An Introduction to Cloud Forest Trees Monteverde Costa Rica

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An Introduction to Cloud Forest Trees Monteverde Costa Rica
William, Zuchowski, Willow, Bello, Erick Haber
Manufacturer: Mountain Gem Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JHKK7C

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An Introduction to Cloud Forest Trees: Monteverde, Costa Rica
William A. Haber , Willow Zuchowski , and Erick Bello
Manufacturer: W. Haber]
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Plants | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Botany | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 9968759031

Book Description

The thoroughly updated fourth edition of the most popular hiking guide to Massachusetts.

Massachusetts spans a splendid diversity of hiking terrain, and this completely updated fourth edition of 50 Hikes in Massachusetts takes you to the state's most stunning locations. This guidebook introduces miles of terrain to hikers, birders, beachcombers and meanderers of all levels, including gentle walks suitable for the entire family, and rugged outings for experienced hikers.

As geologists, Brian White and John Brady add fresh depth with observations on the geology, plant, and animal lore included with each hike. Bartholomew's Cobble may be a brief 3-miler, but its fascinating history spans thousands of years. The Caratunk Wildlife Refuge is a mecca for birders, and the giant boulder maze left by glaciers long ago lend a sense enchantment to the hike. Fields of wildflowers, towering summits, deep forests, windswept beaches, and historical curiosities are among the treasures you'll encounter on these hikes. 50 black & white photographs, 51 maps, index.

50 Hikes in Massachusetts: A Year-Round Guide to Hikes and Walks from the Top of the Berkshires to the Tip of Cape Cod (50 Hikes in Massachusetts)

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Great ideas, Lousy execution
50 HIKES IN MASSACHUSETTS

50 Hikes in Massachusetts: A Year-Round Guide to Hikes and Walks from the Top of the Berkshires to the Tip of Cape Cod (50 Hikes in Massachusetts)
John Brady , and Brian White
Manufacturer: Backcountry Guides
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Walking | Hiking & Camping | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Guidebooks | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books

North America | Travel | Subjects | Books

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Rayovac SPHLTLED 3-in-1 LED Head-Lite

ASIN: 0881504548

Book Description

A completely updated new edition of a popular hiking guide to Massachusetts. Follow the footsteps of Mason Walton, the "hermit of Gloucester," who lived in a log cabin in Ravenswood Park from 1884-1917. Observe cormorants, herons, egrets, gallinules, and kingfishers on windswept Plum Island. Hike the Appalachian Trail to Mount Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusetts, or take a wildflower walk along deserted woods roads in Conway State Park. Massachusetts is home to this splendid diversity of terrain and more.

This new, updated guide to over 200 miles of trails will lead you along the coastline, through marshes and woodlands, and to spectacular views and summits. There are treks for families with young children, moderately strenuous hikes for the more advanced, and rugged outings for experienced hikers. Each hike is illustrated with photographs and topographical maps and includes complete information on distance, hiking time, elevation, and trailhead access, as well as information on the natural and human history you will encounter along the way. An overview chart at the beginning of the book provides essential data and highlights of every hike. A year-round guide; includes beach walks and rugged peaks.

Customer Reviews:

Great ideas, Lousy execution.......2007-08-12

I agree with the previous reviewers comments.

The book provides great ideas for hikes, and has informative text on the geology of the area, and even points you toward scenic trailheads. But the directions are lousy and convoluted. I have gotten seriously lost trying to follow.

I'd advise people to buy this book, but when the authors' directions get difficult, backtrace your way to your car rather than relying on them. Better to walk the same trail twice than to get totally lost!

Good hikes in here, though.

50 HIKES IN MASSACHUSETTS.......2005-09-01

The three stars are in appreciation of the books identification of hikes I would never have found on my own. It also has useful maps for locating the hikes, and provided helpful information for the one hike I have taken with its help. This was the first hike listed in the book, to the top of Mt. Alander.

The less than perfect score reflects serious deficiencies in the guide to this hike. First, poetic descriptions of landscape and wildlife obscured important directions. Second, there was no indication of the actual distance between the landmarks buried in the descriptions.

The most serious deficiency has to do with directions to the summit. These were very brief and gave way to an extensive and ecstatic account of the views from the top. The trail to the top forks, and there was no indication in the guide of which fork to take. The right fork I took led away from the views so ecstatically described. The most serious problem was the absence of any indication of how to get down from the summit. Trying to retrace my steps, I came upon a sign pointing to landmarks in New York State. Fortunately I ran into two experienced hikers who pointed out the best line of descent and got us back on the trail to the parking area in Massachusetts.

