Book Description
Now available in paperback, the entrancing story of how one woman's journey of self-discovery gave her the courage to persevere in re-creating her life.
Life is a work in progress, as ever-changing as a sandy shoreline along the beach. During the years Joan Anderson was a loving wife and supportive mother, she had slowly and unconsciously replaced her own dreams with the needs of her family. With her sons grown, however, she realized that the family no longer centered on the home she provided, and her relationship with her husband had become stagnant. Like many women in her situation, Joan realized that she had neglected to nurture herself and, worse, to envision fulfilling goals for her future. As her husband received a wonderful job opportunity out-of-state, it seemed that the best part of her own life was finished. Shocking both of them, she refused to follow him to his new job and decided to retreat to a family cottage on Cape Cod.
At first casting about for direction, Joan soon began to take plea-sure in her surroundings and call on resources she didn't realize she had. Over the course of a year, she gradually discovered that her life as an "unfinished woman" was full of possibilities. Out of that magical, difficult, transformative year came
A Year by the Sea, a record of her experiences and a treasury of wisdom for readers.
This year of self-discovery brought about extraordinary changes in the author's life. The steps that Joan took to revitalize herself and rediscover her potential have helped thousands of woman reveal and release untapped resources within themselves.
Customer Reviews:
A complete waste of time.......2007-08-26
I had to read this book for my book-club. Thank goodness I was able to get it from the library and didn't have to buy it.
The book was tiresome, tedious, narcisisstic and at times, frankly unbelievable. The first conversation with Joan Erikson reads as if scripted for a made-for-TV movie. Joan, "It's about action and touch" she says , as if she knows. "That's where the wisdom is - in the senses - stepping out on a gray day, daring to be different. There's no-one as foolish as us right now. Thank goodness! We can be in a fog all by ourselves! I love the grayness of it. The mist sort of wraps itself around our thoughts, so they can take hold".
Give me a break.
As another reviewer wrote, Anderson insists on dragging in metaphors and hitting us over the head with them. The seals, the fox, the trickling sand - enough already.
As to the reason she went on her sabbatical - it appears she married someone so radically opposite her in many respects, she maybe would have been happier with another man. The fact that she raised two sons who are happliy married themselves is maybe a testament to her husband more than her - she mentions that they are always happy in his company. "Their affection for him is more readily apparent than their feelings for me".
Hmm - I wonder why?
Reflections for Women Over 50.......2007-06-12
This is one woman's story of her own year-long time-out. It is easily readable in a day or two (or a few hours, if you have that much time to yourself). The thoughts the author shares, however, will stay with you; they require much more reflection time. It is thoughtful, humorous in places, and uplifting. A good start for beginning your own journey into the last half of life. I ordered several copies for friends. I recommend following this book with Anderson's "A Weekend to Change Your Life" which guides you into your own retreat and reflection on the path(s) you have taken and will continue to take. But read this one first.
Amazing book!.......2007-05-11
This book was fantastic! I couldn't put it down and although I am only in my 20s I could relate to so much of what she was writting. Once I finished the book I promptly lent it to my mother and she also loves it! A great read for anyone wanting to learn more about women's stories and their experiences.
Taking Time to Open Your Mind.......2007-03-17
Joan Anderson details her experience of separating from her husband and retreating to Cape Cod for a year. She is so out-of-touch with herself and her needs that even in this year of self-discovery, she flounders and at times seems wimpy and lost. It's inspiring, as it shows that you don't have to be super-woman to make changes in your life.
Ideas that seep into my mind as I read include:
*It's never too late to tune into your real self
*Solitude and interaction with nature help free you to think
*Getting your hands dirty releases inhibitions
*We are all unfinished women (and men) but often don't let ourselves grow
Although some passages seemed banal as you read them, the overall revitalization and insight that the author experiences strike a spark. I I imagine we all need some time to recharge and reconnect with ourselves, but rarely have that luxury. We also fill our lives too much with the daily demands and aren't willing to listen to our minds and bodies rebelling or quietly suffocating.
Interesting...........2007-01-20
I found this book to be quite an interesting read. I like Joan's writing style and her bravery in facing situations that came her way. She tells of the creative solutions she came up with to patch up her cabin, her relationships and, ultimately, her own psyche. She stepped out in faith and is an adventurous inspiration to me. I especially loved her interactions with the seals. A quick and enjoyable read!
