No comments about Hidden Maine: Including Acadia National Park (Hidden Travel).

1 comments about Researching Your Colonia New England Ancestors.

1. For close to 10 years I have been researching a great-great-great-great-grandfather. And another g-g-g-g-grandfather on the maternal side for close to 8 years -- and for the FIRST time in a LONG time, I actually have a plan of action!!!! Chapter Two is titled "Finding Information on Your Colonial Ancestors". Two sentences and the action item list starts -- 9 things to do. Now some of them I've seen in various forms but not THIS concise and straight forward.
   
   Chapter One has info on the colonial calendar. For genealogical research, one looks for dates -- we LOVE dates. Well let's just say that George Washington was born on Feb 11 AND on Feb 22!!! And she explains how and why! And you understand it immediately! Which may explain why you have two birth dates for some early ancestor.
   
   How to research colonial records - the very first bullet I'm sure I've read before. Probably many times but clearly states to not research your ancestor but to research the ***jurisdictions*** and records. Well, duh! Makes sense but I'm totally guilty of what she said NOT to do.
   
   Well sourced, tons of references -- this was published in 2006. I'm delighted I ordered this book -- I haven't even read it in any detail yet and absolutely KNOW it is going to be one that I reference again and again.

4 comments about eat.shop rhode island: The Indispensible Guide to Stylishly Unique, Locally Owned Eating and Shopping (eat.shop guides).

1. What I love about this book--and I do love it--is that it's like having an incredibly cool friend. A cool friend who's done a huge amount of legwork to find a ton of restaurants and stores that pass her coolness test and then taken beautiful pictures of them and written about them in a really organized and useful way. It's not trying to be Michelin or Frommers or some stuffy authoritative guide. Like any cool person it's got it's own point of view, which is honest and interesting and full of new ideas. In five minutes with this book I found as many interesting new places as I've found in the last few years living in Rhode Island, and so far there hasn't been a dud among them.



2. This book is a revelation. We moved to RI because we suspected there was a vibrant, fun civilization humming away under veneer of Cardi's and I-95....this book confirms our suspicions! The shops and restaurants in it are delightful, fun-- and the writing, which is amusing, does give you a distinct impression of things. We have tried four new restaurants and they were all top-notch; I can't afford to visit too many of the shops, because the 2 guide-approved ones I've tried triggered shopaholism. Great book.



3. This is a very insightful book that goes beyond the usual Providence 'Bling' restaurants and uncovers some great local flavor. Oak, for example, is probably my favorite restaurant--not only in Providence, but maybe in the whole world--and the author clearly recognizes its quality. Chef John Cully's inventiveness and hospitality also comes through loud and clear. Bravo!



4. I very rarely send a book back, but I did this one. It should have been called "Restaurants in Providence", as that is what most of the book seemed to cover. I have lived in Tiverton and Little Compton for twenty years, and found nothing that I did not already know. It certainly did not cover the state comprehensively.

5 comments about The Minute Men: The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution (History of War).

1. The Minute Men, by Major John R. Galvin
   
   The "embattled farmers" of Concord and Lexington were part of a vast colonial army with a long tradition of organization and training going back to the early 17th century as defenders against Indian attacks. Most of this book is about "the shot heard round the world" on April 19, 1775. The 'Prologue' says a lot of legends and anecdotes have obscured the reality. The Minute Men and militia were well organized, commanded, and controlled from nearly constant warfare over 140 years. The militia system was changed to meet varying conditions (p.13). Minute Men were drawn from the militia, trained and equipped to assemble rapidly for combat (p.14). This concept was adopted by the other colonies (p.15). Chapter 1 tells how the needs of the times created changes in the Colonial militia (pp.21-22). The Indian wars fostered cooperation between the towns (Chapter 2). The end of King Philip's War was followed by 80 years of intermittent warfare (p.31). A bounty was paid for every Indian scalp (p.33); they were vulnerable in winter times but not defenseless (p.35). This training and experience would be needed in the future (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 discusses some of the events in the French and Indian War.
   
