Book Description

In this fair-minded and highly readable book, Victoria Freeman traces her European ancestors’ involvement in settling lands occupied by indigenous peoples in what would become New England and Ontario. It is a story of land fraud, broken treaties, displacement, massacre, and warfare, yet Freeman portrays her forebears with compassion and understanding. The result is a meticulously researched history, filled with photos and maps and a passionate discussion of how whites and American Indians have worked with, fought, courted, befriended — and, too often, killed — one another over four centuries. Among other memorable characters, readers meet Thomas Stanton, a fur trader who participated in a genocidal war against the Pequots and later became one of the most trusted intermediaries between the colonists and the Native Americans. "[Freeman] puts a uniquely personal spin on 400 years of ethnic cleansing by tracing her own family’s role as perpetrators." — Toronto Star ... Read more

Book Description

In Cidermaster of Rio Oscuro, an orchard in northern New Mexico is the setting for fourteen seasons of growth and harvest and for Harvey Frauenglass, the current steward of this orchard, to meditate on the natural cycles of life and death. Frauenglass comes to realize, this shamble of property offers a kind of salvation.The decrepit farmhouse and its outbuildings, the trees and their infirmities, and the querulous centuries-old acequia that funnels water from the Rio Oscuro to the farm embody histories of care and hope, of grief and loss.Stories of devotion and love may be found her, too: the story of a lonely Catholic priest, Father Freidrich Meyers, the previous cidermaster of the farm; the story of neighbors who share their collective wisdom and work selflessly along with Frauenglass and his wife; the story of Marni, Frauenglass's daughter, battling breast cancer even as she carries in her stricken body her unborn son Trevor.Cidermaster of Rio Oscuro offers a vision of a simpler life where a venerable orchard becomes a place to put down roots and find hope and expectation in the harvest.This is radiant first book about the ways in which a man is gentled by a growing connection to the earth, to her fruits, and to the order of the seasons. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Moving
I have never read a book that made me feel quiet and humble like this book did.The author was very good at description and bringing the reader "into" his life.I went through the highs and lows of being a farmer and a father.Very moving, very enriching, and very memorable.

Vivid and touching
This is a wonderful book, beautifully written and immensely touching.The author interweaves vivid descriptions of his farm and its inhabitants -- both past and present -- with his observations on cider-making, the care of apple orchards, his wife's art, and his memories of his late, much-loved daughter.He doesn't gloss over the irony that, after he spent years working on nuclear testing, his daughter should contract breast cancer;but he isn't polemical about it, and by the end of the book his personal tragedy is subsumed into the rhythms of the seasons and the ongoing life of the farm.The timeline of the book is circular -- it's not a straightforward history -- but I felt that this further emphasized the cyclical nature of life in the orchard.I recommend the book unreservedly.

Tender hearted memoir
This is a very special tenderly written book aboutliving...loving...working... and dieing.Every one can find something torelate too with Harvey in this book.I would highly reccomend it. ... Read more

Book Description

Tony Earley is a writer so good at his craft that you don't read his words so much as inhale them. His first book of nonfiction is one of those unexpected classics, like Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies, in which a great writer rips open his or her heart and takes the reader inside for a no-holds-barred tour. Born thirty-nine years ago, Earley was too late to be a Baby Boomer, too soon to be a Gen Xer. Although he grew up in the North Carolina mountains, he says "I go around telling anyone who will listen that I am from the country, but deep down I know it's a lie. I grew up on Gilligan's Island, in Mayberry, I'm not sure where."

Tony Earley's view of the world is from the edge, at the cusp. Whichis what this collection of personal essays is about-about how he stands with one foot in the rural mountains and the other in the Brady Bunch's split-level, about how he's neither an adherent to the fundamentalist Christianity of his boyhood nor an unbeliever, and about how hard itis to find your place in the world without letting go of all you came from, without letting go of your authenticity.

In a prose style that is deceptively simple (E. B. White comes to mind), Earley confronts the big things-God, death, civilization, family, his own clinical depression-with wit and grace, without looking away or smirking. Earley has clearly lost patience with irony, for his is a journey from faith, through disbelief, and into a new faith . . . and a new family. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Really good book!
Tony Earley is a really great writer and this is a really great book! I first encountered Tony Earley in the pages of The Oxford American and his essay, A Worn Path, which is included in this book. He is a wonderful writer and reading his essays brought back countless memories of my own life. i can't say enough about this book!

Shooting the Cat, etc.
I met Tony Earley yesterday during the Festival of Southern Cultures at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Our group had the unique opportunity to sit with him once yesterday and once today and pick his brain about this book. It is a very amazing piece of literature, with metaphors hidden just below the rocky surface. His short stories include very insightful mantras...especially the ones about shooting the cat (not for cruelty, but out of pity) and hunting deer. I don't really know how else to describe this book, so all I can say is that you should buy it and read it as soon as possible! Also, he teaches at Vanderbilt University in Nashville if any of you go/are thinking of going there.

A Part of Some Family
Tony Earley's book drew me in immediately...from the first page, the writing is captivating. As he walks the reader through his life from a prepubescent age until he becomes much of the man he is today, it is hard not to see his family, hear their laughter and their tears. His writing is easy to identify with...we all remember having emotions like those that he goes through. There is a face the reader can visualize for every character that appears. There is a voice for every person. This book is amazing.