Book Description

Proposition 13 was the greatest tax revolt in American history since the Boston Tea Party. In June 1978, Californians rose up behind a colorful, irascible, unlikely leader, 74-year-old Howard Jarvis, and turned the political world upside down.

The first shot in the Reagan Revolution, the Proposition 13 tax revolt changed the world.

Told by an insider, this is the story of the politics, odd tales and bizarre arguments that surround the fabled tax revolt from its success at the polls to its survival, despite constant attacks, 25 years later. It is the story of a legend in the making.

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A must have book on Freshwater Fish Keeping

Freshwater Fish Keeping for the Total Beginner: For People Who Know Absolutely Nothing About Keeping Fish
Susan G. Eddy
Manufacturer: PublishAmerica
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Fish & Aquariums | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1592869785

Book Description

This book is for those people who don't even know the first thing about keeping an aquarium. Keeping fish is made simple by starting with an explanation of the equipment, aquariums and decorations, and then tells how to put it all together and fix problems when they happen. It starts by explaining the basics and then explains how to pick the equipment, the aquarium and the fish. It aims to help the beginner to avoid problems and keep the hobby fun. The terms are easy to understand, explain how to purchase and put all of the equipment together and decorate the aquarium, as well as explain how to pick a group of fish or critters that will live and look good together, all in simple, easy-to-understand language. Everything the total beginner needs to know about keeping fish and critters. Now anyone can keep fish successfully.

Customer Reviews:

A must have book on Freshwater Fish Keeping.......2004-03-05

This book is packed with hundreds of great tips for keeping your fresh water fish happy. It gets you started on the right foot. Getting your equipment and picking out the right fish for you is a snap. The book explains in detail which kind of aquarium to get... how much gravel and even which pump is better then those high priced ones. Great for the beginner like me. This book is my first pick for anyone needing to know alot about fish and caring for them

Book Description

From a practical compost bin to whimsical outdoor sculptures, this Weekend gardening guide offers do-it-yourselfers more than 40 projects to enhance their yards and gardens. Among them: Raised beds, a window box, trellises, a cold frame, and 9 different planters; Houses for birds, bats, and butterflies, plus feeders and a bird bath; Paths, retaining walls, benches, a doormat, a trash-can house, and a sandbox.

Customer Reviews:

LOTS OF FUN.......2000-06-15

My family found a number of fun projects in this book. We'd been thinking about ways to accent our flower beds and found useful project in this book. We created some different birdhouses as well as a few paths throughout the garden. We very pleased with the results.

Book Description

Compiled over a period of 45 years, and based on hundreds of interviews with people who knew her, this is the best and most unapologetic biography of Katharine Hepburn's early career ever penned. You've read what KATE REMEMBERED....Here's what Katharine Hepburn wanted to forget.

FOREWORD Magazine, a respected literary review based in Michigan, nominated it as one of ten finalists for BEST BIOGRAPHY OF 2004 in their Book of the Year Awards. The winner of that contest will be announced in NYC in June of 2005.

Customer Reviews:

AWFUL.....!!!.......2007-06-01

I couldn't even finish this book because I found myself either rolling my eyes and saying "Oh please" as I was reading it. There were more stories about the alleged gay trysts of Hollywood actors than about Katharine Hepburn herself. Where does this author get his information? This book is full of untruths and gossip. This book basically says that all men in Hollywood were either gay or bisexual. Everyone from Desi Arnaz to Jimmy Stewart to Gary Cooper were all into men and sleeping with one another. Sheesh. Wishful thinking on the authors part? If the male actors were friends they were also lovers according to this author. Amazingly, all the handsome actors in Hollywood were gay or bisexual. The less attractive male celebrities were never mentioned as being anything but straight. This book is supposed to be about Katharine Hepburn not the supposed same sex flings of Hollywood actors.
In the book, Ms. Hepburn comes off as a gossipy, jealous, nympho who is either sleeping with everyone(male or female) who comes in her path or stabbing them in the back. I'm not saying Katharine Hepburn was a saint but the lies and misinformation in this book are just too hard to take. For instance, the book says Jimmy Stewart was born in the state of Indiana but he in fact was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania. The author can never seem to get his facts together. This book is more like the Enquirer or the Star magazine than an actual biography.
If you like trashy, sleazy, mostly fictional books that try and masquerade as biographies then this book is for you.
If you want to read a real biography on this legendary actress' life, look elsewhere.

