No comments about Fodor's Boston's 25 Best, 5th Edition (25 Best).

No comments about Michelin Must Sees Boston.

5 comments about Coming Home.

1. This book is my favorite book. I read my mom's old copy last summer and just HAD to purchase a copy to keep for myself at college. Readers can live the story themselves through the main characters. An interesting description of World War Two through the eyes of a young British girl, becoming a woman. Very touching and very seemingly realistic.



2. I got so involved with the characters I was sad when it was over. It has good character development and an interesting storyline. An all around enjoyable read. I would definietly read it again...and that's saying a lot for me.



3. Coming Home is one of those books best described as a "sprawling saga", starring the landscapes of Cornwall England. Coming Home is the story of Judith Dunbar, beginning with her girlhood in the seaside resort of Penmarron in the years before World War 2, her young adulthood during the war, and in its aftermath. The event that changed Judith's life was meeting Loveday Carey-Lewis at a department store kitting up in preparation for St. Ursula's boarding school. Judith has been placed in the care of her aunt after her mother and her sister moved to Singapore to be with her father. Loveday, spoiled and willful, but wild and fun, has special permission to go home on weekends, and she invites Judith to Nancherrow, the family estate. Judith is immediately enfolded into Loveday's warm family life. I wanted to resent the Carey-Lewises with their upper-class advantages, but Pilcher makes it impossible. In contrast with upper-class families as typically portrayed, they are a close family with good communication, physically affectionate and emphatically not snobbish. These advantages let the family adapt well to the harsh circumstances of wartime. Judith and her family moved around a lot, so Judith never associated any one place as the fixed anchor of "home". Nancherrow becomes that place for her. After reading Coming Home, I was ready to pack up and move to Cornwall, it sounded so idyllic. Palm trees, beaches, and English country estates - what's not to like. There's love and romance too, but Coming Home is more a woman's journey to adulthood than a boy meets girl story. As Judith grows up, she can transition from becoming the receiver of kindness and generosity to being a woman who is able to give to and care for others.
   
   If you're an Anglophile with an appetite for big books, you'll enjoy Coming Home. If you like Coming Home, you might want to check out author Mary Wesley. Wesley also draws on her own experiences to write about the wartime period in England in a similar vein.



4. Yes, it was a delightful story, I couldn't put it down I didn't want it to end. I have to say the only one thing that I wish Mrs. Pilcher would of done different is maybe to add 25 more pages and talked about Judith and Jeremy, after all she went through in the 10 years that the story takes place she well deserved and we the readers deserved to be part of her happiness. I sure hope there would be continuation to this absolutely wonderful story.



5. This is my favorite Pilcher novel, liked it even better than the Shell Seekers. If you love reading about English life between the wars and are a fan of "Aga-sagas" you would enjoy this book.

3 comments about The Lighthouse Handbook: New England: The Original Lighthouse Field Guide.

1. I obtained a prepublication copy of Jeremy D'Entremont's The Lighthouse Handbook: New England directly from the author. The week before last I spent photographing lighthouses in New England, specifically Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. While I've been to many of the Maine lights in the past, directions got me quickly to the Doubling Point range lights that I completely missed finding the last time I went looking for them. I had basically no experience visiting the lighthouses of Massachusetts. I found the book indispensable for getting to some of the Mass lights, Annisquam Light, in particular. I would have never found that one without this great field guide. I would highly recommend the book for anyone with an interest in lighthouses -- the volume contains a wealth of information on each of the individual lights. The photographs of the various lights are excellent albeit small since this is a field guide. For anyone traveling to New England with an interest in visiting the lights, especially those that are more out of the way, the directions Jeremy provides to guide you to these lights makes the book worth its weight in gold! Order a copy, you certainly won't regret having it on your bookshelf!



2. This is the very best handbook to lighthouses in New England. It is also a beautiful package, well priced and written by "the" expert on lighthouses in this part of the world. The photographs are great, the design is wonderful, and the helpful travel/driving directions are a blessings as many of the New England lighthouses are in remote locations.



3. The Lighthouse Handbook: New England: The Original Lighthouse Field Guide
   This title doesn't begin to tell the story. The Author has somehow put together a totally complete article on every existing lighthouse from way Down East Maine to cosmopolitan western Connecticut. History, both old and new photos, anecdotes and directions.
   Hundreds of books have been put together on this subject but D'Entremont has somehow outdone them all. This is the ultimate New England Lighthouse directory.

4 comments about Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston.

1. Seasholes must have combed every archive and walked every inch of Boston to produce this monumental book. Not only is it exhaustive, but it is entertaining as well. Although this is a handsome book it is not a cooffe table enterprise. This is a book you will want to take with you as you walk the streets of Boston. This book is destined to become dog eared and underlined. It is simply a must for anyone interested in the history of this great city.



