Product Description
Explore the "Gateway to the Smokies" with Tourist Town Guides. Gatlinburg is a favorite vacation destination in one of America's most beautiful regions. In this completely revised and updated guide, learn about the best hotels, shops, and restaurants, The Great Smoky Mountains, Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and More! This guide will give you the tips and information you need to explore this popular and picturesque region with confidence. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Very informative!
It's really a challenge to pick a book about an area when you're going someplace you've never been.The choices are overwhelming!I picked this book and am very happy with it.It's very informative and hopefully will lead us to some excellent vacation activities when we spend Thanksgiving in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

excellent and focused
Gatlinburg: A Tourist Town Guide by Summer L. Stanley is one of the guides from this new company, which strives to help travelers stay close to home while enjoying a less costly vacation in this economic downturn era. These guides, which now include Niagara Falls, Williamsburg, VA, Myrtle Beach, Atlantic City, Wisconsin Dells, Mackinac, and Key West will be updated every three years to keep you informed of the newest additions and fun in each town. I grew up near this town and we spent many weekends there, so I was very interested to read this guide, which gives the history and annual events, outdoor activities, dining, shopping, attractions, lodging, and much more...including all about this perfect venue for weddings and honeymoons. I particularly like the fact that the book also details Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and The Smokies and wonderful day trips to the surrounding areas of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Smoky Mountain National Park. This is the perfect guide to plan your trip to Gatlinburg.

Just what your looking for!
If your looking for a guide with plenty of current information, from an author thats been to the area many times and not just compiled a list second hand information scoured from Google, then this is the book for you.

Come visit, enjoy the smokies, and bring a book with you that's loaded with great information. ... Read more

Product Description
Soon after Anna Pigeon joins the famed wolf study team of Isle Royale National Park, giant wolf prints are found, and she spies the form of a great wolf from a surveillance plane. When a female member of the team is savaged, Anna is convinced they are being stalked, and what was once a beautiful, idyllic refuge becomes a place of unnatural occurrences and danger beyond the ordinary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (79)

good book
When does Navada Barr write a bad book? I have not run across one yet. Winter Study was good I had to get a sweater a couple times as Navada Barr decribed to cold too well.

WINTER STUDY heralds a welcome return of a favorite suspense character
Anna Pigeon fans, rejoice! The National Park Ranger/sleuth returns to bookstores after a three-year hiatus by her creator, Nevada Barr. Barr moved to New Orleans just before Hurricane Katrina and took time off from fictional danger and suspense to be a real-life observer of Mother Nature and to clean up and repair her damaged home. She's back with what may be the best Anna Pigeon adventure in her long string of successes.

The setting for WINTER STUDY is not New Orleans, however. The adventurous Anna returns to Isle Royale on the north shoreline of Lake Superior in the dead of winter, with mixed emotions. Very early in her career she spent a summer at the remote island National Park and very nearly lost her life beneath the chilly waters in a diving incident.

The reintroduction of gray wolves to the park's animal population at her current posting in Rocky Mountain National Park prompts her superiors to send her on a six-week fact-finding tour to observe a 50-year study of predator/prey interaction between wolves and moose. She's prepared for the bone-chilling sub-zero cold and hip-deep snows, but she's not ready for the spine-chilling challenge awaiting her in the cramped cabin she shares with the research scientists.

Homeland Security, concerned about guarding the Canadian border, is pushing to open the park year round. Normally closed during the frigid winters in order to control possible illegal aliens from entering the United States across an unguarded frontier, this action would bring to a halt a valuable 50-year study. Washington has sent a Homeland Security official to observe the study and is among her cabin mates.

Anna encounters savagery in nature that seems to put a lie to facts that wolves do not attack humans when one of the researchers is found dead, apparently the victim of an attack by one of the three wolf packs on the island. Doubting the evidence of the attack, Anna begins to suspect that humans may be involved as she finds herself being stalked by an unknown, savage predator.

