Judith Miller Guide to Period Style Curtains and Soft Furnishings

Book Description

There is no style so coveted in interior decoration as authentic period style, and there is no name so identified with period style decorating as Judith Miller. This beautifully illustrated book provides detailed instructions on how to create authentic period looks using curtains, draperies, and soft furnishings. Included are photographs of a wide range of period rooms with step-by-step sewing instructions for 14 projects and inspiration for hundreds more.

From tapestry cushions to four-poster bed hangings, from swagged and tailed window coverings to wing chair covers--every aspect of period draperies and soft furnishing is covered, including photographs of swatches of classic fabrics still available today and backed up by a directory of international suppliers of these period-style fabrics. With hundreds of period ideas shown in more than 450 full-color photographs and step-by-step diagrams, Judith Miller's Guide to Period-Style Curtains and Soft Furnishings is the essential guide for home and professional decorators alike.

"[Judith Miller's] latest book is full of elegant and simple period rooms with stunning window treatments and a trove of other decorating ideas."--Better Homes and Garden's Window & Wall Ideas

Customer Reviews:

Full of Period Style Ideas.......2007-07-21

I'm building a period house. So, I have ordered quite a few books recently. And this is one of my favorites, became one of my favorites just flipping through it.

If you've read any of my reviews, you know that aesthetics are very important to me; if a book isn't "attractive" with good colorful photography/beauty and a good selection of what is being photographed/variety, then the book is somewhat spoiled for me from the start. Well this book is aesthetically pleasing. However, I do agree with another customer's review that when it comes to the the knowledge aspect, this book falls short on providing enough variety in the "How to's" section. For example, if you wanted to create your own half-tester, the author only demonstrates how to make one style while there are other styles depicted in the book.

Regardless, this book is a pleasant surprise because I didn't expect it to contain the "How to" sections, show how to dress walls or include pictures of swatches. I do wish the author had included a section on shades: austrian shades for example.

Practical and Inspirational.......2005-12-27

"Glorious ideas for curtains, blinds, bed hangings and coverings, table linens, wall hangings, lampshades, cushions"...Beautiful pictures. I love it!

beautiful photography.......2002-03-18

Thoroughly enjoyed the book. Just wish it had many MORE instructions for making some of the period treatments.

Book Description

$7.95 gatefold paper * 1-58685-264-7 * January
7 x 7 in, 32 pp, 28 Color Photographs,
Rights: W, Western
"My heroes have always been cowgirls."
-Willy Nelson
"This stuff is bodacious, righteous, enduring art."
-Linda Ellerbee
This timeless collection of hand-tinted art by internationally recognized painter and sculptor Bob Wade showcases the amazing women who performed dangerous feats in rodeos, Wild West shows, and Hollywood movies and TV, stunning audiences all over the world.
The faces of the women in this collection poignantly convey the freedom, equality, and sheer joy they experienced long before the modern women's movement came along. Bob Wade's Cowgirls entertains and informs, revealing the truth about the real cowgirls who ran wild and free in the Old West.
Bob Wade's art has been commissioned for public and private collections around the world. For more than twenty five years, Wade has experimented with large-scale photography and color enhancement of black-and-white vintage photos. His work is part of the permanent collection of the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. Wade is a staff artist for Cowboys and Indians magazine, and lives in Austin, Texas.

Customer Reviews:

Multiple choices.......2004-06-06

I like this book but when I bought it from a used dealer it came with a different cover than what was pictured. Since I have not ordered this book before I don't know if it is the same inside. Ask questions first if the cover is important.

