5 comments about Contents Under Pressure: 30 Years of Rush at Home and Away.

1. This was a good read. Learned a few things I did not know about the band. The writing style was more entertaining than not. I think that most Rush fans will appreciate the history and stories that are told through the author's eyes.



2. This book is for true fans of the Rush; it doesn't contain a soap opera or a tell-all biography, but it has a lot of insight into the making of each of their albums, how they work together as a band, and how the songs come into fruition. I really like the inclusion of concert pics from each era, shows you how far they've some style-wise in 35 or so years of working together since the 70's. This book has a lot of interviews with the band, and some analysis of each CD they've released. The interviews give some insight into what the tours were like, which albums were their favorites and which were harder to make, and general opinions about the music industry and how Rush fits into the larger scheme of things. For those people who want to know what sort of cereal Neil has for breakfast or what kind of toothbrush Geddy uses, this book is not for you. But for fans who want to know more about the music they've made and the history of this amazing rock band, this is a book you've got to have. It covers up to right before they went on their 30th anniversary tour, so the story doesn't end here, but this book is still great for anyone curious about one of the most talented and unique rock bands there's ever been.



3. This book is great. The stories of touring, recording, pictures and so on are fantastic. I don't know of any other book like this. It allows you to be involved with one of the greatest bands ever!



4. I read several reviews on this book before making my purchase, both good & bad... ANY 'true' Rush fan will really enjoy this book.. the neg. review or two I read were def. by other than 'true' fans, that's for sure.
   First of all, it's not one of those $35+ books, it has 236 pages, and it cost me a mere $13! For this kind of price I can't see why anybody would talk this book down. It is LOADED with all kinds of info about everything these guys put into there albums and then some, road stories, and bands they've had the pleasure of sharing the stage with throughout their extensive history as Canada's biggest selling rock band of all time.
   A huge 'plus' is the amount of pictures not seen before now, at least most of them, both live and studio, and even behind the scenes. These pictures are placed throughout the book in chronological order. I give this book (especially at this price) a very high rating, just buy it, you'll thank yourself later!



5. A decent book for avid Rush fans, although the writing style gets a little overdone. The author seems to be more interested in coming up with adjectives more than anything else. There are a lot of interesting tour stories, along with some terrific pictures.

2 comments about The Golden Mean.

1. In 343 BCE, King Philip II of Macedon engaged the philosopher Aristotle as tutor for his 13-year-old son Alexander. Philip, who was well on his way to taking control of the entire Greek peninsula, and had his eyes on the Persian Empire, had already taken care to have Alexander schooled in the arts of war. But wishing to temper the warrior passions with the influence of philosophy and the arts, he turned to the celebrated philosopher, a former playmate from his own boyhood. The three or four years that Aristotle spent with the young man is thus both a treatise on education and the story of the formation of Alexander the Great.
   
   Mary Renault told this story from Alexander's point of view in her 1969 novel FIRE FROM HEAVEN. By looking at the relationship through Aristotle's eyes, Annabel Lyon downplays romantic and swashbuckling elements in favor of philosophy and psychology. Aristotle himself comes over as a fascinating character, interested not only in ideas but in every aspect of the world around him, studying the organs of his wife Pythias to better understand the physiology of desire, or dissecting the body of a warrior on the battlefield of Chaeronea to discover how the various parts connect. His appetite for knowledge is so modern in its empiricism that his occasional reversions to received opinion come as a shock. He greatly loves Pythias, for example, but it is only after her death that he has cause to question the old teaching that sexual pleasure is not accessible to women.
   
   Alexander, by contrast, is drawn less in the accumulation of detail than in the gaps between his flashes of brilliance or bursts of petulance. Aristotle refuses to pander, but instead challenges the boy and earns his respect, building a relationship that also becomes one of mutual love. [Not a physical relationship, although Lyon is ambivalent about Alexander's sexuality and makes no bones about the frequency of male homosexuality in a society that made a point of sequestering its women.] Like a painter doing as much with shadow as with light, Lyon reveals Aristotle's character almost as well in his tutoring of Alexander's mentally handicapped half-brother Arrhidaeus as in his work with the Prince himself, and draws fascinating parallels between the philosopher's recurrent bipolar disorder and the post-traumatic stress syndrome that afflicts Alexander after battle.
   
   Lyon writes clearly, sometimes beautifully, and the book is easy to read. All the same, it seemed to wash over me without significant focus. While I can certainly appreciate the concept of the Golden Mean between extremes as an educational philosophy, I cannot easily point to key moments in the book when that concept is put to the test. I also felt that the book read more as a footnote to a history and geography already known than as a story that could stand on its own. Although I once had a classical education, I had to read with a good historical atlas open on my lap, and even then could not follow all the geographical references; the offstage events also required a greater knowledge of history than I could bring to it, even with online resources. The novel provided a fascinating insight into the Greek mind, for sure -- but I am not convinced that it approached the philosophical or moral depth that David Malouf achieved at half the length with his recent masterpiece, RANSOM.



2. No holds barred, Annabel Lyon's triumphant "The Golden Mean" is an intelligent, savvy -- yet unflinching and parsimonious -- glimpse into the life and times of Aristotle (384 BC -322 BC). This book has to be the historical fiction coup of 2009. (Please read the media and other reviews above.) As a reader of Lyon's little masterpiece, you will be, as I was, struck by the grace and humor of her prose. The dialogue is stupendous. Aristotle becomes real, flawed and brilliant - an awesome human being.
   
   Yes, Alexander (The Great), Aristotle's stellar, somewhat fawning, somewhat arrogant pupil, plays a prominent (though secondary) role in this well-researched story, which brings Aristotle, the father of Western science and philosophy to vivid characterization. Lyon's account of Alexander comports with other fictionalized portrayals of the greatest general of all times - here as a boy and youth. The resulting view of Alexander is indeed a "golden mean" achievement by Lyon.
   
   The prose enfolds you into the book as you read. It is not a simple matter of being unable to put the book down; you actually feel a desire for the story. The characters live in your world.
   
   The book, as one reviewer said, is "full of intellect, profound," and, as another states, "fully convincing." Well, no novel has to be "convincingly" accurate to the facts, and this one takes literary license frequently, through its lovely dialogue.
   
   Page 188, (Aristotle speaking to Alexander) "...You must look for the mean between extremes, the point of balance. The point will differ from man to man. There is not a universal standard of virtue to cover all situations at all times. Context must be taken into account, specificity, what is best at a particular place and time...."
   
   Page 264, "...Go still at sundown, and you can hear the earth itself humming. The ground stays warm long into the night....."
   
   Page 276, "...while my student (Alexander), charging off the end of every map, falls deeper and deeper into the well of himself..."
   
   I see only one flaw. Lyon falls into the same trap that most writers of historical fiction do. The story paints a somewhat unreal picture of life in 300's BC. The characters for the most part (as they truly were) are wealthy, educated, and healthy - living a life of some ease and luxury with slaves, servants and a general absence of misery. There is little pain (except the natural and the self-inflicted), whereas ordinary life back then was pretty much awful and miserable. Of course, Aristotle, his cohorts, family and friends for the most part were privileged, often at the expense of others less fortunate. However, his (and others') arrogance and vast ignorance and prejudices (attitudes toward women, for instance) are obvious and present on many pages. His second wife, Herpyllis, has to teach him virtually everything about satisfying sex.
   
