The King of California: J. G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire

Book Description

A rich, colorful history of California centering on the untold story of America 's biggest farmer, J.G. Boswell, who controls more than $1 billion worth of water rights and real estate in the heart of the state.

J.G. Boswell is the biggest farmer in America. Over the past fifty years he has built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields." Now eighty years old, with an almost pathological bent toward privacy, Boswell has spent the past few years confiding one of the great stories of the American West to Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman. The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world. Indeed, the sophistication of Boswell 's agricultural operation--from lab to field to gin--is unrivaled anywhere.

Much more than a business story, this is a sweeping social history that details the saga of cotton growers who were chased from the South by the boll weevil and brought their black farmhands to California. It is a gripping read with cameos by a cast of famous characters, from Cecil B. DeMille to Cesar Chavez.

Customer Reviews:

The king of California.......2006-11-04

This book is way too long and somewhat redundant and boring. The basic story is good, but the author takes too much time and too many pages to tell it.

History, Biography and Expose?.......2006-06-23

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in politics, agriculture, or water rights. It is a well-written and very readable.

It follows four generations of the Boswell family to trace how they assembled the largest industrial farm in the world. Along the way, the authors explore the history of the San Joaquin valley and those who came there to farm it, those who left and those who got left behind. For every group that made a fortune, there were many others who were disappointed. There are plenty of interesting stories of Washington and Sacramento politics, and stories of common people following dreams.

The book examines the effect of large scale farming on farm owners, on those who work the farms now and those who worked them in the past. It provides some good background on the politics of water rights and government involvement in farming, and on the involvement of agriculture in local, state and federal politics.

If you are interested in the politics and history of water in the western states, Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner is one of the best books I have read on any subject.

Overstuffed but Worth Reading.......2005-11-26

I grew up in Fresno, in the shadow of agribusiness. The story behind "King of California" is a fascinating and important one but I'm not sure this "biography" does it justice. I disliked the awkward mixture of history and journalism. Is this an expose, a biography or history? Its never really clear and the way the book is organized, around the four seasons, is particularly opaque. What does it mean to call a section, "winter?" when it is covering history spanning decades and contains interviews with living people? That said, the material is fascinating. From the role the Boswell's played in taming Tulare Lake, to the development of modern cotton farming, the politics of agriculture and the way big business in general got access and results in subsidies and favorable policy. Early on, Tulare Lake and by extension, the San Joaquin Valley in its pre-U.S. days is described with a vividness I've rarely read elsewhere. However, the description of the Boswell's roots in racism and its legacy in the Central Valley is definitely worth telling but I think it gets too little space here and competes with so many other subjects. Frankly, I'm surprised that this book has gotten the acclaim that it has. While its clearly well researched, the writing is spotty lucid in some places and sensationalized elsewhere. I think the book tries to cover far too many topics; Water politics, cotton farming, racism in California, family history, corporate intrigue, labor issues, flood control and company towns. Had it narrowed it focus to just water, cotton and corporate intrigue, I think it would have been a far more powerful book.

Surfaced and Harpooned.......2005-04-26

This far-reaching book is quite an accomplishment in biography and investigative journalism. Arax and Wartzman cover the history of the immense Boswell farming company of California, and the two guys named J.G. (the founding uncle and the current chairman, his nephew) who built the company into the largest cotton operation on Earth. Through cutthroat competitive instincts and political wheeling-and-dealing, the Boswells amassed tens of thousands of acres in California's Central Valley, and were instrumental in eliminating what was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, as the former Tulare Lake was transformed into a festering network of levees, canals, and cesspools dedicated to the mass production of cotton. Thus, the Boswells built the area's environment, culture, and economics for their own profitability.