   The conquest of Canada saw the Colonies turning to discuss politics and their right of self-governance (p.49). There was a list of common grievances (p.50). Ministers took the lead in opposition to British policies (p.53). The closing of Boston port and the massive attack on the old charter lead to a change in political opinion among the people (Chapter 5). Chapter 6 tells of the demonstration at Worcester against the Intolerable Acts; it show how united the Colonists were in defense of their rights. This led to the new militia system: all officers chosen by the people in each regiment; one-third of the men ready to act at a minute's warning (pp.64-65). Resistance grew in the fall of 1774. Chapter 7 describes how this new militia was adopted (p.71). The adoption of elected officers led to an improved sense of involvement and responsibility, and the elimination of Crown loyalists. Weapon handling was more important than parade drills (p.73), but earnest training began in 1774. The British regular regiments had little combat experience (p.75). General Gage received wishful advice from the Tories of Boston (p.103). On April 16 General Gage was told to attack Concord where the Provincial Congress was meeting, and guns, powder and other supplies were stored.
   
   Chapter 12 to 26 tell of the historical events of that day with more details than in any general history. The militia at Lexington were in formation on the green, not blocking the roads or in ambush. They did not expect an attack, but it happened. The British then marched to Concord. Faced with a larger force of militia, they returned back to Boston while under continual fire. They were saved by a relief column from Boston, which was attacked in turn. Chapter 27 tells of the aftermath, Chapter 28 of the use of the concept for the New Army (men ready to assemble on a minute's notice). This ready reserve would "reinforce the continental army".
   
   Chapter 29 sums up the Minute Men. Few then or now realized there was "a well-organized, well-equipped, and relatively well-trained army of 14,000 men". It is a myth that the minute men "fought well with no organization, no equipment, no training, and no planning" (p.256). The minute man concept went back over a century in the various wars. Galvin says the legends and anecdotes often conceal hidden information (p.258) [like history as entertainment rather than information]. I think this legend was created in the late 19th century when our "well-regulated militia" came under attack form the newly powerful corporate aristocracy. History was censored for their purposes.



2. I am an admitted history nut of the American Colonial/Revolutionary period and have at least a couple dozen books on the period and this is one of the best. The writer is a career high ranking military member and brings a different slant to the story of the minute men and their place in our country's history. He looks deeply into their origins and their history leading up to and through the battles of Lexington and Concord. If you are going to read only one book on this subject this is the one.



3. John Galvin's "The Minute Men" is a well researched, well written, and an extremely interesting and important work on the American Revolution.
   
   In his book, Galvin, a soldier of distinction (he retired as a four-star general, having served as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe), a historian, and a native of Massachusetts debunks a number of myths surrounding the New England Minutemen. He shows that both the Minute Man concept and the alarm systems that mustered more than 14,000 men, who, marching and fighting in companies and regiments, defeated a British column of some 1,000 men at Lexington and Concord, were deeply embedded in Colonial history and culture.
   
   The authors makes a strong case that the Minute Men were better led and more experienced than their British counterparts, many of them having served in the Seven Years War alongside the British, against the French and their Indian allies.
   
   In comparison, most of the British soldiers, despite the long history of their regiments, were either new recruits or had never seen combat before. The fact that the first American volley at Concord bridge sent a British company there into headlong flight, stunning their officers, is proof of the inexperience of the red coated regulars.
   
   After Lexington and Concord, British intelligence showed that the New England colonies alone could put some 30,000 men in the field of combat, without affecting the farming ability of the colonies. By the end of the Revolutionary War, Massachusetts alone had contributed some 26 of the 80 regiments raised for the Continental Army. And the small Colony contributed more than 620 private fighting ships to the American cause.
   
   "Minute Men" is an easy and fun read and ranks among the top ten books on the American Revolution. Anyone interested in the beginnings of American independence should start here.



4. When George the 3rd decided to impose tyranny upon the American Colonies, one of the many things he did was to begin dismantling the existential threat to his rule: the local militia system. General John Galvin, US Army, Retired, has done a wonderful job of describing not only the Special Forces units of that militia - the Minute Men - but also the first battle of the American Revolution, the 20-mile running ambush called Lexington & Concord.
   
