Book Description
There is a universal longing to live near the water ... and this inspiring book can make that dream come true. What's it really like to live near the sea (or on a lake or at the river's edge)? Maine architect Robert Knight looks at 25 well-designed dream homes that are enhanced by the water around them; and he presents six design themes to help the reader understand what makes a house on the water work well. Over 300 color photos and site plans are featured in this outstanding portfolio of homes filled with inspiration.
Customer Reviews:
EXCELLENT !.......2007-06-29
If you are about to build a home...or just enjoy seeing the details that make other structures a "home" then you will love this book...
Very informative...beautifully executed...homerun all the way...
OK, but not what I was looking for........2007-02-13
I was excited to get this book in the mail, as I thought it would have some real good ideas on how to build a larger home on the water that had some character. I found most of the homes rather odd, homes for people that would name their children Jupiter or Flower. I am back today ordering more books. Also most homes either are RIGHT on the water or set back in rock. Didn't find much in the way of regular 100ft setback from the water, woods, maybe a walkout basement type of MN lakes home. There was one from WI but again, it was right on the water, which you normally can not build now days.
Visually Delicious.......2006-12-28
This book is wonderful at capturing the rare beauty of various architectural wonders through vivid photographs and welcoming text. You never get bored flipping through this book and it is incredibly inspiring. It combines several differently designed homes that will appeal to a variety of readers. Reading this book is like daydremaing on paper. Highly recommended.
Architect.......2006-03-11
I found this book both educational and handsome in content and in photography. As an architect practicing in different regions of the country, I'm always thankful for having opportunities to do design work in Maine. Maine, as a place to live, is simply wonderful and unique, but the sense of peace in these "Houses on the Water" is elevated creating a noble inspiration for the reader.
A House on the Water- inspiration for dreaming and designing.......2004-01-19
As a landscape designer, I was consistenly impressed with how these wonderful houses fit into their site, lifting out the critical views and respecting the nature of the place. Having enjoyed the houses that Robert Knight designs, I was pleased to learn why his houses and those selected for his book are so satisfying to see and experience. O'Rourke's photographs are spectacular and with the plans, really help to visualize the structure and the setting and how they fit together. Design professionals and homeowners alike with whom I've shared this book rave about it. A perfect gift for friends and family!
Customer Reviews:
What a gem. So sorry to see it end........2005-03-04
Books about rowing are rare enough. Books about women rowing or paddling are even rarer. Along with "The Red Rose Crew," "Water's Edge" is a lovely addition to this tiny category. In an unusual and delightful "double funnel" structure, the book begins with the most structured form of rowing, crew, then narrows to individual sports such as racing singles and single kayaking and canoeing, and then widens again to double canoeing and kayaking and finally ends with the "Back River Seven," a group of seven women who canoed one of the most remote rivers in North America, the Back River in the Canadian Arctic. Interestingly, a second layer of structure governs the book, moving from the most controlled settings, regattas, to the wildest, represented by two chapers, one on the Back River Seven and another on Valerie Fons who, with her husband, paddled over 21,000 miles, almost entirely by river, from Canada's Northwest Territories to Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America.
If it seems I'm overly stressing the structure of the book, it's because it's part of what makes the book so rewarding and fulfilling to read. It covers a wide range of methods of moving boats by hand, and the structure gives the book a lovely cohesiveness and unity. The stories of the women themselves, of course, are stirring and inspiring. In most cases, these are women who have had to fight for recognition in their sports or, in the case of Ernestine Bayer (gnerally acknowledged as the matriarch of U.S. women's rowing) to have a sport at all.
"Water's Edge" really should be read in concert with "The Red Rose Crew." As it happens, I read "The Red Rose Crew" first, and it feels as if that's the proper order. In any case, they make excellent companions. They both describe the efforts of women to reach the heights of excellence in their sports and, along the way, bring to vivid life feats of courage, endurance, and sheer, gut-wrenching tenacity at which we can only marvel. One of the women, for example, explains that she doesn't really like racing because she doesn't like the taste of blood in her mouth afterwards. But perhaps the most epigrammatic quote of all is Valerie Fons's description of what she learned on her epic pole-to-pole canoe trip: "Fear is a door, not a wall. Once you choose courage, you begin practicing it. Then it's all the easier to choose courage again. Overcoming fear is the thing I know about. Some songs you can sing because that's where your voice fits."
Book Description
Everybody Out of the Pond
At the Water's Edge will change the way you think about your place in the world. The awesome journey of life's transformation from the first microbes 4 billion years ago to Homo sapiens today is an epic that we are only now beginning to grasp. Magnificent and bizarre, it is the story of how we got here, what we left behind, and what we brought with us.
