Book Description
Alone in the world, teen-aged Hattie is driven to prove up on her uncle's homesteading claim.
For years, sixteen-year-old Hattie's been shuttled between relatives. Tired of being Hattie Here-and-There, she courageously leaves Iowa to prove up on her late uncle's homestead claim near Vida, Montana. With a stubborn stick-to-itiveness, Hattie faces frost, drought and blizzards. Despite many hardships, Hattie forges ahead, sharing her adventures with her friends--especially Charlie, fighting in France--through letters and articles for her hometown paper.
Her backbreaking quest for a home is lightened by her neighbors, the Muellers. But she feels threatened by pressure to be a "Loyal" American, forbidding friendships with folks of German descent. Despite everything, Hattie's determined to stay until a tragedy causes her to discover the true meaning of home.
Customer Reviews:
No way does this deserve a Newbery Award.......2007-08-05
I waited for a very long time until I finally found Hattie Big Sky at the library. Hearing some very good reviews and reading the general synopsis for the book, I was excited about reading this story. And now, once again, I'm going to veer from what everyone else has said and give my part.
Hattie Big Sky follows the story of Hattie, who catches some luck when her uncle, Chester Brooks, unexpectedly sends her a will deeming her the sole owner of some new land in Montana. This is particularly fortunate because Hattie, orphaned very young, was on the brink of having to work at a boarding house. The story basically follows her path and journey in making her home her own.
First of all, kudos to the author for keeping everything clean. I do greatly respect that.
Now, the bad part. Hattie is a little too perfect for my taste. I'm not saying I wanted her to break out and rob someone or anything, but like many stories I'm so tired of reading because of the protagonists' syrupy sweetness, this made her extremely dull. At several points in the story, Hattie makes a remark that if her aunt could only see her, she would have been disapproving. This made me flip back and go disapproving of what? One of the times, the author did make the source clear and the others were just kind of thrown in. So Hattie's constantly saying I'm doing things people won't like and none of the things she's doing really seem wrong at all. And I don't get the impression it was about her taking care of her home all alone...
Then of course there is Hattie's quicksilver change of feelings that I believe was a mistake on the author's part. She contradicts herself constantly, saying she feels a certain way and then two paragraphs later the author writes something going against that.
----SPOILER----
Hattie is asked to sell her land right after a kind of heat spell as if the person is too eager to wait until she isn't weak. Her first reaction is anger, and the author verifies this. "I fought down the hot anger boiling up in my stomach..." This one is not as contradictory as some others, but she quickly changes her feelings, going from anger to, oh, he's so right. She immediately, only a sentence later, begins to take on another thought process entirely. I should really be thankful he's doing this...yadayadayada...This was annoying.
----END SPOILER----
I think all characters should be rock solid in their development. Hattie seems too vacillating when it comes to her own choices and is too good, which I hate hearing and saying, but it's true.
Continuing on a note of characterization, I also found major problems with the character of Perilee, who quickly becomes friends with Hattie. I kind of felt like I was reading a Stepford Wives-Little House on the Prairie blending. Perilee is also too perfect, although her character remains one-dimensional the whole story. She mentions horrible things that happened in her past and stays absolutely, sickly pleasant about it all. Also, at times she seems overly kind and childish. I don't know why. She wasn't developed enough. Perilee's husband (And I just knew they'd have something like this.), Karl, who just so happens to be a foreigner and living in Montana during World War I, is generically ostracized and is thrown through the usual torment of these types of characters, mainly there, I am beginning to think, to fill in the empty pages that needed filling. Everyone in the town refuses to help or even be seen with his family...blah, blah, blah. I'm so tired of this type of plotline that I didn't even care; plus, he wasn't very well written either.
