No comments about English Embroidery in the Metropolitan Museum 1575-1700: 'Twixt Art and Nature (Published in Association with the Bard Graduate Centre for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture).

5 comments about Fenway! The Ultimate Fan's Guide to the Nation's Ballpark.

1. If you are a Red Sox fan, and visit Fenway alot. You need this book!!
   
   I never again am sad when I get to the park to see my view at home plate is a pole!!!
   
   Dont buy the bad tixs!!! Save them for the uninformed!!!



2. If you are a huge baseball fan like I am, a visit to Fenway is absolutely a must even if you just go once in your lifetime.
   
   Just obtaining a ticket to a Red Sox home game can be a daunting task due to the extremely high demand, so before spending your hard earned dollars READ THIS BOOK. It tells ALL the intricate details of the mind boggling choice of seats and how to avoid the dreaded "pole obstructions". The book also has a wealth of many other tips on how to make the trip to The Church Of Baseball a truly memorable experience.
   A 5 Star job was done by this author and wow, thanks to him for this wealth of information!



3. In the interest of full disclosure, I know Tim Shea. He even wrote a testimonial on the back of my book Green Monster University: Creating Die-Hahd Fans Since 1901.
   But that aside, you must believe me when I say this book leaves nothing to chance in guiding you in and around the most historic ballpark in the country.
   Things have changed since I was a kid and had season tickets. For one, you could GET season tickets. But now, with added seats, and exorbitant parking rates, and a concourse containing an expanded array of foods, it's become a science to plot your day at the park.
   This book is to Fenway Park as the "Let's Go" series is to travel abroad. For anyone that is about to experience Fenway for the first time, GET THIS BOOK!



4. This book is one of the best guides I have ever purchased. I have used it to purchase 4 sets of grandstand seats and have had a perfect view of the field using this guide. This guide was sent from the Fenway gods.



5. Fenway Park is amazing, and so is Tim Shea's Fenway Pole Finder Guide. The guide points out some of Fenway's inherent design flaws which can make the viewing experience a little less enjoyable. In fact, prior to owning this guide, I was reluctant to purchase any GS seat, fearing that I would have an unadvertised obstructed view of the game. This is not the case now - I can easily reference the section, row and seat in the guide before committing to a purchase.
   
   In addition to the valuable obstructed seat diagrams, there is a wealth of Fenway general information included in this guide. I would point out to potential purchasers that the seating prices have gone up since the book was published - but other than that the book is spot on.
   
   Tim Shea's Fenway Pole Finder is one of the best, if not the best guide to help determine if your view will be obstructed. It is a must for any fan looking to take in a game at Fenway - regardless of where you sit!

2 comments about Maine's Golden Road: A Memoir.

1. Being one who visits the Golden Road almost yearly, I purchased the book with enthusiasm. My experience was mostly positive.

   Gould demonstrates vast knowledge about the area. He describes: the realities of the Maine woods experience, personalities of the inhabitants, varieties of visitors, wildlife, history and industry.

   One area of disappointment was Gould's frequent choice of vocabulary and references. While reading, a dictionary had to be at my side. Also, frequently used french, latin and some historical references made reading more difficult and not fun.

   Mr. Gould did at times poke fun at his intellectual perspective. However, his choice of words does not seem suited for most.

   All in all, the book is a positive experience. One can take a trip to Maine's Golden Road, from their favorite arm chair.




2. As always, John Gould's dry-as-a-bone wit made me laugh out loud while reading. This memoir of his long friendship with his son's father-in-law deals with their shared annual vacation trips, through many years, into Maine's paper company owned north woods. The basic absurdity of a place where Maine residents rarely worked because they literally "couldn't get there from here" - it was easier for French Canadian workers to come in from Quebec, thanks to the lack of public roads - sets the tone for much of the book's humor. I found it a quick and easy read as well as a thoroughly delightful one.

No comments about A Master Class: Sensational Recipes from the Chefs of the New England Culinary Institute and Ellen Michaud.

2 comments about The Best of the Appalachian Trail Overnight Hikes, 2nd.

1. Just bought this and Best of the AT Day Hikes and am really enjoying them. I know I will never hike the whole trail, but these two books give me the best that the Appalachian Trail has to offer without having to hike evey inch of it. The books are well-organized and you can glean a lot of information at a glance; later you can go back and get the specifics of the hikes. This is edition has been a major revision of the first edition with more than a third of the hikes being brand new and all of the hike information--length, difficulty, trail route, driving directions, etc.--updated. I (and you will too) will be making great use of them.



2. I was very unhappy when I received this book. I have many hiking guide books and they all have been useful. This book won't be at all. There are no maps even remotely helpful, no good directions to the trailhead, no good info on shelters, campsites, no good info on trail difficulty/rating ... I have other hiking books of specific areas, like North Carolina, the Northeast, Virginia.... They all have much more useful details about the best AT trails within their borders. Don't waste your money on this book.

1 comments about It Happened in New Jersey (It Happened In Series).