We all know about evolution, but it still seems absurd that our ancestors were fish. Darwin's idea of natural selection was the key to solving generation-to-generation evolution -- microevolution -- but it could only point us toward a complete explanation, still to come, of the engines of macroevolution, the transformation of body shapes across millions of years. Now, drawing on the latest fossil discoveries and breakthrough scientific analysis, Carl Zimmer reveals how macroevolution works. Escorting us along the trail of discovery up to the current dramatic research in paleontology, ecology, genetics, and embryology, Zimmer shows how scientists today are unveiling the secrets of life that biologists struggled with two centuries ago.
In this book, you will find a dazzling, brash literary talent and a rigorous scientific sensibility gracefully brought together. Carl Zimmer provides a comprehensive, lucid, and authoritative answer to the mystery of how nature actually made itself.
Customer Reviews:
The Extinction of Species .......2007-01-07
"At the Waters Edge: Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs
By Carl Zimmer
THE EXTINCTION OF SPECIES
Nearly all the species of Life Forms that have ever existed are now extinct. Through the millennia, there have been five documented "mass extinctions," affecting everything from primordial life forms to Dinosaurs.
The lesson is either that the rest of the species were unprepared for evolution; or that Man for reasons unknown, was better equipped for survival.
"The Permian mass extinction occurred about 248 million years ago and was the greatest mass extinction ever recorded in earth history; even larger than the previously discussed Ordovician and Devonian crises and the better known End Cretaceous extinction that felled the dinosaurs. Ninety to ninety-five percent of marine species were eliminated as a result of this Permian event"*
In "Fish with Fingers; Whales with Legs" science writer Carl Zimmer examines the extinction of species that once used their digits for underwater propulsion, but later evolved into legs for walking on land.
Why are the Frogs disappearing? Nearly 200 species of amphibians are either extinct or heading that way) Is it because Amphibians, with their Permeable skin and need for ample moisture to keep their Skin from wrinkling, are more susceptible to extinction than say, insects; or because we (Man, as the Custodian of the Ecology) have so impacted the Environment that certain species are destined for doom?
In Africa, the Hippopotamus is endangered. A certain Toad (the golden Toad) of Costa Rica hasn't been seen in thirty years. Many species of Frogs and other amphibians have disappeared or are listed as Threatened or Vulnerable by the International Conservation Union. The Polar Bear is losing its Habitat: the Arctic ice shelf is disappearing. Polar bears are smaller and weaker, and more vulnerable to disease and famine.
"Over the last few decades scientists and naturalists around the world have noticed a disturbing declining trend in many amphibian populations. The cause of such declines has so far been elusive and multiple factors working in tandem are likely to be responsible. Among the factors listed as contributing causes to such declines are: climate change, increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation, habitat destruction, increased exposure to pathogens, acid rain, human predation, and others. There is uncertainty as to whether these declines are caused by human activity or by natural cycles but most scientists believe that humans are at least partly responsible for many of these declines." (1)
But there are some positive signs. There are certain environmental niches, or enclaves where species have been protected and isolated from human and natural enemies. An example of that is the so-called "noah's ark" region in the tropical rainforests of Brazil and Coral Reefs in Indonesia where previously unknown species of fish are being discovered. According to research published in the National Geographic, there are 794 species of threatened or endangered animals, plants, and insects living in 595 sites around the world; little ecosystems where these species persevere. Another recent study shows that Earth's population is exceeding Earth's resources.
Man is the greatest enemy of the Environment. Man also has the capacity to arrest or reverse the tendency toward extinction and eradication of species.
Further Recommended Reading:
Ellis, Richard: No Turning Back: The Life and Death of Animal Species
Quammen, D: The Death of the Dodo
Dawkins, Richard: The Ancestor's Tale : A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution.
--END--
A Whale of A Tale!.......2006-08-26
This is one of my favourite books. Not just about whales, mind you, but about evolution of life in the oceans, then up onto land and, in some cases, back to sea again.
The author takes the reader through a complete yet understandable history of the evolution of whales. For my part, I knew that whales had once been terrestrial, but I didn't know even a tenth of the entire story. I learned that one of the first whales (or al least it's ancestor) was ambulocetus natans, a curious looking fellow who was something of a cross between a wolf and a whale. Then, on to Rodocetus and Basilosaurus and Dorudon, thogh not necessarily in that order.
I found out things I would never have expected in this book, such as the evolution of hand and how Hox genes work during development in the womb.
For anyone who is interested in whale evolution, human evolution, or life in the sea, this book is for you!