Book Description
A chronicle of a solitary year spent on a Cape Cod beach, The Outermost House has long been recognized as a classic of American nature writing. Henry Beston had originally planned to spend just two weeks in his seaside home, but was so possessed by the mysterious beauty of his surroundings that he found he 'could not go.' Instead, he sat down to try and capture in words the wonders of the magical landscape he found himself in thrall to: the migrations of seabirds, the rhythms of the tide, the windblown dunes, and the scatter of stars in the changing summer sky. Beston argued that, 'The world today is sick to its thin blood for the lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot.' Seventy-five years after they were first published, Beston's words are more true than ever.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful Lines in a Wonderful Book.......2007-09-23
Note: I made some Mormon reader angry over my negative reviews of books written by Mormons out to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews.
Your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks.
On The Outermost House: Henry Beston's account of his year on Cape Code in the 1920s is a classic. It's worth reading just for the poetic lines. Here is an example:
"For a moment of night we have a glimpse of ourselves and of our world islanded in its stream of stars--pilgrims of mortality, voyaging between horizons across eternal seas of space and time."
Highly recommended!
The Outermost House: A Yeaar of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.......2007-01-05
I particularly enjoyed this book as it is set in an area that has a large simularity to where I grew up and I particularly liked the lonliness and bleakness that I identified with.
Beston is without a doubt the best!.......2006-10-03
I wouldn't dream of heading for the Cape without this book--Henry Beston captures the Cape more beautifully than any other author. THE OUTERMOST HOUSE is one of those enchanting books which improves with each rereading.
Customers interested in this title may also be interested in ..........2006-08-04
Since Amazon hasn't provide a link between Outermost House, by Beston, and The Winter Beach, by Charlton Ogburn (ISBN 068809418X), I would like to suggest here that, if you like Outermost House, you will almost certainly enjoy The Winter Beach, as well. From the jacket description: "A naturalist and man of rare wisdom shares with you his journeys along the Atlantic shore."
Bird-watching the Soul.......2005-11-13
There's an H.G. Wells story (in Bloom's anthology for children) called "The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes"; the title character is struck by lightning and undergoes a visual hallucination in which he believes he sees a desolate island, or as he puts it, "Dark sea and sunrise! And yet I'm sitting on a sofa in old Boyce's room!...God help me!" I didn't think much of the story at the time I read it, but now, on reading "The Outermost House," I find it a remarkably excellent and relevant critique of American nature writing. Surrounded by friends and family, Davidson's gaze is turned inward-or rather projected far outward-to a pristine setting that becomes a horror to the reader.
I'm surprised I didn't like Beston's book better. The introduction makes comparisons to Whitman, which drives me crazy. There is no triad of selves; in fact, I didn't find the author good company, with his external, concrete eye. The objective details never gain in implicit resonance like those in Hemingway's "Great Two-Hearted River," for example, in which concrete actions assume ritualistic meaning. The book is a quick read, and it's a good thing, because there's only so much I can take of foam, little birds, wind direction, and dunes. (There's something passive about the narrator; I'm trying to remember something Bloom wrote about Robinson Crusoe in this context.) Perhaps it's a matter of temperament; I mean, I'm as introverted as they come, but I was lonely reading this book, and I kept waiting for augmenting meanings; perhaps it appeals to a more concrete, introverted type, a bird-watcher in other words.
The prose is beautiful in places, but it's not exactly Proust on the ocean, either. It's always so curious to me that American writers, to get elemental or visionary, go to nature, while Europeans still get to enjoy culture. I guess we don't have a Bois, like Proust, with which to associate feelings of longing, nor do we have earthy peasants or Duchesses whose very names carry traces of soil. And isn't there something ultimately selfish in the isolated nature-observer? Maybe that's part of the appeal-the freedom from the demands of family and culture-the illusion of primal interconnectedness. In any event, not Whitman! Matthew Arnold, sure! Ironically enough, I felt Arnold's "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" every other paragraph. Ultimately, this is a thoroughly PAGAN book in which the soul-less thrumming of cold insect life is celebrated, the sun is worshipped, and human sacrifice (in the form of deaths and drownings at sea) is required. Have we progressed no farther in the past millennium or so? Cold comfort.
Book Description
Cape Cod homes are a perennial favorite among small and growing families, and they can often benefit from being brought up-to-date. Capes is a combination of practical, attractive designs and proven ideas that include a wealth of style, size, and budget choices for renovating, remodeling, or building a Cape Cod-style home. Featuring over 20 case studies of updated homes and Capes built from scratch, the book is generously illustrated with inspiring original color photographs and before-and-after floor plans.
Customer Reviews:
My contractor loved it..........2005-06-03
I am in the process of remodeling my 60 year old Cape using ideas from this book. I showed my contractor the book so he would know what I wanted to do & he joked that he almost walked off with it. Great ideas - great detail. Whatever your style.
where is middle america?.......2003-12-04
If my cape was on the ocean this would be a good source of ideas. However, it offers little for the typical solid, somewhat plain capes that populate middle America. I love mine and could use some practical advice - this book doesn't help much.
