Fishing 1 by 1

posted by admin on Feb 27

Editorial Reviews

In an era of testosterone-charged adventure tales, Byron Ricks’s Homelands: Kayaking the Inside Passage is a wonderfully introspective adventure-travel memoir. In 1996 Ricks and his wife, Maren van Nostrand, came close to making an offer on their first house, but instead decided to undertake an adventure of a different kind together–kayaking from Alaska’s Glacier Bay down the coast of Western Canada to southern Puget Sound, near their Seattle home. They had no set schedule to keep and for five months lived by nautical charts and the rhythms of the tides, wind, and weather. Their plan was to paddle from the glaciers to the city, exploring a coast in flux and the ways of native peoples such as the Tlinglit, Tsimshian, and Haida–whose ancestors paddled the passage for centuries. The driving question of Homelands is this: how does the act of making a very long journey home, in this case by paddle–at an average velocity of a mere three knots–affect one’s concept of home? This ocean-size question is fed by smaller tributaries: Do overcoming peril and danger make the rewards of coming home greater? How do native inhabitants encountered along the way relate to their homeland? What do you do when you’re camped in a bear’s back yard? And what are the issues facing a husband and wife setting out across vast expanses of open water to confront–in the most literal sense–what lies beyond?

A journalist with a background in history and anthropology, Ricks is gifted with both a keen eye and a poetic ear. The tale is written in diary form, and its voice originates in the pace of the kayak: tranquil, steady, respectful. An easygoing and astute companion, Ricks is clearly an old soul–with questions well worth asking and some lovely observations to share. –Kimberly Brown

From Publishers Weekly
In a book that is sometimes invigorating and sometimes maddeningly attenuated, Ricks recounts the five-month journey from Alaska’s Glacier Bay to Washington’s Puget Sound that he and his wife made by sea kayak. Ricks is obviously as well studied in the geology and the ecology of the terrain as he is blithely realistic about his ability to impose his plans upon it, bandying terms like “bathymetry” and “isostatic rebound” as freely as “ibuprofen.” But while Ricks, an outdoors writer who lives in the Northwest, occasionally shows descriptive power worthy of John McPhee, the book’s diary-entry structure limits his creativity, prevents inventive shifts in scene and leaves the narrative leaden in spots. Through his talks with people along the route, Ricks comes to an understanding of the term “homeland” not as something static but as a word that “speaks to the kind of relationship a people have with their place.” With this interpretation, Ricks tries to find a connection to his own country even as he spends his voyage’s last day paddling through a scum of oily water and past an island prison with high walls and razor wire. The book truly conveys the experiences of a long journey through remarkable terrain. Readers will share some of Ricks’s elation over natural beauty and hard-won insight. But they will also be frustrated by a narrative that is as unnecessarily arduous as the journey it recounts was inevitably so. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Order Homelands: Kayaking the Inside Passage: Byron Ricks form Amazon.

posted by admin on Feb 25

Editorial Reviews

Review
“Possesses . . . the romantic charm of Robinson Crusoe.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Possesses . . . the romantic charm of Robinson Crusoe.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson — Review

Review
"Possesses . . . the romantic charm of Robinson Crusoe."
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Order Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea (Modern Library Classics): Richard Henry Dana Jr., Gary Kinder form Amazon.

posted by admin on Feb 19

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Wanting to explore Europe’s last wilderness, Took, an art historian and museum curator, made numerous trips during the 1990s to the far northwest corner of the Russian Federation and evocatively recounts his journey. Traveling alone, he camped, stayed in deplorable hotels and lived with the few people in Russian Lapland who would invite a stranger into their homes. First he went to the interior to find the Saami, the indigenous people who have herded reindeer for thousands of years in a region that is still rich with wildlife. Then, ignoring warnings that the area was too dangerous, he went to the northern coast, a restricted military zone. Although he was not always successful at evading the patrols and border guards, he managed to see some of the decaying nuclear-powered submarines and nuclear reactors that are rotting along the grim coast of the Barents Sea. He also visited Monchegorsk, home to nickel-processing plants that have polluted thousands of square kilometers as far away as Finland, Sweden and Norway, and went on an expedition with an organization doing research on Soviet forced labor camps. His wide-ranging book encompasses thousands of years of Russian Lapland’s history, from the time when the Saami lived in harmony with nature to today, when a region whose traditional ways were devastated by Soviet collectivism is now succumbing to the economic problems that beset modern Russia. This is a fascinating, albeit bleak, portrait of a largely unknown part of the world. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
This is the first detailed description of life on Russia’s Kola Peninsula in nearly 100 years. After the fall of Communism, the author, a British art historian and museum curator, read an article that described Russian Lapland (also known as the Murmansk Region) as a vast, uninterrupted, natural landscape. “I was hooked,” Took writes. Armed with a crash course in Russian and some self-preservation training–he learned, among other things, “about killing people before they could kill me”–he set off into a region where there were few roads and where he knew no one, traveling alone in a military zone. Combining traditional travelogue with history, Took brings this little-known piece of Russia vividly to life, placing it in its political and social context. Lapland is a region struggling to enter the twenty-first century, with naval bases housing decrepit nuclear submarines, with villagers descended from medieval traders. Recommend this one more to readers of politics and history than to fans of lighthearted travel memoirs, although there are moments here that will appeal to the latter. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Order Running with Reindeer: Encounters in Russian Lapland: Roger Took form Amazon.