Enlightening........2006-04-25
I'm not one to pen lengthy reviews as the idea is, after all, what is the book about, did I or did I not like it and why - plain and simple. Well, I did like it, hence the 4 stars. However, I'm not quite sure why. Mr. Zimmer explains about evolution, some exploring, discovering, insight and mystery solving in a style that contributes to it all being easily understood (almost as if you were involved with it in some small way). It's inspiring, informative and educational. It isn't a cliff hanger, but it kept my attention and after having put it down I wanted to pick it up again. Not riveting but, I think, addictive. If you're interested in discovering the linear progression of how our understanding has arrived at where we now find ourselves (regarding evolution) then give it a try.
Walk in, then take the plunge!.......2005-09-21
At The Water's Edge is about about the evolution of large and important changes in species; Zimmer focuses on change in habitat, the move from sea to land, and then back to sea.
Zimmer begins by describing different fish lineages and concentrates on the branch that leads to our own chordate subphylum, the tetrapods. How and why did legs evolve? How did our left and right walking motion appear? Zimmer reveals a surprising answer. Tetrapods, legs, and walking did not evolve to help fish survive on land; they evolved to help fish swim in shallow swampy river deltas at the ocean's edge. These features allow fish to move more efficiently among the river plants and to sneak up on prey more easily. Once the left right motion was established, it was easy for fins to strengthen. At some point there came a need to move from puddle to puddle, or perhaps to escape predators, or to lie in wait out of the water. Strong alternating fins, which had evolved in a purely aquatic environment, were ideally suited to these new tasks.
To emphasize this original unplanned use of an existing feature, Zimmer uses Stephen Jay Gould's strange neologism "exaptation" rather than a more familiar term like pre-adaption. Zimmer prefers exaptation because pre-adaptation somehow implies that the final use of a thing was planned from the beginning. Zimmer emphasizes that it was not.
Once he's done with how tetrapods appeared and then came to land, Zimmer makes an about face and returns to the seafollowing whales and dolphins. Here too we find surprises. Early whale ancestors probably behaved like crocodiles and alligators. They would stay in the water with only their eyes and nose protruding, waiting for a land based prey to come close. Later, Zimmer describes echolocation, one of the most complex and useful features of cetaceans. Dolphins and many whales have a superb sonar system that works by echoing clicks out and back in through a fat-filled cavity in their forehead called the melon. The melon
acts as a sound lends letting dolphins "see" small objects hundreds of feet away. How can such a useful and complex organ evolve? The current hypothesis is that the melon's first function in early whales was simply to block the nasal passage during deep dives, to keep water out. Once it existed, it probably provided very rudimentary echolocation which gave natural selection something to work with. Another exaptation.
Another topic Zimmer touches often is cladism, which is the sorting of species into a genealogical table by identifying key features. Features common to a group of species can imply a common ancestor even if we haven't found any trace of the ancestor itself. Two cladistic schools are at this moment fighting it out: the biological and morphological school one side, and the genetic school on the other. The schools often arrive at different conclusions. The strength of the biological school is that its discoveries are practical; key features mean something concrete like a backbone (chordates) or a melon (dolphins and many whales). However, key features are very difficult to identify. Genes on the other hand are easy to identify and to compare among different species. Also, there's a mechanical logic to genes that readily lends itself to cladistic sorting. However, genes often don't mean anything, i.e. have no effect on how the organism works, and they can mutate at random, appearing and disappearing for no reason. Each camp will probably have to find a way to learn from the other.
Charles Darwin famously called his Origin of Species "one long argument", by which he sought to establish Natural Selection as the main means of evolution. You might take Zimmer's book as one short argument to establish exaptations and cladism as the main engines of macroevolution.
Truly excellent book on evolution .......2005-04-28
_At the Water's Edge_ by Carl Zimmer is a fascinating and well-written account of macroevolution, evolution outside of the "generation-by-generation" pace of microevolution. In microevolution, biologists can follow the process of natural selection; as every generation of a species produces a line of variants, some of these variants do better than others and survive to possibly pass on those variant traits to their offspring. Biologists can for instance track the success (and failure) of individual genes or how a particular species of insect adapts to a new pesticide. Macroevolution on the other hand works on much larger, grander scales, a scale in which completely new types of bodies appear.
Zimmer sought to examine macroevolution in the development of tetrapods from fish (which occurred between 380 and 360 million years ago) and whales from land mammals (occurring about 50 million years ago), using these fascinating accounts to introduce to the reader two of the most common features of macroevolution - exaptations of existing features and the correlated progression of many different parts.
