Editorial Review

"God, he was a smart kid..." So why did Christopher McCandless trade a brightfuture--a college education, material comfort, uncommon ability and charm--for death by starvation in anabandoned bus in the woods of Alaska? This is the question that Jon Krakauer's book tries to answer. While itdoesn't—cannot—answer the question with certainty, Read more

Reviews (886)

Only read if you can relate to the protagonist
I recently read Under the Banner of Heaven and loved Krakauer's writing, so I picked up Into the Wild.Krakauer didn't disappoint.His writing was honest, personal and to the point.He doesn't mince words, and while his bias is obvious, he presents evidence that reveals many sides of Chris McCandless.
But why?
This is defiantly not my typical read, but once I started I found it compelling, hard to put down, but that does not mean I did not have some problems with it.It seemed like the author tried too hard to make McCandless a sympathetic figure, almost a hero in an odd way.Everything Chris does though leads to his own destruction, he has no one to blame but himself.I don't have much experience in the wilderness so maybe I am just ignorant, but it sure seemed like he could have saved himself.Going off into the woods to die does not seem heroic to me.That being said , the author has done his research and is talented writer.He convinced me not to head off into the Alaskan wilderness alone!Speaking of tales of the wilderness I highly recommend "Across the High Lonesome!"

Jon's Quest
Jon tried to help us understand the unexpainable actions of a misguided youth.Only through Jon's vivid description of his own journey into the the Alaskan wilderness, did we come close to feeling Chris McCandless' intentions. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1968-1992    2. Adventure and adventurers    3. Alaska    4. Biography    5. Biography & Autobiography    6. Biography / Autobiography    7. Biography And Autobiography    8. Biography/Autobiography    9. Essays & Travelogues    10. General    11. McCandless, Christopher Johnso    12. Regional Subjects - West    13. Travelers    14. United States    15. Wayfaring life    16. West (U.S.)    17. McCandless, Christopher Johnson    18. Travel / Essays & Travelogues   

Reviews (21)

This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind
The author "Ivan Doig" introduces Montana through his youthful eye and shares his rememberances of growing up in Montana. If you have yet to read any of Mr. Doig's excellent books or are already a fan; this book is not to be missed.

Enjoyable
I thoroughly enjoyed the book.The clincher was the realism and affection written into the characters.The work shares a time and place long since gone in this country.It makes one wonder if their own generation can live up to the character and accomplishments of the ones in the book.

This House of Sky, Tim Gauthier
The House of Sky was a good book because Ivan Doig talks about his experiences he went through in the town of White Sulfur Springs. He talks about his fathers experiences while he was growing up and how he dealed with them. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography & Autobiography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Biography/Autobiography    5. Doig family    6. Doig, Ivan    7. Fiction    8. General    9. Literary    10. Meagher County (Mont.)    11. Regional Subjects - West    12. United States - State & Local - General    13. History / United States / State & Local / West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY)    14. Travel writing   

Reviews (24)

I live here, she knows my name.
I live here. Heather knows my name. I know hers. I'm even rated a quick mention in her book. But there are many people in town she doesn't know. Heather doesn't get to the trailer courts and the local convenience store all that often. And in all fairness, the publishers were the ones who slapped the title on this book. Heather's Haines is just that Heather's Haines. It is Haines as seen through 'A Prairie Home Companion' liberal vision of life. On the surface it is all embracingly fair, painting a picture of wonderful quirky resilient people all moving, even if unconsciously, towards a politically correct utopia. Yet the reality is of course quite different.
I can relate
I live in rural Colorado and first moved here from New York City just after graduate school.Heather's accounts and comparisons of living in a small town in Alaska I can relate to. Opportunities are limited but adventure is bountiful. Her stories and feelings sound so familiar to me it is like looking in the mirror.The sections in between the chapters "Duly Noted" bring the characters and flavor of the community to life.Somehow I never quite thought of a cemetary as a multi-residential district but I guess it is.The residents just don't move.If you are thinking Alaska is for you read this book first.I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.By the way I picked this book up because I am going to Alaska next year.

