the flight and return of the soul, and the dream origin of the shamanistic flight myths;
9. Ethnic stratification of Gander-Chief: The relation of the Ungric shaman and the North American culture hero;
10. Dream origin of the myhts of the Mylky Way with the primal scene as myth motivation.

(86 pp.)

Geza Roheim lifts Hungarian and related cultures' mythology from its hiding place, and brings it to light in an academic paper bound as "Hungarian and Vogul Mythology (American Ethnological Society Monographs, No 23)." His approach is scientific and methodical, and his arguments hold throughout.

This hard to find volume, as short as it is, is a valuable research tool for any student of Hungarian literature. Early Hungarian literature was not recorded, and so their mythology is difficult to pinpoint. Unlike the Greeks, and even the North American Indianns are abound in material to draw from, but Hungarian mythology is fragmented.

This isn't an anthology, but a connecting of the dots, how similar Hungarian mythology is to Finnish and others, but also how the archetypes of story are just as present as they are in other cultures. It is a mixture of folklore, liguistics and anthropolgy, with occasional looks at psychoanalysis.

Roheim cites as he can from the myths. He explains the symbols, themes and origins. His research is multilingual, as seen in his bibliography. German, Finnish, Hungarian and English sources are listed.

An excellent feature is his appendices of Uralic, Atltaic, and Paleo-Siberuian Peoples and Languages; The Hungarian Chronicles [discusses four early historical texts]; and Ugric Ethnic Names. These each shed light on Roheim's thesis, and

There are a few good texts out there reviewing and analyzing Hungarian literature after 1600, but few take on the task Roheim has.

I fully recommend "Hungarian and Vogul Mythology (American Ethnological Society Monographs, No 23)" by Geza Roheim.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

Introduction: Alison Lurie, a professor at Cornell University wrote the preface. She sums up a hundred years of American Fairy Tales and introduces the stories in two pages.

Organization: There is a table of contents and the stories appear to be arranged chronologically. The illustrations by Michael McCurdy are simple black and white ink drawing and scratch boards that remind me of illustrations I saw in hundred year old periodicals.

The stories themselves: The stories vary as much as the authors. Some, like Feathertop, are quite literary. Here is an example sentence. "'Poor fellow!' quothe Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance." As written, these stories may be better read than told. The stories are also fairly long so a teller might need to trim them.

Source Notes: Each story starts with a lengthy source note that includes some critique and history. The Afterword by Neil Phillip is long, detailed, and scholarly. Phillip states that he chose to look at literary tales with a named author for this collection. He critiques and puts the stories into their historical framework. He looks at the broad changes seen in the hundred years that he covers.

Final Thoughts: This is a very scholarly look at American fairy tales. Sadly, most Americans are probably not familiar with more than one or two of these stories. This book would make an excellent text book for a high school or college English class and should be required reading.
Karen Woodworth-Roman

Just having returned from 18 days in the UK two of those spent in jet and bus travel and eight more getting the most out of an eight day Brit Rail pass that we could I must say that even though I have stopped running I feel like I am still running in place. That is how I get some of my best ideas. Those of you who know me know that I sort hang at the margins of the formal academic study of literature. I do this because language and literature study are really sort games which you have to learn the vocabulary (lexicon) if I were presenting at a conference or writing for blue noses.

Well one of the hottest games now in the world of literature is the study of the postcolonial literature of the former European colonies, South Africa, Algeria, Vietnam, or what ever. If you were a young academic then it would be well to focus your study in this area. This is especially true if you want work in something other than the house keeping and food service industries as your ultimate career goal.

That got me thinking as I re-read and loved Rip Van Wrinkle by Washington Irving in this wonderful collection that I was reading perhaps the archetypal work of post colonial literature, old henpecked Rip (a subject of George III), has a few beers with some very serious 120 year old Dutchman as he falls in with them in their the secret Hudson River Valley meeting place.

Twenty years later he wakes up to find he is an American Citizen. I don't but know for sure but, I bet a lot of post colonials feel like that They share with Rip one very large hangover. Well I could go on and play the game further but I think you have the idea, and as a dear friend of mine once said sometimes Philip a little of something goes a long way. So let me get back to this wonderful book , as I urge you to add it to your collections

American Fairy Tales is a collection has something for everyone .It is a collection of American tales, which really serves three publics. First of course the adolescent reader who may miss or only seen fragments of these wonderful stories. Next the eternal Adolescent likes my self at age 55 who loves a good story. It also serves any serious students of children's literature, this medley of stories progresses chronologically across a century, from Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" to Carl Sandburg's "How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country." From the Maleficent Witch, Mother Rigby, in Hawthorne's "Feathertop" to the ethereal fairy in "The Lad and Luck's House," Book List had some good things to say about it "A patriotic-looking jacket with blue stars and red stripes adorns this collection of 12 stories drawn from an emergent American literary tradition that includes such characters as bee-men, goose-girls, kings, fairies, and wizards." Editor Neil Philip provides an introductory essay about the "American fairy" tale" and briefly introduces each selection.

I loved the variety of stories and the collection of famous writers, including Hawthorne, Sandburg, Alcott, and Baum. McCurdy's woodcut illustrations give the stories a sense of the past yet still allow plenty of room for fantasy, woodcuts have a haunting timeless look about them. Theses stories are made to read aloud. But it must remembered that because of the time they were written but a few contain language or allusions that now seem politically incorrect. But we must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. American Fairy Tales is a beautifully Illustrated book you may have to work a bit to find it.

Philip Kaveny, Reviewer