Complete is the best way to describe this guidebook. I wasn't planning on visiting the Marin side but was forced to when the fog in San Francisco made it too cold and wet to enjoy the parks and trails. Marin was in complete sunshine everyday.

This book stands apart from all the rest because it was written by hometown authors who definitely know their turf and didn't mince on destinations, more than any other book on the subject. It mades a good companion with the Lonely Planet San Francisco book. If you like to explore the outdoors on your vacation buy this book. It will keep you entertained as well as busy.

We mountain biked in Marin and along the coast line of San Francisco using this book as our guide. We began our morning ride with misty views of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Presidio, then crossed the span and discovered all sorts of cool trails that connected to sunny Mount Tamalpais. This book has very good access information to all the open space area trails and even includes a two page list of places to take my retriever. Packing alot of sports into one volume makes this book very valuable to me.

I have reviewed lots of travel-related guidebooks over the years, so I can say with some authority that the Golden Gate Trailblazer--the third title in the popular Trailblazer series--is a real find. Although I lived for a number of years in the San Francisco/Marin area, I was simply overwhelmed by the amount of new information I learned about this most wonderful place. The choices of hikes, walks, jogs, and off-road (and sometimes on-road) cycling options are simply overwhelming. The "Best of San Francisco and Marin" section thankfully helps to break down all these choices into dozens of useful categories to help you get to where you want to go faster (for example: Short Walks to High Places; Wildflowers; and Raptors and Woodland Birds; Family Rides; Beach Runs; etc.). The "Free Advise and Opinion" section near the back, while only three pages in length, is nothing short of fabulous in dispensing loads of cryptically written, helpful information and side-splitting humor in equal proportions. And the black-and-white photography throughout the book are stunning in creating a visual sense of place (In my view, the quality of the photos sometimes reaches award-winning status--I would certainly love to see enlargements of some of my favorites!). Including hundreds of trail descriptions, jogging paths, and so forth in a book less than 300 pages long is no mean trick. The Sprouts accomplish this by using a consistent, well-organized, yet compact format, well-selected abbreviations, and carefully crafted yet succinct directions. One important note: This is one book where reading the "How to Use This Book" section will be time well spent. The organization of the book works and works well. But the reader will benefit by taking a moment to orient him or herself. And buying a good street map of the area is another essential, as the authors themselves so indicate. Map drawing, especially in the backcountry of Marin County, is a major challenge and the authors were wise to leave that job to the cartographers. With a copy of the Golden Gate Trailblazer and a good street map in hand you will be ready to explore places you may have never even heard of in a lifetime of living in the Bay Area. And if you are first-time visitors you will be thrilled to have so much well-informed guidance in selecting the activity that is just right for you. And, oh yes, a final tip of the hat to the authors for taking the time to include dozens of good ideas for outdoor exploration for those in wheelchairs and parents who opt to push the little one(s) in a baby stroller.

Every so often an author creates a book that propels one through time into a place where we can measure how far we have come and how arduous was the journey. Dr. Doumani has created such a work. Antarctica is a place as foreign to me as the moon or outer space, yet through skillful narrative with wholly human contacts and foibles, this geologist has given us all a vivid texture of a forbidden, wondrous continent. A place that I doubt I shall ever experience first hand but one which I feel has come to life through this book's fascinating story of early exploration. It is scientific without being burdensome, compelling without being pretentious, delightful and funny yet captivating in mystery and danger. Why do we want to have such a book by our side? As Dr. Doumani states: "One conquest was not enough. It never is. It is...a response to a challenge, a decisive test of man's endurance" which will always bind and attract us as long as our curiousity and love of life continue.

The Frigid Mistress is very well written, factually educational, and throroughly enjoyable. Dr. Doumani, a geologist of world repute and a veteran of several Antarctic expeditions, uses plain but powerful language to make the reader feel part of this remote and desolate corner of the world, so much so that I shivered as I read the book. Equally important, the visits to Antarctica delivered proof of many scientific facts which hitherto had been largely theories. For example, it was long suspected that the Southern Hemisphere continents had once been one large continent including Antarctica, and then, over geologic time, they broke up and drifted apart. Now there can be no doubt; it is a fact. This and many other discoveries described by Dr. Doumani provide scientific validations, and always in a fascinating way. For enjoyment, entertainment, and being eduated in the process, this licid, highly recommended reading deserves five stars--or more.