In her long and adventurous career as a National Park Ranger, Anna has encountered natural and human threats --- from raging forest fires, serial killers and child molesters to dangerous wildlife and nature's own vengeance --- but never has she lived in such close proximity to madness as in WINTER STUDY.

Nevada Barr never fails to serve up a suspense-filled outdoor adventure, filled with psychologically fascinating villains and heroes, action and true-to-life natural settings in America's national parks. The authenticity of her settings and crime fighting is based on her personal experience. She has worked as a ranger at several National Parks, including Isle Royale, and always visits each featured park.

Among her biggest fans are countless numbers of forest rangers and National Park workers who can testify to the authenticity not only of the settings but nod knowingly at some of the behind-the-scenes rivalries and insider humor of the realities of the low pay, rugged living conditions and camaraderie between park service employees. The parks themselves become characters in her page-turning thrillers.

WINTER STUDY heralds a welcome return of a favorite suspense character. We look forward to another adventure with our favorite park ranger. Will Hurricane Katrina be a featured character in another thrilling episode in the life of Anna Pigeon?

A booklover's review
Love the Anna Pigeon books...very well written and feel like she's a friend....want all of them.

winter study
one of miss barr s top three books.a not to be missed adventure.

Very boring
Wow!I've read six or seven of NB's books, and this is by far the most boring.Don't waist your time on it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A tribute to a facinating hobby.
A beautiful book with hundreds of color pictures representing pigeons from around the world. The variety in terms of colors, patterns and shapes is absolutely amazing! No other book that I know of comes even close in terms of completness. For each race there is a section on origin, description, size, colors and other comments. For a newcomer to this hobby it's a perfect way to choose a race of pigeon to raise either for flying or for expositions.

It may also be that some of the races presented have completely died out and therefore this book has value as an historical reference for what once was but has been lost.

A GREAT read with 800-plus color photos
If you love pigeons you are going to love this book. It not only has terrific photos, but it has a wealth of information about each breed and much about the different varieties within the breeds.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Wendell Levi's other two classics, THE PIGEON, and MAKING PIGEONS PAY.

No pigeon fancier will be without ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PIGEON BREEDS. Nor will any commercial pigeon raiser will be without THE PIGEON.

Needless to say, those of you who may wish to learn about squab raising will certainly find no equal to MAKING PIGEONS PAY.

Encyclopedia of Pigeon Breeds
i want to review this boo

Excellent reference book on pigeons
Illustrated with over 800 photographs and nearly 800 pages long, this hard cover book is one of the finest ever printed on pigeons.Also has chapters on care, color breeding, and history with humans.A must for every pigeonowner's library. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (2)

Touching Children's Story Based on An Actual Event
For Americans living in 1918, the last year of World War I, the legend of the "Lost Battalion" was a household topic.Commanded by Major Charles Whittlesey, a New York lawyer turned Army officer, the "Lost Battalion" was comprised of numerous elements of the US 77th Infantry Division.For six days during the October 1918 Meuse-Argonne offensive, the "Lost Battaltion" was cut off and surrounded by German forces in the Argonne Forest, stubbornly refusing surrender.At one point, a carrier pigeon nicknamed "Cher Ami" carried a message back to American lines which saved Whittlesey's men, who's exact position was unknown, from friendly artillery fire.Today "Cher Ami, " who died in 1919, is preserved and displayed at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History.

"Fly, Cher Ami, Fly" uses this real historical event for the basis of this touching and wonderfully illustrated children's story in which "Cher Ami" carries an important message through skies fraught with danger, ultimately saving the day.Young readers will doubtless be inspired to investigate further this chapter of American history.In this regard, "Fly, Cher Ami, Fly" is not only a fine story, but a great sower of seeds.

