Customer Reviews:
The "Bible" of the Washington Cascades.......2001-05-23
Whether you are a climber, a hiker, a car traveler, or just an armchair explorer, the Beckey guides are the indispensible resources for your mountain experience. The three volumes are filled with information about the natural and human history of the Washington Cascades, as well as complete route and access data for every significant summit. The photos alone are reason enough to own these books. If you are interested in really "knowing" the Washington Cascades, you MUST have them in your library. Highest possible recommendation.
An indispensabe reference book for Northwest Climbers........1998-08-01
I have used this Guidebook so many times in the past 12 years that I've had to purchase it three times. The definitive section on the Picket Range alone is worth the price of the book.
For those who want to experience the North Cascades as they were in the 30's and 40's, reading the "Trails and Alpine Hiking Approaches" section will steer you in the right direction. This book is rife with golden kernels of information found nowhere else. Any serious climber should have all three of the Cascade Alpine Guide books.
Mike Quinn
Amazon.com
Prior to this meticulously researched biography, legendary producer Sam Spiegel had loomed large in countless Hollywood memoirs, but was rarely the subject of close examination. Praiseworthy for negotiating a maze of apocryphal stories and unverified details, Sam Spiegel solves many of the mysteries resulting from the falsehoods of "Spiegelese," for the renowned producer--whose crowning achievements included The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia--was perhaps the most inventive liar to gain prominence in Hollywood. With a refreshing absence of judgment, this unflinching study portrays Spiegel as a consummate manipulator, hedonist, philanderer, absentee father, sexaholic (a foot fetishist who favored young girls well into his '70s), and globetrotting entertainer of the social elite, "incapable of guilt" and so charming that he could achieve miracles (and numerous faked heart attacks, to disarm his detractors) while producing some of the greatest films of Hollywood's post-Golden era.
As a first-time biographer, Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni (a French journalist who worked as an assistant on Spiegel's final film, 1983's Betrayal) fails to plumb the depths of Spiegel's enigmatic character (so effectively hidden behind his luxurious lifestyle), offering little insight into Spiegel's unique combination of intellect and roguish insincerity. She compensates with a journalist's greatest assets: exacting research and seemingly limitless access to Spiegel's surviving contemporaries, from the late Billy Wilder to On the Waterfront director Elia Kazan and many, many others. The result is a fair and balanced portrait of one of Hollywood's classiest scoundrels, a master thief with impeccable taste and an uncanny instinct for cinematic prestige. --Jeff Shannon
Book Description
The incredible life and times of Hollywood's most iconoclastic producer, the miracle worker who went from penniless refugee to show biz legend, and made possible The African Queen, On the Waterfront, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, not to speak of many more, including movies as distinct as Suddenly, Last Summer; Nicholas and Alexandra; The Last Tycoon; and Betrayal; all of them sharing the unique vision that earned Spiegel twenty-five Oscars: star-filled, bigger-than-life, conceived on a vast scale, intensely dramatic, and overwhelmingly ambitious.
In this rich and brilliant biography, Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, who had the advantage of knowing and working for Spiegel, brings into sharp focus a Hollywood legend who was at once crafty, unscrupulous, mendacious, and equally capable of great charm and petty meanness, who was sentimental and ruthless, a shrewd judge of talent, a gambler on a colossal scale, a man of almost unique artistic vision and courage who was, in the final analysis, that most elusive and rare of movie producers, a genius.
The story of a how a Jewish refugee without a penny to his name managed to produce several of the greatest films of all time is alone worth telling, but Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni has done more; she has drawn the definitive portrait of the man himself -- the elusive, witty, cynical adventurer who, like so many refugees, was able to live, succeed, and raise money everywhere, but who was at home nowhere. Spiegel surrounded himself with luxury and beautiful women but remained a loner despite his countless friends.
Spiegel was mysterious about his origins, prompting Arthur Miller to refer to him as "The Great Gatsby." In reality, he was born of middle-class Jewish parents in the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Raised in Jaroslav, in western Galicia, Spiegel left home in his late teens and quickly became a hero of the Hashomer Hatzair, a Zionist youth movement.
Step by step, with immense research and a vast number of interviews, Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni recreates the world of Sam Spiegel's childhood and youth, separating often self-serving fiction from fact. She follows Spiegel's dramatic flight from the Nazis in Berlin, a prison sentence in London, problems with the police in Paris and Mexico City, and finally his arrival in Los Angeles. In America his career languished for a time, though he acquired a reputation for being a supreme "fixer," a brilliant luftmensh on the fringes of Hollywood power, the ultimate party-giver who knew everybody's secrets and was always quick to charm women and take advantage of men. Billy Wilder called him "a modern day Robin Hood, who steals from the rich and steals from the poor."