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Ridin' and Wreckin'
Bob Wade
Manufacturer: Gibbs Smith
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Photo Essays | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Photography | Miscellaneous | Sports | Subjects | Books

Essays | Miscellaneous | Sports | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0879057300

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Posing for the camera;: A professinal guide, for the creative model, director, photographer, (Communication arts books)
Harriett Crim Shepard
Manufacturer: Hastings House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007DTVDM

Book Description

Mr. Abeels runs a flower shop about to enter modernity: imagine, through the miracle of plastics, flowers that never fade! His novelty is snatched up by the ambitious city planners of an all-new Brusel. No more lack of hygiene! No more dusty old buildings! All is razed and enormous new skyscrapers are erected at blistering speed! Never mind the disruptions and uprootings of people¹s lives! Who needs to preserve and live in history? Hurrah for modernity! Abeels falls in love with a renegade woman who fights the extensive redesigns and ends up having to play both sides carefully... Another retro-SF city, full of classic European elements a la Jules Verne. This world has been so successful in Europe as to elicit a life-size roving exhibition recreating it, even metro stations in Paris and Brussels designed after it!

Customer Reviews:

A baffling parable.......2006-10-16

Schuiten and Peeters add another attractive but enigmatic chapter to the history of the Cities of the Fantastic. This one describes Brüsel, a city strikingly like our own Brussels. In this fiction, the city is taken over by madmen and destroyed. At first, the city's inhabitants and rulers encourage and fund the "renovation." One by one, people in Brüsel begin to suffer under the bizarre attack of its corporate oligarchs. Then, when it's far too late, the city realizes its doom: all that made it livable has been razed, and what's been raised makes it unlivable. The projects end, half-done or less, when the city is bled of its last dollar. Even the ground beneath their feet rebels, when its soft underground structure and protective dikes fail under the skyscrapers' mass. Never discouraged, those of the grand plans simply blame the soil for being too weak, the country for being too poor, and the city for being unworthy of such grandeur. Instead, they propose that the world's Paris-lookalike be the next target, or victim.

This is hardly a proper story, more a series of snapshots of urban suicide loosely tied to the strand of one man's life. Our central character, Constant, find his health failing as the health of the city also fails, and he is confined to a satiric caricature of a modern hospital. Despite its shiny newness, the same old doctors practice the same old medicine within its walls. They seem to count successs by the numbers of patients hoarded within, with no regard for the number of cures effected.

Brüsel is a satiric look at the descent of a city, not just falling but driven downwards, full-power, by inflated egos. If you've seen Boston's "Big Dig" described, you'll get some sense of how very real this story is: the city-state's whole capital wasted on inept and incomplete construction, while what had once been sound is bulldozed or left to fall into ruin. The 1992 copyright marks this book as prescient rather than satiric, however. Shuiten's art is a lovely as ever, built around his expressive lines and subdued palette. It's marred in a few places by unskilled replacement of French signs and captions with English, but those annoyances detract only a little from this thoughtful story. It's certainly not for the Bam-Pow comic reader, but Brüsel speaks loudly to anyone who cares about the cities in which we live, and especially about the historic marvels that remain to us.

//wiredweird

Satiric look at urban renewal.......2005-10-14

Schuiten and Peeters fans and those who don't know their well-written, well-drawn work should not hesitate to read "Brusel." This "fantastic city" takes shots at bumbling bureaucrats and apparatchniks, would-be devisers of instant cures, and the futility of battling the elements (more relevant, sadly, than ever). The leading characters are more charming and personable than usual - a middle-aged, tubercular purveyor of artificial flowers and a free-spirited, skilled infiltrator of the brave new (rather 19th-century) Brusel world who (rather remarkably) become lovers. Social points are made constantly, yet a light touch makes one receptive to them. Readers familiar with the English translations of Schuiten/Peeters and Schuiten/Schuiten will recognize the occasional translation and lettering gaffes, and ignore them - the humor has survived. I rank this with "The Tower" in terms of scope and characterization; "Urbicand" and "Samaris" are relatively monothematic and more graphic novellas than novels. When one sees the large numbers of volumes in this series yet to be translated, one can only hope that they, too, will find their way into English - I can't imagine ever knowing French well enough to appreciate these books.