Exaptation is a term used to describe the notion of a structure crafted by evolution for one function and later becoming ideal for another, often completely different function. Early in the 20th century this concept was known as preadaptation, a term coined by Alfred Sherwood Romer, though Stephen Jay Gould and Elizabeth Vrba in 1982 offered the term exaptation instead as preadaptation seemed to imply some sort of conscious planning for the future that evolution can never have.
In tetrapod evolution, the production of urea in lobe-fins was an exaptation - originally evolved as a way for an organism to avoid ammonia poisoning, excess salt, and water loss at sea, an excellent system for when tetrapods came ashore. Lungs may have evolved originally not for life on land but to give predatory fish more stamina in chasing prey at sea, this ability helping keep the heart nourished and allowing the fish to swim longer and harder than fish without lungs. Early tetrapods evolved legs to move along shallow, coastal lagoon bottoms and through flooded forests, not to move onto land, an "exaptation of the most dramatic sort." Among whales, _Ambulocetus_, an ancestor with perhaps a crocodile-like lifestyle, may have evolved the ability to hold its breath while it drowned its prey in deep water, an exaptation for later life at sea. Similarly, the ability of _Ambulocetus_ to hear low-frequency sounds traveling through the ground - as it rested its head on the shore, waiting for prey, the sounds traveling up its bony jaw - may have been an exaptation for hearing underwater.
Correlated progression is a bit harder of a concept to explain. Essentially, it is a "choreography of changes" in an animal. The term, originated by Keith Thomson in the 1960s, describes how one change in a particular aspect of an organism cannot take place unless natural selection was also altering the other parts of the organism for other adaptations at the same time; changes in one part of the body can sometimes make other changes more beneficial to an animal. If anatomical features of an animal are tightly linked together, they will change in concert.
The evolution of the tetrapod ear is an excellent example of correlated progression. The stapes in the human ear is homologous with a large bone that supports fish jaws, known as the hyomandibular. The ancestral lobe-fin fish's skull was originally a loose collection of bones held together by ligaments, the hyomandibular serving to brace the upper and lower jawbones against the back of the braincase and also helping to flare open the gill flap to let stale water out of the animal's head. As shown by such fossils as _Acanthostega_, early tetrapods developed a braincase that was fused shut, the jaw being able now to make direct contact with the sturdier skull, the hyomandibular bone no longer needed to support the jaw (and also not needed for working the gills as they became less important for breathing). The hyomandibular shrank and became lodged tightly in the back of the skull, at first locked in so much that it couldn't vibrate freely. Later on other bones of the skull became sturdy enough that the proto-stapes could loosen and begin transmitting sounds to the brain. The stapes could only evolve as a new type of bite was evolving thanks to changes in the skull and in breathing. In turn, the shrinking hyomandibular had its own effects; as the muscles that once connected it to the gill arches now were attached to the jaw to open and shut it and support the head on its shoulders, the dwindling hyomandibular let other bones and muscles create the tetrapod neck. Also, when the shoulders were liberated from the head and from the heavy bone once covering the gills, there was enough room for a bigger, more complex shoulder joint better suited to walking on land.
Similarly, the evolution of whale echolocation was a good example of correlated progression, each incremental change in the head of the whale encouraging other changes. Some whales may have accidentally made noises in their nose that, thanks to their echoes, made it easier to hunt prey. Sound may have inadvertently been focused by nose plugs, with whales with oversized nose plugs being favored (the nose plugs evolving into melons). The nose moved up towards the top of the head for easier breathing, but the jaws expanded back to carry it there, which made the whale's skull more stable as it moved back and creating a reflecting dish on the upper jaw for sounds waves coming from the nose as a well as a platform on which the melon to rest.
In addition to being a book on the concepts of exaptation and correlated progression, the book can simply be read as an excellent illustrated report of the evolution of tetrapods and whales, with the history of research, accounts of the personalities involved, and speculations on the lifestyles and habitats of early tetrapods and whales.
Book Description
This text begins with the assertion that the environment in which foreign policy is made has changed since 1945, especially in the post-Cold War era. Prior to World War II, the nonpartisan, virtually nonpolitical nature of foreign policy was captured in the idea that politics ended at "the water's edge." The authors assert, however, that in the post-Cold War era politics extends well beyond a nation's borders.
Customer Reviews:
Waste.......2006-11-10
This book is written poorly, with grammar errors and simple 'choppy' sentecnes, making it difficult to keep one's focus. I am sure there are other books that one could read for information on the topic.
Book Description
Renowned for its historic mansions, posh resorts, and deep blue waters, Lake Geneva—a haven for Chicago's movers and shakers since the Great Fire of 1871—is brought to life in this guide packed with lush images and intimate details from local residents. Featuring tours of lakeshore homes, engaging profiles, and insights into the local scene—from small-town charm and spectacular celebrations to world-class competitions in sailing and ice-boating—both historical facts and modern details are provided. This beautiful photographic keepsake for tourists, residents, and summer vacationers encapsulates the aura and essence of this cozy city.