With a brilliant sense of time and place and a deep understanding of Spiegel's complex personality, Fraser-Cavassoni traces his disasters, successes, romances, friendships, and tangled finances in a narrative that is rich with colorful Spiegel stories, scandals, and bon mots.
The cast of characters in Spiegel's life includes Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Robert De Niro, Barry Diller, David Geffen, Katharine Hepburn, John Huston, Elia Kazan, David Lean, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Mike Nichols, Harold Pinter, Otto Preminger, Elizabeth Taylor, Gore Vidal, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Darryl F. Zanuck, bevies of beautiful women, three wives, countless members of high society, and, most important, Sam Spiegel himself -- the last of the great independent film producers who, in the swashbuckling tradition of David O. Selznick and Sam Goldwyn, operated alone, aimed high, and believed, above all, in their own star.
More than a major book about the movie business, Sam Spiegel is an intricate and engrossing biography, comparable in its richness, depth, and attention to detail to A. Scott Berg's acclaimed biography of Samuel Goldwyn. It is a marvelous, once-in-a-lifetime reading experience and an astonishing debut for Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni.
Customer Reviews:
Mediocre at best.......2004-05-06
I have a deep interest for history, especially Hollywood history, and Sam Spiegel is a name that crops up all over the place and, until now, has really garnered very little attention in the way of biography relative to his peers. Natasha Fraser-Cassavoni had a personal relationship with Spiegel (he produced a film based on a play by her stepfather Harold Pinter) and is perhaps as qualified as anyone to write the life story of this great producer.
The problem is, although his catalog of films can stand alongside that of anyone in the history of the industry, as a person he doesn't really have any particular standout characteristics that make you take any real interest in him beyond his work. Instead he seems to fit the bill as the stereotype of the Hollywood producer and maybe that alone is enough to make him interesting, but it doesn't come across. The best chapters focus on the films, not the man. There's no denying he was very good at what he did, but this book proved a supreme disappointment simply because I came away not knowing anything more than what I could have learned from a basic filmography. Three stars is a more than generous rating but I give it that because the films are worth the analysis.
Disappointing.......2004-01-16
I found this book difficult to read much less follow. I have a great interest in "old" Hollywood and have read many books on the subject. This book would be at the bottom of the list.
French journalist?.......2003-04-06
Astonishing mistake in the Editorial Review above. That Natasha Fraser could be called a "French journalist" boggles the mind, since her father was the British M.P. Hugh Fraser, her mother is Lady Antonia Fraser (herself daughter of the Earl and Countess of Longford), and her mother is married to Harold Pinter! Authors all.
This woman comes from as distinguised a line of BRITISH authors as can be imagined.
Average customer rating:
- A welcome addition to nautical history and Canadian history shelves.
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Sternwheelers and Canyon Cats: Whitewater Freighting on the Upper Fraser
Jack Boudreau
Manufacturer: Caitlin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1894759206 |
Book Description
Forbidding canyons, raging rapids and menacing rocks--this was the daily challenge that faced whitewater men who worked the wild rivers and creeks to bring freight and supplies to northern BC in the years before the Grand Trunk Railway. In particular, the Grand Canyon of British Columbia's Fraser River was infamous for swallowing at least 200 luckless occupants of rafts and small craft between the years 1862-1921. Sternwheelers and Canyon Cats: Whitewater Freighting on the Upper Fraser is the story of the "Canyon Cats" who made their living running the Grand Canyon and other equally dangerous waterways; men such as George Williams, affectionately known to his peers as "The Wizard of the River," and Frank Freeman, a powder expert who tamed the wildest water by blowing out many of the worst boulders and logjams thereby allowing safer passage for the scows, sternwheelers, rafts and boats that travelled the murky river.
A total of twelve steamers worked the upper Fraser River during the period 1862-1921 and the dangers faced by these vessels and their steel-nerved captains are legend. It was a perilous existence hauling supplies to the isolated construction camps of the GTP Railroad and in retrospect it seems ironic that these steamers were made obsolete by this same railway upon its completion. Sternwheelers and Canyon Cats: Whitewater Freighting on the Upper Fraser is a chronicle of the men whose feats almost defy belief and whose contribution to BC history has gone long unrecognized.