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Les Cités Obscures, tome 7 : Brüsel
François Schuiten , and Benoît Peeters
Manufacturer: Casterman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Board book

All French Books | French | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 2203343095

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The Royal Game: Chess for Young People
Edith Lucie Weart Brusel-Smith
Manufacturer: Vanguard Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VAQ616

Bruxelles =: Brusel, plan mesta : s textem a mapou okoli

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Bruxelles =: Brusel, plan mesta : s textem a mapou okoli
Kartografie Praha (Firm)
Manufacturer: Kartografie Praha
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Maps | Atlases & Maps | Reference | Subjects | Books

French | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Nonfiction | French | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

Reference | French | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

Travel | French | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

All French Books | French | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 8070111801

Book Description

“We were sure that we would win, that we should score the first great triumph in a mighty world-movement.”— Theodore Roosevelt, 1904

Americans like to think they have no imperial past. In fact, the United States became an imperial nation within five short years a century ago (1898-1903), exploding onto the international scene with the conquest of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, and (indirectly) Panama. How did the nation become a player in world politics so suddenly—and what inspired the move toward imperialism in the first place?

The renowned diplomat and writer Warren Zimmermann seeks answers in the lives and relationships of five remarkable figures: the hyper-energetic Theodore Roosevelt, the ascetic naval strategist Alfred T. Mahan, the bigoted and wily Henry Cabot Lodge, the self-doubting moderate Secretary of State John Hay, and the hard-edged corporate lawyer turned colonial administrator Elihu Root. Faced with difficult choices, these extraordinary men, all close friends, instituted new political and diplomatic policies with intermittent audacity, arrogance, generosity, paternalism, and vision.

Zimmermann's discerning account of these five men also examines the ways they exploited the readiness of the American people to support a surge of expansion overseas. He makes it clear why no discussion of America's international responsibilities today can be complete without understanding how the United States claimed its global powers a century ago.

Customer Reviews:

History taught through biography.......2007-01-17

Warren Zimmerman uses short but trenchant bios of five important American decision makers and opinion leaders to tell a story about the beginnings of the American empire.

John Hay, Navy Capt. Alfred T. Mahan, Elihu Root, Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt are the principal actors. These men provided the intellectual atmosphere and the institutional framework that enabled the United States to step away from her traditional isolationism, recognize her place in the world as a power of the first rank, and take up that role. In order for that to happen the American people first had to understand the dangers that expansionist European powers presented to their nation. Zimmerman weaves the various strands that these five men bring to this story as well as the reluctantance of President McKinley and the objections of actors like Mark Twain and former senator and newspaper editor Carl Shurz, into an exciting and thoughtful work. The book is worth the price for the bios of the principals alone but it is the story of this interaction, as skillfully told by Zimmerman, that makes this book so interesting and such a quick read.

For those who believe that America is not an imperial power (though not quite cut in the mold of European imperialism) this book will provide much to think about. For those interested in knowing how we became a world power in such a short time, this book is invaluable.

The author is a former foreign-service officer who obviously has experienced the mixed blessings of the nation's global responsibilities.

Must read book about our history.......2006-12-14

If you want to know how the United States became a great power this is the book to read. The United States quest for empire and manifest destiny can be summed up by the five men covered in this book: TR, Elihu Root, John Hay, Alfred Mahan and Henry Cabot Lodge. The book focuses on conquest in the Philippines, Cuba and Mexico as well as the importance of the Panama Canal. It is a very interesting read that offers a lot about the course of US Empire. Imperialism and Americanism can be seen as one in the same during this time period and these five people acting together set America on a course to become not only a great power but eventually a super power. A must have for anyone interested in America's imperial past.

"Always five, acting as one.".......2005-10-08

Empire building is not necessarily a bad thing. As such the First Great Triumph tries to force the reader to understand our nations obsession with empire and empire

building. The book starts off by telling us about the west. Our nation was growing and the American people were driven to move across the country to carve out homes

and states west of the Mississippi. Once our nation grew from sea to shining sea the energies behind empire building became global. We could no longer focus our

energies on the continent of North America, so we had to look outward. This incredible drive to expand, and the passions behind it, became a central part of the American

spirit.

But in order to bring our manifest destiny to the global scale we had to become a force that would be strong enough to hold on to our gains. As such we needed to

become a first rate power. One who could compete among the nations of old for dominancy in this brave new world.In order to gain such power we needed leadership to

guide us. Theirfore the First Great Triumph is not only about empire building but about the figures who helped bring our nation into this new found power. The author

concentrates on five powerful Americans. They are ; Theodore Roosevelt, Alfred T. Mahan, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Hay, and Elihu Root. All of which , our author feels,

were instrumental in guiding our nation onto the world scene. The belief the author has is that without these five, our nation would not have risen to our present status of

a world power. Let us examine why.

