Vermont Books

"Old Sam's Thunder" is a wonderful story which becomes a real page-turner, and it is filled with wonderful New England characters. This book is a wonderful read, and is a worthy sequel to "Big Fish."

This book was very entertaining, the author was very well informed on the area. the tale told was amusing.

At the start of A PIECE OF THE WORLD, a 12-year-old girl named Calder is sent to live with her Grandmother in Weldon, Vermont. Calder's mother needs time to herself; she and Calder's father have just gotten a divorce. At first look, Weldon is horribly boring for Calder and so she decides to go on a hike to see some local scenery. It is then that she discovers a giant boulder set deep in the woods. She later learns that the rock is actually a serpentine boulder, which broke off from a giant glacier hundreds of thousands of years ago. Soon Calder becomes friends with a boy her age named Walt, whose father owns the wooded property, and Mr. Cooley, a kind old man and a retired geologist. Together, they try to save the rock from a rich man who wants to buy it, and from the Weldon Development Society, who want to turn the area into a tourist attraction.

A PIECE OF THE WORLD, with a beautiful title and a sweet story, is simply written with memorable character. It is a very touching story with a satisfying ending. There are a few black and white drawings of some of the characters and scenery. A little old-fashioned, the novel's themes of friendship and ecological concern are still universal.

Reviewed by Jean, student and reading diva

Mildred Walker wins my heart again with her story, "A Piece of the World." While my favorite is "Winter Wheat", this book stirs the heart. I want to reach in there and solve all the problems that are going on in the story, but alas, I cannot, so I eagerly turn the pages to see how Mildred Walker spins the story and am satisfied with the results. I am going to order more of her books and absorb myself in them.

My nephew aged 5 immensely enjoyed this book. It was a really cute story with a surprise ending. He read it very easily, but he has a fourth grade reading level. The kidnergartener in him liked the story though although the reading level was not a challenge. Good Book, Good read, recommended.

I really enjoyed this book and felt like it dealt well with some real feelings children might have about moving. I liked how the parents handled their childs way of dealing with his problems.

Wetherell is very good at avoiding overstatement as in each of his essays he muses on the joys of flyfishing. This is as much a book about a writer as it is about an avid fisherman. There is range here, and humor, and research, one of my personal favorites being the essay where he delves into which writers were fishermen and seldom wrote about the sport, and which writers and poets such as Chekov and Yeats wrote about the sport with elegance.

Wetherell is not a self-indulgent type of flyfisher. For him the joy is in the being there, and being part of the life that brings fishing to reality.

It should come as no suprise that a book about the rural areas of Vermont will have much to say about public nudity. This book, and its sequel VUII are a product of that state's most famous nudist. Mr. Cunningham and his family wrote the book on public nudity in Vermont. The book visits the many popular spots where one would be likely to encounter regular folks engaged in a skinnydip. Good quality photographs, coupled with detailed descriptions of every site are there. This book is not your father's nudism; no hedonism or 50's idylic portrayals. Just contemporary portrayals of mixed nudity in public, which in Vermont is apparently the norm. Surprise, this book is authored by one of the country's most outspoken defenders of the Catholic faith, and quite conservative in his views as well. Go figure. Wow, what a book.

This book is for anyone that believes that the human body should be celebrated and not hidden. It is the ultimate guide for naturalists living or visiting Vermont. Every naturalist resort, every skinning dipping site and every clothing optional hiking trail is well documented. I encourage all naturalists to get a copy and follow the format to make guides to naturalist sites in your states and locations. Nudity is natural, not obscene.

It gives great insight into what can happen to an average person with the POWERS that be! No more should be said before it is read.

Just unbelievable!
I don't think the main character would do this. The characters are interesting but very conventional in their description. Dunno. Not so hot all round

I've hated everything about the book, which - bizarrely - was given to me by a friend's mother (whom I barely know). It's portentous, humorless and rather stilted style, persistent moralising, the author's incredibly obvious views and 'sensational', gruesome subject matter aside, it just oozes a certain kind of New Englandy smugness which I just can't abide... While not developing any feel for any of the characters, you simply KNOW that the heroine (the midwife) is meant to look like some well-preserved gray-haired model from a Land's End catalog, and we're supposed to LIKE THAT.

I'm not giving it one star because it's at least SLIGHTLY above the level of garbage like The Da Vinci Code, but good literature it's surely not. Bleah, I was so happy when I recycled it.