The ultimate Cape Book............2003-11-04
My husband and i just recently purchase a Cape house and were use to living in less traditional houses....This book gives us so many inspirations on how to make our new house more us! We took it out of the library before we moved in and.....haven't returned it yet! I think it's time to get one of our own! We took out 50+ books but this one was just what we wanted to see sooooo many ideas! Not frumpy - clean lines, open spaces, etc...
For readers who are doers.......2003-10-01
If the number of reviews seems scant, it's probably because readers of this book are inspired to head for their drawing boards or take sledgehammer to wall, rather than compose a book review. Who has time to write a paragraph or two for Amazon when there are contractors to call and design decisions to make? This book will motivate you Cape owners out there to finally make the updates that you've been thinking about since you moved in -- whether it's just replacing rusty bathroom cabinets or adding that extra bedroom so your two boys don't have to share a room anymore.
Valuable, useful and enjoyable.......2003-08-06
Jane Gitlin's book is a pleasure to read -- again and again. My wife and I own a classic Cape. We've spent the past 10 years renovating it, bit by bit. Now we're contemplating a major exterior remodeling project and Jane's book is a treasure trove of excellent ideas. The text and photos offer many creative alternatives to the standard, time-worn designs suggested by many architects and contractors. The book truly renewed our sense of pride in owning a classic Cape. Bravo!
Book Description
An irreverent, absorbing, and insightful tale of one man's adventures following the great 7,000-mile osprey migration across two continents
One September, after writing about ospreys on Cape Cod for years, David Gessner impulsively decided to follow the birds on their annual migration. Each fall these graceful raptors, with wingspans of up to six feet, cruise over the eastern United States, then soar over Cuba and winter in South America, returning north with the spring. In 2004, Gessner went along for the ride, traveling illegally into the mountains of Cuba and deep into Venezuela as he competed with the crew of a BBC documentary to be the first to follow the full migration, trailing the birds by car, boat, foot, and plane. He called his favorite osprey Fidel.
Soaring with Fidel is about the exhilaration of migration, but it is also a deeper meditation on the nature of human happiness. In describing the thrill of travel, the antics of these swashbuckling birds, and the cast of characters he meets (and drinks with) along the wayâincluding scientists, students, tour guides, and an online group of birdersâGessner gives us a profound lesson in the importance of following what you love.
"From the tidal marshes of Cape Cod to jungle lakes in Venezuela, David Gessner lets nothingânot language barriers, not empty pockets, not steely-eyed Cuban bureaucrats or American embargoesâstop him from following the migration of the osprey. Just reckless enough to be lucky, Gessner wins over everyone he meets. Soaring with Fidel has wings."
âScott Weidensaul, author of Living on the Wind
"Because of its robust passion and focus, Soaring with Fidel would have probably been a favorite of Teddy Roosevelt's. It's Gessner's finest book, unpredictable in the best way, and funny, too; an adventure book and much moreâa book of contact, written by a writer who quickly becomes an audible and visible presence. Soaring with Fidel demonstrates that you can 'pick up one thing and find the rest of the world hitched to it.' If you've experienced a passion that you failed to followâor that you did followâthen this is your book."
âClyde Edgerton, author of Solo
"Exhilarating, hilarious, tender, this is David Gessner at his best. Call it whatever you wantâosprey lust, wanderlust, migratory unrestâbut when Gessner decides to follow the birds he loves from Cape Cod to Cuba to Venezuela and back north, over thousands of miles of mountain, swamp, and sea, we all benefit."
âJames Campbell, author of The Final Frontiersman
"Equal doses of Jack Kerouac and Roger Tory Peterson promise to enshrine Soaring with Fidel in the pantheon of great travel writing and natural history."
âKeith L. Bildstein, author of Migrating Raptors of the World
"Gessner's account is filled with nitty-gritty details about the days and nights of an itinerant birder and beautifully detailed descriptions of ospreys in action. When actual observations were not possible, he imagined what the ospreys were doing and writes intelligentlyâ¦A grand adventure, not just for birders and nature lovers." âKirkus, review in the January 15th issue
"Soaring with Fidel is a grand and cheering journey on the wings of one of nature's most sociable predators. It's impossible to watch an osprey hovering above a crystal calm bay and not envy the great bird's freedom. Now, thanks to David Gessner, we are invited to follow."
âCarl Hiaasen, author of Nature Girl
"Gessner's travels are filled with small delights. He has a great gift for conveying reverence without sanctimony, and even at his most sardonic and self-deprecating, his sense of wonder at the osprey never falters. As he stands on a rock above Cuba's Sierra Maestra, watching ospreys rocket past, we wish we could be up there beside him, binoculars in one hand, a cold beer in the other." âOnEarth
"An engaging, lyrical guide to osprey migration, Cuba, and a common humanity. On his impulsive journey, Gessner meets other devotees of this magnificent raptor, and experiences the thrill of following what he loves."