   The cover photograph is puzzling. Why this photo? Who is it? What is it supposed to evoke? It's a strange and bad choice.
   
   In her correct drive to the goal of brevity, at times the story line dangles unfinished or sketchy, as we jump too quickly to another scenario. The most vivid example was a lack of details about the swimming party at the beach with Alexander, Aristotle and Alexander's older brother Arrhidaeus. I usually criticize a book for its being too long. This one is too short !!
   
   One really, really great thing in the front of the book is the Cast (in order of appearance). Thank you, Annabel Lyon and your publisher. I so wish that other novelists and publishers would follow your splendid example!!
   
   All in all, it's a 5++ on Amazon's rating scale.

5 comments about Behind Rebel Lines: The Incredible Story of Emma Edmonds, Civil War Spy.

1. Disguised as a union soldier, Emma would risk her life for her country. Emma Edmonds was born in Saint John, Canada in 1840. When she was sixteen years old she ran away to the United States. When she was twenty one, President Lincoln made a request for seventy five thousand men to volunteer for the Army. She decided that she wanted to be a field nurse for the Union Army but those jobs were so dangerous that they were only given to men. So she cut her hair short, dressed up like a man, and enlisted under the name Franklin Thompson. Emma was assigned to the Second Regiment of Michigan Volunteers. The next day she and all the others in her Regiment were off to training camp. Upset at hearing the news that one of her friends had died in the war, Emma went to go see a woman named Mrs. Butler who lived on the camp with the soldiers. Emma started talking and she ended up telling her secret identity. After that day, Mrs. Butler became Emma's closest friend and the only one who new here secret. One day news came to the camp that a Union spy had been killed at a rebel camp. Now they needed a new spy and Emma volunteered. So she disguised herself as a black slave named Cuff. She snuck onto a rebel camp to gather any valuable information. She found out how many weapons they had, where people were hiding, anything that would help the union defeat the rebels. Once she had gathered enough information, she snuck back to the Union camp. With this information, the union began to fight. Emma became very busy in the hospital as more and more got injured. As the union reached a river, they had to stop and make a bridge across it which would take weeks. The Union army didn't have enough information to make an attack. It was time for Emma to become a spy again. This time she dressed up as a middle aged peddler woman. In this disguise she had no trouble at all getting into the camp and she was allowed to walk around freely. She found out a lot of useful information including the fact that the rebels had an ambush waiting for the union troops. She then rode away on a one of the rebel's horses. They were so impressed with Emma's work that they made her a messenger during all the fighting. For many months Emma was sent off on spy missions and was successful on all of them. Emma returned to being a nurse as the war went on. She was then struck with malaria. She couldn't go to the hospital she worked at because then they would find out she was a girl. So she decided to leave, get the help she needed and then come back. So she left and checked herself into a hospital. Once she got her malaria under control, she saw a union poster in a window. It said that Franklin Thompson was absent without leave. He was known as a deserter. Emma was upset but she continued being a nurse under her rightful name. Later on, after she was married she petitioned the war department to review her case. She had her military rights restored and received and honorable discharge. Other troops were surprised to find out that their old friend Frank Thompson was actually Emma Edmonds. Emma lived in La Porte until her death in 1898. This is a good book full of adventure and suspense.
   
   I thought it was cool how Emma was able to pull off so many disguises. Emma's biggest disguise was being a man. She was able to fool everyone, even her fellow soldiers who she became friends with, that she was a guy. She pulled it off without anyone ever asking questions. Also, there was her favorite disguise, the black slave named Cuff. She was again pretending to be a guy and she was able to come up with something to make her skin look dark. She was able to fool everyone in the rebel camp. Another disguise was as a peddler woman. Even though she was dressed up as a girl, no one ever thought that she actually looked like a real girl. She was even able to fool them then.
   
   Emma was brave and took many risks during her life. One big risk was just signing up. She could have gotten into a lot of trouble if they found out that she was lying and was a girl. And being in the middle of a war is dangerous too. Another risk was when Emma disguised herself as Mr. Mayberry. She was supposed to lead a man, who was leaking union information to the rebels, into a union ambush. If anything went wrong she could've ended up dead and no one would have known. Also, when she was dressed up as a black slave woman, she could have gotten killed. She found secret rebel documents and was going to take them back to her camp. But if she was caught with them they probably would have killed her.
   
   When ever Emma made a decision she stuck to it and didn't turn back. For example, when she decided to run away. She was only sixteen and was afraid of her dad. But she set her fears aside and made the decision to leave and she was happy about it. Another example is when she decided to volunteer for the Army. She was scared and worried that they wouldn't believe her disguise. But she made her decision and wasn't going to second guess herself. Also, when she wanted to become a spy. It was dangerous but she wanted to do it anyway. And even after Mrs. Butler tried and tried to convince her not to do it, Emma stuck to her decision.
   
   This is a great book that will make you not want to put it down. I would recommend it to most people who like biographies and adventure story. This book may not interest everyone but overall it was good.
   
   C. Chapman



2. Emma Edmonds is a young girl from Canada, living in the North during the Civil War. She's always been outgoing and bold- never able to stay in one place at a time. So when she feels a calling to join the Union army, she does what any rebellious girl would do- cuts her hair, gets the uniform, and joins up. At first she's awkward and unsure- terrified that she'll be discovered. She sees the whole thing as a big adventure-that is, until an old love interest of hers is killed in the war. She decides to really take a stand and looks at the war in a whole different way. She fights with all her power-until she gets word that a Union spy was recently killed by the Confederates. She quickly lands the job of replacement. She goes across the rebel lines, a different disguise each time, and collects useful information which helped to save many battles.
   Emma Edmonds, whom I had never heard of before reading the book, is a facinating character. How she summoned the courage to join the army I will never know. A very good book, but a little slow in places.



3. I didn't really like this book. I didn't really like the author's writing style, it was a little hard to understand and follow. The subject wasn't very interesting to me. I think that it would have been hard to try to re-create a story about the civil war. I think that the author did good on that.
   
   I wouldn't really recommend this book unless you are interested in things about the army. I think that it was cool though that a woman would take that kind of risk just to be in combat. Also it was cool that she was that passionate about serving her country.



4. My grandma forced me to read "Behind Rebel Lines". But it turned out to be an awsome and interesting book!



5. Behind the Lines is an adaptation of the Emma Edmonds story for young adults. Emma Edmonds was a native of Saint John New Brunswick, Canada who left for the United States several years prior to the war. She eventually found her way to Michigan where, following the outbreak of war, she under the alias Franklin Thompson enlisted with the 2nd Michigan Infantry. She served with the unit as an orderly for about a year before she volunteered herself as a spy, and during the course of the next year went on eleven assignments. Not only were her spying activities dangerous, but she always had to remain vigilant among her comrades as well, lest her identity be discovered. This is a very interesting and entertaining bit of history, one that is sure to interest even some of those who insist that history is "bo-ring".