1. I really enjoyed reading this book. It was informative and gave a lot of interesting facts of folklore and history of the State of New Jersey, from it's discovery and early settlement right up to modern times. A good read for youngsters and oldsters alike, especially for young Jerseyites who can go out first hand and visit some of the places and historical sites. It will engender a love of history and a pride for those who live in this State.
   I recommend it for all ages!

1 comments about The Common Law of Colonial America: Volume I: The Chesapeake and New England 1607-1660.

1. This is the first of a projected four-volume history of the development of American common law during the colonial period, authored by one of our most distinguished legal historians, William E. Nelson of NYU (author of amongst other works "Americanization of the Common Law"). This initial volume covers New England and the Chesapeake (i.e., Virginia and Maryland) between 1607 and 1660. My initial reaction to the book was to wonder what Nelson was up to since this area has been well trod upon since at least Paul Reinsch's "English Common Law in the Early American Colonies" (1899). Once you get into the book, Nelson's approach becomes very evident. His analysis is based upon an archival synthesis for all 13 American colonies, which he believes fills a gap in the present scholarly literature. How heaviy the book is based upon archival research becomes evident when one realizes that 59 out of the total of 192 pages consist of notes reflecting Nelson's exhaustive research in original sources (primarily American cases and records). For Nelson, the key question is not the "reception" of the common law necessarily, but rather how colonial common law developed into post-revolutionary American law. Nelson focuses upon issues such as how did colonial law differ between colonies, and how was it similar? What impact did political, social, religious, and economic factors have on legal development?
   
   In brief, Nelson finds the New England colonies were concerned with implementing the law of God as the magistrates saw it; by contract, Virginia was enterprise focused and sought to develop a system of forced labor to service its tobacco plantations. Eventually, both regions began to focus on developing a "rule of law" (in the sense employed by John Phillip Reid in his recent book) to eliminate arbitrary legal processes. This was critical in Virginia especially since it needed to attract outside investment in order to survive. The volume concludes in 1660, before the end of "benevolent neglect" by the British government is replaced with efforts to forge a coherent empire. All the better to focus upon the impact of local conditions on legal development, Nelson suggests.
   
   Although the book is concise, and this is one of its great virtues, it is highly suggestive of themes that Nelson will develop in the subsequent volumes: Volume II on the middle colonies and the Carolinas; Volume III dealing with the legal impact of British efforts to create a coherent empire in North America and the Caribbean; and finally Volume IV assessing the status of American colonial law on the even of the revolution. The book does lack a bibliography, and given Nelson's command of the pertinent literature this is somewhat disappoininting. This is an ambitious undertaking, but this initial volume well demonstrates that Nelson is more than equal to the task; I hope he writes as quickly as he does well.

3 comments about Indian Tribes of the New England Frontier (Men-at-Arms).

1. Michael Johnson has through Osprey produced a series on the amerindian tribes.
   
   For these interested in brief sketch histories of the tribes of the regions they are quite good.
   
   This one on the tribes of New England pretty much serves that purpose.
   
   For those interested in period information there isn't that much.
   
   The illustrations by Jonathan Smith are quite good though figure A6's hands are too big and too mature for a child's.



2. Very nice short history, and a great painting guide. Highly recommended.



3. This is a great visual guide to the costume and material culture of the Indian tribes of New England and the surrounding regions, spanning the whole range of their history from BC times to the modern day (though the text naturally focuses on their wars with the Americans and Europeans in the 18th and 19th Centuries). I think that Jonathan Smith is pretty much for Osprey's Native American titles what Angus McBride is for the ancient and medieval ones; the man's talent revealed in the eight color plates is breathtaking. Overall this is probably the best book on the `Indians' Osprey has published so far, and gets a little more in depth than some of the others.

1 comments about New Hampshire's Cornish Colony (NH) (Images of America).

1. In the late nineteenth century, an American cultural center that arose in New Hampshire Village became known as the Cornish Colony. A summer retreat of the famous sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens, the Colony became the center of an American renaissance that lured notables in the arts, literature, music, and theatre such as Maxfield Parish, Paul Manship, Witter Bynner, Walter Damrosch, Isadora Duncan, Marie Dressler -- and even President Woodrow Wilson. From the 1880s to the 1920s, the Colony comprised an elite center of cultural communication but in the remainder of the twentieth century it was largely ignored by cultural historians. Fortunately, especially for lovers of the arts and history who live far from New England, Fern Meyers and James Atkinson have collected a stunning set of photographs that evoke the ambiance of a community of artists inspired by a setting in the high hills alongside the broad Connecticut River. Their detailed comments encapsulate the history and ethnography of the Colony with an intimate view of residents' personalities and activities at work and play. Men and women artists are given equal time, and even children get a share in the description of their pageants and plays, one of them directed by Ethel Barrymore. A delightful collection of photographs depicts a remarkable group of talented individuals and families in "the Gilded Age" of American culture. Highly recommended for cultural historians, critics, and all lovers of the arts.

No comments about Short Nature Walks Connecticut, 7th.