2. This is a wonderful book about how Boston changed in the last 200+ years. It is very readable, but I especially enjoyed the pictures and maps. It is an excellent book for anyone interested in the subject.



3. Disclaimer: I was very fortunate to take the Harvard University class tought by the author, which uses this book as the class text.
   
   This book is a spectacular work of research and writing. The author truly shows her passion for the subject.
   The text presents a unique view of Boston history, with stunning detail and even intrigue. The historical and original maps are without equal, and the photographs and illustrations are superb selections.
   Pardon the cliché, but truly I found myself unable to put this book down!
   
   Her recent book Walking Tours of Boston's Made Land is also a must-have for anyone who wants to get close-up and personal with Boston history.



4. If one lives and Boston and was curious about what the city looked like 100, 200, 300, or 400 years ago this is the book for you. I discovered that somewhere between 1837 and 1851 the street I lived in was filled and went from being underwater to land.
   An incredibly well-researched history of how people altered the landscape of Boston.

3 comments about Sword In The Stone, The (level 2) (Hello Reader).

1. Hey everyone out there! READ THIS BOOK! it is boring in some parts, but still good! This shows that T.H. White was an excellent author! He can spin magic with his fingers as well as J.K. Rawling and Brian Jacques! (Although they came after him!)



2. The other review on this page mistakenly refers to this edition as the novel by T. H. White. Its not. This edition is a short adapation for young children of how King Arthur became king. Maccrone's Arthur is a young boy, and he is "tricked" by Merlin into freeing the sword from the stone. Boddy's illustrations are great.



3. If you buy this book expecting to introduce your children to Arthurian myth, you will probably be disappointed. This book keeps only young Arthur, Merlin, and the barest outline of the beginning of the story of King Arthur.

   If, however, you are looking for a reasonably fun, short story for a child who is past "Hop on Pop" but not ready to read anything much more complex, you will be very well pleased. The story is simple, but reasonably engaging, the vocabulary is also simple, and the illustrations are decent. This is the first "Hello Reader!" book I have bought for my 2nd grader for use in home schooling, but it will definitely not be the last.

4 comments about Newport: A Lively Experiment 1639-1969.

1. This is a beautiful art book quality edition of the history of Newport, Rhode Island. I can't think of many small towns that deserve such a lavishly produced volume, especially one with a present-day population of fewer than 30,000 people. However, this small community had a very large impact on the ideas of religious freedom and civil government.
   
   While this book has many beautiful reproductions of paintings of the town, portraits of people who played a part in Newport's history, maps, photographs, and other illustrations, it is also a book of well-written text. The author is Rockwell Stensrud whose background as a novelist and journalist has prepared him well for this project. "Newport - a Lively Experiment" is published by the Redwood Library, which is more than 250 years old and the oldest lending library in the United States. This is a volume to be proud of. Anyone interested in Newport, Rhode Island, Colonial America, and the how this town came through its ups and downs from its founding in 1639 until today should get a copy for their library.
   
   The founding of Newport is fascinating and covered well in this book. The subtitle of the book, a lively experiment, comes from the charter granted by Charles II on July 8, 1663. It refers to its being a living experiment that "a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained, and that among our English subjects, with a full liberty in religious concernments; and that true piety rightly grounded upon gospel principles, will give the best and greatest security to sovereignty, and will lay in the hearts of men the strongest obligations to true loyalty ..."
   
   As noted earlier, Newport was founded in 1639 by nine men who are still well remembered in the history the city today (all the streets and places named after them sure help). There were jealousies, conflicts, and lots of energy. About half of this book covers the colonial and Revolutionary periods. Newport flourished until the destructive activity of the Revolutionary War heavily involved the city. It had recovered by the mid-nineteenth century and near the turn of the twentieth, it had become favored among the ultra wealthy. There are still many beautiful mansions there today. However, the structures of the founding were fast disappearing. There was also a hurricane in 1938.
   
   About this time, Doris Duke and others decided to do what they could to preserve and restore what they considered to be treasures. At the time, not many others did. Now we all enjoy seeing the fruits of their hard work and expenditures.
   
   This is a very richly done, informative, and enjoyable book of American history.



2. Although this looks like another expensive coffee table book, it's also a very well-written and drama filled history of America's founding and revolution and development with Newport as the orientation point. The hardships of 17th century life, the privations of the Revolution, are described in living detail, as well as the resort life of the nineteenth century when Newport became the Queen of Resorts. If you've ever been to Newport or Rhode Island and liked it, a must. Many thanks for Gilbert Kahn and John Noffo Kahn for supporting the research for what has turned out to be a hard-to-put-down history book. Beautifully written and illustrated with primary sources.