5 comments about The Wilderness World of John Muir.

1. A wonderful sampling of Muir's writings and his timeless perspective on the wonders of our natural world.



2. excerpted from Muir's The Mountains of California, is one chapter I've read many times. He climbs to the top of a Doug Fir so that he can experience a 100' tree swaying 30° back and forth "rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy" I take this book backpacking (there's no ultralight version yet...) in the Sierra most times and there's always something to read that fits the setting. EWT's intro is very sweet as are the



3. I really enjoyed this book as it was focused on plants and animals. My favorite chapters were "The Water Ouzel" (a bird) and "Stickeen" (a dog). However, the whole book was interesting and enjoyable, including chapters about different people he met along the way ("The Robber" and "The Blacksmith"). This book is titled as "a selection from his collected work." I enjoyed his writing so much that I will look for a complete volume of his works so I don't miss out on any other great stories.



4. I am often asked for a recommendation of what among Muir's writings, or writings about him, one should first read. After spending more than 30 years appreciating both his writings and most of the books about Muir that have been published during that time, and after ten years editing the John Muir Exhibit online, I can only turn to the same book that originally enthalled me with John Muir: The Wilderness World of John Muir, edited by Edwin Way Teale.
   
   This book was edited by someone who was himself an able naturalist and nature-writer, and therefore someone who could understand Muir in a way that most academics, whether professors of literature or historians, cannot. Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980), has been ranked as a nature writer with been ranked with Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs, as well as John Muir himself. His honors include being elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, receiving the John Burroughs Award in 1943, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1966. He was the author of 32 books. Teale's sympathy for Muir's message is shown in the book's Dedication page, which is "Dedicated to The Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, The National Parks Association, and all those who are fighting the good fight to preserve what John Muir sought to save."
   
   This book serves as both an anthology of the very best of Muir's writings, and also a biography, compellingly provided by Teale.
   
   The biographical value of this work is often under-stated, even by the publisher. The book is typically viewed as an anthology, and indeed it is, primarily; but it also contains a wealth of biographical information, far more than the typical anthology.
   
   Teale commences his book on John Muir with an authoritative 10-page Introduction, that not merely identifies the key events in Muir's life, but provides an assessment and perspective of how Muir stacks up with other nature writers. He provides facts you won't find elsewhere: "While visiting friends, Muir sometimes would talk four hours at breakfast." Teale, writing in 1954, was able to talk with several people who knew Muir personally. He noted that everyone he talked to had a different view of which phase of natural history held first importance in Muir's mind. Some thought it was trees; another thought it was geology, another plants. Teale points out the fourth view, probably the nearest right of all: "... the whole interrelationships of life, the complete rounded picture of the mountain world. Today, Muir probably would be called an ecologist." Teale 's assessment of Muir as an "ecologist" pre-dates the "ecology movement" of the 1970s by at least 15 years. Teale admirably tells of the scope of the places, glaciers, plants, and animals named after him, and Muir's contributions to science and conservation. Although public appreciation for Muir has grown dramatically since Teale's book was first published in 1954, The Wilderness World of John Muir still provides the best introduction to Muir's life and writings.
   
   Following the admirable Introduction, each of the 51 excerpts from Muir's writings commences with a preface by Teale, of up to a page in length, presenting in chronological order the story of Muir's life, and putting each of Muir's writings into context.
   
   Although serving as a biography, the Wilderness World is, in fact, primarily a superb anthology. Rather than simply re-printing the full text of such of Muir's works as The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, My First Summer in the Sierra, Travels in Alaska, Our National Parks , and the Journals, Teale provides short snippets from the best of Muir's writings, arranged into seven broad categories:
   
   I. Memories of Youth - reprints Muir's writings about his boyhood in Scotland, life on the Wisconsin Farm, seeing immense flocks Passenger Pigeons, nearly dying of choke-damp while digging a well, his inventions, and his enrollment at the University of Wisconsin.
   
   II. University of The Wilderness - Excerpts from A Thousand Mile Walk, including people by the way, camping among the tombs of Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, and Muir's visit to Cuba and New York.
   
   III. The Range of Light - Muir's adventures in the Sierra, including his first glimpse from Pacheco Pass and crossing the bee pastures of the Central Valley, his first visits to the High Sierra, climbing on the brink of Yosemite Falls above the Valley, tributes to wildlife including bears and grasshoppers, and his telepathic experience sensing the presence of his former University Professor Butler in the Valley.
   
   IV. The Valley - Muir's glorious tributes to Yosemite Valley's waterfalls, the water ouzel, the earthquake, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's visit.
   
   V. Forests of the West - Including Muir's adventure high atop a Douglas fir during a wind-storm, and writings about Silver Pine, the Douglas Squirrel, Sequoia, Nevada Nut Pines, and Muir's clarion call to protect the forests, "Any Fool Can Destroy a Tree."
   
   VI. Glacier Pioneer - Muir's discovery of the Sierra glaciers, his climb of Mount Ritter, his perilous night on Mount Shasta, and his travels in Alaska, including his discovery of Glacier Bay and his adventure with Stickeen.
   
   VII. The Philosophy of John Muir - excerpts from many scattered sources focusing on Muir's views on mankind's relationship to Nature. For many, this is the favorite part of the book, the part one returns to again and again for inspiration.
   
   Despite this, the book does have some failings. The book belies the importance of Muir's family and friends, which becomes so evident upon reading his extensive correspondence. Nor does the book do more than barely mention some important places in Muir's life, such as his global travels to such places as the glacial mountains of Europe, the forests of Siberia, the Himalayas and forests of India, Australian and New Zealand forests, and, the fulfillment of his life-long dream, his last trip to see the forests of South America and Africa. The book emphasizes Muir's appreciative writings about Nature, and only briefly mentions the conservation battles which consumed so much of his life, including his long campaign to protect Hetch Hetchy. To obtain a whole picture of Muir, the reader will need to also read another work about Muir's conservation campaigns, such as Roderick Nash's chapter on "John Muir: Publicizer" in Wilderness and the American Mind, Stephen Fox's John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement, or John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite by Holway R. Jones.
   
   Since the book was originally published in 1954, it is not informed by some of the more recent research resulting from Muir's unpublished journals and correspondence, published in the John Muir Papers in 1980. Given the popularity of this book, fifty years after its first publication, the publishers should consider a second edition, again using a nature writer rather than a literary critic or historian to update the book.
   
   Overall, in this book Muir comes alive, as someone who can can at once write inspiringly and poetically about trees, storms, mountains, glaciers, and forests, but yet also show the attention to detail of an analytical scientist. Muir is revealed as adventurer, a lover of nature, a person who can still excite the imagination of readers. As Teale concludes, "Rich in time, rich in enjoyment, rich in appreciation, rich in enthusiasm, rich in understanding, rich in expression, rich in friends, rich in knowledge, John muir lived a full and rounded life, a life unique in many ways, admirable in many ways, valuable in many ways.... In his writings and in his conservation achievements, Muir seems especially present in a world that is better because he lived here."
   
   August, 2004



5. Whether you are interested in John Muir specifically or just want to read about an interesting life, this book is an excellent place to start.