My biggest problem with this story was the way everything flashes by so fast. Hattie mentions some major hurdles, like moving across several states just to reach Montana, having to learn, after living in the city, how to plant and take care all of the inherited land by herself, building a fence that reaches regulations, and farming her land. But each of these problems never lasts long and is quickly done away with. Hattie's journey to Montana is barely even mentioned; she arrives to a house that looks more like a shed and that fades away. She states that she knows nothing about farming, gets some manuals on the subject and only a paragraph later is an expert...Nothing is ever drawn out. Also, she has money problems which, like everything else, is resolved immediately. This became so annoying to me that I wanted to jump into the story and strangle the main character. Basically, following Kirby Larson's writing, homesteading seems very simple, more than simple, child's play...I say, if you're making a point of writing a story about a young girls' difficulty in surviving and raising her own land, there needs to be some evidence, not the miraculous sponge that Hattie turned out to be, reading and using her read knowledge with precision.
It sounds like I hated this book and after writing this review and reviewing the many issues, I almost do, but not quite. I am just very picky about everything, from plotlines to miniscule details. While Hattie's character was too nice, she was not unlikable, and while I didn't take too much of a shine to the story it was okay. I did feel like I wanted to keep reading although most of the time I was frustrated and wondering just where exactly I've heard this story before, finding familiar, overly-used elements that have been written much better over the years...
Overall: Okay read, nothing worth a Newbery, which I find incredibly hard to believe and almost impossible to believe; but the facts speak for themselves. I would not have read this if I knew beforehand what it would turn out to be like, nor would I recommend it. Waste of time.
Fall into the time period!.......2007-07-01
Within the first few pages I felt like I was right back in 1918 Montana. Enjoyable book, well written.
Hooray for Hattie Big Sky.......2007-03-26
I love historical fiction, and this is one of the best books I have read in a while. I couldn't put it down and felt connected with the characters. It is about a simple 16-year-old girl who has moved around from relative to relative ever since her parents died. Then one day she gets a letter with her Uncle's will that he left her his claim in Montana. Hattie goes along with the journey and meets very exciting people along the way , dealing with troubles of proving up her claim and being friends with a German in WWI. This is a great book and anyone who loves historical fiction will love this book.
What? No shock value?!.......2007-03-23
It's refreshing to read an elementary/middle school appropriate book (award winning or otherwise) that does NOT rely on shock value tactics such as inappropriate language or behavior. Just proves that the opening lines or paragraphs of a novel do not have to be filled with swear words or questionable words or acts worthy of a much older audience. Thank you.
Hattie Big Sky.......2007-03-09
HATTIE BIG SKY is a wonderfully written story with likeable characters. Larson portrays both the pioneer life and America during World War I very well. However, the book failed to wow me.
Sixteen-year-old orphan Hattie Brooks is tired of being Hattie Here-and-There, so she was so happy to learn that her deceased uncle whom she never knew has left her his Montana homestead. Off she goes from Iowa to Montana, basically to the middle of nowhere, to begin her own life in her own home. With the help of her neighbors, most especially the Muellers, Hattie works to prove up on her claim so that the land is hers forever. Meanwhile, Hattie deals with the anti-German sentiment in the community as well as sacrifices what cannot be sacrificed to help in the war effort. By the end of the book, Hattie has grown up considerably and has learned the truth about home and family.
This book was sweet, but I've read bits and pieces of it in other books. In many ways, HATTIE BIG SKY reminded me of MONKEY TOWN by Ronald Kidd, which I enjoyed more. The questions that faced Frances, the heroine of MONKEY TOWN, were deeper. However, I'd still recommend HATTIE BIG SKY as an enjoyable story about one young woman's search for a place to call her own.
PS. I absolutely love the cover.
Amazon.com
On August 5, 1949, lightning came crashing down in the vast spruce forest above Seeley Lake, Montana, and touched off a roaring blaze. As every Westerner knows, lightning means fire, but the fire that raged through Mann Gulch that day was huge--the sort that occurs only every few decades. A battery of paratrooper-firefighters, many of them fresh veterans of World War II, had been anticipating it, and even looking forward to the chance to fight a great fire. Before the day ended thirteen of those smokejumpers lay dead, their charred remains evidence that something had gone terribly wrong. Norman Maclean gives a thorough account of the incident in language not meant for the squeamish: "Burning to death on a mountainside is dying at least three times ... first, considerably ahead of the fire, you reach the verge of death in your boots and your legs; next, as you fail, you sink back in the region of strange gases and red and blue darts where there is no oxygen and here you die in your lungs; then you sink in prayer into the main fire that consumes." After August 1949, he notes, the Forest Service came to recognize that not all fires need to be fought and that fire benefits most forest ecosystems.
