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Netsurfer Books is an e-zine offering short reviews of books and related items. We include listings based on recommendations from our staff and reviews from other individuals. Are we bribed to include any of these items? No. Do we receive a commission if you purchase an item through one of the links included here? Yes. Are we waiting to hear from you about what you'd like to see reviewed? Definitely.

Editor's Choice

This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland

This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland Gretel Ehrlich Pantheon; ISBN: 0679442006 Here is a book to savor, one of those you want to make last as long as possible because of the pleasure it brings. Gretel Ehrlich is a writer who can convey her visceral love of the great open spaces on our earth to her reader, even if one had not imagined being interested in them. Her book on Wyoming and on recovering from the loss of a loved one, The Solace of Open Spaces, is also such a book. In This Cold Heaven she draws the reader into her fascination with the polar north, and her need to experience the life of the Inuit in the north of Greenland, still following their traditional ways and determined to preserve them as long as possible. Ehrlich experiences the long nights of daylight (and the long days without sun), goes on hunting trips by dog sled, hears stories told for generations, and shares hunger and hardships. She finds a simple, dangerous, and exhilarating life and also one complicated by decisions about how to proceed when the vast majority of the human population lives very differently, their ways inevitably seeping into the lives of the Greenland Inuit. Ehrlich weaves into her narrative passages from the diaries of early 20th-century explorers such as Knud Rasmussen, the Inuit-Danish ethnographer raised in Denmark but driven to experience his Inuit heritage, and the artist Rockwell Kent, who visited and painted in Greenland on three trips, one of them for more than a year (see Distant Shores: The Odyssey of Rockwell Kent Ehrlich is a lyrical writer. Those fortunate enough to see the marvelous new Inuit film Atanarjuat will find her book particularly rewarding. [CW]

Biography, Society, History

The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling

The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling David Gilmour Farrar Straus & Giroux; ISBN: 0374187029 In the glorious days of the British Empire, when the sun never set on all that England owned, a teenaged writer named Kipling wrote for a newspaper in Lahore, India. He annoyed the authorities with his verse, was bored with the insular Indian Civil Service social life, and most loved to hang out with the common soldiers in the local regiment. He often prowled the streets at night, patronized opium dens and brothels, observing everything. Kipling's stories so captured colonial life that he was soon considered the prophet of British Imperialism. David Gilmour's biography of Rudyard Kipling becomes not just a story of the man, but a history of the waning of the empire Kipling loved above all else. It is the central tragedy of the man that he was a witness to the dismemberment of England's possessions. In his later writings he fought fiercely to preserve that which he thought the most noble of endeavors. The author of the poem "White Man's Burden" truly believed that it was the Anglo-Saxon's duty to go forth into the world to improve the "lesser races." Indeed his poetry was so profound and influential that those in power feared and flattered Kipling; there is no poet and scarcely an essayist with a fraction of his power working today. While he does not emerge as a sympathetic character, this very readable book brings the man and his time alive. [MA]

Letters to a Young Novelist

Letters to a Young Novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, Natasha Wimmer (Translator) Farrar Straus & Giroux; ISBN: 0374119163 Writers dream of sitting at the feet of a master for an evening and having them pour forth their wisdom, experience, concepts, and thoughts on writing. Mario Vargas Llosa, a famous Peruvian novelist, sits down with a young protege and with us and through a series of letters shares his thought and advice on writing. He speaks of literary writing and not your usual formula, genre, or group-written books. Vargas Llosa has some unusual points of view about writing. Writers write from a deep-seated need to rebel. Their passion for this rebellion, and for writing and changing the world through their persuasive words, compels them to a lifetime of writing. He eloquently provides advice on various aspects of fiction writing such as style, structure, and timing. These letters do not create a book on how to write. Rather, the writer shares his vision, philosophy, and the underlying need of writers to create new worlds, new thoughts, and new ways of life through placing words on paper. There are many places for a writer to stop and reflect over what this master wishes to share with a young novelist and with us. If you write, it's a book that will confirm many of your thoughts and ideas. If you only read books, it will still provide you with a new way to understand writers, why they must write, and why you enjoy reading them. Take the book for a spin. It may drive you to pick up a pen. [TK]

Stupid White Men... and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!