   John Muir had an incredible and important life, and it is told here succinctly in his own words, excerpted to emphasize the profound. It is a glimpse into a lifestyle 99.9% of us will never know, yet it is truly important to our times. His love of nature, adventure and exploration is a reminder of why we need to experience more than our 9 to 5 workdays and why we need to apply ourselves to the protection of the Earth.

   Muir was a gentle but strong man, a genius with simple needs, solitary yet influential. This book is a terrific way to look into his life and his time and to gain some inspiration into our lives and our times.

5 comments about Champlain's Dream.

1. "Champlain's Dream" - David Hackett Fischer
   
   The following comments are for the abridged CD audio book version of "Champlain's Dream" by David Hackett Fischer. Edward Herrmann reads the book. This is an Audioworks Audio edition.
   
   This listener found the narrator, Edward Herrmann, an excellent speaker whose clear pronunciation and moderate pacing a pleasure to listen too.
   
   This audio book consist 8 compact disks with a total playtime of approximately 10 hours. The disks are secured in two standard fan fold multi CD holders. These two inserts slide into the external packaging box. The CD holders do not have identifications on the spine listing the CD numbers. I mention this minor point because a numbering feature is very useful when you're looking for the next CD.
   
   For several years I did a significant amount of business travel. I filled those hours listening to numerous non-fiction audio books most of them in the history-biography category. Many were ok, some good and very few compelling listening. "Champlain's Dream" falls into the latter category. There are two reasons for this personal judgment. I found the subject matter very interesting to say the least. In addition the author has a brilliant knack for bringing to life historical events and personalities.
   
   I never had much interest in stories about North American explorers; possible a hold over from some very uninspiring High School history books. I purchased this audio book as a remainder not expecting too much except to pass the time. Much to my delight this audio book is my "hidden gem" that I would without reservation recommend to my friends.
   
   The following are some topics that I found absorbing as a result of listening to this audio book:
   The author covers Champlain's early life in France with some sad and disturbing descriptions of the Religious Wars between Catholics and Protestants. We learn that political intrigues and currying favor with influential courtiers was essential to obtain New France trading approval from the King. Once Champlain obtained approval to travel to New France from the Crown he was completely on his own obtaining financing and, of course, ships. Champlain made 27 voyages to New France and never lost a ship; some voyages lasted over two months. Most of the book concerns the relationships between the French and the various Native Americans tribes. This is a subject the lays the foundation for all the subsequent issues that the English and the Spanish had with the original custodians of North America.
   
   There were so many attention-grabbing aspects to this story that I intend to obtain the book since the audio version was an abridgement.



2. It must be pretty daunting for an author to sit down and start writing a biography of a man whose date of birth is unknown and whose image survives only in artists' and sculptors' imaginings, all of them likely a good deal off the mark. When most of your subject's personal papers were lost after his death (something along the lines of those of John Hunter, the subject of Wendy Moore's wonderful "The Knife Man"), you additionally are deprived of your subject's musings on his life and times. Nonetheless, Author Fischer has managed to craft an absorbing account of one of the most improbable careers of the 17th century, from that era when there were plenty of contenders!
   
   I agree with some of the other reviewers that the book does tend to be a bit hagiographic and more than a bit of a slog on occasion, but it is also deeply researched and as thorough as one can imagine, calling on what appear to be every available resource to tell this extraordinary man's story. I, for one, found the appendix helpful and agree with the author that it was best to separate the information presented from the main text.
   
   In all, a very worthwhile read. If you don't know much about Champlain, you will after this, and be a more well-rounded History buff for the effort. After all, isn't that the goal we're relentlessly trying to `discover'?



3. It took me several months to read this book as there are many dry and boring pages in this tome. I've read over 600 of the 848 pages and still had trouble understanding the connection between some chapters in it and the main themes. That's because Mr. Fischer does not clearly separate the story from several hundred pages of mostly useless annotations. There were some useful pages towards the end of the book but they were generally off topic and dealt with broad issues. In addition, the footnotes at the bottom of almost every page were very distracting and could have been added into the main body of the book just as easily. In fact, this book should have had some serious editing done to it so that many boring pages of useless information could have been removed.
   
   Aside from problems of judgment on how to organize this book I found it to be quite interesting solely because of the subject matter. Furthermore I, like most people in the United States, have never heard of Samuel de Champlain even though he is known as the father of French Canada and this made me fairly concerned about my history buff moniker. So I endeavored to read Champlain's Dream and to at least skim other sources such as those listed in the nearly 300 pages of annotations at the end of this book. I haven't read these other sources yet but will start reading some by The Champlain Society, which has a digital collection on their website. The Champlain Society's premier work is "The Works of Samuel de Champlain" in six volumes published from 1922 to 1936 and overseen by H.P. Biggar. The first edition is quite pricey since only 550 copies were published and can be found for no less than $1,000.00 although many are much more expensive. Luckily, we can all read it for free online thanks to the generosity of the Champlain Society. There are many other works but Fischer and others point to this 6 set collection as the best source for information on Samuel de Champlain.
   
   The reason why I've mentioned other sources is because Mr. Fischer spends quite a bit of time on commentary. He often added his opinion to the narrative and made bold remarks about analysis by other writers in regards to what Champlain did do and should have done in certain situations. He even listed all of the relevant sources and then critiqued them, dismissing most of them as either inaccurate, bias, or misguided. Now that we've covered the requisite critique of the author, which can be found on my website although you'll have to go to my Amazon profile to see what it is thanks to Amazon's editing, we can move on to the story.
   
   This story begins in Brouage, which is in the Saintonge province in France. Here, a young Samuel Champlain learned how to be even tempered and to sail. In his early twenties he participated in religious wars in Brittany and then went on a secret mission to Spain and its American colonies on behalf of Henry IV. After learning much about sailing, war, and different cultures Champlain decides to accompany Francois Grave Du Pont, Pierre Dugua de Mons, and others to explore the north eastern parts of the Americas. Throughout the years he takes meticulous notes, creates charts, and collects all sorts of data for Henry IV. He also sees Pierre Dugua de Mons and other well off leaders such as Jean de Biencourt de Poutrincourt fail at dealing positively with local Native American tribes. Through years of experience in practical matters such as war and sailing, efforts to treat Native Americans with great respect, constant support from Henry IV, and from inheriting most of his uncles estate Samuel de Champlain succeeds in not only becoming wealthy, experienced, and respected by both Native Americans and Europeans but also in gaining the necessary support in France to lead an expedition into French territories in the Americas.
   
   After having seen much failure from leaders who could not relate to Native Americans and because of the religious wars in France between Protestants and Catholics, Champlain decides to lead a religiously mixed crew to New France in order to secure the territory as quickly as possible. He does run in to road blocks such as Henry IV dying, being shunned by Henry IV's successors, Cardinal Richelieu's distrust and other setbacks. Furthermore, any support that he does receive from France is often minimal and sets him up for failure. Due to these circumstances New France is taken over by the British and the Iroquois run amuck. Nevertheless, Champlain never gives up and pursues his goal of a tolerant New France. In the mean time, his supporters are either killed or stripped of their authority on religious grounds and he himself is often looked down upon even though he has converted to Catholicism. He marries Helene Broulle to gain a relationship with a prominent French family but that does not work out since she is many decades younger and in the end he spends most of his time trying to please a woman who is very different from himself. This is a repeating problem with Champlain. He often tries to convince stubborn people to do good deeds and almost always fails because these same people have self interest in mind before the common good. On a side note, Fischer also suggests that Samuel de Champlain is gay and the son of Henry IV but there is no strong evidence for either one of those theories.
   