   The self-defense system of the colonial period was composed of two parts: the general militia, which could be considered regular troops, and the Minute Men, a special force of militia ready at a minute's notice and specially trained for rapid response, assault, and communication - much like today's Special Forces. Much of the battle on April 19, 1775 was fought by Minute Men, and it was they who fired the first American shots at the Concord Bridge.
   
   Gen. Galvin spends a few chapters describing the evolution of the minute man concept - a council of war, ready at a minute's warning, with a decentralized command structure and integrated communications system, then proceeds into a detailed description of the battle. Despite their lack of technology, Minute Men were extremely adept at what they trained for, and highly capable - even if their enemy did not think of them as such. This difference in attitude is particularly well described, as Galvin shows not only that it takes training and equipment to be an effective soldier, but attitude as well. The Americans had the attitude of soldiers preparing for war, while the British Redcoats had an attitude of contempt towards their enemy's supposed inferiority.
   
   Fred, of Fred's M14 Stocks, is fond of saying that April 19th, 1775 was the date when "marksmanship met history, and liberty was born". While this is true (the Americans were much better shots than the Redcoats) there were other aspects of the battle that played perfectly into the hands of the Americans. For instance, the British suffered not only from disunited command throughout the day, but also allowed the Americans time to assemble, reinforce, and prepare ambushes. Galvin's description of the battle is extremely detailed, omitting nothing.
   
   For some reason, I wrote a lot of marginalia in this book, something I'm not prone to do. The text lends itself to that, with it's short and succinct chapters, well summarized ending paragraphs, and easy readability. A war college could easily adopt this as a text for a specialized class on tactics, or general study of the battles of the Revolution. If your interests cover either, you should pick this up, for it is well worth your time.



5. This is a review for John Galvin's "The Minute Men." The author deserves credit for presenting a different perspective on the nature of the Minute Men and their role in the period just before the Revolutionary War. He makes a strong case for his theory and provides a scholarly approach to an important period in American history. I also appreciated an excellent index for locating individuals and the cited pages. The presentation would be of greatest value to readers interested in military strategy and history. This was not particularly my interest leading to my score. I was a little overwhelmed with the numerous names of military leaders given & lost track of who was who and sometimes which side they were on. It might have been helpful to have included occasional figures showing the chain of command of key individuals and the towns or armies they represented.

1 comments about Women Before the Bar: Gender, Law, and Society in Connecticut, 1639-1789.

1. Dayton's book argues that, in terms of courtroom cases, women in colonial Connecticut fared better under Puritan legal ideas than later when the laws became more like those in England. She takes the reader through five kinds of cases that involved women to show the changes in the law over time. Her style is easy to read, and she uses anecdotes about specific cases to illustrate her points. A very unique study, unlike any that I have encountered in colonial American history.

2 comments about Sightings.

1. Although the islands off the Maine coast have been photographed many times, no one has captured the islands and their people like Peter Ralston in Sightings: A Maine Coast Odyssey. There is a fundamental honesty and integrity to these photographs unavailable anywhere else. The beauty of the photographs comes from the tension between an unforgiving environment and the rugged individualism of the remaining year-round island residents' struggle to survive a declining fish population and a growing, homogenizing second-home tourist population. Sightings reflects Peter Ralston's unique perspective as both an observer and a participant in attempts to maintain the islander's unique way of life.
   
   Peter's humility and willingness to let the islands and their residents to speak for themselves results in deceptively-simple photographs which gain impact with each repeated viewing. The simplest photographs involve the viewer by inviting speculation about both past and the future. Sightings also chronicles with brief, unobtrusive text Peter Ralston's role as co-founder of the Island Institute and an artistic eye fined-tuned by his personal friendship with the Wyeth family.



2. I'm not big on coffee table books, nor am I really big on photo coffee table books, but when we saw this book in Camden, Maine, we had to pick it up. The pictures in this book are stunning, and they reveal Maine in a way that most tourists never get to see.
   