Book Description
On August 5, 1949, a crew of fifteen of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts back together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy.
Young Men and Fire won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992.
"A magnificent drama of writing, a tragedy that pays tribute to the dead and offers rescue to the living.... Maclean's search for the truth, which becomes an exploration of his own mortality, is more compelling even than his journey into the heart of the fire. His description of the conflagration terrifies, but it is his battle with words, his effort to turn the story of the 13 men into tragedy that makes this book a classic."—from New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, Best Books of 1992
"A treasure: part detective story, part western, part tragedy, part elegy and wholly eloquent ghost story in which the dead and the living join ranks cheerfully, if sometimes eerily, in a search for truth and the rest it brings."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune
"An astonishing book. In compelling language, both homely and elegant, Young Men and Fire miraculously combines a fascinating primer on fires and firefighting, a powerful, breathtakingly real reconstruction of a tragedy, and a meditation on writing, grief and human character.... Maclean's last book will stir your heart and haunt your memory."—Timothy Foote, USA Today
"Beautiful.... A dark American idyll of which the language can be proud."—Robert M. Adams, The New York Review of Books
"Young Men and Fire is redolent of Melville. Just as the reader of Moby Dick comes to comprehend the monstrous entirety of the great white whale, so the reader of Young Men and Fire goes into the heart of the great red fire and comes out thoroughly informed. Don't hesitate to take the plunge."—Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post Book World
"Young Men and Fire is a somber and poetic retelling of a tragic event. It is the pinnacle of smokejumping literature and a classic work of 20th-century nonfiction."—John Holkeboer, The Wall Street Journal
"Maclean is always with the brave young dead. . . . They could not have found a storyteller with a better claim to represent their honor. . . . A great book."—James R. Kincaid, New York Times Book Review
Customer Reviews:
The Tragic Story of the Mann Gulch Fire.......2007-07-28
This true story by the author of A River Runs Through It tells the events surrounding the Mann Gulch Fire in 1949. A good portion focuses on the smokejumpers (paratrooping firefighters)13 out of 16 of which perished in the fire.
In those days, the smokejumping program was very new having been introduced within the past 8 to 10 years. The men had to be between the ages of 18 and 30, single, and in superb physical condition. The main tools they carried were a shovel and something called a Pulaski which is a combination ax and hoe built into one. They utilized these tools to dig fire lines, and fell trees ahead of the fire so as to reduce the amount of fuel and prevent it jumping from one tree to the next.
When dropped from the plane onto the ground by the fire, a foreman would be in charge of the crew as they fought the fire. In the instance of the Mann Gulch fire in Montana, the fire started out as a fairly decent sized fire. It then progressed into what is known as a "blowup." This occurred as a result of a combination of factors such as fuel type, moisture, incline of terrain, and wind.
It quickly got out of control and the crew had to run for their lives. Occasionally, in a blowup a vortex of fire will be formed which will sweep across a vast area burning everything in its path. It looks and functions like a tornado. I recently talked with a man who used to be a farmer and he indicated that when they burned fields to prepare them for future seasons a fire vortex would sometimes occur. He said it was an awesome and amazing sight to behold.
During the blowup it was not possible for the majority of the men to outrun the fire and they perished mainly from suffocation due to lack of oxygen. The foreman saw this happening and created a secondary fire to try to create a burned out place which would provide shelter from the main fire. Unfortunately, amidst the confusion of the fire, the men did not understand the foreman and thought he had gone crazy to be lighting a second fire. He did survive but all but 2 others did not.