   In the end, Samuel de Champlain has a stroke and withers away for months before dying surrounded by Native American and French friends. He's seen many personal successes but has failed just likes his predecessors at getting much needed attention for New France. To say that he is accomplished, respected, and has vast life experience is an understatement. However, even this strong willed and intelligent person could not fuse magnets that are of opposite charges. Meaning that his good nature, wealth, intelligence, charm, and support from Native Americans and from many French did not account for much with the French nobility and Cardinal Richelieu. It seems that Champlain was always moving two steps forward and one step back.
   
   Overall, it was thrilling to read about Champlain's adventures, perseverance, and the political climate of his time. Yet it was very disheartening that Samuel de Champlain died without getting the French support that he needed and was often disrespected by the French leaders in power after Henry IV. If I had to choose a favorite part of the book it would be regarding torture and how Champlain vehemently opposed it. I particularly liked that Samuel de Champlain stood up to his Native American allies and refused to support them if they continued to be vicious to other tribes in the area. His reluctance to be violent did not work with some of the Native Americans living in New France nor with most of the French nobility in Europe but it did make an impact on many of the people around him. If nothing else, this man left a history of good will behind when he died. I can definitely respect that about him.



4. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, particularly as the importance of what Samuel Champlain accomplished became increasingly clear as the book neared its end. Champlain was a remarkable man, although the popular knowledge of him probably extends not much beyond giving his name to a large lake in a remote part of upstate New York state. Champlain, however, excelled at many things and was deficient in very few. His skill resulted in the settling of French colonies throughout the southern rim of Canada. Champlain embodied the talent of a diplomat in dealing with many fractious Indian tribes, smoothly gaining their trust and their respect. He handled innumerable difficult situations in his native France, through two regents and one extraordinarily critical minister, Cardinal Richelieu. He held his tiny colonies together through tough winters, desertion, and battles with the native Indians. Eventually, at the end of his life, in 1635, he lived to see the population of southern Canada explode and the French culture take firm root in the North American continent.
   
   This is a wonderful story, told by in my opinion a great historian. David Fischer's Washington's Crossing was perhaps a more focused book, telling a story of enormous significance to American history. However, Professor Fischer's skill at weaving a strong impression of a great multi-faceted man is demonstrated here, in his portrait of Champlain, just as vividly as it was with Washington.
   
   I would say, in fairness to the reader of this complex but stirring book, that it would be advisable to read the book with a highly detailed Atlas of Canada firmly in hand. I thought I knew something of Canadian geography but this is a graduate seminar in rivers and peninsulas and islands. It can be a bit confusing at times without a strong sense of Canadian geography. Also, be prepared for a crash course in Indian tribal history. Much of this is difficult, since it is so new to me. But it is an important part of what Champlain faced. He was forced to deal with a strange unknown land, populated with unknown people speaking languages that were totally unknown to any European, and had to sell his vision of the importance of this new land to a skeptical and largely ignorant France. He did this with incredible skill.



5. David Hackett Fischer's latest masterpiece focuses on the life of Samuel Champlain and efforts he undertook to create new France. It is a tumultuous tale that is painstakingly researched due to a very scattered array of primary sources. Fischer blends together the ethnographies, documents, archeology and popular myths that surround this time period in North America. It is a fascinating tale of a man who learned from colonial disasters to create the city of Quebec and shape the outlook of early modern Canada. The reader is able to see the change in tactics of building a colony for colonization and not around trade, Indian diplomacy, and a blending of state and religion in a colony all of which helped the colony to succeed. It is a truly amazing story given the hardships that were faced that the colony succeeds at all. The amazing story of this man's life from his 27 voyages across the Atlantic (in which he did not lose a major ship) to the intrigues of the French court and his political back deals all are told in excellent detail. For those wanting to learn more about French Canada you cannot go wrong with this one.

5 comments about The Concubine's Children.

1. I had just read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See when I found this book. The Concubine's Children made China come alive knowing she was writing about actual people and those still living while she was doing her research. If you want to understand the history involving Chinese families and the culture, this is one not to miss. She made it all come alive especially with the family photos that you could refer back to when a new person was introduced or she was describing the home her father built.



2. When I finished reading this book I had the desire to contact the author and thank her for her work.
   
   Much to my surprise in this day she doesn't seem to have a website with the obligatory email link.
   
   Thank you Denise for taking the time to bring this story to print.
   
   You did a great job. And I am eager to read your subsequent books.
   
   thanks again



3. Received my order quickly, the book was is the advertised condition and I loved the book.



4. I couldn't wait to read this book after it arrived. But I was disappointed. Althought the topic was fascinating, the writing was not. I became bored and at times found it hard to follow which person was doing what. I had to re-read some paragraphs to make sure I knew which person I was reading about. If the writing had been better, it would have been a far more captivating book. Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter was much better.



5. 
   THE BOOK WAS A VERY GOOD BUY....SERVICE WAS OUTSTANDING I RECD
   THE BOOK IN A HURRY. BOOK WAS IN GREAT CONDITION AND EVEN MY
   WIFE PICKED IT UP AND READ IT. THIS IS THE SECOND BOOK I
   PURCHASED FROM AMAZON. I WILL BUY AGAIN VERY SOON. KEEP UP
   THE GOOD WORK.

2 comments about Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits.

1. This gem of a book approaches all of its subjects with deep humanity and keen intelligence. Some of Greer's conclusions will inevitably be controversial, given the subject matter. But having read dozens of academic history books on natives and Europeans, I know of only a few that unfold with such wisdom and scholarly maturity. Last point -- my college students love this book as well.



2. This is not a biography of the humble young Mohawk woman whose courage, holiness, faith, and purity earned her (as thousands who know and love her truly believe) that place in Heaven. This book, in the author's own paraphrased words, is meant to "bring Tekakwitha down from heaven." (And it is part of a gloomy trend to do just that - to as much as one can to bring one's subject down.) And, thankfully, despite over two hundred pages of trying, he has not succeeded in dragging her down.
   
   There are people who were primarily historic figures and those whose lives are mainly of religious significance. Blessed Kateri (or Catherine, as the author prefers to call her) Tekakwitha was very clearly the latter. But this book approaches her from the former point of view, making her a postmortem pawn in the Jesuit's missionary work among the natives in Canada. The mystical and the supernatural (from a religious view) are ignored. The author seems even unwillingly to use the title of "Blessed" in reference to her.
   
   At one point, the author even seems - in a very subtle way - to imply the Kateri and her closest friend (Marie-Therese Tegaiaguenta)were lovers. If, as he writes, there is "no reason to think they were lovers," why mention it at all? What does it serve?
   