Pearls of neighborly wisdom
Heather Lende's neck of the woods--Haines, Alaska-- is a place where the name of the game is subsistence,and the surroundings are both breathtakingly beautiful and frequently downright dangerous.
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Subjects:  1. Alaska    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. City and town life    4. Description And Travel    5. Editors, Journalists, Publishers    6. Frontier and pioneer life    7. Haines    8. Outdoor life    9. Personal Memoirs    10. Regional Subjects - West    11. Rural Sociology    12. Sociology - Rural    13. Travel    14. United States - West - Pacific (General)    15. Biography & Autobiography / General    16. TRAVEL / United States / West / Pacific (AK, CA, HI, NV, OR, WA)   

Reviews (13)

Shadows on the Koyukuk
I have fished the Koyukuk, which is what attracted me to the book, but people I have loaned the book to were as absorbed by it as me.

Great Read!
I've been reading a lot of Alaskan frontier non-fiction and this book is near the top of the list. I learned so much more about the interior cultures. Truly a must read for anyone interested in this topic.

Shadows on the Koyukuk
Excellent look at an early Alaskanatives experiences.As a former Alaskan I understand the problems.Recommended for anyone interested in interior Alaska. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1915-    2. 20th century    3. Biography    4. Biography & Autobiography    5. Biography / Autobiography    6. Biography/Autobiography    7. History    8. Huntington, Sidney,    9. Koyukon Indians    10. Native American Sociology    11. Reference    12. Regional Subjects - West    13. Social life and customs    14. Huntington, Sidney   

Editorial Review

After 20 years of living in the "Great American Outback," as Read more

Reviews (42)

must read for all dakotans and transplants to the midwest
Norris offers an insight-full monastically minded view into Dakota life, not just North and South Dakota, but the fascinating cultural differences between east and west of the Missouri river that divides So. Dakota.In what I consider a very telling paragraph (p129) she begins a dialogue on sacred space saying that those who ask what is sacred really are asking "What place is mine."Dakota seems to emanate from Norris' own coming to grips with place and aims to help others do the same.That love-hate relationship that many feel toward home is evident within.For those who know rural life in the midwest "Dakota" is penetrating and beautiful on one hand and so frustrating it made me want to move on the other.At times she portays a rural ghetto of resisting outside influence (p.62), exclusionary unity (p, 59) lower professional standards which she also claims to be part of the small town charm (p.55).It is both bitter and sweet but not from judgment, rather from her claiming this land as her own...this is where she belongs...this is where she planted and rooted.
To Read and Reread
I loved Dakota. I've read it and reread it. It has so much to enjoy. First, Norris writes like a poet. Her words are beautiful. They pull you along. Second, her description of the Great Plains and the monasteries transports you. I've been wanting to visit Dakota ever since I read the book. Finally, there is the conversion that takes place in Norris herself as she is changed by the place. Dakota is slow reading, but it is not boring. This isn't a Tom Clancy book. However, a book on farmers, monks and poets should be slow. Norris reflects on herself and her environment.If you slow yourself down to keep pace with the book, you will find an appreciation for yourself and your own environment. If you get impatient, go read Clancy or Grisham, but come back to Dakota.

Slow But Steady
I wasn't sure I'd like Dakota because my spirituality leans toward activism rather than asceticism. Kathleen Norris, however, in her elegant, steady way, encourages reflection and thinking, not just about the geography of the land but also about the geography of a spirit-led life. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1947-    2. 20th century    3. Biography & Autobiography    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Biography/Autobiography    6. Civilization    7. Customs & Traditions    8. Great Plains    9. Homes and haunts    10. Literary    11. Norris, Kathleen,    12. North Dakota    13. Regional Subjects - West    14. Religious    15. South Dakota    16. Spirituality - General    17. United States - State & Local - General    18. Biography: general    19. General & Literary Fiction    20. Norris, Kathleen    21. Religion / Inspirational   

Reviews (18)