Customer Reviews:
A welcome addition to nautical history and Canadian history shelves........2007-03-06
Written by British Columbia native Jack Boudreau, Sternwheelers & Canyon Cats: Whitewater Freighting on the Upper Fraser presents the fascinating true story of the whitewater men who crewed boats along wild rivers and creeks, seeking to bring freight and supplies to northern British Columbia from 1862 to 1921, prior to the completion of the Grand Trunk Railway. The riverboat life was dangerous; taming rough waters might involve such daring tactics as using powder to blow out boulders and logjams, and the Grand Canyon of British Columbia's Fraser River in particular was responsible for the deaths of at least two hundred individuals. Extensively researched, and presented with a smattering of black-and-white photographs, Sternwheelers & Canyon Cats is a welcome addition to nautical history and Canadian history shelves.
Book Description
On May 24, 1869, Major John Wesley Powell and his nine-man crew set off to explore the unmapped stretches of the Colorado River. Tracking the day-to-day drama of Powell's expedition, author-illustrator Mary Ann Fraser takes us through roaring rapids, terrifying whirlpools, and stunningly beautiful canyons.A School Library Journal Best BookA Book Links "A Few Good Books" of 1995
Customer Reviews:
Give this to your kid on her first river trip........2005-10-01
This is a very simplistic book about John Wesley Powell's first expedition down the Colorado River. It doesn't say it's a kids book, but I'm pretty sure that's its main audience. It's a quick read, and not bad, and even adults familiar with the subject might find a unique fact or two in it.
For instance, did you know some scientists think the Anasazi Indians abandoned their homes due to a drought so severe that the Colorado River itself completely dried up? I thought that was interesting, and the book also resurrects some insightful quotes from Powell's lesser-known book about the Arid Lands.
If you're a desert person, and you want your kid to be also, you might consider getting him or her a copy of this...with a river trip brochure tucked inside the front cover.
Average customer rating:
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A Ghost in the Water (Transmontanus series)
Terry Glavin
Manufacturer: New Star Books
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0921586388 |
Book Description
A strange prehistoric giant, rarely seen and little understood, haunts the depths of the Fraser River. It is the Fraser River white sturgeon, the largest freshwater fish in North America, and it is facing extinction. A Ghost in the Water is about the sturgeon and its ancient relationship with the people who live in the river valley.
A Ghost in the Water is the first book in the series Transmontanus, which explores the relationship between people and the landscape in what has come to be known as British Columbia.
Book Description
Jack Christie has been sharing his enthusiasm for the outdoors for the past fifteen years. Through his popular guidebooks and media appearances, he has helped countless Vancouverites and visitors alike appreciate the renowned natural beauty and diverse recreational opportunities of the Pacific Northwest. Here the keen outdoorsman and veteran day-tripper brings together all his favorite places. The best views, the best hikes, the best beaches, the best outings for kids—they're all here, described in the clear, upbeat prose that is Christie's trademark.
Book Description
Pictorial work of the Fraser River estuary--an Important Bird Area (IBA) , recongized internationally as a significant stopover and wintering ground for millions of birds along the Pacific Flyway. Image collection of landscape, plants, and birds. 70 photographs, 1 archival photograph, 2 maps, background text, 32 pages and cover.
Average customer rating:
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195 Lakes of the Fraser Valley: Dewdney to Hope
Ed Rychkun
Manufacturer: Hancock House Pub Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0888393776 |
Book Description
In the past twenty years, the Aikido population has increased tremendously in the United States, primarily because of the vast number of comprehensive American instructors. Greg O'Connor walks the reader through the history and philosophy of aikido. He then, in short chapters peppered with photos and illustrations, answers common questions about etiquette, training methods, and, in general, "what to expect" when practicing aikido.
Customer Reviews:
Really useful only for beginners........2007-02-12
A good book, with an interesting point of view, but included information is very basic. If you are looking for technical content, it ain't here...
Hand this one out at the door............2006-05-15
This little book has been amazingly useful. I am the instructor of an aikido dojo and I have made extensive use of this book. I give a copy to interested people who come to watch a class to thumb through while we are doing warmups or repetitive exercises (I find it really piques their interest and when I ask if they have questions after class, they have fewer and the questions are less basic and more insightful after having skimmed this. It answers some of the questions new people don't even know enough to know they SHOULD be asking. I also use one as part of the introductory package for starting up with us - at $10, you can't go wrong. Aikido technique can only be learned on the mat, and this IS NOT A TECHNIQUE MANUAL (nor was it ever intended to be). New students need some of the why's, etiquette and terminology and philosophy in concise, understandable form - that's what makes this a great guidebook. Great job! Instructors, try giving all your new students a copy of this book the day they leave from their first class - I believe it will pay for itself in increased student retention.
great for beginners.......2006-03-15
If you are a beginner (in the first few months) this is a great book. Not just an eye-level, unconvoluted, unpretentious introduction to the philosophy and aims of aikido, but also deals with some of those universal questions of most beginners- like how to approach practicing with veterans. Nice, pleasant read, which will only increase your enthusiasm.