   The author dwells on each and any discrepancy in the original accounts by the two missionaries who knew Kateri during the last years of her life. (Even the Bible - in all its various popular translations - has its discrepancies.) Any story of any person, any account of any event is bound to have differences when told by two different witnesses. That alone is not enough reason to discount the differences.
   
   His grim portrait of Kateri in no way accounts for the great numbers of people (not only Native Americans, but from around the world) who have a profound love for this holy young woman.
   I can speak from my own experiences and observations that she has had a great impact even on people who knew little or nothing of her.
   
   Historians may find this book of interest, but for those who have a devotion to this wonderful saint-to-be, there is little to recommend it.
   
   On a personal level, I have been studying the life of Blessed Kateri for a number of years. My personal collection includes nearly a hundred works of literature on her. These range from reprints of the original biographies by Fathers Chauchetiere and Cholonec to fluffy, sentimentalized (to the point of being quite ridiculous) books for young readers.
   
   I am also the creator of the web site mentioned on page 241 of this new book. I work for and look forward to the day when she is finally declared a saint.
   
   I pre-ordered this book many months ago and read it with an open mind as I am always eager for new details on her life. For me, it was a dull read (the narrative flow seems uneven) with left me unimpressed (not with Catherine Tekakwitha) and with a very unpleasant taste.
   
   Historians, cultural anthropologists, and the politically correct may find something of interest in this dry and dreary book, but for those who have a devotion to this wonderful saint-to-be, there is little to recommend it.
   
   (I gave it one star because there is no lesser option and, well, my site was mentioned in the Notes to Chapter 9. I suppose I owe it something.)

5 comments about Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now.

1. Jan Wong was a third-generation Canadian of Chinese descent at Beijing University studying Mandarin and Chinese history during the early 1970s. In the midst of the Cultural Revolution she was one of only two westerners there at the time, and considered herself an enthusiastic Maoist. Part of the reason Wong went to China was to search for her roots; she also had visions of becoming a reporter in Beijing. At age 17, Wong had also become a feminist, something she calls a natural step to Maoism - both women and workers were 'oppressed.' Wong was not only unusual for being a foreigner in China, she also looked Chinese, wanted to be treated like one and experience their lives, but didn't speak Chinese. At the time, there were only 800 million Chinese, and passes were required to travel within China. Her book covers life under both Mao and successor Deng.
   
   Wong opens by describing a with meeting Mao's 23-year-old grandson in a Beijing hospital where he is trying to slim down from 300 lbs (5' 9"). The year was 1988, Wong had returned to China and was shocked at the changes. She found Mao's son scared of his mother (always telling him what to do), wanting to go to the U.S., but not allowed because the Central Committee nixed it - ironic for the son of one of the formerly most power men in the world.
   
   Returning to her first visit (six-years, based at Beijing University), she describes student conditions - students slept 8/room, drinking water was several buildings away, and there was no hot water at all. Wong was given a stipend equal to that of Chairman Mao. There were no washing machines or laundry services. She tells us that the Chinese are great believers in rote learning, perhaps developed from the need to memorize thousands of written characters. Wong herself learned about 120 words/week. Students were assigned majors; being a foreigner, Wong, however, was allowed to choose her own. After fifteen months she left China and its austerity to graduate from McGill University in Canada, then returned to China under Deng.
   
   One of the first things Deng Xiaoping did when he returned to power in 1973 was to reinstate university entrance exams - previously scrapped by Mao's wife in favor of admission based on loyalty and connections. Chinese students still were not allowed to date, and Wong began to wonder about treatment differences based on contacts and background in a supposedly classless society. Deng's children made out quite well, as did others with high connections. She volunteered for work farm assignment to strengthen her revolutionary, non-capitalist thinking. Planting work required 320 man-days for seven acres of rice; they also had to manually create earthen borders around the fields, fertilize, and then harvest by hand. Workers even crawled over the fields to glean the last bits. After her group finished its work, they had to help another group that had fallen behind. One worker was turned in to security for collecting a stamp from Canada with a picture of the queen on it.
   
   Premier Zhou Enlai had tried to mitigate the suffering that had taken place under the Cultural Revolution; even his adopted daughter had been beaten to death while imprisoned in 1968. Mao had kept the leadership fragmented by making appointments such that no faction was strong enough to challenge him. Students were forbidden to attend Zhou's memorial, and their eulogies to him were taken down - they largely were disguised anti-Mao statements. About 60 people were killed in demonstrations at Zhou's death - an ominous portent of the 1989 riots after leader Hu Yaobang's death. People also celebrated the arrest of the Gang of Four after Mao's death. Poor peasants came to Beijing after the Cultural Revolution, following the ancient tradition of seeking redress of wrong - invariably from CCP officials.
   
   Wong left China again, this time for Columbia University journalism studies, then work at the Toronto Globe and Mail. Returning again to China after 8 years, she was was shocked at the obvious improvement in standards of living. Wong was both in, and adjacent to (facing hotel room) the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The Chinese Red Cross estimated that 3,000 were killed; 30 were executed afterwards. Traveling, Wong located an execution site - relatives were billed for the bullets, and organs often harvested from those killed. Opium, V.D., and wife-selling returned after Mao's death.



2. Jan Wong was a third-generation Canadian of Chinese descent at Beijing University studying Mandarin and Chinese history during the early 1970s. In the midst of the Cultural Revolution she was one of only two westerners there at the time, and considered herself an enthusiastic Maoist. Part of the reason Wong went to China was to search for her roots; she also had visions of becoming a reporter in Beijing. At age 17, Wong had also become a feminist, something she calls a natural step to Maoism - both women and workers were 'oppressed.' Wong was not only unusual for being a foreigner in China, she also looked Chinese, wanted to be treated like one and experience their lives, but didn't speak Chinese. At the time, there were only 800 million Chinese, and passes were required to travel within China. Her book covers life under both Mao and successor Deng.
   
   Wong opens by describing a with meeting Mao's 23-year-old grandson in a Beijing hospital where he is trying to slim down from 300 lbs (5' 9"). The year was 1988, Wong had returned to China and was shocked at the changes. She found Mao's son scared of his mother (always telling him what to do), wanting to go to the U.S., but not allowed because the Central Committee nixed it - ironic for the son of one of the formerly most power men in the world.
   
   Returning to her first visit (six-years, based at Beijing University), she describes student conditions - students slept 8/room, drinking water was several buildings away, and there was no hot water at all. Wong was given a stipend equal to that of Chairman Mao. There were no washing machines or laundry services. She tells us that the Chinese are great believers in rote learning, perhaps developed from the need to memorize thousands of written characters. Wong herself learned about 120 words/week. Students were assigned majors; being a foreigner, Wong, however, was allowed to choose her own. After fifteen months she left China and its austerity to graduate from McGill University in Canada, then returned to China under Deng.
   
   One of the first things Deng Xiaoping did when he returned to power in 1973 was to reinstate university entrance exams - previously scrapped by Mao's wife in favor of admission based on loyalty and connections. Chinese students still were not allowed to date, and Wong began to wonder about treatment differences based on contacts and background in a supposedly classless society. Deng's children made out quite well, as did others with high connections. She volunteered for work farm assignment to strengthen her revolutionary, non-capitalist thinking. Planting work required 320 man-days for seven acres of rice; they also had to manually create earthen borders around the fields, fertilize, and then harvest by hand. Workers even crawled over the fields to glean the last bits. After her group finished its work, they had to help another group that had fallen behind. One worker was turned in to security for collecting a stamp from Canada with a picture of the queen on it.
   