âOrion Magazine
"Gessner seldom sets out deliberately to be funny, as Bill Bryson does, but his deadpan, self-deprecating humor ("I had vast experience in not seeing birds") makes him an ideal traveling companion and guide. Soaring With Fidel lets you hover for a while in the thermals of fine language, seeing the same old world from a fresh and invigorating altitude."
âWilmington (NC) Morning Star News
"This probing investigation of the migratory flight of the osprey embraced several unexpectedly, exciting adventures . . . I found Gessner's book a most interesting read."
âNH Union Leader
"He gives an occasional nod to Henry David Thoreau, perhaps to assure us that, yep, he's read the masters, but his styleâwell, imagine Hunter Tompson gone birding, pen in hand." âHartford Courant
David Gessner is the award-winning author of several books, including Return of the Osprey and The Prophet of Dry Hill (Beacon / 8568-5 / $19.95 hc). He is editor of the literary journal Ecotone and assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Each summer, Gessner migrates north to Cape Cod.
Customer Reviews:
Ospreymania .......2007-06-27
I wish the book had gone on longer. There just wasn't as much content as I like. The subject was great. We know so little about migration. I like his style but I just wanted more storyline. I like all animal books of any kind and especially birds. We just take them for granted and now they are disappearing. I would like another follow up book with Freddy coming to America to visit us again. He was such an interesting guy and you just wanted to climb that mountain with them.
This osprey season has been as sad and interesting as any I have ever experienced and I hope David had better luck in North Carolina. Osprey nests all over seemed to fail this year. Please travel some more and continue to write and I will read. Loyal fan, B. Kelley
Is Gessner the Indiana Jones of Birding?.......2007-05-13
Gessner ratchets up the action with this true-life adventure. He demonstrates that a very skilled writer on a shoestring budget is able to blend ornithology, international adventure, beer, smokes and derring-do into a terrific book that teaches the reader to devour life while pursuing knowledge. The combination is odd, but I found this page-turner exciting and informative. Both people and ospreys come under Gessner's neb as he breaks a few U.S. State Department rules about travel to Cuba to see for himself where thousands of Ospreys (and other birds) migrate. His interest focuses on a particular bird he follows from Cape Cod to Cuba's La Gran Piedra. Achieving this, he risks life and limb to travel to Venezuela where kidnappings and murders are not quite as numerous as the ospreys he so adores, and borrows money to consummate his passionate quests. I reluctantly set this book aside to run an errand that took me across the Megler Bridge over the Columbia River through an estuary near Astoria, Oregon. As if on cue, an Osprey plunged into a mud flat and arose with a small flounder less than 50 yards from the highway. Had I not been reading this book, I would have missed the event, but Gessner's memorable descriptions of Osprey behavior are enriching my life. I now see ospreys all the time. Gessner's books have given me my wings, my vision is sharpened and I think I may be turning into an osprey magnet, I really think so.
Book Description
In this moving sequel to her national bestseller A Year by the Sea, Joan Anderson explores the challenges of rebuilding and renewing a marriage with her trademark candor, compassion, and insight.
With A Year by the Sea, Joan Anderson struck a chord in many tens of thousands of readers. Her brave decision to take a year for herself away from her marriage, her frank assessment of herself at midlife, and her openness in sharing her fears as well as her triumphs won her admirers and inspired women across the country to reconsider their options. In this new book, Anderson does for marriage what she did for women at midlife. Using the same very personal approach, she shows us her own rocky path to renewing a marriage gone stale, satisfying the demand from readers and reviewers to learn what comes next.
When Joan and her husband Robin decided to repair and renew their marriage after her eye-opening year of self-discovery, the outcome was far from certain. He had suddenly decided to retire and move to Cape Cod himself and embark on his own journey of midlife reinvention. After the initial shock of incorporating another person back into Joan’s daily life and her treasured cottage, they begin the process of "recycling"–using the original materials of their marriage to create a new partnership. Rereading the letters that she had written from Uganda during the early years of their marriage, she is reminded about the nervousness and joy with which she began their life together. Her sudden incapacitation with a broken ankle reveals an unexpected resourceful and tender side in her husband. A grimly comic and strained dinner party with three other couples reveals to both Joan and Robin some of the emotional pitfalls (and horrors) that can befall married couples.
