1 comments about Bridgeport (CT) (Postcard History Series).

1. Bridgeport native Pehanick shows close to 200 postcards of the Connecticut city (from his collection of about 3,000) from the years 1900 to 1940. During these years, Bridgeport was a bustling city with businesses of all kinds and a vacation destination for the well-to-do from New York City and nearby areas. The postcards show the factories, restaurants, mansions, shopping districts, amusements, and parks and seasides which made Bridgeport an outstanding regional city during the early decades of the 1900s. Bridgeport's P. T. Barnum and the famous Pleasure Beach amusement park are also included in the period postcards. Pehanick's postcard collection shows buildings and scenes that are now gone; and it can be used as a guide for the enjoyable pastime of comparing locations then and now.

No comments about SHORT BIKE RIDES VERMONT, 2nd Edition (Short bike rides).

No comments about A New History of England.

No comments about The Martha's Vineyard Cookbook, 4th: Over 250 Recipes and Lore from a Bountiful Island.

No comments about The American Pacific: From the Old China Trade to the Present.

No comments about American Map New Hampshire State (American Map).

5 comments about Round-Trip to Deadsville: A Year in the Funeral Underground.

1. Very enjoyable and easy to read, you'll feel like you're riding right beside Tim Matson the entire ride. I read this book in one evening (couldn't put it down). A suprise ending that befits its title! Good work.



2. No pun intended, this short (144-page) journey through funeral homes, cemeteries, and crematoriums with side trips to probate lawyers, casket-makers, astrologers, and stone-cutters (among others) is truly an underground classic and a MUST-READ for baby-boomers. Once you start talking about it, you will be surprised how many of your contemporaries have read it. Matson doesn't have all the answers, but he raises thought-provoking questions about dying (and what happens next) in a manner which will bring a smile to your face while enlightening you about things you never thought about, much less knew--although you will quickly sense that you DO need to think about them and DO need to know about them.



3. A compelling look at death and the funeral industry. It's extremely well-written. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and couldn't put it down. I highly recommend it.



4. This book raises the key questions about the Funeral Industry.
   It was very instrumental in my changing careers and becoming a funeral director. It is quite an exciting journey and the author gives you an exiting ride to deadsville and back. The book needs an update and that is why there are only four stars. Several years ago it met my needs, and answered a lot of questions. It is a book I would still purchase today, but is not the first book on funerals I would recomend. It is very descriptive and I especially enjoyed the section on Casket making.
   
   
   
   
   yourfuneralGuy, Funeral Director.



5. It is a rare day when you remove a treasured book from the bookcase and sit down, with memories flooding back, to re-read a prized possession. Today I had the time to once again enjoy Tim Matson's engaging exploration of a "Round-Trip to Deadsville" written in anticipation of his own demise. His trip into the future examines what he will do with the shell that is his body when he leaves this earth.
   
   In the concluding paragaph of his chapter called "The Astrologer" Matson says: "I still don't want to know when I'm going to die. But it's comforting to think that if the day has already been determined, there's not a thing I can do about it."
   
   With chapters named such things as "The Coffin Maker", "The Gravedigger" and "The Cremator" a reader might think that this small, 146-page book will be very depressing. It is not! Matson succeeds in introducing humour into this dreary subject by examining his own feelings as he educates his readers about life, death and what to do with one's body when life ends.
   
   Toward the end of the book when he leaves the Cremator he tells us "I pull off the Interstate at the next exit, find a Quick Stop and buy a beer. The hardest part of this whole thing is giving up the attachment to my body. Making plans to drop my corpse in a hole in the ground or incinerate it in an oven feels like treason. Maybe I should think of it as if I'm being....fired. But it's a job I hate to lose."
   
   Ten pages later the author comes to the conclusion that "As the Stone Carver said, the hard part's not the dying, it's the living. The fear of death I was hoping to overcome was part of a larger fear that had crept up on me, a fear of life. It was the weight of fifty years of hard living, booze, divorce, and dreams that would never come true....But I knew I hadn't felt so alive in years, making my funeral plans." It is that kind of honesty that makes the reader feel the value of this book.
   
   This volume is a treasure to keep and pass on to your children. It will give them the wisdom to endure sad times with inner strength. But long before that time comes have them follow the advice Matson provides in the book's concluding chapter:
   
   "But it's really a time of celebrating the astonishing fact of being alive, not dead, and bragging like hell about it. Forget the sanctimoniuos humility and the trembling fear of death. Get drunk, get laid, revel in being on the right side of the grass. As Ethan Allen said, 'Goddamn 'em, let the angels wait'."
   