   Premier Zhou Enlai had tried to mitigate the suffering that had taken place under the Cultural Revolution; even his adopted daughter had been beaten to death while imprisoned in 1968. Mao had kept the leadership fragmented by making appointments such that no faction was strong enough to challenge him. Students were forbidden to attend Zhou's memorial, and their eulogies to him were taken down - they largely were disguised anti-Mao statements. About 60 people were killed in demonstrations at Zhou's death - an ominous portent of the 1989 riots after leader Hu Yaobang's death. People also celebrated the arrest of the Gang of Four after Mao's death. Poor peasants came to Beijing after the Cultural Revolution, following the ancient tradition of seeking redress of wrong - invariably from CCP officials.
   
   Wong left China again, this time for Columbia University journalism studies, then work at the Toronto Globe and Mail. Returning again to China after 8 years, she was was shocked at the obvious improvement in standards of living. Wong was both in, and adjacent to (facing hotel room) the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The Chinese Red Cross estimated that 3,000 were killed; 30 were executed afterwards. Traveling, Wong located an execution site - relatives were billed for the bullets, and organs often harvested from those killed. Opium, V.D., and wife-selling returned after Mao's death.



3. I was born and raised in the US (and a little in Europe) but have had the opportunity to live in China for some time. This was an amazing insight to the people and culture and what they had to go through during their recent history. After reading this book (and having lived in China before that) many things about the people and the culture suddenly made sense. This book really helped me to understand why the Chinese people are the way they are--not to say that bad...or good...but really understand why they do the things they do. My wife is Chinese and I am able to understand and/or accept certain things that she and her family does as a result of having been through these difficult and changing times. It is easy to understand why "trust no one" and being "tight-lipped" are necessary. I think it was an amazing opportunity for Jan Wong to experience this things first-hand.
   
   I highly recommend this book as it gives a very clear glimpse at the heart of what has shaped China today.



4. Why does a millionaire's daughter leave her cushy life in the U.S. to move to Red China during the height of the madness known as the Cultural Revolution? Because she's an idealist and a believer. Okay. I'll buy that. But despite her youth and what must have been a suffocatingly sheltered backgtround, American born Jan Wong is not quick to pick up on nuance. Or anything else. She sspends years and years observing the cultural revolution blossom into chaos, and is completely oblivious to it. She somehow misses the beatings and imprisonment of her teachers even when it happens right under her nose at Beijing University. People disappear for their thought crimes, and Wong thinks they've fone on long holidays. If she knows they have been "disappeared" by the government, she thinks they must have deserved it. Her "university" spends more time raising cabbages than it does in the classroom, and contradiction, doublespeak and history-revision are what pass for news and information. But does Wong look around and say "Whassup?" Nope. She even betries a few friends to the authorities for mild complaints or for suggesting to her that the U.S. might be an okay place to live. Those chums are dispatched to work camps and mines...hells on earth used to torture and "rehabilitate" dissenters. Is our Miss Sunshine plagued by guilt? Nope. She figures the camps are probably like the ones she went to in Connecticut and a good thing. Finally she wakes up and hears the dropping of the other shoe. She notices the economic and social chaos, the fact that all her schoolmates are hungry all the time, as are all the people in the city around her makes her notice the lack of food. When people start disappearing to the point where classes of 100 students now hold seven or 8, she guesses that there may be a little stifling of dissidents all around her. She even regrets tossing her friends under the bus. Having panned her political and social astuteness, I have to give Wong praise for providing an intimate insight into daily life for a privileged few in Beijing. Because she is, indeed, among a handful of students treated with kid gloves. Thus when Wong innocently notes that she gets better food from her "private chef" than is available to the rest of the students in the cafeteria, she doesn't know how much she is actually revealing about her life and the "real life" of the people around her. The dichotemy becomes even more apparent. Even as they are sent to work in the fields, to the University's own farm or to the farms of peasants, the special cadres and "foreign born" students still get enough food to live on, medical care, and other luxuries that the revered peasants and working class did not. By the end of the book, there is a sameness to the narrative that becomes tiresome and overall, I can give it only a moderate recommendation. If you want to read an excellent book covering this same time frame, but which provides deeper context and more detailed information on daily life, pick up a copy of "Life and Death and Shanghai" by Nein Ching. An amazing autobiography about a woman who proves to be the toughest, most iron-willed little old lady that the Cultural Revolution (or anyone else) ever encountered. Her book is impossible to put down and impossible to forget. China Blues won't have you seeing red with disappointment, but there's not a lot of meat on its bones.



5. I really enjoyed the book, Red China Blues. I have just returned from a tour of China's Best Treasures and reading this book provided me with a better understanding of the history of the country by means of a person's life story. It was very interesting and well written. It was an easy read. So enlightening.

5 comments about Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics).

1. Wallace Stegner, the inveterate fiction/non-fiction writer of western America, is at his best with this autobiographical account of his six years (aged 10 to 16)living with his family in south-central Saskatchewan, Canada with frequent visits to north-central Montana in the period of the "closing of the Canadian Frontier" with thrashing machines replacing short-horn/long-horn cattle drives from Canada to the US and vice-versa. Stegner's eye for details and the nuances of life on the Canadian/American praries is never failing in capturing both the people and the times (1910-16)particularly his novella half way through his autobiographical memories of the great blizzard of 1907 and the last cattle drive from French River to Montana through the eyes of a benighted English gentlemen hellbent on learning about cowboy life first hand. The book, named for a yellow bush found along river banks in Canada and Montana, and known for its distinctive pleasing fragrance, is a tour de force of the continental Great Plains and life on the turn of the century prairie Canada. An excellent companion to Willa Cather's quasi-biographical O, Pioneers!



2. Over the past couple of months, I have brought up "Wolf Willow" to a couple of friends who are readers. It's a difficult book to sell to friends, though. Ones says, "Well, it's part history, part
   essay, part memoir, and their eyes glaze over." Today I took the bull by the horns and bought a copy and had it sent to the second friend. Then I realized that I hadn't bothered to leave a
   review on amazon.com, and so here I am, like the Ancient Mariner, to tug at people's sleeves, hoping that anyone who happens by this site might read my words and be tilted toward buying
   this book. It is wonderful. You don't need to take my advice: look at the reviews by famous people, and see that V. Nabokov found it "enthralling, captivating, and infinitely ...." oh, I can't
   remember the exact words, buy Nabokov's point was that he envied Stegner's work in this book. (For Nabokov, that's high praise).
   
   And that's it. If you reading these words, you're half-way home, half-way to deciding to read this book. I hope these words are the finger on the scale that makes you purchase "Wolf Willow."
   If you do, you'll remember this review, I'll bet.



3. Stegner once again reveals his writing prowess, This time in a self-indulgent adventure to haunts of his youth.
   
   I have some qualms about this work, however. In particular, I was not so keen on those parts where Stegner relied heavily on book-based history that never directly touched his own life. To be frank, his writing in these parts surprisingly got a bit stodgy.
   