In her year of solitude by the sea, Anderson learned that "there is no greater calling than to make a new creation out of the old self." In An Unfinished Marriage, she charts the new journey that she and her husband have begun together, seasoned by their years of marriage but newly awakened to the possibilities of their future together. A unique, tremendously moving and insightful entry into the literature of marriage, it will provide salutary shocks of recognition and fresh hope for all women and men negotiating their own marital passages.
From the Hardcover edition.
Download Description
In this moving sequel to her national bestseller A Year by the Sea, Joan Anderson explores the challenges of rebuilding and renewing a marriage with her trademark candor, compassion, and insight.
With A Year by the Sea, Joan Anderson struck a chord in many tens of thousands of readers. Her brave decision to take a year for herself away from her marriage, her frank assessment of herself at midlife, and her openness in sharing her fears as well as her triumphs won her admirers and inspired women across the country to reconsider their options. In this new book, Anderson does for marriage what she did for women at midlife. Using the same very personal approach, she shows us her own rocky path to renewing a marriage gone stale, satisfying the demand from readers and reviewers to learn what comes next.
When Joan and her husband Robin decided to repair and renew their marriage after her eye-opening year of self-discovery, the outcome was far from certain. He had suddenly decided to retire and move to Cape Cod himself and embark on his own journey of midlife reinvention. After the initial shock of incorporating another person back into Joan's daily life and her treasured cottage, they begin the process of "recycling" -- using the original materials of their marriage to create a new partnership. Rereading the letters that she had written from Uganda during the early years of their marriage, she is reminded about the nervousness and joy with which she began their life together. Her sudden incapacitation with a broken ankle reveals an unexpected resourceful and tender side in her husband. A grimly comic and strained dinner party with three other couples reveals to both Joan and Robin some of the emotional pitfalls (and horrors) that can befall married couples.
In her year of solitude by the sea, Anderson learned that "there is no greater calling than to make a new creation out of the old self." In An Unfinished Marriage, she charts the new journey that she and her husband have begun together, seasoned by their years of marriage but newly awakened to the possibilities of their future together. A unique, tremendously moving and insightful entry into the literature of marriage, it will provide salutary shocks of recognition and fresh hope for all women and men negotiating their own marital passages.
Customer Reviews:
Marriage Re-Entry; It Hits Home........2007-09-18
I think every married woman should read this and Joan's previous book 'A Year By The Sea.' I read this several years ago and could easily identify with it then. I just reread it and being a little older and even deeper into my marriage, it just hits home. I have read this off and on for the past week and have found consolation from my own marriage woes and commraderie in knowing that I'm definately not alone in working through certain stages and feelings of marriage. Makes me feel even stronger really for working through the muck and mire instead of throwing in the towel which can be a mighty tempting and attractive option depending where you are.
The memoir picks up where 'A year By the Sea' left off. They are re-entering their marriage. The book reads kind of like a journal, or maybe a personal conversation with a close friend. The chapters are divided by months and seasons of the year. I love the detail and open honesty of it. I like that she not only talks about her marriage, but the changes she and Robin are experiencing as parents while they watch their son transition into his own family.
Inspiring and moving.......2007-01-18
A sequel to "A Year by the Sea", this book follows Joan Anderson's journey as she and her husband reunite after she spent a year alone at her family's cottage by the sea. I did not quite know what to expect from the book, as frankly, I loved her first book so much, I really didn't want him to come back! Joan is brutally honest with the reader about her feelings as she deals with her struggles of his return, feelings to which I think many women can relate as we deal with the men who come in and out of our lives. Joan's candidness creates a common bond that makes you cheer for her in the good times and cry with her in the bad. This is another great book that speaks to women of all ages as we navigate life's journeys. I highly recommend it!
I loved it.......2006-10-31
There are so many things that the author describes in this book that everyone can relate to at one time or another in their life. She expressed on paper what most of us are thinking when in a relationship but never say. I thought the book was thought provoking and empowering. A delightful read and highly recommended.
I'm cracking up...........2005-09-13
....reading all the reviews from women who didn't like the book because Joan did something "so selfish" and that a man needs a woman who "adores him and deserves nothing less" - clearly this is not the view of my own successful marriage or those of my younger friends. (I am 34). I was so enthralled with a Year by the Sea that I went to the Cape from MN to personally meet the author and I assure you she is no different than how she writes -straightforward, tells it how it is, very, very intelligent woman who went to Yale. I have also had the pleasure of meeting her husband who is as charming. (Most people think this about my husband as well but I know there are a few flaws). If you are in the backwards land of living to solely "adore" your husband you have no business reading this book or any like it. It simply wouldn't be your cup of tea as a book on "pleasing your man" wouldn't be mine. Thank goodness we are all in America and can have those choices. Mine is to keep reading any and everything this woman has written. Please don't bother rating my review - you have better things to do! :)
Tales of An Unconventional Unwise Woman........2005-09-13
She was not just an "unconventional" woman, she was a completely selfish and crazy wife to just go off that way after thirty years of marital strive. Why didn't she just get a divorce? Claiming she had neglected herself while raising four children, how self indulgent can a woman get; like a warrior, she went into "retreat" to regenerate herself. No one can do that!