Stupid White Men... and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! Michael Moore Regan Books; ISBN: 0375421874 Ever wanted to be the aggrieved guy waving his arms wildly and ranting at some poor unfortunates he's managed to trap in the corner of the kitchen at a party? This book shows you how! Michael Moore's Stupid White Men is a compendium of anti-Bush-dynasty screeds, catalogues of gross corporate malfeasance, racial polemics, political diatribes, and various assorted personal self-loathings. In other words, classic Michael Moore. Written after the GW Bush election controversies, but before 9/11 and Enron/Harken/WorldCom/etc., this book feels a bit prescient. It didn't take long, but chunks of the future he predicts are already here. He provides ample factoids for you to launch at the disbelieving, and includes a number of suggestion-filled sidebars of handy steps one can take to impede the imminent apocalypse. If this isn't your sort of thing, then don't bother. But if you enjoy Moore's over-the-top, off-the-razor-wired-wall humor, you'll find this book hard to put down. [MA]

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman, Freeman J. Dyson (Forward), Jeffrey Robbins (Editor) Perseus Book Group; ISBN: 0738203491 Learning for the sheer pleasure of knowing. It's one of the things that separates us from the other beasts. Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman had a voracious appetite for tidbits of information that he incorporated into his legacy of work. It's fortunate; for he was a man we would all like to have known. Those privileged enough to make his acquaintance grew from the experience. He created meaning where it was seemingly absent. This book gives voice to a true 20th-century renaissance man. Its baker's dozen of musings, essays and lectures covers a broad spectrum of topics. We find his thoughts on the Los Alamos atom bomb efforts and his vision of the future of computing machines. His minority report on the Challenger debacle is especially telling. An amazing man who did some astounding things, Feynman's quick wit and sparkling sense of humor will enamor you from the turning of the first page to the satisfying sigh as you close the back cover. If you go fishing in the stream of Feynman's consciousness, you never know what you'll catch. This one's a keeper. [GB]

Global Community: The Role of International Organizations In the Making of the Contemporary World

Global Community: The Role of International Organizations In the Making of the Contemporary World Akira Iriye University of California Press; ISBN: 0520231279 Everyone talks about globalization, but in some ways it's less well studied and understood than you think. One of the most important changes over the last hundred years in the conduct of international relations has been the tremendous growth in the numbers and kinds of non-profit, non-governmental international organizations. Beginning with technical cooperation groups such as the Universal Postal Union and the International Telegraph Union in the late nineteenth century, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) were soon engaged in a wide variety of operations. Akira Iriye looks at those NGOs dealing with humanitarian relief, cultural exchange, peace and disarmament, developmental assistance, human rights and environmentalism. It seems odd that so little research has been done on this important area of human relations. Perhaps it is because, as the author suggests, history and public attention are drawn to conflict and these organizations are devoted to avoiding international conflict. Any one who is interested in globalization and international relations, conflicted or not, would do well to read this book. [MA]

Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond

Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond Gene Kranz Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 0743200799 Space is big, really big. There are countless multitudes of objects great and small whirling about us. Stellar nurseries crop up in an "instant" from dust and gas. We hear about recent discoveries of planetary systems around our stellar neighbors. This is terrific stuff, but a more compelling story is a bit closer to home. Over 30 years ago we took a few tentative steps into the void because exploration is a human responsibility that goes with that lump of gray matter between our ears. This is the story of America's heroic exploration of our nearest neighbor, the moon. Kranz shows us that the ten men who walked on the moon weren't the only heroes of their day. They may have enjoyed the ticker tape parades, but these moon men would not have achieved the pinnacle of their lives without support, structure and guidance from the folks on the ground. These earthbound people were the keystone in our bridge to the moon. They were with the astronauts every step of the way, but their view port was through telemetry from consoles in Mission Control. This is Gene's story, a no-holds-barred, edge-of-the-seat account of an incredibly dedicated team of engineers, scientists and technicians who took everything the unknowns of space flight threw at them. Through this very readable book, Kranz helps us realize that sometimes we must gaze outward to better see the greatness within ourselves. [GB]

