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When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century

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A Wonderful Book.
Water Facts, a new understanding
Facts and prose together
Fascinating, fully engaging and FRIGHTENING
The Global Water Crisis Spelled-out

When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century
Fred Pearce
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807085731

Book Description

In this groundbreaking book, veteran science correspondent Fred Pearce travels to more than thirty countries to examine the current state of crucial water sources. Deftly weaving together the complicated scientific, economic, and historic dimensions of the world water crisis, he provides our most complete portrait yet of this growing danger and its ramifications for us all.

"A strongâand scaryâcase that a worldwide water shortage is the most fearful looming environmental crisis. With a drumbeat of facts both horrific (thousands of wells in India and Bangladesh are poisoned by fluoride and arsenic) and fascinating (it takes 20 tons of water to make one pound of coffee), the former New Scientist news editor documents a 'kind of cataclysm' already affecting many of the world's great rivers."
âPublishers Weekly, starred review

"Oil we can replace. Water we can'tâwhich is why this book is both so ominous and so important."
âBill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

"An enriching and farsighted work."
âJai Singh, San Francisco Chronicle

"Pearce cogently presents the alarming ways in which this ecological emergency is affecting population centers, human health, food production, wildlife habitats, and species viability. Having crisscrossed the globe to research the economic, scientific, cultural, and political causes and ramifications of this under publicized tragedy, Pearce's powerful imagery, penetrating analyses, and passionate advocacy make this required reading for environmental proponents and civic leaders everywhere."
âBooklist

"If you want to quickly get up to date on climate change and its consequences, I recommend With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change. If you can read only one book on climate change, this is it."
âLester Brown, president, Earth Policy Institute

Fred Pearce has been writing about water issues for over twenty years. A former news editor at New Scientist and currently its environment and development consultant, he has also written for Audubon, Popular Science, Time, the Boston Globe, and Natural History. His books include With Speed and Violence, Turning Up the Heat, and Deep Jungle.

Customer Reviews:

A Wonderful Book........2007-06-18

I used this book in my water resource and policy class during the spring semester of 07. If you've ever truly wanted to understand what one of the largest dilemmas mankind is going to have to face in the coming years, then you should read this book! The author breaks down water in our world in a very detailed manner. One can understand ancient water history, why much of the world is suffering from a water crisis, how much water affluent life styles use, and get a feel for modern water wars in our world. This book alosm makes a great reference for interesting statistics and figures.

Water Facts, a new understanding.......2007-06-12

This book is an easy read, one you won't want to put down. The author traveled extensively while researching his topic and does an excellent job warning the rest of us of another approaching crisis.

Living in the Western world causes me to take clean water for granted. After reading, "When the Rivers Run Dry", I now realize that water is a very precious and scarce commodity in some other parts of the world and this precious commodity is running low, aquifers are drying up. This book illustrates the importance of wetlands and the far ranging impact to the populations living there, but the wetlands are being destroyed. The rivers are being dammed up and their silt rich outflows don't even make it to the ocean any more. Centuries old wells are drying out and the implications to all this will be future wars and aggressions by governments all over the world.

Facts and prose together.......2007-06-01

This book in FUN to read. Forget that the subject is a looming catastrophe, and that the author has done beautiful step by step research, it's really fun to read. AlGore should make this his next movie.

Every kid in the world should read this in Social Studie classes along with Howard Kuenstler's The Long Emergency and then their might be hope for future generation af mankind. If we go on as we are, it's over.

Fascinating, fully engaging and FRIGHTENING.......2007-01-18

I write this review with some fear and hesitation, because the stakes are so high to do this book justice. It's THAT important.

When the Rivers Run Dry is not just enjoyable to read. It's fascinating, fully engaging, but above all a FRIGHTENING wake-up call how governments, politicians and industry are polluting, mismanaging and squandering the water of virtually all the world's major rivers.

Fred Pearce sounds the alarm with incredible passion and intelligence, presenting an environmental issue that deserves the kind of widespread attention Al Gore has brought to the issue of climate change through his documentary film An Inconvenient Truth.

I highly recommend this book to EVERYONE, with a special request to read this if you can make a difference in the water management policy of your government or your company.

The Global Water Crisis Spelled-out.......2007-01-04

Fred Pearce has traveled the world researching and documenting water issues for over 20 years and in this alarming book, he has spelled-out current trends of misuse of our precious water resources. Aquifers, lakes, and rivers are being drained faster than can be replenished. Worse yet, these bodies of water in many areas are being infiltrated by sewage, toxic chemicals and sea water rendering them useless for future use. Unnecessary dam construction, lake and river diversions goes on despite an abundance of historical and scientific facts demonstrating the adverse effects they cause-- displacing millions of people; flooding useable land while drying-up downstream environs and altering historic weather patterns.

Pearce finishes the book on a lighter note by relating the many sustainable alternatives to depleting aquifers, dam building, and lake diversions, although at current usage, one wonders if this will help reduce the rate of depletion and escalating environmental damage. Pearce makes it clear that we humans must immediately come up with a new world-wide ethic on water consumption and distribution before we hit the point of no return.

After reading this fine, in-depth expose' of the world water crisis, I was reminded of the potent quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "When the well runs dry, we shall know the value of water" (one of many variations spelling-out the same profound message).

A River Runs through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition

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Perfect
River Runs Through It
a reader
Great Novella
Maclean is a master story teller.

A River Runs through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition
Norman Maclean
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226500667

Book Description

Just as Norman Maclean writes at the end of "A River Runs through It" that he is "haunted by waters," so have readers been haunted by his novella. A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs through It and Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx.

Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiencesthe experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father.

By turns raunchy, poignant, caustic, and elegiac, these are superb tales which express, in Maclean's own words, "a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by." A first offering from a 70-year-old writer, the basis of a top-grossing movie, and the first original fiction published by the University of Chicago Press, A River Runs through It and Other Stories has sold more than a million copies. As Proulx writes in her foreword to this new edition, "In 1990 Norman Maclean died in body, but for hundreds of thousands of readers he will live as long as fish swim and books are made."