An overview only!.......2005-08-20
This book is for people who are considering taking aikido lessons. It gives you details on what to expect when you go to the dojo. This book doesn't teach technique at all.
A must have if you're just starting or thinking of beginning.......2002-05-03
This is a great introduction BEFORE you enter the dojo to train. It is just what it says, a handbook. This book is a great guide for the beginning Aikido practitioner or for someone who is still investigating. It gives practical advice about how to find the right place to begin practice and what to expect once you begin practice. For more on Aikido see Greg O'Connor's second book.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent!!.......2007-10-11
The book I ordered from this site was very useful and came in excelent condition and would recomend it to EVERYONE!!!!!!
Product Description
ISBN# 0-312-24083X, Teachers Annotated Edition, Launguage arts text book.
Book Description
Dramatically candid conversations about the creative life with 59 leading American choreographers.
"Eichenbaum's firsthand knowledge of dance, her passion for dancing and the people who do it, and her appreciation of the minutiae of lives, both everyday and Olympian, all combine to open windows onto the soul of dance and the lives of those who helped to define and shape the art in the 20th century."—Jennifer Dunning, dance critic, New York Times
Where does the impulse to create originate? What is the choreographer's responsibility to the dancers, the audience, the self? These are just a few of the probing questions that Rose Eichenbaum asks some of America's most celebrated choreographers in her quest to understand the secrets of creativity. A collection of photographic portraits and vignettes based on intimate conversations, Masters of Movement is a rare journey into the world of dance. Whether through her lens—David Parsons, in a business suit, standing on the branch of a Central Park tree; Anna Halprin lying naked at the base of a giant California redwood—or through the revelations from her thoughtful interviews, Eichenbaum captures the essential character of her subjects, who have confided the experiences and emotions that have driven their creativity and defined their styles. 118 duotones.
Customer Reviews:
WOW!.......2004-11-11
I expected to be wowed by the photos in Ms. Eichenbaum's book, as I have attended some of her photography exhibits. What I did not expect was that I would be so entertained by the interviews! I am not very familiar with the world of dance but with her interviews, she has portrayed the spirit, the style and the passions of each individual -- they are all very inspirational. And with the photos and the prose combined she has really captured the essence of these dancers. You do not need to be a dancer to appreciate this book!
Outstanding work of art!.......2004-11-09
Lavish treatment of the American Dance scene. Warm in tone, intriguing and evocative in purpose. Photos are emotional and revealing. A 'must have' for anyone passionate about the art of dance and the dancer.
Beautiful Art.......2004-11-07
As an artist and art educator, I am enthralled with the photos in this book. The design elements and knowledge of art and dance all combine to create a beautiful presentation of each dance artist. The wonderful part is that the dancers are shown in their own environment. The love, absolute love of what they are doing shows in every face. The text is something you want to sit down and absorb over and over. This book is not only for one familiar with dance, but lovers of photography and the arts also. Can't wait for more!
American Choregraphy Revealed!.......2004-11-03
I love this book. It is esthetically gorgeous. The text reveals the depth and complexity of these amazingly talented choreographers elicited by compelling and often humorous questions. I think Rose Eichenbaum's images and accompanying interviews show tremendous respect for her subjects. And they respond in turn by revealing so much both in front of the camera and as they speak to her of their art. If you are curious about who has been or is responsible for American dance today, you will want to read this book. Bravo!
Stellar Book on Dance!.......2004-11-01
Never before have I encountered a book with such rich content dealing with the dance field and---photos no less, that truly capture these interesting and provocative dance artists. Not only did the book peak my interest about the field, it inspired me to consider going to the theater for a evening of dance--something I haven't done in years.
I recommend this book to dancers, educators and average people who simply want to be inspired.
Jack Caffrey
Books:
- Central Rockies Mammals
- Changes and Disturbance in Tropical Rainforest in South-East Asia
- Chemical Signals in Vertebrates 9
- Cold Summer Wind
- Commerzbank Frankfurt: Prototype for an Ecological Highrise (Watermark Publications, London)
- Concepts in Biological Oceanography: An Interdisciplinary Primer
- Discover Nature Around the House: Things to Know and Things to Do (Discover Nature)
- Dynamics of the Bacterial Chromosome: Structure and Function
- Easy-to-Build Bird Feeders: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin A-209 (Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin, a-209)
- Ecological Context of Development: New Zealand Perspectives
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