Some dreamers of the golden dream
"A good deal about California does not, on its own preferred terms, add up."This sentence, which opens Didion's third chapter in Where I Was From, is characteristic of the sort of pummeling understatement and reserve that characterizes all of Didion's work - humble, free of ostentation, profound in implication.No, the California Didion presents does not add up - a place defined by a jettisoning pioneer spirit "destroyed" by its own sense of development, a place defined equally by class as it is by people who say sentences like "we don't discuss class here," a place , Didion's Sacramento specifically, both defined by and existing in spite of its geography.Her contradictions of place and identity take Didion from one heavily scrutinized example to another - the Spur Posse, Boeing, Douglas, pioneers on the Sierra Nevadas, prisons, insane asylums - and if Didion's argument of conflicted identity doesn't always connect in thinking later about her specifics, the reading is as fluid, as full-bodied in argument and fact, as merciless an investigation as anything she's ever written.Didion has long been defined by her identity to California, something that comes up in all of her writings, whether in New York or El Salvador, so to see her tackle it so specifically - at one point even deconstructing (with fascinating effect) her own first novel, Run River - is a thrill.What will be of most fascination, undoubtedly, will be the 4th section of the book, the short, devastating section detailing the death of Didion's mother, yet what makes this piece so compelling is the grand scale of Didion's research and work - her California becomes a grand exercise in characterization.Her description in this section is some of the most agonizingly evoked, rich, and understated work of her career, and if the sections preceding it - highly descriptive, full of research often much fuller and drier than expected - can seem aimless when thinking about them, the finest compliment I can give Where I Was From is that, in the effortless and moving reading of the book, it evokes exactly what Didion wants of California, of her, and of her mother, and no more.

Great-Great-Great-Great-Great
This book of essays by Joan Didion, entitled "Where I Was From," gained my attention from the start, and later also gained my respect. Loved all the detail, the overlapping, the apparent extensive amount of research--the compulsive force of it all. Much like one of her ancester, the one who stitched (and over-stitched) the quilt amidst all the turmoil while crossing the Sierra Nevada. Didion writes with an intensity of meaning, her prose also seems to have arhythmbehind all the words. In my opinion, she truly is a masterful writer, who seems to allude towards a type of idealism; a discourse on the way California could or should be but is not. Then there is the deadpan prose, the insight with an edge, which adds to the overall context of her subject. Her perception in this book is exceptional; this women truly is an artist. (And as an artist, she is not a historian, nor an anthropologist or scientist).
Enjoyed the book....but one passage bugged me about Yosemite Indians.
I always enjoy reading Joan Didion, but this observation about Thomas Kinkade kinda bugged me:
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Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography/Autobiography    3. History - U.S.    4. Literary    5. Regional Subjects - West    6. United States - 20th Century    7. United States - State & Local - West    8. Biography & Autobiography / Literary   

Reviews (2)

I Feel Them, Too
It's a treat to snuggle up for 300-plus pages with Amy Wilentz's voice: reportorial and confiding, contentious and confessional, a hint of Didion and a pinch of Ephron, simultaneously neurotic and level-headed, paranoid and wise.What a balancing act - and the writing gains in richness, momentum and authority in chapter after chapter. After I'd finished, I recalled that when my wife and I moved to Los Angeles in '85 (Manhattan refugees like Wilentz), we coined an acronym for anything grotesque, ostentatious or just plain silly that had a distinctly SoCal vibe: "OILA".Which stood for Only In Los Angeles.Nearly every day, we'd turn to each other and say it.Several years ago we realized that, somewhere along the line, we'd stopped saying it.Because we'd stopped noticing; we were natives now. Well, afterreading IFEMOTTH, I feel re-sensitized.Reborn, almost.Okay, not reborn - but amused, enlightened, informed ... and terrified to realize the extent to which we East-to-West Coast transplants have become what we beheld.Thank you Ms. Wilentz for that insight, and so many more.