"Altogether beautiful in the power of its feeling. . . . As beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway."--Alfred Kazin, Chicago Tribune Book World

"It is an enchanted tale. . . . I have read the story three times now, and each time it seems fuller."-- Roger Sale, New York Review of Books

"Maclean's book--acerbic, laconic, deadpan--rings out of a rich American tradition that includes Mark Twain, Kin Hubbard, Richard Bissell, Jean Shepherd, and Nelson Algren. I love its sound."--James R. Frakes, New York Times Book Review

"The title novella is the prize. . . . Something unique and marvelous: a story that is at once an evocation of nature's miracles and realities and a probing of human mysteries. Wise, witty, wonderful, Maclean spins his tales, casts his flies, fishes the rivers and the woods for what he remembers from his youth in the Rockies."--Publishers Weekly

"Ostensibly a 'fishing story,' 'A River Runs through It' is really an autobiographical elegy that captivates readers who have never held a fly rod in their hand. In it the art of casting a fly becomes a ritual of grace, a metaphor for man's attempt to move into nature."--Andrew Rosenheim, The Independent

Norman Maclean (1902-1990) was the William Rainey Harper Professor of English at the University of Chicago. His book on Montana's Mann Gulch forest fire of 1949, Young Men and Fire, is also available from the University of Chicago Press.

Customer Reviews:

Perfect.......2007-06-22

Like Mr. Maclean, I spent a great deal of time, whole summers, in the American West fishing and hiking with my father. This book is the fullest expression yet of the kind of respect and love that can grow between a father and son from the accumulation of small moments of instruction and the act of meditating on those moments for years. This book, as a reflection on nature, and the nature of man and memory and how the two can become intertwined, is simply perfect.

River Runs Through It.......2007-05-26

This is one of the finest books i have ever read. I have never been into fishing of any sort, but Maclean's wonderful sensory detail brings Montana to life in a way that everyone can appreciate. The ending was shocking and powerful, something i will never forget.

a reader.......2007-05-19

if you like to read and like good stories, you wont be disappointed in this book.

no hype is too much for the way mclean writes. he put his story into words when he was in his seventies, and he knows how to reflect and correspond his memories to us his reader, as though we're all old friends.

i can't say anything more about this story or his writings other than:

they're beautiful.

Great Novella .......2007-01-25

This book reads like a conversation, it feels like Maclean is sitting directly acroos from you telling his life's story. The language is so poetic that even though I've never fished or liked the outdoors it made me want to. I highly recommend it.

Maclean is a master story teller........2007-01-10

Norman Maclean is truly an underated american icon. His simplicity and flow of the story lead the reader into the Western Montana wilderness like no other can.

A River Runs Through It: Bringing a Classic to the Screen

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A River Runs Through It: Bringing a Classic to the Screen
Richard Friedenberg , and Robert Redford
Manufacturer: Clark City Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0944439500

The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge To China's Future (Council on Foreign Relations Book.)

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Good policy study
China's burgeoning environmental crisis
powerful, well documented
A Great Perspective for Everyone!
All Hail "The River Runs Black"!

The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge To China's Future (Council on Foreign Relations Book.)
Elizabeth C. Economy
Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0801489784

Book Description

China's spectacular economic growth over the past two decades has dramatically depleted the country's natural resources and produced skyrocketing rates of pollution. Environmental degradation in China has also contributed to significant public health problems, mass migration, economic loss, and social unrest. In The River Runs Black, Elizabeth C. Economy examines China's growing environmental crisis and its implications for the country's future development.

Drawing on historical research, case studies, and interviews with officials, scholars, and activists in China, Economy traces the economic and political roots of China's environmental challenge and the evolution of the leadership's response. She argues that China's current approach to environmental protection mirrors the one embraced for economic development: devolving authority to local officials, opening the door to private actors, and inviting participation from the international community, while retaining only weak central control. The result has been a patchwork of environmental protection in which a few wealthy regions with strong leaders and international ties improve their local environments, while most of the country continues to deteriorate, sometimes suffering irrevocable damage. Economy compares China's response with the experience of other societies and sketches out several possible futures for the country.

Customer Reviews:

Good policy study.......2007-02-17

Previous reviewers have said good things about this book, and I can only agree. It is notably superior to other recent books about the Chinese environment, which (though often scholarly) are long on polemics and short on comprehensive vision.
Dr. Economy focuses on politics and policies. These have been notoriously awful under Communism, but there is now a realization of the damage being done, and thus some hope. Dr. Economy is as optimistic as one could reasonably be. Incidentally, interested readers should also look up her very fine chapter in Kristen Day's worthy edited volume CHINA'S ENVIRONMENT AND THE CHALLENGE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.
I am not so optimistic. One reason is that my training is more in biology, and I am aware that the devastating damage China has done to its environment will not be clear for 50 to 100 years. It takes that long for pollution and environmental degradation to show themselves fully.
As Dr. Economy says, China wanted to be "first rich, then clean" (that's the literal Chinese; she actually phrases it more academically). They thought that the west had done this. No, the west started conservation and scientific management long ago. The United States' golden age of conservation was under Theodore Roosevelt, when the US was still poor and rural. The US and western Europe never allowed anything close to what China has done. There was much degradation, but reaction always came eventually. China, like all Communist-led countries, missed this lesson. Marx had spoken: production is all, and top-down control is the way to do it. This has led, everywhere, to dismal environmental records, though much good has come from distributing food, health care, housing, etc., more evenly (this may no longer be the case). It is now too late. The white-flag dolphin, once common and resilient, is extinct, the Three Gorges are dammed, and much else has gone beyond possibility of repair.
Dr. Economy does not draw as sharp a contrast as I would between traditional management and Communist excess. Traditional China had major Malthusian problems, but they were caused more by imperial policy than by environmental mismanagement at the riceroots level. The peasants and workers created a system based on harmony and balance. The system was full of problems, and never got as harmonious as we would now wish, but it worked; it kept hundreds of millions of people alive in spite of a premodern technology, and it managed the key resources--topsoil, water, forests, and so on--sustainably enough that there was quite a bit left by 1950. Recent books trashing the old system have titles significantly featuring elephants and tigers instead of people. Even if you prefer the charismatic megafauna, note that China had some elephants and a lot of tigers in 1950.
So a flawed, antiquated, underproductive, but still well-designed and eminently functional system was sacrificed, and the result has been a royal mess. Yields of food are way up, thanks to modern technology (some of it developed in China by the Communists--to their credit), but the future is cloudy indeed.
If you want the best account of what can be done and what is being done, look no further than this book.