Ew........2006-12-31

Just ew. In addition to being truly painfully written, this is gross. Nothing is sourced, all the dialogue (no matter who allegedly spoke it) uses exactly the same vocabulary, intonation, etc., and overall the book seems to be more about the author (whom I now believe is in desperate need of psychiatric help) than about Katharine Hepburn. Interesting, also, that all the so-called "scandalous" material seems to come from only a few people, none of whom have ever been anything but remotely associated with Hepburn. The author seems to be in constant need to drive home the shock value of his assertions: Hepburn was bisexual! She was promiscuous! and etc. Even if she was (which he definitely has not managed to prove), so what? She still stands as one of the greatest and most talented actors of all time, and people still get enormous enjoyment out of her movies. In addition to this, she was a far better and more interesting writer than the author of this fictional book.
The existence of this book makes a sweeping negative statement about us as a society--that a sick, pathetic individual like this author could publish anything, and that he would be able to continue publishing trash. After reading 100 pages I feel as though I need a shower--I am incredibly ashamed of myself for reading even one page.
Besides the disgustingness and nonexistent research of this book, it was incredibly boring. It exists mostly as a laundry list of supposed affairs and dissipations, all written in ungrammatical boring prose. This is probably this book's greatest sin--no matter how unconventional Katharine Hepburn's life was, I don't think anyone would argue that it was boring.

should have been better.......2006-10-10

The book gets 3 stars because of sloppy editing and proofreading (i.e.p.148: "He housed Kate and Laura and the Hays-Adams Hotel" and clearly wrong information: p. 138 "In the late 1930s, when she was a struggling actress, Katharine Hepburn had waited for an interview...in Harris's offices above the Moresco Theatre." ; p. 141 "In 1933, several years after her stint as Harris's driver, ...Kate arrived, fresh from California, at Harris's offices above the Moresco Theatre." Hepburn was a struggling actress in the late 1920s, not the late 1930s.

At times, pages read as if they had been written by assistants who did not keep up with what had preceded their contribution. Information is needlessly repeated. And, the writing is inconsistent. veering from good to sophomoric to good to bad to good again.

Hepburn deserved better.

Admiralby researched and exquisitely written.......2005-04-03

This book gives up the charming, remarkable Katharine Hepburn as no other book has before. So far, it's the most fascinating celebrity biography I've ever read, although it seems to have outraged her most diehard fans. Too bad. It's a great read. Although Miss Hepburn was a rather bony woman, Darwin Porter gives her flesh and bones in this remarkable, riveting portrait. Shrewdly objective, yet sympathetic in tone, the book re-creates her life and times and does so exceedingly well. The book should be read for the new light it sheds on the character, career, and armours (both male and female) of this remarkable American woman, who was my all-time favorite movie star. I'm delighted to know that she had a private life, too, although one filled with her share of woe like all of us experience. A vivid and perceptive portrait of the greatest female film star of the 20th Century.

All the negative reviews removed...hmmm.......2005-01-18

[...]

Don't be fooled. There is nothing well written or insightful about this awful book. You can't libel the dead, so Porter goes to town on just about everyone, with pages and pages of supposed "notes" that are nothing but a list of names with no attributable quotes.

There are also those who claim that the book's detractors (and trust me, they outnumbered these paid hacks by a large margin at one time) just can't believe that there were gay golden age Hollywood starts who slept around. As a gay man I find this the most insulting aspect of this whole enterprise. Darwin Porter seems almost pathological in his need to validate his own orientation by asserting that EVERYONE in old Hollywood was gay. It seems silly and more than a little pathetic that anyone would need to work this hard to quiet his own demons, but this book says a lot more about the author than it does about Katharine Hepburn.

On a final note, take a look at the other "reviews" by the people on this page. You'll find more than a few of them who only seem to review Darwin Porter books. Curious, very curious.

Still, Amazon has chosen to leave these while removing the honest reviews from real people. Even more curious.

Book Description

Written with the art of a skilled fiction writer whose ear for Irish bluster is pitch-perfect, Whoredom in Kimmage tells the tale of contemporary Irish women through a series of brilliantly animated scences that take the reader from Dillon's tiny pub in rural Corofin to the heart of Dublin. This beguiling account of Irish life transcends that nation's small shores through the power of Mahoney's great storytelling gifts.

Before the phenomena of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, and Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization, Rosemary Mahoney traveled to Ireland in response to the growing feeling that changes were taking place, and that those changes directly involved women. Her ideas are animated in brilliantly crafted scenes, taking the reader from Dillon's tiny pub in Corofin to a lesbian pub in Dublin, from a Legion of Mary meeting to a classroom full of boisterous schoolgirls determined to drive their teacher, S'ta Keatin', over the edge. Here, too, are scenes with Ireland's first woman president, Mary Robinson, and the country's preeminent woman poet, Eavan Boland. But most memorable, and perhaps most prescient of the recent enchantment with literature about the Emerald Isle, are Mahoney's pitch-perfect ear for Irish bluster and warmth, her eye for detail, and people so real and unforgettable you'd think they were having a cup of tea with you.