Surprised by how much I enjoyed this book...couldn't put it down. Very suspenseful, enlightening, thought-provoking...VERY well-written.

Apparently writing about a subject such as birth from the point of view of a fourteen year old girl is too much of a stretch for this male author. It seems like he started from the point of view that home birth is an incredibly stupid idea, tried to play devils advocate, and failed to create an even remotely sympathetic cast of characters.

He portrays women who decide to have home births as uneducated, hippie, misinformed women instead of the truth that many educated and compassionate women choose to have home births. His statistics and information are inaccurate (for example, that only lay midwives perform home births today, which simply isn't true in many states).

His unimaginative writing style is also lacking. He doesn't trust his reader to remember an event that happened twenty pages prior, like restating the fact that the trial was difficult for the family, which is obvious. All in all, disappointing and irritating.

Having grown up outside of Boston, then living in western MA for a few years after college, I started reading Ms. Lipman's books for the settings, and fell in love with her stories. This is one of her best, IMHO.

I borrowed this book from my mother in law because my sister in law said she could not put the book down. I started reading it and I also couldn't put it down. It is truly a leisure read. I would recommend to take this to airport, on the plane, or sit on a lawn chair and enjoy this book. I am going to start reading more books from this author.

I really don't care for specialty-group books: mother-daughters, sisterhoods, working moms, etc.; I had this figured to be a good library check-out book, as in, don't spend any money on it, because you probably end up having to be East-coast Jewish to really get a good read out of it. Wrong. The positives already expressed still apply. Lipman is a skilled author who develops character and situational drama so skillfully that all other "specialty" elements (religion, cooking, etc.) take a back seat to the entirely fun and riveting read.
So, if you are a west coast protestant who really doesn't enjoy cooking or resort life, read this book for the sheer light, can't-put-down, literary pleasure!

I loved the first part of this book. It really started off with a bang. After that, it took several strange plot turns. The tone switched to soap opera. I almost quit, but I kept reading, expecting more resolution to the initial anti-Semetic issue. That really fizzled out, and I was disappointed in the end.

When I started reading this book I really liked the great character prtrayals, and the heroine's personality -- she didn't take no for an answer and didn't buckle to outside pressures -- getting to the heart of things without losing faith in herself. She reminded me of the tenacious heroine who never lost her sense of humor in "The Secret Life of Bees".

The second part of the book folded like a collapsed souffle -- too much going on -- too many wandering conversations -- a rich seasoning of personalities lost in a jumble of mis-matched flavors.

Is gender basic to personal identity, or is it peripheral? In the continuum of sexual behavior does culture define sex roles, or do sex roles evolve from ones assigned sex? Do situations have a bearing on sexual orientation? Why do imprisoned heterosexual males sometimes act out homosexual behavior when they have no access to women?

Trans-Sister Radio deals with the deeper question of gender identity--transsexual and transgender issues. Chris Bohjalian's Dana Stevens, a male professor, is a transsexual waiting for reassignment surgery. After taking a class from him, Allison Banks, a divorced elementary school teacher, falls in love with Dana. They date, enjoy each other, and have sex before Dana tells Allison his future plan for surgery. Allison, clearly in love with him, wonders whether his/her sex change will make a difference in her (Allison's) affections. She promises to see him through the ordeal of the operation. Will Dana be the same person after reassignment surgery, or will he/she be a different human being? We are back to the same question: How basic is gender to personal identity?

When Allison's daughter, Carly Banks, and her ex-husband Will get involved with Dana, they have their own questions to struggle with. Once the townspeople and Allison's students' parents hear she is living with a transsexual many are outraged.

Bohjalian allows each character to speak in separate chapters. Each one battles with upset gender relationships, and tries to set personal boundaries. The author creatively weaves a PBS radio interview through the narrative. Carly, having been mentored by her father, who is the manager of Vermont PBS, interviews a variety of people, including a sex therapist, and Dana to get to the heart of gender identity problems.

Although Bohjalian paints Allison as an authentic character, some of the other characters are not as well delineated, which makes the book not entirely believable. That said, the wok is well researched, and brings the psychological and social implications of transgender to light. A good read for anyone interested in human experience.

The subject matter is perhaps avant-garde, and treated more sensitively than any hundred authors before him. And unlike most transgender fiction I have read, the focus of the book was not on Dana; rather, it was on how Dana's change affected the people in her life. This is already a good sign; however, that does not save the whole of the work.

