The Return of Iowa’s Bald Eagles
Ty Smedes – Author and Photographer
The Iowan Books Publishing
Soft cover
September 2011
ISBN: 978-1-93486-20-2
248 pages
$ 24.95
What is the first thing that you think of when you hear the words “ bald eagle”? Do you think of its majesty, power, or grace? Do you think of the creature as a predator? Do you feel grateful that Ben Franklin did not win with his suggestion of a turkey instead of the bald eagle?
How do you capture these creatures return? If you’re Ty Smedes, it is magnificently.
The Return of Iowa’s Bald Eagles is about these creatures who have been missing from our state of Iowa and much of the rest of this country for so long. First their population decreased due to hunting and then to the usage of DDT, from the years of 1905 to 1977, not one bald eagle nested in the entire state of Iowa. Since they are now settling and making their homes in our state again, we need to know who they are and how we need to be good neighbors to keep their population growing.
By combining truly outstanding photography with informative and well-researched text makes this book perfect for everyone. The combining of factual information about their locations, growth from infancy to adulthood, as well as their hunting abilities, is superbly documented.
This unique book shows the story of these magnificent creatures coming back to Iowa. The photography rivals anything ever in a National Geographic magazine. It truly balances text with photos that are reflective of the everyday life of a bald eagle with clarity and simplicity.
Once in a while you come upon something that is so outstanding that you are not certain how to review it. That’s my problem with The Return of Iowa’s Bald Eagles. It is unusual to read such a well-balanced book with the pictures complimenting the text and frequently explaining to the reader a lesson about these bald eagles completely through the pictures. The amount of time that Ty Smedes had to take these pictures of the lives of these bald eagles had to be immense.
This book is for everyone and especially for those of us who really appreciate all the magnificence of Iowa.
A concern about this book is that it centers on Iowa only. The pictures, the narrative, this book is for everyone, not just for those in Iowa. This is definitely one book that needs to be available to everyone.
To purchase this book, buy it from this website http://www.iowan.com/.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Three-Day Town
Three-Day Town
Margaret Maron
Grand Central Publishing
Hatchette Book Group
Hardcover
November 2011
ISBN: 978-0-446-55578-4
288 pages
$ 25.99
If you are a working judge and your husband is a sheriff deputy, finding time for a honeymoon can be difficult. They have not succeeded in finding time for a honeymoon in their first year of marriage.
For Judge Deborah Knott and Sheriff’s Deputy Dwight Bryant the opportunity came when Dwight’s sister-in-law offered to let them stay for a week in her New York City apartment in the Upper West Side. Who could turn that down?
Deborah’s grandmother has asked that she deliver a package to a distant cousin while in New York. She immediately called her cousin, Sigrid, who was puzzled by the idea of the package and asked Deborah to open it. How do you delicately and accurately describe a piece of sculpture that is extremely obscene and politically incorrect? Not in any hurry, the two agree to meet at the next-door apartment where there is a party that night.
When the elusive cousin, Sigrid Harold, who is also a NYPD lieutenant, attempts to pick up the package, it is missing. Unfortunately, the building superintendent is also sprawled out dead in the doorway.
Three-Day Town is a realistic novel with the crime being solved as you read each page. The characters are very believable.
If you are daily involved with law enforcement and are away from where you work but are in the middle of a crime, wouldn’t it make sense to just team up with the local authorities if they allow it?
Three-Day Town is superb with establishing the setting. Ms. Maron takes into account the lifestyle with the groceries, transportation, life in an apartment, snow, garbage, doormen, etc… that are so much of the everyday life in present day New York City. These details are what everyone loves when they read a Deborah Knott novel.
Margaret Maron is a native of North Carolina and has also lived in Brooklyn. Being that this is the seventeenth book in this series, it amazes me that each novel can be read as a standalone but has enough character development to keep the story interesting and the series invigorating. I am also wondering if Ms. Maron is going to spin-off the Deborah Knott series and begins the Sigrid series. So many questions that were not answered would be perfect for future novels.
Three-Day Town is a perfect quick read during a snowstorm provided that you have no erotic art sculpture.
Margaret Maron
Grand Central Publishing
Hatchette Book Group
Hardcover
November 2011
ISBN: 978-0-446-55578-4
288 pages
$ 25.99
If you are a working judge and your husband is a sheriff deputy, finding time for a honeymoon can be difficult. They have not succeeded in finding time for a honeymoon in their first year of marriage.