The top of the pyramid was Theodore Roosevelt. It was his leadership that made our nation's stature as a world power possible. An influential man both as a states

man and president. It was he who had the vision to build up America's naval power and turn it loose upon the world. The great white fleet was assembled and sent out

under his guidence. The showing of such a fleet of ships was enough to prove to the world that we had become a first rate power. Under Theodore's leadership we gained

influence in both Latin America and the Pacific. This was due to Theodore's timely usage of naval power. Theodore had also assembled a cast of first rate leaders around

him and was able to use them to the best of his abilities. Theodore was able to delegate his many tasks among the two others to help establish American hegemony.

Root was given the task of setting up the government of our conqured territories while Hay was given the task of handling our nations diplomacy with the other forgein

powers. Both performed admirably and were able to give Theodore a stable base from which he could direct his energies upon the world.

John Hay was the statesman from which all diplomacy flowed. He was pro-europe but also an American. As such his unique perspective allowed him to see problems

and solutions from both sides. As such he was an excellent diplomat and arbitrator. Theodore would view him weak, but in reality Hay's greatest strength was his ability

to have patience. His skills with diplomacy , when used, would help smooth out problems the U.S. was having and as a direct result Hay would win wars with words

instead of bullets.

But diplomacy and leadership are not the only tools one needs to run a country. You need beauraucrcy, that day to day grind that makes politics and government

possible. For that we had Elihu Root. Root was instrumental in creating new ways of governing our new acquisitions. They were not perfect but they showed us what

could work, and what could not work. As such Root would be able to show our government how to administer conquered territories. Root's ability to do this paved the way

for our country's dealings with later nations and later wars.

While Theodore's trio was able to expand the power of the executive branch, Lodge was able to channel the energies of the legislative branch to greatness. Lodge was

not only an incredible intelectual but he was a man of vision. He dreamed of an imperial American, one that could rival Brittain in both power and strength. As such Lodge

dedicated his abilities into keeping the pressure up on the legislative branch. His dedication to empire building left a stamp on congress and Lodge's actions helped sway

several presidents towards the battle for empire. His observations of the dying world regime helped stir the American public into understanding their new role in the world.

Spain was dying and Brittain was winding down. As such the American star was rising and a key to world dominance would be by gaining American soverignty over the

area in the Pacific.

All of these thoughts for empire stem from Alfred T. Mahan. It was his writtings on seaman ship and Naval power that got this entire ball rolling. In order for a nation to

be great you had to be able to control the Oceans. Mahan had based his writtings on history and how the ancients giants, throught time, all had control of the seas

(Oceans). He argued that the United States would always be considered a second rate power as long as their Navy was second rate. To build up the NAvy not only meant

new ships. It also meant the training of a profesional class of sailors, new technologies, and refueling ports / way stations for the ships to be based at. Only by combining

these three points would the U.S. gain dominancy in the world's seas and as a direct result gain dominancy on the world.

But in order to understand history we sometimes have to look at how the author presents his material. What I found at in this book was that it is not an enjoyable read.

The author has fallen in love with the big five and treats them like lovers. Their faults are glossed over and their actions are heightened to god like epics. As such you

agree with the author. After all the author believes that these five mortal men changed the face of America. By their labors, and their labors alone, they turned our country

into a first rate power. But the author is biased. It is his thesis after all that these men made America, so he will do anything and everything to back it up. Now the author

never lies about the five, but he does seam to make them heroic. Never the devil, these five are always building our country up and never bringing it back down. They are

the "Music Makers" after all and to attack any one of these idols would be an assault to the author. One he could not stand.