Space Shuttle: The First 20 Years

Space Shuttle: The First 20 Years Tony Reichhardt (Editor) DK Publishing; ISBN: 0789484250 The American space program has contributed many defining moments to recent human history. The Apollo moon program is but one example chronicled in books recently reviewed in NSB. There's no question, the race to the moon was front-page news. It was suspenseful and exciting. We had capsules, modules and rovers; all sexy new tools soon familiar to an eager public. Today we have a fleet of (very expensive) trucks that shuttle people to and from a station in space. To John Q. it seems almost routine. Space flight in any form is anything but routine. This wonderful coffee-table book takes a personal look at the space shuttle program and tells the tale in the astronauts' own words. Lavish mission photos accent these intimate vignettes. You'll find that in their hearts, the astronauts are very much like all of us. It's clear from their humble words that they recognize how extremely lucky they are to achieve such an awesome reward for their hard work. An excellent technical section provides details of system parameters as well as mission profiles to date. We can't all go up, but through these few, and the words they share, our dreams of doing so will become a bit clearer. [GB]

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Edward R. Tufte Graphics Press; ISBN: 0961392142 A picture is worth a thousand words. How about a chart or graph instead? Using visual methods to represent tables of data is a relatively recent development. Concepts in mathematics and data collection have existed for millennia, but graphs in various forms have only been around since the late eighteenth century. Tufte has produced a "celebration of data graphics" (his words) that explores the power of replacing tables of data with working pictures. He presents historic examples of the development of data graphing and describes their varying degrees of success. Comprising both theory and practice, this update of a classic technical treatise is for the serious data processor. If you spend much time doing data interpretive tasks, this book is a must. With the right graphical representation, solutions to some problems might seem to reach out and smack you in the face. Within these pages you'll find the techniques of data visualization. Carefully warping the results to appear as desired is up to you. [GB]

Health and Happiness

Richard Hittleman's Yoga: 28 Day Exercise Plan

Richard Hittleman's Yoga: 28 Day Exercise Plan Richard Hittleman Workman Publishing Company; ISBN: 0911104216 Yoga has been around in some form or other for centuries. It's not going away any time soon, as it has seen a recent resurgence in popularity. There are many good reasons. Besides Booboo's big bear buddy, have you ever seen a fat Yogi? It's terrific exercise and you don't need a health club membership, just some guidance. Hittleman's book provides this guidance and it has been around a few years too. Originally published in 1969, the book's lavish photos and excellent step-by-step directions will allow you to overlook some of the author's "quaint" attitudes. The focus here is on Hatha (physical) yoga and is directed at female practitioners, but it is equally applicable to males. (Hey Workman, how about an update?) Written as a 28-day plan around 30 or so postures, the slow motion and hold methods result in an increase in flexibility and muscle tone without the major huffing and puffing. It's amazing how many muscles can be worked just sitting in the right pose for a few seconds. This is a half-hour-a-day plan for a better physical condition and healthier lifestyle. [GB]

Nothing Left Over

Nothing Left Over Toinette Lippe J. P. Tarcher; ISBN: 158542160X Feeling stressed, anxious, overburdened by commitments, workload, material possessions? Here is a refreshingly candid, homely (in the best sense), comforting book about the rewards of living simply. And the surprise is that the author is a resident of New York City and longtime editor at one of the great American publishing houses. These are not the intuitive specs for achieving a simple life, but Toinette Lippe has figured out how to do so and she shares the wisdom she has gleaned over four decades. Her book ranges from the philosophical to the most practical of means to allow one to live more intentionally and less as the victim of the rapid pace and rampant acquisitiveness of our times. Even if one has difficulty adopting more than a part of Lippe's prescription, her solutions, and the ways she found them, will stay with you and provide alternatives to some ingrained assumptions. [CW]

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health Marion Nestle University of California Press; ISBN: 0520224655 Eating nutritiously is easy and can be thoroughly described in this review: eat less in general; eat proportionally more fruits, vegetables and grains in specific. The fact that you are confused and muddled about what is good, bad or harmful to eat is deliberate. An enormous 900 billion dollar industry is working very hard to keep you in a perpetually punch-drunk state regarding your nutritional health. In her book Food Politics, Marion Nestle describes in clinical detail the general goals and motives of the food industry and provides many specific examples of how they go about keeping consumers mystified as to what is good for them. She gives a particularly thorough discussion of industry interference with the "Nutrition Pyramid" finally released by the US Department of Agriculture in the early nineties. She describes how nutritionists, universities, government agencies and doctors are co-opted. She shows you how to decode the dietary doublespeak released by agencies too cowed to stand up to powerful lobbying interests ("choose" = "eat less"). She examines the rise of "techno-foods" (thus named for want of a more pejorative term), and how unproven bogus health claims are allowed to be marketed unhindered. This is an important book in opposition to a multi-billion-dollar money-making machine. Read it, change your diet, live healthier. [ MA]

Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet

Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé J. P. Tarcher; ISBN: 1585421499 Frances Moore Lappe's influential Diet for a Small Planet showed people how to achieve good nutrition by pairing grains and legumes and reducing meat consumption, and it sold 3 million copies. Here she and her daughter Anna bring us news of how people are working to regain control of their food supply in countries around the world. They demonstrate the falsity of the agribusiness/chemical multinationals' claim that only GMOs (genetically modified organisms) can supply the world's food needs. The beauty of diets built around unprocessed grains, beans, rice, and fresh fruits and vegetables is that they're both cheaper and more nutritious than processed food and there is plenty to go around, if almost 50% of the grain produced in the world weren't fed to livestock. Frances and Anna visit some of the successful efforts for economic independence, such as the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil (and the city of Belo Horizonte where food security is a right of citizenship), the French Confederation Paysanne-independent farmers led by José Bové, the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, where women are reforesting and teaching people to grow their own vegetables and greens. And they don't neglect the U.S., with reports from San Francisco, where ex-convicts who learn to grow food stay out of jail; Berkeley, where schoolchildren, benefiting from Alice Waters' vision, are learning how to grow and prepare food themselves. And Wisconsin, where farmers have come together to replace their failing chemical-dependent methods with increasingly profitable sustainable organic methods. For those who like to cook, the book is sprinkled with savory recipes from some great chefs and vegetarian restaurants. A sensory delight even for a carnivore! And equally gratifying is the attention to information: a good short list of recommended reading and addresses and websites for the many organizations working to end to hunger and recover local control of food production. [CW]

Protect Your Pet: More Shocking Facts

Protect Your Pet: More Shocking Facts Ann N. Martin Newsage Press; ISBN 0939165422 Wondering why your cat can't keep her dinner down? Or why your dog scratches all the time? Could your pet get Mad-Cow Disease? The pet food industry stays zipped up on all this, but Ann Martin's dogged persistence has let the worms out of their cans and bags, and the results ARE shocking. Who is Ann Martin? "I am not a veterinarian, I am not an expert. But I am a concerned consumer who wants answers to my questions." Her answers took twelve years to compile, verify and present in these two books: her thorough documentation indicts commercial pet foods, with their health hazards and rendering plants and lack of regulations, and clarifies the controversies over the raw food diet and that ultimate health risk: cruelty. For those who want the information to better protect their pets, this book and Martin's 1997 book " Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts about Pet Food are "must read." [JA]

Music Makers

Arnold Schoenberg's Journey

Arnold Schoenberg's Journey Allen Shawn Farrar, Straus and Giroux; ISBN: 0374105901 Here is an unexpectedly engaging book about a composer whose demanding work, but especially his reputation as the composer of difficult music, has limited his audience. Composer and teacher Allen Shawn has set out to humanize the man and stimulate music lovers to search out the music and listen to it afresh, not just the 12-tone work but also the earlier and later music. Arnold Schoenberg was born in Vienna in 1874, the city of Mahler, Freud, Wittgenstein, Rilke, the painter Oscar Kokoschka, the architect Adolf Loos. His own interests encompassed art as well as composition, and the book is illustrated with his paintings, drawings, and cartoons in addition to musical examples. He worked in Vienna and in Berlin until 1933 when he fled Europe and eventually, like Igor Stravinsky, settled in Los Angeles, where he taught at UCLA. Besides elucidating the music, Shawn describes Schoenberg's delight in games, his facility for constructing household inventions, his bookbinding, and his work on the design of a musical typewriter, which anticipated by five decades musical computer software. My own favorite story is of his creation of a working backyard traffic light for his children's tricycle and bike traffic. This is not the humorless and austere Schoenberg of common repute. [CW]