A Truly Wonderful Book
In the first essay in this amazing book, Somehow Form a Family, Tony Early writes; "I wanted to tell her that no one in my family ever raised their voice while the television was on, that late at night even a bad television show could keep me from hearing the silence in my own heart." That sentence caused my own heart to stop for a second. I put the book down and returned to it the next day. Tony Early writes in simple, concise English. There are no glossy, shiny adjectives. Each word is exact and to the point and utterly perfect. Jim the Boy was one of my most favorite books last year. Somehow Form A Family will I think, become a fixture in my home. One to be read and re-read for years to come. I better get another copy!

TV Turn-Off Life
Are we born with Tabula Rasa minds ready to absorb whatever TV shows happen to be on? Or do we come equipped with Jungian categoricies into which The Brady Bunch, Gomer Pyle, USMC and Hawaii Five-O naturally fit and are recognized (having been created by fellow-sufferers of the same categories)?

How would Faulkner have re-written the opening lines of Sound and Fury if he had lived in the age of, say, the Guiding Light? Luster could have then watched soaps, instead of plain old golf.

After getting re-acclimated to the TV shows of the 60s, 70s and 80s, this book does in fact read as well as the front cover says, with a reference to how reading this is how some people seem to eat cheeseburgers: they simply "inhale" them. So he writes like a TV show, and we inhale it. But I thought reading was a more active activity than TV gaping. Hmmm.

To fit Hemingway-esque, brusque factual smatters in between TV show qoutes ("Five-O, open up") is very creative, and hard/dangerous for a writer. It's risky because it can get too cute and trite; it's hard, because even if it survives the cute/trite test, it could then get grounded out on sheer boredom issues. It could be stupid. But Earley makes it past these obstacles. His TV memoirs do take wing, and carry the facts of his North Carolina childhood and foray into college and vocation.

Two chapters laden with TV shows lead to TV-free subsequent chapters, reflecting more grown up themes, as well as touching struggles, like wanting to be baptized at age 8, but being throttled back by a visiting pastor who thought he was too young; then when the grown ups thought he was ready at age 12, not wanting to.

The final chapter's story contiues to examine Earley's married life, with a ride on the Concorde and a trip of flights around the world, where dialogues with all kinds of fellow passengers are now substituted for the earlier device of using TV shows for contextualization. Then he ends up in Pittsburgh, of all places, happily married and powering on, past the strong memories of youth.

Favorite quote: "The only way that the word personal can be made more noxious is to immediately follow it with the word journey..." ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Ah Mabel!
Ah Mabel! I have been to your house in Taos, slept in your bed, and bathed in that wonderful bathroom where you painted the window panes with flowers. Lois Rudnick reveals your life brilliantly. Here is a book alive with heartache and joy, some meaness, and much searching and discovery. Mable Dodge Lujan--an amazing life; a complex and talented woman who, indeed, was a "mover and shaker". "Her desire for self-importance attracted her to some of the most stimulating and creative talents in America." Lois Rudnick details a wonderful biography of who, what, when, and where. Thank you, Lois. You made Mable's house come to life and her life fill the house. ... Read more

Book Description

This inspiring book on the faith, the hope, and the heart of a woman who changed a nation gives the account of her infamous stand against injustice as well as the lasting impact it has made. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

I loved this inspiring book about freedom and courage.
Quiet Strength, by Rosa Parks is an amazing display of one woman's journey to understanding why. Why she and her people needed to justify themselves. Why she had to sit a certain place on a bus. Why she was so tired. Rosa Parks is grounded in her source of Quiet Strength through her relationship with her Creator - God. This relationship has been reinforced by her family and culture. "Love, not fear must be our guide," Rosa states - I would recommend this book to every human being who has a heart and soul. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Ralph Moody
When I was a child I read Little Britches, Man of The Family, and Horse of a Different Color. These books/stories are timeless. Any parent who wants to give a good example to a child about resposibility should obtain these.

Vivid history in a home-spun style that leaves you smiling.
Ralph Moody again weaves an artful picture of true life in the real world of the early twentieth century. His easy going style and colorful portrayal of each character give a real livng account of day to day life with a constant optimism that many of us miss in our cynical world. A great read aloud family book aong with the rest in the series. Moody gives character qualities that are rarely found in the novels of today and are much needed especially for todays young men.

Put this one on your 10 - 14 year old's reading list but don't forget to read it along with them. ... Read more

Amazon.com

In My Bloody Life, Reymundo Sanchez tells a chillingly sad tale, from his birth in the back of a pickup truck in Puerto Rico to the day he quit the Latin Kings gang, 21 years later. From the first page, his narrative is unpretentious, disarmingly honest, and horrifyingly riveting. His early years were so full of pain and abuse that by the time he opts, at age 11, to hang out with the local gang, the Latin Kings, it seems a perfectly logical choice. In his shoes, any one of us--smacked nightly by a mother and beaten ragged whenever the stepfather got the chance--would likely have chosen the same path. The gang was the family that accepted him as well as the peer group that offered girls who didn't say "no." Any violence that went with the territory couldn't match the atmosphere of brutality that permeated his own home.

