3 comments about What a Way to Live and Make a Living: The Lyman P. Wood Story.

1. I read the book for the first time several years ago. Since then I've kept in on my desk to refer back to for practical advice about starting and running my internet business.

   Much of Lyman's wisdom and insight into the mail order business is directly applicable to developing e-commerce sites for business customers: writing copy that stirs the reader to take action, measuring and testing the results of each ad, starting small and growing the business out of the profits it generates are a few of many gems he practiced.

   In the book, his passion for doing what he loved, from a place that he loved, with people that he loved was inspirational to me. When I met him in person, he was also a great encouragement to me.

   I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in in "Making a life" while making a living.




2. Here's the wonderful story of a man who set himself a goal--to live in the country--then figured out a way to earn a GREAT living to support that goal. Lyman Wood is (is he still alive?) a direct marketing/mail order pioneer who spent 60 years or so selling everything from $400 Roto Tillers to PRAYERS by mail. He also worked as an advertising and marketing consultant from his rural home. The stories in this book are inspiring AND instructional. This is a book filled with passion. It's not just biographical, it's "how-to." And best of all, it's FUN to read! I recommend it very highly to would-be entrepreneurs and to those frustrated entrepreneurs who occasionally need a "lift."



3. What a refreshing way to learn! Quite different from the often boring textbook approach so common with marketing books. This semi-autobiography reads like a novel, but teaches direct response advertising through example and life experiences.
   
   Just starting out, in his second project, he acquired over 450,000 customers! (and those are repeat customers at that). He knew what he was doing. Plenty of wise advice in there. You can learn from his mistakes and successes.
   
   I plowed through 1/2 the book in no time. By then I realized that the reading experience would be over too soon. So I shelved the rest of the book for a treat later on. (So technically this review is only for the first 1/2 of the book). This book is like candy. I got to ration it out before it's gone ;-)

No comments about Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People.

No comments about Rand Mcnally Greater Hartford, Connecticut (Rand McNally Folded Map: Cities).

No comments about Haunted Providence: Strange Tales from the Smallest State.

1 comments about Best of the Best from New England: Selected Recipes from the Favorite Cookbooks of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire,.

1. I give this cookbook as gifts all the time. I've had it myself for years and I enjoy cooking from it. It is truly "New England" cooking and the recipes are fantastic!

5 comments about Against the Tide of Years (Island in the Sea of Time).

1. This was entertaining, the research was extensive, the antagonists were exhausting and the protagonists were ethical to a fault (can ethics be a fault?). Like all second children this one had issues. There were lots of loose ends to be resolved in the next book, a "filler" feel to some of it as story lines were beefed up for the climax and that wonderful middle book introspection by the main characters as some of them got to take a breathe and consider their future. That said, there were some great battles, some exciting new plot lines and bunches and bunches of reasons to grab the next book and see what happens. My only suggestion... PROVIDE A MAP. Holy cow, we're all over the world here and I get confused easily.



2. A fun read for those who are interested in History of Civilization. It reminded me of the old Saturday Night Live skit, "What if Sparticus had an airplane". The writer obviously did his research, especially into indo-earopean languages.



3. This novel, the second in Stirling's trilogy of modern Nantucket mysteriously sent back in time to the Bronze Age, continues the story begun in Island in the Sea of Time. As with the first book in the trilogy, this book is fantastic - with a few provisos.
   
   The novel is set eight years after the Event that sent Nantucket three thousand years into the past. Over those eight years, Nantucket has become the Republic of Nantucket, with a democratic Council, Town Meeting, and a protectorate over Alba - the "White Isle", bronze age England. In the meantime, renegade Coast Guard officer William Walker has escaped to Greece with the help of his ally Isketerol of Tartessos, and built a tyranny based on modern technology in Agamemnon's Mycenae. Ultimately, both sides know that, in the long run, war is coming; the novel deals with the events that are leading to that ultimate conflict.
   
   From the scenes of the Nantucketers building an alliance with Shuriash of Babylon, to images of explorers led by Peter Giernas crossing North America in the late Archaic period, to the land and sea battles in Africa and on Nantucket itself, Stirling again shows he can build an entire past world in satisfying, rich detail. However, master though he is, Stirling stumbles a bit in this second novel in a few ways that detract from the book.
   
