Young Men and Fire

Amazon.com

On August 5, 1949, lightning came crashing down in the vast spruce forest above Seeley Lake, Montana, and touched off a roaring blaze. As every Westerner knows, lightning means fire, but the fire that raged through Mann Gulch that day was huge--the sort that occurs only every few decades. A battery of paratrooper-firefighters, many of them fresh veterans of World War II, had been anticipating it, and even looking forward to the chance to fight a great fire. Before the day ended thirteen of those smokejumpers lay dead, their charred remains evidence that something had gone terribly wrong. Norman Maclean gives a thorough account of the incident in language not meant for the squeamish: "Burning to death on a mountainside is dying at least three times ... first, considerably ahead of the fire, you reach the verge of death in your boots and your legs; next, as you fail, you sink back in the region of strange gases and red and blue darts where there is no oxygen and here you die in your lungs; then you sink in prayer into the main fire that consumes." After August 1949, he notes, the Forest Service came to recognize that not all fires need to be fought and that fire benefits most forest ecosystems.

Book Description

On August 5, 1949, a crew of fifteen of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts back together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy.

Young Men and Fire won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992.

"A magnificent drama of writing, a tragedy that pays tribute to the dead and offers rescue to the living.... Maclean's search for the truth, which becomes an exploration of his own mortality, is more compelling even than his journey into the heart of the fire. His description of the conflagration terrifies, but it is his battle with words, his effort to turn the story of the 13 men into tragedy that makes this book a classic."—from New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, Best Books of 1992

"A treasure: part detective story, part western, part tragedy, part elegy and wholly eloquent ghost story in which the dead and the living join ranks cheerfully, if sometimes eerily, in a search for truth and the rest it brings."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune

"An astonishing book. In compelling language, both homely and elegant, Young Men and Fire miraculously combines a fascinating primer on fires and firefighting, a powerful, breathtakingly real reconstruction of a tragedy, and a meditation on writing, grief and human character.... Maclean's last book will stir your heart and haunt your memory."—Timothy Foote, USA Today

"Beautiful.... A dark American idyll of which the language can be proud."—Robert M. Adams, The New York Review of Books

"Young Men and Fire is redolent of Melville. Just as the reader of Moby Dick comes to comprehend the monstrous entirety of the great white whale, so the reader of Young Men and Fire goes into the heart of the great red fire and comes out thoroughly informed. Don't hesitate to take the plunge."—Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post Book World

"Young Men and Fire is a somber and poetic retelling of a tragic event. It is the pinnacle of smokejumping literature and a classic work of 20th-century nonfiction."—John Holkeboer, The Wall Street Journal

"Maclean is always with the brave young dead. . . . They could not have found a storyteller with a better claim to represent their honor. . . . A great book."—James R. Kincaid, New York Times Book Review

Customer Reviews:

The Tragic Story of the Mann Gulch Fire.......2007-07-28

This true story by the author of A River Runs Through It tells the events surrounding the Mann Gulch Fire in 1949. A good portion focuses on the smokejumpers (paratrooping firefighters)13 out of 16 of which perished in the fire.

In those days, the smokejumping program was very new having been introduced within the past 8 to 10 years. The men had to be between the ages of 18 and 30, single, and in superb physical condition. The main tools they carried were a shovel and something called a Pulaski which is a combination ax and hoe built into one. They utilized these tools to dig fire lines, and fell trees ahead of the fire so as to reduce the amount of fuel and prevent it jumping from one tree to the next.

When dropped from the plane onto the ground by the fire, a foreman would be in charge of the crew as they fought the fire. In the instance of the Mann Gulch fire in Montana, the fire started out as a fairly decent sized fire. It then progressed into what is known as a "blowup." This occurred as a result of a combination of factors such as fuel type, moisture, incline of terrain, and wind.

It quickly got out of control and the crew had to run for their lives. Occasionally, in a blowup a vortex of fire will be formed which will sweep across a vast area burning everything in its path. It looks and functions like a tornado. I recently talked with a man who used to be a farmer and he indicated that when they burned fields to prepare them for future seasons a fire vortex would sometimes occur. He said it was an awesome and amazing sight to behold.

During the blowup it was not possible for the majority of the men to outrun the fire and they perished mainly from suffocation due to lack of oxygen. The foreman saw this happening and created a secondary fire to try to create a burned out place which would provide shelter from the main fire. Unfortunately, amidst the confusion of the fire, the men did not understand the foreman and thought he had gone crazy to be lighting a second fire. He did survive but all but 2 others did not.

A secondary portion of the book analyzes the various components of the fire, what caused it, and some of the science behind fire. Maclean spent around 12 years researching the book, gathering documents, interviewing the 2 remaining survivors and returning to the site of the fire. He was well equipped to tell the story having spent time as a forest fire fighter in his younger years before going on to be a literature professor and writer. The book was masterfully written but slightly meticulous at times. It is the type of story that would make a very dramatic movie if a studio were interested in producing it.