A secondary portion of the book analyzes the various components of the fire, what caused it, and some of the science behind fire. Maclean spent around 12 years researching the book, gathering documents, interviewing the 2 remaining survivors and returning to the site of the fire. He was well equipped to tell the story having spent time as a forest fire fighter in his younger years before going on to be a literature professor and writer. The book was masterfully written but slightly meticulous at times. It is the type of story that would make a very dramatic movie if a studio were interested in producing it.
Uneven but thoughtful and inspiring.......2007-02-08
Pieced together after the author's death, you can see what this book would have been had he lived to complete it. In places, you have to push yourself through it. Still, it is worth your time. Tracing a tragedy trying to resurrect peace for souls long gone, you are put in touch with feelings and emotions that affect us all.
If you love the outdoors, adventure, and real men doing real things, this book is for you.
Math?.......2006-12-27
Has anyone out there checked Maclean's math on pages 229-230 of the paperback edition (second section of Chapter 12)? I'm no math expert, but shouldn't the hypotenuse of a right triangle with sides of 1,320 and 140 yards be a little over 1,327 yards, and not the 1,400 yards he indicates? Moreover, didn't all of the 140 yard vertical gain occur in the final half mile of travel, since the crew was moving on contour for the first quarter mile of "the race"? This would yield a total actual distance of only 1,331 yards. I was surprised by these errors given how meticulous Maclean was in the rest of his research.
This is a great book, though.
Reads like a detective novel.......2006-11-16
First, its important to note that the author did not complete this novel. Unfortunately, Maclean died prior to its completion, so others had to pull it all together for publishing. This perhaps lends to what I see as an "unpolished" quality, with some choppiness. That said, I felt it still merited four stars for what the author did. Maclean's research is extensive, and his conclusions are derived from numerous authoritative sources. It read like a mystery / detective novel for me, and I had trouble putting it down.
A tragic and wonderful story.......2006-11-09
This is a fine story of brave men in a tragic struggle. A struggle that they loose. The entire book covers the 16 minutes it took for these smoke jumpers to land, confront a "10'oclock" fire and die. Norman Maclean researches the human and scientific causes of this disaster. It was especially of intrest to me because when I went through the fire fighter academy here in Northern California, this was an incident that we studied. Norman Maclean writes in a sparcer prose than in "A River Runs Through It, and other stories" but it is no less facinating and we learn details about the authors life, that makes this story a personal one. He did not finish the book before his death and the last section was written with minimal editing from the original manuscript. This section is the most beautiful and moving of the entire book. I cannot recommend this book highly enouph.
Book Description
People magazine declared that "[Nora Roberts] is at the top of her game," and there's no greater evidence of that than these three novels. From the horse farms of Virginia to the rugged beauty of Montana to an island off the coast of Georgia, these novels showcase Nora Roberts's talents for intense drama, vivid characters, and fast-paced suspense.
Customer Reviews:
Love all of Nora's romance books.......2007-02-25
You can never go wrong with a Nora Roberts romance novel and this is just one more great one in the list.
beware small type.......2007-01-15
i haven't finished reading even the first of these three books, but I am struggling to read the small, serifed type. I don't usually have any problems reading normal type, but something about the font and size of the type, combined with the large book is making this read a bit of a struggle for me.
So far, really like the characters and very typical Nora Roberts writing.
Very Good Reads.......2007-01-14
If you are an avid reader as I aa and a Nora Roberts fan too, you can't beat these three great books combined in one volume.
I am certain that you will enjoy these three earlier works by Nora Roberts.
Great vendor.......2006-11-14
This book was in great condition. The delivery was fast. Thank you for your prompt attention.
True Betrayals/Montana Sky/Sanctuary.......2006-08-31
Truly a great grouping of three story lines. Each one kept me on the edge of my seat and reluctant to put down until I completed it. Descriptions of location and events put you right there. I can't wait to read more of this author.