For Judge Deborah Knott and Sheriff’s Deputy Dwight Bryant the opportunity came when Dwight’s sister-in-law offered to let them stay for a week in her New York City apartment in the Upper West Side. Who could turn that down?
Deborah’s grandmother has asked that she deliver a package to a distant cousin while in New York. She immediately called her cousin, Sigrid, who was puzzled by the idea of the package and asked Deborah to open it. How do you delicately and accurately describe a piece of sculpture that is extremely obscene and politically incorrect? Not in any hurry, the two agree to meet at the next-door apartment where there is a party that night.
When the elusive cousin, Sigrid Harold, who is also a NYPD lieutenant, attempts to pick up the package, it is missing. Unfortunately, the building superintendent is also sprawled out dead in the doorway.
Three-Day Town is a realistic novel with the crime being solved as you read each page. The characters are very believable.
If you are daily involved with law enforcement and are away from where you work but are in the middle of a crime, wouldn’t it make sense to just team up with the local authorities if they allow it?
Three-Day Town is superb with establishing the setting. Ms. Maron takes into account the lifestyle with the groceries, transportation, life in an apartment, snow, garbage, doormen, etc… that are so much of the everyday life in present day New York City. These details are what everyone loves when they read a Deborah Knott novel.
Margaret Maron is a native of North Carolina and has also lived in Brooklyn. Being that this is the seventeenth book in this series, it amazes me that each novel can be read as a standalone but has enough character development to keep the story interesting and the series invigorating. I am also wondering if Ms. Maron is going to spin-off the Deborah Knott series and begins the Sigrid series. So many questions that were not answered would be perfect for future novels.
Three-Day Town is a perfect quick read during a snowstorm provided that you have no erotic art sculpture.
Gracie Gannon: Middle School Zero
Gracie Gannon: Middle School Zero
Mary Elizabeth Anderson
Rayve Productions Inc.
2008
ISBN: 978-1-877810-73-2
Paperback
119 pages
$10.95
“Hey, check out Gracie’s scraggly hair! Looks like she had her little brother cut it.”
What do you do when your friends don’t want to be around you anymore? How do you make yourself fit in with the group? What do you do when people are just mean? How do you handle bullying?
Gracie Gannon has those challenges as she enters middle school. She lives in the wrong part of town now that her dad has been laid off. She doesn’t feel that she can invite friends over to her house since it is small and run-down. Her former friends are making fun of her haircut and her life. She’s extremely shy. Added to that, her parents can’t afford to buy her contact lenses and she dresses like a boy. Her wardrobe is not fashionable at all. One more thing, she hates math.
Life changes for Gracie though when a new student who is deaf is ignored by the other students. Gracie decides to do the right thing and to make friends with her. Through this friendship and the support of her parents and church group, Gracie begins to change her life.
This story shows that things aren’t always as they seem. With issues such as divorce, unemployment, alcoholism, and cancer, the realism and discovering a strategy to effectively deal with real challenges of everyday life, Gracie learns how to journey from conflict to confidence.
For some people, the usage of a church youth group might be uncomfortable but it works perfectly in this concise story. The religious influence actually works well with the story and is viewed as a support for all people.
Mary Elizabeth Anderson has worked extensively as an elementary school teacher. She has written the novels: Taking Cerebral Palsy to School, Ever Wonder What to Do: A Book of Manner, It’s Me Again, God, and Why Did They Build a Fence?. She is also the author of Link Across America: A Story of the Historic Lincoln Highway.
Gracie Gannon: Middle School Zero is for any and every kid, girl or boy, who needs to see how they can become content with their life when there are conflicts.
Mary Elizabeth Anderson
Rayve Productions Inc.
2008
ISBN: 978-1-877810-73-2
Paperback
119 pages
$10.95
“Hey, check out Gracie’s scraggly hair! Looks like she had her little brother cut it.”
What do you do when your friends don’t want to be around you anymore? How do you make yourself fit in with the group? What do you do when people are just mean? How do you handle bullying?
