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Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend Review

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(More customer reviews)Casey Tefertiller has written a very well researched, totally fair, and engrossing book about the most famous person of the old west.
He approaches Earp's life with an open mind and captures the essence of the man without nominating him for sainthood or branding him as the next satan.
He provides the detail from Earp's early years which help shape his adult personality and actions in Dodge City and Tombstone. He does not attempt to hide the seedy side of Earp's life during those years or the fact that Earp was not above using people or events to advance his cause or personal gain.
The most important part of the book is the detailed discussion that explains the reasons for the gunfight with the Clantons and his revenge against the cowboys,for the murder of his brother, that showed Earp to be more ruthless than any outlaw of his time.
It has always amazed me that movie makers during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, dreamed up total fiction about Earp instead of using the truth. I have to credit the makers of "Wyatt Earp" and "Tombstone" for correcting this error. Both movies capture the soul of Earp in different ways.
If you are going to read one book about Wyatt Earp, this is the one to read because it is the best. If you want to read another, try "Inventing Wyatt Earp". It was written about the same time as this book and is very good.

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Alaska Bound: A Life of Travel and Adventure in the Far North Review

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(More customer reviews)A wonderful writing style that will charm you and keep your attention right to the last punctuation mark."Dave Fremming, Alaskan Southeaster

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Aging Artfully:Profiles of 12 Visual and Performing Women Artists 85-105 Review

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(More customer reviews)"Aging Artfully" honors women artists, musicians and dancers living with zest well past their octogenarion years. Each tells her life story, and each story is enhanced with poems and and photos. Meet the painter, rug braider, pianist, dancers, sculptor, Ikebana artist, actor, singers, storytellers. Introduce this book into your family. It is for youngsters and elders alike. A special treat included in the back of the book is Frances Kandl's CD, "7 Songs of Women," a celebration of original compositions written to honor some of the artists.
"Aging Artfully" is a lovely book and a gift from Author Amy Gorman to us all.

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Profiles of 12 women aged 85-105: visual and performing artists actively engaged in the arts. Illustrated with 100+ photos of the lives of the San Francisco Bay Area women. The book challenges stereotypical perceptions and expectations, and documents that old age can be gratifying and filled with creative expression. Included with the book is composer Frances Kandl's "Songs of 7 Women's Lives," based on the interviews by the author.

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The Man Behind the Miracle: The Story of Alfred Boeddeker, O.F.M. Review

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(More customer reviews)In "The Man Behind The Miracle" we read about an ordinary person who did extraordinary things. Father Alfred Boeddeker, O.F.M. did what most good people only dream of doing. He fed the hungry and took care of the sick by founding the St. Anthony Dining Room and the St. Anthony Clinic. His whole life was dedicated to serving his fellow man and he enriched thousands of lives. All that he did was done with simplicity, respect and, above all, with humor. I recommend this book to those cynics who have lost faith with humanity, to those stout hearted souls who believe in the goodness of man and to young people who need to know that miracles can happen.

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Tunes from a Tuscan Guitar: The Life and Times of an Italian Immigrant Review

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(More customer reviews)I had the good fortune to meet the author when he MC'd the 60th reunion of his high school class last year (no, I am not in that class, I was there to represent the Alumni Association) and roared along with his classmates at the tale of how he ended up at cross-town Washington High rather than his neighborhood Galileo.
Well, after reading this wonderful account of his grandfather's life, I know the man is a born storyteller! Despite his in-person charm, I wasn't expecting much out of this book, and I was so wrong -- I couldn't put this easy read down, and my mind instinctively pictured film scenes. Somebody buy the movie rights for this hidden gem!
I'll now have a new appreciation for those Eucalyptus trees in Burlingame.

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West from Home: Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, San Francisco, 1915 Review

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(More customer reviews)Thank God this is still in print. Sure, lots of fans of the "Little House"
series will find this a charming alternative. But Laura Ingalls Wilder was
already an accomplished writer by this time, and her recorded impressions
during a family visit to her daughter and son-in-law during the 1915 Pan
Pacific International Exposition was a godsend for anyone who wants to know
of San Francisco history.

The city was devastated by the 1906 earthquake and fire; the PPIE
was a chance for the city's residents to show how quickly they could
recover and rebuild, and they put their souls into it. The city fairly
sparkled for the Exposition's visitors that summer. Wilder's letters home
to her husband were an accurate and very personable observance of the city
as it was. She described the big events as well as the telling little
details that made San Francisco unique among American cities. The photos
accompanying her letters add to the authenticity.