The book is at its best when it's focusing on people other than the core couple (Alison and Dana), and instead on how her family, friends, and the community at large reacts to her change, as well as (most of) the segments from the fictional NPR program. These elements are the best part of the book, and are the most enticing. However, the problem is that these are side stories -- Alison and Dana's rocky relationship is central, and is not particularly well-written. It is hard to find any understanding of Alison or Dana as you read through, as their personalities shift to suit the chapter. It's confusing and it continually distracts.

There are a few other problems to note. On one hand, you have the often well-researched but all-too-dry (or excessively titilating) explanations of the specifics of a gender change, which always jars from the moment whenever. On the other hand, there is a horrible spoiler right before you even open the book: the title. "Trans-sister radio" is a multi-level pun on the story's events. It's almost as if Mr. Bohjalian wrote that title, and all other plot elements were secondary to the convoluted ways that the title pun could be referenced. By the time you notice this, the rest of the book is predetermined; even the 'twist' ending is predictable if you take a common Harlequin romance novel ending and switch the genders.

In the end, I can't reccomend this book to anybody. Not even to transgender readers, or their family, those who you would think would get the most out of this book. Recently, I lost this book in a move, due to a storage container being misplaced -- and I have no plans on replacing it.

I thought this was a good TG book, It was Dana Stevens transition story, written by a third party. It had a surprising ending (at least if you didnt already know what actually happened to her). It didn't cover as many details about the transition, as it was more about her interaction with another family, and how it affected them.

I enjoyed reading this book. In my opinion it is important to see the prospective from the social envorment around a transexual. Looks to me that is very difficult to be accepted if you are different. That's the reality.
In general, our society force our public image to fit in the role of male or female we must play. For most people that role is determinated by their fisical gender. But Jung, like Freud, felt that we are all really bisexual in nature. When we begin our social lives as infants, we are neither male or female in the social sense. Almost immediately -- as soon as those pink or blue booties go on-- we come under the influence of society, which gradually moulds us into men and women.
In all societies, the expectations placed on men and women differ, usually based on our different roles in reputation. Women are still expected to be more nutring and less aggressive; men are still expected to be strong and to ignore the emotional side of life. But Jung delt these expectations meant that we had developed only half of our potential.

I was a Midwives fan and so thought I'd give this book a shot. I was so disappointed. I hoped to explore the soaring passion and power of transcendent love that lifts you out of any sense of time and space -but found the author to be limited in his ideas about gender and identity as well as love. To feel trapped in a body IS the hell of human existence. We all long to be seen and known for who we are in truth, and the culture-bound definitions of sexual identity used in this book don't provide me with enough to fall in love, either with the characters or their experiences. Much of it was too "clever", too shallow, too physical...too predictable...

This book was copyrighted in 2003. Why is it being presented as a New book? It's a good Picoult book but most of us who are her fans have read it!

When this book was advertised by Amazon it appeared that it was a new release...it was not and the book was already in our household book collection. I would ask that in the future youmake sure your adverts are ot so decieving.

Our book club was going to read and discuss this book which is the only reason I bought it. I got about 80 pages into it and realized it wasn't for me and thus I never finished it. No one in my book club liked it.

Ross Wakeman is dead. Not buried six feet under, but dead nevertheless. He died the day his fiancée died and was never revived. Ross is tired of living, and thus begins searching for a way to reunite with his fiancée. That includes various suicide attempts, and now, paranormal investigation. He's searching for the other side, searching to see if there IS another side to life. After one last unsuccessful job searching for a ghost alongside an ostensible physic, Ross is fed up and decides to retire from the business. He travels to his sisters house in Comtosook, Vermont, where strange happenings have been occurring: the ground freezing solid in warm August weather; rose petals seemingly falling from the sky; a house, after being torn down, re-building itself. The Abenaki Indians believe it is because an ancient Indian burial ground is being disturbed and uprooted for a strip mall. Ross Wakeman is called in by the developer to search the grounds for the paranormal. There he meets Lia, a young woman with a very mysterious and even more painful story to tell. Is she a ghost? Or flesh and blood? And what of this 70 year old murder committed on that very same sight?

