Lovers or romantic suspense will be thrilled to find River of Dreams. I know I was. Don't miss this funny, romantic and exciting story. I'm looking forward to getting her next book.

Have read this author's work before, and this is her best yet! Could not put this book down. She describes everything so accurately and in such detail, makes it all too easy to imagine it all. And what vivid images they are, too.

A wonderful mix of adventure, a little comedy and a lot of romance.

This book instantly became one of my favorites. One I'll read again and again and again.

Hi i'm barnaby pace although richard pace is my uncle i am not biased in saying this is a great book. i had a fab time reading this book. he provided me just as a kid an in-detail idea of amazon life. i'm certain it's correct as i know how much work he did to publish this book. so it is a great read anytime.

Dr. Pace did an excellent job of making current anthropological issues in the Amazon available in a clear, concise and easily digested book. I especially enjoyed the simplicity with which the intricate web of economics, ecology, poloitics, and class issues was detailed. The book is loaded with information gathered from local inhabitants from rural peasants to urban politicians. Sufficient background is provided to make sense of current issues and help in understanding the processes at work in the Amazon.

This is an exciting and unusual book -- it's a memoir of the life of one of the century's greatest songwriters (according to Rolling Stone), who is probably fairly unknown in the US because he sings in Portuguese. It's also a history of the 60's and 70's in Brazil, a time that included rule by military dictatorships (who imprisoned and exiled Veloso). It's also a passionate history of Brazilian music, through the lens of the tropicalia movement created by Veloso, Gilberto Gil (also imprisoned with Veloso, and recently named Minister of Culture by newly elected President Lula!), Gal Costa, Tom Ze and others. It's personal, scholarly, revealing, and will offer a glimpse into the mind and soul of a fascinating musical genius.

Songwriter Caetano Veloso is one of Brazil's most iconic artistic figures; along with Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and others, he created the "tropicalia" movement, which reconciled the magic of bossa nova with the psychedelic splendor of '60s rock. This is an English translation of his autobiography, a densely-written, super-intellectual, but also quite charming and down-to-earth account of the "heroic years" of the tropicalia movement. Veloso gives an intimate, immensely informative account of Brazilian music, from the pre-bossa "radio singers" he grew up with to the intense ideological rivalries between the hippie-ish tropicalia artists and the left-wing party-liners of the bossa nova crowd. The book is also a memoir of life under the Brazilian military dictatorship which took power in 1964, eventually sending Veloso and Gil (and countless other artists) into political exile, while attempting to censor their work and silence their voices. The role of the artist in all aspects of life -- social, spiritual and aesthetic -- resonates throughout this book, as Veloso gives an invaluable insider's view of an artistic movement that changed the course of Brazilian culture. This book basically ends in the early 1970s... it would be great if he could follow up with a second volume exploring the growth (although some might call it decline) of Brazilian music in the decades that followed. (PS - this is the perfect companion to Ruy Guerra's similarly wonderful book, "Bossa Nova, The Sound That Seduced The World.")

I read this book on recommmendation by a friend. Athough the language is sophisticated, the book makes Brazil in the 1890s come alive. It made me want to go out and read Da Cunha's work, too. This book is masterful and compelling, and the story it tells is tragic.

Northeast Brazil has arguably inspired more fine writing than any other region in Latin America, & Levine's book continues this tradition. The Canudos episode has had two major previous chroniclers, first Da Cunha's classic eyewitness account "Rebellion in the Backlands," & Vargas Llosa's "War of the End of the World," familiar to US readers. Levine's scholarly history does not have the literary merit of its predecessors (though it's still quite readable). But it is analytically superior, because in documenting the historical background & religious orthodoxy of the Canudos community Levine reveals his subjects as well-rounded historical actors rather than incoherent fanatics. He thus restores the humanity of this tragic episode's victims, not least by showing how they exemplified millenarian patterns found elsewhere. The well-chosen illustrations make the book visually striking too. I would not hesitate to assign the paperback to advanced undergraduates. It is the definitive modern interpretation, & ultimately it will stimulate more research & revised perspectives. We cannot ask more of a good historian.

After posting my review of Geld's book, I read the review written by an unnamed person in the Publishers Weekly. This reviewer read a different book from the one I did, or worse chose only to skim it, with the thought of writing from their own biased understanding of Brazil. I would be willing to wager that this reviewer has never set foot on a farm nor taken the time to understand a country as big and diverse as the U. S.

The reviewer obviously wanted Geld to delve into the ecological problems of developing in the Amazon River basin and discards completely Gelds questioning of the long term issues related to development in the Amazon River basin. Geld very interestingly compared development in Parana, which she witnessed when she first arrived in Brazil, with what she saw occurring in the Amazon.

