Rare photographs and comprehensive text about the wooden architecture of Russia that can be found in one place nowhere else!

Mortimore, a British geographer with 28 years of residence in northern Nigeria and several books to his name, is an adept and rigorous practitioner of local-level cultural ecology. Bill Adams began his career examining the fate of Northern Nigeria's large irrigation schemes, and has since written extensively on conservation and sustainability questions. Working the Sahel emerged from a five year British-funded investigation into patterns of agricultural intensification and labor use in four sub-locations located on a transect of varying population density between Kano and the Nigeria-Niger border. This book subsumes some of Mortimore's long term datasets and archival material, permitting longitudinal evaluations.

Working the Sahel is a tightly focused research monograph. The key question it poses is how individual skills are exercised in "strategic and tactical" ways by households in Northern Nigeria, and how resource endowments are managed under varying population densities. The starting point is that constraints on farming activities can be distilled into four categories; rainfall, bioproductivity of plants and soil, labor, and the availability of capital. Labor constraints in Nigeria and elsewhere have been generally been relaxed as population densities rise, permitting some combination of intensification of agricultural production in-situ, economic diversification out of agriculture, and circular migration. Adaptation - a term much critiqued by anthropologists - is used quite sensibly here to describe the reflexive, longer term restructuring of Sahelian rural systems in the response to these four constraints. Both flexibility and adaptability are demanded of Sahelian farmers.

The core of the book concerns the day to day management of labor. In the four villages, high frequency time-budget observations by local researchers took place over four years, initially with the men, women and children of around 45 households. The study found that some labor inefficiencies are inevitable in dryland farming systems. Short cropping seasons in the drier villages concentrate labor demand; but since crop growth is dependent on rainfall, drought years can actually provoke labor surpluses. To maintain flexibility, therefore, labor is matched to resource endowments, and by switching between livelihood activities. Women and children make significant contributions to agricultural labor, that are greater in the drier and more extensive farming systems where Islamic seclusion is more relaxed.

A picture emerges of biodiversity maintained by cultivation practices, and only localized episodes of degradation, largely driven by precipitation fluctuations. In their view, "Nothing could be further from the scenario of reckless resource degradation which has been put about by some academics and development agencies" (p193). The book also argues farmers have already developed pathways to "indigenous intensification" (p97) in the drylands, where denied access to fertilizer.

Adaptive responses in the four villages include significant non-farm activities, since as Mortimore and Adams are at pains to stress, risk is spread through diversification. Impelled by economic factors, such as the instabilities generated by Nigeria's commodity booms and busts, and the recognition that animals offer investment opportunities, a pattern has emerged of "the more crops produced, the more livestock kept" (p132), in mixed farming systems. Private accumulation through petty trading in rural periodic markets is just part of a widely developed trading system, and markets also provide a wide range of social functions. Long distance migration, described much too briefly in the book, articulates with broader economic opportunity in regional hinterlands, and nationally.

The authors personalize some of these labor tradeoffs and decision-making processes by profiling six farmers, by means of activity charts and brief personal histories. These profiles highlight how and when households deploy their labor. The book concludes by stressing that agricultural development initiatives in the Sahel fail when they are reductionist, and ignore diversity and variability. There is a dig here at farming systems research, which has underpinned agronomic development programs in the Sahel, for its focus on efficiency criteria. Dryland farmers are not profit or efficiency maximizers, since "..'efficiency' would leave no room for flexible maneuver" (p192). The message for future development interventions is a simple one; big schemes won't work, and "the most impressive stories of development are those where a need for multiple choices, to suit a range of smallholder families, has been met, implicitly or explicitly, in the type of interventions and opportunities affecting rural households." (p191).

Politics receives too little discussion in the book, and is missing from the conceptual model used: it is only discussed as a starting point for the analysis of local farmer responses. Social and political conflict is downplayed, and not much is said about struggle and open resistance - and why such struggles (often gendered, or to do with resource access issues) might be necessary.
Nonetheless the insistence on rigorous comparative fieldwork in Working the Sahel is salutary. The authors remind us that smallholder agriculture is potentially productive, and environmentally benign, in parts of the world where the presence of globalized agricultural knowledge, pervasive development discourses, and far-reaching commodity markets is still fragmentary. To do this, the authors afford equal analytical weight to natural environments and to human activities. The book shows the real contribution that committed geographers can make to African agrarian and development studies.