   As you close this tiny treasure enjoy the wonderful picture of Tim Matson on the inside back flap of the book's jacket. It is the craggy face of the writer framed by a mop of white hair. It reminds one of Clint Eastwood, after he got old enough to be sexy.

4 comments about FamilyFun Vacation Guide: New England.

1. I bought this book because are planning a trip to Cape Cod. It was very informative and answered all of my questions. I highly recommend it if you have children because it offered hints and tips about traveling with children, price ranges for each activity and things you should not miss while in each vacation spot. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is the format. Sometimes a "hint" or description of a place would start in the middle of a page that was describing something else. It was a bit confusing at first. Otherwise it was well written and informative. I feel prepared to leave for Cape Cod (or any New England spot) today!!



2. I grew up in New England and wanted to get a refresher. It was OK but I wanted more.
   
   It was geared to entertaining a family with young kids, not us any more.



3. We just got back from our New England trip and used this book as much as possible. While it had some useful items, overall we found the AAA Guide more useable and helpful. This text was out of date on some items (the LL Kids no longer exists, we discovered, after a drive to Freeport, ME) and for many others it exagerated its "wow" factor. It also doesn't distinguish between places for small toddlers (the Portland, ME children's museum which my 4 year old loved) versus older kids (like my 10 year old who was board at the Portland musuem). Places are identified by address and phone only (no directions), the maps are difficult to use as they only show parts of each state (be sure to get a New England road map from AAA). Also, the restaurant recommendations are good for the most part only if you are looking for standard kids menu fare, i.e., chicken nuggets, etc. Our kids want better food, e.g., lobster while in Maine, and so we had better luck on our own (or from recommendations from the "locals", like ordering take out lobster cooked at Bayleys in Old Orchard Beach and eating it back at our condo (with our own side dishes) and in a more relaxed state than we could ever have at a restaurant with 3 kids.
   
   While I wouldn't discourage you from getting it since there are some helpful ideas, don't expect to rely on it as your primary tour book.



4. I have read this book cover to cover and absolutely love it! I am in the process of planning our summer vacation; this book is so informative and helpful. I am looking forward to a GREAT summer vacation with my family.
   I'll let you know....

5 comments about The Custom of the Sea.

1. Hanson has spun a very interesting, compelling and thought provoking story into a boring yarn. The book simply reads like a novel (rather than history) written by a college sophomore in a seminar class. Hanson fills the story early on with useless details that never materialize to bear any relevance on the story. He seems only to be trumpeting the depth of his research without putting it to much use. His prose is thin and uninspired. One of the two most interesting aspects, the "at sea" portion of the story, is brief and contains little of the overwhelming drama it suggests. There is little exploration of the characters. Even the chapter listing other stories of cannibalism at sea are rattled off as if taken directly from research notes with little thought given to their place or purpose in the story. Some portions, such as verbatim trial testimony and factual background of the political and legal climate were enlightening.



2. The Custom of the Sea is a rather macabre yet fascinating tale of human survival and legal chicanery. One tends to think of desperate acts of cannibalism as the stuff of horror movies, but enough shipwrecked men resorted to this most desperate of means for it to become an unspoken law of sailors. This is an account of the doomed yacht Mignonette which went down in 1884 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, far from land as well as the trade lanes most other ships pursued. Captain Tom Dudley, by all accounts a kind and good man, and his three hands drifted for weeks inside a leaky, tiny dinghy, surviving on two tins of turnips and a small ration of water. Ravished by weather conditions, fear, starvation, and especially thirst, they persevered as long as they could, but eventually Dudley knew that the lot must be cast and one man die in order that the others might survive a little longer. When the youngest hand succumbed to the temptation of quenching his thirst by drinking sea water and rapidly approached death, the decision was made by Dudley and his first made Stephens to kill him. Blood quenched the terrible thirst of the men, including the third man Brooks who partook of the terrible rations as willingly as his mates, and human meat sustained all three men long enough for a ship to finally rescue them after almost four weeks adrift. The captain who saved the men understood, as most sailing people did, that Dudley had done what had to be done. When the men finally made it back home, they were shocked to find themselves charged with murder. The case was a sensation, and the conviction of Dudley and Stephens for willful murder provoked a myriad of outcries from all over the country while setting a legal precedent of unusual distinction.