Book Description
The events of that small-town summer forever alter David Hayden's view of his family: his self-effacing father, a sheriff who never wears his badge; his clear sighted mother; his uncle, a charming war hero and respected doctor; and the Hayden's lively, statuesque Sioux housekeeper, Marie Little Soldier, whose revelations are at the heart of the story. It is a tale of love and courage, of power abused, and of the terrible choice between family loyalty and justice.
Customer Reviews:
Loss of innocence . . ........2007-09-07
This short novel joins the ranks of a number of other fine books about adult dilemmas told from the point of view of a young protagonist. In this case, it is a 12-year-old boy whose father, the sheriff in a small Montana town, must make a moral choice that will either see justice done or allow the guilty party, a member of their family, to go free and unpunished. As I read this book, I was reminded of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird." Both set in a bygone era in a small town, where the law is different for whites and non-whites, each story follows a similar course of action with rising tension and conflicts that leave a man standing alone, guided only by his own sense of the right thing to do.
Watson writes with a gentle hand, as in his other stories ("Justice" and "White Crosses"), and you come to care very much for his characters. He captures a time and place and the social life of people leading ordinary lives on a windswept prairie. It's also about a kind of loss of innocence, as the young narrator learns dark secrets about good and evil in an adult world he is about to enter himself.
An American Family Tragedy.......2007-06-16
This slim novel has just been republished, and for good reason. Beautifully, simply written, it's a uniquely American story of the West, exploring the sadder side of the fierce independence of the people who tamed the frontier. And it's a personal story of the clash between family ties and duty, told from a 12-year-old's point of view.
Young David's father Wesley is the town sheriff, his uncle Frank an athlete, war hero and doctor. David's childhood abruptly comes to an end as his father learns that his charming older brother has abused his trusted position as a physician and committed crimes against the Indians in the neighboring reservation. Wesley was once told that the secret of being an effective sheriff is to know when to speak and when to look away, but Wesley decides he can't look away this time. It seems he is the last to know of abuses the town has been aware of for a long time. David watches as his father tries to untangle the web of prejudices, family pressure and personal emotions his father finds himself caught up in. Has Frank learned his lesson as the scandal comes out into the open? Will an all-white jury convict based on the word of Indians? David comes to see the inequities he's never noticed, and puzzles over why so few Indians ever leave the reservation, have jobs, go to college.
Montana 1948 recreates a place that seems a throwback to an earlier time, but once you scratch the surface you realize that things like this do happen--now. David realizes for the first time that the Haydens occupy a place of privilege and power in their world, and power can corrupt. Although in no way political, the novel reminds us that the situation of Native Americans in our country remained desperate even after the civil rights movement. And the fierce independence of the "frontier" survives.
This is a lovely book, recreating a unique time and place but telling a timeless story. It's well worth your time.
Stunning story full of shocks and surprises...........2007-06-10
In the hands of the very skillful story teller, Larry Watson, this novel shines the light on the justice and morality of a small western town at a time when many people chose to look the other way at certain social injustices.
David Hayden narrates this stunning story as an adult recalling the events as he remembers them when he was twelve years old. His narrative is crisp with all of the openess and clarity characteristic of an observant young man, but seasoned with age,
He tells us at the beginning of the novel......"From the summer of my twelfth year I carry a series of images more vivid and lasting that any others of my boyhood and indelible beyond all attempts the years make to erase or fade them..."
And from there, we enter the town of Bentrock, Montana, where we are slowly and lucidly made aware of the horrific abuse of power taking place and are unable to look away from the unconsciable and abhorrent events that are unfolding.
It was both distressing and compelling to read such a heart-wrenching book that took place in the notorious lawlessness of the fabled 'Wild West'
Perhaps the legendary Old West might have, in reality, been a far more civilized and secure place than the America of today.
Justice in 'them good ole days' was often served up rather quickly and often with a sense of moral integrity.
Larry Watson very discerningly crafts a disturbing, yet touching story, a story that is at once both highly believable and shockingly unbelievable!