Sanchez was a Latin King for six years and participated in innumerable bloody gang battles--years rife with sex, drugs, booze, and acts of gang revenge. He finally got up his pluck to leave (and the only way was to be "violated" out through a gang beating), but admits in his conclusion that life since then has, in some ways, been even harder. He's had to quit drugs, lose the only community he's known, support himself, and deal with the nightmares of all the horrors he's seen and done. Though Sanchez still hasn't accomplished his dream of completing college, he has managed to leave the Kings, leave Chicago, leave behind his mother's legacy of violence, and write an impressive first book. --Stephanie Gold ... Read more

Reviews (54)

MY LOVE FOR THIS BOOK
THIS BOOK IS HONESLTY GREAT. I HAVE DEDICATE IT ALL MY ATTENTION TO IT . I'M A PERSON THAT HATE READING. AND ONE DAY IN SCHOOL ONE OF MY FRIENDS TOLD ME, HEY DALI READ THIS BOOK. I WAS LIKE HELL NO YOU KNOW I HATE READING. SHE WAS INSISTING FOR ME TO READ IT. SO I WAS LIKE PASS IT OVER. ONCE I READ THE TITLE I WAS LIKE THIS BOOK SEEMS GOOD. SO ONCE I HAVE GOTTEN TO THE INTRODUCTION I KEPT READING IT NONE STOP. I KEPT GETTING IN TROUBLE FOR NOT PAYING ATTENTION IN MY CLASSES. AFTER I FINISHED IT. I STARTED TO REALIZE THAT READING MAY GET YOU TO UNDERSTAND THE REAL DEFINITION OF "GANGBANGING" AND WHAT IT PUTS YOU THROUGH IN LIFE. THE REASON I GOT SO INTO THIS BOOK IS BECAUSE I LIVE BY LATIN KINGS AND I SEE ALOT OF THINGS, AND I BE THINKING WHAT DOES A REAL LATIN KING GO THROUGH, AND AFTER READING THIS NOW I UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY REALLY GO THROUGH .THANK YOU REY FOR MAKING THIS BOOK.I ENJOYED IT ALOT.
LOVE
DALI

Latin King tells all and tells it well
My Bloody Life is rather straightforward memoir about Sanchez's randomly brutal childhood and his subsequent violent career with the Latin Kings in Chicago. And a very violent career it was: bloodshed and drug addiction are the two major elements of the narrative. For all of that, this reader did not feel that the author was patronizing us or shocking us for its own sake: he is describing his world as he saw it, and he didn't live by Walden Pond. My Bloody Life does nothing to glamourize gang life, but it is apparent that the Latin Kings did provide Mr. Sanchez with the only community, the only family he has ever had. This adds a poignant note to an unsentimental memoir: it is only when the author is speaking of the gang that you feel he is connected to the world around him. The Latin Kings gave him a chance to be on the winning side of violence, for a while, instead of just being its clueless victim.

The prose is unadorned, the rhetorical tricks few, and the printing errors more frequent that I would wish, but I read this book with the sense that I was reading a life, and not just puffery or bathos. And that is what all memoirs are for. In addition, My Bloody Life tells us a great deal about one gang and one gangbanger, things that many of us do not understand very well, even if we see them everyday. Is this book worth reading? Most definitely.

"loco"
I enjoyed the book, MY BOODY LIFE by Raymundo Sanchez. The main character Lil Loco is trying to find his place in life. He was a little boy growing up in Puerto Rico. Later he moved to Chicago. It was hard for him to live there because of his race. There was much discrimination. He was scared to be alone so he started to hang out with different gangs and gang members. They helped him out if he ever had any trouble with anyone. He found lots of friends including those in the Latin Kings.He later became one and had to deal with murder, drug addictions, sex, gang violations. He even dealt with killing some one he used to get along with. I recommend this book to anyone who would even think about joining a gang.

Best book I have ever read!
WOW! I ABSOLUTLY HATE READING!!! I never read! But this book is incredible! I couldnt put the book down. Everything was so real. Kids get trapped into things like this everyday where I live and they dont even know what they are getting into. I highly recommend this book. Its easy to read, and its exciting and you just want to continue reading to see what happens next. I have just finished reading it and im about to start the second book by Reymundo Sanchez called "Once a King always a king" Deffinatly a great book!

BEST book I EVER read!!!
Living in a neighborhood with Latin Kings, just like "Reymundo" I picked up the book and read it from reading the first page i was hooked. It took me about a month to read it, and enjoyed evry page of it! It's not like anything i ever read and was interesting because I could relate. VERY GOOD BOOK! ... Read more

Book Description

During his reign as the mayor of New York, the controversial Giuliani has been called many names. But after September 11, 2001, New York had new words to descibe him.

In this riveting and updating edition, political reporter Andrew Kirtzman tells the story of Giuliani's tireless mission to cleanup, control, shape, and -- most recently -- heal New York City.

Reviews (17)

Beautifully written tale of an extraordinary period
Who would have thought that a television journalist would be such a good writer? Kirtzman tells the story of this fascinating, tortured man like an old pro. It's a dramatic recounting of a moment in time that the author obviously felt the need to describe for the world. I didn't know any of the people he wrote about before I picked up the book, but his descriptions are really vivid, and the drama he builds makes us care about these characters. It's one of the better books I've read this year. Really well done.

read in one sitting
I picked this book up to read on a flight from Providence to Phoenix. I never put it down and read the whole book by arrival. It is an incredibly readable book. As far as I understand it was oringinally published before sept 11th so most of the book is unbiased by the great acts the mayor performed on that day and afterword. This being siad the author is great at detailing the intricacies of New York politics. A worthwhile read for anyone who didnt experience the Guliani era first hand(in NY). As another reviewer siad it does lack detail and certainly is in no way a biography of the man. The book is a political biography the starts in 1988 and ends in 2001.

