North America Books

If you wish a clear, objective overview of shamanic worldview, this book is outstanding. The introduction alone (which is all I have read so far) is worth a great deal. Without being dressed up in obscurities, there is much to learn here.

Along with Schultes' and Raffauf's Vine of the Soul, this is one of the best books on ayahuasca ever written. Luis Eduardo Luna is one of the world's leading authorities on this intriguing subject and Pablo Amaringo is equally knowledgeable. A treasure trove of info and art for anyone interested in art, the Amazon, and shamanism-

I have tried time and again to pick up this book and read the text in sequence, but the full-page color plates of Pablo Amaringo's paintings always pull me away from the text and into the world of shamans, angels, devils, serpents, jungle cats, mermaids, and aliens. I've read a lot of the text, but usually I have done so in search of an explanation for the images in specific paintings.

My first ayahuasca experiences were under the guidance of Luis Eduardo Luna. His knowledge of plant lore, chemistry, shamanism, and human nature is awe-inspiring, and I do want to read his words, but the pull of Pablo Amaringo's images has been too strong for me to resist thus far. I'm glad to have this book on my shelf because whenever someone asks me about ayahuasca, I know that I can place this book in their hands and the images will capture their imagination and make them hungry to learn more.

The discovery of the New World has always been a topic that both fascinated and horrified me. As an American, I recognized that it as the foundation for much of who I am. But as a sensative, caring person, I could not help feeling ashamed of the greed, racism, and cruelty exhibited first by the Spanish conquistadors towards the Aztecs, then by Europeans in general towards all the first nations that were here before us.

By providing a history written by the conquered as well as the conquerors, "Aztec, Death of a Nation" has helped me understand some of the complexity behind the history I learned in school. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys" in this story. Rather, this is really a history of individual human beings.

Some of the people I read about struck me as cruel and barabaric, but because the accounts also provided insight into the social, relgious, and politcial climates and into the personal struggles endured by these people, I came to realize that I couldn't lay blame on any of them. Some of the people I read about struck me as good and kind - more of what I think as as truly civilized - but because I could see that the goodness and kindness came out of individual strength and conviction, I also couldn't judge any of groups of people as being better or worse than any other.

"Aztec, Death of a Nation" is the first book I have found that has been able to help me come to terms with my heritage as a member of the conquering race. Rarely are we given an opportunity like this to see through the eyes of past civilization.

Kenneth Pearce's collection of eyewitness acounts of the rise and fall of the Aztec Empire is a book most fantasy fiction readers won't want to miss. This book weaves many short personal stories together to provide an epic tale of power, glory, and the ultimate clash between two races.

It paints a picture of a culture, religion, and history so different from our own that it feels more alien than many stories set on other planets or in other realities, and it is true.

Those of us who love roller coasters do so partly because they are more than just a thrill; They are real, with a hint of real danger. Reading this book provides that same added edge for the fantasy reader. As this book took me on journeys into the underworld, showed me prophecies from the past, ritual cannibalism and invasion from abroad, a spine tingling whisper in the back of mind kept reminding me that it was all true

I had the pleasure of reading an early draft of this book. The detailed and scholarly endnotes were the only reminder that I was not reading a work of pure fiction, but rather the actual words of soldiers, priests, chiefs, even pesants who were present at the downfall of the Aztec empire. "Aztec, Death of a Nation" is a fractured ancient vase carefully restored by a knowledgable archaeologist.

This book is an example of the new attention ethnographers are paying to writing. Not only is it wonderfully written but it is an honest account of Zuni lives today. Tedlock went to the pueblo with her husband Dennis Tedlock (author of the "Popol Vuh" and the "Rabinal Achi") as a painter and after a number of visits and encouragement from Zuni women she decided to become an ethnographer. During her graduate education she also did work in Guatemala, see her classic book "Time and the Highland Maya." There is now a new book about to appear "The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine." I've seen the advanced copy and it is fabulous! All these books are must reads for young documentary writers and spiritually alive women and men today!