Tonight at Noon: A Love Story

Tonight at Noon: A Love Story Sue Graham Mingus Pantheon; ISBN: 0375421157 Charles Mingus was another composer deeply committed to his work and, in part because of his impatience with those less serious about the music than he, not as widely heard as the work deserves. This book focuses on his two decades with the strong-willed woman who took years to accept that their relationship was based on mutual love and was not going to dissolve, who saw him through his fight against ALS to his death at 56. Mercurial, abrasively independent, sometimes whimsical, sometimes bitter, but first of all a composer and musician, Charles Mingus was not an easy man to live with. Sue Graham Mingus conveys these qualities, his dedication to his work, and his determination to do it as long as possible-he sang and dictated compositions when he was wheelchair-bound and no longer able to write. And she describes their roller coaster life-from funky lower Manhattan, to a mansion upstate, to the White House when Jimmy Carter honored Mingus and other jazz musicians, to a hacienda in Cuernavaca during his last year where they hoped for a cure from an Indian healer. Since Mingus's death Sue Mingus has organized a series of bands to play his music and introduce it to new audiences. When she read from Tonight at Noon at Cody's in Berkeley, she brought along some musicians who made great sounds one doesn't expect to hear in a bookstore. They're on the album of the same name. [CW]

Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams

Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams Linda Dahl Pantheon Books; ASIN: 0375408991 The most influential woman in jazz-pianist, composer, and arranger Mary Lou Williams-was not widely-known to American audiences but was greatly admired by her colleagues Charlie Parker, Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Benny Goodman. Linda Dahl conveys the huge talent and the spunk and determination that earned Williams their respect. This is a woman who began to play by ear when she was a little girl in Atlanta and by high school, in the '20s in Pittsburgh, was a union member, arranging, doing gigs, and traveling with local bands. From childhood, she knew she'd make her career in music, taught herself by watching and listening, found ways to hang out in jazz clubs as early as 11 or 12. Innately talented, self-confident, good-looking, Williams' gender and race no doubt limited the range of her career but she lived for her music, achieved international recognition, and left a legacy of recordings, documented here in Linda Dahl's selective discography. A gratifying biography of an indomitable woman whose up-and-down life makes a vivid and engrossing story. [CW]

Fiction

Achilles' Choice

Achilles' Choice Larry Niven, Steven Barnes (Contributor), Boris Vallejo (Illustrator) Tor Books; ISBN: 0812510836 You would have to live under a rock to be unaware of continuing scandals involving questionable performance-enhancement techniques used by athletes. They have grown very sophisticated. For example, blood doping involves extracting the athlete's own blood, sorting for red blood cells and later re-injecting them into his/her body. (It's an equal opportunity activity.) If doping is done just before competition, the athlete gets the benefit of more oxygen carriers pumped to straining muscles. Performance can be improved and it's quite difficult to detect, if done with subtlety. This is one of few "natural" techniques not involving chemicals. Chemistry Avenue has too much traffic to consider here. Taken to its logical extreme, "artificial" performance enhancement could lead to some pretty interesting ideas. This book explores these possibilities in an (almost) frightening (almost) parody of what could be. As much social commentary as science fiction, Niven and Barnes' novel paints a picture of a future world where aspiring athletes are chewed up and spit out. Snuffed. Neal Young sums up the attitude best: "It's better to burn out than to just fade away." [GB]

November Grass

November Grass Judy Van der Veer Heyday Books; ISBN: 1890771392 Every good story first sets the stage in the theater of the mind. A few words, a paragraph, maybe a page or two are usually dedicated to this arrangement. In November Grass, Van der Veer weaves every scene into a most intricate tapestry. You'll feel the weeds swish against your calves as the farm girl tends to hers. This story will wistfully lead you through events great and small in a traverse of the girl's deepest thoughts; a journey through the life of a philosophical herder who enjoys the introspection afforded her by seemingly mundane responsibilities. At times the story appears to be meandering, but realize that Van der Veer's description of the ebb and flow of simple existence is really the grand journey. This is a refreshing glimpse into a life where the natural cycles of earth, farm and field replace the abrupt reality imposed by timepieces. A republication of the 1940s novel, November Grass still reads as sweet as the field's harvest. [GB]

A Simple Habana Melody: From When the World Was Good

A Simple Habana Melody: From When the World Was Good Oscar Hijuelos HarperCollins; ISBN: 0060175699 There is something about "Habana," Cuba, that speaks to the passion in the blood. The name calls forth visions of exotically beautiful women who actually like men, huge indulgent cigars, deep dark rum drinks, and music whose rhythm sets the feet tapping, the body swaying, and the blood thundering through the veins. This novel is about some of all of that. It's also about the life of Israel Levis, a Cuban composer, his life in Havana in the 1920s and Paris in the 1930s. This is the story of a man's life, his loves, his fears, his passions, and his music. The book tells of his passionate love for one woman, Rita Vallardares and the hit song he wrote for her, "Rosas Puras." It also speaks of concentration camps, pain, dictators, fanatics, and both sides of the coin of life, passions and fears. Oscar Hijuelos won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, " The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" He can obviously write. [TK]