   This book is not a collection of the same 30 pictures you see on postcards and prints whenever you go to Costal Maine. Instead, it reveals seldom-visited islands off the coast, pictures of fishermen and lobstermen doing their daily rounds, and popular tourist destinations (Boothbay, Camden, Rockland) in the dead of winter. The Maine nobody but the locals get to see. This photographer has got quite an eye, and an uncanny way of catching feeling in even the most seemingly benign photos. He beautifully captures the feel of Monhegan in a picture that simply shows dozens of sheets blowing on clotheslines. He even manages to turn what would be seen as grotesque by the average tourist, such as the skull of a cormorant, or the mass of feathers from a dead seagull, into surprisingly beautiful captures of the Maine coast. This is a book of few words, mainly letting the pictures do all the talking (which is good, because what words there are in the book are sort of... Schmaltzy).
   
   This book captures the beauty of the Maine coast with photos of the coast at sunrise, the sea during a storm, and lobster traps submerged underwater, but also carries with it at times a mournful feel, as he also captures the longing for a time long departed from the coast. Abandoned schoolhouses, fallen barns, and desolate tourist attractions in the dead of winter provide a somber glimpse of the life experienced by the locals, but never seen by the average visitor. You get the definite impression that if the real coast of Maine, which reflects the lives of its residents and the true identity of the coast away from heavily walked tourist Mecca, were put into a book, it'd be this book.
   
   I'm truly glad that we plopped down the money to get this book, in spite of its rather high price. This book represents the Maine my husband and I know from our trips, and is a refreshing break from standard tourist takes on an area we personally know and love.

5 comments about Gossip Hound.

1. Does anyone else notice this awful trend of brainless, drunken and sexually indiscriminate "heroines"? "Bridget Jones" was funny and likable. The characters of "Gossip Hound", as well as those of a host of other so-called "women's fiction" are utterly insulting. The whole point of this book and others like it seems to be to show supposedly educated urban 20- and 30-something women who make the stupidest amd most self-destructive choices at every possible opportunity.
   The main character of this book (I swear I read it yesterday and I can't remember her name) is a publicist. She cheats on her neglectful boyfriend during a drunken one-night stand with her client. She seems to be interested in the client, but somehow keeps making the worst and most ill-informed choices for his career and stays with the boyfriend because he's "better looking" (I'm not kidding).
   Later, she breaks up with the boyfriend, but only after learning he's been cheating (nevermind that she hasn't heard from him in a month).
   She then has a bizarre, wholly inexplicable 3-day fling with a movie star, somehow actually believes he's in love with her, and is shocked to discover that he isn't.
   Then, she tumbles back to the one-night stand guy because he happens to be there when she wants to hide from movie star guy.
   And that's just the main character. You don't even want to know about the ridiculous gossip columnist.
   And what the heck was that running gag about stepping on Louis De Bernieres' foot?
   What a bad book!



2. WARNING: If you are considering reading this book, this comment might give away some plot points.
   
   There are two parts to this comment: The first is about Holden's writing style, and the second is about her plot and characters.
   
   Five stars for Holden's narrative style, which cuts to the marrow with delicious sarcasm and humor. Her descriptions of various socialites and the catty, whispered conversations between them at literary events cracked me up. Holden created and captured a world in which shallowness is a virtue, and her subtle and crafty use of language enriched Gossip Hound's world brilliantly to that end.
   
   Unfortunately, I not only appreciate clever writing, but I'm also something of a feminist, and it's a bit of a letdown from that point of view. I found the main character, Grace, to be disappointingly weak, and most other female characters to have traits that ranged from sluttishness to enormous superficiality to downright evil. The men were not so well developed in their vices, making it seem as though there's a shallow subculture of women constantly trying to one-up each other, while men always play by the rules and never, ever get into pissing contests with one another. Yeah, right.
   
   I did enjoy the fact that the Texan, though he was the sterotypical brash sort with bull heads mounted on the wall (we're not all like that, I swear!), wound up being a pretty decent guy.
   