China's burgeoning environmental crisis.......2005-10-22

"The River Runs Black" by Elizabeth C. Economy is an intelligent analysis of contemporary China and its burgeoning environmental crisis. This engaging book helps us understand how globalization is reshaping China and issues an urgent plea for international cooperation to help monitor and rectify an increasingly worrysome situation.

Ms. Economy tells us how China's environment has been steadily deteriorating over the past centuries due to wars, political power struggles and overpopulation. However, today's problems
are attributable to specific policy decisions by China's government that has favored rapid economic development through engagement with the international business community. Unfortunately, the particular kinds of economic development favored by China's rulers has led to myriad environmental problems including deforestation, desertification, and air and water pollution. The collusion of local government and business interests has made it difficult to obtain reliable data or to implement solutions where it is feared that plant shutdowns might
result in mass unemployment and social unrest, making difficult problems seem untractable.

Environmental consciousness in China has increased as the problems have become more visible and as the country has engaged with the world economy. Ms. Economy profiles some of the courageous and inspirational individuals who have struggled for conservation, urban renewal and grass-roots democracy such as Tang Xiyang, He Bochuan, Dai Qing and others. While environmentalists have achieved some successes (such as protecting endangered species of monkeys and antelopes), the author believes that the government's championing of highly destructive projects such as the Three Gorges Dam proves that much more needs to be done.

Ms. Economy recounts the experiences of the former Communist nations of Eastern Europe to gain insight into how China might resolve its environmental problems. The Chernobyl disaster catalyzed local environmental groups into pushing for political reforms that brought down the Communists in the USSR and elsewhere. Recognizing that China's Communist Party is a "patronage machine committed to rapid economic development" and devoid of any ideological purpose other than self-perpetuation, Ms. Economy believes that increasing democratization in China could easily undermine the country's single Party system. Of course, China's leaders are keenly aware of this threat and consequently have tightly circumscribed the activities of environmental organizations, but the author is hopeful that the contradictions between increasing environmental degradation and the lack of a meaningful democracy will eventually force China's political system to change.

In the last section, Ms. Economy speculates about the manner in which China may develop in the future. The author envisions three possible scenarios: China goes green; inertia sets in; and environmental meltdown. Ms. Economy thinks that the U.S. should take the lead in encouraging China to develop its regulatory system and implement green technologies so that the country can embark on an environmentally sustainable path. Indeed, the unpredictable consequences of a Chinese environmental meltdown should give the international community pause to consider how it might help China -- and by extension all of us -- to avoid a worse case scenario.

I highly recommend this superbly written book to everyone.

powerful, well documented.......2005-09-23

Not an easy read, but one that many Americans probably should...it demonstrates well how our life styles here in the US increases demand for cheap consumer goods, resulting in corporations poisoning other parts of the planet to supply them quickly and without major expense to us.

Incredibly sickening injury to the planet is well documented and presented in a professional way, and the book is very readable.

Recommended for all of those who need a greater repetoire of evidence that we are rather quickly destroying the planet, and as a means of strengthening arguments against "globalization" and consumerism.

A Great Perspective for Everyone!.......2004-07-09

For anyone with even a hint of environmental concern, this book provides a great look at what can and will go wrong. The problems in China outlined here teach us first hand that if economic and technologic advancement go unchecked, the cost will be the environment, and we will all pay. A copy of Dr. Economy's book should be sent to all current politicians and policy makers so that history is not repeated, in the US, or anywhere in the world, and that immediate steps be taken to reverse all environmental insults that are taking place. I really enjoyed this excellent political and economic commentary in which myself, as a common reader, can appreciate the importance of environmental salvation. Let's learn from this author's teachings.

All Hail "The River Runs Black"!.......2004-07-01

Elizabeth Economy's "The River Runs Black" is a fascinating account of the environmental crisis facing China. It recounts how the world's most highly populated country with the fastest growing economy has resulted in an environmental tinderbox. The book is neither an hysterical call to arms for environmental activists nor a dry, scientific analysis of global climate change. Instead, it offers a well-researched, thorough and pragmatic look at the problem and the policy alternatives for addressing the issue. The book is very readable and is a "first of its kind" book in that no one has really focused on this issue with the intellectual integrity that Economy has. No doubt you'll see others jumping on the bandwagon to highlight the situation in China, but they'll be hard pressed to improve on the author's work, given that she has essentially pioneered the analysis in this area over the past 10 years. I highly recommend this book for anyone.

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As Good a First Novel as First Novels Get
Where she was from
Like A Meandering River
A Californian Elegy
Early Efforts an Excuse?

Run River
Joan Didion
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679752501
Release Date: 1994-04-26

Book Description

Joan Didion's electrifying first novel is a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California. Everett McClellan and his wife, Lily, are the great-grandchildren of pioneers, and what happens to them is a tragic epilogue to the pioneer experience, a story of murder and betrayal that only Didion could tell with such nuance, sympathy, and suspense.