Balanced Portrait of America's Mayor : Ugly and Beauty
This is not a traditional biography, which was what I expected when I picked up the book. If you wish to know about Rudy's life before 1989, his first marriage, childhood, days as U.S. attorney, this is not the right book for you. The first 100 pages or so this book are a bit slow--too much campaign stuff and not enough on governing. However, the narrative picks up quickly over the last 200 pages. We learn about Rudy's mistakes and triumphs--of which there are many. You learn a ton about Rudy's controversial policies. The personal scandals are discussed, but not in a malicious way. We never learn about the details of his mysterious marriage to Donna Hanover--or anything much about Hanover. So, yes, things are left out. However, Al Sharpton is a fascinating character here. You learn about Rudy's day on Sept. 11, when the author was actually running around the city with the Mayor. The narrative ends in 2001. I would have loved to hear more about Bloomberg, but who can change the publication date now? It isn't perfect, but Rudy remains one of the fascinating--and successful--Mayors of our time.

Solid and Condensed Biography
This biography was excellently written in a mostly unbiased way. Kirtzman has an excellent understanding of NYC politics and this served to his advantage in chronicling Giulianis life. For a more comprehensive biography pick up "Rudy" by Wayne Barrett.

america's mayor? hero-mayor? hardly
Consider that even before Sept 11, this "hero" was publically questioning whether there should be mayoral elections at all, (term limits meant he had to go) and after the tragic events he wanted them cancelled so that he could stay on, since in his words he was already "experienced and doing a good job". His contempt for democracy is matched by his endless conceit.
His public order record is bound to be reviewed considering the positions he took over repeated police shootings/savagery of civilians/bystanders (Dialo and Louima being only two of the most publicized).
As for the "hero" part, a hero is one who risks his life to save or help others. It is not clear what risk Mr Juliani undertook either as mayor or as soon-to-be-ex-mayor during the aftermath of Sept 11, other than attempt to monopolize the publicity of a profound tragedy for personal aggrandizement. There is clearly an effort by the Royalist (former Republican) party to place him in the front running for high national office. Don't go for it. ... Read more

Book Description

Timothy Isaiah "Longhair Jim" Courtright operated on both sides of the law and became a legend in his lifetime and after his death. One of the most colorful characters from the wild and woolly days of Fort Worth's Hell's Half Acre, Courtright was at various timescity marshal, deputy sheriff, deputy U.S. marshal, private detective, hired killer, and racketeer. Today, he is almost forgotten, either as a gunfighter or a lawman, except in Fort Worth.

Little is known about Courtright's early life, though he apparently served in the Union army during the Civil War. But when he arrived in the West, Courtright seemed to attract trouble. He was involved in a shootout during the 1886 railroad strikes and was accused of murder in New Mexico. Deputies were sent to Fort Worth to escort him to New Mexico to stand trial. His escape from them, complete with guns hidden under a restaurant table, is one of Fort Worth's most colorful stories. Finally, he was killed in a shootout that he apparently provoked with gambler and gunman Luke Short. To this day nobody is sure what provoked that feud, but Courtright was honored with the longest funeral procession Fort Worth had ever seen.

The myth of Courtright as legendary gunfighter was built in two previous biographies--one by a novelist and the other by a Franciscan priest. After exhaustive research into contemporary newspapers and other accounts and close study of the previous two books, historian Robert K. DeArment deconstructs the myth of Longhair Jim and reconstructs the gunfighter as a real human being, complex, flawed, often courageous, usually both honorable and dishonorable.

This book is a must for all those interested in the legends of the West, its lawmen, and its outlaws. ... Read more

Book Description

Prior to his death in 1985, Cratis Williams was a leading scholar of and spokesperson for Appalachian life and literature and a pioneer of the Appalachian studies movement. Williams was born in a log cabin on Caines Creek, Lawrence County, Kentucky, in 1911. To use his own terms, he was "a complete mountaineer."

This book is an edited compilation of Williams’ memoirs of his childhood. These autobiographical reminiscences often take the form of a folktale, with individual titles such as "Preacher Lang Gets Drunk" and "The Double Murder at Sledges." Schooled initially in traditional stories and ballads, he learned to read by the light of his grandfather’s whiskey still and excelled at the local one-room school. After becoming the first person from Caines Creek to attend and graduate from the county high school in Louisa, he taught in one-room schools while pursuing his own education. He earned both a BA and MA from the University of Kentucky before moving to Appalachian State Teacher’s College in 1942; later he earned a Ph.D. from New York University and then returned to Appalachian State. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Essential for those interested in Appalachian Studies
The stories of Cratis Williams are essential for the getting a glimpse of Appalachia. He is/was indeed the leading spokesperson and scholar of life in the Applachian Mountains. These stories deal mostly with his childhood growing up in rural Eastern Kentucky. These stories are unforgettable and profound.

Cratis Williams eventually came to Boone, North Carolina to teach school. He returned again after receiving his Ph.D. from New York University. Appalachian State University's graduate school is named for him.

"The Cratis Williams Chronicles: I Come to Boone" is another book that goes into detail about his coming to the high country of North Carolina. Highly Recommended.