Customer Reviews:
Absolutely Lovely Lake Geneva!!!.......2007-03-18
This book is lovely!!! Beautiful pictures, well done written sections.
For anyone who has visited the area, loves lakes,lives in area,childhood memories etc. Or is planning to visit the area. Lovely ,Very much recommended!!!
Fantastic book!.......2006-10-16
As someone who was raised in Lake Geneva, and one who went to school with the author, it was a delight to see these great pictures of a Lake Geneva that I have been away from for too long of a time. I would highly recommend this book to everyone.
Book Description
Assured and accomplished, Pradeep Jeganathan's long awaited debut collection of short fiction is a spare, controlled meditation on the details of inhabitation: power and inequality, friendship and enmity, love and loss, violence and its memories. The seven interconnected stories span a near thirty years of his county's recent past; each traces a delicately textured frame of troubling, telling beauty, weaving together, with almost incredible economy, not the often composed image of Sri Lanka - a paradise isle where 'only man is vile' - but a life world, live and remembered, to be lived in again.
Customer Reviews:
A beautiful beginning.......2004-05-20
Pradeep Jeganthan writes with quiet brilliance. This collection draws readers close with its austere, delicate prose, and intimate dialogue. Yet each tightly focused story presents all-too-human interactions alongside observations about the deep despair and violence that emerges from social stratifications of the most jarring and unjust kind.
An Impressive Debut!.......2004-05-14
This collection of loosely interlinked short stories delicately and movingly explores large themes (violence, gender, class, nationalism, transnationalism, politics, ethnicity) in contemporary Sri Lanka through the microscopic lens of the ordinary and the everyday. The landscape of these stories is fraught with subtle and not-so-subtle tension, foreboding, sadness, loss, anger, violence and fatigue. Each story delicately winds itself around an event or events in everyday life - a fight in a classroom among boys, the desire of a servant girl for trousers, the struggle of a poor working class woman to care for her young daughters, the estrangements of going to college in the US, a train ride, the slippery slope of conversation between friends --- each shot through with the fissures of gender, class, nation, transnation, and ethnicity that underscores the social and political terrain of contemporary Sri Lanka. The language is beautiful, spare, and simple. The deceptive simplicity of these stories and the connections and disconnections between them creates a multifaceted, complex, and deeply felt exploration of the situatedness of our everyday lives along the faultlines that mark the contemporary world. This is an impressive debut collection.
Amazing debut!.......2004-04-28
I ended up swallowing At the Water's Edge in one entranced gulp. It's about Sri Lanka, and it's about being an alienated intellectual under conditions of late capitalism, and it's about the human predicament. Jeganathan has a deceptively unaffected style, the pitch is fine-tuned, and the story I liked best, The Train From Batticoloa, manages to convey utter menace and despair without anything "really" happening - I could hardly bear to read on. This is a book with an inner novel struggling to break free...
moving and memorable!.......2004-04-20
This is almost a poem, not a detail or word is wasted. A work that invokes a depth of feeling in me; the beauty of his language is juxtaposed to the grotesqueness of his world, making us appreciate the courage of an author who can show us with such exactness, what that world might be like.
Book Description
New York is a city of few boundaries, a city of well-known streets and blocks that ramble on and on, into our literature, dreams, and nightmares. We know the city by the byways that split it, streets like Broadway and Madison and Flatbush and Delancey. From those streets, peering down the blocks and up at the top floors, the city seems immense and endless.
And though the land itself may end at the water, the city does not. Long before Broadway was a muddy cart track, the water was the city's most distinguishing feature, the rivers the only byways of importance. Some people, like William Kornblum, still see the city as an urban archipelago, shaped by the water and the people who have sailed it for goods, money, pirate's loot, and freedom. For them, the City will always be an island.
William Kornblum--New York City native, longtime sailor, urban sociologist, and first-time author--has spent decades plying the waterways of the city in his ancient catboat, Tradition. In At Sea in the City, he takes the reader along as he sails through his hometown, lovingly retelling the history of the city's waterfront and maritime culture and the stories of the men and women who made the water their own. In At Sea in the City and in Kornblum's own humility, humor, and sense of wonder, one detects echoes of E. B. White, John McPhee, and Joseph Mitchell.
Customer Reviews:
An interesting description of the, um, New York City archipelego.......2007-08-14
I recommend this book, especially to those who know a little about New York City and about sailing. I like the writing style and the descriptions of New York as seen from the water.