Chris Carlisle has edited a terrific compendium of orthern California non-profits devoted to World peace. An excellent guide.

farley mowat is special, no doubt about it: a wonderful way with words, just weaves them together, and his subjects are fascinating, intense, powerful, often quite humorous, and his looks into the human and natural world are worth sharing. if you like farley mowat, and have read anything by him before, or even not, this is a good sample selection of a great and multi-talented writer.

Although not as well-written as Barr's three previous efforts, "Firestorm" is still a major page-turner, especially if, as happened to this reviewer, it is being read while major forest fires are raging in Colorado and Arizona.

Barr's usual descriptive genius doesn't fail her here, as she places Anna and her colleagues in a vicious forest fire blazing out of control in northern California's Lassen Volcanic National Park. As spike camp medic, Anna is deep in the fray. But her security officer side doesn't get called into play until later in the book--after a terrifying firestorm that traps Anna and her colleagues in an inferno from which there is no escape. Barr's description of the firestorm is so realistic, and so frightening, that I must believe she has lived through such an experience herself. As always with her books, I felt that I, too, was huddled beneath the fireproof foil the firefighters call "Shake and Bake," desperately trying to breathe while intense flames roared over the top of the flimsy little shelter. I won't be a spoiler and say who survives and who does not--but I will say that murder rears its ugly head even as Anna and crew are struggling to survive the flames' holocaust.

Those who have read the three previous books will be glad to see the return of FBI agent Frederick Stanton, whose interest in Anna has gained much momentum. Feisty southern ranger-in-training Jennifer Short is also in this book, fighting a personal tragedy that threatens her survival even more than the aftermath of the firestorm--when she, Anna, and several others are trapped in the burned-out forest with no food, no medical facilities for the badly burned, and the knowledge that whoever committed the murder is among them.

The mystery, as usual with Barr's novels, is secondary to the fascinating venue of Anna Pigeon's world. I will never watch TV footage of a forest fire, as I did while I was reading this book, in the same way again. I feel like I have been on the front lines as well, which is Nevada Barr's great talent as a writer. This is a terrific read!

Nevada Barr has 2 books that are closed to "locked room" mysteries - that is, where the action and events are in a tightly controlled environment. Firestorm has it's events in the middle of a firestorm, on a mountain top where rescue is delayed. (Blind Descent is the other - inside a subterranean cave.)
Barr's description of the firestorm, and being trapped inside of a tiny fireproof tent are gripping! The murders are solved by Frederick and Anna. Frederick is working on the outside, and supplies info to Anna via hand radios. Anna uncovers facts and fights the growing tension between survivors who are trapped on the mountain together.
There are suspects galore - but I was totally surprized by the identity of the true murderer and Anna's judgement call in handling the murderer.
This is probably one of Barr's best novels - a "hot, hot" read!

FIRESTORM smokes. Anna Pigeon is a great mystery character, one of my favorites. I especially enjoyed this Nevada Barr novel. Anna is dispatched to the scene of a massive forest fire where she is trapped by a shifting fireline along with a group of firefighters. One of the firefighters is a killer, and suspense builds throughout the story. FIRESTORM is an excellent book.

First of all, I like Daniel Silva's writing and I thoroughly enjoyed his first two novels. "The Unlikely Spy" was one of the best World War II espionage novels that I had read in a long time. "Mark of the Assassin", the prequel to this book, was also quite good. But, I guess I just missed the boat on this one.

The success of the Good Friday Agreement is being threatened by a new terrorist group and the current British Prime Minister requests that the U.S. President appoint a heavyweight to the Court of St. James to show U.S. support for this agreement. Senator Douglas Cannon, a political rival of the current administration, gets the appointment and since he is Michael Osbourne's father in law, we know that the former hero of "Mark of the Assassin" will be lured back into the web of dirty deeds and operatives. Even the "Assassin" from "Mark of the Assassin" returns. What more could one ask for.