The book also serves as a great exploration of the business of factory farming, detailing the racism and poverty experienced by Black and Mexican workers, as well as the shifty agricultural and hydrological politics of Big Ag in California - as the Boswells and their competitors/allies buy politicians, stack laws and regulations in their favor, and claim flood control as a reason to alter the natural course of rivers and to completely drain the vast Tulare Lake. Best of all, we see how big business really works out West, with the hypocrisy of so-called rugged outdoorsmen (actually pampered CEO's) who incessantly rail against government interference while also taking in millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies that are meant to help the little guy. This book is immensely informative but does often get tied up in unnecessary details, such as descriptions of petty political shenanigans in the construction of a nearby dam. But the motto of the Boswell clan has been that a whale can't be harpooned if it doesn't come to the surface (a legacy of silence and obfuscation), but Arax and Wartzman have deftly cracked into the wall of secrecy surrounding the Boswells and their often ill-gotten empire, [~doomsdayer520~]

Tremendous historical, political, and social epic.......2004-11-09

The book centers around three generations of Boswells as they migrated from Green County Georgia to Kings County California and became the largest producers of cotton in the world, without becoming a household name.

The book also tells of the natural, social, and political histories of the San Joaquin Valley from the days of indigenous peoples and the first Spanish invaders to the present day.

The epic is a fascinating study of twentieth century American history, society, economics, business, finance, management, politics, public policy, labor relations, mechanization, technology, modernization, and nature.

The more personal stories of family, romance, crime, and punishment read more like a good novel.

Some have found the authors liberally biased, but as a conservative, I found the authors well balanced in their presentations of all sides of the stories.

As others have said, the scope is huge and the research extensive. As someone who was born and raised in Kings County California, I found this heretofor unknown local history to be quite fascinating. Nevertheless, I believe this book will have broad appeal to many readers.

Average customer rating:

Even better than Living Poor

The Farm on the River of Emeralds
Moritz Thomsen
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Whiteman

ASIN: 039475994X
Release Date: 1989-07-17

Customer Reviews:

Even better than Living Poor.......2007-01-19

Moritz Thomsen's first book, Living Poor, was an account of his experience living in the coastal village of Rioverde, Ecuador during his Peace Corps service. This is an excellent read, on par with Rohinton Mistry's novel, A Fine Balance, in that it is a powerful depiction of poverty. In the Farm on the River Emeralds Thompsen returns to Ecuador to purchase and literally hack a farm out of the jungle with his friend Ramon from Rioverde.

The more familiar travel writer Paul Theroux has called Thomsen one of America's best writers. Theroux writes more of the journey and less of the destination. Thomsen is all about the destination. This book places you firmly on the farm near the village of Male, Ecuador. As Thomsen and Ramon struggle to establish the farm, hire workers, and adjust to the community he relates the struggle and the place to you with portrait accuracy of all the characters involved. I have never read an author in my 50+ years that describes the people in his book with such rich, succinct, and novel detail.

In reading this book you will know what it is like living in rural Ecuador and will come to know those of the village from the ridiculous,and tragic Dalmiro to successful yet obscessed Ramon.
This book is so good that once when I had lost my bookmark upon rereading passages that I had covered I found myself not wanting to skip over them but continued to reread to where I had left off as I savored Thomsen's descriptions, humor, exasperating experiences, and thoughts.

[...].

Here and Nowhere Else: Late Seasons of a Farm and Its Family

Average customer rating:

a little book about a small farm written with unusual poetry and love
Here and Nowhere Else

Here and Nowhere Else: Late Seasons of a Farm and Its Family
Jane Brox
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History
Clearing Land: Legacies of the American Farm
The Road Washes Out in Spring: A Poet's Memoir of Living Off the Grid
Virgil's Georgics (The Yale New Classics Series)
Selected Poems

ASIN: 0807062006

Book Description

In her first book, which won the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award, Jane Brox writes of going back to the farm where she grew up, to help her aging father and the troubled brother who works the land with him. She memorably captures the cadences of farm life and the people who sustain it, at a time when both are waning.

Customer Reviews:

a little book about a small farm written with unusual poetry and love.......2007-08-31

I am a city person, and the closest I have been to a small farm is buying apples in the autumn at a roadside stand. I have no idea how I chose to buy this book and Jane's two other ones, but I did buy it and fell in love with it. The poetry is deep; she tells the story of her aging father who in his eighties tries to keep his beloved farm going, her brother who has stayed to help but is angry and sometimes dysfunctional, her mother, and her own return after many years. These are wound around and blended with tales of seasons of growth -- of apples, berries, all sorts of corn and the customers who show up decade after decade to buy what they loved last year. It is truly a spiritual book, and gives this city girl a sense of the enduring earth and its gifts and the people who are closest to it.