Dr. Doumani has written the best kind of an adventure tale. It is the story of hardship and scientific accomplishments, of human response to extreme and harsh conditions. But unlike so many adventure tales,the activity was not for self aggrandizement or promotion; it was a product of the need to collect scientific information about an area (Antarctica)of which little was then known. In 1957, at the start of the International Geohysical Year, more than half that frozen continent had never been seen by a human eye. Dr. Doumani takes the reader through several years of Antarctic exploration, but the emphasis is on the human aspect, on the behavior of individuals under stress of the severe climate and isolation in the most inhospitable of continents. This is not nature warm and fuzzy, but nature that will kill the unwary and guards its secrets well. The book is a tribute to the men, and I include the author, who collected the information and did the science while braving the hazards in spite of the toll it often took on their lives and their families. Also it contains descriptions of technology and ligistics utilized some 40 years ago, during a period of intense Antarctic exploration, and of the research and scientific discoveries of that time. I highly recommend this book on two counts: for the scientific discoveries that it describes, and for the human drama necessary to accomplish those discoveries.

I absolutely love this book. The gardening system is sound and organic, and it is presented in clear, simple language in a lovely, easy-to-grasp design. So often gardening books are long on written advice but short on visuals. Or they are ONLY visuals, with the text nothing more than captions. This book has it all.

This book answers, with outstanding instruction, pictures and humor, any and all of your questions on vegetable gardening. Had Ed Smith published it earlier we would have saved a ton of dirt along with a ton of money! We keep it in our little greenhouse alll during the growing season as we refer to it daily. And we are now buying it for gifts for both novice and experienced gardening friends.

The title says it all. This is my vegetable bible. Being a novice, I was looking for something as simple and informative as a "Dummies" book but without insulting my intelligence. Not only is all the information you need to start or continue a garden, the pictures fill in details that as a first time grower I might not quite understand in words. His explanations are simple, concise and extremely informative. Most of all, it's filled with little hints throughout the book so that you may have a successful garden. It was the best purchase I had made on a gardening book so far. Thank you Ed! Happy growing!

This is (IMHO) one of the finest books ever written about arctic exploration (and I've read dozens). Berton is a superb writer, an unmatched storyteller, and a gifted chronicler of much-too-neglected aspect of recent history. The men and women of arctic exploration come alive under the author's perceptive pen, and before you know it you caught up in the world of Parry, Ross, Franklin, Back, Simpson, Amundsen, Cook, Peary, and host of lesser-known but intriguing characters. If you have a heart for history and the people that influenced it, you won't be able to put this book down! An added bonus is the respect with which the author treats the arctic native peoples, without whose help and support every kabloona (white man) who ever set foot into the arctic would have died tragically. I've read this book three times, and am looking forward to my fourth journey into the world of "The Arctic Grail."

If you like to read about the incredible world of Arctic exploration, this is a book you must read! Pierre Berton covers almost 100 years of man's effort to discover the Northwest Passage and the North Pole. Although it is a long read (over 600 pages) the author's wonderful storytelling style keeps you eagerly turning page after page. Each account seems to have been well researched and the facts are there for the reader to absorb. It is amazing to read how poorly the British were prepared for Arctic travel, how they refused to learn from the native people, yet how much they achieved in spite of their attitude. This book has a good message for us all. We can learn from others! Those explorers who did so, were a lot more successful in the long run. The book ends with Peary and Cook's claim to the North Pole. It is quite an account of two men who were more consumed with their image rather than the truth. Who was the greatest of the bunch? You'll have fun picking your winner. I vote for Roald Amundsen! This is a great book!

Years ago I had read an article about the discovery and autopsy of the remains of three seamen from the Franklin expedition. I was so taken by the arctic story recapitulated for that article that when I discovered Ice Blink I read it greedily, becoming a fan of arctic exploration. That find lead me to the current book, The Arctic Grail by Canadian historian Pierre Berton.

