1 comments about Boston Harbor Islands.

1. Compiled and edited by Ken Mallory (Director of Publications, New England Aquarium, Boston), Boston Harbor Islands: National Park Area is a beautiful and impressively informative introduction to the national park islands of Boston Harbor. Featuring lavish full-color photographs, at-a-glance capsule information concerning access, description, facilities, special interests, and agencies of each island, and inviting, easy-to-follow narration of each island, Boston Harbor Islands: National Park Area is a joy for armchair travelers, and an excellent introduction for anyone looking to spend quality vacation time in the national park areas of Boston Harbor Islands.

3 comments about Exploring Boston Bike & Foot, 2nd.

1. Right from the get go I found this hiking and biking guide to be a miracle of organization and indispensable information. This book not only groups locations by geographical location, but also with respect to hiking, road biking and mountain biking. I found the handy reference guide towards the beginning of the book extremely useful while including not only difficulty ratings, but also mileage for each trip, something not always available in one specific location in a guide book. The maps accompanying each site are extremely easy to follow and the descriptions really do fit the terrain perfectly, whether or not you chose to take the book along on your journeys. I found the directions to each location to be extremely useful and especially appreciated the public transportation options that help those city dwellers who lack automobiles. Other handy features include locations and descriptions of local restaurants, attractions and even restrooms. This book included an very helpful mix of locations both in the greater Boston area, as well as highlighting several gems in the neighboring suburbs. I especially appreciated the handy reference map showing the location of all the spots, as well as the ever present tips to find geater enjoyment in your outdoor adventures!



2. Lee Sinai has taken a group of varied and unusual hikes and trails around Boston and compiled them into an informative and accessible guide. We refer to her book often when looking for interesting, new places to explore, and have found it invaluable in "rediscovering" Boston.



3. Want to get outdoors and be active in the Boston area? Start by buying this book. Lee Sinai describes, in wonderful detail, many of the rides and hikes one can take within a thirty-five-mile radius of Boston. The author has organized the forty trips around geographical areas, north, south or west of Boston, so selecting one is easy. Maps of each destination are included. Each trip description includes what's important to an outdoor enthusiast.... availability of restrooms, closest access to food, degree of difficulty, directions for getting there, and a historical background of the area.
   Using this book, I discovered Dogtown, a mountain biking haven in Gloucester. I also experienced Cameron's, home to the best lobster roll in Massachusetts. The author led me to Great Brook Farm in Carlisle for cycling and then to Kimball's for a memorable ice cream treat.
   As a guidebook, I give Exploring In and Around Boston on Bike and Foot the highest rating.

3 comments about Fly Rod Crosby: The Woman Who Marketed Maine.

1. This captivating, informative and fresh volume betrays an excellent working knowledge of the subject. From a lifelong Maine resident who published a tourist guide for about ten years (nearly three decades ago), please accept my sincere thanks. Such an evening of "pure joy" this account of Fly Rod (and those newly-revealed photographs) brought to me! Even 8 months after reading it, I remember with pleasure this account from "old Maine." The volume is still displayed, so guests also can "enjoy the read!"



2. A carefully researched, entertainingly written biography of a woman who in many ways defied the conventions of her era - but who was in many other ways limited by them nevertheless. You do NOT have to be interested in hunting and fishing to find Cornelia Crosby's story inspiring and enjoyable.

   --Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of "Granite Island"




3. This is a very interesting book about a colorful woman who put Maine on the map with her tireless writings and promotions. The first part is about Cornelia's life, and the second part is from "Fly Rod's" letters and an album of vintage photos by Edwin Starbird. It all makes for a fascinating collection about this bold New Englander!

   With an odd nickname like Fly Rod, Cornelia Crosby was bound to attract people's interest. Not only that, she was six feet tall and unusually athletic for nineteenth-century women. Ironically, she tended to be sickly as a child, so her doctor prescribed being in the outdoors as a cure. Cornelia discovered she loved to hunt and fish in the Maine woods. As a young woman, she began to write about her adventures in a popular newspaper column, using the pen name "Fly Rod." The name stuck. Sadly, a knee injury put an end to Fly Rod's active outdoor adventures, but she remained beloved by many for the rest of her long life.

2 comments about Returning: A Spiritual Journey.

1. I started reading this book while Comet Hale-Bopp was at its brightest. I quickly came to understand that journalist/novelist Dan Wakefield's journey was the spiritual version of a comet. He begins with a fairly typical midwest Christianity, then moves to agnosticism, then moves to atheism, then moves to attending a Unitarian church, within which he moves back into Christianity.