Unlike many, I thought that the first half of the book was extremely well done. Especially where Silva lays the seeds for the problems in Northern Ireland and introduces his new paramilitary "bad guys" (and "bad gals"). But, with the introduction of a super-secret cabal known only as "The Society", whose directors are interested in world domination and control from an economic as well as a political/military level, I think he starts to lose it. First of all, the identity of the U.S. delegate to this group is a piece of cake to figure out. Then, "October", the assassin from the second book, performs a hit for the Mossad and Osbourne can recognize him from his hand (?). The Society itself - that world domination thing, again - is vintage Robert Ludlum. Even the three word title is downright Ludlumesque. And having Osbourne and Jean Paul Delarouche ("October") join forces to save the world.......well, let's say I double checked a couple of times just to make sure whose name was on the cover.

A number of authors of this genre have had their first couple of books be their best work and later novels become the literary equivalent of popcorn. I think that Silva is too good a writer to allow that to happen. But, I look forward to his next novel, just to make sure.

Another page turner from Daniel Silva!!! Michael Osbourne, hero from The Mark of the Assassin, returns as the chief protagonist in the Marching Season. Against the backdrop of the long-standing conflict in Northern Ireland, the secret order called the Society is again attempting to create global unrest to further their own agendas. The Marching Season is a fast-paced, exciting read. Many of the characters from the Mark of the Assassin, both good and evil, are back, allowing for further character development for the readers who also read Silva's previous work. The story has action, excitement, intrigue, and frequent plot twists - leading up to an unexpected ending. This is another solid effort by Silva. You won't be disappointed if you give this a go.

This is the third of Daniel Silva's books that I have read and all I can say is that THE MARCHING SEASON is perhaps the best sequel I have read in any of the genres I read in. At the very beginning of this book I did not think I would end up saying this, but here I am, saying it in spite of my initial reservations.

To be sure, this book starts off more slowly than I would have expected or liked. However, that is where the skill that Daniel Silva possesses reveals itself. Without a doubt, here is a relatively new author who is already a master of pacing, tension, plot, scene, character development and everything that is needed to craft a finely wrought spy novel.

Michael Osbourne is reprised from THE MARK OF THE ASSASSIN as are his wife, his liberal father-in-law, retired U.S. Senator Douglas Cannon and other members of the government and the CIA. Also returning for a not so welcome guest appearance is Jean-Paul Delaroche, aka October, the Assassin who unsuccessfully attempted to kill Michael Osbourne in the previous installment.

The internal machinations of the U.S. and British governments, as well as the possible goings-on inside both the IRA and the various Irish Protestant paramilitaries are also revealed here and in fine detail. Another master stroke that Silva employs throughout this story is that he doesn't ever really get preachy. With some authors, their natural biases come out in their writing. Not so with Daniel Silva. He simply tells the story and writes about the people he populates the book with.

Is there moral outrage on Silva's part? I would have to guess yes. No normal person could ever condone the terroristic acts that are carried out in the name of one misguided cause after another around the globe. If he shows that outrage, it is when he talks about how various splinter factions have risen out of the ashes of the fires of terrorism to scuttle the Irish peace process. He also writes damningly of THE SOCIETY, a super secret extra-national intelligence organization that continues to stir the pot around the globe for its own greedy interests. These are the folks you can tell Silva despises; the globalists with no loyalties to any nation or flag. They are only loyal to their own financial interests.

Although Silva continues to be spare with his information on Jean Paul Delaroche, he provides just enough material to keep the reader plunging along in headlong pursuit of the final denouement. This is what makes October so interesting and ultimatley almost sympathetic. For throughout the international chases, October is a man who maintains his own sense of values and morality. Michael Osbourne may not agree with October's view of the world or himself, but ultimately, the respect, while grudging begins to grow. How Silva brings this all about is what makes this an exceptional spy novel.

If you have not discovered Daniel Silva, you are in for a real treat. Start with THE UNLIKELY SPY and then read THE MARK OF THE ASSASSIN, followed by THE MARCHING SEASON. Only the last two are directly related but, if you read them in the order I have listed, you will get to follow Silva's rapid development as a writer and see his promotion into the ranks of spy-thriller masters.

I recommend these books unreservedly to all fans of well-crafted spy fiction. Read them and you too, will be telling your friends about Daniel Silva.