Customer Reviews:

Irishwomen & men changing in the early 1990s.......2006-01-30

After recently reading Mahoney's account of late 80s China, "The Early Arrival of Dreams" (also reviewed by me), and thinking about her curious account of pilgrimages as "The Singular Pilgrim," which I also enjoyed, I went back to re-read "Whoredom" a dozen years after I had first finished it, when it came out to a small flurry of attention (at least in my conversations) among Irish emigres and Irish Americans, especially feminists. Taken in the dimmer light of an Ireland since riven by clerical scandal, and where now 1:3 babies are born to unmarried mothers, the transitions seem far away from the subsequent hi-tech & EU-fueled immigration booms into Ireland. Her interviews with Mary Robinson and the poet Eavan Boland are a bit too lengthy, but do document well this jittery state of change as the 90s settled in and unsettled traditional roles across the nation. I was amused, by the way, to hear Boland call herself "middle class." As Boland was the daughter of the UN's first president, with a diplomatically-raised childhood and a very posh education, it made me wonder if you'd have to live in Buckingham Palace to be any rank higher than "middle class."

Anyway, Mahoney, as in her other books, reveals very little about herself and an overwhelming amount about everyone who passes by her sharp eye and into her evidently capacious memory. Like many Irish, no matter where born, she directs conscientiously but almost invisibly her attention outside herself. So, this is not even a memoir but what's since been labelled "creative non-fiction" in its novelistic and "thick" detail--perhaps more fitting an anthropologist crossed with a storyteller.

I did wonder, especially in the Corofin pub dialogue--and most of all a drunken long night after when some of the folks followed her back to the castle for more craic and awkward conviviality--how she remembered it all in such minute incidences as the alteration in a countenance after an utterance or the shift in tone as heard in the midst of one of her "informant's" endless recitations. I presume, without discounting the essential veracity of her accounts, that she does take a bit of liberty with the re-creation of so many thousands of words after perhaps hundreds of nights whittled down to the best bits from her many months.

While some castigate the author for trying to fit into the JJ Smythe lesbian pub scene by "passing," Mahoney does explain in retrospect that she did not do this lightly, and acted on the spot half out of embarassment or fear, rather as any willful and premeditated desire to deceive her companions. She describes well the mingled excitement and terror that she feels when put on the spot in a setting she never before had entered.

Similarly, I do not believe that she tricked any of her Corofin conversationalists; they all knew her as a writer and her task being to observe them all for a book in the works. The accusations she relates while--fittingly--being driven off from Clare by way of Ennis while being tongue-lashed by a madwoman driver who disdains her passenger's scribal vocation which the driver knows by repute: this subtly portrays the tensions that she stirred up among the local people.

Mahoney's characteristic approach being rather to let herself be self-effaced and to blend into what she is experiencing and then conveying to us makes her style admirable for its technical skill, if rather detached for the lack of a strong first-person presence. I realize that this is her chosen vantage-point, but it makes the hints she gives out--alcoholic strife, no mention of a father, only the barest asides to her own Boston formative years--all the more mysterious. Judging from her previous China and her future pilgrimage books, I suppose she wants to remain more enigmatic--an intriguing trait for a non-fictional writer who tells of her own encounters.

A few typos marred an otherwise thorough effort: on pg. 265 she misspells what should be the writers Walter "Macken" and Austin "Clarke"; the next page shows her twice giving out Eric Cross' folkloric and once notoriously banned (and de-banned) account as "The Tailor of Ansty" when the "of" should be "and."

She has done her homework. Her careful attention to what she hears and how it's spoken makes her a thoughtful and slyly entertaining guide. Her paragraphs on pp. 10-12 showing us what her castle looked like marvelously show her powers of summation and support. I still wish she would have delved further with her first-person narration, and told more about her own previous trips to Ireland, her studies that prefaced the months narrated, and much more about her own Irish American background.

But, her reticence amidst so much verbiage is typically Irish itself.

Some of the reviews seem to be missing the point .......2005-11-25

How can anyone spend a couple of years abroad, anywhere, and expect to portray an accurate historical account of the status of women in that country, let alone the entire people? She can't. So why are the reviewers expecting this book to be that impossible thing and to be unequivocally historically complete?

