Washington Books

Its good to see that the rural studios work is not unique but rather part of a movement, with other brilliant examples such as the work documented in this book. Beautifully illustrated. Probably the most in depth discussion I've read on the methods and challenges of work among the poor and underserved.
A great contribution to architectures claim to relevance.

This is a great book for both those people who are interested in learning about or those people who are already familiar with environmentally friendly "green" building pratices used in sustainable architecture. Studio at Large specifically chronicles the achievements of the UW BASIC Initiative program that Sergio Palleroni and his colleagues created in 1995. It is fascinating and moving to see the impact this work has on the local and global levels in society.

Prof. Sergio Palleroni teaches the "art-and-science" of "architecture" the old fashion way--with leadership and passion! He's not affraid of rolling up his sleeves, soiling his boot and spending his summer vacations whith his students (the future leaders): teachong design, scheduling and building sustainable communities in the "developing countries."

You have to buy this one, even if it's only for the cover picture of Richard, circa 1970 (aka Richard Cobain). Dark and kooky - let's hope we get more of these longer works from Papa Peabody.

Sugar Mountain captures the existential spirit of modern America. Its main characters are lost souls, reaching out frenetically to connect. They are aware of their existence only in relation to things, and reverberate against each other like bumper cars endlessly hitting and spinning around.

Peabody writes with a keen eye and a casual cynicism. Sugar Mountain offers an interesting look at the odd relationships that occur in life and the shadows that they cast on the people in and around them. Highly recommended.

Excellent source of information. As a survival instructor, I recommend it to all my classes.

This is the best book that I have ever read on survival. It tells eveything from how to build lean to's to log cabins to igloos. Also it tells how to build traps to catch animals and fish which is a must if lost in the woods. As well it tells every way imaginable to navigate and tell what your long and lat. are. It tells plants that youcan and cannot eat, how to clean your water, how to make bread, bows and arrows, bolas, survival strategies for the weather, and much much more. I would reconmen this book to any one who loves camping hunting hiking or any one who is interested in these sort of things

Mr. Angier presents fascinating and practical information on the very basics of survival-shelter, water, food and warmth. Conventional travellers would do well to carry the few items that he recommends-just in case. Hunters hikers and campers have a bible in this book. I have tested his methods of starting a fire, and finding potable water-He's right on target. Adventure writers will find this book an excellent resource-too bad it's out of print! I was hoping to find an updated version. Mine was published in 1974!

We bought this book for our family trip to Seattle. This was an excellent guide to our outdoor adventure. This is a must buy for outdoor travel lovers.

Take a Hike Seattle was a labor of love for me. I included many of my favorite hikes in the Seattle area. I hiked every trail and ensured that all descriptions and directions are spot-on accurate. All hike listings are day hikes within 2 hours of Seattle. Listings range from kid-friendly walks to amazing wilderness hikes. With maps, directions, and short summaries, Take a Hike Seattle is a guide geared to help you easily pick a hike and get on the trail

Cheers, Scott

We're new to Seattle, and find the outdoor options almost overwhelming. Cascades? Olympics? Mount Ranier? Something else? This book lists plenty of hikes for all experience levels, nearly all of which you can do in a day. There's a great variety, and almost every one of them sounds appealing. We like it a lot!

I've been in a reading slump for quite some time...I swear all the series I was reading ended. One day I came home and my mom gave me this book. I didn't really want to read it, but I sat down and started. I was so into it I couldn't put it down! About a month after I had read it I had to read it agian. I can't wait for the next one to come out! If anyone knows when it does, I'd appreciate if you'd email me and let me know.

Good technical stuff on marquetry, salvage diving, professional wrestling, German lieder and history of the NorthWest. I shall order the Adventures of John Jewitt from Amazon. I couldn't figure why someone raised by the Nootka could speak Chinook though. (Amazon has Greenberg's Language in the Americas but Campbell's Languages of Native America is out of print) Plot believability was a problem. A hidden map leading to buried treasure and an amateur sleuth who takes over from the bumbling police. Great descriptions of Vancouver Island. Two pairs of sisters - sub-plot about two sisters with one recalling a horrible childhood and the other not- maybe s literary novel waiting to get out. Some cliches "the room was a shambles" "surveying the scene." People grimace, squint and shrug a lot.