A smart, funny, and astute look at L.A. today
Amy Wilentz is a Jersey girl who moved from Manhattan to LA after 9-11 -- and discovered, not a sunny laid-back paradise, but a whole new set of apocalyptic Mike Davis-like threats: forest fires, floods and landslides, and of course the earthquakes of the title.The seismic shifts include the rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger, which she covers brilliantly.The Governator, she observes, is never worried or troubled or embarrassed.That makes him the opposite of our author, who was praised by John Leonard in Harper's for her "luminous anxieties."My favorite part of the book is the prologue, which ends with the author in a tiny desert town that has a scale model of the Twin Towers, five feet tall. "At this size," she writes, "we could have cupped our hands and broken their fall." ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. California    4. California - State Government    5. Description And Travel    6. Governors    7. Personal Memoirs    8. Popular Culture - General    9. Regional Subjects - West    10. Travel    11. United States - West - Pacific (General)    12. Wilentz, Amy    13. Women    14. Social Science / Popular Culture   

Editorial Review

Deep in the granite hills of eastern Arizona in 1880, H.C. Day founded the Lazy B ranch, where U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and her brother Alan spent their youth, a time they recall in this affectionate joint memoir.Read more

Reviews (30)

A Very Impressive Lady!
"Lazy B," like the title implies, is the story of Sandra Day O'Connor and her younger brother growing up on a ranch in south-eastern Arizona.They grew up in an isolated environment that mandated self-reliance and initiative.Sandra received much of her formal education through riding the train to El Paso to stay with her maternal grandparents while attending a local girls' school.Her father had wanted to attend Stanford but the responsibilities of taking over the family ranch prevented that.Sandra O'Connor was able to achieve that for him, where she excelled academically, was then inspired by one of her instructors to study law (also at Stanford), met her husband (and also dated classmate William Rehnquist), and then struggled to begin a law career at a time that women had almost no such opportunity.(Despite Sandra graduating from Stanford Law #2 in her class, her early job searches were at best met with "Can you type?")
An image of the old Southwest
This book meant a lot to me on many levels, a special tale for this transplanted Southwesterner. I was attracted first because of the co-author, who is one of Our Country's great ladies. She and her brother have put together an inside look at life in the Southwest, the cattle ranch family life, that is no more. A whole chapter on rain and what it means in an arid land. Their loving but reserved father and how he made a living off the land. It reminded me of my own stern but loving father - when dads were supposed to be that way. The ranch life, the family and characters that inhabited it are fascinating. Wonderful story of a different place and time.

O'Connor reminisces about her childhood
This book is a colorful portrait of the world O'Connor grew up in. It is simple and lovely - very little mention of her later life in the law. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1930-    2. Arizona    3. Biography    4. Biography & Autobiography    5. Biography / Autobiography    6. Biography/Autobiography    7. Judges    8. Lawyers & Judges    9. O'Connor, Sandra Day,    10. Ranch life    11. Regional Subjects - West    12. United States    13. Women    14. Biography & Autobiography / Women   

Editorial Review

Growing up in rural Wyoming, Mark Spragg learned early to read the stars. At 11 he was instructed to quit dreaming, and he went to work for his father on the land. "I was paid thirty dollars a month, had my own bed in the bunkhouse, and three large, plain meals each day." The ranch is a sprawling place where winter brings months of solitude and summer brings tourists from the real world--city types who want a taste of the outdoors and stare at the author and his family as if they were members of some exotic tribe: "Our guests were New Jersey gas station owners, New York congressmen, Iowa farmers, judges, actors, plumbers, Europeans who had read of Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull and came to experience the American West, the retired, the just beginning." By the age of 14, he and his younger brother are leading them on camping trips into deep woods. "No one ever asked why we had no televisions, no daily paper. They came for what my brother and I took for granted. They came to live the anachronism that we considered our normal lives."Read more

Reviews (35)

The first eleven chapters were superb.......
One of the most interesting and captivating non-fiction books I've ever read.Being an Easterner this book made me just fall in love with the mountains of Wyoming and feel as though I've actually been there.In fact felt as though I had actually walked amongst the people who live there.So for the most part loved the book.
A trip "home"
I loved this book. It was like a trip home for me...I grew up in the same locale and a very similar time period as the author - I found myself happily recalling people and places named in the book. Journeys back to our childhood - our formative years - are always frought with pitfalls. Were the places ever that wonderful? Were the people ever that horrible? But Spragg avoided those pitfalls well in his written recollections and painted very strong and beautiful pictures of life up Northfork - the good, the bad, the harsh, the beautiful. I have never been as homesick as I was when I finished this book.I can't wait to read his other books!