   First, as other reviewers have noted, there's the matter of times. Stirling tries to show, through flashbacks, what Walker has been doing through the time between the Event and the "current" events on Nantucket. Unfortunately, the dates he uses clash with the time frame set in the first novel, and don't always mesh with each other. A minor error, but crucial to the novel's plausibility.
   
   Second, Stirling's characters tend towards being - all of them, even the villains - logical rationalists. The problem is that people rarely operate logically in the real world, and the people of the past would have relied far more on belief in magic and the supernatural than people of the modern day. While at least some of this is evident in the scenes from Babylon, particularly the revolt provoked by an unintentionally introduced smallpox epidemic, I'd like to have seen a bit more emotion from the principal characters, given the circumstances.
   
   Third and last, the growth of Tartessos, the ally of Walker, as a "modern" power isn't fleshed out as well as it could be. The reader is presented with Isketerol as king, in a modernized Tartessos, at the novel's start; given that the first book ended with him transporting Walker from Alba as a fugitive, I found this "presentation" rushed and not as convincing as it should have been.
   
   However, these bobbles are relatively minor in what is, on the whole, a worthy successor to the first novel in the trilogy. Against the Tide of Years is a great read, and leads well towards the final showdown.



4. I started reading the Sea of Time series after I read the later 'Change' first trilogy. I can tell Stirling's writing has improved between the two series.
   But,back to Against the Tide of Years. Stirling's weakest points are his characters and his descriptions of the natural environment I generally skip the latter as they are nothing more than tedious enumerations. He could learn a lot from Poul Anderson's evocations, which are shorter, but brimming with atmosphere.
   The characters, unfortunately, you cannot escape. Most are settled in their ways and reading Marion Alston's thoughts for the umpteenth time is not very entertaining.
   Speaking of Marion, her love affair and relationship with Swindapa is very awkwardly presented. I'm not one to skip erotic passages, yet in this book I always felt embarrassed when the lights went out in the Commodore's cabin or her room. As a side note, Stirling's romance and sex presentation has improved a lot with 'Dies the Fire'. But there is still plenty of room for improvement.
   I like the action sequences and the overall evolution of the plot. Also the realistic technological evolution, although I feel some more creative contraptions should have emerged from the Island's shops.
   In this aspect, Leo Frankowski's 'Conrad Stargard' series shines in comparison. I'd rather lead the Christian Army rather than the Nantucket Marines any day :) Conrad started with nothing and built ...well, let's not spoil it for everyone.
   And if we're comparing the two series, Leo's zany books offer a lot more humor, zany characters and sensuality. Too bad he started slipping after the fifth book in the Conrad series.
   You got to hand it to Stirling. He's a lot more meticulous and thinks of the finished product versus going off on amusing, but sometimes failing, tangents, a la Frankowski.
   Overall, I give the book a 3 out of 5 stars.
   Pluses: scope, details and battles.
   Minuses: characters and descriptions.



5. Eight years after the Event, the Nantucketers finally decide that William Walker must be brought to justice. (What took them so long?) This is the first (not quite) half of that story, and I found it even more enjoyable than the first book, Island in the Sea of Time (Island), which you should read first because it provides the background.
   
   Most of the action in ATTOY takes place in the (then) fertile crescent where Western civilization began, and some history of which is known, which I think is part of why I enjoyed it more than ISLAND, much of which took place in the British Isles before any recorded history thereof. (Stonehenge was already there, but all we know about it is what was learned from the artifact itself.) ATTOY has to (and does) accord with the known history of the region, except for the changes caused by the Nantucketers.
   
   One jarring note: near the bottom of page 294 (paperback) is the sentence
   
   "That was where the Chamberlain was under repair in the spanking-new dry dock, and a second being was constructed." We never learn the nature of the being that was constructed, and it doesn't figure in the plot, so why even mention it?
   
   Three things I wish were included in these books: (1) maps of the region(s), (2) Cast of characters, both such as are provided in Eric Flint's 1632 (The Assiti Shards) and 1633; and (3) historical notes, such as Miriam Grace Monfredo includes in Seneca Falls Inheritance and its sequels.
   
   Even without those, I greatly enjoyed IITSOT and ATTOY, and am currently enjoying the third book, On the Oceans of Eternity, and I heartily recommend them. Enjoy!
   
   watziznaym@gmail.com

No comments about The Work of Self-Representation: Lyric Poetry in Colonial New England (Gender and American Culture).