She feels that "true learning comes from our own impulses" -- please! When will this person grow up? This book is her sequel. "Every beginning is always a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through." If her marriage was so bad that she had to go to sea for a year, I wonder what Robin did while she was gone. He'd be a fool to languish in his new job, wondering where he had gone wrong; could be she was the person responsible for all the mess. She was like a peregrine falcon who scavenges off others or perhaps a green-winged teal, called a wigeon. She was not a normal woman, not forgiving and understanding. A man goes where his job is. Christine refused to follow Jeff to his job until she got pregnant. Joan was too old for that ploy.
To her, it was an "eye-opening year of self-discovery" which would have been fine thirty years earlier before she committed herself to marriage. Women (nor men) don't just run away during a midlife crisis. So Robin moves back in with her in the Cape Cod cottage so as not to be alone with his midlife reinvention. Haven't these people ever heard of marriage counselors or therapists to work out the problems where they are, not where they'd like to be. If we all just up and moved when we were peeved with the person we chose to live with, through good times and bad, this world would be in total chaos and confusion.
She calls it a new "partnership." That's the modern way of marriage these days, but this woman is almost my age -- this was not the accepted thing to do, and still should not be adapted as normal. I know a couple who have been married much longer than she and live in two parts of the country, she in an antebellum home near Alabama while he is making the money to redo her "dream" out in L. A. She laughingly joked that they kept the airlines in business, as he was always flying "home" not she going to him. When she had cancer, he was there to support her and to rescue her from boring people at the library open houses. She was not a good wife, and proved to be a not-so-good mother as the younger daughter came down with a serious illness after she went off to college. God punishes those who disobey his Ten Commandments.
In Cape Cod, Joan and Robin learn first hand the "emotional pitfalls and horrors" that can befall married couples. It affects all of us at one point or another but it does not give the wife full authority to just go off and abandon her home for whatever selfish reason. For the first time, I am hoping the husband of such an self-indulgent "queen" of a wife finds a new love with a younger woman. It will serve her right.
Book Description
Combining unique travel choices, outdoor adventures, and little-known locales into guides where vacations meet adventures, each title in the Hidden series also offers readers the comfort of detailed maps, Internet information for each listing, author picks, suggested itineraries, and walking and driving tours. Hidden Boston and Cape Cod provides selective recommendations and opinionated reviews that lead to colonial sights in Boston, wild shorelines of Cape Cod, and winding bike paths in Nantucket. Plus, author Patricia Mandell guides readers to secret spots in her home state. 22 maps are included.
Book Description
Completely updated every year (unlike most of the competition), Frommer’s Cape Cod, Nantucket & Martha’s Vineyard has something for everyone, whether you’re looking for romance or family fun. You’ll find details on the best towns, beaches, whale-watching cruises, bike rides, clam shacks, bird-watching, antique shops, and art galleries. The guide is written by a longtime resident of Cape Cod, who has personally inspected all the B&Bs, inns, cottages, and motels she recommends.
Book Description
Henry David Thoreau wrote four full-length works, collected here for the first time in a single volume. Subtly interweaving natural observation, personal experience, and historical lore, they reveal his brilliance not only as a writer, but as a naturalist, scholar, historian, poet, and philosopher. "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" is based on a boat trip taken with his brother from Concord, Massachusetts to Concord, New Hampshire. "Walden," one of America's great books, is at once a personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, manual of self-reliance, and masterpiece of style. "The Maine Woods" and "Cape Cod" portray landscapes changing irreversibly even as he wrote. The first combines close observation of the unexplored Maine wilderness with a far-sighted plea for conservation; the second is a brilliant and unsentimental account of survival on a barren peninsula in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay.
Customer Reviews:
Influential writings whose beauty you will see differently at different stages in life.......2006-10-26
While every artist is tied to their time and place, this is especially true of Henry David Thoreau. To me, Thoreau has always seemed like a beautiful and tender plant that could only exist in a specific time and place. His world was rich enough to allow him to enjoy nature rather than see it as something to tame. Yet it was also rural enough to leave him natural space to enjoy as if it were wild.
It also seems to me that Thoreau's writing is more beautiful and observant than penetrating and intelligent. It is more about the senses than analysis. I think this is why it appeals so much to young people of so many generations and why he became such a symbol for the Back-to-Nature portion of the Boomer generation.