I can't wait for the next adventure. Especially enjoyed the story around Tabor...some of it had me in stitches. I hope to see more of her. I have never been to the Northwest, but French's descripitons were so vivid, I could just "feel" the area.

I picked up the novel at a garage sale a few years ago and read it only this summer on a whim. From the opening paragraph I was hooked. Set in the summer of 1939, the book portrays a privileged Midwestern family in the minutia of daily living. The storyteller, eight-year-old Tommy MacAllister, is surrounded by such an array of well-drawn characters, readers will want to jot notes as they meet each one. The book is strong for its depiction of everyday events and the subtle interactions within the boy's mind as he contemplates the grownups who comprise his world.

Reading reviews of Seamus Deane's new novel about growing up in Derry reminds me of how I haven't yet gotten over the disappearance of this brilliant book from the publisher's active list. Tommy McAllister, the main character, reads his upper midwestern world and people in it. He uses both heart and mind to probe each word he hears and gesture he sees to map out his world of loving, dangerous, sensible, and eccentric people, most of whom try to keep him safely in the dark

I bought this book a long time ago but it's still on my bookshelf (I don't save many books when I'm done with them) and I am pushing it for my book group (if we can find enough copies). I've read it many times and it never fails to grip me. The story is pretty simple -- a boy growing up in a small midwestern city right before WWII -- but what's great about this gentle book are a)the characters -- each one a believable, fully-developed, eccentric (but not cutely so) HUMAN, even the minor characters, and b) the wonderful sense of time & place. It's not a lovely place -- it's rife with class, race and other perennial American problems -- but it's full of life, humor, love, hate -- and it has fantastic women characters. Another plus for the book is that it takes place in (I think) someplace like Duluth MN, not the usual East, South or West coast location. The novel also features Native Americans in contemporary roles (circa 1936) -- how often do we get to read about regular old people who happen to be Indians?

In 1985, Arte Público Press published Helena María Viramontes' first book, "The Moths and Other Stories," which has become a classic in Chicano literature. Since then, her short stories have appeared in more than 80 anthologies.

Viramontes published the novel "Under the Feet of Jesus" (Plume Books) in 1995, about a makeshift family of migrant workers. It was met with great critical acclaim and now graces many high-school and college reading lists.

Now, fans of Viramontes' writing can delight in the publication of her new novel, "Their Dogs Came With Them" (Atria Books, $23 hardcover). It possesses Viramontes' trademark poetic grittiness, with well-drawn characters who almost leap from the page.

The novel is a heart-rending but hopeful portrait of lives that are rocked by the turmoil and violence of East Los Angeles during the 1960s.

Asked whether she saw some form of redemption arising from her mostly female protagonists' struggles with poverty, bigotry and governmental abuses, Viramontes responded with characteristic candor:

"If I didn't want to recognize the redemption of their everyday ordeals, why write about them in the first place? I marvel, truly marvel, at the everyday, ordinary ordeals of human life, and I want to give justice to an existence that very few people or readers acknowledge."

In many ways, this sentiment is emblematic of Viramontes' perception of writers and their role in society. She asserts that "serious writers have the responsibility to try and disrupt patterns of thought and behavior that damage the integrity of life. That's why most writers do their best work while living on the fringes of a society."

With respect to writers of color such as herself, Viramontes provocatively adds: "Because our communities are constantly bombarded with inhumane violence and racism, I think we writers write with greater urgency." She takes this role seriously: "The greatest compliment to a writer is if a reader is disturbed enough to begin questioning his/her own beliefs."

In choosing the setting and era for her new novel, Viramontes did not need to stray far from her roots. She was born in East Los Angeles into a large family that always extended to relatives and friends who had crossed the border from Mexico to California.