In reading Berton's book, one can hardly fail to notice the fact that most of the search for the Northwest Passage, which occupied many adventurous souls for the better part of the 19th Century, was conducted: 1) by Franklin expeditions, 2) in search of survivors of the last Franklin expedition, 3) in search of information as to the fate of the members of the last Franklin expedition, and 4) in search of relics and journals that might come from the last Franklin expedition. It also becomes apparent that almost every venture into that frozen land led to tragedy and often death. It seems that very little was learned either through the experiences of the survivors of the various expeditions or from the lifestyle of the natives of the area. One is amazed that after the disasters that followed each undertaking, yet another venture would be proposed, despite the loss of life and the evident uselessness of the pass itself. Each expedition met with nightmarish experiences, many of the men dying of starvation and exposure, and while the officers might receive promotion in rank and recognition in the history books for their discoveries, the enlisted men who did most of the work got little more than an increase in pay if they lived to get it.

Of the rush to the North Pole, all that can be honestly said is that the notoriety of superhuman effort and of the attainment of nearly impossible goals inspired some pretty disgraceful behavior on behalf of a number of, particularly American, explorers. It becomes obvious that the chicanery of ambitious men looking to make a fortune as celebrities did not start in the last half of the 20th century. Both Cook and Peary seemed driven men whose egos could sustain the possible blight of fraudulent claims disputed by the records but not of public failure. What is sad, particularly in the latter case, is that the actual attainments of the discoverer were pretty amazing as it was. No one since has achieved quite so much under the same conditions. While others have been to the pole successfully, it required air dropped supplies and a flight in or out of the area.

Throughout the entire book one is confronted with a sense of a major lack of real respect for nature by so-called civilized man. It is tempting to see this attitude as a peculiarly 20th (now 21st) century phenomenon, but it seems to have had a good start in the 19th century. The hubris that makes modern man feel that he can tame nature with his various gadgets may just be part and parcel of human nature. Maybe it's just wishful thinking.

One of the particularly distressing aspects of the explorers accounts is of the callous treatment of the native population and of the total marginalization of their contributions. It's apparent from Berton's book that the safe return of many explorers was due largely to help from the Eskimos. I think a thorough narrative of Arctic exploration from their point of view-both their own conquest of the area and their take on the European and American explorations-might make very interesting reading indeed!

All in all the book is well written and well researched. It would definitely appeal to anyone with an interest in history, in man against nature, in man in nature, in geography, ethnography, and 19th Century culture. Anyone with a reading level of 6th grade or above should be able to comprehend it, and it might make interesting reading especially for young men.

This book carried me WAY beyond the story line, using the questionable character of Lewis Moon as transportation. The well-meaning Quarriers were as lost and out of place in the jungle as the natives would have been if you dropped them off somewhere between 42nd Street and Central Park. And the death of the innocent child is a sacrifice to that ignorance.

The journey of Lewis Moon away from civilization into the native life represents two things--a retreat from the sophistication of a society to which he did not seem to belong, and a search for an ultimate truth. As he penetrates further and further into the jungle, he comes closer and closer to the heart of life itself, and closer ultimately to death. This story is a mystery to which you have to write your own ending, and I dearly loved reading it!

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the juxtaposition of humor and tragedy, and the complicated contradictions of the human spirit

This book is the comparison of Missionaries Vs. Mercenaries and is charactered by peopled with ethnic groups who also come from the same sort to conflict: Jews and American Indians in the land of the Amazon. Kind of a "If religion doesn't work, shoot the bastards," and "women like being ravaged by animals." This is not a book for the weak stomached, or the self righteous. This is a book for people who want to tear the face off of reality. This is a great, honest and sad book. It is a requiem for indigenous people around the world, maybe for you