Here and Nowhere Else.......2000-01-04

Here and Nowhere Else captures with its perfect language the timeless undulations of rural living. It is not so much like reading a book as it is like walking the land with someone who respects both the comfort and the pain it can give. A truthful recording of enormous loss and a lyric epitaph for a family farm.

Songs of the Fluteplayer: Seasons of Life in the Southwest

Average customer rating:

Moving collection of essays about author's life in the SW.

Songs of the Fluteplayer: Seasons of Life in the Southwest
Sharman Apt Russell
Manufacturer: Bison Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0803289898

Book Description

In Songs of the Fluteplayer, the charm and challenge of the spectacularly beautiful American Southwest are irresistibly captured by a woman who risked much to discover a new life and greater meaning there. Sharman Apt Russell and her husband moved to the Mimbres Valley in southwestern New Mexico in order to lead a simpler yet more substantial life. Their efforts to be self-sufficient-building an adobe house, giving birth at home, growing their own food-shattered many ideals and forced compromises but also renewed their ties to each other and kindled their respect for the land and its people. The American Southwest that Russell fell in love with comes to life vividly in her writing. From Navajo weavers to illegal Mexican workers, trading posts to prehistoric pottery, water rights disputes to the omnipresent fluteplayer Kokopelli-the energy and wonder of the Southwest is celebrated in this enchanting book.

Customer Reviews:

Moving collection of essays about author's life in the SW........1996-12-28

In this lovely collection of essays, the author, Russell, explores the relationship between the American search for mythological Home to the landscape, the community and the self. In her title essay, she writes about memories of her father, a former test pilot in the Air Force, who died while setting a new speed record in the X-2 over another desert in California, when Russell was still a child. Her memories of him are recovered through her exploration of the image of the Kokopelli man, part of the mythological landscape of the Southwest that she struggles to identify with in this search for Home. In the other essays, Russell tries to balance her utopian ideal of a quiet, slow-paced life in a small rural community with the reality of the isolation and financial struggle of raising a family and building a home in the harsh, though stunningly beautiful, landscape of the Southwest desert, along with the politics and problems that arise in their eccentric and somewhat transitory community. Russell writes to understand, to make meaning--and the writing seems to discover itself over and over, allowing the reader a fresh journey, no matter the number of readings. Beautiful language

Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History

Average customer rating:

Uneven, but interesting account
This is an incredibly powerful and exquisitely written book.

Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History
Jane Brox
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807021075

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.

See You in a Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America

Average customer rating:

Quite an experiment!
Engaging yet oddly unsatisfying
A wonderful trip back in time
Entertaining!
Authentic and compelling

See You in a Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America
Logan Ward
Manufacturer: Benbella Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1933771151

Book Description

To save their marriage and their sanity, the author and his wife sold their belongings, packed up their two-year-old son, and moved to a rundown farmhouse in the country without any plans past surviving the year. Living as though it were the year 1900, they struggled with recalcitrant livestock, garden-destroying bugs, rain that would not come, and their own insecurities, to ultimately discover a sense of community and a sense of themselves that changed not only their marriage, but the entire Swoope, Virginia community. Lyrically told and powerfully evocative, this memoir for the modern age deals with the growing sense of disassociation and yearning to escape the frenetic pace of daily life in today’s society.

Customer Reviews:

Quite an experiment!.......2007-09-22

I found this book very engaging, hard to put down. I wish that Logan gave an update about their return to the future at the end of the book. I did find one thing troubling, I have hard time believing that their son (age 2) became ill just once and never required a visit to the doctor. Also, the fact that Logan was so unsure about his wife using a car and a phone when she had a medical problem. An experiment is one thing health should be paramount!

Engaging yet oddly unsatisfying.......2007-08-22

It's difficult to know how to rate this book. It left me feeling somewhat ambivalent. Make no mistake, it's a fun, fast, easy summer read. But, I was hoping it would offer so much more in terms of insights into our modern dependence on technologies that perhaps aren't really so important. Maybe it's unfair of me to expect so much out of what amounts to a tale of living for one year as an experiment.