Customer Reviews:

As Good a First Novel as First Novels Get.......2006-11-10

This first novel by one of modern America's prose-writing treasures is set in a part of California no one associates with the Golden State: the Sacramento Delta. The emotional and physical geography of the book blend seamlessly. Didion has since critiqued this book herself, in her much later prose reflection on California, "Where I Was From." She's a bit hard on her former self. This is a lucid, hard etched short novel on the same general theme as Tolstoi's "Anna Karenina": that is, how a uniquely unhappy family got that way. Didion is of an old California family. She takes no false pride in that, here or elsewhere. There is not a useless or spongy sentence in the whole book. Writers will be reminded of what they're supposed to be doing when they pick up a pen.

Where she was from.......2006-09-25

There's a wealth of evidence in Run River (Didion's first book, published in 1963) that the world was to get one of its great writers, but it gets lost a bit in the story. Using a sort of end-of-the-golden era view of Sacramento land booms as its backdrop, it follows Lily and Everett, holdouts of the wealthy Knight and McClellan pioneer families that struck it rich in Northern California, an era described by Didion as "the cutting clean which was to have redeemed them all." Didion's sense of location and the specifics of the era is remarkable, so it takes little effort to be interested in the events, but set up as it is a framed story revolving around a murder, 20 years of backstory, and then the conclusion of the murder, she seems far too willing to make Run River an act of condemnation. I picked up Run River as a fervent reader of Didion's astonishing nonfiction works, and felt a little dismayed at first at my willingness to avoid reading the book. It's a feeling that goes away - the middle section of the book is filled with flawed, impish characters rendered in empathetic specifics, and is full of the humanely observed understatments that make Didion's best work so accessible (I am convinced no writer can devastate more with a seemingly average sentence - perfectly interrupted, of course). Still, returning to the murder at the end of the book, my reluctance returned, and I realized Didion's failure is to make the book a declaration of decay, to turn her events "tragic" (or, really, the stuff of nighttime soaps) in an attempt to critique the California pioneer identity. All this winds up doing is rendering the fates of her characters not all that important. Still, the book should be read for that glimmering center of the book, a time when its characters flaws are rendered rich with empathy - its chapters detailing Martha, Everett's sister, as she (miserably) attempts to conquer heartbreak with pioneering audacity shows Didion's characters as fascinating idealists, endearing in their quixotic fucntionlessness.

Like A Meandering River.......2006-04-13

This first fiction story by Didion surely catches her at the beginning of her career as a fiction writer. Copyrighted 1961, it is her first fiction novel. The Didion reader will recognize it as an early work. It is meandering, difficult to follow and in fact, in some points, downright boring.

However, the seeds of a brilliant writer and observer of human behavior still shine through. The book is about human interactions, set in early California between about 1920 and 1959, the story traces a family and their quest for land ownership in the young State of California.

Her concentration is on the manner in which love is expressed in the family. She concentrates on the strengths of the loves and on the incredible weaknesses. Her depiction of a family in emotional shambles is clear. Her elucidation of a family in every type of crisis except financial, is stark. And her characterization of the intense philandering of both the men and the women in the family is revealing and unexpected to some extent; yet fully expected in another.

The book is recommended to Didion readers and is of interest in seeing how her style was refined and honed as she went on in her writing career.

A Californian Elegy.......2000-04-21

This novel is early Didion, wonderfully lyrical and dark, passionate without sentimentality, and beyond conclusions. It is homage to James Jones, to William Faulkner, perhaps a little to John Steinbeck, but mostly to a California now almost vanished. That California is mostly the settlers' California, but it is also a California felt and known aboriginally. She writes, as always, poignantly about things dying away: but the heirs live on and the Californian sun and hills, rivers and floods, carry on- the part of eternity we can know a little of. I liked this book very much, but the reader should be warned it is not a light read and not written as completely in Joan Didion's famously sharp style as her later works.

Early Efforts an Excuse?.......2000-04-17

As a longtime Didion fan I was mildly disappointed with this text. It's cumbersome, swishy, and sloppy. It hints at phrases, and the sort of language she eventually uses later in her writing, but this early novel is exactly that...early. It shows promise, and is not entirely without wit, but it's weak and cumbersome plot, it's overwrought prose, and it's harlequin voice were a disappointment given her profound later works.

The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams

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I give this book three stars knowing it is a fraud
One Fraud Too Many
The Joke
A shameful fraud
plagiarist, Navajo wannabe, fake

The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams
Nasdijj , and Nasdijj
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0618154485

Amazon.com

The language and form of this searing book are as powerful as the life experience that inspired them. In a series of essays that cohere into a spiritual autobiography, the author writes prose that's deceptively simple yet rich in metaphor. An wild horse living in the parking lot of a Navajo school becomes a symbol for living creatures' intrinsic wildness, tamed only at a terrible cost. "We are all runaway horses" is one constant refrain, as is the reminder "you are your history." The author's history is painful: born in 1950 the son of an alcoholic Native American woman and a white cowboy father who "would sell my mom to other migrant men for five dollars," Nasdijj grew up a "mongrel" and an outcast, contending with his violent father's demons while his mother beguiled them with Indian stories. Living on a reservation, never fully accepted because of his white skin, he adopted a baby boy with fetal alcohol syndrome who died at age 6. The book's most beautiful passages meditate on Tommy Nothing Fancy's short life and express his father's love. Nasdijj has been homeless, he has taught Indian children on a reservation, he has retraced with a historian friend the dreadful forced march to Bosque Redondo, where the Navajo and their culture were nearly exterminated. These and many other ordeals are related in the agonizingly lucid words of someone who has turned to writing as a lifeline. This remarkable memoir has its share of bitterness and anger, but Nasdijj transcends both in his acceptance of the world that made him and in the knowledge that "the reservation runs like blood through a river of my dreams." --Wendy Smith

Book Description

A searing book as powerful as the life experience that inspired it, THE BLOOD RUNS LIKE A RIVER THROUGH MY DREAMS transports readers to the majestic landscapes and hard Native American lives of the desert Southwest. Born to a storytelling Native mother and a roughneck, song-singing father, Nasdijj has always lived at the jagged-edged margins of society, yet hardship and isolation have only brought him greater clarity -- a gift for language and a voice of searching honesty. "In a prose style that could almost be chanted" (New York Magazine), Nasdijj writes of his adopted son, Tommy Nothing Fancy, and of his own chaotic childhood; of his struggles between two cultures and his pursuit of the writing life -- as a lifeline. A powerful, unforgettable memoir, THE BLOOD RUNS LIKE A RIVER THROUGH MY DREAMS will "wash over readers and often take them by surprise" (Fort Worth Star-Telegram).