   The book begins somewhat slowly, at least for me, as the author devotes a significant amount of time to the life and duties of men aboard ship. The story of the destructive storm they encounter and their ordeal at sea is of course quite gripping. The second half of the book basically covers their arrest and trial, and while this part of the story necessarily lacks some of the human drama that has come before it, the miscarriage of justice described by the author increasingly raises one's hackles as the book nears its end. Such an act of desperate cannibalism cannot be condoned, of course, but it is certainly understandable under the desperate conditions these sailors found themselves in. The moral and ethical issues underlying the controversy are debatable, but the story that comes out here is one of judicial abuse. The Home Office, having failed earlier to outlaw "the custom of the sea," basically used this case to obtain its elusive goal, railroading the unfortunate sailors. Their conviction was guaranteed from the start, a fact their own lawyer knew but did not divulge to them at the time. Most remarkably, the presiding judge basically told the jury they must convict the men of murder yet went on to resort to an archaic legal maneuver that took judgment out of the hands of the jury (for fear that local sentiment might result in an acquittal) and made the royal court both judge and jury. I'm not a lawyer, but the legal jurisprudence of this case would seem to be of great significance.

   The book does drag in a couple of places. Hanson takes the time to comment on the history of shipwrecks and of cannibalistic survival methods of desperate men. He also goes into great detail as to life on board a ship and the pitiful state of mandated food rations. These facts are all interesting and provide a useful background to the story of the Mignonette, but they do take away from the driving force of the tale. I should say that the story is written in a narrative form, for the most part. While this makes the book more compelling, it does pose a problem in terms of the facts. The author describes the life and times of these men as if he were there recording their thoughts and deeds from the day they sailed to the day their legal ordeal finally ended. That kind of narrative would not make for good history in an academic sense, but it does make for a compelling, eye-opening read.




3. I found this to be an extremely well written account of a compelling story. A difficult book to put down. If you enjoy adventure reading you will love this book.



4. If you are an Anglophile, you will treasure this book for the tidbits of social history , as well as the adventure story. The only problem I had that without a knowledge of England's seacoast geography and sailing terms,I was a little puzzled at times. But this was a fast and exciting read for the most part.I also recommend "In The Heart of The Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nat. Philbrick



5. Imagine yourself adrift on the open sea in a small boat with three companions. You are 1000 miles from the nearest land, you have had no food or water for days, one of your members is near death,...is there a potential temporary solution to your problem? Reading this on a full stomach, some solutions just might not present themselves. However, in "The Custom of the Sea", the author, Neil Hanson, allows us to see things from the perspective of those involved. The solution that those men took that fateful day is the basis for a most interesting look at a most unusual footnote in history.

   Hanson tells the tale primarily through the eyes of the main character but he gives us plenty of background on all of the other characters and events that culminated in a major trial in England in the late 1800's. Along the way, the author gives us historical background as well which I generally found to be helpful. Essentially, half of the 304 pages are focussed on the actual events and the other half are focussed on the resulting trial. That might sound like half is exciting and half is boring (or, at least, less exciting). However, there is a major moral and legal dilemna here and the trial helps to bring out those issues.

   All in all, this is a very good book, easily read, and hard to put down. If I am to fault the author for anything, it is his openly biased account of the events. We know right off the bat who the good guys are; we hear only good things about them and we hear only bad things about the "bad guys". For example, we are told of the happily married men (good guys)and then we are told about another who is "rumored" to have abandoned a wife and children. This "rumor" is never proven but it is brought up several times in the story. I mention this because there are serious moral questions involved in these events. As such, the author ought to put forth the facts as impartially as possible so as to let the reader decide their own opinions. We were led in the "right" direction by Neil Hanson's way of telling the story. Still, most of us might have eventually ended up with similar sympathies. Read "The Custom of the Sea" and ask yourself what you would have done in the same situation.

1 comments about Political Waters: The Long, Dirty, Contentious, Incredibly Expensive, but Eventually Triumphant History of Boston Harbor : A Unique Environmental Success Story.

1. It's hard to conveniently peg Political Waters: The Long, Dirty, Contentious, Incredibly Expensive, But Eventually Triumphant History Of Boston Harbor: A Unique Environmental Success Story is at once a political history of Boston and its harbor, as well as a story of urban planning and environmental success. Political Waters charts some stormy seas indeed as Boston spent literally centuries working to clean up its reputation as having one of the nation's most polluted bodies of water. Political Waters presents a semi-scholarly assessment of this process and is a highly recommended addition to Environmental Studies reference collections and reading lists.