This book is so similar to Eric Brende's "Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology" that it's difficult not to almost treat them as different tales of the same experience. In both books, a young couple elects to live without modern technology for one year as a way of testing whether they can deal with the ramifications of rejecting fast-paced modern society and all that it entails. In Brende's book he and his wife go to live amongst an old order sect that is even stricter than the Amish. In Ward's book, he and his wife Heather embark on an adventure wherein they buy an old farm and vow not to use any (or much) technology that wasn't in existence in 1900. It winds up amounting to almost the same thing in practical terms.

Both couples try this knowing that it's merely an experiment that they have to put up with for one year. Both books are told from an almost chauvanistic male standpoint. Neither book details all that much about specific technology that they do use. (Brende gets into minor descriptions about some of the machinery that the Amish who aren't Amish use, but it's minimal. Ward pretty much ignores or glosses over the finer points of most of the tools he uses.) Neither book gives any real voice to the woman in the couple. Neither book serves as a how-to guide for anybody wishing for whatever reason to live off the grid or adapt to a more simple lifestyle. Both authors are very candid about their own failings, misjudgments and foibles. Both are easy and fun to read.

Perhaps it's unfair of me to have been expecting so much more. But, it seems that such an adventure could have greatly benefited from deciding to document it before the process began, rather than as an afterthought much later. I don't know what either Brende or Ward had in mind going into their experiments. Maybe they were so sick of modern technology that they simply wanted a working vacation in which they didn't have to deal with documenting their progress as they went. Certainly the level of farm work that they wind up doing might make documenting it daily to be an arduous task easily put off until much later. That's easy enough to understand.

I'm somewhat harder on Logan Ward precisely because he's a writer. He could have approached this whole experiment as doing research for a book, and documented their progress along the way, and I feel that the book would be far more substantive and enriching. For whatever reason, he didn't take that approach. So, we're left with a book that's intriguing but not as educational or insightful as it might have been. It's still a good story.

What's harder to understand are little things like Logan Ward's decision not to take pictures. Photography was well established in the mid 1800's and the Civil War was well documented photographically. By 1888 Kodak had introduced a user friendly box camera and in 1900, precisely the year that the Ward's chose to emulate, Kodak introduced the Brownie camera which was the first truly mass market camera in history. Granted, with only 150,000 produced, a subsistence farmer in VA might not have had access to one. But having a few select pictures of their experiment, done in period style would certainly not be bending the rules any more than travel by car or using the telephone, both of which Logan's wife Heather eventually does out of necessity before their year is done.

That brings me to something else. I find it odd that both Ward and Brende have momentary periods where they seem like they don't really take their bride's health all that seriously. When his wife Heather is having major abdominal pains, Ward, at one point admits that he wondered whether they were serious enough to compromise their little experiment in even a fairly minor way even though they'd left phone service on in case of just such emergencies. I'm certainly not criticizing the decisions, but both case studies show the need for having a good set of agreements in advance on just what is acceptable in a variety of situations. I guess what bothered me about that particular situation in this book is not how it was resolved, but rather the attitude that Logan wasn't really going to lift a finger to help his wife.

Another thing that's bothersome in both Ward's tale and in Brende's incredibly similar tale is how utterly dependent they were on outside help. Were it not for the kindness of others who didn't necessarily play by the same self-imposed rules, neither experiment would've ended well. In that regard, neither winds up being true to self-sufficiency, though both try mightily. Perhaps that's the real take-home message is that it takes a community to be even marginally self-sufficient. That's not a bad message and to that end I commend both Ward and Brende for helping others to see that point.

I'll end with one valuable tid-bit that I did glean from "See You in A Hundred Years". That is that going into winter Logan mentions having put up 350 canned jars of produce to last them through the winter. Come spring time, he still has enough left to last the required time and reflects that it was enough canned goods, supplemented with dried goods, to get he and his wife and toddler through the winter. That was precisely the kind of information I was seeking. I would've loved to know how many cords of wood they used for heating and cooking. I would've loved to know more insights about cooking on a wood stove, and canning in such prodigious amounts. I would have loved to know more about just what is involved in making goat cheese, etc. I feel like he missed quite a few opportunities to share tips and insights gleaned from performing such farm duties in real life as opposed to simply reading about them in hobby books. But, this is not a how-to documentation so much as just a tale of how one man reflects on one experiment and the things he and his wife learned about each other and their relationship to society as a result.