If you're at all interested in peeling back the stereotypical images of Appalachia and peering into a region with soul and character, give Cratis Williams a read. ... Read more

Book Description

Louis Tikas was a union organizer killed in the battle between striking coal miners and state militia in Ludlow, Colorado, in 1914. In Buried Unsung he stands for a whole generation of immigrant workers who, in the years before World War I, found themselves caught between the realties of industrial America and their aspirations for a better life. ... Read more

Book Description

With this stunning memoir of growing up in Italian-American New Jersey, Louise DeSalvo proves that your family's past is baked right into the bread you eat.

In Louise DeSalvo's family, in 1950s New Jersey, the kitchen becomes the site for fierce generational battle. As Louise's step-grandmother stubbornly recreates the domestic habits of her Southern Italian peasant upbringing, she clashes painfully with Louise's convenience-food-loving mother, who is set on total Americanization. Louise, meanwhile, dreams of the day when in her own kitchen she'll produce perfect fresh pasta or pan-seared pork chops with fennel. But as Louise grows up to indulge in the kind of amazing food her impoverished ancestors could never have imagined and travels to Italy herself, her adult discoveries give her new insight into the tensions of her childhood. In unearthing the oppressive conditions that led Southern Italians to emigrate en masse to the United States, gaining a subtler understanding of the struggles between her parents and their parents, and starting a more happily food-obsessed family of her own, Louise DeSalvo arrives at a fuller and more compassionate picture of her own roots. And, in the process, she reveals that our image of the festive and bounteous Italian-American kitchen may exist in part to mask a sometimes painful history.
... Read more

Reviews (4)

Not what I expected---far MORE than I expected
I picked up this book to read thinking it was like so many other books I have read about Italian-Americans in an attempt to better understand my husband's family---a light-hearted look at the "crazy" antics of a close knit, pasta eating bunch of eccentrics. However, this is not at all what this book is, and what it actually is helped me more than any book I've read in understanding the family I have joined.

When Desalvo says "Crazy in the Kitchen", she is not kidding. Her mother and much of her family really does have seriously crazy tendencies---fury, cruelty, irrational financial habits, long running feuds, etc. And the kitchen is where many of these things are played out---from her mother's poor cooking to her step-grandmother's good but steep in unbreakable traditions cooking, to the cooking and eating of her ancestors in Southern Italy, or the NOT eating---for I finally understood what drove so many Italians to come to America. I had no idea how awful conditions were for the peasants of Italy. What they were subjected to honestly reminded me of accounts of places like Cambodia or China, during the Great Leap Forward.

I learned a great deal about Southern Italian culture from this book, and found myself reading many passages to my husband, a first generation Italian-American who spent much of his youth in Sicily visiting, and who had parents who spoke only Italian, and even he was stunned to find out much of what I read. I now understand my late in-laws much better than I did before this reading.

The writing style of this book took a bit to get used to, until I let myself fall into it. It's written like so many stories told by my in-laws---in a bit of a circular way---you find out a bit here, and a bit there, and it all adds up in the end.

I want to thank Ms. Desalvo for this book. I look forward eagerly to reading the rest of her works.

Excellently written exploration of family interactions
I enjoyed this book from start to finish. The descriptions of food were mouthwatering. I appreciated the view into the lives of Italian immigrants and their lives in Italy. The family interactions were well described. Each chapter was a gem of an essay. Unlike many memoire writers, this author sustained the high level of writing and self-exploration to the very end. I really admire her ability to dig into her real feelings and to try to understand her parents and grandparents. I plan to look for other books by this author.

bittersweet and funny . . . ultimately a downer
So sad. Even has her mother lay dying, she wishes Mom was someone else. A cautionary tale on accepting people as they really are.

A Touching Book About Family, Food and Life.
Louise DeSalvo is a first class writer an this may very well be her best book yet. A master of memoir, DeSalvo has filled Crazy in the Kitchen with touching, funny and memorable stories about growing up and living in an Italian immigrant family. Most wonderful about this book, however, are the messages and meanings that everyone of us can take away from it -- the longing for a complete realtionship with our parents that is never quite realized, the quirks and and dysfunction that plagues every family and the joy of surviving and living despite these things. This book will make you laugh, make you cry and make you revel in the joy of living each and every day for its simple pleasures. ... Read more

Book Description

For more than five decades, Horton Foote, "the Chekhov of the small town," has chronicled the changes in American life -- both intimate and universal. His adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and his original screenplay Tender Mercies earned him Academy Awards. He received an Indie Award for Best Writer for The Trip to Bountiful and a Pulitzer Prize for The Young Man from Atlanta.

In his plays and films, Foote has returned over and over again to Wharton, Texas, where he was born and where he lives, once again, in the house in which he grew up. Now for the first time, in Farewell, Foote turns to prose to tell his own story and the stories of the real people who have inspired his characters. His memoir is both a celebration of the immense importance of community and evidence that even a strong community cannot save a lost soul. Farewell is as deeply moving as the best of Foote's writing for film and theater, and a gorgeous testimony to his own faith in the human spirit. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

A Patina of Memories...
As someone who grew up in a small town in Texas, I can identify with so much of this book. My late Mother's childhood and her stories of growing up in a rural area with colorful characters are very similar to Mr. Foote's story. If you didn't grow up in this era or in a small town, these stories may not have the charm I feel about them, but Horton Foote could bring a tear to a glass eye with his charming memories, and I will bet that he can tug at your heartstrings as well. There is a place for sentiment and burnished memories in this busy life of ours, and I found myself wanting more after reading this memoir. As I read this book, I found myself envisioning the whole story in a pleasant sepia toned, soft cocoon of a state of mind. You come too.