The political realities of agrarian reform are also lost on the reviewer. Several times in the book Geld explained how politicians in their attempt to improve conditions for small farmers, often complicate and hinder proper development of land. Geld's description of the small farmer who couldn't get title to his land, because the government was concerned that title would allow him to sell his land, but resulted in him not being able to borrow money to properly improve the land was but one example of her understanding and admirable description of these complex issues. Geld's quote of her father, "Poor people make poor soil," is very appropriate.

Your comment, "...parallels between the rich Ohio agrarian society of her youth and the subtropical poverty of a Brazilian farm economy", is laughable. I have visited Louis Bromfield's Malabar Farms twice in the past ten years and can tell you that the surrounding farms are anything but rich. Due to the diligence and innovative farming practices of her father, he slowly turned a run-down Depression era farm into a marvelous, model, working farm. Brazil's agricultural economy is far from poverty, as the country is rapidly overtaking the U. S. in farm production and productivity. This unnamed reviewers comments reflect either ignorance or some other hidden political agenda...

Ellen Bromfield Geld's new book View From the Fazenda is a delightful chronicle of her life as an immigrant to Brazil in 1961 up through today. She and her entrepreneurial husband Carson moved to Brazil as bright newlyweds, but without many material things other than the clothes on their backs. After several jobs on ranches, they accumulated enough funds to buy a small farm of 240 acres. Unlike most typical Brazilian farmers who lived in town, the Gelds quickly built a small house, making it the focal point for the recreation from a monoculture coffee farm into a diversified model. Showing a true love of the land Geld, writes of the many conservation innovations they bring to the farm with terracing, crop rotations and other ecologically friendly improvements.

Her travels throughout Brazil are interesting and well told. The best are her experiences in the fragile Amazon in Alta Floresta; Riding the riverboat on the River Sao Francisco; and the beauty of the relatively unknown Plantanal. She vividly describes the wonders she encounters in these sparsely populated, wild west areas of Brazil. While explaining these new areas, she also expresses her uneasiness and concern with how development is occurring in many of these areas relating them to the older areas of Parana that she saw develop when she first arrived in Brazil.

Several of her stories in the book are particularly humorous. Two of the better ones are how she has to show a group of Brazilian tourists that an American motel is not paid for by the hour and her experience of riding the Brazilian equivalent to the Orient Express.

Her forty year experience of adapting to a new country, raising a family of five children (all of whom study abroad but return to Brazil), and seeing the changes that occur over forty years is extremely interesting. It brought to mind what my ancestors might have faced when they came to the U. S. several generations ago to begin a new life as farmers in a very strange land.

I started the book over a weekend and couldn't put it down. It is highly recommended.

Wild Asia: Spirit of a Continent is a beautiful oblong title providing a visual journey through the Asian wildlife world based on an international television series by the Natural History New Zealand. Enjoy color photos and a variety of writers who focus on their regional knowledge of Asia, from the Arctic tundra to central Asia. An exceptional visual display blends with nature insights.

This book was a great buy for me. Although it is very general as animals and plants go, it opens up the wonder of Asia to the reader. Its pictures are extremely magnificent; they are the main focus of the book. It is said a picture tells a thousand words, and it is very true for this book. The color and great shots are just as good as it gets, next to being there.

Having actually lived in the country and visited the Amazon rain forest, this depiction of the destruction of the Atlantic rainforest and the effects there is highly factual and rather interesting. It is one of the only successful ecological histories about a forest! If you want a good read about the disappearance of one of Brazil's most historical aspects, then this book is for you.

This book is bound to change your view of Brazilian history, and of environmental history. A must read for anyone interested in either. A good Portuguese language translation is available.

Imagine if Amiri Baraka or Nathan Mccall were Brazilian: you'd have Abdias do Nascimento. Do Nascimento argues that the portrayal of Brazil as this race-mixing paradise is a racist myth meant to deny how much the country owes to African people and influences. It's a strong tail about African pride. Many people that argue for integration and miscegenation will be turned off by this book, but hopefully they will find it a provocative read as well. This book really gave me an idea of how pan-Africanism is global. If you're an angry Black person like myself, then you are really going to like this book.

I really thought this book was great. Sur eI'm only twenty years old but it was just awesome to involve myself in such a important piece of Brazilian HIstory since I am not from the area. Please pick this one up!

Since the marginal films of " Boca do Lixo" until "Macunaíma", this book shows the pos-Cinema Novo. Enjoy, 'cause here in Brazil we don't have hardcover of this book!