Massachusetts Books

THE NANTUCKET BOOK is one good read! There are well-researched chapters on the Island's history, and culture. Did you know that Nantucket has more toally preserved buildings in the National Register of Historic Places than Boston, Salem, or Plymouth? And that it was a refuge for escaping slaves and free blacks after slavery on the island was abolished in 1770? The book is also chucked full of lodging, eating, shopping, environmental, and recreational information. I used it to plan my summer vacation. But its a great read for armchair travelers too.

Different than the mass produced puzzle book, this was written and whimsically illustrated by a mother and it's charming and unique. Kept the kids busy and entertained on a 2 hour drive to the Cape one weekend! Kids loved the Great Boston Molassas Flood maze and the Word Search puzzles.

David Grayson (Ray Stannard Baker) was a writer at the turn of the last century (I mean early 1900's). I came across a book on a library "for sale" shelf and purchased this priceless gem for $1.00. If you enjoy humor, intelligent writing, insight into the author's perception of those he meets - he joyfully meets strangers and is truly blessed and is a blessing to them - then you will love these books. That sounds TRITE - but to read these books, is still a timeless insight into human character. If you can find these - do give them a try! You will be astonished.

Mr. Bernstein's insight into the Cold War era and the role that organized crime had in shaping American society is both fresh and thorough. This book is a must read for any student of post-1945 America - an era of unprecedented change. Mr. Bernstein is to be commended for his fine work.

O'Brien has captured the essence of the mystery, beauty and natural wonders of Cape Cod. This book is essential for anyone who wishes to find the elusive nest of the Gull Winged Shepherdor or to identify the mating call of the migrating Flavell. O'Brien, a Cape Cod naturalists who has study the flora and fauna of Old Cape Cod since 1937, has given us a precious resource with the "Guide to Nature on Cape Cod and the Islands."

The series of volumes encompasses a full range of information from historical data to specific piece identification. Research & depictions are quite clear & detailed. A must-have reference for collectors. Information is impeccable, both authors exceptional. Reasonable investment.

The "Handbook of Massachusetts Evidence" is now in its seventh edition, and it only gets better each time. Brodin and Avery have done a fine job of updating this survey of evidence law in Massachusetts. In particular, their review of the law governing experts is particularly helpful at a time when experts are becoming central to many cases. Organized in a logical manner with an easy to use table of contents and comprehensive index, this is an excellent quick reference or starting point for research. Given the Commonwealth's reticence to enact rules of evidence, this handbook is the next best thing.

I purchased this title as part of an effort to understand what happened to my family when my father was fired and was subsequently unable to replace his job. The book was almost unbearably sad to read, but it rang absolutely true to the way I remember this crisis and its effect on my father and our family, especially the overwhelming sense of shame we all lived with. Mr. Cottle lists his research and statistics in the first chapter, and then he simply tells stories of trauma experienced by the various men he interviewed. The stories haunt you long after you've put the book back on the shelf. They make you wonder how to really help these men and their families. And you're also left with a more compassionate view of the long-term unemployed. They aren't lazy, useless folks to be disposed of, but human beings with souls who have experienced what amounts to a life tragedy. They need our compassion, not our judgment.

This book gives the reader a vivid sense of life in another time and place--in this case the mid-nineteenth century in a rather special part of New England. You are told how Lenox, though hardly more than a village, became the center of an extraordinary convergence of money, art, and intellectual power.
The story is presented through histories of more than a dozen prominent families and of the houses they built--houses that, while less grand than those built in Lenox later in the century, were notable for taste and style.
Among memorable figures of this "Tanglewood Circle" were the novelist Catharine Maria Sedgwick, whose books drew admirers to Lenox from all over the world; the "boisterous and burly" Henry Ward Beecher, a minister famed nationally for his rousing sermons; and the legendary English actress Fanny Kemble who gave Shakespearian readings at the courthouse and was known for her daredevil riding exploits.
The lead actor on the Lenox scene was Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived for a year and a half in a little Red House on the Tappan family's Tanglewood property. During this time he wrote two of his classics, The House of Seven Gables and The Wonder Book, to which he would later add Tanglewood Tales. His stay was not long, but he left the permanent stamp of his strange, reclusive personality and fascinating imagination on the town's history.

Richard Jackson, Heartwall (University of Massachusetts Press, 2000)

I have a thing for difficult books. I have never been sure why this is, but the books that rank among my favorites every year are often those that I find well-night impossible to get through. Case in point: Heartwall, Richard Jackson's slim (sixty-eight pages) volume on which I spent a total of thirty-seven days.

The language here is clear, precise, and exceptionally thick. This is not a book for casual reading. But like the best difficult books, the reward for picking your way through the verbal forest is often immense, and wending your way through a Richard Jackson poem, especially in this volume, is never less than pleasurable:

...Occasionally, you can hear
the whispers of mollusks, the air in the hawk's wing.
How is it possible to describe any of this?
Fish dream of a moon that rests on the water
like a lily pad, and that moment is enough.
(--"Possibility")

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It will definitely be on my top ten reads of the year list for 2005. **** ½