America loves it's heroes, it's prodigal sons, the godliness of it's doctors......those men of power that seem to be above reproach. Unfortunately, there are always 'bad apples' in the best of the bunch and we find one here.
In 1948, the Indian woman was not given a fair place in her society and was thus a easy victim for an abuser. Even today, more native Indian are raped than any of the other American ethnic groups. I found the following information on-line to be ghastly and abominable.......
"Colonizers have long tried to crush the spirit of the Indian peoples and blunt their will to resist colonization. One of the most devastating weapons of conquest has been sexual violence. In the eyes of colonizers, Indian bodies are inherently "dirty." White Californians of the 1860s called Native people "the dirtiest lot of human beings on earth." Violence done to "dirty" or "impure" bodies simply does not count"
As Montana 1948 unfolds and the truth becomes evident, justice seeks to prevail.
However, a few unexpected twists and turns at the end add a surprising punch to this very well written family and societal drama.
As Cormac McCarthy's Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men opines at the end of his book when a reporter questions him about how crime has gotten so out of hand.
Sheriff Bell responds......"It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners. Any time you quit hearin 'Sir and Mam' the end is pretty much in sight. I told her........you finally get into the sort of breakdown in mercantile ethics that leaves people settin around out in the desert dead in their vehicles and by then it's just too late."
Seems to me that Sheriff Hayden, like Sheriff Bell understood the changes that were taking place all too well with his final fervent remark as he slammed his hand down on the dinner table so hard that the plates and silverware jumped:
"Don't blame Montana." he thundered. " Don't ever blame Montana!"
Quality concise storytelling.......2007-02-22
I have just finished reading this novel for the second (maybe the third) time. I would happily read it again in the future.
This is a simple, evocative tale of a life-changing summer in the life of 12-year-old David. The narrator is David some forty-odd years on, looking back at that one summer, occasionally asking questions of it, but mainly just recounting. To describe much more of the story would be to spoil the story.
Larry Watson manages to keep the prose spare but amply descriptive. The story rides along at about the right pace, never too quick, never too slow. I disagree with someone's comments below that the reader loses all interest in both the story and the characters. It doesn't take long to read, so it's worth a risk.
fantastic read........2007-02-10
i loved this book. the story is a staightforward morality tale told in a prose that perfectly brings alive a distant time and place. for those who love being transported into the past by a book, into the lives of real people with complex psychologies that bring depth of character, I highly recommend this great american reading experience.
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:
Poetry in motion.......2007-08-05
This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's been a while since I read it, but saw it the other day on my book shelf and just wished I could read it again fresh and brand new for the first time. It has joy, it has heartache. It has love, hate and the cruelty of the world all wrapped wonderfully around the beauty of nature and the awe of God's creation. Passages in this book can move you to tears in both a sad and joyous way. The ending pages are almost like a religious experience. It's hard to find someone in this day and age that can put words together like Norman Maclean did. The book is very poetic. I happen to love fishing, but it doesn't matter if you've ever fished in your life. This book is one you won't ever forget.
grief.......2007-07-25
I love fly fishing. I love Montana. I love rivers. So how could I not like this book? I remember some years ago discussing the novella with a friend, and he said he thought it was too simplistic. I suppose what he was really saying was that it was too sentimental, that it was trying too hard to be poetic, or that it simplified itself into silence to pull at your heartstrings. I see his criticism, but to this day I still don't agree.
I'm a sentimental person who is also a cynic -- so I may shed a tear or two, but I hate it when I do -- especially when I feel at all manipulated. But the final page of this novel always makes me grieve in a way that makes me feel expansively human, and not at all self-conscious.
I wonder how many people who don't share my interests are moved in the same way as I am by this story?
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.
Book Description
Pick a spot between Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park and ready yourself for more fishing than you can possibly imagine. This comprehensive guide to the best fly fishing and camping in Montana is user friendly. Maps are provided for each section, along with a map for each of the two parks. Select a highway or secondary road, open up the book to your starting point, and follow the mileage marker signs to river access points, as well as those wonderful streams and small lakes that are seldom visited.