3 comments about Crack Down.

1. Crack Down is the 4th of the Kate Brannigan books I have read and by far the best. So many twists and turns, you never quite know what to expect. If you have read any of the other books starring Brannigan, you will not be disappointed. Val McDermid continues to entertain, thrill, excite and enchant with this wonderful tale of intrigue. Definitely the best yet.



2. Kate is a tough PI, and not completely likeable. Richard, the boyfriend, is a marijuana smoking rock journalist and a wuss - I can't work out what she sees in him.

   Somewhat surprisingly, together they attempt to crack a complicated fraud concerning car loans. When the car they have "bought" goes missing and later turns up with a lot of drugs in the boot, hell breaks loose and Richard ends up in prison.

   Before Kate can get Richard out of prison, she gets a taste of the gritty reality of life for the poor and powerless in Britain.

   Try this one - you won't be disappointed.




3. Before she wrote her magnificent books like "Place of an Execution" and "Distant Echo",Val Mcdermid was learning her trade with PI novels.This is a very solid story,interesting and witty,with well drawn characters. Even so,I much prefer her later books and nowdays never miss any of her books.

2 comments about Native People of Southern New England, 1500-1650 (Civilization of the American Indian, 221).

1. This book is a keenly interesting look into the ways, the works, and the world-views of the early inhabitants of what today is Southern New England. Dr. Bragdon writes not in an historical style, but rather in the ethnographic tradition. Thus, her chapters are sometimes rather slow going unless you're an anthropologist. There's a lot of jargon. It's still a great read for the non-specialist, however. I would like to recommend keeping a dictionary handy, for times when the esoteric nomenclature of anthropology becomes as impenetrable as a pre-colonial flock of passenger pigeons.

   The book is not divided up by tribe, as one might expect. Instead, Dr. Bragdon has divided her work by conceptual paradigms, or by umbrella descriptions of features of life shared by all the peoples of the land under discussion. Chapters delve into cosmology, ritual, or social relations, as well as "Kinship as Ideology," "Metaphors and Models of Livelihood," and "The Quotidian World:Work, Gender, Time, and Space."

   By the way -- if you don't read fairly carefully at the beginning, you may miss something important. Dr. Bragdon has chosen to employ the term "Ninnimissinuok" as a blanket term for members of ALL the local Algonquian tribes. Just be aware that that what the word means -- otherwise you might waste a lot of time scratching your head, wondering who, exactly, these Ninnimissinuoks are supposed to be. I mention this because it's not nearly so well-known a term as, for example, Narragansett, or Wampanoag -- but perhaps it should be. The author demonstrates it's validity, and it's importance.

   The bibliography at the end of this book is worth the book's price, all on it's own. There's a discouragingly large amount of poorly researched, pseudo-mystical writing out there, on the subject of Native Americans. Well, you won't find any here! All the cited works I've tried to locate have been of an extremely high caliber. The bibliography alone could keep you happily reading about the native peoples of Southern New England for many, many moons.

   Again, this book can be a little steep going at times, if you aren't trained as an anthropologist, but it's worth the effort. Definitely two thumbs up.




2. This is an examination of the American Indians who inhabited southern New England (including Long Island) from roughly Cape Ann near Boston to the Housotonic River in Connecticut. All aspects of the Natives' life and culture are considered, with separate chapters focusing on settlement, agriculture and trade, work and gender, livelihood, the role of the sachem (tribal leader), kinship, cosmology and religion, and ritual. Bragdon quotes frequently from first-hand accounts kept by early Europeans, including Roger Williams, William Wood, and Edward Winslow. But she also cites the archeological record, detailing much of what has come to light at various sites within the region. It's estimated that about 90,000 Natives populated the area at the time of European contact; epidemics and rapid European population growth slowly at first, and then much more quickly, reduced that number greatly by 1650. The very earliest relations between the Indians and whites seemed to be friendly, but that didn't last long: cultural differences were too great to sustain cooperation. I found the most interesting chapters to be those about the sachems, social relations, and rituals, though all of the book is filled with meaningful and compelling detailed information. The book takes a worthy spot among the many other outstanding volumes in Oklahoma's "Civilization of the American Indian" series. Highly recommended.

5 comments about New-Slain Knight: The Haunted Ballad Series.