One theme I found to be particularly compelling in this book which has not been directly explored in the reviews currently posted is the search for identity which seemingly each character in this novel is engaged. Lewis Moon, a man who existes on the fringe of the dominant culture of the US, longs for validation in the culture of his ancestors, a culture which is tragically unavailable. The missionaries, Protestant and Catholic alike, seek identity and validation in the people they seek to convert, including the endless "conversion" of their own families. The other characters have their own identity issues. The most compelling of these searches, to my mind, was that of Lewis Moon who, without any feeling of loyalty to any culture available to him, seeks identity in an indiginous culture not yet eradicated by the dominant Chilean culture of European origin. (Perhaps he thinks he can help them avoid the fate of the culture of his ancestors.) The novel explores each character's basis for self-perception and what they do when their basic assumptions about their role in the world are challenged. What does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to be an American who has had his citizenship revoked? What does it mean to have faith? What if the dogma of your denomination appears to produce results that seem "un-Christlike?" What does it mean to indentify as a member of an indigineous people? What does that mean when you are among members of another indiginous people? All these questions (and there are many more) posed in the book have lead me to a better perception of who I am and why I think so. One of the best books I've had the pleasure to have read.

This book is important, and maybe even vital, in spite of itself. Lomax is the real thing: He knows his material incredibly well, and even his most offhand paragraphs on anything at all related to African influences on American/southern culture are right on the mark. His field recordings were/are an incalculable contribution to American music. Some of them brought major artists -- Muddy Waters being the most obvious example -- from total obscurity squarely into the mainstream. He was a true scholar, and a kind of cultural hero. That said, this memoir/history was not exactly a joy to read. Lomax has a terrible weakness for lyrical language, but he just doesn't have the chops as a writer; his story is so good he should have been as plain in the telling as possible. His overheated romance with the black American male is often embarrassing. Maybe the best part of the book is a long passage when he simply gets out of the way and we hear directly from one of his subjects for many pages. It's not that Lomax had no right to do a book like this -- he had every right to. And even at its most purple, what he has to say is crucial if you want to understand American music. I just wish he could have spared us some of his attempts at heightened language and overwrought description. Complaining about white rock musicians, he writes, "To my jaundiced Southern ears .. many rock guitarists are more concerned with showing how many notes they can get off and how many chords they know tan what the song has to say or how the guitar can speak for them." I would say something very similar about the way Lomax wrote this book -- he should have been less concerned about how many phrases he could get off and how many words he knew, and just let his wonderful story tell itself plainly.

Alan Lomax has done more than any living man to unearth the powerful African music heritage that lives in many different genres of American music. This book is only part of the wealth that he has dug up and offered to us, so that we may better know ourselves. Check out the 4CD set of his recordings "Sounds of the South" for a soundtrack to this book. But no book, no acetate, no film, can adequately depict the pain and suffering that Africans were subjected to in the US. Lomax's work, though, brings us closer, by bringing us the voices of the prisoners, the fieldworkers, the muleskinners, and the roustabouts who lived in a world we can scarce imagine today. Life was cheap then. People were brutal to one another. By Lomax's account, sex and violence seem to be more unrestrained in the first half of the 19th century than in the second. Today, Arnold kills people with laser guns to make a couple bucks for Hollywood. Then, Boss White would kill a man with a shotgun to the skull, just for complaining. After having read the book, I caught myself being hopeful for humanity. Maybe we are getting better

So powerful is the writing of Alan Lomax that one cannot help but be moved by the trials of the African American, which gave birth to the Blues. I read through this account with equal parts shame, empathy and admiration for the people who found hope through their music. I've been a listener and aspiring musician of the Blues for many years. With reading Mr. Lomax's account I feel my education has been grounded in the truth of what makes the Blues so uplifting and expressive. When all hope and opportunity were removed from the negroes of the Jim Crow South, they turned to their instruments, and driven by subconscious inspiration of their ancestoral past, were able to find something to sing and dance about. Through this singing and body-embracing rhythm-making the Blues becomes a means of making peace within their lives, within our lives. This much I've learned from reading the narration of Mr. Lomax. His work will always be with me.

This book was brought home from school with my daughter in first grade. I was frantically trying to get ready for Christmas and was a little frustrated that at this particularly frantic moment, I was asked to read a book with so many words! With my daughter tucked in I began to read. After getting to the end, I couldn't wait to get downstairs and tell my husband about it. The peace and love that is Christmas is what this book so gently reminds you to focus on. It conjures in me the same emotions as when reading "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch. This book should not be missed!