Uneven but thoughtful and inspiring.......2007-02-08

Pieced together after the author's death, you can see what this book would have been had he lived to complete it. In places, you have to push yourself through it. Still, it is worth your time. Tracing a tragedy trying to resurrect peace for souls long gone, you are put in touch with feelings and emotions that affect us all.

If you love the outdoors, adventure, and real men doing real things, this book is for you.

Math?.......2006-12-27

Has anyone out there checked Maclean's math on pages 229-230 of the paperback edition (second section of Chapter 12)? I'm no math expert, but shouldn't the hypotenuse of a right triangle with sides of 1,320 and 140 yards be a little over 1,327 yards, and not the 1,400 yards he indicates? Moreover, didn't all of the 140 yard vertical gain occur in the final half mile of travel, since the crew was moving on contour for the first quarter mile of "the race"? This would yield a total actual distance of only 1,331 yards. I was surprised by these errors given how meticulous Maclean was in the rest of his research.

This is a great book, though.

Reads like a detective novel.......2006-11-16

First, its important to note that the author did not complete this novel. Unfortunately, Maclean died prior to its completion, so others had to pull it all together for publishing. This perhaps lends to what I see as an "unpolished" quality, with some choppiness. That said, I felt it still merited four stars for what the author did. Maclean's research is extensive, and his conclusions are derived from numerous authoritative sources. It read like a mystery / detective novel for me, and I had trouble putting it down.

A tragic and wonderful story.......2006-11-09

This is a fine story of brave men in a tragic struggle. A struggle that they loose. The entire book covers the 16 minutes it took for these smoke jumpers to land, confront a "10'oclock" fire and die. Norman Maclean researches the human and scientific causes of this disaster. It was especially of intrest to me because when I went through the fire fighter academy here in Northern California, this was an incident that we studied. Norman Maclean writes in a sparcer prose than in "A River Runs Through It, and other stories" but it is no less facinating and we learn details about the authors life, that makes this story a personal one. He did not finish the book before his death and the last section was written with minimal editing from the original manuscript. This section is the most beautiful and moving of the entire book. I cannot recommend this book highly enouph.

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Managing Major Fires
John F. Coleman
Manufacturer: Fire Engineering Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0912212969

Book Description

With 25 years of experience, Deputy Chief Coleman offers a common sense approach to handling larger, more unusual second and third alarm, or mutual-aid fires. He covers organization and structure, incident management, safety issues such as accountability systems, the rules of engagement for risk assessment and managing the Mayday, as well as fires in distinct occupancy types. Case studies are designed for departments of any size.

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Distilled Wisdom from an Elder
Poet, Essayist Gary Snyder on Sustainability and Literature
Snyder burning

Back on the Fire: Essays
Gary Snyder
Manufacturer: Shoemaker & Hoard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1593761376

Book Description

Following The Practice of the Wild, this new collection of essays by Gary Snyder blazes with insight. In his most autobiographical writing to date, these essays employ fire as a metaphor for the crucial moment when deeply held viewpoints yield to new experiences, and our spirits and minds broaden and mature. Snyder here writes and riffs on a wide range of topics, from explorations of southwestern European Paleolithic cave art to his own personal poetic history with haiku; from reminiscences of youthful West Coast logging and trail crew days to talks given in Paris and Tokyo on art and archetypes. He honors poets of his generation, like Philip Whalen and Allen Ginsberg, and meditates on art, labor, and the making of families, houses, and homesteads.
This is a work that requires us to make friends with impermanence and error — to make "wildfire" a partner — and to keep burning the hazardous, the excess, and even one's own dreams and attainments, over and over again. The final impression is holistic: We perceive not a collection of essays, but a cohesive presentation of Snyder's life and work expressed in his characteristically straightforward prose.

Customer Reviews:

Distilled Wisdom from an Elder.......2007-07-27

These essays, including those written as talks or prefaces to other people's books, are in no sense minor. They are often distillations--not so much argument as succinct statements of profound if still largely unacknowledged truths, simply and generously interwoven with history, anecdote, example, biography and autobiography.

Though there may appear to be no unifying theme, and though the specific subject of the role of fire in healthy forests recurs, this volume is a whole defined by itself, and by the quality of Snyder's observation, thought and expression. For me, the connection between his immersion in East Asian writing, in Buddhism, in the realities of living and working in the natural world, in American literature (Native and non-Native), and his own writing and approach to the world, has never been clearer. That impression is nourished by reading together such essays as "Ecology, Literature and the New World Disorder," "Thinking Toward the Thousand Year Forest Plan," "The Mountain Spirit's True (No) Nature," "Writers and the War Against Nature," "Coyote Makes Things Hard."

Some pieces are short and specific, and thanks to Snyder's writing, evocative, including a short piece on the death of one of the best known of his fellow poets who began in the "Beat" era, Allen Ginsberg, and a fond and informative remembrances of one of the least known, Philip Zenshin Whalen. But even these are important because of Snyder's knowledge of them and perspective over time. Others about particular people and places (especially about Snyder's own family, as in "Helen Callicotte's Stone in Kansas") are also fun to read, but always connect to larger mysteries.