Tastefully Written and Beautifully Illustrated
The topic of war is a difficult one to explain to young children. It was refreshing to see how tastefully Fly, Cher Ami, Fly! dealt with this sensitive subject. This book is geared towards 4-8 year olds.I am familiar with the true events surrounding Cher Ami's final flight, and I was frankly happy and relieved that the artist showed enough good judgement and restaint, so that my five year old didn't have to see a painting of a bird with its bloody eye hanging out, leg shot off and hole through his chest the size of a quarter. Children these days are bombarded with way too many violent images, and it was a relief that the horrors of war weren't grahically depicted in this children's book. Finally, here is book that deals with the human side of war. The soldiers are young and scared. The images are symbolic. The military uniforms are historically accurate. It seems to me that both author and artist honored the story of Cher Ami on a level that is appropriate for their target audience of 4-8 year olds.


... Read more

Product Description
Ondu-ahlem thinks of his favorite bird, Chinkay, as more than just a pigeon, and when the young Ethiopian boy sets the bird free, he learns that the pigeon represents everything that is proud, beautiful, and free." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Simple picaresque of a life foreign to most of us
This story, of a young boy awaiting the time when he can race his pigeons, glows with detail of everyday life in a world that would be foreign, both in sights and possessions, to most of the young readers to whom the book is aimed.

Rather than evoking a sense of "Oh, what a hard life," instead Ms. Kurtz tells the story of a day in this boy's life, allowing his spirit and excitement about the thing he really loves to shine through.

An enjoyable read in its own merit, Onlya Pigeon is a wonderful resource for any number of curricular topics, whether it is multiculturalism, social studies or even values education.The paintings show a busy city through which this young boy must navigate, and details of life in Addis Ababa can be gleaned from Cooper's sensitive paintings, without the need to read through description or fact. ... Read more

Product Description
It was a cold and blustery November night at Blue Rider Stables. The wind howled outside the barn. The horses were huddled safely inside. The girls who apprenticed at the barn had closed the heavy door against the storm. What a surprise when, the next morning, a pigeon was found limping around inside. No one expected that the barn would become his new home, but it did.

Join Theo as he slowly becomes a part of the rich and varied family that inhabits the Blue Rider Stables. Luminously illustrated in vibrant watercolors, Theo, the Blue Rider Pigeon offers a delightful glimpse into an amazing world.

Written in simple, poetic language, this is a picture book certain to become a family favorite. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Sweet Story
This is a delightful story, and I have just learned that it is a true one. Theo is a real pigeon that came to the Blue Rider Stables. The stables are real and offer a program of therapeutic riding by the quite gifted director. In fact, the only thing that is different is the name of the cat. It turns out that shortly after this book was published, Marmaduke had to be renamed as Mamaduke -- for obvious reasons! Read this book to see what happens with Theo and then visit the stables. You just might get to see Theo perching or flying. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Review from www.firrkids.com
I think this is a lovely book, although maybe just a tiny bit unusual. From the author's website "A delightful story about a beautiful friendship, Pigeon and Pigeonette is also about trial and error, believing in yourself, falling out of huge trees again and again, and never giving up. In other words, it's about the two coolest pigeons in the entire universe." Their summation is so beautifully worded and just the perfect introduction for such a wonderfully unique book.

When winter arrives, all the other birds have flown south for warmer weather except for the diminutive Pigeonette. Her tiny wings are too weak to support her, which makes flight impossible. As a result, Pigeonette is left feeling very lonely, scuffling along forlornly through the forest.

One morning Pigeonette is rudely awoken by a clatter in the trees above. She is faced with an enormous bird who is also having trouble flying, making great thwacking noises as he crashes through the branches. Pigeon's wings are large, but his eyes are dark, which makes navigation impossible. The two outcasts become friends and both dream of taking flight, soaring like eagles and reaching the clouds.

It occurs to the duo that they could form a flight team. Pigeon will handle the wing flapping while Pigeonette provides the verbal directions. Naturally, there are a few mishaps, but eventually their mission is successful. Relying on Pigeon's strong wings and Pigeonette's bright eyes, they can actually fly! When winter rears its ugly head, these birds are able to realize their dream of flying off together into the sky.