The Carreta

The Carreta B. Traven Ivan R. Dee, Inc.; ISBN:1566630452 Having heard of the mysterious B. Traven for years, I was glad to find that Chicago publisher Ivan Dee has reissued his novels in attractive new paperback editions. Traven is best known for his novel " The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", but it was just one of the twelve novels and two story collections he wrote. The Carreta is the second of the Jungle Novels, a series of six novels set in the Mexican state of Chiapas that examine the ways in which the life of the Indians was disrupted, demeaned, and reduced to virtual enslavement by the conquistadors and their descendants. To read these novels is to gain a poignant understanding of the basis for the Zapatista uprising of 1994. In The Carreta Traven tells the story of Andres Ugalde, a young Indian taken from his family as a boy to work for the plantation owner's daughter. Her husband, a merchant, has Andres taught to read to better serve him, and Andres thus achieves some perspective on a life controlled by the landowners and merchants who make their fortunes on his native land. As he comes to adulthood, Andres Ugalde's growing intention to escape their control, to marry and make an independent life, is cut short by the news that his father has been sent to the monterea, the mahogany plantation, for failure to pay a debt. His ethic allows him no choice but to take his father's place. Debt slavery, indebtedness to the company store, is the landowners' means of ensuring their labor supply. Traven is a sharp observer, alert to the machinations inherent in the politics and economics of capitalism, and he writes vivid narratives. His sense of outrage at the generations of subjugation of the native population of Mexico is palpable, but it is disciplined by the implacable irony of his writing style. [CW]

Reading About the History of the World

Reading About the History of the World

World History to 1648

World History to 1648 Jay Pascal Anglin, William J. Hamblin HarperCollins; ISBN: 0064671232 The HarperCollins College Outline series is just that, straightforward historical overviews written to the introductory college level. General geographic areas are covered sequentially as to major historical events, peoples, movement of peoples, politics and culture. The maps and illustrations are clear and informative, and help place cultures and events in historical context. The writing is expository; this is not written for the popular audience, but rather the student needing context. This volume covers world history to 1648.

World History from 1500

World History from 1500 J. Michael Allen, James B. Allen HarperCollins; ISBN: 0064671380 The companion volume to World History to 1648. As with all this series the level of detail is very broad. Essential events are covered, but at a summary level. After all, this is the history of the entire world . . .

United States History to 1877

United States History to 1877 John A. Krout (Contributor), Arnold S. Rice, Arnold M. Rice, Charles M. Harris (Contributor) Harper Perennial; ISBN: 0064671119 This volume and the United States History from 1865 provide a very solid overview of US History. Also includes important documents such as the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

United States History from 1865

United States History from 1865 Arnold M. Rice, John A. Krout (Contributor), Charles M. Harris Harper Perennial; ISBN: 0064671003 This second volume of US History takes us to the present day, circa 1991. Well, if you want to stay current read your local newspaper, the Wall Street Journal and The Economist.

World History for Dummies

World History for Dummies Peter Haugen John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0764552422 Never til now having regarded myself as a dummy I have avoided the "Dummies" series, possibly to my detriment. World History for Dummies is engagingly and intelligently written. More to the point, it mapped quite closely to the themes around which the teacher testing was based.

U.S. History for Dummies

U.S. History for Dummies Steve Wiegand John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 076455249X If I passed the test this book is the reason why. Not just easy to read and informative, but the "chunking" of the material conformed almost exactly to the test subjects. Regardless of the stated test guidelines probably 60 percent of the questions could have been answered out of U.S. History for Dummies.

American History 1

American History 1 Barcharts Inc; ISBN: 1572225149 This isn't a book, it's only four pages long. It's a cheat sheet, but very helpful. When studying such a volume of material it can get hard to see the good old forest for the goll-darn trees. This 4-pager succinctly shows you the shape of the forest.

English Grammar and Punctuation

English Grammar and Punctuation Javier Salado Barcharts Inc; ISBN: 1572225319 OK, this isn't really history. But, as a teacher of teachers told me: "on essay questions the easiest way to lose points is by misplacing commas." I know for a fact that this sheet saved me from making several costly mistakes.