In these essays Snyder writes with warmth as well as pith, and with occasional bursts of exuberant humor. He writes with specific humility, yet is not afraid to state the largest possible conclusions: "These environmental histories are cautionary. They tell us that our land planning must extend ahead more than a few decades. Even a few centuries may be insufficient."

For me, there is another key to these essays in this observation: "Song, story and dance are fundamental to all later `civilized' culture," Snyder writes. "Performance is of key importance because this phenomenal world and all life is, of itself, not a book but a performance."

So these essays can be read as performances, expressing knowledge and experience from a specific, highly varied yet integrated life. This is a book of an Elder, in the old sense. I read it with admiration and gratitude.

Poet, Essayist Gary Snyder on Sustainability and Literature.......2007-02-16

Snyder has lived in the Sierra Nevada foothills since 1970. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1975 for "Turtle Island," he has twice been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, in 1992 and 2005. He is a recipient of the Bollingen Poetry Prize, the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2004 Japanese Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Grand Prize.

His latest book, "Back on the Fire" ($24 in hardcover from Shoemaker and Hoard), features recent essays, most previously published, that intermingle autobiography, reflections on the place of the writer in the modern world and a concern that those who have benefited from the natural world (all of us) become more thankful and "give something back."

Snyder sees the world through Daoist-Confucian-Mahayana Buddhist eyes and has little patience for those who romanticize nature with their "quasi-religious pantheistic landscape enthusiasms." In Snyder's "literature of the environment," "we will necessarily be exploring the dark side of nature -- nocturnal, parasitic energies of decomposition and their human parallels." He adds, in another essay: "Nature is not fuzzy and warm. Nature is vulnerable, but it is also tough, and it will inevitably be last up at bat."

Many of the essays deal with the forest, and fire, as a kind of symbol of changing public policy toward the wilderness. "Our wild forests have long had an elegant and self-sustaining nutrient and energy cycle, and staying within that should be a key measure of true sustainability." Periodic low-level fires are necessary for keeping the forest healthy; logging practices that remove the surviving trees after a major fire make it more difficult for the forest to sustain itself. Just as governments have to think in terms of thousands of years in dealing with nuclear waste, Snyder writes, we ought to be thinking of a "thousand year forest plan" as well. Ecology is about process, "a creation happening constantly in each moment. A close term in East Asian philosophy is the word Dao, the Way, dô in Japanese." As he writes in a poem, "--Nature not a book, but a performance, a / high old culture."

The art Snyder advocates "takes nothing from the world; it is a gift and an exchange. It leave the world nourished." "We study the great writings of the Asian past," he writes, "so that we might surpass them today. We hope to create a deeply grounded contemporary literature of nature that celebrates the wonder of our natural world, that draws on and makes beauty of the incredibly rich knowledge gained from science, and that confronts the terrible damage being done today in the name of progress and the world economy."

One November day, Snyder has cleared brush from around his house and sets fire to the pile. "Clouds darkening up from the West, a breeze, a Pacific storm headed this way. Let the flames finish their work -- a few more limb-ends and stubs around the edge to clean up, a few more dumb thoughts and failed ideas to discard -- I think -- this has gone on for many lives!

"How many times / have I thrown you / back on the fire."

Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Snyder burning.......2007-02-08

Gary Snyder is able to capture in simple words and clear imagery the essence of many of the conditions found in his adopted home in northern California. He recognises problems and poses solutions that are not only reasonable, but possible. This book should be read by anyone concerned with the present state of affairs as regards both the local and the national environment.

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Excellent, Hard to put down text.
An Admirable and Admiring Scientific Tribute

The Fire Ants
Walter R. Tschinkel
Manufacturer: Belknap Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0674022076

Book Description

Walter Tschinkel's passion for fire ants has been stoked by over thirty years of exploring the rhythm and drama of Solenopsis invicta's biology. Since South American fire ants arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in the 1940s, they have spread to become one of the most reviled pests in the Sunbelt.

In Fire Ants Tschinkel provides not just an encyclopedic overview of S. invicta--how they found colonies, construct and defend their nests, forage and distribute food, struggle among themselves for primacy, and even relocate entire colonies--but a lively account of how research is done, how science establishes facts, and the pleasures and problems of a scientific career.

