River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River

Rating:
Summary: whales once breached here, ...
Review: This is a terrific book. If you live along the St. Johns you want to read it. It's loaded with information about the human history, natural history, and current condition of the river. It is an engaging read only occasionally mared by bad writing. If you can get past the swamp of the first paragraph the rest is good, with only a few overpriced three dollar words sprinked through the text.

Rating:
Summary: whales once breached here, ...
Review: This is a terrific book. If you live along the St. Johns you want to read it. It's loaded with information about the human history, natural history, and current condition of the river. It is an engaging read only occasionally mared by bad writing. If you can get past the swamp of the first paragraph the rest is good, with only a few overpriced three dollar words sprinked through the text.

Rating:
Summary: A Florida Vacation, Minus The Mouse
Review: This is one of those vacation-like books that I hoped wouldn't end. From the peaceful beginnings of the St. Johns to its rollicking arrival at the Atlantic Ocean, each page delivered a new marvel. Belleville followed his nose deep into the river-weeds, down into underwater caves, and out to the center of beautiful, bird-ful lakes. And he didn't shy away from observing that damnable human yearning to live as close as possible to the water's edge. All the world is wrapped up in this river: I found reason to marvel, reason to rail, and reason to hope for the future.

Rating:
Summary: Hell 'n Blazes, a blessing, indeed
Review: What a splendid writer is this Bill Belleville. The burden of the nature narrative is to make any place as familiar as home, and as inviting, here in particular, as a river glade. Belleville's confidence is not only in the turf, so to speak, but in his touch. The St. Johns River, even to this Connecticut Yankee, is where readers today, as marine animals in the time before places had names, can still come to dream.