This is book not just a "niche gem" for Wilder fans, but also for
those who love San Francisco, and those who live history. Her record of a
vacation to the coast may've seemed to her like trivial family
correspondence, but for this native son of Baghdad by the Bay, her letters
were a vivid portrait of a time that will not be seen again. This is one of
the top ten historical recollections of a major, turn of the century
American city.

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"It is like a fairyland." So Laura Ingalls Wilder described her 1915 voyage to San Francisco to visit her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. Laura's husband, Almanzo, was unable to leave their Missouri farm and it is her faithful letters home, vividly describing every detail of her journey, that have been gathered here. Includes 24 pages of exciting photographs and completely redesigned jacket art.

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San Francisco Is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires Review

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(More customer reviews)It might be highly unusual for a supposed "competitor" to review the work of a contemporary, but seeing that only one person on Amazon has bothered to review Dennis Smith's compelling new book, "San Francisco Burning," I thought it incumbent to offer praise where it is richly deserved. For that past three decades -- ever since the first defintive text, Thomas/Witt's "The San Francisco Earthquake" and Gladys Hansen's unparalleled "Denial of Disaster" first appeared -- every writer on the subject of the great earthquake and fire has claimed to have the "untold" story and discovered some "breakthrough" evidence. It hasn't happened. But what Dennis Smith has achieved here is remarkable for its insight and observation. More than any other book, perhaps, Smith has identified the true heroes and villains of the 1906 earthquake. There were actually two disasters: nature's earthquake and humankind's raging inferno. Smith, a former N.Y. firefighter who wrote the marvelous "Report from Ground Zero", takes a street-level, in-the-trenches view of what occured. He adroitly argues that the true hero was Lt. Frederick Freeman of the U.S. Navy, who led a hundred sailors on Navy Tugboats in a desperate, three day struggle to save the waterfront and the trains station, the two locations which evacuated 300,000 people in just 72 hours. Smith puts the final dagger into the two former sacred cows of the disaster: the monstrously corrupt and incompetent Mayor Eugene Schmitz, and the almost pathologically intractable Brig. General Frederic Funston. While the Navy devoted itself to aiding the fire fight, Mayor Schmitz thought it more important to protect property -- property about to burn -- and issued a "Shoot To Kill" order to thousands of soldiers, National Guardsmen, and "Special Police" who were merely vigilantes. Schmitz and Funston's idea of protecting order and property was to shoot scores of citizens "suspected" of commiting any kind of crime, including several people carrying their own goods or attempting to aid the wounded, and using dynamite to try to blast fire breaks on wood frame buildings. The blasting -- 90% of which, according to Smith, was done with highly flammable granulated dynamite, black powder and gun cotton -- started hundreds of fires and destroyed sections of the city that would have likely escaped the conflagration. Smith's book is not perfect: the main criticism is that when he gets a full head of steam and is building marvelous dramatic momentum, he stops to give us history and biography lessons. This is especially glaring when, during a powerful dissertation on the events of Wed., April 18, he jumps ahead to tell us what happens to city officials much later, deflating his own momentum. Re-engaging that level of drama is not easy. Some wise editing could have made this book shine even more brightly. But Smith's powerful and fearless analysis, that the Navy achieved brilliantly and the Army -- in the issues that mattered most -- failed miserably, lends testimony to the inviolable concept that one man, one leader, can make a difference. And in his greatest analysis, Smith perceives what others of us have long shared: that it was the brilliant, visionary fire chief, Dennis Sullivan, the man who had fought the thieves at City Hall to spend money on fire prevention, the man who had a plan that might have saved many lives and much property, the man whose loss was the most catastrophic event after the earthquake itself. Sullivan would never have let fools spread the fire with the improper use of dynamite. Dennis Sullivan, a hydraulic engineer, would have concentrated on tapping every avaialbe source of water, and directing citizens, soldiers, sailors and marines into combatting the fire, with law & order left in the hands of police. Anyone who has ever vigorously studied Dennis Sullivan realizes that he, more than anyone, was prepared for that moment. Bravo, Dennis Smith: your book is the best written in the last 15 years on this subject, and your conclusions and scholarship are superb. You have joined a very small, select group who truly understands what happened in that awful week in April of 1906. James Dalessandro, author, 1906: A Novel.

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The Ghost Detectives' Guide to Haunted San Francisco Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is so much more than just a Guide. It is a must have for anyone who loves the Paranormal, and a great Ghost Story. Annette Martin and Loyd Auerbach are a fantastic team of Ghost Detectives. They work so well together, its amazing, you feel like you are right there with them, as they journey through San Francisco in the most haunted locations. Once you start reading this book, its hard to put down, it draws you in, and you want to know more. Its the kind of book you will enjoy over and over again. I highly recommended this book, you will not be disappointed. It is one the the best collections of ghostly encounters to come along in years.

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