While attending Immaculate Heart College, she worked part time at the bookstore and library to help pay for her education. Viramontes eventually earned her master of fine arts degree from the University of California at Irvine.

She has gone on to win many awards, including the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, a Sundance Institute Fellowship, and the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature.

Today, Viramontes is a teacher and mentor to many young writers. She is a professor of creative writing at Cornell University.

Despite well-deserved acclaim, Viramontes does not pretend that writing is easy. "Their Dogs Came With Them" was more than a decade in the making because teaching and life's other demands often devoured her attention.

When Viramontes could make time to return to her novel, she sometimes suffered from writer's block. But she did not give up:

"I just kept my fingers close to the keyboard, walking distance close, just in case something would happen. I had to pay close attention. I reminded myself that a novel begins by one word following another."

Viramontes also observes: "Writing novels is certainly not for the fainthearted, and writing them on a university schedule can be brutally challenging."

We can be grateful for her perseverance. "Their Dogs Came With Them" establishes that Viramontes is simply one of our finest chroniclers of the ordinary but heroic ordeals of human life.

[This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]

As a graduate student at Harvard in literary studies, I was shocked and saddened to read such an ill-informed review of Viramontes' second and astoundingly luminous novel.

Not only was the review factually incorrect--for this is Viramontes' second novel (not her first, as the reviewer claims), but, far more gravely, utterly incapable of appreciating the artistic power of a truly original and monumental novel. American literary scholars have already heralded Viramontes' new work as the "Middlemarch of Los Angeles," justly comparing it in power and scope with the greatest works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature.

Viramontes stands out among the even most talented of contemporary writers, and her work (including her first novel, "Under the Feet of Jesus," and her many wonderful short stories, including the widely anthologized "The Moths") has already earned her an unforgettable place in the canons of American and world literature. Her work is regularly taught alongside that of Joyce, Steinbeck, and Cisneros, and she is legendary for her innovations in prose and poetic intensity. "Under the Feet of Jesus" has been cited as a "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman," and is now an indelible part of our literary heritage and one of the most groundbreaking novels in decades.

"Their Dogs Came With Them" is Viramontes' "Ulysses"--a contemporary, multi-lingual, prismatic epic that bears no resemblance to the flat, one-dimensional easy-read novels that Publishers Weekly review seems to favor. The Publishers Weekly review seems to have read the novel haphazardly or perhaps not at all, as it gives no sense of the Viramontes' careful construction and dynamic interweaving of multiple narratives and perspectives--the novel is not 'loosely constructed' (a complaint that was, incidentally, often leveled at Joyces' "Ulysses" when it first appeared), but rather innovative, unconventional, and poetic in the best sense of the word.

Viramontes' novel grows out of its characters and the brute materiality that affects them, and its style is as complex and materially present as the story of Los Angeles life that it tells. The alleged "difficulty" of the novel lies in its challenges to the traditional tropes and characters of American literature--in its original voice, unique form of storytelling, and in the brilliance of its form. Viramontes' rich language demands our attention and, like other great writers, challenges the conventional ways in which we have learned or become accustomed to read.

While Viramontes' first novel was a lyrical tour de force, this current work is of a darker and textually different tone. The depth of the novel lies in its ability to characterize and describe in ways that surprise and illuminate, to render without merely 'reporting.' Traditional tropes of American and Latino literature are displaced, meditated on, and reworked, while Viramontes' lucid and ever-metamorphosizing style evokes the unique subjectivity of each of her characters and the fractured temporality of their experience. Any serious reader seeking unconventional beauty and innovative form will appreciate the texture of "Their Dogs Came With Them," as well as its refusal to conform to conventional storytelling.