Fishing in Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park is thoroughly covered. Between the two parks the book divides into six sections: Northwest, Western, Rocky Mountain Front, Upper Missouri River, Southwestern and the Yellowstone River drainage. Montana's famous rivers are covered: Beaverhead River, Big Hole River, Big Horn River, Bitterroot River, Blackfoot River, Clark Fork River, Flathead River, Gallatin River, Kootenai River, Thompson River, Swan River, Yellowstone River, and the Yaak River. In addition, over 50 creeks and little known rivers are covered along with a multitude of backcountry lakes that may be reached in a day hike.
Archer's book is "organized the same way people get to fishing holes -- by the highway that leads them there....The chapters are based on highways, and mileage marker information leads readers right to the holes...." - Nick Gevock, Missoulian
Customer Reviews:
Designed For Flyfishers Who Camp.......2007-05-16
I'm not a camper so this was not the best flyfishing guide for me. It is oddly organized by the roads or highways you drive in various regions of Montana. There is a terrific opening section giving descriptions of the ten top attractor dry flys. Maps are fair at best -- river access points and bridge crossings are not identified. Some funny "war stories" by the author. All photos are black and white.
Makes planning your trip easy. Adventure stories add to fun........2005-05-04
An extensive coverage of all the best fly fishing holes in Montana. As a fly fishing guide for over 15 years and having clients such as Charles Schwab and Huey Lewis he knows what you're looking for and tells you where to find it. It's a perfect traveling companion for those Fly Fishermen or Camping folks hitting the roads between Glacier National Park and Yellowstone. Dave provides you with detailed directions on where the best spots are along with funny stories of his travels...he'll actually tell you what mile marker to look for and which part of the fork in the road to take! Take a look at glaciertoyellowstone.com for pieces of the book.
Book Description
In this prizewinning portrait of a time and place -- Montana in the 1930s -- that at once inspires and fulfills a longing for an explicable past, Ivan Doig has created one of the most captivating families in American fiction, the McCaskills.
The witty and haunting narration, a masterpiece of vernacular in the tradition of Twain, follows the events of the Two Medicine country's summer: the tide of sheep moving into the high country, the capering Fourth of July rodeo and community dance, and an end-of-August forest fire high in the Rockies that brings the book, as well as the McCaskill family's struggle within itself, to a stunning climax. It is a season of escapade as well as drama, during which fourteen-year-old Jick comes of age. Through his eyes we see those nearest and dearest to him at a turning point -- "where all four of our lives made their bend" -- and discover along with him his own connection to the land, to history, and to the deep-fathomed mysteries of one's kin and one's self.
Customer Reviews:
Very entertaining read..........2006-12-22
I hated to get sleepy at night, because I didn't want to put this book down. I thought this was a good story, and the author does a good job of describing the beautiful countryside to the reader.
An all-time favorite.......2005-04-01
I uncovered Doig's "Dancing at the Rascal Fair" at a small bookstore in Oregon many years ago. Since then, his books have earned a "do not loan" status on my bookshelf. I'll tell friends how much I love his books, but they have to buy their own copies. English Creek is one of my favorites. It immersed me in Montana, in a young boy's summer, in the fold of time between childhood and adulthood. While some of Doig's books have a darker, gritty, edge, English Creek made me laugh outloud. I've just ordered three more copies to give as gifts to friends who I know will love the premise, the prose and the portrait of life on the edge of growing up.
So-so novel of a Montana family.......2005-03-07
Set in northern Montana in 1939, this novel tells the story of the McCaskill family. Young Jick is 15 and interested in learning his family's history--not easy since his parents are pretty tight-lipped. His older brother wants to get married rather than go to college, which causes a rift in the family. The father works for the Forest Service and in tackling a big fire at book's end provides Jick with important family history. Good in spots, especially the last 50 pages or so, but one gets the feeling in much of the book that Doig is trying hard to write an epic, only it comes across as only boring details.