1. A three week vacation with her lover is disturbed when his sister calls musician Ringan Laine to ask her to watch her daughter for two weeks. His significant lover Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes does not mind that Rebecca is going to be with them; she suggests they go to Cornwell. Ringan arranges for them to stay with his friend and fellow musician Gowan Cambourne. He makes Penny feel uncomfortable and she and Becca share the same vision when the song NEW SLAIN KNIGHT is played.
   
   Gowan confesses that his lover committed suicide in the house and that Rebecca reminds him of a younger version of her. Becca performs NEW SLAIN KNIGHT with Gowan's band and has a vision of his ancestors who lived five centuries ago insisting murder, suicide and rape occurred. Before something deadly happens, a concerned Ringan takes his two women to Tintagell, but the visions continue. Only the truth about what happened in 1451 will free Becca and Penny.
   
   The latest "Haunted ballad" mystery is a ghost story that transports the mediums into a tragedy that happened centuries ago; in turn this enables the audience to experience the pain and heartache that led to crimes occurring and an inability to live with the consequences of what they wrought. The danger to the modern females is palpable as each vision and flashback seems more vivid than the previous one as if those long dead are trying to redo their errors through Penny and Rebecca. Deborah Gabrien spellbinds her fans with this tense ghost story.
   
   Harriet Klausner



2. Once again, Grabien brings us a lyrical ghost story, a haunting little mystery whose protagonists are centuries in the ground, found out by our old friends, Ringan and Penny. This time it isn't just them endangered by the shades of old murder ballads, but Ringan's 14 year old niece, Becca. As always, the peril of all is palpable, the love and friendship of the living members of the party real and joyous. Once again Grabien takes her own trope and gives it a twist satisfying enough to keep her series from getting old or campy. These books line up nicely next to Barbara Michaels at her best.



3. Reviewed by Sharon Broom
   
   The best laid plans... .
   
   When musician Ringan Laine and Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes' vacation is interrupted by the arrival of Ringan's fourteen-year-old niece, Rebecca, it is suggested that they all could visit Cornwall. Rebecca is a violin prodigy and the musical holiday is something that would interest her.
   
   Ringan arranges lodging with a musician friend, Gowan Cambourne. But Gowan leaves Penny with an uneasy feeling that borders on disturbed. When the song New Slain Knight is played, both Penny and Rebecca see the same vision.
   
   The group learns that Gowan's lover committed suicide in the house. Even more disturbing is that Rebecca looks a great deal like the dead girl. During a performance, Rebecca has another vision and Ringan and Penny realize that there are some serious problems involving Rebecca. If the mystery isn't solved, Rebecca might become a victim.
   
   New-Slain Knight is wonderfully chilling. It's a ghost story that rings true and completely envelops the reader, transporting us to a place where we `live' the experience. I will be reading the earlier novels in this series.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: For a haunting good time, New-Slain Knight should be at the top of your reading list.



4. I enjoy Grabien's books for their atmosphere and enthusiastic writing but have come not to expect too much from their plots. I don't hold it against the series that it tends to be formulaic -- hey, it's a series -- or that our lead characters don't seem to learn a lot from previous experience or even exhibit much sense. So previously, I've found her books easy to get through in a day or two and engaging enough so you want to do just that.
   
   Even with these light expectations and the great pleasure I always feel in reading about British locations, I was disappointed in this one. The plot had inconsistencies and tangents which weren't tantalizing and were annoying. In all, it made for a sloppy-feeling read that I had to compel myself to finish rather than the reverse. Grabien could have done better and has in the past.
   
   There's a trust that authors build with their readers when they develop a series and this trust includes a certain level of quality established by previous books in the series. In this case, I feel my trust was taken advantage of.
   
   If you're new to the series, you will get greater enjoyment if you start at the beginning of the series -- and buy it in paperback. Also, it might make you want to read the whole series instead of giving up on it after reading just this book. If you're already a reader, you might find yourself very pleased with your prudence if you check this one out at the library instead of springing for the hardback.
   
   All this said, please know I am not trying to be unkind to Grabien. I think she's worth reading and hope any readers of this review will consider her other books. If you start with this one, you might find no desire to read more from her -- and you would be missing out on some fun ghost stories.



5. I really like this series, in general; I read through all five of them within about a week. The tie to the song isn't always as clear and obvious as in the first few, but this one has an especially delicious chill in the ending. I hope we haven't heard the last of Ringan, Penny and their merry band.