Massachusetts Books

Introduction

Children from five to ten have many questions concerning what life is all about: Who is God? Why does God let bad things happen? What becomes of a person when he dies?

It is a part of adult responsibility to find satisfying answers to such questions. A child should be encouraged to bring them into the open, and they should be regarded seriously. Through the discussion they awaken he may be led to a concept of life which will serve as a firm foundation for facing and solving the problems awaiting him as he grows older.

This little book was written to help the child to understand the inner world of human life.

Reading-aloud times are--or should be--precious experiences cherished by parents and child. It is hoped that these discussions will be shared within the family, stimulating youngsters to ask and parents to answer the special questions which all children sooner or later meet in the invisible realm of their growing awareness.

Contents

* Introduction
* Invisible People
* The Invisible World
* The Big Adventure
* The Great Teacher
* Mirrors
* Making a Discovery
* The Outdoor World
* A Guide Book
* The House of God
* Following the Rules
* Neighbors
* Choosing your Partner
* The Mountain Top

Each page is illustrated by a block print in the style shown in the cover scan.

Former Herald and Improper Bostonian film critic and native Bostonian Paul Sherman has mined his multi-decade career to put together a comprehensive look at just how Boston has figured in the movies. Written in a breezy, conversational tone, the book is of note for both its Hollywood insights and historical perspective as well as being a heck of an entertaining read.

The book's intro discusses Hollywood's love/hate relationship with Boston (including several amusing anecdotes) and just what the author is calling a 'Boston movie' (it must be at least partially shot here, which, for example "Legally Blonde" was not). Boston's contribution to the independent scene is particularly interesting - I hadn't realized we had our own movement, the 'Beanstreets' movies of the 1970's.

Although there was some Massachusetts location shooting done earlier (as far back as 1922!), Sherman fixes 1950's "Mystery Street" as the first Boston shot film. The book's main section features eighty alphabetical listings of films that primarily take place in the state. Paul gives brief synopses and commentary on the film's value as well as stories about the shoot. He follows each with a listing of shooting locations, whether the Boston accents cut the 'muhstaad' or not and whether the film has true local color (Paul particularly loathes films that refer to Boston Common as 'the Commons' - these do not rate, but a references to Kelly's does.) Where applicable, Sherman also notes local celebrity and 'before-they-were-stars' appearances. "Brief Visits, Day Trips & the Rest" list a whole bunch more films in brief but there are many cool nuggets to be mined there as well. And just to make sure you've been paying attention, the book closes with a Boston movie quiz.

From troublesome teamsters to local comedians who seem to pop up in an awful lot of movies, "Big Screen Boston" has plenty of color of its own and is sure to educate even the most Boston savvy filmgoer. The author's pick for the best Boston movie, "The Friends of Eddie Coyle," has never been available on home video or DVD. Here's hoping "Big Screen Boston" has a part in changing that.

One of the great charms of Massachusetts is the abundance of bike paths that were put in during the 1970s and 1980s. Whether you like to bike, use in-line skates, walk, or run, these paths will provide you with much healthy pleasure that you could not easily get otherwise. This guide is remarkably complete and accurate in describing your choices for a fun afternoon in the sun.

I first became interested in bike paths from riding on the famous path in Provincetown as a young man of 20. Having rented a bike there one day, the lady who helped me said that it was one of the things she was proudest of that she could ride the whole cicuit without stopping when she turned 50. I vowed to remember that and be sure to try the path again when I turned 50.

I was fascinated to learn that this route is still considered the state's "most spectacular bike path." Knowing that course well, I was hooked by the book when I realized that it contained good, if brief, descriptions of that wonderful and famous route.

The book opens with a statewide map that locates the 34 paths that are described in the book, so you can see where each one is. Five are on Cape Cod, four in central Massachusetts, one each in Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and the bulk are in the greater Boston area. The Berkshires are bereft.