Customer Reviews:

I give this book three stars knowing it is a fraud.......2006-04-24

This book has to be the worst and most sickening case of cultural apropriation in the history of the US. The fact that it was writen by a white man is further proof of the emperialist and colonialist mentality that still exists in this nation twords the Native American Community. However when I forst read this book Nasdijj was still a navajo within the eyes of the public. At the time the book mooved me deaply. Nasdijj's use if diction and the storytelling nature of his narative was beutifle. It made me want to learn more about the status and problems facing the Plains Indian community and work bring about change. That meens somthing to me and despite what I know now that initial responce when I first read this book stays with me to this day. I urge those who are going to critisize this book to read it first if you have not, and when you read it, do so with eyes un clouded by the trouth.

One Fraud Too Many.......2006-03-16

It's a shame that because of works like this, not to mention the Forrest Carter (Education of Little Tree) scandal a few years back, many unknown and undiscovered--but authentic--Native American writers will probably have to struggle that much harder to become published. Well-established American Indian authors are already naturally suspect of any newcomers on the scene; the sad fact is that for some reason Native American culture and identity is misappropriated by more misguided white writers--whatever their individual agendas might be--than any other race or ethnic group. The sad truth is that, for every Forrest Carter and Timothy Barris who manage to secure a publishing contract, there are dozens of truly deserving Native voices that are going unheard.And thanks to these imposters making the buying public- as well as agents and editors- increasingly suspicious of anyone claiming to be Native American-their chances to be read and heard are only going to diminish.

The Joke.......2006-02-16

To hold the power to move people with words regardless of the validity of those words is a very impressive art. With the exception of one specific actor, no one in history has made a powerful film about his or her own life. There is no reason to believe that written works shoud be treated differently from movies in this respect. Obviously this writer has realized that human deception is an important method of eliciting an emotional response from an audience. By reading the responses from readers prior to the false exposure of the true writer, it is clear that this man or woman is light years ahead of current authors when it comes to manipulating the human brain into believing a story, factual or not. With the increasing pace of desensitization of the mind in recent years, obviously new techniques must be made available to entertain an insatiable public. To say that this author's amazing work is only confined within the pages of the book is downwright ludicrous. Everything, including the monikor and real identity of "Timothy Barris" is part of a larger piece of fiction that may be even further exposed as time passes. After this "identity" was unearthed, opposite and even stronger emotional responses were elicited from readers, demonstrated in print on these very pages of Amazon.com. Is it not true that disgust and outrage are also emotions that sub-par authors struggle to touch in their works? "The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams" is such an example of a work of writing and deception that is capable of plucking each string of human emotion in such a way that has never been attempted before. There is a larger picture.

-AK

A shameful fraud.......2006-01-28

I read this book last year, and was moved by it, though I often found it rather fuzzy on certain details, and the chronology seemed to jump around. Now, I learn this guy is a total FRAUD: He's not Indian and Tommy didn't exist. He's apparently lazy, too: I've read that his descriptions of Navajo culture don't fit with reality, either. This is disgraceful, both his lying about his heritage, and inventing this sick child, as well as the other people he made up. What a waste of time.
So many literary frauds have been exposed this month (Jan 06). Now, I'm wondering about a few other memoirs that have been popular the last few years. I'm rather disinclined to buy any memoirs these days; and I bet I'm not the only one who feels this way. I bet these scandals hurt sales of this book genre.

plagiarist, Navajo wannabe, fake.......2006-01-28

I haven't read any of "Nasdijj"'s writings, and I don't expect to do so, but as a REAL Amerind (Cherokee), I am disturbed and indignant at Navajos being used as a publicity hook by a white sado-masochist. Don't take my word for it. Read an exhaustive exposé at
http://www.laweekly.com/index.php option=com_lawcontent&task=view&id=12468&Itemid=47

When the Rivers Run Dry: What Happens When Our Water Runs Out?

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When the Rivers Run Dry: What Happens When Our Water Runs Out?
Fred Pearce
Manufacturer: Eden Project
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1903919576

Only the River Runs Free: A Novel (Galway Chronicles)

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Great Series of Books
exceptional
Different Setting, Same Great Writing
Something for everyone.....
Award-winning high-calibre Christian historical fiction.

Only the River Runs Free: A Novel (Galway Chronicles)
Bodie Thoene , and Brock Thoene
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Ashes Of Remembrance
All Rivers To The Sea A Novel
Fifth Seal (A. D. Chronicles, No. 5)
Shiloh Autumn (Discover the Truth Through Fiction: Thoene Family Classics Historical)
Jerusalem Vigil

ASIN: 0785263780

Book Description

It was a time when English landlords held power over Irish tenant farmers and seeds of bitterness were sown that would last for generations. In an endeavor to eliminate all influences of Irish heritage, the English forced an intellectual and spiritual bondage on Ireland as well as a bitter physical bondage of servitude. Freedom had become so rare that the Irish coined a saying, "In Ireland only the rivers run free." Yet one poor, befuddled old woman speaks of freedom, truth, and hope. Mad Molly Fahey promises the priest and villages that a miracle is on its way.