posted by admin on Feb 19

Editorial Reviews

The Illinois frontier offered abundant opportunity, noted English traveler William Oliver after his journey to America in 1841–42, but life there was hard. Accordingly, Oliver advised the wealthy and comfortable to remain in England and counseled the unprosperous to seek their fortunes in America. Written for the poor who would migrate and published in 1843, his Eight Months in Illinois: With Information to Immigrants sought only to provide pertinent, valid, and practical information about what people might encounter in the frontier state. What Oliver actually accomplished, however, was much more: he imparted invaluable insights into and analyses of American life during an era of sweeping social, economic, and political change.

In his new foreword to this edition, James E. Davis stresses Oliver’s sincere desire to help British immigrants succeed in America. Oliver, Davis notes, “devoted dozens of pages of advice on numerous matters: various routes to Illinois and their advantages and disadvantages, processes of settling, qualities of western houses, costs of obtaining a new farm.” Oliver discussed other practical matters, such as the importance of having sons. He also assured his intended readership that “in the West, distinction of classes is little known and seldom recognized.”

As a document covering the middle west in the 1840s, Eight Months in Illinois: With Information to Immigrants has few equals. Its portrayal of farming and trade in relatively primitive times is historically accurate. It paints a plain picture, laying out the essential facts and presenting the typical incidents that enable us to trace the course of a settler’s simple, diligent, laborious day-to-day life. According to Davis, Oliver depicted “accurate and balanced slices of life in Illinois and America, including nasty insects, crude conditions, and the necessity of work.” And he did so without a trace of anti-American bias.

Eight Months in Illinois with Information to Immigrants was reprinted with emendations in 1924 by Walter Hill.

From the Publisher
The Illinois frontier offered abundant opportunity, noted English traveler William Oliver after his journey to America in 1841-42, but life there was hard. Accordingly, Oliver advised the wealthy and comfortable to remain in England and counseled the unprosperous to seek their fortunes in America. Written for the poor who would migrate and published in 1843, his Eight Months in Illinois: With Information to Immigrants sought only to provide pertinent, valid, and practical information about what people might encounter in the frontier state. What Oliver actually accomplished, however, was much more: he imparted invaluable insights into and analyses of American life during an era of sweeping social, economic, and political change.

In his new foreword to this edition, James E. Davis stresses Oliver’s sincere desire to help British immigrants succeed in America. Oliver, Davis notes, “devoted dozens of pages of advice on numerous matters: various routes to Illinois and their advantages and disadvantages, processes of settling, qualities of western houses, costs of obtaining a new farm.” Oliver discussed other practical matters, such as the importance of having sons. He also assured his intended readership that “in the West, distinction of classes is little known and seldom recognized.” As a document covering the middle west in the 1840s, Eight Months in Illinois: With Information to Immigrants has few equals. Its portrayal of farming and trade in relatively primitive times is historically accurate. It paints a plain picture, laying out the essential facts and presenting the typical incidents that enable us to trace the course of a settler’s simple, diligent, laborious day-to-day life. According to Davis, Oliver depicted “accurate and balanced slices of life in Illinois and America, including nasty insects, crude conditions, and the necessity of work.” And he did so without a trace of anti-American bias. Eight Months in Illinois with Information to Immigrants was reprinted with emendations in 1924 Walter Hill edition.