This is an autobiography of the author's experience in Ireland, not a history of Ireland. This is Ms. Mahoney's journey, not Ireland's. Take it for what you will beyond that, because it is a compelling read with wonderfully imagined and experienced events. She is honest with her material while drawing out the poetic charm of her travels. She tracks several key political movements, such as the attempts to legalize a woman's right to seek counseling on abortion, through their late-80s specific events and leaders and in relation to the deeper built-in oppressions of Irish-Christian dogma. She does not come out and condemn anyone or anything, but leaves those opinions to the reader. She paints a picture of a country that is quite progressive in many ways, even electing their first woman president, but silently the culture continues to oppress women in ways that are not befitting a 20th (now 21st) century world.

Too bad so many individuals misinterpret her work: If the people of Corofin and Dublin truly were "having their fun" with Ms. Mahoney by avoiding being honest with her in the hopes of making a fool out of her, frankly, they deserve to be caricatured. What a wonderful lesson in humility - a detail that speaks more about the state of a handful of men and women than any idealized cultural representation could have. When you have a guest to your house, do you mock them and make them out to be fools or do you welcome them and their cultural differences? I guess in some places, the tradition is to scare the outsider away rather than include them in the larger world picture.

Maith go leor, a Rosemary! Is iontach ?

hardly representative.......2004-06-26

Mahoney's book has many many flaws. Number one, she approaches her subject with a condescending, superior attitude of "I'm an enlightened American feminist looking at these backward Irish people." She then interviews many Irishwomen: lesbians, abortion activists, anti-abortion activists. . All of these people are cartoons and she never seems to get around to interviewing more typical Irishwomen who for the most part are religious Catholics with conservative views but certainly aren't the extreme fanatics or the radical feminists Mahoney describes. I spent some time in Corofin several years after this book came out and the hatred of Mahoney remains. I can attest that while Corofin has some characters, they aren't the pathetic freaks she describes.

I was blown away by this book!.......2003-05-13

I had no idea what to expect of this book when I picked it up, but a friend of mine recommended it, and after about ten pages I was hooked. Written from a first-person perspective by an American writer living in Ireland, it offers a most engaging voice and a vivid view of modern Ireland. The writer spent half a year living in Dublin and another half year living in rural Ireland in a Norman castle in the small village of Corofin. Having lived in Ireland for nearly ten years I was awestruck by the accuracy and intimacy of her portrayal of Irish life, her very engaging sense of humor, and her great talent as a writer. Line for line this book is absolutely beautiful. Her affectionate characterizations and stories of the people she met in Ireland fairly lift off the page. Her ear for dialogue is superb. There is a great deal of information here about Irish society, including interviews with the President of Ireland, and with other prominent Irish people, but the real draw of this wonderful book is the manner in which the writer has chosen to tell the story of this small country entering into the modern world. I laughed out loud at so many descriptions and scenes, conversations in a the pub, mishaps, local oddballs, lifestyle and beliefs of the Irish people. I didn't want the book to end. It's the kind of book you read and wish you knew the person who wrote it. There's a vividness to Mahoney's writing that I have not seen matched in many works of non-fiction. Above all, what distinguishes this work most is the clear respect and love the writer has for the people she has chosen to study and portray in it. There's a deep humaneness and sympathy to her approach to Ireland and its people, even though she offers criticisms and skepticism. I was entertained, moved, and enchanted by the stories she tells and don't know why I hadn't heard of it before now. The truths put forth in this book are sometimes a but upsetting, but they are exactly that: truths. And they are truths that needed to be told. I loved it.

A travesty on both author and Irish women.......2003-04-13

This book is a travesty on the author and on Irish women. The author obviously did not get in touch at all with the Irish culture and how she herself was being treated. There is a long tradition in Ireland of making fools of 'outsiders' - Irish literature is full of such pranks. The author obviously fell into the trap. This is not a good description of how Irish women live or feel. I actually laughed out loud at some of the dour parts - the author did not get the satire or the tricks behind some of the women she interviewed. One needs to be very subtle to talk to the Irish - talking everything at face value is a mistake.

A selection from Whoredom in Kimmage: Irish women coming of age

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A selection from Whoredom in Kimmage: Irish women coming of age
Rosemary Mahoney
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Whoredom in Kimmage, Irish Women Coming of Age.

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Whoredom in Kimmage, Irish Women Coming of Age.
Rosemary. Mahoney
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NXLXZU

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Whoredom In Kimmage: Irish Women Coming of Age
Rosemary Mahoney
Manufacturer: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OKPN76

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