This volume contains his most influential works (the essays and poems are collected in a companion volume also from the wonderful Library of America): A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, The Main Woods, and Cape Cod. So much has been written about these works that I can't think of anything specific to add except to encourage their being read. However, I would encourage adults who remember reading them in their youth with such enthusiasm to read them again from the vantage point of mid-life. I think they will find somewhat less to be enamored of in the content, but they will appreciate his sheer power of writing more.
The total collection is more than a 1,000 pages and includes a chronology of Thoreau's life, notes on the text, relevant maps of the areas covered in the book, more notes, and an index.
The Library of America's Thoreau.......2006-08-09
While reading the four books of Henry David Thoreau (1817 -- 1862) included in this volume, I was reminded of the piano sonata no. 2, the "Concord" sonata by the American composer Charles Ives (1874 -- 1954) and decided to listen to it again to complement my reading. The Concord is a monumental work in which Ives tried to capture the "spirit of transcendentalism" associated with Concord, Massachusetts. Its four large movements bear the names of Emerson, Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott, and Thoreau. The "Thoreau" movement of the Concord captured in music for me what I had been reading in Thoreau's texts, with its reflective arpeggios, long hymnlike introspective passages, distant sounds of bells, and quiet close. Ives wrote the movement, he said, to reveal the "vibration of the universal lyre" to which Thoreau had alluded in the chapter of Walden titled "Sounds". Those who love Thoreau or the American Transcendentalists should explore Ives's great musical tribute to them and their thought.
This volume is the first of two in the Library of America devoted to Thoreau, with the second book consisting of essays and poems. It includes the two books published during his lifetime, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" and "Walden" together with two books published shortly after his death, "The Maine Woods" and "Cape Cod". The former two books are philosophical and introspective in tone, even though they include much of the descriptive writing about nature for which Thoreau is famous. They are the writings of Thoreau the Transcendentalist, the Thoreau of Ives's Concord Sonata. The second two books are describes Thoreau's travels. They originated the American practice of writing about nature.
Thoreau's most famous book, "Walden" describes the two years he spent living at Walden Pond, near Concord, from 1845 -- 1847 on a tract owned by Emerson. Walden is deservedly an American classic, as Thoreau reflects upon and attempts to simplify his life, to appreciate it for itself and for the everyday, without the strains of commerce or the pursuit of wealth. It is an eloquent study of learning to be alone with and content with oneself.
Thoreau wrote the first draft of "Walden" while he resided there and also wrote "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" which in 1849 became his first published book, enjoying little success at the time. This book describes a trip Thoreau took with his brother and there are many detailed observations of people, places, and plants and animals. But the book is full of detailed digressions on literature, philosophy, the Greek Classics, friendship, and Thoreau's religious beliefs. This book shows the large influence of Eastern thought on Thoreau. It is filled with allusions and quotations from poetry on virtually every page. It is a joy to read.
There is little overt philosophising in Thoreau's latter two books. But both these books made me want to leave, at least for a short time, my life in the city and to run and visit the wild places Thoreau described. In "The Maine Woods" Thoreau describes three trips he took to Nortwest Maine -- its forests, rivers, lakes, and mountains, in 1843, 1853, and 1857. It includes detailed descriptions of rugged camping, in the rain and sun, on water and on land. The higlight for me was Thoreau's discussion in the first essay of the book of his climb on Mount Ktaadn, with Thoreau's description replete with both actual description and ancient Greek and American Indian symbolism.
Thoreau's final book, "Cape Cod" describes three visits in 1849, 1850, and 1853 (A fourth, later visit to the Cape is not included in the book.) This is Thoreau's only book which features the ocean and the seashore. It describes a rugged place, but the tone is leisurely and humorous in many places as Thoreau takes his reader on a thirty-mile "ramble" over the Cape. Thoreau introduces a memorable character in his chapter "The Wellsfleet Oysterman" and draws a picture of a lighthouse, no longer standing, on the Cape, "The Highland Light." Reading this book made me want to walk the sands and dunes that Thoreau walked and described over 150 years ago.
As with all volumes in the LOA series, this volume is lightly annotated but includes a valuable chronology of Thoreau's life which helps in approaching the texts. Transcendentalism and naturalism both have played critical roles in the development of American thought and you will find them both here. And if you enjoy Thoreau, I encourage you again to approach Ives's masterpiece, the "Concord Sonata" and meet Thoreau realized in sound.
Robin Friedman
A Fine Collection of Great Works.......2006-04-19
Henry David Thoreau is one of America's greatest literary treasures, and this Library of America compilation of his four complete, full-length books is an excellent purchase for any Thoreau fan. It includes possibly Thoreau's most famous work, Walden, as well as lesser-known (but still immensely inspired and entertaining)works. I would highly recommend this purchase to any interested Thoreau reader, as I am yet to find a comparable compilation for nearly as good a deal as this.