Gracie Gannon has those challenges as she enters middle school. She lives in the wrong part of town now that her dad has been laid off. She doesn’t feel that she can invite friends over to her house since it is small and run-down. Her former friends are making fun of her haircut and her life. She’s extremely shy. Added to that, her parents can’t afford to buy her contact lenses and she dresses like a boy. Her wardrobe is not fashionable at all. One more thing, she hates math.
Life changes for Gracie though when a new student who is deaf is ignored by the other students. Gracie decides to do the right thing and to make friends with her. Through this friendship and the support of her parents and church group, Gracie begins to change her life.
This story shows that things aren’t always as they seem. With issues such as divorce, unemployment, alcoholism, and cancer, the realism and discovering a strategy to effectively deal with real challenges of everyday life, Gracie learns how to journey from conflict to confidence.
For some people, the usage of a church youth group might be uncomfortable but it works perfectly in this concise story. The religious influence actually works well with the story and is viewed as a support for all people.
Mary Elizabeth Anderson has worked extensively as an elementary school teacher. She has written the novels: Taking Cerebral Palsy to School, Ever Wonder What to Do: A Book of Manner, It’s Me Again, God, and Why Did They Build a Fence?. She is also the author of Link Across America: A Story of the Historic Lincoln Highway.
Gracie Gannon: Middle School Zero is for any and every kid, girl or boy, who needs to see how they can become content with their life when there are conflicts.
A Killing Season
A Killing Season
Priscilla Royal
Poisoned Pen Press
October 2011
ISBN: 978-1590589496
250 pages
$14.95
“ To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die;…A time to kill, and a time to heal…”
Before leaving for the crusades, Baron Herbert had been blessed with five sons and a loving wife all comfortably abiding in his castle in England during this medieval time period.
When he returns, Baron Herbert is injured mentally, physically, and emotionally. He immediately sends for his former Crusading comrade, Sir Hugh for help. Hugh asks his sister, Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal Priory to come. She also sees the value of transporting others with her who have special skills that could assist such as Master Gamel, a physician, Sister Anne, a healer, and Brother Thomas.
The group travels slowly through the cold, wet weather and arrives at the castle just in time to view someone jumping from a window to their death. They quickly discover that was the third son of the Baron to die since he left for the Crusades. Needless to say, life is not cheery in this dismal castle. Added to this, the Baron refuses any physical contact with his family or even his wife and no explanation is given.
Is the castle cursed? Is someone killing his heirs? Did two of the sons choose to die?
Sometimes there is a delicate balance between realism and what readers enjoy. It is difficult to calculate since each reader has their own personal criteria. In a story like this one where the content is depressing but necessary, the reading even though enthralling, can seem like it drags when it really doesn’t. With so much death in the story, it feels like there is no season for the healing.
There is richness in A Killing Season with the language and the authentic voice of the time period. Priscilla Royal masterfully intertwines these within a very realistic story in creating this Gothic mystery. Even though this is the eighth book in this series featuring Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal Priory, the story and characters are easily understood without having read the previous novels. All of Priscilla Royal’s novels are superb examples of life during the medieval time period and I highly recommend all her novels.
Priscilla Royal
Poisoned Pen Press
October 2011
ISBN: 978-1590589496
250 pages
$14.95
“ To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die;…A time to kill, and a time to heal…”
Before leaving for the crusades, Baron Herbert had been blessed with five sons and a loving wife all comfortably abiding in his castle in England during this medieval time period.
When he returns, Baron Herbert is injured mentally, physically, and emotionally. He immediately sends for his former Crusading comrade, Sir Hugh for help. Hugh asks his sister, Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal Priory to come. She also sees the value of transporting others with her who have special skills that could assist such as Master Gamel, a physician, Sister Anne, a healer, and Brother Thomas.
The group travels slowly through the cold, wet weather and arrives at the castle just in time to view someone jumping from a window to their death. They quickly discover that was the third son of the Baron to die since he left for the Crusades. Needless to say, life is not cheery in this dismal castle. Added to this, the Baron refuses any physical contact with his family or even his wife and no explanation is given.
Is the castle cursed? Is someone killing his heirs? Did two of the sons choose to die?
Sometimes there is a delicate balance between realism and what readers enjoy. It is difficult to calculate since each reader has their own personal criteria. In a story like this one where the content is depressing but necessary, the reading even though enthralling, can seem like it drags when it really doesn’t. With so much death in the story, it feels like there is no season for the healing.