Between chapters detailed enough for experts but readily accessible to any educated reader, "interludes" provide vivid verbal images of the world of fire ants and the people who study them. Early chapters describe the several failed, and heavily politically influenced, eradication campaigns, and later ones the remarkable spread of S. invicta's "polygyne" form, in which nests harbor multiple queens and colonies reproduce by "budding." The reader learns much about ants, the practice of science, and humans' role in the fire ant's North American success.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent, Hard to put down text........2007-01-09

Not only is the author, Walter Tschinkel, an expert on Fire
Ants he is a skillful writer. His ability to spinkle humor
in every chapter makes the book enjoyable even to the non-
scientific reader. He will expell many false claims of the
Fire Ant menace and enlighten the reader with facts gathered
from over 30 years of observations and experiments. The text
documents the larger problems caused when uniformed political
groups try to fix a problem they don't understand. This book
should me mandatory reading for all environmentalist!
Bill Denni

An Admirable and Admiring Scientific Tribute.......2006-06-04

Southerners hate fire ants. Let alone that they are convinced that fire ants ruin land and ravage gardens: fire ants hurt. Anyone stung by just one knows that they deserve their name, but so often people are not stung by just one, but by a cluster. So it is alarming to find a southerner who ardently feels another way about the creatures. "I love fire ants," is the first sentence in chapter one of _The Fire Ants_ (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press) by Walter R. Tschinkel, who says he has written it for "professional biologists and for people still open-minded enough to be intrigued, charmed, or fascinated by the many results of biological research on fire ants." Besides, the stings aren't so bad. He cites the Pain Rating Scale of Justin O. Schmidt, a venom specialist. Bullet ants get a 4+ rating ("like walking over flaming charcoal with a three inch nail imbedded in your heel") but fire ants muster only a 1.2 ("Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for a light switch." I think he understates!) People who are allergic to stings of insects must beware, but even thousands of stings don't do any real damage: "Inebriated persons using a fire-ant 'bed' have sustained over 5000 fire-ant stings without signs of general toxicity (other than that of alcohol)." That sort of writing is typical of the amused, light touch that Tschinkel has brought to a 700 page, three pound volume which Edward O. Wilson declares in the foreword "a masterpiece". (Wilson was responsible, in 1962, for steering Tschinkel from biochemistry and organic chemistry to his current studies.)

There is much more to the fire ant than just the sting, and it is hard to imagine that this volume has left anything out, except for all the research that there is still to do about still-mysterious details. Fire ants were imported accidentally from South America between 1933 and 1942. They moved out concentrically from Mobile, and there is a famous map of their expanding range as the years went by, but it wasn't just a simple matter of expansive growth by a species that liked the new real estate. They had help from the same vector that brought them to the United States, the humans which Tschinkel says fire ants must regard as benevolent gods. Distant foci of infestation were established "when obliging nurserymen unwittingly gave rides to hitchhiking fire ants." Fire ants would have had trouble crossing the desert, for instance, without our help, and so they got to California. There are lovely essays on the behavior of ant researchers interspersed among the more numerous and scientifically dense chapters. It is really rather astonishing all that Tschinkel and his fellows have been able to ask the ants experimentally and get them to reply. They have used remarkable techniques, such as tagging individual ants permanently with little wire belts around their waists: "Tying a wire around an ant's waist is simple, at least in principle."

Tschinkel is often confronted by people who want him to tell them how to get rid of the ants. If you have a hypersensitive member of the family, yes, it might be time for poison baits, he suggests, but otherwise he advises simply leaving them alone. After all, he says, they don't do any harm. Now, anyone who has been stung by these critters might question that, but Tschinkel provides ample data to show that there is little demonstrable harm done by fire ants, and even some good; Louisiana sugarcane farmers, for instance, recognize that fire ants go after sugarcane borers and thus improve crop yields. There have been efforts, waves of chlordane and Mirex, that humans have used to eliminate the ants, and when that failed, just to control their spread, and when that failed, there was nothing for the humans to do but give up. The Ant Wars were "a complex brew of science, politics, journalistic hyperbole, public hysteria, and legal maneuvering" and the humans lost. Fire ants will be around for at least as long as we keep making them at home, it seems, and in reading this impressive volume, it is hard not to admire the sophisticated ways they have evolved to keep themselves going. Even if you have no chance of becoming a myrmecologist yourself, you will find it hard not to admire the cleverness and hard work of the researchers devoted to them. Tschinkel's volume is a beautiful monument to fire ants and to science.

Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify and Energize Your Life, Your Home and Your Planet

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Transform Your Home into a Peaceful Sanctuary
Detox Your Life
Declutter, paint and detoxify
Life-changing ideas
Fantastic book with tons of information

Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify and Energize Your Life, Your Home and Your Planet
Norma Lehmeier-Hartie
Manufacturer: Lingham Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0977963306
Release Date: 2007-01-01