A lot of these paths follow old railroad lines, and extend for quite a distance. Others circulate within a state park. Some local bike paths are included. The MDC reservations in Boston provide many wonderful routes. My older son favors the long-distance routes on the reservations, and he frequently takes the routes along the Charles River on his in-line skates. One of the joys of these paths throughout the state are the views that are unavailable from other sites.

The book describes the laws about bike riding and the rules of the road on the paths. Children under 12 must wear a helmet, and those under 1 are not permitted on bikes. On a bike path, you need to remember to stay on the right except to pass. When you pass on the left, you need to make an audible sound to alert the person ahead. Also, these are not places for fast bike riding or in-line skating. You need to go to closed courses for those purposes. These paths are for recreation by large numbers of people.

Each path contains information about its length, the difficulty of the slopes, neighborhood you pass through, condition, background of its founding, rules and regulations, orientation of how to find the starting point, a detailed map, well detailed descriptioons of the trail segments, driving and parking directions, the names and relevant information about bike and skate shops that are local (including whether they rent bikes or not), sources of additional information, and a photo of the path.

Considering that some of these paths can be ridden in only a few minutes for one circuit, the material is quite extensive.

This is the revised and expanded second edition of this work. When the third edition comes out, I suggest that it include more specific information about the steepness of the most significant slopes, the elevation of the path, and how it is affected by the spring snow melt. If you are like me, you'd like to get out of the house after this very snowy winter we've just had in Massachusetts.

I suggest that you expand the benefit from your travels by also getting a nature guide for whatever you like to observe, whether plants or animals. That will provide more interesting diversions while you bike. I also find it valuable to set my mind on some important question when I start the ride. Usually, I have many good answers by the time I finish, as well as a healthy feeling of having stretched my legs and lungs.

Get rolling!

The Birth of American Tourism: New York, the Hudson Valley, and American Culture, 1790-1830 is a scholarly look at how travel for leisure first became a widespread American practice. Once, tourism was so expensive and potentially hazardous that only wealthy Americans could engage in this aristocratic luxury. Only in the 1820's could middle class tourists begin to follow the pastimes of the wealthy, by making trips up the Hudson River valley north of New York City. By 1830, tourist trips through the area had become wildly popular, signifying a major change in American culture. The Birth of American Tourism explores not only the historical accidents that initiated tourism, but also the many side developments that intersected with it, from the rise of hotels to accommodate tourists to the creation of transportation networks to carry them, to the invention of cultural attractions designed to infuse their experience with meaning. A welcome addition to American history and cultural studies collections.

Over the past thirty years Black or African-American history has been on the cutting edge of research, and a popular offering in secondary schools and especially in colleges and universities. Not unexpectedly, many have sought to capitalize on this new-found interest in what educators call "multiculturalism" by "rushing-to-judgment," by making available to students, specialists,and the general public,works catering to this interest. Many (nearly all) of these works, written by "celebrity scholars" like Cornell West, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Roger Wilkins, Beverly D. Tatum--the list is seemilngly endless--are devoid of dispassionate scholarship. Indeed, it is not too much to say these "works" are opportunistic ramblings of race hustlers who are incapable of distinguishing blatant racial advocacy from serious, evidentiary-based, scholarship.
How refreshing, then, to come upon a work like that of Professor George Levesque's. This beautifully written, meticulously researched book, while it focuses on a single state and its capital city (Boston Massachusetts)informs about the origins of Black life and culture of non-slave Blacks in general in the crucial years before the general emancipation brought about by the Civil War. As the late William G. McLoughliln of Brown University wrote on the dust jacket, "Boston has had many interpreters but few have written about this quintessential American city as has Levesque in this incomparable book; by far the best we have on black life in urban America before the Civil War. Solidly grounded in primary sources, brilliant in its multifaceted analysis, this Big Book returns black history to the forefront of historical achievement."
Perhaps most revealing about this big book (it is more than 500 pages in length,)is the author's erudition on such a wide range of topics. The work on the demographic landscape alone is remarkable. We learn not only about the origins and growth of Boston's black community, including its age and sex ratios, statistics on reported crime, pauperism and insanity; emploument figures, school and church membership rolls, but on a host of associational and institutional aspects as well as the band of incomparable leaders, men and women both, who led this community in the pivotal transition years between the Revolution and the Civil War. One cannot capture in a brief review the rich tapestry woven by this author, a tapestry which enlightens on every subject examined; an example of social history at its very best, and one which informs on a subject which should be of interest to us all: the origns of our enduring and perplexing racial dilemma.