It takes a village...
Among all the facinating characters of the small town, Mr. Foote must be the town gossip (but not a malicious one). Seems like Mr. Foote knew EVERYONE... and I don't think he left anybody out, either. Fun to read, good storytelling style, but it seemed more like a series of great characters sketches than a "real" memoir. At the end I was frustrated that I didn't find out more about how he got started as an actor/playwrite/etc. But that's nothing a sequel won't solve.

A Texas Childhood
Think life in a small town is idyllic? Think again. Horton Foote gives us a portrait of his home town, complete with the details many wish to forget. Pettiness. Alcoholism. Racism.

At the same time, Foote describes his childhood in tones that leave a lasting impression of roots and home. Of growing up and new responsibility. Of family.

Foote has shared with us his appreciation for small town life in such great works as "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Trip to Bountiful" and now "Farewell". Enjoy.

Childhood Remembered
I just finished re-reading this book, and enjoyed it more this time than previously, probably because I literally devoured the first read. I come from a rather limited circle of family and was enchanted by the seemingly endless supply of relatives and their stories. To be embraced by such an environment as a child and to relate this to the reader is to share a very precious gift. Thank you Mr. Foote,and please give us a sequel.

Time Travel to the First Half of the 20th Century
Three nights ago I had the pleasure of meeting Horton Foote when he spoke and signed at an Austin bookstore. One hears his clear, distinctive voice in the cadence of his prose. Mr. Foote doesn't romanticize the past; he just tells the story of his childhood, leaving the reader with a vision of life in a time when family counted for all and people spoke in whispers about the same types of violence, bigotry, and family secrets that now assail us in the media. For an established playwright, Foote meets the challenge of prose writing successfully. Readers of this book will want a sequel--to know what happened to the teenage Foote who says "Farewell" to small town Wharton, TX and travels by bus to Pasadena, CA intending to launch a career as an actor. Including a geneology page would have helped this reader. I found myself drawing a scribbledy graphic of Foote's multi-branched family tree to keep all the "greats" and uncles and cousins under control. Overall, this was a delightful read putting me back in touch with the world of my parents and grandparents. ... Read more

Book Description

In New Mexican Lives, Richard Etulain and a distinguished group of twelve collaborators re-interpret the state’s history through biography. Profiles of fourteen notable, complex characters provide a unique view into New Mexico’s development from prehistoric times to the present. Here are lives of men and women that illustrate memorable events: from Popé and the Pueblo Revolt to Spanish colonizers Juan de Oñate and Diego de Vargas; from Hispanic widows exercising their property rights to Billy the Kid and the shoot-out in Lincoln; from Mabel Dodge Luhan and her avant-garde, idealistic salon to Senator Dennis Chavez and his exercise of Hispanic political power on a national level.

By emphasizing the links between important New Mexicans and their times, this book makes history a personal story of drama and pathos played out within a larger context of pivotal events and formative ideas. For example, we see the contradictory forces compelling Chiricahua Apache Mangas Coloradas to be committed to peace while nevertheless waging ceaseless war on Mexico, Kit Carson’s struggle to find a humane way to carry out his duty to wage war on the Navajo, and Susan McSween’s valiant and determined effort to modernize a seemingly untamed town.

This book will appeal to anyone interested in knowing more about how a fascinating mix of people of various cultures have molded New Mexico’s history. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Famous New Mexicans
"New Mexican Lives"
Richard W. Etulain, Editor
ISBN 0-8263-2433-9

This book offers eleven chapters by different authors on various personalities in the history of what is now the state of New Mexico. The most interesting to me are about Tony Hillerman, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Pope and Wendell Chino.

Two of the least interesting chapters are about Billy the Kid and Kit Carson. Kathleen P. Chamberlain tells us that at least 250 books and hundreds of articles have been written about Billy the Kid, a part of a "search for a romantic old West that never existed." Barton H. Barbour describes the "powerful resonance" of Kit Carson's mythic life. In other words, the reputations of these men have as much to do with fiction as fact.

A lesser-known subject is Wendell Chino. Through Mr. Chino's leadership, the Mescalero Apaches have, perhaps, been the most successful tribe in New Mexico at becoming financially independent through the development of their gambling casino and Ski Apache resort area.

Pope was an Indian from San Juan Pueblo, who organized the revolt of 1680. Joe S. Sando, who wrote this chapter, describes this revolt as the original American revolution. It is difficult not too sympathize with the Pueblos in their rebellion against the Spanish conquerors who set about destroying everything these people held dear and exploiting them for Spain's purposes. Pope, it would appear, was a legitimate Indian hero.

Lois Palken Rudnick's chapter about Mabel Dodge Luhan is interesting. Luhan had already had several previous lives of wealth and glamour in Europe and New York prior to showing up in New Mexico. In 1918, she began an affair with Tony Lujan of Taos Pueblo, to whom she was ultimately married for thirty nine years. In Taos Pueblo, Luhan discovered a community that was a model of permanence and stability, where individual, social, artistic, and religious values were completely integrated in a way that she had not previously known. Ultimately, Luhan played a key role in promoting modern art in New Mexico and the work of people such as Andrew Dassburg, Ansel Adams, D. H. Lawrence, Georgia O'Keefe, and Frank Waters.

