Books with author John Page Williams

This richly illustrated, informative, and inviting book intertwines two fascinating stories of discovery. The first, among the earliest classics of New World adventure, recounts Captain John Smith's exploration of Chesapeake Bay 400 years ago; the second revisits this stunning landscape as it is today—both to showcase its still-unspoiled splendors and to issue a timely warning of looming threats to its vibrant but fragile ecology.Dozens of dazzling full-color contemporary photographs evoke the Chesapeake spirit in all its many moods, while a wonderfully wide-ranging selection of archival images span the four centuries since John Smith first sailed, rowed, and wandered its woods and waterways, mapping the wilderness shores of an untamed America.The author, a veteran naturalist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, has spent decades leading tours and teaching classes about the region. An ideal guide, he shares both his delight in the Bay's glorious diversity and his deep concern for its future. In addition, his unique blend of experience, environmental sensitivity, and historical expertise offers modern visitors a rare opportunity to discover the Chesapeake as Smith did so long ago, leaving beaten paths and familiar waters behind to learn why Congress will soon designate it as the first of America's official National Historic Water Trails.For history buffs, conservationists, armchair travelers, tourists planning a trip, and anyone who simply loves first-rate nature photography, this beautiful book more than meets the high standard readers have come to expect from National Geographic.

To commemorate the 400th anniersary of Virginia's Jamestown settlement and the voyages of its legendary leader, modern-day boaters can follow the 1,700-mile Captain John Smith Water Trail--and rediscover the natural treasure that is the Cheasapeake Bay. This book enriches the journey with practical information, environmental considerations, and fascinating historical context.

On May 10, 1869, the Golden Spike linked the Central Pacific Railroad with the Union Pacific Railroad at Promontory Point, Utah. The dream of a railroad across America had at last come true. This book tells the story of swaggering men with big plans, of an America emerging from the Civil War and reaching its manifest destiny.The men who imagined the transcontinental railroad were impassioned profiteers, an unlikely, often ruthless band, guilty of both financial double-dealing and ferocious ingenuity. When ice delayed operations in the Sierra Nevadas, the men of the Central Pacific formed the Summit Ice Company and sold their problem to California saloons. When herds of buffalo ripped up the tracks, the men of the Union Pacific brutally slaughtered tens of thousands of them. (Thus the legend of Buffalo Bill was born.) While his partners finagled in Washington and on Wall Street, Jack Casement, a former Union general, dressed in a fur coat, a Cossack hat, and shining cavalry boots and carrying a pistol and a bullwhip, drove the workers of the Union Pacific to new track-laying records. Meanwhile, from the West, thousands of Chinese immigrants blasted, climbed, and inched their way through the perilous California mountains.The railroad transformed the country forever. It decimated the Plains Indian culture by destroying the herds of buffalo that sustained it. It augmented the timber and steel industries; it opened up the West for commerce. Farms grew up along the length of the rails. Thousands of immigrants from Asia and Europe came here to build the iron road. Most important, it united a nation.The story of the railroad is capitalist theater, starring powerful politicians and generals and con artists. Set in opulent parlor cars, well-heeled boardrooms, and rowdy frontier towns, on desolate plains and deadly gorges, it is a story of vision and corruption, of empire building at its most vulgar and glorious.John Williams combines scholarship with personalities, historical analysis with plain old tall tales, to tell a story that will appeal to readers of American history and adventure and to lovers of the American West. The Transcontinental Railroad is an epic of every sense.

For more than 50 years, Mr. Met, the original Major League Baseball mascot, has thrilled New Yorkers and New York Mets fans alike. Take a walk through history with "We'll Call You Mr. Met!" and learn Mr. Met's life story, from the early days at the Polo Grounds, to Shea Stadium and the "Miracle Mets," all the way to Citi Field, where new Mets memories are made every season."We'll Call You Mr. Met!" is a brand new baseball book, officially licensed by Major League Baseball, and makes a great gift for kids and adults of all ages!

It’s 1802, and Jack finds himself surrounded by spoilt aristocrats in a mysterious training camp on the South coast of England. Once more he is drawn into an unexplained murder mystery, and with the dead man’s family baying for blood, someone is going to pay, regardless of their guilt or innocence. Could a mysterious French ship stalking the English coastline be in some way linked to the killing? Able to outrun anything the English navy puts against it, the need to catch this enigmatic vessel becomes vital to the war effort, its very survival highlighting England’s weaknesses. As the body count grows, the rules of both war and honour become secondary to the necessity to win at any price. As ever in the Major’s world, nothing is quite as it seems and everyone is expendable for the greater good. Jack is the ultimate underdog, with nothing to lose. A lowly peasant dragged into a dangerous world of spies and spy catchers, where the privilege of seeing a new day is a prize to be fought for.

Deemed "the greatest American novel you've never heard of" by The New Yorker, and similarly celebrated in most major publications in America and Britain (and increasingly in other countries where it has been translated), this novel by the National Book Award-winning author of Augustus and Butcher's Crossing all but disappeared after its 1965 publication

The powerful story of a vibrant African American family torn apart by inner turmoil and the injustices perpetrated by a racist society Sissie Joplin is dying, and her surviving children have come to say good-bye. Estranged from their mother for years, Iris and Ralph have both achieved success—Iris as a jazz singer in Europe and Ralph as a playwright—but the pain of their youth remains forever alive in their memories. Sissie, too, remembers: the bitter struggles and the devastating tragedies; the indignities, cruelties, and deprivations visited upon a strong-willed black woman—and on the once proud men in her life ultimately defeated by a white society that at times seemed devoted to their destruction. Sissie was not always wise or fair, and her actions often did more harm than good, but she survived. And now, at the end of her life, it is time for a reckoning—and one last opportunity to heal. A powerfully affecting family saga and a provocative indictment of racism in America, Sissie is a magnificent achievement by John A. Williams, the award-winning author heralded by Ishmael Reed as “the best African American writer of the century.”

ANIMALS COME ALIVEAnimals Come Alive most of all is a fun poetry book for children. It has all kinds of different animals getting up to antics with each other. They also get up to their tricks with us humans too. This is a rhyme poetry book very suited to younger children. It also features large coloured illustrations. These poems can be learnt for recitals while others are suitable to be acted out on stage by groups of children. Many of these poems have already been used in classrooms in Australia. Showing children what fun they can have with rhyme poetry is fundamental in developing in children a love of literature.The author, John Williams, has been writing for children for 30 years.I hope you all have FUN with this book of poems.