I first read this book seven years ago as part of an African Literature class in college. I came to Amazon today to order it for a business associate who expressed beautiful memories of hearing stories and legends as a child. Each story in this book represents a moral lesson, often about trust and the nature of people. Like the American Indian stories about the adventures of "Coyote" these stories feature a mischievous spider and all the trouble he gets into by being lazy and greedy .

Glasker's analysis of the black student movement at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s and 1970s is an important contribution to the field of black studies. However, it has importance far beyond this field, as it sheds light on the basic issues of diversity in the multi-cultural setting that has characterized American society in recent decades. He introduces and explains categories of analysis that may be unfamiliar to most readers, such as the concept of bi-culturalism. Like other ethnic groups and interest groups, black students wanted to have a setting where they could represent their own interests and cultural inclinations, but this did not mean that their all-black organizations were separatist or nationalist. Not only did presumeably liberal white organizations find all-black organizations uncomfortable, so did integrationist organizations such as the NAACP. Glasker traces all these cross currents in a sensitive and well-documented fashion. The episodes at the University of Pennsylvania, as he suggests, were replicated at many other campuses across the United States as universities began to admit black students with lower SAT scores from urban settings to help achieve more racial balance. At institutions such as Cornell, Rutgers, and many state universities, the same patterns emerged: black students seeking institutions that would preserve their different values and attiutudes, at the same time that they pursued the achievement of education and professional development that would earn them a place in the mainstream society. The essence of bi-culturalism comes through in the study: the simultaneous preservation of cultural differences and the pursuit of the middle class aspirations for economic advancement. The book should be purchased by all major libraries and by any individual who is interested in this fascinating aspect of modern American life.

Death is usually seen by people in this world as the ultimate calamity. But looked at from a spiritual perspective, it is a beautiful passing and a new birth into eternal life. This classic pamphlet, originally published in 1876, looks at death from a spiritual perspective, and finds it not dark and macabre, but beautiful and full of light.

Highly recommended!

John Feely has written the thinking person's guide to Boston. This could substitute easily for a history or architecture textbook about the city. It is very accessible because of an excellent index. The text is quite detailed and organized nicely giving first the history, geography and then current status of monuments, buildings, museums, geographic features and neighborhoods. There are some cautions for the buyer. The print is small and the directions for walkers both inside and outside of buildings might be confusing. This is not a guide for hotels, restaurants or entertainment. The book could use some more detailed street maps within each section, similar to the Michelin green guides. Overall a good choice at a good price.

I can't remember the last time I had this much fun reading a memoir. David Slavitt, poet, runs for state representative in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a Republican, knowing full well he can't win. What he can do is pull back the curtain of small-time electoral politics, a seemingly petty enterprise with big consequences in the daily lives of Americans. He succeeds at this, in prose that is cranky on its surface, but with something celebratory underneath. You get the sense that Slavitt is having a great time performing the miserable, mundane tasks required of those who run for small-time office, and, a few pages in, the reader is having a great time, too.

Slavitt is an old school libertarian Republican, which meant his policy positions put him at odds with the Democrats and with many in his own party. As his narrative moves forward, the reader watches him slowly be seduced by the possibility of winning, which means Slavitt must deal with the small daily compromises required of those politicians who want to win. These exigencies are absurd, and Slavitt knows they are absurd, and calls them absurd, and yet he wants to run as though he might win, so he throws himself headlong into the absurdity.

In the end, it's the reader who wins. There's plenty of enlightenment to be found here, sure, regarding the rickety process of political power by which American public policy is shaped. But the real pleasure here is living for awhile in Slavitt's head, and seeing for awhile the way he sees. Blue State Blues is a must-read.