Previous editions: 0-7852-8067-7 and 0-7852-7016-7

Customer Reviews:

Great Series of Books.......2006-11-10

I usually read fantasy fiction books and usually don't read the ones geared toward historical fiction, but I must say, this series is excellent. I couldn't put them down. They are very well written.

exceptional.......2006-08-05

Bodie and Brock Thoene have a understading of how the human mind works and their books are so believeable. They take one out of the here and now and put one into the then and there. The history is correct and it makes their books "real".
I am looking forward to reading the rest of their books at some point in time.

Different Setting, Same Great Writing.......2003-03-11

When Joseph Connor Burke returned to the small Irish village of Ballynockanor, he only expected to stay a few months. Just long enough to put the past and his stolen inheritance behind him. But as he gets reacquainted with his neighbors, he finds himself drawn into their struggles against Protestants in general and his uncle in particular. Is there a way to reclaim what is rightfully his? Is the priesthood his true calling? And what about his feelings for Kate?

The Thoenes went in an unexpected direction when they started this series. Up til now, they'd been writing about Israel and America. For that reason, I've put off starting this series, even though I've heard such good thing about it. Boy, was that a mistake!

I know very little about Irish history. In this one book, I learned so much that helps me understand the current struggles. Yet, as always, the history is wrapped in a wonderful story with very real characters. While I figured a few things out before they happened, most of the time I was unsure what would happen next and had a hard time putting the book down as a result. As always, the Thoenes develop their characters well and I felt myself getting angry on their behalf on more then one occasion.

I'm already planning my next trip to Ballynockanor for the next chapter in this sage. Any fan of the Thoenes or anyone wanting some fictitious background on Ireland will love this book.

Something for everyone............2002-10-08

As a decendent of Irish-Catholics I found this book enlightening. Never realized the strife entailed in the course of religious freedom in the 1830's and 1840's Ireland and never realized that one could be exiled to America or Australia for infractions against the Protestant landlords.
This book has it all, history, mystery, love, sorrow and intrigue. Also brings the challange of keeping ones christian faith in difficult times. Good book for Catholic and Protestant to read.
Can not wait to read the next book in the series.

Award-winning high-calibre Christian historical fiction........2001-11-26

Looking for high calibre Christian historical fiction? You can't go wrong with the husband-wife Thoene combination (the historical research courtesy of husband Brock, the story-telling courtesy of wife Bodie). This award winning novel is the first volume in "The Galway Chronicles" series is a great place to start, exhibiting their fine qualities as a writing team capable of producing novels that rank among the very best.

The title "Only the River Runs Free" reflects the historical setting that the Thoenes' have chosen as the background: Ireland in the 1830s and 40s, when Irish tenant farmers (mainly Catholics) were ruled by the English landlords and soldiers (mainly Protestants). It was a rule frequently marked by oppression, hence that saying that only the river ran free. The village of Ballynockanor is no exception, with the Donovan family chief among the poor and oppressed. The rightful landlord Joseph Connor Burke has been superseded by the greedy usurper Marlowe. The darkness of the time seems to crush the Donovan family, as they are confronted with tragedy and trial - Kate Donovan has already been made a widow by a fire, but now Kevin seems to be marked as a Irish rebel ("Ribbonman") deserving death, and Brigit abandons her family only to descend into a even deeper pit of calamity. But there is hope for the Donovans, and for Ballynockanor, and it lies in the fortunes of Joseph Connor Burke.

If evangelical Protestants are going to have any criticisms about this book, it might be that it elicits sympathy for Catholics. Some Christians may find it difficult to read a book in which the Protestants are the bad guys and the Catholics are the good guys. However, it has to be remembered that this is simply an accurate portrait of reality, and the Thoenes are reflecting a historical struggle, one that was actually more political than religious in nature. Rather than endorsing Catholic theology, the authors show that the Irish Catholics were often dealt with harshly and unjustly by the English Protestants who ruled them. Arousing reader sympathies for the way they were treated is different than arousing sympathies for their theology, and in my view is entirely legitimate. The depiction of Catholicism is presented by more by a picture of its rituals (crossing oneself, candles, penance) than by its thinking. In fact, some of the remarks made by the Catholic protagonists (p.233) could be construed as a reflection of the Thoenes' own evangelical Protestant thinking, since it is hardly consistent with Catholic theology. There is also evidence of modern ecumenism, as is evident in Joseph's dream - likely a mouthpiece for the Thoenes' own convictions - that "one day the warmth of God's love may melt the stubborn hearts of all true Christians, be they Catholic or Protestant, to stand and serve Him together as one nation." (p.194). Unlike the Thoenes, I would not attribute the divide between Protestants and Catholics to mere stubbornness, but to fundamental differences in belief. Optimism concerning "one body" and the union of Catholics and Protestants will always be unrealistic as long as the "one faith" of Ephesians 4 is absent, and where there is no fundamental agreement concerning the truths of Scripture. But this aside, one does not need to compromise Protestant theology to enjoy this book.

The Thoenes write with a flowing and captivating style that grabs your attention throughout with action, intrigue, mystery, and even a touch of romance. It's a gripping and compelling tale that is entertaining, but doesn't sacrifice realism or historical detail. Unlike a great deal of contemporary Christian fiction, I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of superficiality. The historical detail and accuracy of the setting breathes an air of authenticity - this could easily be about real people and real events. The Thoenes are not afraid to describe the horrors of real life in a dark period of history, where characters must deal with murder, attempted rape, and prostitution. And yet although it is a tale much deeper than most products of contemporary Christian fiction, it is not so deep that you need boots to wade through it. The Thoenes have an ability to create a very suspenseful and readable tale that is hard to put down. "Only The River Runs Free" was the recipient of the 1997 Gold Medallion Award. The judges figured it was a novel of the highest class. After reading it, you'll have to agree that this entertaining and thoughtful novel ranks among the very best. I've read a variety of Christian fiction, and regard myself as a highly critical reviewer, but after reading this book I'm convinced that the Thoenes are among the best. Count me as a new fan.