   Essentially, Gossip Hound is a charicature of one small slice of modern culture. Don't take it too seriously, listen to the language and have a good time with it.



3. Wendy Holden entertains with her witty writing and, as I am a woman, I never feel so "girly" as I do when I read the tales of her heroines.
   This portrayal isn't as clever as some of Holden's other protagonists but the pages fly by.



4. I couldn't believe how bad this is, and also - how many good reviews it got. First, it's the kind of average writing that makes one wonder why it got published in the first place. Second, in this book Wendy Holden continually bashes writers of chick novels (?), and repeatedly dogs Louis de Bernieres at one point, even disses Corelli's Mandolin - a far better work for many reasons (though i don't particularly enjoy his writing either). Third, she relies on silly one-liners that by now are so old, being used in every chick-lit book coming out of Britain. Finally, and most annoying, she puns constantly but not wittily. I say that because she sets the situation up with names and places and then delivers the pun - as if you couldn't think of it yourself - and comes off as a "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" to the reader that is tiresome. No doubt, the book would've been much smarter if she resisted this urge. Unfortunately a lot of women's light romance writers seem to be punsters of this ilk. They just don't get the difference between this kind of punning and Kathy Lette -- who actually can pun off of real life, not having to set up her own jokes beforehand. When Kathy Lette started this in the 90's and helen fielding basically stole her plot lines, it created a monster! Now everyone thinks they can do this ... and apparently they're making good money trying.



5. The only reason I bothered finishing this book is that I was on an 11 hour flight and had nothing else to do. Every plot point was so obvious the reader could see it coming like a freight train. How did this get published?

2 comments about Surveying the Shore: Historic Maps of Coastal Massachusetts, 1600-1930.

1. If you like maps, or if you like the history of the Massachusetts shore, you'll love this book by Joseph Garver. Eighty-nine map plates are each beautifully reproduced on a single 8x12 inch page, with a facing page--usually just one--that explains the map. Thus the book is not a detailed scholarly account of either the mapmakers or their subject. At the same time, the explanations are concise, elegant, and erudite, with wonderful pearls that explain how the maps came to be made and about what the maps can tell us of the changing history of the towns. It is more cohesive than Mapping Boston, and more accessible than McCorkle's New England in Early Printed Maps. Garvers is the reference librarian of the Harvard Map Collection, and it shows, both in the broad collection of maps he has located from ten different collections, and in the deep knowledge of mapmaking revealed in the text.



2. great book except that the maps are too small. I don't understand why all the maps needed to be orientated up, it means that most of the pages are 75% blank white paper and thus make the maps extremely small and hard to read. Kinda strange for a map book?
   
   
   great book, but whoever was the layout editor should be fired...

2 comments about Tall Trees, Tough Men: A Vivid, Anecdotal History of Logging and Log-Driving in New England.

1. This was a great little book packed with history of the lumber business in America. The content was easy to read and educational. The stories of hardship and true grit of the early pioneers of New England was very entertaining. A good read for those interested the outdoors, early America and the lumber industry.



2. After visiting the Great North woods of New Hampshire for the last 12 years, and learning of my ancestors involvement in the logging industry, I decided to purchase this book and was greatly impressed by the varied stories of life in the lumber camp and on the drives. Though the different jobs were skimmed over in description, it gave a good look into the past. Oh to be a fly in the woods in those days. Very enjoyable reading.

2 comments about First Light: Acadia National Park and Maine's Mount Desert Island.

1. This book is superb. Packed with spectacular photography and interesting essays regarding Mount Desert Island's history, geography, and ecology. The print quality is first rate; kudos to the publisher. A very inspiring volume which reminds us how important it is to have places like Mount Desert Island and Acadia. Highly recommended from a resident of Maine.



2. I took this book with me last month when our camera club went on a January trip to Acadia National Park. The photography is outstanding and inspirational to say the least! We visited many of the places shown in this book and were able to take wonderful pictures ourselves. This book inspires one to visit Acadia at any time of the year and I highly recommend it to any photographer or persons who are planning a visit to Mount Dessert Island.