There is richness in A Killing Season with the language and the authentic voice of the time period. Priscilla Royal masterfully intertwines these within a very realistic story in creating this Gothic mystery. Even though this is the eighth book in this series featuring Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal Priory, the story and characters are easily understood without having read the previous novels. All of Priscilla Royal’s novels are superb examples of life during the medieval time period and I highly recommend all her novels.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
The Pirate King
THE PIRATE KING: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
(Russell & Holmes, Book 11)
Laurie R. King
Bantam
September 2011
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-55-380798-1
320 pages
$25.00
Being Sherlock Holmes’ wife can be challenging. What with Sherlock’s eccentricities and brilliance, Mary Russell constantly needs to balance her own interests with his. She finds that this places her in the position of having to be involved in investigations even without her husband’s assistance.
Mary’s newest investigation is to join Fflytte Films, a silent film producing company. There are suspicions about this film crew smuggling of drugs and guns. Working as a director’s assistant should make it easy for her to combine with her massive daily duties. Since the former director’s assistant has disappeared, this is also a concern. Her job is to be a part of this group as they film in Lisbon and Morocco. What she did not plan on though was the demands of being a director’s assistant and quickly finds that she has no time for investigating. She writes to her husband back in England when she finds the opportunity or time. One of the first things that she tells him is the demands of being a mother to the crew and no time to investigate.
The story is to make a silent movie made about making Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirate of Penzance”. The complications come when the director, Fflytte, plans to have triplets play each of the daughters and when he manages to hire real pirates for the pirate parts. Imagine working with thirteen blond teenaged-girls and meeting their various needs in an attempt to live in temporary harmony along with real pirates playing both pirates and constables.
Although somewhat predictable, this is a fun light-hearted adventure with numerous references to “The Pirates of Penzance” in which ironically, the pirates are really Englishmen who fall for the daughters. So, this has real pirates pretending to be pirates and constables who are also showing interest in the blond beauties.
With no one being who they really are, the story has numerous twists and turns. When Holmes joins those on the ship, the story changes slightly with more planning involved since naturally, Holmes has taken the part of the Major-General. I still wonder how Holmes managed to get on the ship with the communication and transportation at the time of silent movies being not the most efficient.
If you are expecting Laurie King’s The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. You will find this a disappointment. If you are looking for a fun, light, mystery, you will thoroughly enjoy The
(Russell & Holmes, Book 11)
Laurie R. King
Bantam
September 2011
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-55-380798-1
320 pages
$25.00
Being Sherlock Holmes’ wife can be challenging. What with Sherlock’s eccentricities and brilliance, Mary Russell constantly needs to balance her own interests with his. She finds that this places her in the position of having to be involved in investigations even without her husband’s assistance.
Mary’s newest investigation is to join Fflytte Films, a silent film producing company. There are suspicions about this film crew smuggling of drugs and guns. Working as a director’s assistant should make it easy for her to combine with her massive daily duties. Since the former director’s assistant has disappeared, this is also a concern. Her job is to be a part of this group as they film in Lisbon and Morocco. What she did not plan on though was the demands of being a director’s assistant and quickly finds that she has no time for investigating. She writes to her husband back in England when she finds the opportunity or time. One of the first things that she tells him is the demands of being a mother to the crew and no time to investigate.
The story is to make a silent movie made about making Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirate of Penzance”. The complications come when the director, Fflytte, plans to have triplets play each of the daughters and when he manages to hire real pirates for the pirate parts. Imagine working with thirteen blond teenaged-girls and meeting their various needs in an attempt to live in temporary harmony along with real pirates playing both pirates and constables.
Although somewhat predictable, this is a fun light-hearted adventure with numerous references to “The Pirates of Penzance” in which ironically, the pirates are really Englishmen who fall for the daughters. So, this has real pirates pretending to be pirates and constables who are also showing interest in the blond beauties.
With no one being who they really are, the story has numerous twists and turns. When Holmes joins those on the ship, the story changes slightly with more planning involved since naturally, Holmes has taken the part of the Major-General. I still wonder how Holmes managed to get on the ship with the communication and transportation at the time of silent movies being not the most efficient.
If you are expecting Laurie King’s The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. You will find this a disappointment. If you are looking for a fun, light, mystery, you will thoroughly enjoy The
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