Thoroughly enjoyable.......2002-07-18
This is a delightful view of some of the Big Apple's waterfront. William Kornblum writes well, and I am pleased to meet the family, friends, and acquaintances of his journey. Having explored much of our city, and having studied many of the coasts from opposite shorelines, I nevertheless learned much from Kornblum's views from his catboat. I also enjoyed his flash-backs, particularly his days as a youth working at the Transit Mix dock. As another reader noted, the book has a few errors that should have been caught. The A train travels neither through The Bronx nor over Williamsburg Bridge (p. 91). In Red Hook, the parish school is within the Brooklyn diocese, not archdiocese (p. 122). When I find errors on topics I know well, I begin to worry that the publishing industry has a problem with fact-checking in non-fiction. Yet, I must say that this book is a thoroughly enjoyable meeting of humans, views, and story. I recommend this book as a gift.
A good read, but...........2002-06-12
This is the account of a sailboat cruise, but rather than crossing an ocean the author travels maybe 40 miles from home, into the maelstrom that is NY harbor. It's an interesting book, sort of, but I expected more history of the harbor, more about what the place is, and less of the author's personal experience.
I expected the former thanks to a review in the NY Times, I think -- some newspaper, anyway -- that suggested it was less an ecological than an historical journey. Without this preconception, I probably would have liked the book more. If you're from NYC, it's worth a read, but there are many better sailing accounts if you want hairy-chested adventure, or to learn something about sailing in general. There are also better books about ecology of the shoreline.
But the style is pleasant and the author seems like a man who would be an enjoyable sailing companion. That's worth three stars.
Charming and pleasant, but a bit slight.......2002-06-01
The author, a sociology professor at City University of New York, was raised in the Big Apple and has lived most of his life in the area. In 1979 he bought a 24-foot New England catboat, built on Cape Cod in 1910, and proceeded to fix it and sail it around the New York area.
With this book he presents a portrait -- and sketchy history -- of the city from an angle few people know it. Structuring the story as a fairly continuous though interrupted sail from his home in Long Beach, around the southern tip of Rockaway and into Jamaica Bay, then into Upper New York Bay and the East River, and ultimately to Long Island Sound, Kornblum offers both close-up looks at the water and shoreline, and their past history.
The approach is light and pleasant: Few stories -- whether of the freezing disaster of the privateer "Castel Del Rey" in New York harbor in 1704, knowledgeable black sailors impressed by the British Navy in the War of 1812 and jailed in England for refusing to serve against the US, various ferry disasters, or the vagaries of Robert Moses -- last more than a page or three. The only sections where Kornblum lingers are in Jamaica Bay (its environmental degradation and return), and the dockside concrete industry that built New York's towers and for which the author worked as a kid. Manhattan itself is quickly bypassed though given a loving nod, and there is no venturing into the Hudson side.
In the typo sweepstakes, the book does all right, although it says "mechanical break" on p. 156 when "brake" was meant, and I believe I saw an unintended sentence fragment on p. 143. Most egregious, the great A.J. Liebling is identified on p. 103 as "Libeling" (though the name is correct in the bibliography)! A pity there apparently are youthful editors (I don't suppose there is such a thing as a proofreader in publishing anymore) who do not know this great journalist's work backward and forward.
Another ominous development -- to this reader, anyway -- is that the lovely cover photograph is an unreal composite. Different photographers are credited for different portions of it. I find this vaguely disturbing.
The writing is definitely four-star quality or better. Here's my favorite passage: "Up another shadowy bend stood two snowy egrets, with their outrageous yellow boots and platinum punk haircuts. How chic, these mudbank sushi bars. The egrets were spearing for sand bugs, moving along the edge of the marsh with the herky giant steps of students at a party stepping over empty beer cans."
I give the book only three stars because it is slight. Probably an excellent gift for the average non-reader who happens to love sailing or New York City, or the casual reader who knows little about either, but I would have liked to know more.
Great tour of the New York archipelago.......2002-05-31
City University of New York Professor Kornblum pays homage to what he describes as the New York archipelago. The full city consists mostly of three large islands, a bunch of small islands, and a peninsular. Professor Kornblum takes readers on a tour of the various waterways that tie the city together. Readers visit City Island off the Bronx Peninsular, Ellis and Liberty islands off lower Manhattan Island, and the Rikers Island Prison as well as several much smaller and less known rocks within the waterways. The author provides historical references and a crystal ball look into the future where nature in the present is fighting to regain a foothold from the vast urbanization. AT SEA IN THE CITY is an engaging look at the Big Apple from a different lens as the highways cross waters connecting the city such as the "byway" from Fulton St. in lower Manhattan to Fulton St. Brooklyn. Not just for natives, this is a wonderfully different perspective on New York that makes for a leisurely yet educational and enjoyable reading.