Written From The Heart
One reviewer said of this book. "Mark Spragg's memoir makes you feel you've been somewhere, you've been out in the depths, and you've come back changed". This sums it up beautifully. There is not a page within these stories which will not grab your attention, hold you still while you absorb the soul of what Spragg has to tell you. It's a story of boyhood, of manhood, of the vast and unpredictable lands of Wyoming, where fences are strangers. There are stories in here which make the heart soar, and there are stories which make the heart break. As a reader, you're never quite sure where Spragg will take you next, you'll laugh with him, you'll tighten your throat at some of his words, and when you're done with this journey, you'll think the world around you has changed, but it hasn't, Spragg has just given you the magic to see it differently. Spragg lives his entire boyhood on the edge of manhood, unfolding himself into the landscapes and animals, both wild and domestic, which create his world. Of horses, he will tell you; "I believed that to have a horse between my legs, to extend my pulse and blood and energy to theirs, enhanced my vision. Made of me a seer. I believed them to be the dappled, sorrel, roan, bay, black pupils in the eyes of God". Of the dude ranch, where he learned about men and and animals, forests and water, of wind, he'll say; ".. but I did not know that I lived on the largest block of unfenced wilderness in the lower forty eight states. That is what I know as a man. As a boy, I knew only that I was free on the land". This memoir is beautifully written, from the first to the last page, Spragg's pen sometimes wounds the paper, sometimes heals it, and the reader is left feeling the scratching of a pen across the heart. This, for me, is one of the books that will sit always within easy reach on my bookshelves, there are times I'll seek Spragg's magic and bring it back into my world. This is a collection with something for everyone, because it touches the core of being human in a world where humanness is often the stranger. Do read, it's worth every moment of your time.
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Subjects:  1. 1952-    2. Biography    3. Biography & Autobiography    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Biography/Autobiography    6. Childhood Memoir    7. Childhood and youth    8. Farmers & Ranchers    9. Park County    10. Park County (Wyo.)    11. Ranch life    12. Regional Subjects - West    13. Religious    14. Spragg, Mark,    15. Wyoming    16. Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs    17. Spragg, Mark   

Reviews (172)

Living The Truth
Louis Rodriquez writes the truth! I know I lived in the Lomas during the time Louis writes about being in Garvey school and at Mark Keppel. I lived in Lomas from 1959 to 1972. Fortunately, I survived the madness in Lomas. This was our life as we knew it, the gangs, drugs, girls and of course the parties. It brings back memories of our life in the barrio L's...

I read it, re-lived it and loved it!
Well written book by one of my favorite Authors.Louis is an awesome person who is committed to his work and community.Book can be used for anyone looking for a real life reference to the history of Chicano/a Gangs in Southern California.I read it, re-lived it and loved it!

Always Challanging
Many young people face the same perils Luis Rodriguez shares in this auto biographical coming-of-age story; some overcome these challanges, while others succumb. But, how many rise as far above them as Rodriguez has?
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Subjects:  1. 1954-    2. Biography    3. Biography & Autobiography    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Biography/Autobiography    6. California    7. Criminology    8. Gangs    9. General    10. Historical - U.S.    11. Literary    12. Los Angeles    13. Mexican American youth    14. Regional Subjects - West    15. Rodriguez, Luis J.,    16. Biography & Autobiography / General    17. Modern fiction    18. Rodriguez, Luis J   

Reviews (50)

Great Read
eloquent...evocative writing.With the mid-20th century as the setting Blunt brings her land, her emotions, her experiences alive with an honesty that is at once brutal and tender.This is an all absorbing story of self awareness and liberation; I read the book through twice without stopping.

What a great read.
WOW. What a woman. I was especially curious to read this book since Jeff and his family are from Montana, and lived in Missoula for quite some time. It is too bad life still isn't like that in a sense. Seems more things have gotten in the way and it is falling apart. Kids don't know the meaning of "going to play".
Like listening to Tschaikovsky
On the front cover of my paperback copy of this book, the Chicago Tribune is quoted: "Breathtaking ... Blunt's writing is visceral, yet never without humor and a raw, fierce honesty." I could not have said it better.
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Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography & Autobiography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Biography/Autobiography    5. Blunt, Judy    6. Farmers & Ranchers    7. Montana    8. Ranch life    9. Regional Subjects - West    10. U.S. Local History - Western United States    11. Women    12. Women In The U.S.    13. Women ranchers    14. Biography & Autobiography / General   