Product Description

Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Life, Your Home & Your Planet, by Norma Lehmeier Hartie, is an indispensable reference book for anyone who cares about their health and well being and for the future of the planet. Hartie concisely covers a wide range of subjects and includes a comprehensive listing of advisory organizations, product and service resources. Part I of the book, Banish the Ugly from Your Life, is a blueprint for green, sustainable living. Discover how to replace toxic and unsustainable products from household cleaners to food (including recipes) to furniture to personal care products with safe, eco-friendly ones. Hartie is the tough but motivational Life Coach in her approach to cleaning, removing clutter and on organizing the home or office. Part II, Bring in the Beautiful to Create a Harmonious Environment and Self, includes a chapter on Earth-based spirituality and a fascinating look at the Four Elements (Earth, Fire, Air and Water) and the Medicine Wheel. The core of Hartie s philosophy blossoms in Chapter Seven, Applying Harmonious AdjustmentsTM: Using Feng Shui and Other Techniques for Powerful Results. Unlike other Feng Shui authors, Hartie has experience as a designer and her skills are apparent in this chapter and the following two. She has combined principles of Feng Shui, the Four Elements, color, energy, Vastu, and good design principles that create a unique and eclectic approach to home decorating. Finally, Hartie provides guidance on how to manifest personal or professional desires. In Part III, Putting the Pieces Together, Hartie skillfully integrates the many subjects of the book into a unified and cohesive whole. At its cover price of $19.95, Harmonious Environment is a value alone for the comprehensive green living product suppliers in the Resources section. What makes this book so truly ambitious, however, is what lies beneath the surface. In a sense, this book is only marginal

Customer Reviews:

Transform Your Home into a Peaceful Sanctuary.......2007-04-10

"The energy from flowers is so bright and strong that they can be put anywhere in the home and they will enhance your life." ~ pg. 217

Norma Lehmeier Hartie is a design consultant and Harmonious Adjustment practitioner who enjoys gardening and cooking. She created the practice of Harmonious Adjustments to give her clients the chance to reconnect with nature and to manifest their personal and professional dreams. Through her book she introduces ideas for detoxing and decluttering your home environment.

If you want a happier, healthier lifestyle that is more in harmony with nature, then Norma Lehmeier Hartie's book has a world of information to make this possible. She can help you:

Remove toxic products from your home and garage
Clean and organize your home
Buy environmentally friendly cleaning products
Organize your home for more peace and harmony
Find healthy personal care products
Grow plants that help to control pollution - A list of the Fifty Best Houseplants
Find the best choices in flooring
Figure out how to recycle larger items like a refrigerator
Cook more safely and use kitchen scraps for your garden
Formulate a plan to keep your house clean
Organize every room in the house
Decorate with Confidence

Reading through the list of harmful products gives you an idea of the ingredients to avoid in cleaners and how they can affect your health. For an antibacterial spray, the author suggests water and essential oils and for cleaning silver she also suggests more natural solutions like baking soda and vinegar. Using Borax and water is less dangerous than chlorine bleach fumes and you may want to try this in your shower. You may enjoy products by Seventh Generation.

Chapter three felt a little out of my personal range of expertise, although we know that thoughts can affect our environment and life and can move our life in a positive or negative direction. This chapter deals more with spiritual practices. Chapter 6 also delves into a deeper connection with nature, personality types and elemental powers. The list of Yin and Yang is helpful to create a balance of the two in your home. An entire chapter is also dedicated to plants, gemstones and crystals.

"If you are the average American woman, you expose yourself to over two hundred synthetic chemicals that are found in the products you use as you prepare yourself for the day. These products do not simply sit on your skin; approximately sixty percent of these ingredients get absorbed into your bloodstream." ~ pg. 91

Chapter four is especially informative and essential if you are trying to be healthier and want to find organic alternatives to products filled with synthetic chemicals. Why should you avoid petroleum and talc? Why is there lead in hair dye?

The section on an Eco-Friendly Kitchen is interesting and the chapter on natural and organic foods also gives ideas on how to save time in the kitchen. A few recipes are included:

Vegetarian Pasta Primavera
Fajitas
Risotto with Scallops or Shrimp
Lemon Rice
Grilled Vegetables

An extensive list of resources and a very handy index complete this well-researched and extremely helpful book. If you enjoy Feng Shui or decorating and organizing your home, there is a lot to enjoy and you may find the information in this book can also help with fatigue, anxiety and sleeping problems.

~The Rebecca Review

Detox Your Life.......2007-04-04

No matter what your goals are, this book has the starting point for you. Learn how to make your life less toxic and get a better relationship with Mother Earth.

Declutter, paint and detoxify.......2007-04-02

Using the principles of Feng Shui, you can create a harmonious home environment with this book as a guide.

Author Lehmeier-Hartie has you choose colors, elements and design based on your birthday. If you suffer from problems feeling disorganized or headachey at home, it could be your home is not organized properly or the flow of energy is impeded.

The author extends this tranquility to finding the right job and the right mate. Whether or not it is the alignment of elements in the home, focusing on clearing clutter in your life can only have positive effects. A very pretty book.

Life-changing ideas.......2007-02-02

Worried about what your family is being exposed to? Are you hoping to increase your wealth or find love this year? Trying to decide on the best color to paint your walls? If you answered "yes!" to any of these questions, then Harmonious Environment is a must read.

