1 comments about Exploring Stone Walls: A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls.

1. The book, Exploring Stone Walls, A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls by Robert Thorson is split up into eleven detailed chapters. From there it is distributed into three separate sections. The first section is divided into four chapters. Thorson mainly talks about how there are many different types of life in and or around a stone wall. Many different types of organisms live here including the smallest life forms such as lichens and bacteria to large mammals such as dogs and cats. Although Thorson doesn't give much of an overview about this section, it is highly detailed fact-wise. I found this quite interesting because even if you are not an in-depth stonewall observer, than you can still have an enjoyable time watching them if you also have other interests such as ecology or if you're a naturalist. During the course of this book, there was one small segment about how he talked about artificial stone being very abundant throughout New England. I feel like this had little reference to the rest of the topics that Thorson was explaining. But there was an extremely well-developed chapter that I felt helped me overcome the very puzzling question of "How do you know whether to classify stone as a wall or a pile?" Very challenging question. Or is it? There is a simple answer to this problem. If the wall is anything less than four times long than it is wide it is a pile and vice-versa. In chapter eight of the book there is a well thought of segment about how to determine a certain wall's age. If you like to have history tied in with reading than you'll like this book. I didn't enjoy the chapter about the terrain because it was too detailed and it barely even talked about the walls. But his best chapter was chapter eleven, where he described some of his personal favorite stone walls to visit. This is even more interesting if you love to travel and explore. Overall, Thorson is a very good author and many people will benefit reading this book.

No comments about Recommended Country Inns New England, 19th (Recommended Country Inns Series).

4 comments about Private Newport: At Home and In the Garden.

1. Private Newport features page after page of gorgeous homes--those that only we mere mortals can only dream about! The photography is spectacular and I love the way the exterior of the homes and their grounds are included, as well as the amazing interiors. This is a great gift for anyone who has visited Newport or who desires to. You won't see these homes on the mansion tour as they are privately owned and not open to the public.



2. I used to live in Newport and I recognize many of the houses in this book. You will not see these private interiors and gardens any other way. The photography and writing are excellent.



3. .
   This is an exquisite look at Newport Rhode Island by Betty Barden Pardee, a contributing editor to Bon Appetit, who, with her husband is a year-around resident of Newport. Ms. Pardee takes the reader inside the mansions for a private look at the interiors and gardens of this community from a bygone era.
   
   Photographer Mick Hales, whose work has appeared in House and Garden, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest, and Town and Country does an extraordinary job capturing the light, mood and character of Newport.
   
   Designers, decorative artists, and landscape designers will especially enjoy these pages.



4. Despite the potential of the interesting subject matter, 18 private homes and their gardens, PRIVATE NEWPORT is light on details. Author/flower-arranging judge Bettie Bearden Pardee treats it more like a cocktail party of a book with some name-dropping and a few anecdotal stories. Every property is architecturally significant with some fine furnishings and an interesting history, but do not count on much more than just small talk here. Photographer Mick Hales does a better job of presenting the substantial homes, not the so-called cottages of the Gilded Age but mansions none-the-less. All the photos are color and appear to be taken expressly for the book. In addition to an Introduction and an Index, there is a Forward by Marion Oates Charles. Best for those who already love Newport, one of the lovliest towns in the U.S.

5 comments about Cape Light: Color Photographs by Joel Meyerowitz.

1. Ansel Adams said that this book was his favorite book of color photographs (the reason I bought it, long ago). Meyerowitz's use of little contrast, incomparible colors, and unusual subject matter makes this a must MEMORIZE book for all serious photographers. If you don't go nuts over his photographs, you don't like photography as much as you thought you did.......

   john in texas




2. I first saw this book while i was looking through the photography section at the University of Guelph library. This book probably influenced my photography more than any other. Unfortunately, it also made me start doing shots with my nikon that are better suited for a large format system. The introductory interview with the photographer is possibly the most interesting discussion on the topic of light and photography. If you plan to become anything more than an amature photographer, PLEASE get this book NOW.



3. I love the pictures of my old haunt. Ptown has some of the worlds most beautiful light.



4. Having been to Cape Cod a lot of times, I'm intrigued by the nature. I read the reviews and thought the book would be special, with a focus on nature of Cap Cod. This was not the case. Most of the pictures could have been taken anywhere in the world... I'm not a professional photographer, but have to say that the compositions was not very exciting, quite boring actually.



