Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Donner Party Chronicles: A Day-by-Day Account of a Doomed Wagon Train, 1846-47 by Frank Mullen ISBN: 1-890591-01-7 Publisher: Nevada Humanities Committee Pub. Date: September, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An important book that's a gripping read - an excellent gift
Comment: Frank Mullen has added an important book to the history of Donner Party. The tragedy has been the focus of writing since the spring of 1847, but Mullen has found a fresh way to make the story understandable and, perhaps more importantly, human.
The book is a daily chronolgy of the year that it took the party to travel from Illinois to California, and each two-page spread of this large book is carefully laid out and presents a mix of graphics and text. It is rewarding if read straight through, yet very accessible if your reading style is more "grazing" than linear.
Mullen clearly has done his homework. The sheer volume of detail and complexity in the story can be overwhelming, and Mullen includes the details that are needed to clarify and develop the people in the story. He includes wonderful quotes from diaries and supporting material, and drawings of interesting side issues such as an analysis of the probable shape of the "Pioneer Palace Car." Additionally, Marilyn Newton's photographs of the trail as seen today make it real for a modern reader.
When I have given this book as a gift to anyone with an interest in American History, it has been very well received. A truly great book.
Rating: 5
Summary: This is the Donner Party book I've been looking for!
Comment: The full-color, glossy photographs of major landmarks and points of interest along the Emigrant Trail from Springfield, MO to Johnson's Ranch in Bear Valley are stunning. The color photos, all taken by Marilyn Newton, are grouped together in the beginning of the book, comprising 20 slick pages of almost 50 photos. It's hard to believe that wagon ruts from over 150 years ago still exist in places; happily, our continuous farming, building and paving haven't obliterated all traces of the route that so many people rode--and walked--in order to reach California.
Portraits, maps, drawings and sketches from the period are interspersed with sepia-toned contemporary photographs, some taken by Newton and some by other photographers, and appear on every page of the book. "The Donner Party Chronicles" is visually rich and stimulating. The area around Donner Lake and the route the relief parties followed are depicted in all seasons of the year. Even in black-and-white, the photos of Donner Lake and the surrounding mountains demonstrate the ruggedness of the terrain and deeply impress upon the reader the hopelessness the members of the Donner Party must have felt upon being snowed-in at the lake.
The book reads like a journal that would have been kept by one of the emigrants traveling with the Donner Party. The text is reprinted from installments journalist Frank Mullen, Jr. published in the weekly newspaper "The Reno Gazette-Journal" over the course of an entire year. The daily routine followed, problems encountered, and decisions made by the Donner Party are chronicled in a concise manner. The entries are short, most three or four paragraphs in length.
One very interesting feature of "The Donner Party Chronicles" is the map of the Emigrant Trail that appears on every left-hand page of the book, with the progress of the doomed emigrants clearly marked with a red dot. As you read along through the book, you see on every other page exactly where the emigrants were as the day's events took place. I found this map extremely helpful and fascinating. Watching the movement of the Donner Party as they traveled on foot at the pace of slow, plodding oxen made me better able to understand how great an undertaking their overland journey was. I shared this book with my husband, my Dad and my father-in-law, and they enjoyed it almost as much as I did!
This book is well worth the price, for the interesting text as well as the terrific photos; you can easily find what you're looking for in the pages, as each page is dated and the day's entry fairly short.
Rating: 5
Summary: Best All-Around Book on the Donner Party Since Ordeal
Comment: The strong point of the book is the day by day account of the Donner Party's journey. Mullen writes as if he were actually on the trail with the party, and the reader has that same sense of being there. Mullen's writing style makes this book the best Donner Party telling since George Stewart's Ordeal By Hunger.
 |
Title: Ordeal by Hunger by George R. Stewart ISBN: 0395611598 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: January, 1992 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: "Unfortunate Emigrants": Narratives of the Donner Party by Kristin Johnson ISBN: 0874212081 Publisher: Utah State University Press Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title:The Donner Party ASIN: B00007G1YL Publisher: Warner Home Video Pub. Date: 14 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.98 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $17.98 |
 |
Title: The Expedition of Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate by Eliza P. Donner Houghton, Eliza Donner Houghton, Kristin Johnson ISBN: 0803273045 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: November, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party by Marian Calabro ISBN: 0395866103 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 29 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