This is a beautifully written, honest, book about a young woman ethnographer coming of age. She first went to Zuni Pueblo as a young woman painter with her anthropologist husband and fell in love with the people and place. As a result she went on to get graduate degrees in Ethnomusicology and Anthropology herself and began working with the Maya in Guatemala. Since then she has written a book on women shamans worldwide: The Woman in the Shaman's Body. These books are worth the time to read.

I really enjoyed reading Tedlock's work. The writing reverses the notion of "participant observation" to the "observation of participation." Instead of a removed, monological account, we are offered a polyphony of voices, including the authors. In fact, the ethnography reads much like a novel; however, these are real people with real stories to tell. The text offers a rich and evocative account of the Zuni people and their experiences in the borderzone between the past and present. Tedlock's work and writing strategies were central to the writing of my own ethnographic account of a Southeastern Native American Tribe in search of a visible past--the Pee Dee of South Carolina (Title: Native Americans in the Carolina Borderlands: A Critical Ethnography, Carolinas Press, 2000). Tedlock's ethnography is a must read for those on the verge of engaging ethnography, no matter the methodological bent, and students and academics interested in Native American Studies, Cultural Studies, Cultural Anthropology, and alternative ethnography.

This was one of Safire's first books after leaving the government and setting up shop at the New York Times. It's a massive but highly readable memoir of his service as speechwriter at the Nixon White House. His view of the president is highly nuanced but ultimately sympathetic. He unloads on Henry Kissinger for having Safire's phone tapped; writes a revealing portrait of Pat Moynihan and how that administration became more "progressive" than either liberal critics or conservative allies could admit; writes admiringly about Julie Eisenhower as "a glimpse of what her father could have been if he hadn't listened so often to the dark side of his personality." He touches on Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and the dirty tricksters and puts them in context of the domestic civil war that was produced by Vietnam--Safire was ahead of his time in giving Nixon more mercy and judging his adversaries as hypocritical (and disasterously wrong about the consequences of a Communist takeover in Southeast Asia.) Highly entertaining and informative--also see his novel of about the same time, "Full Disclosure", for a "roman a' clef" about his Nixon experience.

Content aside, whether or not you are interested in the Nixon administration, this is a wondeful memoir written in a very readable yet elegant style. I suspect that Safire had the Earl of Clarendon leaning over his shoulder when he wrote this.

It's full of wonderful character studies of the major and minor players in the administration. Safire is not enitirely candid in what he writes and he does pull his punches, but if you are good at reading between the lines, it's all there.

A very enjoyable read. Each chapter focuses on a person or key event during the years. Watergate is covered but only tangentally.

The Watergate break-in was terrible for President Richard Nixon and great for William Safire's Nixon memoir. Because the worst of what went on was already out in public view, it allowed Safire's 1975 account of his time as a speechwriter in the Nixon administration to be brutally frank, a luxury he puts to good use.

Safire had more reason to be disappointed than most of Nixon's former aides: he had had his home phone tapped by his boss, apparently because he had friends in the press. Safire's sharp narrative eye picks out weeds in the Rose Garden, like top Nixon aide Jeb Magruder, "a man of mirrors" Safire writes, for whom "buck-passing and back-stabbing was standard procedure."

But the overall sense of "Before The Fall" is of a man who likes Nixon, warts and all, determined to record the good as well as the bad. This was an unfashionable take in 1975: The book's original publisher-to-be, William Morrow & Co., rejected it on the grounds, Safire claims in his introduction, that it "did not join in the general revulsion."

Because of that, "Before The Fall" may have never gotten the due it deserves as one of the best books ever written by a White House observer. Nixon was one of his nation's most flawed and most interesting leaders, and Safire's book, in nearly 900 pages, keeps a running account of his unique complexities.

"Nixon's Dr. Jeckyl worried about Nixon's Mr. Hyde, and usually tried to suppress him, but mostly only tried to conceal him," he writes of his boss's duality.