5. I don't know what reviewer "K Raustol" (a couple reviews down)has been smoking, but this work, along with Ansel's body of B&W work is to my mind the finest large-format photography ever produced. This book is ALL about composition and capturing the subtle naunces of the changing light, and this book represents that concept better than any other published color work that I've ever seen. As another reviewer mentioned, if you're serious about photography, this book in an absolute MUST.

4 comments about Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (New Historicism, Studies in Cultural Poetics, No 84).

1. Published over a decade ago, this book has become not only a classic in Shakespearean study but also the exemplary of the "new historicism." Even nowadays it does not lose its refleshing power, and never fails to stimulate controversies (e.g. the issue of subversion and containment) that still continues well into the new millenium. Greenblatt has been criticized for homogenizing the history and sacrificing the complexity of the text (for an alternative model of new historicism, one can refer to Louis Montrose's articles and his book "The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of Elizabethan Theatre"), but still he has successfully made a strong case for his major argument, namely that Shakespeare, far from a single-handed isolated individual genius coming from nowhere, heavily drew upon the cultural resources and "social energy" circulating among various domains beyond the boundaries of theatre and literature. Greenblatt is very deft in reconstructing the historical and ideological context that enriches the Shakespearen play. Time and again readers feel that the historical anecdote Greenblatt talks about even eclipses the play itself with its magic power of invoking wonder, which might make even those sympathetic readers like Frank Kermode complain that the part on Shakespeare in this book is less interesting than the part on history. But isn't this refocusing of interest not exactly part of demystifying the notion of genius and his sacred writing in order to appreciate Shakespeare more as a negotiator in the marketplace who purchases and exchanges symbolically? The last chapter on "Tempest" is especially highly recommended for its skillful intermingling of the issues of ruling strategy by means of inciting anxiety, colonial (counter)history, the space of theatre and finally the institutionalisation of literature.



2. Writing today a book that still has something to say about Shakespeare is hard on our days. This is the reason why one can consider this book outstanding. Nonetheless, I have read many recent books about Shakespeare and I consider that behind the interesting concept of social energy lies an excessively skeptic version of Shakespeare. I can agree that Shakespeare's preeminence in the canon is largely due to the circulation of social energy, but I think that many of the richness of Shakespeare is too reduced to this factor. The book is an excellent reading for anybody interested in Shakespeare but requires some balancing. My recommendations would be the heterodox book by Rene Girard and the passionate and excessive approach of Bloom. This triad gives an excellent approach to contemporary theses on Shakespeare with complete counterarguments that neutralize the radical points of view of the three authors.



3. Although Greenblatt as received a good deal attention for his interest in critical practice and for his coining of the terms "New Historicisim" and "cultural poetics," his real strengths ahev also ben doing close readings of literary and historical texts. In Shakespearean Negotiations, Greenblatt offers typically brilliant and engaging readings of some of Shakespeare's major plays. His book is of interest to a wide audience beyond an academic one. The man is an exceptionally gifted writer and storyteller. It's a pity that so few other literary and cultural critics even come close to matching him. Perhaps only Stephen Orgel and Stanley Fish have equally brilliant prose styles and analytical powers.



4. Meaningless as the title suggests. Borrows from the Postmodern school of pseudo-intellectual gibberish. As relevant to Shakespeare as brainsurgery is to soccer.

No comments about Transcendentalism: A Reader.

3 comments about The Times And Trials Of Anne Hutchinson: Puritans Divided (Landmark Law Cases & American Society).

1. This was a gift for a friend of mine, and she was very happy with the book.



2. This book says Anne Hutchinson, the colonial leader, died "in August or September 1643." In fact Governor John Winthrop recorded in his journal on July 22, 1643, news of the Indian massacre in which Hutchinson had died. It's ironic that an author who describes Hutchinson as little more than a fiction of Winthrop's imagination didn't check this primary source. More important, this book claims Hutchinson's "personal influence proved ephemeral", and "most of her followers" and family "died with her" in the massacre. In fact, according to Winthrop and other contemporaries, she was survived by scores of followers in Rhode Island and Boston, five children, and many grandchildren. Her descendants include Presidents FDR, Bush, and Bush. Her lasting influence in Rhode Island contributed to the freedom of religion clause in the 1660s colonial constitution, which helped inspire the constitutional amendment guaranteeing freedom of religion throughout America.