The author wants you to feel sympathy for the five as both men and Gods. As such he imerses you into their past. Hopeing to gain your sympathy and trust the author

instead disgusts and bores you. After all the book will speak of the historic events these men made, yet instead of completing the story, our author has decided to fill you

in on the history of the "music Makers" while in the midst of the story. Instead of breaking down the history of the characters in an orderly fashion, you instead are given

snippets of the character's personality. Once the personality is constructed you are then given the history of the person. But this history is given piece meal and while the

author is narrating a story. As such the reader can become confused and bored while learning about these heros. It is also obvious that the book was written for an

audience already familiar with the five. As such amusing incidents are placed , like Easter eggs, throught the entire book. Instead of amusing, I found them unapropriate.

The detracted from the content of the book since I was out of the loop and unable to figure out the joke.

The book is also a racist book. This is not to say it is a bad thing but the book has been written with the gloves off. Theirfore it is shocking to read about. Now I did

enjoy the honesty the author wrote about. After all it is rare now adays to read a piece of work that has not been cleansed by the censors. The author's dealings about

empire building stir strong emotions in people. His objective look at how race influenced empire building was refreshing. All to often we stay mute on race. It is a tender

subject. But you can not deny how the concept of race has shaped our nation. Learning that our nation of the past felt so strongly about white America helped shed light

on these topics. The conflict of civil rights has always been a sore spot in our nations history. Now, at last, you can understand some of the pettiness and even some of

the injustices. To know that our nation had dificulty dealing with our black population is one thing. But to finally learn that our nation thought all races but the white man's

were beneath his was fascinating. And these ideas were ones our nation was building it's empire on. Even with all the bias and hero worship in this book I still feel that it

is a must read. Simply for the way the book reaches you about race relations and how the White man viewed his world back then.

The First Great Triumph not only teaches you about the founding of modern day America and the people who helped create it but it also teaches you the reader about

his own personal history with the United States. As such a bridge is formed between past and present and we can learn about our American heritage in all its being. That

being both monstrous and glorious.

Americanism. Imperalism. Manifest Destiny - 5 Americans.......2004-07-25

What do the above have in common? The answer is provided quite nicely in Warren Zimmerman's book "First Great Triumph". In it, he explains what 5 great Americans - John Hay, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, Hencry Cabot Lodge, and Elihu Root had to do with the forming of the American century (the 20th Century).

Each of these men played his own role in creating Imperialistic America, starting in the late 19th century, and their contributions to American foreign policy continue through to this day.

This is an important book for anyone that wants to understand the personalities of these five men and the actions that each took to make America the dominant player in world affairs that it has been during the last 100+ years.

The book is divided into two sections; biographical sketches of each of these five men, and then a section on how America became an Imperalistic power, similar to Great Britain or any of a number of the European countries in earlier centuries. Starting with the Spanish American war, the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, and pushing through to American intervention in World War I, this book does a fantastic job of explaining the events that occured and the personalities involved.

I now understand why Zimmerman chose these five men to study in this book - when I first started to read it, I thought that perhaps others, such as William McKinley or William H. Seward should have been included in the biography section, but Seward's contributions were too early to be included in this study, and McKinley was too reserved to be included in a group of men that firmly believed in American expansion, much as earlier Americans had proclaimed "Mainfest Destiny".

I enjoyed the book greatly, and would highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for a study of early American foreign policy, or an understanding of why America played such a big role in world events during the 20th century.

America's First Empire.......2004-06-24

This book by a former U.S. Ambassador is an elegantly-written history of the Spanish-American War of 1898, when the United States acquired colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific and emerged as a major world power. The nuanced, balanced narrative deals with "big picture" geopolitics and historical trends but never loses sight of the human factor or the role that ego and personal ambition played in America's rise to power. Zimmerman doesn't flinch from concluding that American troops committed atrocities in the Philippines or that our acquisition of Hawaii and the Panama canal zone was little more than theft. At the same time, he avoids ahistorical condemnations of turn-of-the-century imperialism. His book will leave leftwing revisionists and flag-waving rightists equally disappointed -- surely a sign of scholarly achievement.

