Washington Books

Whether you are a climber, a hiker, a car traveler, or just an armchair explorer, the Beckey guides are the indispensible resources for your mountain experience. The three volumes are filled with information about the natural and human history of the Washington Cascades, as well as complete route and access data for every significant summit. The photos alone are reason enough to own these books. If you are interested in really "knowing" the Washington Cascades, you MUST have them in your library. Highest possible recommendation.

I have used this Guidebook so many times in the past 12 years that I've had to purchase it three times. The definitive section on the Picket Range alone is worth the price of the book.

For those who want to experience the North Cascades as they were in the 30's and 40's, reading the "Trails and Alpine Hiking Approaches" section will steer you in the right direction. This book is rife with golden kernels of information found nowhere else. Any serious climber should have all three of the Cascade Alpine Guide books.

Mike Quinn

This short, highly readable book outlines the steps that led to the passage of Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in America. Few cases have had the impact on society this one has had. Proponents hail its passage as a "victory for women's rights." Opponents say it has ushered in a Holocaust that dwarfs anything done Nazi death camps. Almost everyone has a strong opinion. No one is neutral.

Stevens begins by ridiculing the crusade led by Anthony Comstock of Connecticut and the Roman Catholic Church to rid America of vice in the late 18 and 1900's, which included information on birth control. He then praises early women's rights advocate Margaret Sanger's efforts in fighting them. He then reviews Texas Attorney Sarah Weddington's efforts in preparing her case for legalizing abortion to the Supreme Court. Particularly interesting is her search for a typical victim to use in her class action suit that led her to Norma McCorvey aka, Jane Roe. He then spends a great deal of time enumerating the, sometimes violent, efforts of pro-life supporters to end abortion and hails the punitive damages awarded "victims" of their protests. He ends by proposing a truce between reasonable people on both sides of the issue to work together to make abortion rare while protecting the legal sanctity of "a woman's right to choose."

Only 175 short pages in length, this book should be read by people on both sides of the issue. Stevens is a gifted writer who presents the issues well. Readers will be much better informed after spending two hours or so reading this work.

Few people are neutral on abortion. The author is not; neither is this reviewer. The fact remains; every time an abortion is performed a child dies. Dehumanizing terms such as, "fetus," "product of conception," "fetal tissue," etc. doesn't change that. As a pro-lifer, I totally reject the proposed compromise the author suggests designed to make abortion safe, legal and rare. Forty-three to forty-five million abortions have been performed since Roe v. Wade. Abortion is therefore, safe, and, thanks to Roe v. Wade, legal. But it is anything but rare. I pledge to use the information in this work in my efforts to eliminate this scourge on our nation's history and honor. Interestingly enough, Norma McCorvey, aka, Jane Roe, now supports our efforts as well.

This book disspelled many of the common misconceptions surrounding this case. I really enjoyed reading the book and liked the way the entire background, as it pertained to this landmark case, was thoroughly explained.

Proves that some kinds of advice are timeless. If you are reading a historical review of the man's life, you should read his own words too.

This is a collection of BTW's Sunday sermons to his Tuskegee students. Originally published in 1902, the lessons on thrift, clean living, sharing what you learn with others, the need to read, and the value of education of the heart as well as the head are still valuable a century later. Does not date too badly and with so many young people growing up today without this kind of advice in the home, it's needed just as much today.

Many uninformed people dismiss BTW as an "Uncle Tom," but the publication of more of his writings like this will show that in spite of any faults, he was a very useful person in the upliftment of people. Read it and see.

This book is a must read for anyone working with Chicano/Chicana students in schools. Prof. Pizarro's insights come from real experience "in the field," and his analysis is one that you'll want to consider.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about Chicana/o youth in education.

It's an opportunity to read this book, it gave me the chance to review and understand the background of these students' encounters in lives, although their stories were not such a fantastic & successful one, but they became a group of rather outstanding and brilliant figures in China. Their stories should inspire the younger generations.