Order Eight Months in Illinois (Shawnee Classics (Reprinted)): William Oliver, James E Davis form Amazon.

posted by admin on Feb 17

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
SignatureReviewed by Robert Sullivan. As opposed to the Pilgrims, Tony Horwitz begins his journey at Plymouth Rock.Plymouth Rock is a myth. The Pilgrims—who, Horwitz notes, were on a mission that was based less on freedom and the schoolbook history ideas the president of the United States typically mentions when he pardons a turkey at the White House and more on finding a cure for syphilis—may or may not have noticed it. In about 1741, a church elder in Plymouth, winging it, pointed out a boulder that is now more like a not-at-all-precious stone. Three hundred years later, people push and shove to see it in summer tourist season, wearing T-shirts that say, America’s Hometown. Which eventually leads an overstimulated (historically speaking) Horwitz to come close to starting a fight in a Plymouth bar. Not to Virginians it isn’t, he writes. Or Hispanics or Indians.Forget all the others, his bar mate says loudly. This is the friggin’ beginning of America!A Voyage Long and Strange is a history-fueled, self-imposed mission of rediscovery, a travelogue that sets out to explore the surprisingly long list of explorers who discovered America, and what discovered means anyway, starting with the Vikings in A.D. 1000, and ending up on the Mayflower. Horwitz (Blue Latitudes; Confederates in the Attic) even dons conquistador gear, making the narrative surprisingly fun and funny, even as he spends a lot of time describing just how badly Columbus and subsequently the Spanish treated people. (Highpoint: a trip to a Columbus battle site in the Dominican Republic, when Horwitz gets stuck with a nearly inoperable rental car in a Sargasso Sea of traffic.) In the course of tracing the routes of de Soto in, for instance, Tennessee, and the amazing Cabeza de Vaca (Daniel Day Lewis’s next role?) in Tucson, Ariz., Horwitz drives off any given road to meet the back-to-the-land husband-and-wife team researching Coronado’s expeditions through Mexico; or the Fed Ex guy who may be a link to the lost colonists of the Elizabethan Roanoke expedition.Horwitz can occasionally be smug about what constitutes custom—who’s to say that a Canadian tribe’s regular karaoke night isn’t a community-building exercise as valid as the communal sweat that nearly kills Horwitz early on in his thousands of miles of adventures? But as a character himself, he is friendly and always working hard to listen and bear witness. I hate the whole Thanksgiving story, says a newspaper editor of Spanish descent, a man he meets along the trail of Coronado. We should be eating chili, not turkey. But no one wants to recognize the Spanish because it would mean admitting that they got here decades before the English.Robert Sullivan is the author of Cross Country, How Not to Get Rich and Rats .
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
“A romp through the sixteenth century. . . Horwitz has an ear for a good yarn and an instinct for the trail leading to an entertaining anecdote.” — The Washington Post

“A winning and eye-opening read…. Horwitz’s charm, smarts, impeccable research and curiosity make this a voyage worth taking.” — The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“Accessible to all ages, hands-on and immensely readable, this book invites readers to search out America’s story for themselves.” — Kirkus Reviews

“By conveying our past so heartily, handsomely and winsomely, Tony Horwitz does America proud.” — The Providence Journal

“Funny and lively. . . Popular history of the most accessible sort…. The stories Horwitz tells are full of vivid characters and wild detail.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Honest, wonderfully written, and heroically researched. . . Horwitz unearths whole chapters of American history that have been ignored.” — Boston Globe

“Horwitz writes in a breezy, engaging style, so this combination of popular history and travelogue will be ideal for general readers.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Rich with reading pleasure…. Like travel writer Bill Bryson, Horwitz has a penchant for meeting colorful characters and getting himself into bizarre situations.” — The Christian Science Monitor

“This readable and vastly entertaining history travelogue is highly recommended.” — Library Journal (starred review)

Order A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World: Tony Horwitz form Amazon.

posted by admin on Feb 16

Editorial Reviews

Traces the route, history, and geography of US 20, America’s longest road.