   His thought on sense of place and belonging, however, are remarkable, hitting me right between the eyes. Indeed, he had me wistfully recalling my own childhood in what seemed a remote area of the world with the archaeological junk heap and all. In measuring his boyhood to my own, I noted how little times had changed in that interval of 60-70 years and how much has changed for kids in the last 40. It had me wondering how my own sons lives would be different were it not for the MAFIA (mother's against fun in America).



4. This book has no right to be so absorbing. Though the topic of this forgotten book by Wallace Stegner reeks of self-indulgence-- A writer returns to where he grew up, reminisces about his youth and the history of the frontier town his transient childhood most identified as home and concludes with a 100-page fictionalized account of a the terrible winter of 1906-- he manages to tie his past inexorably to ours, linking his nostalgia for his youth with our own, and exploring the promise and inevitable waste of the American Dream lived out on our frontiers.
   
   Stegner, like Proust, experiences an "ancient, unbearable recognition" spurred by a return to the sites, sounds, and most importantly, smells of his childhood. He dreams of this period and is "haunted, on awakening, by a sense of meanings just withheld, and by a profound nostalgic melancholy." Everyone has some awareness of a deep meaning lurking in our past that has not, or cannot, be fully interpreted.
   
   Perhaps the best part of the book is section three, the novella length exposition on the hope and danger of the high plains that does a superb job of creating looming dread as the winter drops hard on the land. Near the end of section three, Stegner expounds on what it is to be an American pursuing the Dream:
   
   "How does one know what wilderness has meant to Americans unless he has shared the guilt of wastefully and ignorantly tampering with it in the name of progress? One who has lived the dream, the temporary fulfillment, and the disappointment has had the full course.... The vein of melancholy in the North American mind may be owing to many causes, but it is surely not weakened by the perception that the fulfillment of the American Dream means inevitably the death of the noble savagery and freedom of the wild. Any who has lived on a frontier knows the inescapable ambivalence of the old-fashioned American conscience, for he has first renewed himself in Eden and then set about converting it into the lamentable modern world."



5. This wonderful collection of essays and fiction about the last Western frontier is both romance and anti-romance. Writing in the 1950s, Stegner captures the breath-taking beauty of the unbroken plains of southwest Saskatchewan and the excitement of its settlment at the turn of the century. Part memoir, the book recounts the years of his boyhood in a small town along the Whitemud River in 1914-1919, the summers spent on the family's homestead 50 miles away along the Canadian-U.S border. His book is also an account of the loss of that Eden and the failed promise of agricultural development in this semi-arid region with thin top soil.

   Stegner is a gifted, intelligent writer, able to turn the people and events of history into compelling reading. The opening section of the book describes the experience of being on the plains and specifically in the area where Stegner was a boy. And it lays out the geography of that land -- a distant range of hills, the river, the coulees, the town -- which the book will return to again and again.

   The following section evokes the period of frontier Canada's early exploration, the emergence of the metis culture, the destruction of the buffalo herds, the introduction of rangeland cattle, and then wave upon wave of settlement pushing the last of the plains Indians westward and northward. A chapter is devoted to the surveying of the boundary along the Canada-U.S. border; another chapter describes the founding of the Mounted Police and its purely Canadian style of bringing law and order to the wild west.

   The middle section of the book is a novella and a short story about the winter of 1906-1907. In the longer piece, eight men rounding up cattle are caught on the open plains in an early blizzard. Stegner builds the drama and the peril of their situation artfully and convincingly. The final section of the book returns to Stegner's memories of the town and the homestead, ending with his family's departure for Montana.

   Stegner lived at a time and in a place where a person born in the 20th century could still experience something of the sweep of history that transformed the American plains. I've read many books about the West, and because of his depth of thought, his gifts as a writer, and his unflinching eye, Stegner's work ranks for me among the best. I heartily recommend this book.

5 comments about People of the Deer (Death of a People).

1. Before reading this book, I would never have believed it would receive all 5 stars. However, it is truly beautifully written about the death of a people. The author - who lived with the tribe for 2 years to attempt to understand the people from their point of view - did an expert job of recanting what happened, how it happened. He makes a very determined attempt to see things differently than his point of view. My opinion is that he succeeds in doing so.
   
   Though a sociologist, the book is luridly written. It is easy for one to visualize what the writer is experiencing. In modern times, you'd expect such good writing from travel journalist/book writers. Here it is holey unexpected and appreciated.
   
   A wonderful book about the encroachment of modernization and it's mal-effects on an unsuspecting people.
   
   Finally, I always attempt to address the low star ratings in my own reviews. I'm not quite sure why someone would completely hate this book. The middle ratings appear to question the validity of the author's experience. While I am no expert on this topic, I would say that it might not matter if it's true. The message, particularly given it was written in 1947, is well conveyed. If you are an academic and hard-core sociologist, you might have an issue if there is some controversy surrounding the author's sincerity in methodology.



2. If you've read any of Farley Mowat's books, this one will excite you as much as any of the others. If you've wondered how Mowat became attached to the Northlands and it's people, People of the Deer will show you how it all began. This book also introduces us to a people that have all but lost their land and their way of life.



3. "People of the Deer" is apparently Farley Mowat's first book and one of his best. He lived for a year amongst the Ihalmiut, an Inuit people Mowat refers to as "People of the Deer" although they regarded themselves, as have many aborigonal people, as simple "The People."
   
   They are people of the deer--caribou--because, unlike other Inuit groups they are not sea hunters but, instead predators of the migratory caribou herds. The herds have declined in numbers but not as much as the Ihalmiut. From a population high of around 7,000 they had, by Mowat's time, declined to only 40. Why? The impact of European Civilization is too simple of a generalization but, in the Ihalmiut, a people almost extinct, we see the fate of millions.
   
   Native Americans have little or no immunity to Old World diseases. You probably don't have to go much deeper than this. Sure there was alcohol and cultural deterioration but, first and foremost, there is disease. It wasn't deliberate but it came when the first white man and/or African stepped shore in the Americas. Probably the Inhalmiut were slightly luckier than many. Many tribes died out without a trace. Estimates [read '1491'] that as many as 90% of native americans died as the result of unintentionally introduced European diseases.
   
   Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico



4. Farley Mowat is a Canadian National treasure.
   
   This novel is set in the northern territories of Canada. It move within the people of the inuit. These inland eskimos are an indigeounous people whose population has been diminishing. The influence on the environment as well as the impact on the caribou herds has been putting these people at risk to where they now near extinction and a loss of their way of life.
   
   Beautifully written, the tundra and the barrens comes to life.
   
   A wonderful read!



5. The concept is correct anyway. These people were led to their demise by three factors: the church, commercialization (HBC), and the Canadian government. Mowat claims he spent two years living among these people. This is doubted by some. I've traveled in some of the areas that this book takes place. Not everyone has great things to say about this author. One person I talked to called him a historical novelist. He has other nicknames.
   
   But while it is questionable that all the events described in this book and its' successor (The Desperate People) actually took place, at least he got the main theme correct.