Safire, who became best known in his subsequent job as the right-leaning columnist for the New York Times, displays a seeming photographic ability to take it all in. Because he writes about so many aspects of Nixon's presidency in focused chapters (such as his relations with Catholics, his friendship with Bebe Rebozo, his trip to China), you feel a fuller sense of what goes on in a presidency, its many facets and challenges.

Safire augments his eyewitness account with a fondness for historic lore and frequent wit (a footnote notes Cambodian leader Lon Nol's place in the pantheon of famous palindromic names.) The engaged nature of Safire's commentary, its lack of pretense and moralizing, its understanding treatment of human frailty, makes this very long book a very easy read.

Give Safire credit also for not slamming the usual suspects. Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman get much of the blame for Watergate and did go to prison for it, but the two top Nixon aides are seen by Safire in a kinder light. Chief of staff Haldeman is an office ramrod, but stands by Safire when a televised Nixon speech goes awry and encourages open discussion around the President. Ehrlichman, receiving an apology from a magazine for misspelling his name, writes back to say he likes it better the way they had it.

Liberals may howl at his supportive depiction of the Christmas bombing of Cambodia, while conservatives may find themselves fuming at his happy recounting of Nixon's domestic policy, which matched LBJ's Great Society for largesse. Too bad for them. Safire's account is middle-of-the-road, but never lukewarm.

As political commentators go, Safire is one of the best. He enjoys ideas and has a way of relating them elegantly but plainly. One gets the feeling that Nixon's hall of mirrors served him well, a training ground that taught him the intricacies of politics and the dangers of excess, and provided material for a very fine book with which to begin his path to Pulitzer-prizewinning punditry.

I received the book very quickly, even though it was ordered over the holidays.

I enjoyed this book very much because it's a part of our history many Americans are unaware of. I was a child during World WarII and I seen the POW's working on the farms. My Grandchildren took the book to school to share with the History class and even the teacher was amazed. It's a book you will keep and re-read.

This is a book about a little known or less remembered phase of World War II history as it relates to Minnesota. It suggets the success of the Geneva Convention regarding treatment of prisoners of war in the United States. In the simple presentation of factual information, the author allows us to feel something of the fears, the loneliness, and concerns of prisoners and their willingness to work rather than be idle. The concerns of citizens are also presented clearly concerning escapes, those of labor unions interested in protecting American labor, as well as the general concern about work necessary to pursue the war. It is a facet of the war that most histories neglect.

Reviewed by Nikki Pringle for Reader Views (7/08)

"Belly Up to the Bar" is a collection of reviews of 101 New York City restaurants that service their full menu at the bar. All restaurants included in the book have a Zagat rating of 23 or higher, and some are Michelin starred as well. While it could take up to a month to get a reservation for a seat in the dining area at most of these establishments, you can walk in off of the street and pull up a stool to the bar without reservations. Restaurants highlighted include well-revered spots like Jean Georges, Gramercy Tavern, wd-50, Babbo, and Veritas.

Each of the 101 establishments in the book list the address, phone number, Zagat rating, Michelin rating (if any), website address and the name of the chef. The author gives wonderful descriptions of the atmosphere at each location, including the crowd that typically frequents the bar (businessmen, vacationers, opera-goers, thirty-something's, couples, older foodies, etc.). The décor of the location is included as well as what to expect when you pull up a seat and ask for a menu, right down to the type of placemat that is laid before you, the bartenders' knowledge of the menu, the bread and butter and how it is served, and if water is provided without asking.

Background information on some of the chef's and the concepts behind their menu design and the set-up of their dining establishments is included. "Belly Up to the Bar" also highlights the beer and wine selections available at each site, and the price ranges that you can expect for your drinks. Quite a few of the appetizers, entrees and desserts available at the restaurants are noted, along with their prices, and the author tells you what she ordered and how it was. Handy indexes are also included for the 101 restaurants included in the guide, broken down by cuisine, location and Michelin star rating.