Reviews (7)

A worthy successor to Thomas Hardy and Aldo Leopold
William Kittredge is a worthy successor to Thomas Hardy and Aldo Leopold."Hole in the Sky" is both a personal memoir and a portrait of a vanished way of life in the remote Warner Valley in eastern Oregon.The author witnessed the end of farming with horse teams when diesel tractors came to the valley after WW II and changed the rural economy forever.Thomas Hardy's novels ("Far from the Madding Crowd" and others) tell a comparable story of the English countryside in the 19th Century, when the agrarian society that had existed for 400 years was disappearing.Mr. Kittredge also tells how the tractors meant the end of wild birds and mammals that had been part of his life in Warner Valley.He writes with an ecologist's eye for the land, reminiscent of Aldo Leopold in his "Sand County Almanac," a book that introduced so many of us to ecology and the concept of saving wild places.
Lost on the range
Kittredge's excellent, thoughtful, and well-written book is a memoir of growing up on a ranch in southeastern Oregon. This is arid country where spring runoff from the mountains gathers in lakes and swamps used for millennia as a stopover by migrating waterbirds. Enter the enterprising Kittredge family, and during the 20th century thousands of acres here were transformed into a vast irrigated ranch, its chief output evolving from cattle to grain to hay to feed milling and feedlots. More to the point, they built an agricultural empire and became wealthy. The frontier we all can imagine
William Kittridge's autobiography, A HOLE IN THE SKY begins in the wilderness around the foothills of southeastern Oregon and retells, in lucid detail, the events of his childhood leading up to his time in the Air Force, to his many marriages, to his emergence as a writer who writes in a prophetic voice with a great sense of prose.Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Authors, American    3. Biography    4. Biography & Autobiography    5. Biography / Autobiography    6. Biography/Autobiography    7. Farmers & Ranchers    8. Homes and haunts    9. Kittredge, William    10. Literary    11. Montana    12. Regional Subjects - West    13. Biography & Autobiography / General   

Reviews (6)

A great historical review of the "other" civil rights movement
The authors did a great job of detailing the early childhood that shaped the future leader of the farm workers movement. They also do a great job of highlighting the trails, ups and downs of Cesar Chavez and the farm workers movement. One gets a good idea of just how bad conditions were before the movement and how much improvement has been made since the inception of the movement. It also touches the heart with the human aspect of the lives that were shackled in the old system and changed for the good with the reforms that were won. Cesar Chavez is a true humanitarian that should be mentioned with the likes of Martin Luther King and Gandhi. This is truly a must read.

Fight in the Fields
This is a book based upon the successful PBS/Sundance Film of the same name.While it has several wonderful attributes (some excellent and rare pictures), it does not stand up to the earlier work of London and Anderson in So Shall Ye Reap.In reality, this is more of a biography of Cesar Chavez than a careful review of agricultural labor history.In the end, I would buy it again/

AN ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY BOOK
Okay, I'm biased.I'm the author of a mystery novel in current release that features a Latino private investigator as the protagonist, and I've been teaching in a rural California high school with a student population over 98% Hispanic for over twenty years.This biography, loaded with photographs and facts, is perfect for today.It clearly proves what an exceptional man Cesar Chavez was and what exceptional accomplishments that man achieved.If you have any interest in the real America, you have to read this book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography & Autobiography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Biography/Autobiography    5. General    6. Historical - U.S.    7. History    8. Labor & Industrial Relations - Unions    9. Labor leaders    10. Mexican American migrant agricultural laborers    11. Migrant agricultural laborers    12. Regional Subjects - West    13. Trade-unions    14. United States   

Editorial Review

A young woman named Julia Butterfly Hill climbed a 200-foot redwood in December 1997. She didn't come down for 738 days. The tree, dubbed Luna, grows in the coastal hills of Northern California, on land owned by the Maxxam Corporation. In 1985 Maxxam acquired the previous landlord, Pacific Lumber, then proceeded to "liquidate its assets" to pay off the debt--in other words, clear-cut the old-growth redwood forest. Environmentalists charged the company with harvesting timber at a nonsustainable level.Earth First! in particular devised tree sit-ins to protest the logging.When Hill arrived on the scene after traveling cross-country on a whim, loggers were preparing to clear-cut the hillside where Luna had been growing for 1,000 years. Read more

