Columbia Reviews

'Classic Hikes' is one of only a few highly detailed and informative books on the subject of hiking the West Coast of Canada.

It is surprisingly detailed in the amount and variety of information it presents to hikers\ of of all abilities, from extremely precise hiking maps extending to information about area climate, blister first aid, hiking boots, keeping clean and basic hiking survival.

The photographs were taken by the writer and give a realistic and colorful view of the area being hiked. The sidebars are one of the highlights of the book, giving some valuable and fascinating information on things that you may see and do along your hike not normally mentionedd in a book on hiking. The topics may vary from Ice Worms to rock climbing to surfing and cycling.

The crowning highlight of the book is its feature on rarely known information concerning the world famous West Coast Trail hike, such as mandatory registration and limited allowable group size. The variety and scope of the hike is fully explored from the mafnificant coastline to the caves, lush rainforests, waterfalls and rich wildlife.

The information presented in the book is sensible, humurous and easily understood by the beginng hiker while not boring the more advanced hiker interested in specific information such as hike ratings and emergency shelter huts.

It is rare to see a hiking book that combines all of the above mentioned information written in a unique and humuorous style for the hiker interested in hiking the West Coast of Canada.

This is a great book for the novice botanist. As a person who just recently started trying to identify wildflowers in the Monterey area, I found this book a great guide. I already have a couple of other books, including the ones from the Audubon Society and from the California Native Plant Society, but this one is so simple and covers most of the flowers you commonly see. It's easy to flip through, the pictures are clear and in color, and it certainly doesn't overwhelm you with technical jargon. I was only sorry it doesn't include some of the smaller/tinier flowers I see around. Maybe in the next edition. A great gift!

Any book written by Nigel Tranter is a treasure. It is too bad that he passed away at 90 years old in January of 2000, because he has been writing about Scotish History since the 1930's. From the beginning of time with Druid Sacrifice, covering every Scotish monarch and history until the 1950's; his characters are rich and real, and his descriptions of this beautiful country with it's exciting history comes alive! He has written about 140 books. Many are out of print and hard to find, but many are being reprinted. Once you start, you are hooked. His tales of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace are hard to put down. It is another Lord of the Rings but based on factual information. Beware buyers. Sellers know how hard it is to purchase these books and will try to swindle you. Someone is actually selling this book, Columba, for..., taking advantage of reader's enthusiasm for this writer.

This anthology presents a superb cross section of Chinese literature, from the time of Lu Xun to the present. The editors have included works from the mainland, as well as Taiwan, and the scope of authors and genres is tremendous for a single volume. A good starting point for anyone interested in Chinese literature, as well as those already familiar with it.

This book is not only about human rights abuses. It also documents the absence of justice in Colombia. The state must take responsibility for much of the violence in Colombia. The armed forces must be sanitized of criminal elements. Until this is accomplished the nation will continue to live with revolution. The bloody assault of all political parties in Colombia, particularly the Patriotic Union is a disgrace and a blemish on leaders in Bogota.

THE COLUMBIA BOOK OF CHINESE POETRY : From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century. Translated and Edited by BURTON WATSON. 385 pp. (Translations from the Oriental Classics). New York : Columbia University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-231-05682-6 (hbk.)

Burton Watson has always struck me as an eminently civilized scholar and as a fine translator. Unlike certain others, he wears his scholarship lightly, and doesn't overburden the text with extraneous matter. His many translations from Chinese and Japanese Literature are of uniformly high quality, and are well worth having as they are books one often wants to returns to.

The present anthology has always been one of my favorite books. In contrast to the more recent mammoth anthologies of Victor Mair (1335 pages) and John Minford (1176 pages), Watson's, at a mere 385 pages, is a far more modest and manageable proposition.

Unlike the Mair and Minford, it can be held easily in the hand while reading, and it is printed in a large clear font on spacious pages in which the lines have room to breathe. Modest in size it is also modest in presentation. Selections are preceded by only the briefest of introductions, and footnotes have been kept to an absolute minimum.

In his brief but extremely well-written and informative Introduction, Watson tells us that : "The present anthology is intended to give a representative selection of Chinese poetry in the 'shih' form from the first two thousand years of China's long literary history ... as well as outstanding works in the 'fu' and 'tz'u' forms and a few other works such as the 'Li Sao' or 'Encountering Sorrow' that are unique in form" (p.13).

His book includes selections from 'The Book of Odes,' 'The Ch'u Tzu,' Early Songs, Poems in Rhyme-Prose Form, Poems of the Han and Wei, T'ao Yuan-ming, Wang Wei, Li Po, Tu Fu, Han Yu, Po Chu-i, Han Shan, Su T'ung-po, Lu Yu, and much else besides.

Here, as an example of his superb style, is his translation of Liu Tsung-yuan's 'River Snow' (with my obliques added to indicate line breaks) :

"From a thousand hills, bird flights have vanished; / on ten thousand paths, human traces wiped out : / lone boat, an old man in straw cape and hat, / fishing alone in the cold river snow" (p.282).

The truth of Burton Watson's statement that the "Chinese poetic world is one that is remarkably easy to enter.... Even works that are many centuries removed from us in time come across with a freshness and immediacy that is often quite miraculous" (p.3) is very much in evidence here.

Anyone who would like to get a good idea of what Chinese poetry is all about, and to actually enjoy the experience of finding out, should certainly consider the present anthology. Anthologies such as those of Mair and Minford are all very well in their way and can serve as useful references, but they are hardly books that one can sit down and read with pleasure from beginning to end.

Watson's, however, is just such a book, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who would like to begin exploring some of the richest and most interesting poetry in the world.

If you want to find out what a tremendous event was all about--famine, pestilence, war--read the poems written about it. Ever since Homer, or the book of Judges, war poems have been written to tell us what happened, to whom, why. Richard Marius's fine selection, with his introduction to it, opens today's reader to the Civil War's horror, pathos, loss, and the emotions which are easy to forget, or worse still, to romanticize. It's a broad selection, from "John Brown's Body" and "Dixie" to today's meditations, in Derek Walcott's "Arkansas Testament," on the legacy of hostility toward blacks, North and South: the Civil War, to Walcott, is still to be won. Meanwhile a selection of photographs brings those terrible four years even closer. Even at a remove of 140 years, this collection of poems allows us to be moved by them and the passions which still haunt all of us.

This year by year chronology of news, music, books, and people is fun to read. Pick your high school years to find out what happened to form the you of today. Need to know the top tune of 1951 to jazz up a scene in your novel? This book has that, and many more facts to keep one's dialogue in the right era.

The original 1986 publication is now available in a popular-priced, handy paperback edition. Many movie fans are familiar with the Columbia comedy shorts of The Three Stooges, but many of Hollywood's most popular comedians (Buster Keaton, Charley Chase, Andy Clyde, Harry Langdon, etc.) also appeared in Columbia's two-reel comedies. The studio's quarter-century of short-subject production is accurately and completely chronicled by the authors. Their scholarship is exemplary, especially in the filmographies. The writing is intelligent and absorbing, and there are dozens of rare photographs. The book can be enjoyed and consulted any number of times.

How have Americans transformed their environment, and how have political systems handled conflicts over resources and conservation issues over the decades? Columbia Guide To American Environmental History is the only major reference to explore these themes, and deserves a place on the shelf of any college-level library with a strong collection in environmental issues and political intervention.