Includes a reader's guide and an author's note.

In this companion volume to "Home Before Dark", Susan Cheever once again gives an insider's glimpse into her famous family, whose secrets and eccentricity are only paralleled by their genius and successes.

The tropical botanist shares the story of her adventues doing pioneering ecological research in forest canopies of Australia, Africa, Belize, and the United States.

In this compelling companion volume to her acclaimed memoir Home Before Dark, Susan Cheever once again gives readers a revealing look into her famous family, whose secrets and eccentricities parallel their genius and successes. Set against the backdrop of Treetops, the New Hampshire family retreat where the Cheevers still summer, and going back several generations, this powerful remembrance focuses on Susan Cheever's mother's family, and includes portraits of her great-grandfather, Thomas Watson, who invented the telephone with Alexander Graham Bell, and her grandfather Milton Winternitz, a brilliant doctor who built Yale Medical School. And of course there is her beloved and talented father John Cheever, the accomplished author who became one of the most well-known writers of the century, often using his family as material. Perhaps most riveting about Susan Cheever's second biographical masterpiece is its exploration of the lives of the Cheever women. At once a unique family portrait and the tale of every family, Treetops draws us effortlessly into a fascinating yet endearingly familiar world.

It is 1966, the war is escalating, and a young Air Force Academy graduate's assignment is to patrol unfriendly territory with six-man hunter-killer teams. As a Forward Air Controller, flying single engine spotter planes, Flanagan is the link between fighter-bomber pilots and ground forces. This autobiographical account recreates the period when Flanagan, assigned to Project Delta, was plunged into major operations in key combat areas. Spectacular airstrikes, team rescues, lost men, thwarted attempts to save comrades--all are recounted here with raw honesty. A factual combat history from one man's perspective, this is also a thoughtful look at the warrior values of bravery, honesty, and integrity. Flanagan examines the influences that help build these values--educational institutions, the military training system (including the service academies), and religion--and reflects on the high cost of abandoning them. In Vietnam Above the Treetops, Flanagan traces his life from adolescence through the training period, combat missions of all kinds, and re-entry into the everyday world. His war tales take us to key regions: from the Demilitarized Zone, south through the Central highlands, and into War Zone C near Cambodia. Flanagan tells the absolute truth of his experience in Vietnam-- call signs, bomb loads, and target coordinates are all historically accurate. He offers observations on the Vietnamese and Korean forces he worked with, comparing Eastern and Western cultures, and he vents his frustrations with the U.S. command structure. Determined to reconstruct the past, Flanagan re-read old letters from Vietnam, examined maps, deciphered pocket diaries, interviewed former comrades, and let his own long-buried memories surface. Flanagan did not find this book easy to write, but he wanted to pay tribute to his fellow warriors, especially those still missing in action; he wanted to exorcise his war nightmares and further understand his experience. Even more important, he needed to communicate the values he and his comrades lived by, in distant jungles where they faced some of the toughest circumstances known to human beings.

A stunning array of rustic and charming treehouses from around the world for inspiration and for those who fantasize about getting away from it all. Whether it’s a yearning to escape the stress of day-to-day existence, or a desire to live more sustainably and to get closer to nature, more and more people are finding reasons to go off-grid, high above the ground. Today’s treehouses have evolved into shapes and sizes that nobody could ever have dreamed of. Philip Jodidio takes us on an exciting international tour of more than 36 structures, revealing how they are designed, built, and appreciated in a wide array of cultures and settings. Each treehouse is presented with breathtaking exterior and interior photography, giving readers an in-depth glimpse of this rapidly evolving symbiosis between nature and shelter, indoor and outdoor, and rustic and polished, in a definitive examination of tree-house living. For people interested in eco-friendly living, this book presents the most innovative inter-pretations of the genre, from a house nestled in the tree trunks of Norway to a hexagon-shaped shelter in Mystic, Connecticut.