A wonderful trip back in time.......2007-08-10

I found this book through the Library Journal, and picked it up immediately. I have always loved the documentaries where modern people attempt to live in past "times" such as the 1940's, 1900's, or even Regency England. This book went into detail of the actual experience, instead of just showing the conflict and drama that the television shows often detail (rather than displaying the monotony and plain hard work it took to live back then). I found the writing to be highly enjoyable and amusing, and actually felt like I was right there along with them, struggling to prove that they can survive using only 1900's products and methods. I would have loved for this book to have been twice as long, and to let us know what happened after the project was over! Great read, I would recommend it to anyone!

Entertaining!.......2007-08-09

I don't know how i found out about this book, but after reading the reviews i promptly ordered and even more promptly read it - couldn't put it down. The author is a good writer (professional). I laughed out loud often. Kudos to this couple for their 12 month return to the year 1900, thereby providing us with valuable helps for basic survival, if and when ever needed. I should say, "when", because i think we will need these skills.

Authentic and compelling.......2007-07-23

Logan Ward does a masterful job of relating his family's experience of living a country experience as it really was in 1900. Giving up every modern convenience and raising his own food and preparing it for the winter, his experience with barnyard animals and pests of nature (without modern pesticides) and the hardships he and his wife face, determined not to resort to 20th century conviences, is astounding. He writes with wit and drama to relate this 12 month experience. I wish I knew how much of it he continued as he still resides in Virgina from the family's original New York lifestyle. I doubt he still uses the outhouse or bathes in a tin bucket on the back porch, but his recounting of when he and his wife (and 2-year-old son) did is part of the living experience he writes about. It is very well written and I enjoyed every page of it, including the epilog.

Farm, Shop, Landing: The Rise of a Market Society in the Hudson Valley, 1780-1860

Average customer rating:

Excellent rural history!

Farm, Shop, Landing: The Rise of a Market Society in the Hudson Valley, 1780-1860
Martin Bruegel , and Martin Bruegel
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0822328356

Book Description

At the turn of the nineteenth century, when the word “capital” first found its way into the vocabulary of mid-Hudson Valley residents, the term irrevocably marked the profound change that had transformed the region from an inward-looking, rural community into a participant in an emerging market economy. In Farm, Shop, Landing Martin Bruegel turns his attention to the daily lives of merchants, artisans, and farmers who lived and worked along the Hudson River in the decades following the American Revolution to explain how the seeds of capitalism were spread on rural U.S. soil.
Combining theoretical rigor with extensive archival research, Bruegel’s account diverges from other historiographies of nineteenth-century economic development. It challenges the assumption that the coexistence of long-distance trade, private property, and entrepreneurial activity lead to one inescapable outcome: a market economy either wholeheartedly embraced or entirely rejected by its members. When Bruegel tells the story of farmer William Coventry struggling in the face of bad harvests, widow Mary Livingston battling her tenants, blacksmith Samuel Fowks perfecting the cast-iron plough, and Hannah Bushnell sending her butter to market, Bruegel shows that the social conventions of a particular community, and the real struggles and hopes of individuals, actively mold the evolving economic order. Ultimately, then, Farm, Shop, Landing suggests that the process of modernization must be understood as the result of the simultaneous and often contentious interplay of social and economic spheres.
This study will appeal not only to historians and social scientists interested in the causes and consequences of social and economic change but also to general readers curious about the workings of everyday rural life in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent rural history!.......2004-11-29

This is an excellent recounting of the changes in a rural society from the Revolutionary era to the antebellum era. Bruegel very skillfully combines economic and social change. Mining newspapers, diaries, farmers' account ledgers, and a variety of other primary and secondary sources, the author provides many examples of the interaction and response of the region's inhabitants to the changing world around them. This is the type of book history teachers and students should be reading!