I enjoy reading this book every year around Christmas time. My mom first read it to me when I was little. I am sophomore in High School now and I still find delight in reading this classic Christmas story. Since I am older now, and have a deeper understanding of compassion, I have discovered a whole new meaning to the story. If you are putting together a Christmas story collection, "The Year of the Perfect Christmas" Tree should be one of your selections.

As the title states, the book is truly "classic". As a small child my Mother would always read this to me while I was tucked in under the sheets on a snowy night. And that is just what this book is meant for: memories. The miracle that happens to the young girl and her mother on Christmas Eve has brought many to a slight misty-eyed smile, as I have witnessed through sharing it. It is more than just the story; the pictures are amazingly beautiful. Certain one of those "togetherness" books in times to share with your family, truely catching that magic of Christmas.

Late at night, when the crickets suddenly stop chirping, your skin crawls and your scalp and neck tingle as you feel the silent terror of an unknown interloper intruding into the secluded, telephone-free ancestral home. Will the crickets start their chorus again?

Glynn Alam's writing is so rich and evocative that from page one, you are deep in the Florida swamp, sweating in the humidity, listening to crickets, driving down rutted roads, partaking of sumptuous southern feasts, dodging snakes of both the slithering and two-legged kind, warily avoiding gators of both the four- and two-legged kind, scuba diving in frosty cold spring water and stumbling upon dead bodies in the limestone caves of the cold swamp springs of the Florida Panhandle.

Alam has crafted lots of plot twists and surprise turns that keep you moving through the swamp-fest as elderly Cajun swamp neighbor Pasquin helps Luanne Fogarty use her intellect, diving skill and Mother Wit to help otherwise pedestrian, balky Joe Friday-style cops solve a set of mysterious and bewildering murders, robberies and some nautical weirdness on the Gulf.

Get the book, enjoy it, and hope that Alam hurries up with the sequel.

As a mystery writer with my first novel in its initial release, I am quite impressed by Glynn Marsh Alam's DIVE DEEP AND DEADLY. Set primarily in a Florida swamp, this debut mystery features some of the finest first-book writing that I have read in years. As Luanne Fogarty attempts to rebuild the family home, the vivid descriptions allow the reader to literally feel the swamp. As Luanne's project continues, complications arise. The plot twists and turns. The characters are well-drawn. DIVE DEEP AND DEADLY has recently been nominated for a Barry Award. It is most deserving of this award.

Luanne Fogarty is enjoying her time off from teaching by rebuilding her family home deep in the swamps of Florida when her occasional job diving for the police gets her involved in a mystery. She finds a body tied to an underwater cave, but the next morning, it's gone. Exploring a second cave, she finds a second body. Is there a connection? And if so, what is it? And who is the unidentified first woman and where is her body?

This is a wonderful debut book. The plot develops nicely, and the characters are interesting as well. The real star here is the setting. Ms. Alam is able to bring the swamp to life using all five senses in a way that places you right there without overshadowing the characters or story. I was completely drawn into this world, enjoying every minute of it.

I highly recommend this entertaining mystery and am looking forward to the second book in this series.

Cardinal Bernardin talks candidly about dealing with a false accusation of sexual misconduct, his panceatic cancer, and his later terminal illness and preparation for death. He talks about surrendering to the Will of God and how to do this. I found it helpful in finding peace within crisis, and hope within despair. I recommend it without reservation

Recently I lost my father to a 10 year bout with cancer. This book provided me with joy, tears and abudance within a month of my own fathers death. Cardinal Bernardin was a remarkable man who had the courage to face his accusers, his illness and ulitmately his death. He has reconfirmed that faith, hope, love, forgivenss and kindness is the very essentials of what life needs to be about. It is clear from the Cardinal as it was from my experience with my own father that even when you think you are at your darkest human hour you need to reach out and make a difference every single day until your final moment in this part of your journey here on earth.

This book is a must read for anyone who has doubted that there is peace in death. He reconfirms that the lessons most important in life are to continue to give of yourself every day despite the adversities you face. In his illness, through his false accusation and his wonderful rediscovery of a deeper faith in Christ it makes accepting God's plan for you important.

Anyone who has an ill parent or someone close to them should read this book it will give you a much clearer spiritual understanding of illness, death and living every moment under God's plan.