In the chapter on Tony Hillerman, Ferenc M. Szasz does a good job of characterizing the author's accomplishments. Hillerman, born in Oklahoma, has become a major New Mexico phenomenon as well as a literary voice for the Navajo and the American southwest in general. Szasz explains that Hillerman's themes in his sixteen novels include the following: the nuclear world and the cold war, southwestern anthropology and western history, Indian gaming, alcohol abuse, hantavirus, Indian education, and, in particular, the Navajo view of these things. Hillerman's writing, as it turns out, complements well the state's multi-million dollar tourism industry, said to employ 60,000 New Mexicans. It has been suggested that Hillerman's novels have brought more tourists to New Mexico than any other single source.

On the whole, for those interested in New Mexico, Richard Etulain has brought together some appealing reading. ... Read more

Book Description

Gene Logsdon's story embodies both the frustrations and longing so many of us feel as we search for our essential selves and a harmonious life. The measure of his courage -- and contrariness -- is that he has been successful. In You Can Go Home Again, he tells us what motivated him and what success has meant.

For Logsdon, to create a "home" is not to escape from the world, but to establish a nexus of people, all working together to produce a home-based economy as a bulwark of stability under the larger economy gone crazy with paper money. "Home" is a local community tied to other local communities. But mostly Logsdon's philosophy must be read between the lines. What he writes about are the sad, funny, and sometimes harrowing adventures of those who live seemingly humdrum lives: understanding creeks; shepherding sheep; coping with blizzards; winning softball tournaments; losing sanity at rock concerts; hiding in haystacks; enjoying Christmas; surviving a buggy ride; overcoming grief, not to mention absentminded professors, dictatorial editors, and fervid priests; and why it might not be a bad idea to go to church in our underwear. What transpires is an inspiring picture of a very American life. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

The Contrary's Farmer Autobiography
Gene Logsdon has published his autobiography. Telling the story of his life - from farm boy to the Roman Catholic seminary, studying for the priesthood, dropping out, graduate school, and editor of a farm magazine and finally back to Ohio - he describes how his life comes to a circle. He returned to the good life of his childhood - at least almost. As a witness of the great change in agriculture, he feels a little bit like the last of the dinosaurs, one of the last generation who grew up on a traditional farm before agrobusiness destroyed the culture of rural America. Logdson does not present great programmes, but he has rather chosen to change his life by living an alternative life and work for in his home area for a resurgence of rural America. With his writings he nevertheless exercised a great influence. If you have enjoyed any of Logsdon's books, are interested into rural living and agrarian thought, this book is definitely worthwile reading.

We're doing it -- Coming home
I *am* going home again. After nearly 20 years in Texas, my family is moving back to Ohio. We feel that call that Gene Logsdon describes so movingly, hilariously. Now, most people, considering the fact that we are doing it by going first and finding jobs later, think we are certifiable. How wonderful to read Gene's work and find encouragement in values that go beyond acquisition and comfort. We're college [over]educated and employable, and jobs are the least of our worries.

Gene's book talks about home, care, a sense of place. When a place where eleven generations have called home calls you back, you have to listen, and that's why we're going. We have a "10-year plan" -- we're lucky enough to be starting out on some acreage on my Dad's farm. And will build from there. My child and my brother's children will be able to cross the pasture to visit each other and their grandparents.

Will we be self-sufficient? Of course not. What does that mean anyway? People are too "self-sufficient" as it is. I want to live someplace where I can depend on people (in all the right senses of the word). We'll grow some vegetables and berries, raise some chickens and have a good time doing it. I dream grandiosely of a cow or maybe three goats (I want to name them Gina, Lola and Brigitta, but my husband is pushing for "Shot Clock I, II, & III" [he spends a lot of time statting basketball games!]) I pour over Lehman's catalogues. It's fun to plan.

I think that's where reviewer "trailboss" below misses Gene's point. I've read everything of Gene's that I can lay my hands on (too much is out of print! ), and one point he repeatedly emphasizes is that this is not about subsistence farming. There's more than "survival" to it or it wouldn't be worth last week's supermarket strawberries.

Gene never claims that you can find Total Peace, Contentment and Happiness and on a homestead. If you don't have some of that before you start, then disappointment is inevitable.

Going home is about place, people, and good dirt. That's the saving grace of it. Not making a "profit" on it, not becoming Organically Pure, or worshipping Gaia. Of course, you can do all those things, but the home and the dirt is the start of it.

And the softball. Former high school first-base ace here! Since we're moving to southern Richland County, Ohio, I hope we get to meet Gene and the boys in a softball tournament somewhere, sometime! In the meantime, Gene, keep pestering your publishers about reprints. :)

Uncommonly gutsy and intimate
I just finished the book.

Reading the other reviews, one gets the feeling that they were reading different books. It reminds me of the Indian folktale of the four blind men and the elephant. Actually, I like the Persian version better: where three men encounter the elephant on a very dark night. The fourth man brings a candle. Ultimately, the Persian story is a story of redemption and salvation. And so is You Can Go Home.