Yet Viramontes, like Joyce, never sacrifices content for form, or a powerful portrayal of characters for her ever-deepening linguistic artistry. In its texture and intricately imbricated layers of narrative, it is constructed with genius and care. The ethical and esthetic value of this novel lies in its refusal to sacrifice or to romanticize the baffling, 'frustrating' and incomprehensible violence of urban life in twentieth century. The novel's form demonstrates and reenacts the violence it describes, revealing and rehabilitating the difficulties and frustrations of trying to tell stories about the ignored and the oppressed.

To read and review this novel with no ear for artistry or innovation, and with utterly no appreciation for Viramontes' rich legacy in American literature, as Publishers Weekly has so unfortunately done, is not only to do a great disservice to Viramontes and potential readers, but also to miss what may be the first true masterpiece of twenty-first century literature.

In her two previous books, Helena Maria Viramontes stuns readers with her precise language and uncompromising insights. Their Dogs Came With Them has been long in coming but worth the wait. With this novel Viramontes has certainly created something new and powerful. She offers up the talents and gifts of her first two books and adds a breathtaking use of structure, all of this in the service of a striking story. Many writers are defeated by Los Angeles when trying to write about the city because it suffers, for sure, from muliple-personality disorder. But Viramontes is a master, and in her hands, she turns L.A.'s kinetic energies into a tool for her own purposes. In this vision, the city and the characters are scarred, but not hopeless; battle weary, but resilient. Indeed, Viramontes has written a novel for each of us who have fallen to our knees, but knowing we would stand again, and taller.

The title of this wonderful novel is taken from The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico by Miguel Leon-Portilla. Specifically it refers to the dogs that came with the invaders who destroyed the Aztec culture.

The major themes of Helena Maria Viramontes's novels and stories are informed by her childhood experiences in East Los Angeles, and the impact of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers on the life of her family. Strong female characters, and child protagonists are important in her work.

This novel tells the interwoven stories of Ermila, Tranquilina, Ana, and Turtle; orphan, charity worker, concerned older sister, and homeless gang member passing as a man. The women are connected by neighborhood and to an extent their own interactions. Plot is less important than the aura of East Los Angeles and most importantly the complexity of the four main characters.

Freeways are a structural theme for the novel, and these four characters the essence of the novel. Viramontes interviewed in "La Bloga" said: "I realized that the structure of the novel began to resemble the freeway intersections ... And like the freeways upheld by pillars, I realized I had four pillars in four characters of which most other characters orbited around."

Viramontes is sympathetic to the underdog., The freeway isolates the neighborhood and the characters. The characters struggle to build their own communities on their own terms despite the fear of dogs, the isolation of their neighborhood, and the fictional Quarantine Authority. Throughout, Viramontes is a master at creating mood through detail:

"The storm left the night bleak and all raw nerves. The bottles chink-chinked as she continued her aching walk. The run-in with the cholo chilled her into a wintry mood - she felt the loneliness of a last leaf awaiting its fall from a bare sprig. Her mental compass gone awry, she resolved to depend on her instincts. The woman found herself following a slavering dog that suffered a rash on its flanks. Sniffing and pawing around the storefront doors, parked cars, abandoned metals and throwaways, the dog resented the intruder, looking over its shoulder periodically to make sure she kept her distance from any edible discovery."

Altogether this novel captured my imagination. If you have any interest in Chicano culture, it will do the same for you.

This book is one of those rare gems that, if you're really fortunate, you come across from time to time. I received it as a gift from one of my mentors, Charlie Jones, who had, for some time now, been speaking of Booker T. Washington as one of his heroes. Having only a very surface knowledge of Mr. Washington - knowing that he was born a slave and went on to become founder of the famed Tuskegee Institute - he was a hero of mine, as well. After all, one could only imagine what he had to overcome to have achieved all he did.

However, after reading this book by Pastor Stephen Mansfield, the greatness of Mr. Washington simply came alive for me. He was a man of character, a man of faith, a dreamer and a doer; a man who moved mountains and moved hearts.

He had a plan - he had a dream - for taking his people from a horrible situation and helping them to move up and become successful in every way.