In this modern world, lots and lots of Chinese students who came over to foreign lands, not only U.S.A. but some other countries such as New Zealand, tended to complain about the treatment received from their host countries, but should they read through this book and they would accept that these were the facts of lives.

Being a foreinger in this foreign land myself, I would recommend the Chinese students to understand the hard fact of lives. How this group of Overseas Students from China encountered. And hopefully that would be an inspiration to their own encounter.

As it is popular to study science and technology in the west, it is not uncommon to hear that So and So is the first in China these days. While many are highly exaggerated claims. This is an authorative book on the detailed study of first 123 Chinese boys sent by the Chinese imperial court under Yung Wing to go to Hartford, Conn. learning about the language, cultural and
science. Most became well established as adults in foreign service, engineering, as well as outstanding military officers.

This is a facinating biography on these young teen boys. When they returned to China they actually faced prejedice and skeptism. As we look back they actually contributied much to the transformation of modern China. I was fortunate to have been brought up in a family with much foreign educated engineers and have a deep appreciation of
how modern education can change our society.

I bought this for my wife. She did not read it but I have. The portraits are of people with different experiences. It's a good read.

These are the first-person stories of some fifteen ordinary families - some composed by the subjects and some generated as oral histories - together with oodles of family photos - some in Old World regalia, some in tee-shirts and cut-offs; a cowboy, a NASCAR driver, a decorated Veteran, a Louisiana sheriff, a ballerina, an artist in his studio, a multi-millionaire real estate magnate with her bare feet up on her desk. They, like you and I, are all immigrants or the descendents of immigrants. In this album, the immigrants are Chinese.

In the current malodorous sump of American politics, where Screaming Heads on TV have more influence than face-to-face time with neighbors or books, certain demagogues have done their utmost to foment fear of immigration and loathing of immigrant groups who bring different religious cultures. The Chinese were subject to just such virulent racism during the last decades of the 19th Century. A national law was passed, by the Congress of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, to exclude the Chinese from immigration. They were branded as unassimilable, in large part because of their religion, or lack of a proper religion from a WASP perspective. They were called morally degenerate, phsyically unappealing, unsanitary, and over-sexed. It was a felony in many states for a "white" person to marry one. Certain writers, including Madison Grant, warned that they would outbreed the "great race" of Northern Europeans, that they had aspirations in fact to do so and to dominate the world.

One chapter in this book, concerning several generations of the Wong Family in Albert Lea, Minnesota, has powerful personal meaning to me. I was born on a farm near Albert Lea. My father was an immigrant and my mother's family were "old world" in all but clothing. There was one Chinese restaurant in the whole county, owned by the one Chinese family in Albert Lea, the Wongs. My mother went to high school with a Wong girl. I'd like to brag that they were friends, but the Wongs of her generation don't remember having friends until they moved away to Chicago and New York. One of the Wong girls married a Haitian in New York, becoming Eleanor Wong Telemaque, a writer. Shawn Wong also became a writer and a race-car driver. Eleanor's daughter Adrienne became a ballerina and married Philip Nash, of Irish and Japanese descent. I'm afraid my mother and her siblings lost a huge opportunity; the Wongs were probably the most interesting neighbors they had in Albert Lea, Minnesota in the 1930s.

Vice Premier Qian's Son Writes Book on the Experience of Chinese Students in the United States
A February 1997 report from U.S. Embassy Beijing

Summary. Chinese Foreign Minister Qian's son, Qian Ning, has written a best-selling book about his impressions of life as a student in the United States. Qian wrote his book upon his
return to China after studying journalism and Chinese literature for five years at the University of Michigan. Studying in America, now a runaway best-seller in both legal and pirated editions, reflects the Qian Ning's very deep and fair-minded assessment of China, America and their relations. Far deeper and much more sophisticated than the recent wave
of shallow, America bashing best-sellers, Qian's book is imbued with Chinese patriotism with a clear-eyed and fair-minded view of the good and the bad of Chinese and American society and traditions. Although only a small percentage of the Chinese students who went to the United States over the last fifteen years have returned to China, more and more are choosing to come back as economic conditions improve and political controls loosen.