The goal of this book is to create positive energy both in your home and your life and to be kinder to the earth. Hertie is a design consultant, chef, gardener, and healer. She shares her professional and personal experiences with the readers, i.e., homemade earth-friendly cleaning products, tasty recipes for carnivores and vegetarians, etc. She recommends that after reading this book, you apply the process in the following order:

1. Remove toxic products from your home and garage
2. Clean, declutter, clear and organize your home
3. Buy/use environmentally friendly products
4. Learn how to use place objects (furniture, mirrors, etc.) to manifest change in your life

The relationship between people and the Earth is an important part of Harmonious Environments. To remind ourselves of this interconnection, Hertie recommends bringing the natural world into your home. Some ways to do this include displaying rocks and minerals and using houseplants as pollution busters.

Hertie uses Harmonious Adjustments (TM) that combines "the best principles of Feng Shui, the application of the Four Elements based on your birth date, color, Vastu, energy work and good design." I've read a few Feng Shui books in the past, but the author's clear instructions and enthusiasm has given me the confidence to actually try this at home.

I liked how the author reminded me to use this book as a guideline but to also trust my intuition. Do what looks and feels right for you. I also liked how the Resource section listed all the suppliers, organizations and further readings mentioned throughout the book.

Even if you aren't interested in Feng Shui, this book has valuable information about becoming an informed consumer and living a more eco-friendly life.

Armchair Interviews says read Harmonious Environment and get ready to change your life!

Fantastic book with tons of information.......2007-01-18

I got this wonderful book as we are moving our place of business, and wanted to make smart choices. From the first page, Ms. Lehmeier-Hartie shares her expertise in an organized, thoughtful way. The day after I got the book, I negotiated a much more logical and healthier ventilation system, and the section on colors was far and away the most organized and logical explanation I have ever seen.

Some aspects of our project are beyond our control, but I became a much more active participant. We anxiously await our new space, and know that the suggestions made here will add to the beauty and functionality of our space. I wish I could have rated this 10 stars!

Fire, Climate Change, and Carbon Cycling in the Boreal Forest (Ecological Studies)

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Fire, Climate Change, and Carbon Cycling in the Boreal Forest (Ecological Studies)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387988904

Book Description

In boreal forests, which contain large amounts of the world's terrestrial organic carbon, fire is a natural and fundamental disturbance regime essential in controlling many ecosystem processes. As a result of predicted climate change in the future, the fire regime and, consequently, the forest cover and carbon storage of boreal regions will undergo dramatic alterations. This volume discusses the direct and indirect mechanisms by which fire and climate interact to influence carbon cycling in North American boreal forests. The first section summarizes the information needed to understand and manage fire's effects on the ecology of boreal forests and its influence on global climate change issues. Following chapters discuss in detail the role of fire in the ecology of boreal forests. Subsequent sections present data sets on fire and the distribution of carbon, discuss the use of satellite imagery in monitoring these regions and discuss approaches to modeling the relevant processes. The book offers the following new results: improved estimates of carbon released during fires at a variety of scales, from individual sites to the entire North American boreal forest region; direct evidence of enhanced soil respiration after fire in Alaskan boreal forests; studies of the influence of fire on long-term forest-succession patterns; modeling results of the effects of climate warming on the fire regime; examples of the use of satellite imagery to monitor surface characteristics important in carbon cycling; modeling results of how climate change will interact with the fire regime to influence carbon storage.

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Cattle, cars and cobbles
Two Great Essays & Five ... Others
An entertaining and fascinating book by a gifted writer.
Least piece is best piece.
A collection of engrossing short pieces, perfectly written.

Irons in the Fire
John McPhee
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0374177260

Amazon.com

Master essayist John McPhee heard about vehicles in Nevada that resemble police cars, but the cop inside was actually a "brand inspector," a lawman charged with tracking cattle rustlers. Ever curious, McPhee left his home in New Jersey for Nevada and spent a few weeks in those cars. The title essay of this collection is, as we've come to expect from McPhee, well-reported and beautifully written. Also included are essays based on McPhee's observations of a stand of virgin forest in the middle of New Jersey, a huge pile of automobile tires in California, and a long and fascinating look at forensic geologists and how stones tell a story.

Book Description

In this collection John McPhee once agains proves himself as a master observer of all arenas of life as well a powerful and important writer.

Customer Reviews:

Cattle, cars and cobbles.......2002-05-21

What could be more presumptuous than attempting to sit in judgment of writings of John McPhee? Essayist of the American scene for the New Yorker magazine, McPhee is a lodestone for people unheralded, forgotten or simply unknown. When you read his accounts of their lives and work, his use of language, image, empathy will instill them in your memory. There, they will be cherished, later re-examined to be reflected on, or valued, or best of all, emulated. All his subjects are worthy role examples, but that is only a part of the value of reading McPhee's accounts of their lives. His scope is vast, bringing together personalities, history - often at some depth, and other related information. All this seems to pale in the light of his ability form sentences that lead you into novel worlds, elevate your interest in something unexpected, or simply describe an otherwise mundane event.