Average customer rating:

A miserable book
Good story, BUT...
You don't have to be a horse lover to love this book
Utterly, utterly depressing!
Not exactly an enjoyable read.......

In the Presence of Horses
Barbara Dimmick
Manufacturer: Picador
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 031224567X

Book Description

A moving, powerful novel of a woman coming to terms with her past -- for readers of Jane Hamilton and Barbara Kingsolver.

Throughout her life Natalie Baxter has lost everyone she has ever cared for, and after losing her faith in people she returns to her hometown of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and takes a job at a local horse ranch. Caring for a fiery true black mare named Twister, she slowly begins to find courage to return to the world. And when a gradual romance builds between Natalie and farm's strangely reclusive owner, Pierce, she is forced to confront the ghosts of her traumatic past.

Customer Reviews:

A miserable book.......2006-05-25

No horse lover would want to read this book--it's totally depressing. One star is more than it deserves.

Good story, BUT..........2005-03-03

I just finished this book. Loved the information and perspective about the horses-- Liked the characters, but wished the characters would have grown/developed more into healthier people. I didn't like the vague way that character Pierce faded out of the story-- no closure. Same with what was happening with Nate and Mason in the last couple pages--- it needed a bit more closure to be a 5 star book. this makes me very sad, that the author didn't accomplish this closure for us. Otherwise I really did like the book. I hope she has kept writing.

You don't have to be a horse lover to love this book.......2005-03-03

Not counting the three pony rides I took at a county fair when I was about 7, I have no experience with horses. I do, however, have a lot of experience with books, and In the Presence of Horses is a terrific read. Scenes are so finely crafted - places so well described and dialog so real - that one feels more a voyeur than a reader. Reading about loss and recovery from loss is hardly a pleasure trip. But Dimmick deals with a hard topic honestly and realistically, putting it in a setting that gives it grounding and perspective.

Utterly, utterly depressing!.......2004-07-27

After reading some of the 'favorite book' lists here at Amazon, I decided to check this book out. Once you get past the first third of the book, it just gets more and more depressing - and then at the end, all hope and joy is totally dissipated.

I was hoping for an uplifting story involving horses, instead (as has been stated by other reviewers here) everyone dies or is in comas, there is no light anywhere here.

Thankfully, I checked the book out from the library, so all I lost was the time I spent slogging through this book.

Not exactly an enjoyable read..............2003-11-06

While the first half of this book is interesting and seemed to have possibilities, the second half is morose and disappointing. While I don't expect every book to be wrapped up happily with a red ribbon, this one left me feeling cheated. I waded through the second half, hoping upon hope that somehow the ending would make the rest of the book worthwhile. It did not.

Wild Apples: Field Notes from a River Farm

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Wild Apples: Field Notes from a River Farm
Wayne Curtis
Manufacturer: Goose Lane Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Nature Writing | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Reference | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Outdoors & Nature Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 0864924852

Book Description

There is a dreamlike quality to many of the stories in this new collection from Wayne Curtis. In Wild Apples, he returns to familiar themes of love and longing, and the push-pull emotions which inevitably accompany any attempt to break free of the ties that bind. Simple pleasures abound in these evocative stories, be it fishing on the river, gathering beans for an evening supper (are they beans or has-beens?), or listening to the jukebox at the local diner. Curtis mines the shaft of everyday experiences, turning each one into a meditation on human nature. In the title story, an afternoon drive yields fertile ground as a father and son stop to shake down a gnarled crab apple tree for the sweet-sour orbs of autumn. With a seemingly effortless style, he casts his line into the river of the past, reeling in tales of youthful folly, the Christmastime birth of a little sister, and life on the Miramichi River, which could be any river, anywhere. In one of the book's poignant moments, his beloved mother Brycie describes her early life in her own words. The hardship she endured is underscored by her straightforward style. Curtis also shares his insight into well-known friends, including novelist David Adams Richards and Yvon Durelle, the Fighting Fisherman. His contemplation of the life and work of Robert Frost casts a fresh light on the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. Wayne Curtis displays a unique sensibility; a talent for transforming the familiar into the unfamiliar, for making the old new again in this poetic blend of fiction and biography.