River Run Cookbook: Southern Comfort from Vermont

Average customer rating:

Good eating and good reading
Recipes Drenched in Social History
Southern Hospitality in the most unusual place.
River Run
Very Disappointing Cookbook

River Run Cookbook: Southern Comfort from Vermont
Jimmy Kennedy , Maya Kennedy , and Marialisa Calta
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Barbarians at the Plate : Taming and Feeding the American Family

ASIN: 0060195258
Release Date: 2001-04-24

Amazon.com

Located in Plainfield, Vermont, the tiny River Run restaurant dishes up Southern cooking with a Yankee cast to a faithful clientele that includes farmers, artists, hippies, and out-of-towners who make special trips for the great grub. The River Run Cookbook, written by co-owners Maya and Jimmy Kennedy (who is also the chef), offers over 100 recipes of the restaurant's delicious breakfast-all-day-style fare, plus anecdotes that introduce readers to the restaurant's extended family. Those who love easily made down-home cooking will welcome this winning book.

In chapters that include "Fritters, Griddle Cakes, Breads, and Cereals," "Soups and Stews," and "Weekend Specials," the authors present uncomplicated yet tantalizing dishes like Horseradish-Crusted Fish, Red Beans and Rice Soup, and Fried Chicken Salad with Buttermilk Dressing. A section devoted to sides provides familiar and unconventional dishes including Shaken Potatoes, Fried Dill Pickles (a Southern specialty), and the deeply satisfying Corn and Oyster Casserole. With dessert and drink recipes that include a knockout chocolate mousse pie and refreshing citrus-juice-spiked Russian tea, the book offers good eating while conveying the spirit of a place and the people who give it life. --Arthur Boehm

Book Description

From the time Jimmy and Maya Kennedy opened River Run in 1991, this tiny restaurant in Plainfield, Vermont has attracted local followers -- and national attention from the New York Times and Food and Wine. Called "the best place on earth" by Pulitzer Prize winner and frequent patron David Mamet, River Run is more than a restaurant: it's a warm, welcoming home-away-from-home that serves up great food with an extra helping of small-town charm. Inspired by both Jimmy's Mississippi upbringing and its rural surroundings, River Run's menu blends traditional Southern favorites with a touch of the North. It serves the kind of honest-to-goodness cooking that draws locals every day of the week, and attracts out-of-towners who drive miles just to sample the fare.

If Plainfield isn't in your neck of the woods, don't worry: with this book, you can make all of River Run's house favorites right in your own kitchen, including Jimmy's famed buttermilk pancakes, really big buttermilk biscuits, fried chicken, catfish cakes, and banana pudding. In keeping with River Run's down-to-earth style, the recipes are simple, uncomplicated, and easy to prepare -- even if you don't know your gumbo from your jambalaya.

With lively photos of River Run customers, delightful, illustrations by Maya Kennedy, and contributions from some famous locals, River Run Cookbook offers a picture of the fabric of life in this vibrant community. It's about more than great food -- it's about a great town and the people that make it so.

Customer Reviews:

Good eating and good reading.......2001-07-24

This is the first cokbook I have read cover-to-cover...recipes, philosophy, little stories of the town and the people who live in Plainfield, Vermont. I loved it all. But the best thing about the book is the recipes. We have made the barbeque sauce and dry rub, barbeque chicken and soup, the Really Big biscuits (twice!), shaken potatoes, granola, the blueberry pancakes, summer salad and Russian tea. (Nashvillians call this elixir "Tea Punch.") Catfish Jambalaya is simmering on the stove at this very moment. Every thing we have made has been wonderful. A couple of things separate this cookbook from others: 1. The portions are enormous, allowing for ample leftovers, even with our family of two adults and two teenagers. 2. Many of the recipes use the leftovers. (BBQ chicken becomes the basis for BBQ chicken and rice soup, for instance.) 3. The story of Plainfield and its townspeople--from the artists to the aging hippies to the gas company guys to the cops--is woven in to the book. The authors treat the readers as if they are stopping in for a meal and might like to be a little up to date on the other folks who are eating with them. 4. The food is plain, easy-to-make and serve. It is flavorful, not pretentious, quite a bit like receiving a beloved family recipe as a gift. So, if you are hankering for some hush puppies, Coca-Cola cake or some pulled pork (and who isn't?), this will become a special cookbook in your collection.

Recipes Drenched in Social History.......2001-05-28

Interesting concept. Surround down home Southern recipes with photos and snippets from far northern daily life. Studs Turkel in a deep south kitchen. It works. While you're shelling crawfish or cleaning catfish you're oddly receiving a debriefing on the Plainfield, Vermont road foreman's 4AM struggle with last night's snowstorm. It kind of adds a northern spice to the catfish souffle. My cooking fool sister in New Jersey, to whom I sent this cookbook as partial thanks for helping our parents get through their deep end game, tells me that the five or so recipes she's whipped up have all worked spectacularly. She and her family of five REALLY like the catfish massaged into their breakfast. So do I. But I just have to drive ten miles to get it served up for me. Location! Location!

Southern Hospitality in the most unusual place........2001-05-09

.... Why would you want to buy this book? Because it is southern hospitality at its best; never mind that the restaurant is in Vermont. As a Yankee who migrated to the south over 30 years ago, I enjoyed reading this cookbook, trying many of the recipes (everything seems accurate so far), and vicariously participating in the social pleasantries that are an everyday part of southern life. You do feel as though you know both the proprietors and the customers of this wonderful eating establishment...they are real people. I see that as a plus. And despite it's social orientation, it is first and foremost a cookbook. One word of warning: the recipes are full of buttermilk, sugar, crawfish, soup beans, and red meat. If you're wanting to lower your cholesterol, this probably will not meet your needs. However, if you like great comfort food and don't like to eat alone, this cookbook might be just what you're looking for.