Harriet Klausner
Book Description
Small delivers the first authoritative study of the Vietnam War's domestic politics. The war ultimately destroyed the presidency of Lyndon Johnson and indirectly forced the resignation of Richard Nixon. Those presidents who followed through the remainder of the twentieth century constructed their foreign policies mindful that they would not survive politically if they were to lead the nation into another protracted limited war in the Third World. Small is one of our best historians of the Vietnam War and widely known and admired for his analyses of how U.S. foreign policy has historically been shaped by domestic events and beliefs. Here he combines these talents to give us a superb account. --Walter LaFeber. American Ways Series.
Customer Reviews:
Showing how the war transformed American society and produced changes in long-standing political alliances.......2006-01-09
Over all other wars, the long Vietnam War had heavy impact at home, creating divisions and social strife which had lasting effects on American politics. At The Water's Edge: American Politics And The Veitnam War focuses on these domestic changes, showing how the war transformed American society and produced changes in long-standing political alliances and a fundamental shift in values which was to impact politics, media reporting, economics and more - lasting to this day. Melvin small is a professor of history: his survey provides an important focus on the domestic front of the war.
Average customer rating:
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At Water's Edge: The Birds of Florida
Roger Bansemer
Manufacturer: Taylor Trade Publishing
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ASIN: 0878338217 |
Book Description
Here are more than 150 stunning portraits of Florida's birds in all their habitats at water's edge, from the hushed and hidden swamps to th eopen shores and beaches.
Average customer rating:
- No one has mentioned how FUNNY this book is.
- Nancy Thayer is a Very Talented & Vastly Underrated Author
- Contemporary lives at crisis points
- A Lesson For All Women
- This is my first Nancy Thayer book
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Three Women At The Water's Edge (Three Women at the Water's Edge)
Nancy Thayer
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0312960646 |
Book Description
From the surf of Maine to lakeshore Milwaukee to Canada's Pacific mists, each of the Wallace women-- a mother and her two daughters-- is looking across her treasured home waters to the horizons of change....MARGARET has gone from a matronly doctor's wife who carried everyone's burdens to a svelte single, her hard-won freedom invaded by a compassion she dare not feel....Her daughter DAISY turns desperately to her mother-- pregnant with her third child, her cozy, sloppy, domestic world ripped apart by her husband's elopement with a sexy young journalist....Sophisticated DALE's heady, obsessive passion for a co-teacher is shadowed by her mother's and sister's divorces. Is this the perilous price tag of love and belonging?These three women-- warm, funny and courageous-- are about to ride a bittersweet merry-go-round of joy and pain, love and illusion, reconciliation and rediscovery, in this classic bestseller that has won the hearts of women everywhere.
Customer Reviews:
No one has mentioned how FUNNY this book is. .......2004-12-04
There are plenty of plot synopses and recommendations here, all of them accurate and helpful, but I would like to point out how hilarious this book is. The three women are self-aware, and as they struggle with transformation, they do it with an eye to how ridiculous they might appear. There is something so touching in their dignity and bravery and intelligence. I think I first read this book fifteen years ago, and continue to recommend it to friends, and I am delighted that it's still in print.
Nancy Thayer is a Very Talented & Vastly Underrated Author.......2004-07-14
I discovered Nancy Thayer when her novels were being condensed for "Redbook Magazine," when that publication was still featuring outstanding fiction for women in every issue. I was immediately struck by her narrative voice, and the way she dealt with issues that face many women over the course of a lifetime: love, sex, marriage, children, divorce, and death.
"Three Women at the Water's Edge" can almost be seen as an work based on the archetypal stages of women: mother, maiden, and crone, but with a twist. Margaret, the mother, has been given a second change at life -- she divorced her plodding, old-fashioned, and frankly dull husband, physically transformed herself from "Mrs. Santa Claus" to a glamorous middle-aged woman, and moved to Vancouver from the states. In the process Margaret bewilders her oldest daughter, Daisy, and eventually charms her youngest daughter, Dale, who was always "daddy's girl."
Daisy is dumpted by her materialist YUPPY husband (the book was written in 1980) when she is pregnant with their second child. Daisy is a woman who took to marriage and motherhood like the proverbial duck to water..like many of Thayer's heroines, she passionately loves her children, probably more than she loves her husband, but his betrayal of her is shattering. Overweight when she got pregnant with her latest child, she buys into her husband's assessment that she is now dull and unattractive. The youngest daughter, Dale, is a teacher who goes to teach in a faraway town & falls in love with a local man. The divorces in her immediate family keep her unable to commit to a man who is truly her soul mate.