The illustrations are hand carved and hand printed. Isn't that amazing in this day and age? Even the font was carefully chosen to "reflect the clumsiness and learning process of our pigeon friends." Holding this book in your hands is like having a durable piece of art that you can share with your children. The illustrator herself personally watched over the printing of this book at a small family owned Belgian printer. Knowing all the thought and care that went into this book makes me love it that much more.

Charmingly written
Charmingly written by Dirk Derom, "Pigeon and Pigeonette" is the touching tale of the friendship between two pigeons. One is small and flightless and the other is large and blind, and both have been left behind for the winter. What shall they do? They pool resources and work out amazing strategies together to experience flying, that's what they do! Based on the New Zealand Pigeon, a large, clumsy pigeon, "Pigeon and Pigeonette" is a story to tug heartstrings and turn heads. Amazing, colorful mixed media illustrations by Sarah Verroken bring the characters to life and cap the book's certain appeal to children age 4 and up.

A warm tale about friendship
A warm tale about friendship. Perfect to cozy up with and read to your little one as the days grow colder. Each illustration fills the pages making this story funny and endearing. I loved the pigeons' facial expressions. ... Read more

Product Description
From Gisela Jernigan--Childrens Literature: "Although Pigeon Creek flows into Washington's beautiful Puget Sound, before it was adopted and cleaned up by Mr. Jackson's fifth grade class, it was so full of trash that you could barely see the water, let alone any fish. Just about everyone in Jackson Elementary, led by the dedicated fifth grade, helped to clean the creek and restock it with baby salmon. Throughout the project the kids learned a great deal about the ecology of the stream and the needs and life cycle of the Coho salmon. And even though many people told them the salmon would never return to Pigeon Creek, they were successful. The many colored photos and drawings enhance the lively text, which is informal, informational and inspiring. Orbis Pictus Award winner and a Horn Book Fanfare award." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

swim fishy swim
Very well written with beautiful photographs and helpful illustrations.This nonfiction book is the perfect length for younger elementary students.My 3rd grade class enjoyed the book and became interested in the project.We wrote the school and they were very good about answering emails.

young environmentalists in training
I used this book as part of a unit when I was student teaching and the children were enraptured with the theme of preservation. Perfect for the classroom setting, but don't underestimate the joy it'll bring the frog-lover in your family.

A story well told that young and old alike can relate too.
I first researched this project after reading newspaper accounts and was glad to see this story come into book form. It well illustrates the efforts of these determined students and even made the NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children list in 1992. It's a good example of a community service project for students and and teachers. ... Read more

Product Description
This book updates completely the information on birds of prey and pigeons and doves found in the BSAVA Manual of Raptors, Pigeons and Waterfowl, published twelve years ago. The advent of the new BSAVA Manual of Farm Pets, which encompasses waterfowl, has allowed a change in focus to feature passerine birds in detail for the first time.

The Manual starts with the all-important area of husbandry for the three groups, including those kept as working birds as well as ornamental and pet species. More general topics, such as handling, examination, diagnostic procedures and surgery are dealt with across the groups, with notes as required on specific differences. An excellent chapter is included on endoscopy and endosurgery - a major technique for avian patients.

The specialist section on raptor disease is very detailed, including an in-depth chapter on foot disease, especially bumblefoot. Recent interest in captive breeding is reflected in detailed chapters on reproduction and paediatrics. The sections dedicated to pigeons and passerine birds look at birds at both the individual and flock level.

A wealth of international expert authors, and the BSAVA Manual trademark practical approach and superb full-colour images throughout make this book a wonderful addition to the practice bookshelf. ... Read more

Product Description
In resonant, well-crafted prose, Bodio ushers readers into an utterly captivating world--the world of the often overlooked birds we call pigeons. Pigeons are among the most genetically malleable of birds, making for an amazing variety of breeds and natural abilities. Original line drawings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A touching remembrance of pigeon
I very much enjoyed this book, so much so I read it in one weekend and was sorry it wasn't much longer. The author discusses his connection to pigeons from his very young years to midlife. Even though he grew up on the East Coast and I grew up on the West Coast we had some of the same experiences with pigeons and those who keep and race them. Reading it brought back fond and bittersweet memories of my birds and the loft I had at my parents' house. Both the birds and my beloved parents are long gone and I miss them all and those carefree days of adolence. I enjoyed reading about the author's experiences with his birds, especially finding and raising rare and exotic breeds. I hope the author writes another book about pigeons and it is much longer than this one. He has an easy to read style of writing.