I would suggest this guide to any New Yorker who appreciates fine dining and doesn't mind the less-formal bar and lounge area as long as the food is just as good as what is served in the dining room. Vacationers planning a trip to New York City will find this guide no less handy than those native to New York, as with so many dining options to choose from, even native New Yorkers probably don't know which spots offer full menu's at the bar for those times when you can't possible wait four weeks for a table. "Belly Up to the Bar" by J.S. Mitchell is a guide that will allow you to walk into the setting with confidence, knowing the crowd to expect, the attire required, the atmosphere, and the certainty that you can pull up a bar stool without reservations for a great meal.

BELLY UP TO THE BAR: DINING WITH NEW YORK CITY'S CELEBRITY CHEFS WITHOUT RESERVATIONS is a guide to getting into the best Manhattan restaurants without reservations, and is a pick for any collection strong in New York travel guides. Each bar receives a 2-page description with all the information on ambiance to number of bar seats to people. From assessments of formality to etiquette and of course food quality, the book assesses only New York's best.

I thought the concept of this book was brilliant and I wondered if it would live up to my expectations. It did so and more. The author provides an insider's view of what to order and how to order it "at the bar" at the city's great dining spots. Mitchell somehow manages even to convey the ambiance of the places. I can't wait to try all these great places without having to plan ahead!

Russ Hall has written great books in two genres now: mystery and western. This book has elements of both genres: the story wends about in unexpected turns, like a mystery, while the backbone and the details of setting are true to great westerns. There is a tender story at the heart of a McMurty-like story about the harshness and cruelty of the old West. I loved this book. I hope you will too.

I fell in love with the story of Bent Red Moon! It was the kind of book that grabbed my attention from beginning to end. The setting of rustic hills in Texas was so real I could almost feel the heat from the sun and the grit on my tongue. My favorite part was seeing how Mick and his dark skinned friend would get out of the trouble that seemed to follow them everywhere. I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves westerns, romance, excitement and mystery all wrapped up in one.

Wow! What an exciting book! I got caught up in the story and the drama and couldn't put the book down. The book is action-packed, yet also has a lot of interesting facts about the Texas flora and wildlife. I recommend this book to young people as well as adults.

Brutally honest, but not so cynical that it's annoying.

This is a query as to what happened to the On the Loose Series. Did the big boys (Fodors, Frommers, Let's Go swallow them up?) Any information about the demise of these student writers would be appreciated.

This is the best guidebook I've ever read. It's brutally honest, concise, and seriously funny. Offers great resources and detailed maps. Have fun !

Beautiful book. Great gift to anyone but especially to our Native American family and friends.

This is my third copy. . Its a wonderful overview of many Native American cultural traditions. The map in the back is also outstanding. I keep giving it away. I really think it is special

This book is beautiful and has inspired my class to write & draw.

This is just one of those books that anyone involved in higher education needs to have. As a student of a university that is struggling with just how to reach out to our community, I would highly suggest it to anyone who wants to spend some time and reevaluate the relationship between institutions and communities.

David Maurrasse has produced a thoughtful study in his book which examines four rather different and distinct IHES (Institutions of Higher Education). By studying how each IHE serves its community, readers can get a good picture of the different approaches in use today. The IHEs--which include a state, an Ivy League, a private, and even a community college campus--serve as a fine set of baseline campuses for study.

Hostos is my particular concern, since I am a Dean at Hostos, and I am well versed in the challenges we face each day in serving our South Bronx community. I believe that Dr. Maurrasse has indeed hit the mark and hit it well in this study. I can, at least, verify his contextualizing of the Hostos mission and its community's needs. His method of becoming thoroughly familiar with the physical aspects of each campus and its history by closely interviewing members of the community as well as faculty, staff, administrators, and students is laudable. At Hostos I know he spoke to long-time stakeholders from the college community and the community at large.

The book should be challenging higher education policy makers to focus on improving community outreach strategic plans for years to come. IHEs can not afford to be percieved as "ivory towers."

This book is well written and very insightful. It can defintely be used as a tool for colleges and universities to form positive relationships with the community. I highly recommend it!