A year ago, on November 14, 1996, our beloved Cardinal Bernardin died, as we the people of his flock, spent time in prayer and reflection over his years as our shepherd. It is amazing to realize how we were enveloped into his loving care, even as he lay dying. Some months later, his book, "The Gift of Peace: Personal Reflections" was published, as his gift to us. More than its worldwide sales, is its personal value to those who read it, perhaps once, maybe several times. How many people near death will ever have the energy to focus on the Lord's Presence, amidst physical pain? For Cardinal Bernardin, the pain he wrote about may have focused on physical and emotional difficulties that surfaced in the final three years of his life, but clearly, there are words in his book that can yet feed the flock, "how if we let Him, God can write straight with crooked lines," if only we let go of the control and allow HIM to direct our life's journey. This does not mean we should make no plans, but rather, set aside time daily to draw close to the Lord, and let go of the concerns that may grip us --- to make room for HIM in our lives. Is there room for HIM in the inn of our deepest selves? There is no other option. No matter what difficulties or hurts arise, we are all still family, always needing to work on healing; the other choice leaves us without family and friends. Cardinal Bernardin speaks of redemptive suffering -- the kind Jesus felt, the kind we may experience. The message clearly leads the reader to know that we, like Jesus, can move beyond the suffering, toward something better, allowing the Lord to work in our lives, bringing us into communion with Him and others who are feeling pain and suffering. In the midst of his pain, Bernardin's faith was strong, but he was preoccupied with the pain. His message is this: develop a strong prayer life in your best moments so you can be sustained in your weaker moments. Lean on family and friends, and church community, as they minister. As you read this book, you may feel the connection with Cardinal Bernardin because either you or a family member or friend is experiencing the pain and suffering of illness. Cardinal Bernardin's presence remains with us, in these words, "Pray while you're well, because if you wait until you're sick, you might not be able to do it."

Ron Rash is one of North Carolina's finest poets. Set in the Jocassee Valley in the southern Appalachians, One Foot in Eden is a taut, compelling story of infidelity and revenge killing that has the feel of archetypal mountain legend, a sort of "Lord Randall" updated by a psychological realist. A nifty and quite cunning murder mystery plot is parceled out to readers, Roshomon-style, from the cross-angled, and occasionally contradictory, first-person testimonies of the major players: the high sheriff, who knows murder has been done and who has done it, but can't find a body; the murderer himself; the adulterous wife for whom he kills; the bastard son of the illicit union; the deputy, a sort of Everyman, who serves as the reader's proxy and comes on, like Horatio in Act V, to wonder over the principals' unraveled fates. (There's also a witch!) For me, in some ways, the most compelling character is the Appalachian landscape, which Rash delivers tersely, with a poet's exacting eye and speech. Ultimately, One Foot in Eden is a parable about the pursuit of justice-its elusiveness at the human level, its certainty from the divine. True statement: I read the book-which is only 200 pages-- in a single sitting and couldn't (didn't) put it down.

I had read Ron Rash's three books of poetry and found his work extraordinary before I learned that he had also ventured into fiction. Then I became aware of Mr. Rash's two short story collections. I read them and found that this man, whom I had thought to be pure poet, was capable of a lyrical, poetic prose that I found engaging. It had the "feel" of endurance about it. But when I read Mr. Rash's first novel, gulping it down almost in one sitting, I was absolutely convinced that a major talent had come among us. Ron Rash can easily take his place alongside any number of the older, more established, and, alas, even major, novelists of the American South. I await Rash's second novel with bated breath. But I hope he will not forsake poetry. We readers need him in both genres--poetry as well as fiction.

Ron Rash has written a beautifully told story about desire, heartbreak, cunning, murder and justice. He's done it in simple language and in a riviting style. Broken into 5 sections, each character tells the story from their own perspective. Ron lays out each section in such as a way that the story never becomes repetitive and the book is riviting. The Apalachian language with colloquialisms is delightful, making me want to read lines over again for their color and style, as well as content.

I hope Ron Rash is currently working on a second novel because I will be looking for it every day until I can purchase it!
I gladly give this book a 5 star rating.