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The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan: Classic Diet Recipe Cards from the 1970s

39 reviews
Wendy McClure

Riverhead Trade, 2006

Quite possibly the funniest thing ever published....really
I was turned on to this writer through her book "I'm Not The New Me", which contained some of these cards. I shared it with my boss and I kid you not, I have NEVER seen anyone laugh as hard as he did. Tears rolling down his cheeks. So, when this compilation was published I bought four copies of it to give to him, to keep for myself, etc...and as we shared them with people, they tried to buy them ...

Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72

70 reviews
Hunter S. Thompson

Grand Central Publishing, 2006

I'm Fearful After Reading This...
This book's setting is eerily similar to the current state of affairs going on in with the 2008 Presidential Election, with the Democrats picking themselves apart while the Republicans sit back and enjoy the show. Richard Nixon is shown as the abomination that he was and HST's writing is as animated and humorous as I have ever seen it. This book surpassed my expectations and was a surprisingly ...

Patty's Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America

1 review
William Graebner

University Of Chicago Press, 2008

Suspect cultural history
The kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army and her (apparent) conversion to their social mayhem undoubtedly fascinated many Americans who now are in their 50's and 60's. It obviously continues to intrigue me enough to prompt me, a third of a century later, to buy and read this book with the expectation that it would give me a comprehensive and responsible historical account ...

Kitschmasland!: Christmas Decor from the 1950s Through the 1970s (Schiffer Book for Collectors)

3 reviews
Travis Smith

Schiffer Publishing, 2005

Dazzling Holiday Book - no bah humbugs here.
Travis Smith's Kitschmasland is an homage to the quirky, kitschy, holiday trimmings of more innocent, less consumer-crazed times. I was thrilled to see the felted Santas, bottle-brush trees and ceramic elves that decorated my parent's and grandparent's houses back when Christmas season officially started after Thanksgiving and endowed December with a magical quality. His collections span the ...

Leroy Grannis: Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s

9 reviews

Taschen, 2007

A cultural architect
This is one of the few coffee table books that can give you a rush of adrenalin just by flipping the page. Leroy Grannis may not have been the sole architect of the late twentieth century surfing culture phenomenon, but he certainly was among the dozen or so people that projected the image of surfing beyond the enthusiasts to almost every nook and cranny of our globe. Kids in Omaha bought ...

Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s

1 review

Harvard University Press, 2008

exceptional insights into the '70's
This is an exceptionally well constructed collection of essays by moderate liberals about the development of the modern conservative movement through the 1970's. It's a great supplement to classroom texts.

Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America

14 reviews
Richard Zoglin

Bloomsbury USA, 2008

Superb Writer, Truly Interesting, Read This Book!!
Richard Zoglin has taken a period of our lives, when laughing at ourselves and the world we live in, was something we just expected, enjoyed and used in our own everyday conversations---"excuuuuuse me". The comedians we thought we knew so well that we used their material to get our own laughs. Comedy At The Edge tells us what a serious, sometimes heartbreaking business comedy is. Zoglin ...

Collector's Guide to Dolls of the 1960s and 1970s: Identification and Values, Vol. 2

5 reviews
Cindy Sabulis

Collector Books, 2004

More Great Dolls From The Golden Age of Toys
Volume 2 of Cindy Sabulis' great doll directory of the Sixties and Seventies has more obscure dolls than anyone has ever seen. There are the popular favorites like Tressy, but did you ever see the bizarre Peteena,a glamorous woman with the head of a poodle? Betsy Wetsy rubs elbows with the John Travolta doll, but then there's the strange Ginny Bones, all head with a stick body. But don't ...

All the President's Men

96 reviews
Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein

Pocket, 2005

More than a B-plus
I just finished this book a few minutes ago. All I can say is, "WOW!" Having grown up in the naive period when we were inculcated with the notion that elected officials looked out for us regular people, it is hard to shake some of that naivete unless it's in print and in front of my eyes. And this book does an outstanding job at educating people in the subversion of the democratic process ...

The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genius, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris

3 reviews
Alicia Drake

Back Bay Books, 2007

What a Fall It Was!
To those fashionistas who remember the early 70s and to those who don't, this book is wonderfully interesting and perfectly detailed in its comparisons and reflections on the works of St. Laurent and Lagerfeld. Although in the early 70s the US was just starting to swing, it seems that Paris was sizzling. This book made me envious of everyone there. I would recommend this book to everyone ...

Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam

82 reviews
Mark Bowden

Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006

Bowden Delivers a Masterpiece
Guests of the Ayatollah presents the extensively researched, impelling non-fiction style for which Bowden has become widely acclaimed through his other best sellers. As someone who has read other Bowden books, I felt Guests of the Ayatollah is his best book to date. In this book, Bowden provides the intense, all-inclusive details from start to finish of the 444 day Iranian Hostage Crisis. ...

The Walk West: A Walk Across America 2

15 reviews
Peter Jenkins, Barbara Jenkins

William Morrow & Company, 1981

Great adventure
I read 'A Walk Across America' and 'The Walk West' a number of years ago. Both proved to be exciting. I liked 'The Walk West' best since it covered areas I have visited. I began staying at Vickers Ranch at Lake City Colorado due to this book. I took my book with me my first visit and had Perk Vickers and his wife autograph it for me. Perk is getting up in age but was still alive the last time ...

Big Rigs of the 1970s

3 reviews
Ron Adams

Motorbooks, 2007

Big Rigs of the 1970's
I can't say enough good thing about this book. The pics and the info are awesome! This is a must have for any truck enthusiast. I love trucks and I could not put the book down. Ron, if you read this, how about Big Rigs of the 1980's? Sign me up!

Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World

28 reviews
Margaret Macmillan

Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2008

A Formidable Cast of Characters
Nixon and Mao, Kissinger and Chou En-lai: the book focusses on the two pairs of characters who changed the course of history during that fateful week of February 1972, bringing an end to the long standoff between the United States and China where neither country had recognized the other. They are larger-than-life characters, estranged from common humankind by the scale of their responsibilities, ...

Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art's Meaning in Contemporary Society, 1970s-1990s

14 reviews
Linda Weintraub

Art Insights, Inc., 1997

A little of this and a little of that
as a MFA student thats currently being educated by "the institution" i find myself flip flopping between wanting to drop out or drop in...this book didn't save me but it sure put things in perspective, never before in a book have I seen cover such topics where you can find Barbara Kruger and James Luna and Joseph Beuys and Tomie Arai between the same cover's in a book. This book also addresses ...

The Final Days

29 reviews
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward

Simon & Schuster, 2005

No fiction writer could create such a compelling story
The American body politic cuts the president a great deal of error slack. We witnessed that during the Watergate years of Richard Nixon and we see it again in the presidency of George W. Bush. Both instances also point out one major fact of the American political landscape. No matter what they achieve or how high their popularity, if a President does the wrong things, they can crash down with ...

The Hippie Dictionary: A Cultural Encyclopedia (And Phraseicon) of the 1960s and 1970s

15 reviews
John Bassett McCleary

Ten Speed Press, 2004

Farther out
I reviewed the first edition of this book on 27 August 2002 (about ten reviews down), so click through if you want to read what I originally wrote. This review is for the second edition. Here's all I'll say about the content: the revised and expanded edition, just like the first, is an extended argument for keeping The Dream alive. If, like me (and, obviously, John Bassett McCleary), you know ...

F5: Devastation, Survival, and the Most Violent Tornado Outbreak of the 20th Century

15 reviews
Mark Levine

Miramax, 2007

Really Great Read
F5 is a really good non-fiction book that reads like the best type of fiction -- action, adventure, thriller, family drama. It's the true-life accounts of what many people lived through in April 1974, when the US suffered the deadliest outbreaks of tornadoes on record. I read this book in a day, mostly because I didn't want to stop reading once I had started. Mark Levine has truly done his ...

The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris

23 reviews
Alicia Drake

Little, Brown and Company, 2006

For fans of Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld and the 70's
I was glued to this book and found it absolutely fascinating and informative. I enjoyed reliving those heady days of fashion, parties, sex, drugs and Disco. It was an eye-opener and I wish I was there then. Highly recommended if you're into all that wonderful hedonism of the 70's. Loved it!

Born Again (Hendrickson Classic Biographies)

20 reviews
Charles W. Colson

Hendrickson Publishers, 2008

God is Good
There are a lot of lessons to be learned from Born Again, and Colson shares them as opposed to teaching them, with the fresh, excited style of new convert so that the reader if he is a crusty old saint (like me) is carried back to the days of his first love. The book is part political insight, part Wartergate/Nixon history, but mostly testimony, and the testimony of God dealing with and ...

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