A Great Coming Of Age Book.......2004-05-22
Ivan Doig is one of the great American writers. This book is, chronologically, in the middle of what started out as a trilogy (Dancing At The Rascal Fair and Ride With Me Mariah Montana being the bracketing books) that expanded with Mountain Time. This book is also the most accessible to people who are not familiar with Doig but who might enjoy books about boys coming of age. Doig is a brilliant writer, better than Stegner. I recommend all of the books in the series.
Good Bildungsroman.......2002-08-07
This is a very good coming of age novel - historical novel. Set in rural Montana on the eve of World War II, English Creek describes the summer experiences of an intelligent 15 year old. Written by a Montana native who has done a good deal of historical research, English Creek is not only a Bildungsroman but also a detailed portrait of life in rural Montana. Told with humor and considerable insight, English Creek is a sweet but not saccharine book about a more innocent but not necessarily easier time.
Customer Reviews:
A Nice Easy Read!!!.......2005-11-17
Thorn McCafferty is back home but not because he wants to be but instead because his half sister Randi is fighting for her life after being in a one car accident. The brothers (Slade, Matt and Thorn) had no idea that their baby half sister was in Montana to begin with and that she was pregnant to boot. There are more questions then answers and with both Randi and her baby fighting for their lives Thorn doesn't need any more problems. Well, what Thorn needs, and what Thorn gets...are two different things.
Dr. Nicole Stevenson is the admitting doctor when Randi comes into the E.R. She realizes right away who Randi is and what's about to walk through her doors, her past in the form of very handsome, very rich Thorn McCafferty. Nikki was once naïve enough to give her heart to this man. She won't do it again. No matter how nicely he apologizes for the past, and not matter how sweetly he kisses now. He's bad new and Nikki has had enough heartache to last her a lifetime. But, sometimes life doesn't go according to plan and feelings don't just go away. No matter how many years pass. Will Thorn and Nikki give their love another chance or will they let it slip through their fingers once again?
This was a very sweet story about a second chance at love. Ms. Jackson has created a very dominating arrogant hero but he's turned around by the love of a good woman. This was a fun quick read but the romance doesn't suffer for it.
Official Reviewer for Romance Designs
a terrific read.......2001-01-06
Jackson starts this miniseries with a tremendously powerful hook. The plot flows beautifully, piquing the reader's interest and delivering a first rate tale of love. Randi's accident ties all three books together in an originally unique method that both resolves the love story, yet leaves the larger purpose unanswered in THE MCCAFFERTYS: THORNE. I eagerly look forward to the next installment of the series! Highly recommended.
Average customer rating:
- If you have seen the episode...
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Hold on Tight (Hannah Montana)
Laurie Mcelroy
Manufacturer: Disney Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1423104609 |
Customer Reviews:
If you have seen the episode..........2007-04-22
... don't read the book. CAUTION, SPOILIERS!!! Overall, it was a good book. Part one tells the story of how Miley is paired up with Oliver in drama class to do a love scene. (kissing is included) Oliver and Miley practice at her house after school. Oliver is HORRIBLE at acting. He tells Miley he has stage fright, and a story along with it. Then he goes home. Meanwhile, Miley tells her dad about how awful Oliver is at acting, and how she wants to bail on him. Just then, Oliver comes through the door. Miley doesn't notice and keeps on talking about how horrible he is. Her dad tells her to turn around and she sees a shocked Oliver who leaves in anger. That night, Hannah Montana (Miley is Hannah Montana, but only Oliver, Lilly, and her family know) has to perform the country song,and forgets the words. She messes up the song. The next day, her dad signs her up to sing on a live show as Hannah, and she is afraid she'll mess up again. She does, but Oliver is right there, and backs her up. The two become friends again. This book is great, but it is a waste of time to read if you have seen the episode. I have, so that is why I only gave it four stars. The second part is the episode, "On The Road Agian," which I have also seen.
Books:
- His Princess: Love Letters from Your King (His Princess)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- I Cherish You: Words of Wisdom from His Needs, Her Needs
- Infidel
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