   His journey, like that of a comet, took him far from his home, his roots, his faith, his God, to the cold and darkness that filled his life. But when the return journey began, like a comet, his life grew brighter as he came nearer to the faith that he found to be the center of his journey.

   As he looks back, Dan Wakefield sees the ways that God has been with him throughout the long journey. Like the gravity that calls a distant comet to make its journey back toward the sun, so was God pulling on Wakefield. Reading the story of his return was more stimulating than watching Hale-Bopp on its journey.




2. Spiritual memoirs tend to follow the same plot line. It's the boy meets girl story with God substituted for the girl. There's nothing wrong with the formula, the author's job is to make it fresh and interesting. Dan Wakefield doesn't get the job done. The structure of "Returning" is linear, the pace is ponderous, and the insights only moderately interesting. In fact, the entire book is an exercise in moderation, written by a moderate talent, who, on the evidence presented, has lived a moderate life. It's no wonder Bill Moyer's, a paragon of moderation, liked this book. There are parts of this book where the author could have revealed more. The account of his nervous breakdown is scary, but all too brief, and on too many occasions - bouts of adolescent [activity], unsuccessful psychoanalysis, addiction to alcohol - Mr. Wakefield seems like a kid in a confessional. He rushes through his sins in order to be unburdened, but also undiscovered. It doesn't work. If we give the penitent the benefit of our attention, he should give us the benefit of a compelling story.

1 comments about Islanders.

1. It is sort of strange to buy a book on a whim and find it peopled by folks you know and having pictures of where you live. Living on an island myself, I bought it for its title. I am from Away, but I have lived on this island more than half my life. I can say from experience that this book is quite accurate and gives a good picture of island life. Put it together with "The Lobster Coast" by Colin Woodard, and you have a very complete picture. I present this review with a plea not to move to an island unless you have children who will go to school here.

1 comments about Sacco and Vanzetti: Rebel Lives.

1. Sacco and Vanzetti are without doubt the best known radicals featured in Ocean Press's "Rebel Lives" series. Anarchist Italian immigrants, their trial for murder during the frenzy of the first red scare became a cause celebre. Executed and then posthumously pardoned, their case has attracted renewed interest in recent years as anti-immigrant and anti-leftist prejudice and paranoia has again grown in the United States.
   
   "Sacco and Vanzetti: Rebel Lives" is a collection of letters, articles, essays, and poems related to the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Editor John Davis opens the volume with a 13-page introduction, with the remaining 110 pages of documents arranged in four sections. The first, "The Shoemaker and the Fish-Peddler", includes 15 letters written by Sacco, Vanzetti, or both, to their supporters, friends, families, and executioners. Part two, "The Cause Celebre", includes eight contemporary articles and statements on their case (all defending Sacco and Vanzetti) by famous commentators including Eugene V. Debs, James P. Cannon, Anatole France, and John Dos Passos.
   
   The third section, "Law versus Justice", presents more technical details of the case and the associated miscarriages of justice, through articles by Felix Frankfurter, H. G. Wells, and others. The final part deals with "The Legacy" of the case, and includes essays by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and Howard Zinn, along with the text of a speech by Juliet Ucelli commemorating the 75th anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Each of the four sections opens with a poem about the Sacco and Vanzetti affair, which helps illustrate the profound impact the case has had on art, culture and memory.
   
   Although I found this collection of documents interesting and enlightening, there were a few features of it that grated on me. In the letters by Sacco and Vanzetti, editor John Davis does not correct spelling or grammar, explaining that he wants to give the reader a sense of the frustration Sacco and Vanzetti must have felt trying to communicate in a foreign language. While that may be a laudable goal, I found that the resulting style got exceedingly tedious after a while. Even though Sacco and Vanzetti's innocence is common knowledge, I was annoyed that convincing evidence that they were in fact innocent was not presented until the third part of the book, well after a good deal of rhetoric that takes their innocence for granted.
   
   Despite those criticisms, this volume is a good, slim introduction to primary sources relating to the Sacco and Vanzetti case. As with all the Rebel Lives books, this volume may also be of special interest to teachers looking for primary sources on the case and its victims.

No comments about The North River: Scenic Waterway of the South Shore.

No comments about Mountain Bike America Vermont: An Atlas of Vermont's Greatest Off-Road Bicycle Rides (Mountain Bike America Guidebooks).

No comments about Hartford, Vol. 2 (CT) (Images of America).

No comments about English Civil War Artillery 1642-51 (New Vanguard).