3. As an American Studies major in the late sixties, I understood the tale of Anne Hutchinson as the fleeting hint of a nascent feminism in the New World, a feminism that, almost 400 years later, took root and transformed American culture during my young adulthood. Michael Winship's The Times and Trials of Anne Hutchinson removes imposed meanings to reveal Anne Hutchinson as a quintessential puritan losing a passionate and destructive struggle to define piety and salvation. Because the dogmatic intolerance at the soul of of puritanism still colors the political discourse of our own day, Winship's scholarship, translated into readable and engaging prose, is a valuable contribution to our understanding of where we come from and where, without consciousness of our roots, we may be headed.

No comments about Rand McNally Maine: Highways & Interstates (Rand McNally Folded Map: States).

1 comments about Roadside Geology of Vermont and New Hampshire (Roadside Geology Series) (Roadside Geology Series).

1. I purchased this book for my husband who has a lively if amateur interest in geology, so that we could consult it during a trip to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It is one of a series that seem to be very well done, especially because you can refer to the landscape as you are traveling according to the indexing in the book.

2 comments about Rat Bastards: The South Boston Irish Mobster Who Took the Rap When Everyone Else Ran.

1. I saw this book and was interested because of the movie The Departed. I saw it in the theatre, and then got the DVD when it came out. Because I am from the area, I knew The Departed was about Whitey Bulger, more than some movie remake of Internal Affairs.
   
   Up until now I had resisted the other books about Whitey and the Irish mob in Southie. This one just looked more interesting, and hit me at the right time.
   
   I have read the other reviews for the hardcover, especially those who are from Southie. It seems people either love it or hate it, and him. I am more lukewarm about the book. I don't have any inside knowledge to tell if he was telling it straight, or making it up.
   
   I thought the writing was ok, not great, but not awful. I imagine his writer was trying to keep the tone and structure true to how Shea speaks. It was a quick read, and a bit engaging, though not a real page turner to me.
   
   I thought that there was a real lack of self-reflection from Shea for the most part. He was just as brash in his story as he was in life. He says this is what I did, this is the surface reason why, deal with it. Very rarely does he dig beneath that.
   
   Other than the prison stories he is very vague about what he did, or what his activities were for Whitey. As he says he followed Whitey's advice about never letting someone else have anything to hold over you. But even without that you shouldn't expect anything specific from him in the book because: 1.) Anything that didn't come out in his trial, he could probably still be prosecuted for; 2.) He says he is not a rat, and so he won't tell anything about anyone else, that isn't already known; 3.) he doesn't want to get those who are guilty in trouble with the law, or make them feel a need to come after him.
   
   What you do get is the sense that he never really grew up. He does want to prove continually how tough he is, and after all the others ratted out, that he is not a rat, but better than the others. He comes from that odd group of males who think that they still should act like teenage jerks, even when fully grown. By choosing to be a perpetual child he also throws away any chance for a real happy life, when he won't commit to Penelope. He gives up a wife, a family, and a home. He is probably too scared of that type of work, and risk. Rather he wants to follow the movie image of the tough-guy gangster, and take the easy way out. Its an empty image that he has opted for, rather than a real life. Its actually sad.
   
   Yes what he did in terms of selling drugs, and being a criminal is bad. He doesn't really care, and he never says he is sorry. He feels bad for the accidental innocent people he hurt, but he never considers the families of his marks/victims/customers, as innocents whom he hurt all the time.
   
   I think the book says just as much about him indirectly as it does with his input. It was a quick, interesting read. I wouldn't buy it in hardcover, but think paper is ok, and maybe borrowing from the Library is the best.



2. John "Red" Shea spends his life making sure he is a "man." To him, this means beating up anyone who doesn't conform to his macho teenage code learned on the mean streets of Southie. One would think Shea would have learned a few lessons about maturity after 12 years in federal prison. You don't get that impression after reading his memoir, which is one of several by members of Whitey Bulger's former gang. Shea takes pride in being the only one not to 'rat,' an act akin to him of the lowest human order. His tale will be glorified by Mark Wahlberg in an upcoming film, evidently. It will make a good movie. But as real life, it's just a waste. The book is a decent read, not as good as some of the others in this genre. It doesn't really take off until the middle when he finally reaches the stage where he becomes Whitey's "protege," as a drug dealer. The prison section is interesting, too. If you like tales of human depravity and bleakness, you'll eat this one up.