3. I've actually bought 2 of these books for Xmas gifts. They were recommended by the captain of a sailboat we chartered in Newport, R.I. I have not removed the plastic wrapping, but our captain highly recommended the book for anyone who enjoys R.I. The cover is beautiful. I would buy as a coffee table book just for that! A perfect gift for those people who have everything. Newport: A Lively Experiment 1639-1969



4. It is unusual for a history to be visually engaging or for a coffee table book to have intellectual content. This is one of the very rare books published today that is both beautiful and brainy.
   
   In the late 17th century the idea of religious freedom was an alien idea not only around the world but here in the North American too. In Massachusetts they were hanging people for the high crime of being Quakers ( I kid you not...).
   
   This book tells the story (in an extremely readable fashion) of the rare circumstances that led to the rise of the concept of religious freedom in a town that is now an out of the way genteel resort, but which was in its day one of the most important early American settlements.
   
   As intellectually engaging as it is interesting, this book is a great acquisition for anyone interested in American history, colonial architecture or religious freedom. In this day and age, with the challenges facing the country and world, a reminder of the great benefits of religious tolerance could not be better timed or more needed.

No comments about The Celtics in Black and White (MA) (Images of Sports).

2 comments about Mosses from an Old Manse (Modern Library Classics).

1. First published in 1846, Hawthorne's second collection includes 26 stories, most of them written after the publication of the second (1842) edition of "Twice-Told Tales," as well as "Young Goodman Brown" and "Roger Malvin's Burial," two great tales from the 1830s that were inexplicably left out of the earlier book.
   
   The only "new" piece (that is, the only one not previously published in a periodical) is the opening sketch, which took Hawthorne nearly a year to write; it is a leisurely tour of the "old Manse," his newly acquired historical estate in Concord and Emerson's childhood home. Interesting mostly from a biographical perspective, the essay tries hard--but largely fails--to share with the reader Hawthorne's enthusiasm for his new home. The rest of the volume, fortunately, is filled with grand, eerie, humorous, and memorable allegories. Every reader and critic has his or her own favorites, but a few stand out for their uniqueness.
   
   "A Select Party" recounts a dinner hosted by a "Man of Fancy" in "one of his castles in the air"; the guests are such improbable personages as "an incorruptible Patriot; a Scholar without pedantry; a Priest without world ambition, and a Beautiful Woman without pride or coquetry." The thoughts and desires of the partygoers are as ethereal as the clouds they inhabit. In a similar vein, "The Intelligence Office" is a comic pre-Kafkaesque allegory of a parade of customers who seek the whereabouts (and the worth) of their long-lost desires; only a man seeking Truth unveils the Intelligencer as "merely delusive," a bureaucrat who makes wishes come true by simply acknowledging, not fulfilling, them. "The Celestial Rail-road," the full implications of which I appreciated only after a second reading, is a retelling of "Pilgrim's Progress," in which devilishly clever entrepreneurs have repackaged Christian's journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and to the Celestial City as a Disneyland-style theme park and tourist attraction.
   
   Some of the stories can be read as prototypes in the genres of horror and science fiction. In the futuristic "Earth's Holocaust," a great bonfire is lit to "consume every human and divine appendage of our mortal state": medicine, liquor, literature, weapons, money, art, jewelry, scriptures--so that there "is far less both of good and evil." "The Artist of the Beautiful" pits Owen, a watchmaker who struggles to create a true-to-life mechanical butterfly, against a powerful village blacksmith; both contenders vie for the attentions of a beautiful woman in a classic struggle of intelligence and beauty versus technology and brute strength.
   
   Two of Hawthorne's most well-known tales--"The Birth-mark" and "Rappaccini's Daughter"--are unsettling in their macabre Poe-like finales. Both feature scientists whose quest for what can be discovered override moral considerations of whether something should be done: the alchemist in the first story concocts a method to remove a birthmark from his wife's cheek; the second tale pits two rivals who conduct their academic warfare with potions and antidotes, using one's daughter and the other's apprentice as unwitting intermediaries. Their similar endings, while predictable, are disturbingly bleak visions of modernity.
   
   When this collection was reissued in 1854, Hawthorne wrote that he no longer understood the point he was making "in some of these blasted allegories, but I remember that I always had a meaning--or, at least, thought I had." In spite of his protests, obvious themes do emerge: Hawthorne's mistrust of progress, his disdain for moral absolutism and his Puritan heritage, and his fascination with the elusive nature of evil. What will strike readers willing to wade through Hawthorne's intricate, highly wrought prose is how modern and relevant many of these stories still seem.



2. Nathaniel Hawthorne had a leaning towards humility, phony or not. After calling his previous collection of short stories "Twice-Told Tales" (1837), he went the lichen route with his next installment, calling his 1846 collection "Mosses From An Old Manse". Get out that scraper? Not quite.
   
