2 comments about The Big Green Apple: Your Guide to Eco-Friendly Living in New York City.

1. I picked up this book about 2 weeks ago and I am halfway through it and I love it.
   
   It explains the details of food labels and outlines little things you can do in NYC to help make the world one step closer to being sustainable.
   
   Check it out, plus its only $10



2. This book truly is the Bible for "Green" living in New York City. Has info and advice on food, electricty, transportation, waste, workplace and so much more. Also has a great directory of "green" businesses and organizations throughout the city.
   
   What's best: it's not all preachy and bossy. Real nice tone, pleasant, funny and casual. So easy to read and start making your NYC life greener!

No comments about Zagat 2008 New York City Book & Map Pack.

2 comments about Spooky New York: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore (Spooky).

1. New York has a rich heritage of folklore. The author of Spooky New York has picked 30 great stories to share. My favorites are story number 4 entitled "Redemption", story number 9, called "The Rising of Gouverneur Morris" and story number 21 called "Henry Hudson and the Kaatskill Gnomes". The book has 30 stories and all 30 are told in an interesting manner, some of the stories have surprise endings. A few popular folklore legends are recounted such as "The Maid of the Mist". This is a great story to read for anyone visiting Niagara Falls. The story provides some background material and reads in an interesting manner. If you are planning a visit to the Rochester area the first story in the book called "The White Lady of the Lake" may interest you. The setting for the story is the Durand - Eastman Park. The park is on Lake Ontario, a great setting for a picnic. You may even be able to find the stair's mentioned in the story. There are several great stories about the New York City area, There's an Empire State Building ghost story, a story about buried treasure on Liberty Island and many more fasinating tales. I highly recommend this book.



2. I really enjoyed Schlosser's latest book. I own the whole series, and I read Spooky New York as soon as it arrived from Amazon (which happened to be a traditional dark and stormy night.) There were a couple of stories, High Hat and the Hermit's House in particular, that troubled my dreams that night! Of course, typical of Schlosser, there were also some characters that made me chuckle out loud.
   
   Quite a number of stories took place around New York City. I had no idea that Central Park, the Empire State Building, and Ellis Island had ghost stories associated with them. Also, Captain Kidd left buried treasure on Liberty Island, the Devil had a fiddle contest in Brooklyn, a monster once roamed Wall Street, and a Revolutionary War hero rose from his Bronx grave to defend his widow and baby son.
   
   Highly recommended!

No comments about Inside New York 2008 (Inside New York).

2 comments about New York: Capital of Photography.

1. New York: Capital of Photography is one of those rare books that takes on a difficult subject and carries it off so well that more is achieved than any reader could normally expect.

   The subject is New York City in the 20th century. How did the most prominent and highly respected photographers look at and capture the Big Apple? That's the subject here. The only photographers that you might have expected to be in the book that aren't are Diane Arbus, Roy DeCarava and Robert Frank -- due to disputes with Ms. Arbus's daughter and the latter two photographers. So it?s quite complete.

   I am a photography fan, and was familiar with most of the photographers covered in the book. But I found the book built on my previous understanding of their work by exposing me to works that I had not seen before and by carefully explaining those works. Some may be disappointed that many iconographic works are not included here . . . but many of those are referenced in Max Kozloff's essay. So you'll see them indirectly in your mind.

   The plates capture many different focuses for photography, different styles, varieties of techniques and equipment, and different philosophies about the purpose of photography. As such, they present a catalog of the whole field of photography in the last century. That catalog is more valuable because it concentrates on one subject . . . in many different dimensions.

   Frankly, how do you capture New York on film? You can't. Most photographers tried to capture tiny elements that express universal truths. Some succeeded in timeless ways while others created time-limited archives of the past.

   As wonderful as the photographs are, the essay by Max Kozloff is what sets this book apart from other photography books. It's as though he gives you a personal tour of the show and answers your questions about the photographers and the plates in as much detail as you want. Almost every plate is discussed and some figures are added for context as well. Seeing the collection through his eyes was like suddenly being loaned an advanced degree in photography studies. Enlivened by this education, I'm sure my eye will always notice more about fine photography when I see it displayed in the future.

   I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of this field. In addition, I strongly urge New Yorkers to get copies. The sights captured here will trigger many important memories.

   As I finished this wonderful volume, I thought about how fortunate photography students would be if their teachers used this book as a source . . . and then assigned the students to photograph New York.




2. Had really no time to finalize the book so far, however, quick overview: as always, one of the most original authors on photography (along with Ian Jeffrey), Max Kozloff exploits the depth of the medium with exceptional originality and taste. I would highly recommend to anyone interested in the medium of photography as such as well as to those interested in excellent criticism of nowadays.

No comments about BlackBook Guide to New York 2008 (BlackBook Guide series).

No comments about Artwise Manhattan Museum Map - Laminated Museum Map of Manhattan, NY - Streetwise Maps (Artwise).

1 comments about The New York Botanical Garden.

1. This is a great book for garden lovers and designers alike. Superb design, high quality paper, wonderful, sharp photos, excellent colors. The book covers the history of the New York Botanical Gardens, but also includes lovely botanical prints, stunning photos of many of the different gardens and plants, and is a real inspiration to any nature and plant lover. Highly recommend, to me absolutely worth every penny of the "new copy" Amazon price.