From the Back Cover
“I know US 20, I live on it, grew up near it, commute to work on it, and have run on it most mornings for twenty-five years. It has become the Main Street of my life. I am fond of it, and want to tell its very American story.” — from the Introduction

Whether he’s on foot, in a car, or even in a canoe, Mac Nelson will delight readers with his rambling, westward depiction of America as seen from the shoulders of its longest road, US Route 20. As the “0″ in its route number indicates, US 20 is a coast-to-coast road, crossing twelve states as it meanders 3,300 miles from Boston, Massachusetts, to Newport, Oregon. Nelson, an experienced “shunpiker,” travels west along the Great Road, ruminating on history, literature, scenery, geology, politics, wilderness, the Great Plains, and national parks–whatever the most interesting aspects of a particular region seem to be. Beginning with the great writers and founders of religion in the East who lived and wrote on or near US 20, including Anne Bradstreet, Phyllis Wheatley, and Sylvia Plath, then crossing the plains to the forests, mountains, and deserts of the West, Nelson’s journey on this beloved road is personal and idiosyncratic, serious and comic. More than a mile-by-mile guidebook, Twenty West offers a glimpse of a boyish and very American fascination with the road that will entice the traveler in all of us to take the long way home.

“From New York state to Yellowstone National Park, Nelson visits the ridiculous and the sublime … Twenty West shows plenty and according to Nelson, `There is room for all of us.’” — ForeWord Magazine

“This book is a celebration and a cornucopia of American history and culture. Nelson’s curious and fertile mind runs in many directions as he delivers fascinating stories about such diverse Americans as Buffalo Bill, Joseph Smith, Satchel Paige, George Pullman, Ronald Reagan, and Rutherford B. Hayes, as well as stunning insights into writers from Henry David Thoreau to Emily Dickinson. After the road trip, this is a book to savor by the fire.” — Hedrick Smith, author of The Russians and Rethinking America

“The author’s subject has innate importance; it is a story that until now has been waiting to be told, and it is to the author’s credit that he seized the opportunity.” — Warren Roberts, Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, University at Albany, State University of New York

“I like Mac’s way of combining interesting travel narrative with a wide, free-ranging knowledge of literature, geography, history, and local color. I can hear his voice throughout, and his clear, unique angle of vision.” — Sidner Larson, author of Captured in the Middle: Tradition and Experience in Contemporary Native American Writing

“Neslon’s got it right. He’s an American, along for the ride, from sea to shining sea.” — Diana Hume George, author of The Lonely Other: A Woman Watching America

Order Twenty West: The Great Road Across America: MAC Nelson form Amazon.

posted by admin on Feb 10

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Paris-based journalist O’Shea walked the length of the Western Front of World War I during the summers from 1986 to 1995. The journey was a personal one: both his grandfathers had fought on the front lines. O’Shea began his journey in Nieuport, Belgium, and followed the remains of the trenches some 450 miles to the border of France and Switzerland. Because the tactics of war usually consisted of massed infantry assaults against machine guns and artillery, O’Shea doesn’t provide much historical context. What does emerge from his narrative is a shocking description of what happened on the battlefields. Generals often began offensives that lost some 100,000 men in one month?only to begin the same process the following month. Despite the talk of glory, the war came down to crushing personal losses. The author briskly moves the narrative along, though photographs comparing the battlefields a la William Frassanito (Early Photography at Gettysburg, Thomas, 1995) would have been helpful. An engaging and thought-provoking work; recommended for history buffs.?Mark E. Ellis, Albany State Univ., Ga.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In places the Western Front still slashes across Belgium and France, visible among the cemeteries, ossuaries, and monuments as grassy, cratered terrain, zig-zagging trenches, crumbling pillboxes and forts. O’Shea, while working in publishing trenches in Paris, grew curious about the war’s physical aftermath, and in several trips gathered his observations for this sensitively nuanced tour. For preparation, he steeped himself in the war’s history and got reacquainted with the trench experience of his two Irish grandfathers. Both motifs contribute to the book’s structure, which unfolds geographically as O’Shea hoofs it from the sea to Switzerland, encountering formerly muddy slaughterhouses euphemized as Ypres, the Somme, or Verdun. At each battle area O’Shea summarizes what generals hoped would happen and how they seemingly never learned from what did happen, a mulish obstinacy that palpably angers him. His contemporary vignettes vividly animate the trip, as do his reflections about the meaning of monument making. With this ambulant meditation and protest against militarism, O’Shea has created a high-stature addition to the classic works about the Great War. Gilbert Taylor

Order Back to the Front: An Accidental Historian Walks the Trenches of World War I: Stephen O’Shea form Amazon.