Thank you, Mr. Silva for many hours of reading enjoyment. I hope you'll keep Michael Osbourne as a central figure in your future novels. I think he still has more to say.

Paul Connors

I've read one of Barbara Delinsky's books about eight years ago, and I was impressed. That book, A Woman Betrayed, kept me in search of an interesting book Barbara. Admittedly, Coast Road is readable, but the plot is unrealistic. Jack and Rachel's two daughters, 13 and 15 year old, had the intelligence of 3 and 5 year olds. Rachel was the one with the head injuries, but one has to wonder if Jack suffered from head injuries also. The story was told in 16 days, which seemed to be enough time for Jack to realize that he's put the love of his life on the back burner for the past six year. Grow up Jack! The only good thing about Coast Road is the fact that Delinsky keeps the reader interested in finding out whether or not Rachel wakes up.

The story is wonderful, and the way it's presented is both unique and interesting. Ms. Delinsky has a writing style and a way of exploring contemporary women's issues that few other authors can match. If you haven't read this book, by all means do so. It will probably make you smile and definitely make you cry.

Having said that, I found Jack to be a much more sympathetic character than Rachel. Yes, he has flaws. And, yes, he carries much of the weight of responsibility for the loss of their marriage. Much...but not all.

I didn't feel that Rachel ever owned up to her own contribution to their divorce. After all, she walked out on Jack. Without explanation. She took his daughters and went someplace where she could be more creative. But never - not once - did she tell him why she was leaving or what he was doing wrong. She expected him to read her mind in several situations - to anticipate needs she never expressed - and when he couldn't, she punished him. Jack had to discover Rachel's feelings secondhand and I think that was an injustice.

That was the weakest link in this book. The relationships between Jack and his daughters and Jack and Rachel's friends are developed beautifully (and, incidentally, comprise much of the book). Likewise, Jack's path of discovery and growth is believable and heartwrenching.

Jack's character alone makes this book worth reading.

Having seen the paperback on the rack and reading a brief review from a guild publication, I decided to try Coast Road by Barbara Delinsky, a first-time author read. How could I have missed a Delinsky book - this was wonderful! In such a tender love story, it was so refreshing to have a male as the dominant character and read and feel from his perspective. The evolution of the story as told and seen from Jack McGill, his daughters, Rachel's friends and family was compelling. Sometimes you don't want a cliched happy ending, but I was rooting for this family all the way. The reawakening love for his ex-wife and his daughters and, in turn, their acceptance of him made for many teary scenes. It was refreshing to see compassion, tenderness, friendship, confusion, determination, hostility, impatience, and love woven so intrically together without explicit sex. Delinsky's description of the Big Sur area was so vivid. I've never been there, but feel like I have now. A sequel would be welcome, but in the meantime I'll be reading other Delinsky works.

T.C. Boyle is one of the most technically gifted writers in America, as the present volume bears witness to. His descriptions, characterizations, and flights of lyricism are almost without peer.

But Drop City is a quickly tedious and predictable book that's been written many times--by Denis Johnson (*Already Dead*), for instance. Boyle seems self-consciously smug in his own brazen mediocrity at times, going for adolescent gross-outs and tired narrative scenerios.

Drop City is, most of all, a book about the waste and decay and lassitude of a certain segment of the author's generation. If that "does it" for you, read my 2 stars as 5. But the arrested emotional development of the novel's characters, so clearly described, seems to be the end in itself here--more than any other American author I've read, Boyle seems to take a perverse glee in demonstrating his virtuosity and then not going any further. I used to think he just wasn't writing up to his potential. But maybe he is.

the reviewers who are complaining need to realize that T. C. Boyle writes FICTION. As with all his books, he begins with two separate stories that somehow converge. and living in alaska does involve gruesome animal death - ask the folks who live where no roads go and the sun doesn't shine for days. I loved his portrayal of alaska and found it to be one of the most real I've read. His characters aren't people you entirely love, hmmmm just like the real world. I did identify with some of the women. They are idealists and idealists make a lot of mistakes. I enjoyed the scenery and the dialogue. I love Boyle and enjoyed the book immensely. It wasn't a hippie memoir - wasn't all about drugs and sex- it's about people and relationships and how life itself affects those relationships.