The Valley of the Moon (California Fiction)

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A fresh breath of air
The Valley of Monotony
What a great book!!
A very well written melo-drama, but no substance
A Testament of Love

The Valley of the Moon (California Fiction)
Jack London
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

The Star Rover (Modern Library Classics)
John Barleycorn: "Alcoholic Memoirs" (Oxford World's Classics)
The Americans: The National Experience
Martin Eden (Penguin American Library)
The Iron Heel (Penguin Classics)

ASIN: 0520218205

Book Description

A road novel fifty years before Kerouac, The Valley of the Moon traces the odyssey of Billy and Saxon Roberts from the labor strife of Oakland at the turn of the century through Central and Northern California in search of land they can farm independently--a journey that echoes Jack London's own escape from urban poverty. As London lost hope in the prospects of the socialist party and organized labor, he began researching a scientific and environmentally sound approach to farming. In his novel, it is Saxon, London's most fully realized heroine, who embodies these concerns. The Valley of the Moon is London's paean to his second wife Charmian and to the pastoral life and his ranch in Glen Ellen, the Valley of the Moon.

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She flung wild glances, like those of an entrapped animal, up and down the big whitewashed room that panted with heat and that was thickly humid with the steam that sizzled from the damp cloth under the irons of the many ironers. From the girls and women near her, all swinging irons steadily but at high pace, came quick glances, and labor efficiency suffered.

Customer Reviews:

A fresh breath of air.......2004-12-30

This book rings true to Jack London's character - strong, nobel and powerful. It is interesting to see how truly his character comes through even in the smallest characters or the smallest insignificant event. Very inspiring!
The actual story deals with this couple who decide to leave Oakland. It is autobiographical and again its amazing to see how many books have come out of Jack London's rich and variegated life! Also the turning point in the character's lives comes through another character who must have been the young Jack London!
The interesting side to this book is a potrayal of two women and feminine views (not to be misunderstood with feminist views). Its surprising to read Jack London talking about pretty underthings!
On the whole a beautiful book, very varied in character!

The Valley of Monotony.......2002-01-14

This is a long book, maybe one of the longest London wrote, but no matter, you can take it in small doses, because the book is a straight narrative with no suspense, no drama, only London's wishful fantasy working overtime. No matter the obstacle, and London lays them on with heavy-handed doses of pessimism, the lily-white hero and heroine, Billy and Saxon, easily overcome each while giving the author plenty of opportunity to express his famous prejudice against all non-Anglo Saxons. London also builds his case for scientific farming, sustainability, as a method that will win out every time. While in truth, London was an abject failure at farming with every experiement ending in disaster. The tale is sugar coated fantasy, London dreaming his couple into everlasting happiness. The coincidence at the end is not to be believed. It's pure sap written in the twilight of his career when his talents appear on the wane. It's the only London book I have read to date that I would not recommend on any level.

What a great book!!.......2001-04-30

I read this book after biking through a lot of the California towns London mentions. I pedaled through Glen Ellen and saw some of the missions. Since I am male, I could relate to the character of Billy. He is an early 20th century renaissance man. I never got bored with this book. It has a lot of personal meaning to me. I come from some of the "old stock" Billy and Saxon refer to. Tons of detail. I had to read it twice to get all the details. If you like northern California and want to know what it was like 100 years ago, read this.

A very well written melo-drama, but no substance.......1999-05-18

I felt that the book was technically well written, but the story, subject, and outcome, were all very melo-dramatic and predicatble. The love story was unimaginable, the plot "twists" were that of a second rate novel, and the outcome completely unlikely in real life, even back then. I live in the California valley, and I have been through every town that is tramped through in this book, and only by Mr. London's sheer talent for writing did I keep enough interest to finish it. There are better, more rewarding books in London's canon than this.

A Testament of Love.......1999-03-31

As in many of his books, Jack London enraptes the reader, but this time in a story of love. It is extremely refreshing because it shows the good side of true love without that sickening sweetness so many love stories have... I read this book a few years back and read it again just recently. I am SIXTEEN. This book is definetly one that many can enjoy, no matter your age.

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