Book Description

James Burnham began his intellectual career in the 1930s as a Trotskyist. However, world events and his personal experiences within the Trotskyist movement convinced him that all forms of Marxism must be totalitarian, and he left the world of Marxism in 1940. This book focuses especially upon Mr. Burnham's career as a senior editor with William F. Buckley, Jr.'s "National Review", putting him within the context of the conservative intellectual movement as a whole. Burnham, despite what he called his "hard" anticommunist public stance, served as a moderating pragmatic force within "National Review" and American conservatism. He urged fellow conservatives to accept a minimum welfare state, to work within the established two-party system, and to adopt a tough but realistic foreign policy. Contents: From Left to ?; Lenin's Heir and Beyond; Burning His Bridges; Whither Conservatism?; The Ideology of Western Suicide; Sectarian and Doctrinaire Clannishness; Mr. Burnham; Epilogue; Selected Bibliography.

Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters (Harvard Business Review)

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Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters (Harvard Business Review)

Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
ASIN: B000MKZ5I0

First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power.(Book Review): An article from: Ethics & International Affairs

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First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power.(Book Review): An article from: Ethics & International Affairs
R.A. Hamilton
Manufacturer: Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Ethics & International Affairs, published by Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs on April 1, 2003. The length of the article is 956 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power.(Book Review)
Author: R.A. Hamilton
Publication: Ethics & International Affairs (Refereed)
Date: April 1, 2003
Publisher: Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs
Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Page: 181(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power

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First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power
Warren Zimmermann
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus & Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JNE0N6

The Cross and the Shamrock Or, How to Defend the Faith: An Irish-American Catholic Tale of Real Life, Descriptive of the Temptations, Trials, and Triumphs of the Children of Saint Patrick in the Great Republic of Washington

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The Cross and the Shamrock Or, How to Defend the Faith: An Irish-American Catholic Tale of Real Life, Descriptive of the Temptations, Trials, and Triumphs of the Children of Saint Patrick in the Great Republic of Washington
A Missionary Priest
Manufacturer: Thomas B. Noonan & Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QPK68U

Product Description

A powerful polemic from a somewhat worried cleric; Irish-American historic interest.

The Cross and the Shamrock, or How to Defend the Faith. An Irish-American Catholic Tale of Real Life, Descriptive of the Temptations, Sufferings, Trials and Triumphs of the Children of St. Patrick in the Great Republic of Washington.

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The Cross and the Shamrock, or How to Defend the Faith. An Irish-American Catholic Tale of Real Life, Descriptive of the Temptations, Sufferings, Trials and Triumphs of the Children of St. Patrick in the Great Republic of Washington.
[Irish History]
Manufacturer: Patrick Donahoe
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PH68FE

Book Description

When her father dies and leaves her to decide the fate of the family farm, Jane Brox wonders how family identity--language, food, a grandfather's wish for "five thousand days like this one"--can endure when so few traces of former lives are left. With a poet's eye and a historian's hunger, she is driven to search out her family's past in the fascinating and quintessentially American history of the Merrimack Valley, its farmers, and the immigrant workers caught up in the industrial textile age.

Customer Reviews:

Uneven, but interesting account.......2000-07-04

I vascillated between really loving parts of this book, and being annoyed at others. The book discusses the history of the Merrimack Valley in northeastern Massachusetts, weaving in stories about the author's parents' lives there as immigrants from Italy and Lebanon. It also compares descriptions of the area written by Thoreau, and others, in the 19th century.

While most of it was fascinating, some aspects of the book bothered me. First, as the book progresses, it becomes evident that it is a collection of prior essays; some portions are repetitive, almost down to the exact language. Second, I felt that the author was trying too hard to be "lyrical." Some of the writing seemed "forced," convoluted, and grammatically awkward, to the point that I had to reread sentences to figure out what she wanted to say.

Despite these criticisms, it is an interesting read about an area that has changed so much over the last 150 years.

This is an incredibly powerful and exquisitely written book........1999-03-24

Jane Brox's second book is masterful: a cross between social history and memoir, a book that is devastatingly clear about the future of the family farm and yet without a trace of rancor. Even if, like me, you're a city person, you should READ THIS BOOK for its pervasive, gentle wisdom; for its stunning prose; for everything a book should offer to its reader--access to a beloved world.

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