River Run.......2001-05-03

The only thing that is wrong with this cookbook is that I didn't take a copy with me to school. Now I can't make the best food in the world. The best idea ever was catfish for breakfast. I can't count the number of times I go to River Run and order catfish with eggs, homes, and toast. Its so good I am never sick of it. The cookbook is a great sample of the inginuity and genius of the recipie authors. I ate at River Run two days ago and I'm already missing it. The only reason I go home is to eat at River Run. Its really that good.

Very Disappointing Cookbook.......2001-04-26

The River Run Cookbook should be titled "The Plainfield, Vermont Yearbook: 2001 With Recipes". The book contains too many pictures of the folks who live in Plainfield, Vermont. The pictures even come with their names. You should be acquainted with at least 30 Plainfield folks by the time you're done with the book. All those pictures are not necessary for a cookbook that celebrates Southern home cooking. It should have be a very quaint and charming book filled with Southern recipes. The recipes are nice and simple...you can find similiar recipes in many Southern cookbooks.... If you want to know who lives in Plainfield and eats at River Run, then get the book!

Average customer rating:

disagree with "mediocre" label
My own small word
6 stars?
The book All Rivers Run to the Sea was a great book
I'm reading this book just in the aftermath

All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Schocken
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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And the Sea Is Never Full: Memoirs, 1969-
After the Darkness: Reflections on the Holocaust
The Forgotten
The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, The Accident
Night (Oprah's Book Club)

ASIN: 0805210288
Release Date: 1996-10-22

Amazon.com

The long-awaited memoirs of Wiesel, winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, tell the story of his happy childhood in the Carpathian Mountains, his subsequent years of hell in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and his post-war life in France, where he discovered his voice as a writer. Highly recommended.

Book Description

From his early years with his loving Jewish family to the horrors of Auschwitz to his life as a Nobel Prize-winning novelist, Elie Wiesel tells his story. Passionate and poignant, All Rivers Run to the Sea is an unforgettable book of love and rage, doubt and faith, despair and trust, and ultimately, of wisdom. of photos.

Customer Reviews:

disagree with "mediocre" label.......2004-11-16

I found this a very compelling read, lasting over several readings. It's true the author did not stick tightly to chronological order, but anyone who has read his fiction knows his style tends to be very esoteric and rather free-floating (I personally do not care for his fiction, which I admit I do find to go over my head). However, as a reader, I certainly got a feel for emotions he felt throughout different experiences in his life. I found the last scene describing his emotions before and during his wedding to be really profound. It's true that there is a lot of Jewish content in this book, which may cause some of his analogies etc. to be less accessible to someone from a different background. However, for someone who wants to read a first-hand Holocaust experience without very strong graphic details, I do recommend it. (As a side note, just last week I actually attended a speech by Mr. Wiesel, and he is really a personable, funny, self-effacing and sweet man, not the really sad and somber person you might expect from his writings. I was surprised by this, pleasantly so!)

My own small word .......2004-10-25

I would strongly recommend that all readers on Amazon read the review whose title caption is ' Remember'. It is far more extensive and far better than the small remarks I am about to post.
Elie Weisel is the one human being who more than any other has helped the world understand the horror of the Shoah , the Holocaust the Nazi destruction of one - third of the Jewish people six million human beings.
For this he should always have a place in the historical consciousness of both the Jewish people and mankind.
His memoir is at times very moving .For those who know his other work and his masterpiece ' Night' there will be much familiar here, though here the story is enriched by greater detail.
I find myself whenever I am reading Weisel unable to really judge in abstract or purely literary terms. His significance as a human being, as a witness as one who has spoken to me in my own life is so great that my feeling is closer to reverence than anything else.
I read this book with the idea that any additional detail about his life and work, any additional understanding of his thought about Man's relation to G-d would be worthwhile. I read this work as I will read all his future works as an admiring student of a great teacher.
May he be blessed by many more years of great creative work.

6 stars?.......2004-04-20

This is one of the times when I think we should be able to go higher than 5 stars. Elie Wiesel's All Rivers Run to the Sea gave us a more in-depth look to the concentration camp survivor. He really gives us a rich experience in weaving together the threads of his past, from his days in school to the horror in the concentration camps, right up to his days of being a journalist, and ending with him as a groom. You really get a feel for the type of person he is as well - a wonderful, compassionate, and intelligent man. If you've read Night already, you're definitely going to want to check this out.

The book All Rivers Run to the Sea was a great book.......2004-03-01

I read the book All Rivers Run to the Sea, by Elie Wiesel. This book is about his amazing journey all throughout the Holocaust. Elie was split apart from his family and had to experience the worst pain that you could imagine all on his own. I think this book is very depressing but it also makes you think about how glad and grateful you should be for having a family who loves and cares for you.
Elie Wiesel is a very skilled writer and he easily makes you picture in your mind what he is writing about. I think that this book would be well suited for people who are either twelve or older. It is also well suited for people who enjoy reading about the Holocaust and all the people who experienced it. This book is more of a bibliography rather than a fairy tale so you have to be willing to read a lot. This book is also very long and at some parts it gets a little confusing but at other times it is really hard to put the book down. I do not think that this would be a very good book for teachers to have their students read in class because of the length. I think that they should use one of Wiesel other great books on the Holocaust.
I really enjoyed this book and the style of Elie's writing. He described every thing very well and he kept my attention throughout the whole book. I hope that others get the chance to read this book and learn as much as I did about the Holocaust. This is a very good book and is well suited for young adults and people who are older as well. It teaches you a lot and makes you think about your life. This was a very good book and I hope others will read this book and get as much out of it as I did.

I'm reading this book just in the aftermath.......2001-06-03

of watching the Morris film Dr. Death, and I can't help but wonder about the mentality and motives of Holocaust deniers. Read this book by Wiesel, read all his books, and educate yourself about the period.

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