5 comments about At Sea in the City: New York from the Water's Edge.

1. City University of New York Professor Kornblum pays homage to what he describes as the New York archipelago. The full city consists mostly of three large islands, a bunch of small islands, and a peninsular. Professor Kornblum takes readers on a tour of the various waterways that tie the city together. Readers visit City Island off the Bronx Peninsular, Ellis and Liberty islands off lower Manhattan Island, and the Rikers Island Prison as well as several much smaller and less known rocks within the waterways. The author provides historical references and a crystal ball look into the future where nature in the present is fighting to regain a foothold from the vast urbanization. AT SEA IN THE CITY is an engaging look at the Big Apple from a different lens as the highways cross waters connecting the city such as the "byway" from Fulton St. in lower Manhattan to Fulton St. Brooklyn. Not just for natives, this is a wonderfully different perspective on New York that makes for a leisurely yet educational and enjoyable reading.

   Harriet Klausner




2. The author, a sociology professor at City University of New York, was raised in the Big Apple and has lived most of his life in the area. In 1979 he bought a 24-foot New England catboat, built on Cape Cod in 1910, and proceeded to fix it and sail it around the New York area.

   With this book he presents a portrait -- and sketchy history -- of the city from an angle few people know it. Structuring the story as a fairly continuous though interrupted sail from his home in Long Beach, around the southern tip of Rockaway and into Jamaica Bay, then into Upper New York Bay and the East River, and ultimately to Long Island Sound, Kornblum offers both close-up looks at the water and shoreline, and their past history.

   The approach is light and pleasant: Few stories -- whether of the freezing disaster of the privateer "Castel Del Rey" in New York harbor in 1704, knowledgeable black sailors impressed by the British Navy in the War of 1812 and jailed in England for refusing to serve against the US, various ferry disasters, or the vagaries of Robert Moses -- last more than a page or three. The only sections where Kornblum lingers are in Jamaica Bay (its environmental degradation and return), and the dockside concrete industry that built New York's towers and for which the author worked as a kid. Manhattan itself is quickly bypassed though given a loving nod, and there is no venturing into the Hudson side.

   In the typo sweepstakes, the book does all right, although it says "mechanical break" on p. 156 when "brake" was meant, and I believe I saw an unintended sentence fragment on p. 143. Most egregious, the great A.J. Liebling is identified on p. 103 as "Libeling" (though the name is correct in the bibliography)! A pity there apparently are youthful editors (I don't suppose there is such a thing as a proofreader in publishing anymore) who do not know this great journalist's work backward and forward.

   Another ominous development -- to this reader, anyway -- is that the lovely cover photograph is an unreal composite. Different photographers are credited for different portions of it. I find this vaguely disturbing.

   The writing is definitely four-star quality or better. Here's my favorite passage: "Up another shadowy bend stood two snowy egrets, with their outrageous yellow boots and platinum punk haircuts. How chic, these mudbank sushi bars. The egrets were spearing for sand bugs, moving along the edge of the marsh with the herky giant steps of students at a party stepping over empty beer cans."

   I give the book only three stars because it is slight. Probably an excellent gift for the average non-reader who happens to love sailing or New York City, or the casual reader who knows little about either, but I would have liked to know more.




3. This is the account of a sailboat cruise, but rather than crossing an ocean the author travels maybe 40 miles from home, into the maelstrom that is NY harbor. It's an interesting book, sort of, but I expected more history of the harbor, more about what the place is, and less of the author's personal experience.

   I expected the former thanks to a review in the NY Times, I think -- some newspaper, anyway -- that suggested it was less an ecological than an historical journey. Without this preconception, I probably would have liked the book more. If you're from NYC, it's worth a read, but there are many better sailing accounts if you want hairy-chested adventure, or to learn something about sailing in general. There are also better books about ecology of the shoreline.

   But the style is pleasant and the author seems like a man who would be an enjoyable sailing companion. That's worth three stars.




4. This is a delightful view of some of the Big Apple's waterfront. William Kornblum writes well, and I am pleased to meet the family, friends, and acquaintances of his journey. Having explored much of our city, and having studied many of the coasts from opposite shorelines, I nevertheless learned much from Kornblum's views from his catboat. I also enjoyed his flash-backs, particularly his days as a youth working at the Transit Mix dock. As another reader noted, the book has a few errors that should have been caught. The A train travels neither through The Bronx nor over Williamsburg Bridge (p. 91). In Red Hook, the parish school is within the Brooklyn diocese, not archdiocese (p. 122). When I find errors on topics I know well, I begin to worry that the publishing industry has a problem with fact-checking in non-fiction. Yet, I must say that this book is a thoroughly enjoyable meeting of humans, views, and story. I recommend this book as a gift.



5. I recommend this book, especially to those who know a little about New York City and about sailing. I like the writing style and the descriptions of New York as seen from the water.

No comments about Fly Fishing Long Island: A Comprehensive Guide to Freshwater & Saltwater Angling (Countryman Guide).