Unfortunately, as the author points out, he was fought every step along the way - often most by those he was trying to help and, in time, and long after he died in 1915, was disparaged by many as simply naïve, foolish, a misguided optimist, betrayer to his people.

Of course, none of this is true. Reading the story of Booker T. Washington in 2007 we can look back in hindsight and see that everything he taught - regarding the importance of character, thrift, knowledge, wisdom, forgiveness, love, persistence, delayed gratification, humility, etc. - is the way to build oneself, one's people and one's nation.

Only now is this man's wisdom and greatness beginning to once again be recognized and embraced. This book should be read by anyone and everyone looking to achieve greatness in their life. Read this book and you'll have the roadmap for doing so.

Booker T. Washington was a wonderful man; a hero. And the author, Pastor Mansfield, did a superb job in telling the story.

P.S. By the way, if you get an opportunity to read the booklet, "Character Building" by Booker T. Washington it will also be WELL worth your time. It's a reprinting of a number of his "Sunday Evening Talks" to his students and faculty members. The advice and wisdom that Mr. Washington shared is simply amazing.

Then Darkness Fled is a celebration of the life of Booker T. Washinghton and tells of a man who dined with heads of state and became the first Afro-American to receive honorary degrees from Harvard and Dartmouth. Chapters survey both his achievements and his life in this lively coverage.

In another sterling volume of the Leaders in Action series, Stephen Mansfield here outlines the life and character of Booker T. Washington. In vivacious voice and moving magniloquence, Mansfield traces Washington's path from slavery to his founding of Tuskegee Institute. He shows the difficulties Washington surpassed in reaching his goals, and the principles that helped him make it. In the words of Washington, "Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succed." By this standard, Booker T. Washington was an astonishingly successful man.

Washington wrote his own autobiography, _Up From Slavery_, which must certainly not be neglected. But Mansfield's biography is also a criticial read because he includes facts that the autobiographer was too modest to mention, and he highlights wonderful aspects of Washington's character that humility prevented him from including. This biography doesn't contain the wonderful self-analysis and insight of Booker himself - but it does contain all the benefits of a third person account.

One thing I really appreciated about this book was its terrific analysis of slavery and inter-race reconciliation. Expounding Booker's opinion, Mansfield blames both whites and blacks for the problems that cropped up after the Civil War. Whites needed to repent of their brutal treatment of slaves and actually begin considering blacks more than mere animals; and blacks needed to repent of their spirit of bitterness toward their white enslavers, and begin working hard and leaving no excuse for disrespect of blacks. Too many books on reconciliation have practically advocated bitterness, hatred, and laziness when what is really needed is Washington's outlook of forgiveness and hard work. This book offers relief from such pride.

To wrap up, this is a great biography. Good history, good style, and good content. Buy it.

I live on the east coast, but am originally from the Pacific Northwest. This book is a great, fun way for my daughter to learn about my hometown. I hope that the authors will do more children's books from other regions of the country (and even international). It is a great idea, well-executed.

Both my children loved this book, they are 5 and 8. I bought the book to give them an idea about where we are going to move this summer. They are excited to visit the places in the book, especially to see the shrunken heads at "ye olde curiosity shoppe." It was a perfect start for my 5 yr old to practice reading since it came with a downloadable audio file, helping him sound out the words and keep pace. Overall it was entertianing and a good buy!

We just visited Seattle and Mt Rainier with our children for vacation and found this wonderful book. Not only is it a great learning for our kids, but also an awesome souvineer from our trip. Our kids were so excited that "Tony" vists some of the same places we did. This book keeps on giving every time we read it and teaches us all about the neat things in the great state of Washington. Go Seahawks!