Reviews (78)

Interesting Read
I read this in one day, it's almost as if reading a letter from a friend. I had heard about the woman who sat in a Redwood Tree in California, and after seeing the documentary about it, I had to read the book. The writing isn't outstanding, but I got everything I'd hoped for: A detailed description of life in Luna, which is amazing to say the least, and a much better insight on the activism to preserve old growth forests. I couldn't put it down. Read it for another perspective on life, and to learn more about Julia Butterfly Hill: A truly amazing activist.

Saving our environment
I had seen the documentary and was interested to read the book.It was enjoyable, well written and an interesting report of a woman's total belief in what she was doing, along with her lessons in dealing with the very personal issues and fears that arose in her.An easy read and worthwhile.
Julia Butterfly Hill:A Woman Literally Up a Tree
Julia Butterfly Hill's father taught her a good lesson early in her life.The lesson was to stand up for what you believe in and not to give up.Julia obviously took this to heart.In her mid twenties she was looking for a meaning in her life.So she sold many of her valuables, "hit the road", and came into contact with an organization that was involved in the fight to save the redwoods.One of their main actions against the chopping of these trees is to put people up in a tree on a small platform for about a week.
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Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. California    4. Environmental Conservation & Protection - General    5. Environmental Protection    6. Forest Conservation    7. Humboldt County    8. Luna (Calif. : Tree)    9. Nature    10. Nature/Ecology    11. Old growth forest conservation    12. Regional Subjects - West    13. Specific Groups - General    14. Women    15. Women conservationists    16. Biography & Autobiography / General    17. Conservation of the environment   

Reviews (5)

Papa Lou: Honoring South Central's Hero & The Challenger's Boys & Girls Club
It was my privilege to recently read the autobiography of Lou Dantzler, founder of the Boys & Girls Challengers club in South Central. This book is called "A Place to Go, A Place to Grow."
A Marvelous Journey, a Must Read for Parents and Kids
I have heard about this book for four years, because Kathleen Felesina, the co-author, and her sister Laura Peterson, who plays a prominent role in Lou Dantzler's story, are longtime family friends, daughters of longtime family friends.The Peterson/Felesina families should be very proud, as, I'm sure, Lou Dantzler's beloved mom Narvis would be of him.
Must Read for Youth Development Professionals
This book shares the essential characteristics that a youth development professional must possess in order to make an impact on the lives of today's youth.The dedication, commitment, yet the simplicity of the concepts behind empowering and motivating today's youth to reach beyond the physical surrounding is embraced in this journey from the cotton fields of South Carolina to the urban inner city of Los Angeles.The determination to achieve by holding a community up to a standard of commitment to its youth is demonstrated in this epic story that shares how hard work with compassion along with sheer determination can change a community initially through its youth, then it parents, and bring forth the common good from mankind from all walks of life to help in changing a community.Anyone working in the youth development field would be inspired by this book as well as educated on simply methods to achieve change through parent engagement, establishing clear enforceable standards, and holding everyone accountable. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. Humanitarians    5. People of Color    6. Personal Memoirs    7. Regional Subjects - West    8. Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs   

Reviews (46)

Riviting series- my only regret is that I didn't get to speak to Ralph Moody
This book is terrific for single digits to triple digits in age.
20th-Century pioneers
Ralph Moody has just turned eight when he and his family--father and mother, eleven-year-old sister Grace, and younger sibs Muriel Joy (five), Philip (three and a half), and Hal (going on two)--move to Colorado early in 1907 to settle on a rented "ranch" (more of a farm than anything).Ralph's father Charlie, though reared on a farm in Maine, has worked for years in a New Hampshire woollen mill and suffers from lung trouble, and Cousin Phil, a mining-stock booster in Denver, manages to persuade reluctant Mother that in Colorado his health can be restored in a year and he "can make as much money as he'd make here...in a lifetime."As you might expect of a stock booster, Cousin Phil