a great book
nice and helpfull book for me and my childre ... Read more

Product Description
The fifth book in the Megan Lindholm (Robin Hobb) backlist.Seattle: a place as magical as the Emerald City.Subtle magic seeps through the cracks in the paving stones of the sprawling metropolis. But only the inhabitants who possess special gifts are open to the city's consciousness; finding portents in the graffiti, reading messages in the rubbish or listening to warnings in the skipping-rope chants of children.Wizard is bound to Seattle and her magic. His gift is the Knowing -- a powerful enchantment allowing him to know the truth of things; to hear the life-stories of ancient mummies locked behind glass cabinets, to receive true fortunes from the carnival machines, to reveal to ordinary people the answers to their troubles and to safeguard the city's equilibrium.The magic has its price; Wizard must never have more than a dollar in his pocket, must remain celibate, and he must feed and protect the pigeons.But a threat to Seattle has begun to emerge in the portents.A malevolent force born of Wizard's forgotten past has returned to prey upon his power and taunt him with images of his obscure history; and he is the only wizard in Seattle who can face the evil and save the city, his friends and himself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

"Wizard of the Pigeons" A Captivating Book
I was sucked in from page one, totally absorbed, just coming up for air occasionally. The only part I felt wasn't perfect was the ending. Well worth reading, and certainly very thought provoking.

Surreal and captivating reading.

A deep fantasy ABOUT fantasy
This seems, at first, to be a good work of magical realism - Charles de Lint with a twist - but it turns out to be much more.We first see a fantasy world, where magic is real, but then we also see a more realistic worldview, where the main character is psychotic.Both of these views are allowed their integrity, and neither is shattered.This is a very difficult balance, and the tension between these two views casts some light on what fantasy is, and why each of us reads it.

Why is this out of print?
I was in college when my boyfriend, another sci fi fiend from Seattle, turned me on to this book. I have read it several times since and have always come away with something more. Well written, good story, interesting twist at the end. Some say it was too slow - I felt the pacing just fine.Read this book, and pass it on to others. Maybe someone will get the hint and print up more copies!

Oh, how I love this book!
Why is this book out of print?!

Aside from that, the only problem with this book is that there's nothing else like it.I want more.

This is a truly unique novel, in part about the magic that is a city, in part about the wonder that is true magic.Schizophrenia, eternal love, and a time that's out of joint are only minor notes in a word-symphony of the human spirit...

Looking back on what I've written, I realize that my words cannot begin to justly describe the wondrousness of this book.Buy it and read it.'Nuff said.

Good except for the slow start and finish
While the bulk of the story is a captivating way of experiencing the magic of Seattle and harsh realities of being a homeless vet the novel is bookended with a slow opening and a confusing ending. In both cases I found myself rereading passages just to figure out what was happening. The slow start nearly kept me from reading the rest of the book but I am glad I had continued reading. ... Read more

Product Description
A new cover reprint of the classic account of Gerald Durrell's expedition to Mauritius to rescue various creatures from extinction, first published in 1977 and reissued in a foursome alongside the anthology THE BEST OF DURRELL, which was collected by Durrell's wife. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is dedicated to the field identification of pigeons and doves, and it incorporates much recent information on the family. Pigeons and doves are a large family of birds occurring throughout the world. Many species are specialist frugivores, while others feed on seeds. Most are arboral and the tropical species in particular are often brightly coloured. The family includes gregarious migratory species, as well as shy, ground-dwelling forms such as the exotic crowned pigeons of New Guinea. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Good content, poor editing, modest construction
"Pigeons and Doves" is the modern book on this family.There are important ups and downs to this book, as with any large monographic work.