I respect no one more than I do Henry David Thoreau.......2004-10-15
It was Thoreau who made me understand that writing had everything to do with one's sum total and worth as a human being, and everything to do with one's passion and sense of purpose in life. It was while reading from an anthology of his work that I first made contact with a superior being. I recognized a mind that I could be intimate with, a mind and soul of someone with whom I could spend endless hours and never cease to learn from.
Thoreau's style is cumbersome. He can be terribly dry, and his paragraphs run way too long. But who cares when passages ignite the page with brilliance, flame from the black and white of paper into the depths of one's being. 'Walden' has more profound and relevant quotes than any other book I've read. They're the purest gems to be found in the rough of a larger work. A work that I wouldn't dare to diminish, but forewarn the reader so that they have the patience and perseverance to continue.
I would like to mention a superb biography written on the life and mind of Thoreau, a biography that exceeds and exceeds in going deeper into the life and mind of this great and humane and very misunderstood man, it is called: 'Henry Thoreau -- A Life Of The Mind,' by Robert D. Richardson Jr. Mr. Richardson not only wrote a biography, he was on a mission, for he knew and believed in what his subject was about. As comprehensive, insightful and exhilerating as any biography can or should be.
The price and quality of this anthology can't be beat. Beautiful to read and beautiful to see on my book shelf. Buy it! Get to know this man of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
I would like to publicly thank Henry David Thoreau.......2004-03-31
I would like to publicly thank Henry David Thoreau for teaching me this:
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." -Henry David Thoreau
Zev Saftlas, Author of Motivation That Works: How to Get Motivated and Stay Motivated
Book Description
Unprecedented in content, Provincetown and the National Seashore offers readers a unique and cohesive group of Provincetown images: from candid portraits of Provincetown residents and celebrities, seasonal landscapes and wildlife, to everyday street scenes from the town's renowned summer season. Over a year in the making, the color photo essay book artistically chronicles Charles Fields's first year in Provincetown, taking readers on a journey of people, places and history in a highly personal and contemporary collection. The book features nearly 140 stunning color images, with special "celebirty appearances" by Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz, filmmaker and director John Waters, Cape Cod National Seashore Superintendent Maria Burks, nautical explorer Barry Clifford, and famed Provincetown and Ground Zero photographer Joel Meyerowitz.
Customer Reviews:
A Combination of Natural Beauty and the Unique.......2003-09-14
If imitation is the greatest form of flattery, many photographers both amateur (me) and professional, will be in awe of this book. It will also be loved and appreciated by tourists who visit the area. I first came across this book last year when I did a slide show on Cape Cod and needed a few shots of this portion of the Cape. I did not copy Mr. Fields' work (largely because I am not as gifted a photographer), but the book inspired me. This is due to his interesting perspective of the area. His best photographs are those of the dunes and the areas along the national seashore, but he also includes typical Cape Cod shots such as vacationers, fishing boats, and historical landmarks. He also includes photographs of a few of the more outlandish sides of Provincetown, which makes Provincetown fun for many people and shows that Fields is adept at using his camera to tell a story.
Brings the Outer Cape to light.......2002-06-18
I was blown away with the quality and breadth of the images in this unusual photo essay book. I love both Provincetown and photography, so you can imagine my excitement in discovering the book on Amazon.
Fields seems to have a knack for capturing the subtle and beautiful Cape light many artists and tourists flock to see. Surprisingly, he also has a fair number of fun and stunning portraits in the collection.
I would recommend thia book for anyone who loves photography or the Cape. It's also an easy and obvious gift selection for my friends.
Product Description
Brand new edition. Cape Cod & The Islands Restaurants covers top restaurants in Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. This pocket-sized guide contains Zagat Survey's trusted ratings and reviews for area restaurants based on the opinions of diners like you. The trademark reviews and corresponding ratings for Food, Décor, Service and Cost are organized alphabetically in a user-friendly format. Use the indexes arranged by cuisine and location to find the perfect restaurant for any occasion. Now with a new cover.
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- An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field
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- Aquarium Corals : Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History
- At the Mercy of the River: An Exploration of the Last African Wilderness
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- Atlas of Pacific Salmon: The First Map-Based Status Assessment of Salmon in the North Pacific
- Back to Earth: A Backpacker's Journey into Self and Soul
- Bengal Cats (Complete Pet Owner's Manual)
Books Index
Books Home
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General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
A Walk on the Beach: Tales of Wisdom From an Unconventional Woman
An Unfinished Marriage
A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After a Lifetime of Being All Things to All People
Gift from the Sea: 50th Anniversary Edition
Wisdom and the Senses: The Way of Creativity