Thayer skillfully relates the stories of the three women, and how each works out her own destiny by accepting that a new life is possible and then acting upon it. Dale's story is perhaps the most predictable, and Margaret's the least so, with Daisy's somewhere in between. None of the characters are cliches, not even Daisy's rather miserable husband.
I wish that Ms Thayer had continued to write books in this same vein. "Stepping," "Morning," "Bodies and Souls," and "Nell" are all books in the tradition of "Three Women at the Water's Edge." Her later works have not IMO been quite as satisfactory, as they lack the narrative power & depth of the earlier books. Ms Thayer has long deserved to be more than a mid-list author --and it is possible that her later works have been an attempt to make her more mainstream. I for one hope she returns to her roots!
Contemporary lives at crisis points.......2002-06-30
This story is about three women, a mother and her two daughters, at crisis points in their lives. There's the mother, aging and divorced, who turns from dumpy duckling into a swan; a daughter, also newly divorced, struggling to raise her children alone; and the second daughter engaged in an all-absorbing love affair.
Thayer's books are always entertaining and at the same time they portray relationships and everyday problems through characters that seem like your next-door neighbors. Here's a slice of typical contemporary lives, full of insight into situations and people.
A Lesson For All Women.......2002-04-05
I finished reading Three Women this morning and felt obliged to write my review right away.
This novel is written for women and many will read it and be able to identify with the trials of marriage, child rearing, broken relationships and the mental suffering and unhappiness we all go through.
Centered around the Wallace family, we are introduced to Margaret, the mother who in her late forties has come to grips with the person she wants to be, and makes herself through lots of courage, into that very person. We meet Daisy the housewife and her older daughter whose life is on the verge of collapse when her career-oriented husband leaves her for a more sophisticated woman as she tries to fend for herself with two young children and a baby on the way. Then we are led into the life of Dale a teacher......Margaret's younger daughter who is unmarried so far but very much in love with a fellow-teacher and so afraid of being burnt as she watches on at her sister's fate.
This is a good book for all women regardless of age, as in each of these three women, there is something we can all take note of, and learn from their experiences. I recommend this as a nice Mother's Day gift.
Nutface
April 5th, 2002
This is my first Nancy Thayer book.......2002-02-16
I bought this book on a recommendation from a friend and while it wasn't quite what I expected it to be, it was still very good reading. If you like to read books on relationships between mother and daughter and sisters, this is a good book to pick up. There is Margaret, the mother who has discovered new-found freedom at the age of 48 (which is very young!), her two daughters, Daisy and Dale. Daisy, pregnant with her third child, goes through a divorce that literally shakes her world upside down. Dale, in the throes of first true love, makes a tenative step into making a committment ... though she is afraid that her mother and sister's divorces may cause her to go down the same stumbling road later on in life.
It is a wonderfully written book full of insightful thoughts and discoveries. Margaret discovers that she could no longer be like the woman she was in Liberty, Iowa, where she dispensed free advice along with cookies and milk. Now, she's preserving the self she has disovered in the year since her divorce and move to Vancouver, Canada. She really embodies the joy and freedom of being one's own self, not responsible to any one else. It's a grand feeling ... it's something that I've discovered through my own divorce. The only difference is, Margaret feels no need to get married again, whereas I did get married.
Daisy is the one character that has come a long ways since the beginning of the book. Her trials and tribulations as a young and single mother are too vividly descriptive and true. But she comes through it and discovers a whole new personality that she didn't have before. She really gave new meaning to the word "sacrifice." Out of all the characters, she is my favorite.
Dale ~~ she is in the midst of the passionate throes of true love and at the same time, she's afraid to make a committment to her lover, Hank, because she's afraid she's doomed to repeat her mother and sister's mistake. Then she realizes that letting go of her fear and stepping through the changes in life really enhances her love.
This is an unique book ~~ one for mothers and daughters to share. I enjoyed it though it wasn't what I quite expected. However, I read it and wouldn't put it down till the last page was turned. I don't think others will regret reading it too.
2-15-02
Books:
- A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3)
- A Thousand Splendid Suns
- A Wrinkle in Time
- Absence from Felicity : The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of A Course in Miracles
- Al Capone Does My Shirts
- Algebra and Trigonometry (2nd Edition) (Beecher/Penna/Bittinger Series)
- All Night Long: How to Make Love to a Man Over 50
- Angels & Demons
- At First Sight
- At Home in the Muddy Water: A Guide to Finding Peace Within Everyday Chaos
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