The importance of this book is that it affords a vision of the U.S. as it is reflected in the Chinese mind and a vision of China through Chinese minds which have been profoundly transformed by their American experience. In this cable we present Embassy Beijing Environment Science and Technology Section officer's extensive summary of Qian's work
with page numbers from the first edition which also hold for the numerous pirate editions sold. End summary.

The full review is available on the U.S. Embassy Beijing web page at ...

Chinese Students Encounter America is really a treasure. The anecdotes of foreign students as they experience, confront, and cope with education and life in America are priceless. The translation is very well-done. For those who are interested in Chinese-American relations, modern Chinese history, or the foreign student experience in America, this is a very interesting and unique vantage point.

Very little in our high school or college histories prepares us for the Washington we encounter in these pages. The roles of revolutionary warrior and first president have been reprised often in other countries so we are now over-familiar with someone being called 'the George Washington of someplace or other'.
Wills points out that Washington, by force of his personality and integrity came to stand for the American people and republic before the existence of either was widely acknowledged. Washington was a hero, but he was a hero in times that had a very different idea of what heroism was. Wills' job in this book is to recreate the perspective of the enlightenment and then let us see Washington through that perspective in three great moments of his career. Interestingly, two of these moments-his resignation as Commander of the Army and surrender of the presidency in his farewell address involve the relinquishment of power. The third, his lending his name and prestige to the Constitutional Convention involved the risk of ruining his reputation.
How the Age of the Enlightenment set the stage and how Washington and his contemporaries used that stage is a story that's both fascinating and humbling.

On a less elevated note, both my copy and one at the Philadelphia Free Library are missing pages 183-198. I hope that when this book is reprinted, they will be restored.

Lynn Hoffman, author of bang BANG: A Novel and New Short Course in Wine,The

In this magnificent book, Garry Wills presents a shrewd, learned analysis of the reasons for George Washington's central role in the American Revolution and the creation of the American Republic. Far better than Joseph Ellis's HIS EXCELLENCY: GEORGE WASHINGTON, this fine book examines the three critical episodes in Washington's public life -- his resignation in 1783, at the Revolution's close, as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army; his role in the framing and adoption and effectuation of the Constitution; and his decision to retire from the Presidency after two terms of office. Washington was, as Wills calls him, a virtuoso of resignation, and Wills's fine book explains why. It should be restored to print.

A wonderfully distressful novel! Mary takes you to many complex levels that are part of the experience of being human. This book will not only force you to look at the complex prejudice and discrimination issues in our culture, but will expose parts of your own heart you may not want to see. The characters become vivid and alive and you will miss them for days after the last page has been turned. Kudos! to Mary Anderson Parks. Please don't make us wait to long for your next book. Yes, please do write a sequel and let us know about Sky and Katherine.

Mary Parks has created a character who is believable and real. She makes choices by intuition to preserve her family and herself by returning to her home on the reservation. After making the choice to be there, she makes the best of her difficult relationship with her mother and the man she gets too involved with. This character stayed with me for days as I read her search for herself and her ability to make wrong choice yet not be devastated by these mistakes. I liked her courage and her inner solidity as she makes her way into a new life. The themes of interracial marriage and raising children in a sometimes hostile world are intriguing and touch us as the sturggles of many women in the 90s.

This is a very readable and extensively researched look at the trees of Washington D.C. It's an excellent field guide for identifying trees, but the thing I like most about it is that it tells the fascinating stories behind so many of the trees planted in D.C. If you live near D.C. and have even a mild interest in its history, I strongly recommend this book!

I originally bought Melanie Choukas-Bradley's CITY OF TREES in its hardcover coffee-table edition and have followed its evolution since. As a Washingtonian of some thirty years' standing, I was originally unaware that this beautiful city was ever known as the City of Trees, but now that I've read Melanie's book, I've looked at the city through different eyes. Though the cherry blossoms are the best-known trees of the city, there's so much more, from the sights in every neighborhood through the rich diversity of our parks. DC is a beautiful city, and there's not nearly enough in print to show and share that beauty. Get this book.