This book is likely to cause discomfort to those have a very high need for order. Sometimes we (the Hecksel's) have guests on short notice. When that happens, we make the house suitable for company by taking all the clutter-of-life and pitching it into one of the bedrooms...the one with the lock, of course. Gene's book is a personal guided tour of that room. Great fun for those who love stories and antiques. Pain for those who crave a completely deterministic approach to life.

Gene is gutsy because he talks about religion. Gene is doubly gutsy for talking about money. Americans are funny people. We will tell total strangers of our sexual conquests before ordering our second drink, but not tell our CPA the true extent of our wealth & earnings. Go figure.

We are rich in proportion to what we do not need.

romantic but unrealistic notion
Mr. Logsdon's book, although, "nice" and romantic as a read is flawed in it's premise that somehow, despite sky rocketing real estate costs for rural land, etc. that we can somehow go back to the land and earn a living. It seems that Mr. Logsdon's need to write to support himself and his wife belies the very notion he argues. Having tried, myself, to find land at a reasonable cost, having been launched a number of years ago by this author and others of the same bent, I found nothing but frustration and disappointment.

Mr. Logsdon would leave one to believe that all large scale farmers are without brains and that they choose to ignore the profits of small scale farming. Instead, I believe that Mr. Logsdon has closed his eyes to the hard realities that land values require large scale farming and that he fails to prove, other than in a romantic yearning only, that we can truly "Go Home Again". Truly, I wish it were so...unfortunately, unless you are Amish you cannot afford to.

The book leaves one with a warm feeling despite its flawed premise. The book could be shortened with less diabtribe about old villages or softball teams.

I bought the book still holding onto a waning desire to find "the way" to go home again myself only to realize that his book, likely unwittingly, provides many of the reasons why we can't go home again despite the desire to do so...and that is sad and unfortunate.

Tears & belly-laughs mixed with delight and insight!!
Trust your instincts - - this is the message that keeps returning in this story of one man's life filled with choices that would cause uncertainty for anyone. Gene's self-effacing narrative describes how uncertain life can be when faced with tough choices.

These were very tough choices: Move from small-town USA to Metropolitan sprawl? Withdraw from something as precious as the priesthood? Steal some fresh-baked pies and risk the wrath of nuns?

Somehow it is comforting to know that life can have an "undo" button. Gene illustrates that you can make a wrong choice and still recover. The message: You should always trust your instincts, and you can go home again.

This is a wonderful, if brief, story of someone who bares his life and soul, so that others can see the common thread - - be true to yourself. ... Read more

Book Description

Alaska’s climate, extreme topography, and settlement distribution make airplanes and helicopters a crucial means of transportation. Ninety percent of this state is unreachable by road, and at least one third of Alaska’s people live in the bush. In Alaska, travel by air has always been more than just recreational and piloting has always been more than conventional. Alaska pilots are some of the most experienced and skillful aviators in the world, and they run the gamut from commercial pilots to aviation safety inspectors, from big-game guides and bush pilots to aerobatic fliers.

In Alaska’s Women Pilots: Contemporary Portraits, Jenifer Fratzke has compiled seven interviews of contemporary women aviatrices from nearly every reach of that gamut. This collection begins an important documentation of what women have contributed to the aviation industry in Alaska. Fratzke herself has been a flight attendant, flight engineer, copilot, and pilot. Through her eighteen years of experience flying in Alaska, she has tapped into Alaska’s rich and unfolding aviation history by flying with and interviewing many women pilots.

The seven oral histories she includes here explain the women’s motivations for flying; they include the descriptions and praises of mentors that made all the difference; and they recall stories of grief and stories of good fortune. Each personal history is remarkable in what it reveals of the history of aviation in Alaska and the individual contributions that history is built on. These stories are unique and inspirational; at the same time they have an echoing quality that compounds, strengthens, and supports the voices of those who have gone before (Harriet Quimby, Beryl Markham, Pancho Barnes, and many others) and those who may come after. ... Read more

Book Description

Born on a Kona coffee plantation in 1914, Koji Ariyoshi saw the importance of unions and strikes after witnessing labor clashes as a boy.In the 1930s he worked as a stevedore and wrote a series of articles about life on the docks for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.After World War II broke out, Ariyoshi used his language skills in the U.S. Army and was assigned to China, where he met several of China's future leaders, including Mao Zedong.

After returning to Hawaii, Ariyoshi became the editor of the Honolulu Record, the voice of labor during the turbulent postwar conflicts between unions and Hawaii's ruling elites.Following his 1951 arrest on charges of being a Communist, Ariyoshi spent the next years writing "My Thoughts for which I Stand Indicted" for the Record.The present volume draws from this series of weekly articles to create an energetic and thoughtful work chronicling a life lived at the center of events that transformed Hawaii, America, China and the world. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An Extraordinary Human Being
Koji Ariyoshi was an extraordinary person--a true American hero. He studied journalism at the University of Georgia, staying with the family of novelist Erskine Caldwell. Years later, after successfully defeating his prosecution by the government, he went back to speak at the University. When the story was told of how they tried to send him to prison in the McCarthy Era, the audience was so overwhelmed by his courage that they spontaneously burst out in applause. This was no man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but someone who had to work his way through many difficulties in life. As he was dying of cancer in 1976, the Hawaii legislature passed a resolution in his honor. "We shall overcome" could be the motto of Ariyoshi's life. This is a book that will carry his extraordinary story on to future generations. ... Read more

Book Description