The artwork is very good, even by bird book standards.Quality is consistent enough between the two illustrators.Eustace Barnes' illustrations range from mediocre in color and form to very good.Those of John Cox range from very good to excellent.The plates as a whole reach slightly above field guide caliber, and do not achieve the degree of detail seen in some monographic works.However, the detailed attention Cox pays to the scalation of the small legs and feet on his subjects is particularly impressive.Color of the plates does not show the richness seen on more impressively printed works.Plate layout is mostly very good, with a marked exception being that of plate 50, in which the Yellow-vented Green Pigeon, Treron seimundi, has the end of its beak cut off by the outer page edge.Still, the 76 plates alone are likely worth the publisher's price.

The content of the book is really something else.Considering the number of species needing coverage (both "recently" extinct and extant - over 300), quite a bit of information is given, sometimes with dilution so better-known species don't fill up half the book, and sometimes with holes due to lack of knowledge on certain species.Range maps are blobs on small images, and as already mentioned in another review, the sense in the size of some of the islands depicted makes no sense.This is especially true in the cases where a given species inhabits certain portions of small islands, yet the whole islands are shaded and occupy the space of a dot on an ocean map.

The citations included are helpful, but can be misleading.There is at least one mismatch in reference year between the text citation and the bibliography.At least one text-cited reference is simply absent from the bibliography.There are other editorial mistakes; some are unimportant, such as missing periods.Others are critical, such as the blunt cutoff in the "final" sentence of the "Status and Distribution" account for the extinct Bonin Wood Pigeon, Columba versicolor: "Haha-jima [island] further south was not ornithologically explored until after the arrival of alien mammals, but it is likely that C. versicolor [end account]" - what is really hypothesized about the fate of the Bonin Wood Pigeon in lieu of alien mammals, the casual reader may never know thanks to this lousy editorial error.

The book's construct is good save for the actual binding, which is weak for the thickness and weight of the contents inside the boards.The binding should have been woven, but instead is rather crudely glued.The size of the book is larger than field guide format, but for the quality of artwork and the amount of information per species, it should have been bigger, even if that would have meant upping the publisher's price.

This book will give Oxford a run for its money should the "Bird Families of the World" series ever produce a volume on the Columbidae.I think of "Pigeons and Doves" as the first major book in English on the family as a whole since Goodwin's last edition of his book back in 1983.Despite the errors, this book is well worth its space on the shelf of any quality bird book fan.

Simply Amazing
This is the best field guide on pigeons and doves that you can quite possibly buy. Any illustration that Eustace Barnes does is simply, amazing to be quite frank with you. The information is accurate, the range maps are well done and I wish that more guides would follow this format.

David Gibbs Delivers
An excellent reference to the Pigeons and Doves of the world.The color drawings and maps are unbelievable.I was able to identify a lot of birds after reading this book that I could not earlier.I give it two thumbs up.

greatbook for the family columbidae
I am an avid bird man.Love birds from foreign countries, and Pigeons and Doves are a special affection of mine.This book is detailed and complete.A great asset to my collection of bird books.
any one needing a great reference book on Pigeons and Doves would surely buy this book.

Worth every penny
This is an excellent book, giving full details on all the pigeon and doves species of the world. Excellent color plates also make the reader very familiar with the different types. I'd recommend this read to the budding aviculturist, old bird breeders, orinthologists, and even the average bird watcher. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1907. One of the earliest and possibly the most important book ever published on homing pigeons. The well illustrated and detailed chapters include: The Columba Livia - Origin and Production - Lofts and Fittings - Food and Feeding - Interbreeding - Crossing - Mendel's Law Applied to Homing Pigeons - Founding a Loft - Some Physical Characters - Feathers and the Moult - The Homing Instinct - Training - Preparing for Old Bird races - Preparing for Young Bird Races, etc. Many of the earliest pigeon books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Home Farm Books are republishing many of these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. ... Read more