Really loved this book, loved his word choice and cared about the characters. Kind of reminded me of why I like Tom Wolfe novels in its journalistic approach. I ate up the details on what it's like to be a hippie.

I liked that Boyle suggests there is no free lunch since "dropping out" is portrayed either as a self-indulgent loveless enterprise or nightmarish hard work, and that the extremes of either communal living or complete solitude aren't answers. Makes me appreciate the 'burbs more.

If you haven't read it yet, don't read the following:
What's interesting too is how Boyle suggests we are products of our environment. The stress of Alaska broke the hippies, exacerbated Ronnie/Pan's evil and eventually caused the leader to bolt, a breach of everything he stood for. Pre-Alaska, their brotherliness and camarderie was fostered by the comfort and drugs, but how many of us our bolstered in brotherliness and camarderie by our comfort and our beer? Sess's hatred of the contemptible Joe Bosky is understandable, but he's as much a product of the environment as any wolf, heartless as the climate.

Seamus Deane has brilliantly crafted a powerful account of the Northern Irish struggle in a most unique way. Narrated by a growing boy, each short chapter is a little vignette of his life and yet strung together effortlessly like a web to create a moving tale imbued with sadness, love, humour and mystery. The early chapters appear to lack form and direction but with a little patience, the reader will be richly rewarded. As the child grows up, he learns (and so does the reader) more of the grim realities of life in Northern Ireland, the tragedies that befall his family (past and present) and the secret of betrayal that threatens the bond between him and his parents. It's a testament to Deane's talent that the book reads easily, yet some scenes - a hike up the hills or a touch of the father's hand - can be so beautifully rendered and moving. Get past the early chapters and you won't be disapponited.

Seamus Deane has added another fine book to the amazing collection of novels looking at Ireland and the Irish in the twentienth century. The most delightful and charming aspect of Reading in the Dark is the voice of its unnamed narrator as he struggles to understand the world he is growing up in (Northern Ireland in the 1950's). Every situation can have so many solutions to him, some mundane, most wondrous. It is surprising how much humour can be found in the life led by this boy, as written by Mr. Deane. The wit of the writing helps cushion the reader for all the very many sadnesses and horrors which occur throughout the book. The reader and the narrator will together learn to navigate this world and survive. An effective and powerful read.

This beautiful book reads more like a poignant and heartbreaking memoir than a novel. It's difficult to believe the incidents described are really fiction and not the author's reality...they are described so well and in just the right detail.

Reading in the Dark is a story of ghosts, of legends, and most of all, of secrets...Irish secrets. The narrator, whose name we never learn, struggles to unravel the truth of those secrets and as he does, he learns what it really means to grow up in Northern Ireland, surrounded by the shadows of political turmoil.

Although I really didn't identify with any of the characters in this book, I found them very engrossing and came to care about them deeply. Some of the characters are quite well-fleshed out while others remain only fragments of the author's imagination. Most make only brief appearances in the novel, although one, Liam, shares the spotlight with the unnamed narrator.

Reading in the Dark is a different sort of coming-of-age story. It is beautiful, lyrical, brutal and truly unforgettable. And truly the work of an Irish mind.

Northern Lights is a captivating tale of a young girl looking for answers. Her journey through a world of actionpacked fantasy, enthrals readers from start to finish.
The author, Philip Pullman explores many issues in their world, which we can sometimes relate back to our society today.
Overall, Northern Lights was a good book, aimed at mature readers.
Please note that this book is not just a book to read for leisure, as you must also think as you are reading.

Northern Lights is a thrilling and captivating ride through the mystical world of Lyra's. She takes us on a journey through the dangerous and truly amazing world of the North. the reader is taken through the world of high politics and also the world of "a half sane, half wild girl."

The reader is introduced to many different characters and many different groups of people who each have their own views on the topic at hand, the Oblation Board.

This book is truly sensational and definatly opens your eyes to another genre, with in fantasy.

Northern Lights is thrilling and fillied with adventure.Lyra a wild spunky girl sets off on a journet to fid her friend Roger who has dissapeared. She meets witches, armoured bears and many other many magical creatures! This book is def 1 of the best ever!! Be sure to read it!!