This book starts with a shock - cattle rustling isn't a practice limited to Hollywood's false sense of history. Cattle duffing remains an active practice in Nevada. Branding, the symbol of ownership, is still subject to the "running iron" in shifting title without accompanying cash exchange. Law enforcement is not applied by gun-toting marshals, but by a Brand Inspector marking tallies in the palm of his hand. McPhee escorts one across vast stretches of the Basin and climbs thousands of feet over the Range to "take attendance" of cattle like a country schoolmarm. There's little limit to how far he must travel - tracking moving cattle may lead him to California or southern Utah. McPhee's descriptions of the country are more than matched by his relation of successful apprehensions of rustlers. His account brings the action into sharp focus and you are beside the Inspector staking out a mountain hideaway.

McPhee raises the term "investigative journalist" to fresh levels of excellence. Other topics in this collection include word processing for a blind author, understanding gravel as evidence, exotic automobiles and the travels and travails of a glacial boulder - a special one. His guidance through these topics is sure, keeping your interest at a peak as he conveys a wealth of information and character description. As with any McPhee book, this one remains timeless. It's worth your attention - and retention.

Two Great Essays & Five ... Others.......2001-10-26

Although I've long heard of the prolific essayist McPhee, I'd never actually read anything by him until now. While I admire his curiosity about the world around him, only of two of the seven essays (all of which were previously published in some form in The New Yorker I believe) really captured my attention. "The Gravel Page" is in fact seventy pages about the compelling subject of geological forensics. It holds together somewhat better than some of the other pieces because McPhee uses several high-profile cases (the kidnapping/murder cases of beer magnate Adolph Coors III in Colorado and DEA agent Enrique Salazar in Mexico) to show how soil analysts can play a key role in solving a crime. Equally compelling (perhaps because it's a topic that has a broader impact), is his foray into the world of auto tire disposal. There are a number of amazing facts he brings to light, the number of tires discarded, the rejection of retreads in the US despite no difference in safety, shredding and recycling entrepreneurs, and most impressive, the amount of recoverable petroleum in each tire. For example, according to McPhee, burning tires yield more energy than lignite coal, with similar emissions. So, let's see, we could be recycling tires for fuel instead of trying to rip more coal of the ground. Hmm, tough call... In any event, these two essays are worth checking the book out of the library for.

The other five essays are as follows: "Irons in the Fire" starts out promisingly enough as a behind the scenes look at modern-day brand inspectors in Nevada, complete with rustlers. Unfortunately, unless you have some particular interest in cattle, digressions and its 50+ pages of length may render it rather numbing after a while. The second piece, "Release," is an entirely mawkish-and thankfully brief-portrait of an author who uses voice-recognition software on his computer to assist his writing. It might have been remarkable fifteen years ago, but we've all seen umpteen of these stories on the local news since then. He tries to milk some humor out of it via the computer's awkward pronunciation, but its just not funny. "In Virgin Forest," is another brief entry, this time about a bit of primordial deciduous forest just across the river from Manhattan in New Jersey. It's kind of neat to discover how it came to survive in pristine form in such an unlikely place, but there's not a whole lot more to it. "Rinhard at Manheim" is perhaps the oddest piece-it's basically the transcribed ramblings of a friend of McPhee's who's a scout at a "exotic car" auction, as he describes the merits and deficiencies of various luxury sports cars. There doesn't seem to be much point-or even humor-to it. The final essay, on the history, repair, and geological origins of Plymouth Rock is rather tedious on the whole, although geologists, stonemasons or history buffs might find it more worthwhile.

An entertaining and fascinating book by a gifted writer........1999-02-11

Once again, McPhee has revealed the fascinating hidden sides to a number of subjects which at first appear ordinary. He is The Master at popularizing Earth Science, and shows why in the most entertaining manner.

Others more talented than I, and who make a living reviewing books, have already reviewed and praised this book. I have a question of the publisher, though. At the front of the book, below the card-catalog data, is the following statement: "A NOTE ON THE BINDING The die on the front of the binding -Lazy J Over Running M Combined- was created by Ellie Wyeth Fox for the author". Where is this die (cattle brand?) to be found? I looked all over my copy of this book and could not find it anywhere.

Least piece is best piece........1997-09-13

As always, McPhee's work is a zenith of style. But, in this collection, his shortest piece is his most fascinating. For, who is this mysterious "Rinard at Manheim," whose knowledge and wit are at least equal to the author's?

A collection of engrossing short pieces, perfectly written........1997-04-30

Mr. McPhee again turns his discerning eye on the work people do, what it entails, what it means to the worker, and (usually), how the author feels about it. Then he expands the context to outline its national, geophysical, geopolitical, economical, or other relevant influence, always in human terms. THIS MAN CAN WRITE! Here, he ranges from current-day cattle rustling in Nevada, to computers for the blind, to the content of a virgin forest in New Jersey (!), to the mortal hazards faced by high-tech soil-analyzing crimesolvers, to the sheer scope and methods of used tire disposal, to a short piece on an exotic auto auction in Pennsylvania, to the likely origins and the repair of Plymouth Rock. All, thanks to the author, are wonderful to read. But then, so is everything he has published.