Jodi Picoult begins her story in 2001, then transports us to the summer of 1932, giving us insight on eugenics history and experiments, and the repercussions one eugenicist beliefs' has on his family. At first glance, one might conclude that this story is about suicide and death. And though more than one person in the book attempt suicide, in my opinion, this book is not about death in the sense that when a person dies, they are gone forever. This is about death (and love) transcending time, and people coming to terms with the past and present, to then move on to the future. Every character has their own demons, no matter what their age: a woman trying to come to terms with the fact that her nine year old son, diagnosed with a skin disease will not live a full life; that same son, knowing he will die in the near future, yet cannot live; a 102 year old man living with the past that he can't let go; a ghost trying, from the grave, to piece together a family it left behind, and a dying man, riddled with memories of past experiments and a family he orchestrated the loss of. All of this Ms. Picoult intertwines together, in a thought provoking book, with a satisfying conclusion at the end.

This novel takes place in Vermont and is a mixture of mystery, history, Indian culture, and love story. All four aspects are nicely done. I have read several of Ms. Picoult's novels- a few stand out and stay with me, some I would not want to read a second time. This novel is in the first group. It is a complex novel with many main characters; surprisingly, the relation between them is tied together into a satisfying package with a really WOW!!! punch near the end. Although the story is complicated at first and alternates between character narratives and past and present stories, it was not hard to follow, and is such a good story that it's easy to keep reading until it all makes sense.
After I finished the book, I read an interview with the author about the historical aspects of the book. It was very interesting and I think should be included at the end of the book.

This book had enough action and enough human interest to keep me involved. I thought the author did a fair job telling the story though the lens of the various characters. Character development was enough to create empathy but not quite enough to "get into their shoes". Therefore, it did not touch me as deeply as it could have. It seemed that the women were a little too histrionic and the men were too removed. But then, who knows how a mother feels when her children have died, how a father feels in that same situation, how a young unwed pregnant woman feels, how a husband feels when he is displaced by a child, how a foster kid feels after being abandoned and passed along to different homes? I suppose those thoughts and questions are the benefits given to the reader by the author.

I felt that the weakest part of the book was the Buffalo Soldier tie in. The title really did not seem to fit with the book. I tried to understand how the WPA journal entries and old letters interjected into the chapters connected or even illumined the plot, but I was left dry. If they were absent, the book would not have suffered.

This was a story that seems unlikely, but for that very reason tends to ring true.
We have all heard of tragedies that seem almost overwhelming in other families,
situations so dreadful that no author could imagine them.

Bohjalian does. This is a story of a family tragedy that becomes a life changing, and loving situation for a boy that starts out as a stranger and becomes a son. Twin daughters are swept away in a flood in the first pages. The town rallies to console the family in the early days, but as is true in real situation of this sort, support falls away as people realize that there is nothing that they can do to assuage the grief following such loss.

This family finds its way out of darkness into the light and in doing so, the lives of an elderly neighbor and a young foster child are changed along with theirs. The ending is absolutely heart stopping, and was for me, unexpected. This is a compelling read with all too real characters. It is a can't put it down book, like all of Bohjalian's books.

Normally I enjoy slow, deep character development, but these characters just did not seem all that interesting. The plot was PAINFULLY drawn out, like watching grass grow, and then all of a sudden it turns into an action movie ending. Very strange. First of his books I have read, and it doesn't make me interested in trying any of his others.

NEGATIVES
1. no quotation marks for dialogue; forced me to reread things, which irritates me
2. melodramatic, yet I was caught up in the weather happenings
3. the author's favorite word is "moreover"
4. abrupt ending, and wrapped up too neatly

POSITIVES
1. a change from my usual reading
2. from Alfred's perspective, I learned something about prejudice
3. I enjoyed the relationships between Alfred/Mesa and Alfred/Paul

SIDE NOTE
I was expecting pedophilia after Russell's grabbing of Alfred, followed by Terry's outraged reaction. That could've added to the melodrama and given it even more of a Danielle Steel flair.

So, as you can surmise, I'm not glad I read it. If I weren't reading it for my book club, I wouldn't have finished it. (Sometimes I DON'T finish them, but this book wasn't horrible, and I was eager to finish it after I got to the part about flooding and icy roads, which was near the end. However, I felt dissatisfied when I finished it.)

I LOVED this book. The story line and character development where very well done. You could truly feel each character's personality and plight. I also enjoyed how history on the buffalo soldier was weaved throughout the book. Great read -- kept my attention from start to finish. In fact, I was sorry to see it end, but did very much enjoy how it ended.