posted by admin on Feb 5

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Coming close on the heels of John Ross’s North America’s Greatest Fishing Lodges (LJ 3/15/98), this book offers librarians the basis for some comparison. Despite the tempting subtitle, Fishing Vacations for All Budgets is anything but complete. For example, Ross lists 43 fishing lodges for Alaska, while Simpson only has 20, and Simpson’s seven resorts in Montana hardly meets Ross’s 29. However, many of Simpson’s resorts are not found in Ross’s collection, and vice versa, so these books end up complementing one another. This book is also more folksy in style and contains photographs of each of the lodges mentioned (Ross’s does not). Simpson further distinguishes himself with plenty of web sites for reference, a section devoted to customer comments for each lodge, and a handy chart alongside each entry for easy access to information about on-site conveniences such as restaurants, children’s activities, and cocktail lounges. Recommended for libraries serving patrons with an active interest in fishing.?Joseph L. Carlson, Vandenberg AFB Lib., Lompoc, CA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
“…H. Lee Simpson’s new book will make sure there are no surprises with your vacation destination’s accommodations and facilities.” — Nick Karas, Outdoor Columnist, Newsday

“…a wealth of information for the traveling angler; a valuable reference for those on the go.” — Steve Quinn, Editor, In-Fisherman Magazine

“…an amazing resource of fishing resorts…including many secret gems. I particularly found the guest comments useful.” — Mark D. Williams, Author, Trout Fishing Sourcebook

“…the perfect planning guide for your next fishing holiday adventure.” — Wisconsin Bookwatch, Midwest Book Review

“Imagine a book that contains everything you need to know to plan and have the fishing vacation of your dreams. This is that book.” — Bob Newman, author of North American Fly-Fishing and Flyfishing Structure, regional editor for Fly Fish America

“Part 1 of this book is a directory of 530 resorts where people can try like crazy to catch the crafty little monsters. Part 2 devotes a full page apeice to more than 140 resorts…described in more detail by paying guests. …tells you what else you can do nearby (when you get fed up with rod and bait) and whether there’s a place to cook your catch…” — Toni Stroud, Staff Writer, Chicago Tribune

“The information on the camps I’ve personally visited is accurate and current. A good place to start your vacation planning.” — R.P. Van Gyetnbeek, Editor, Fly Fishing in Salt Water Magazine

Order Fishing Vacations for All Budgets : Directory of U.S. Fishing Resorts; Authentic Guest-Rated Resort Guide: H. Lee Simpson form Amazon.

posted by admin on Feb 5

Editorial Reviews

From hunting whitetails to grouse, from fishing for trout to perch, this book offers a complete directory of lodges, guides, and outfitters for the outdoorsman or woman who doesn’t want to spend their vacation cursing the bad information they received.

Order Bass Pro Shops Hunting and Fishing Directory: Outfitters, Guides, and Lodges: Marv Fremerman form Amazon.

posted by admin on Jan 30

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
One look at the retro artwork on the cover of this travel tome will tell you what’s in store for you—a visit down memory lane the length of the U.S. Following the 3,000-mile Lincoln Highway—much of it has been replaced or renamed—from New York City’s Times Square to San Francisco Bay, Wallis (Route 66: The Mother Road) expertly captures the oft-forgotten and offbeat sights and tales of an America bypassed by superhighways. Most every town, restaurant, mom-and-pop store the author encounters along The Main Street Across America has seen better days, but Wallis still takes the time to celebrate their classic architecture and down-home recipes. With an eye for details and a gift for storytelling, he moves just as smoothly between the role of tour guide and yarn spinner as he does between the road’s history and its current incarnation. The juxtaposition between old and new is further underlined by the presentation of classic images and new photographs by Williamson. With a chapter dedicated to each of the 13 states that the highway passes through, this book will delight those looking to uncover their local roots as well as adventurers yearning for that American rite of passage—a cross-country road trip. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
If you liked Wallis’ Route 66, you’ll love The Lincoln Highway. — Brian Butko, author of Greetings from the Lincoln Highway and Lincoln Highway Companion

It’s just as good as Route 66, which is the highest praise one can give. Another volume of happy memories. — Tony Hillerman, author of The Shape Shifter

The Lincoln Highway is lovingly resurrected here, with stubborn insistence on the details of its history. A visual, informed, and literate journey. — Andrei Codrescu, author of New Orleans, Mon Amour

Order The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate: Michael Wallis, Michael S. Williamson form Amazon.