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Fire in California's Ecosystems

Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0520246055

Book Description

Fire is both an integral natural process in the California landscape and growing threat to its urban and suburban developments as they encroach on wildlands. Written by many of the foremost authorities on the subject, this comprehensive volume, an ideal text and authoritative reference tool, is the first to synthesize our knowledge of the science, ecology, and management of fire in California. Part I introduces the basics of fire ecology. It includes an historical overview of fire, vegetation, and climate in California; overviews of fire as a physical and ecological process; and reviews the interactions between fire and the physical, plant, and animal components of the environment. Part II explores the history and ecology of fire in each of California's nine bioregions. Part III examines fire management in California, including both Native American and post-European settlement; discusses current issues related to fire policy and management, including air quality, watershed management, invasive plant species, native species, and fuel management; and considers the future of fire management.

Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy

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Fire and Healthy Ecosystems

Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy

Manufacturer: Foundation for Deep Ecology, by arrangement with Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Environmental & Natural Resources Law | Law | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 159726069X

Book Description

Wildfires are an awe-inspiring natural phenomenon that

have shaped North America's landscapes since the dawn

of time. They are a force that we cannot really control,

and thus understanding, appreciating, and learning to

live with wildfire is ultimately our wisest public policy.

With more than 150 dramatic photographs, Wildfire: A

Century of Failed Forest Policy covers the topic of wildfire

from ecological, economic, and social/political perspectives

while also documenting how past forest policies

have hindered natural processes, creating a tinderbox of

problems that we are faced with today.

More than 25 leading thinkers in the field of fire ecology

provide in-depth analyses, critiques, and compelling

solutions for how we live with fire in our society. Using

examples such as the epic Yellowstone fires of 1988, the

ever-present southern California fires, and the

Northwest's Biscuit Fire of 2002, the book examines the

ecology of these landscapes and the policies and practices

that affected them and continue to affect them, such

as fire suppression, prescribed burns, salvage logging,

and land-use planning. Overall, the book aims to promote

the restoration of fire to the landscape and to

encourage its natural behavior so it can resume its role as

a major ecological process.

Customer Reviews:

Fire and Healthy Ecosystems.......2007-03-15

Contrary to Smokey T. Bear, fire is an integral part of healthy ecosystems. After a century of aggressive fire suppression and the myth of Smokey T. Bear, we now see clearly that fire is integral just as soils, sun, wind, water, insects, snow, ice and other natural processes. Put an increment borerer into a tree and you can read the fire history of an ecosystem back up to 3,000 years.

Core into soils, meadows and adjacent streams and you can often retrace almost 10,000 years of fire history in the sediments, buried logs and stumps. Learn the behavior of wildland fire in the presence of sun, upslope wind, rain, snow, clouds, humidity, katabtic winds and air temperature and you begin to catch a glimpse of how we have artificially imposed politics, wishful thinking and pseudoscience on wildland ecosystems.

Media and politicians speak of "catastrophic" and "charred" ecosystems, but fail to speak of the catastrophe of sprawling urban development imposed upon fire-maintained vegetation and soils. We live in wood houses with wood shake roofs and wonder why our houses burn when the surrounding air super heats.

We have made many mistakes with fire. The first mistake is labeling wildland ecosystems uninhabited "wilderness". As Kat Andersen reminds us in "Before The Wilderness," this was never wilderness, people have always lived here AND used fire as a tool to maintain healthy ecosystems for more than 10,000 years.

It was the European invasion that labeled fire as "bad" and Disney and Bambi who drove the message home. It is only through the dedicated work of scientists and wildland managers in places like Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Yosemite and Yellowstone Natl Parks since 1970 that we have begun to understand the basic role of fire. The Leopold Commission in the early 1950s clearly identified the potential for large fires from all the biomass that was and continues to build up.

There is still a large residue who label fire as "bad," and don't understand the role of fire in healthy, resilant, durable ecosystems. Air Quality districts now impose their mandates on when to burn. This book is a must for the public, resource managers and urban residents.

Fire and Ashes: On the Front Lines Battling Wildfires

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Fire and Ashes

Fire and Ashes: On the Front Lines Battling Wildfires
John N. Maclean
Manufacturer: Owl Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0805075917

Book Description

Are wilderness fires now a tragic and enduring feature of the American landscape? John N. Maclean, author of the acclaimed Fire on the Mountain, offers a view from the front lines, combining action-packed storytelling with moving insights about firefighters and informed analysis of firefighting strategy past and present. Beginning with a riveting account of the worst case of arson in wildfire history-the 1953 Rattlesnake Fire in Mendocino National Forest, which claimed the lives of fifteen firefighters-Maclean explains the mysterious dynamics of fire, and the courage and techniques required to combat it.

Customer Reviews:

Fire and Ashes.......2007-01-06

This is a really a interesting and personal account of fighting fire. Shows real knowledge and insight into the chemistry of fighting fire !

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