   Unlike "Twice-Told Tales", a collection of somewhat hit-and-miss stories that owes some of its culture notoriety to its quaint title and much of the rest of it to one story ("The Minister's Black Veil"), "Mosses" catches Hawthorne's engaging genius at full flower. Right from the first of the Manse stories, the wonderful Poe-like "The Birthmark", about a scientist who risks losing his lovely bride in pursuit of perfection, Hawthorne shows himself in utter command: "In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul."
   
   Actually, Hawthorne begins the demonstration earlier than in his first proper story, with his introductory sketch about the house where he composed his stories, "The Old Manse" in Concord, Massachusetts. It's the only piece here that didn't see prior publication, and has Hawthorne ruminating, lightly but memorably, about the perishability of human thought. It also establishes the strong ambiance of time and place, crusty New England in its post-Puritan period, that undergirds much of what follows.
   
   "Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more ephemeral writer," he explains.
   
   More false humility? Maybe. But Hawthorne gives the impression, here and elsewhere in "Manse", of being utterly sincere. It's his blessing and curse. Even when he writes a story where the allegory, the moral point of the matter, is developed clearly enough, he feels a need to underscore his points with narrative rumination. At least he doesn't capitalize key words as he did in "Twice-Told Tales".
   
   Yet unlike the stories in "Tales", which are often quite beautiful but easier to reduce, there is greater ambiguity and depth in "Manse". You have to take Hawthorne's messaging here with a grain of salt. Sure, there's a point in "The Birthmark", about being content with nature's imperfections, but there's also sympathy for the erring, striving doctor that complicates the picture, and connects it up with Hawthorne's own vocation.
   
   One of the last stories here, "The Artist Of The Beautiful", is a marvelous bookend in that regard, regarding the attainment of perfection, and as open-ended a story as Hawthorne ever wrote. It's a crushing tale, and yet quite positive, a miracle of creation by itself.
   
   In between, Hawthorne's variety is on full display, as it was in "Twice-Told Tales", only the work is uniformly better. Not only do you have a stronger body of celebrated stories, like "Young Goodman Brown" and "Roger Malvin's Burial", but the less-heralded stories are nearly all brilliant. No dated bits of patriotic ephemera like "Gray Champion" or strained symbolism like "The Maypole Of Merry Mount" to be found here. You get instead inspired bursts of stirring melancholy ("The Christmas Banquet", "Feathertop") alleviated by clever gusts of humor ("Mrs. Bullfrog", "The Celestial Railroad"), and everywhere a modulated appreciation for the complexity of the human condition. "Earth's Holocaust" may be an ur-text for American conservativism, but then there's the transcendental strain that enlivens "Fire Worship".
   
   A couple of stories here feel overwritten, but you will get that with such a large body of work, not to mention Hawthorne's anxiety to please. Overall, the tales and sketches of "Old Manse" is a stirring display of how much a great writer can capture of life, ironic given how many of the stories contemplate (and in a roundabout way, celebrate) the limitations of human imagination. A thing of joy, "Manse" holds its own alongside any of Hawthorne's great novels.

3 comments about Ancestral Roots Of Certain American Colonists Who Came To America Before 1700: Lineages from Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and other Historical Individuals.

1. This book has an extreme amount of valuable information contained in it, but for the novice researcher, you may want to wait on this one. There's no plot to this book, simply titles, dates & places of birth/death, spouses and parents. Occasionally you'll get tidbits like 'participant in War of 1066' or 'Sheriff of Berkley Castle'.



2. Just cut to the chase. This book is in its 8th edition due to the devotion of Weis and his colleagues who carry on his life work. Do NOT spend hundreds of dollars buying research that the geneologist gathers from free online sources. FIRST, if you have ancestors from Massachusetts, New York, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Conneticutt and Virginia you very probably are descended from or cousin to many lines documented from about 350 A.D. Gallo Roman period right through to the Pilgrims, Puritans, etc. Why? Because as Nathaniel Philbrook states in his book, 'Mayflower,' 35 million AMericans are descended from the 52 survivors of the first winter in Plymouth. Why are they related to uddles of British and continental nobles? Because the some 2,000 Norman families who ruled England married the rest of Europes nobles and by 1600 they had grown to 20,000 and had more spare children than Davey Crooket has money. The spares took up Puritism and or wanted to flip properties in the new world. SECOND, load up a good family tree software program (about $30.00)... Spent 2 years entering...



3. For anyone who has a link from New England to England of any of the colonists listed at the beginning of the book, this is an essential book. The eighth edition is the best of the editions. The amount of research it took to gather all the information is amazing. It is great to see that more recent researchers are carrying on in the tradition of Frederick Lewis Weis. I bought it new on amazon.com, and have used it extensively. It has post-it notes sticking out of half the pages, since I seem to end up looking at just about every other page. The resources given are excellent, and I'm glad they have given plenty of resources for each entry. If I want more information, I know where to go.