Earl J. Hess's new "Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign" is as good a piece of Civil War scholarship as I have read in years. It is at the most fundamental level a narrative history of military operations in the Overland Campaign of May and June, 1864: the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, and Cold Harbor, but it is a narrative history that focuses particularly on how field fortifications evolved over the course of those six weeks of heavy combat and it details how the use of field fortifications influenced the course of that campaign. In his earlier volume, "Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War," Hess dispelled the old myths that such entrenchments were a direct consequence of the power of rifled-muskets or that their use suddenly sprang into being in the spring of 1864 (he documented three years of field fortifications, although not on such a scale as became standard by the end of the Overland Campaign) and that these entrenchments were somehow merely the fruit of the teaching of Dennis Hart Mahan at West Point. Or to quote the author: "The use of field fortifications evolved during the Civil War not due to some irrational fear, but due to a real and potent threat: the continued presence of an enemy army within striking distance. Their use was a rational and logical response to that threat."

Hess reserves most of the technical details of entrenchment and breastwork design for an appendix, leaving his main narrative fast-moving and compelling. "Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee" is an important contribution to Civil War literature and should find a ready spot on the bookshelves of any serious student of the era. I look forward to his planned third volume, to examine field fortifications during the Petersburg campaign.

Inevitably, it must be asked how Hess views the Overland Campaign in balance. Was it a Union or a Confederate success? Although Hess does not absolve Grant of errors in too hastily ordering attacks or in failing to recognize the power of impromptu fieldworks, Hess concludes: "Grant's most significant achievement in the Overland campaign was not in capturing territory, or in positioning his army close to Richmond, or in reducing the fighting strength of the Army of Northern Virginia by 50 percent; rather it lay in robbing Lee of the opportunity to launch large-scale offensives against the Army of the Potomac. In laying claim to the strategic initiative, Grant won an important physical and emotional victory over Lee, and he did it with fewer losses than his predecessors had suffered in attempting the same goal ... Most important, he did not give up the strategic initiative and thereby brought the war to an end. The Overland campaign was as much a watershed in the strategic course of the Civil War as the Seven Days."

By the time of the Overland Campaign, the star of Earl Hess's second volume on Civil War fortifications, the idea of bravery that most soldiers had when hostilities began had just about fizzled out. In that more innocent time, soldiers and officers thought it cowardly to hide behiind entrenchments, or anything else for that matter. Battles were about sticking out your chest and, in plain view of the enemy, marching and shooting. (For a good account of this transition, see Linderman's Embattled Courage.)

Three years of the harsh reality of war changed all that, and by the time of the Overland Campaign, troops on both sides were digging in fast and furiously whenever they got the chance. Aside from the Vicksburg and Petersburg campaigns, nowhere was the entrenchment so obvious as in the Overland one. Most Civil War buffs know about the entrenchments at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. But many will probably be surprised (as was I) that entrenchments were also dug in The Wilderness and at the Bermuda Hundred.

Hess' account of the evolution of fortifications in this stage of the war is well-written and entirely accessible to the nonspecialist. He tends to protect Grant from the general's worst critics, arguing (much as does James McPherson) that the huge cost of federal lives in the Overland in fact did succeed in strategically defeating Lee.

The photographs are priceless. I've actually never seen most of them before. Moreover, the line drawings of fortifications and entrenchments are brilliant. All in all, highly recommended.

This is the second book in a series on fortifications in the eastern theater during the Civil War. The first book covers the war up to this point, while reading the first book is not required; it is worth taking the time to do so. 1864 produced a major revision in how digging in and fighting behind entrenchments is viewed by both armies. Open field battle gives way to fighting from behind entrenchments as both sides maintain close contact for months. The war is no longer open fields with a mile between the armies. Both sides dug into the earth often closer than skirmish lines were in 1862. The book details this change and the impact on the commanders and men.

The author continues working fortifications into the overall campaign giving the reader an excellent history of the Overland Campaign in the process. This presentation keeps the subject fresh while presenting the nuanced tactical differences in a logical sequential manner. This is very much a battle history but the emphasis is on how fortifications changed the campaign even as the campaign changed fortifications.

Earl Hess is one of our best authors. In this series and this book, he manages to give the reader a rich learning experience coupled with an enjoyable read. This is not a beginner's book but can be enjoyed by anyone with some knowledge of the Civil War.