Memorials Books

This father and son team has produced for all generations a fitting and touching tribute to those who have lost their lives while serving in the armed forces of our nation. This is history with a personal, stirring touch. The delicate subject is handled with the utmost reverance and grace. The reader stands, as it were, in hushed solemnity at the funerals themselves. There is so much not-to-be lost history to be gleaned as well. Particularly outstanding is the way the Fletchers interlace so powerfully yet so tenderly the powerful threads of Christianity at its pristine best.

Thanks so much for a most eloquent tribute to our fallen.

I have followed with interest as Robert A. Fletcher (illustrator) has put together a splendid arrangement of paintings to honor our veterans in America's Wars. It honors those unnamed thousands who have given the ultimate sacrifice for their country with a nice write-up and beautiful paintings showing U.S. military funerals from centuries ago until recently.

An interesting tidbit is that Robert A. Fletcher is in fact a Korean War veteran. So, by buying some great art and acquiring a great conversation starter for your coffee table, you are also supporting a veteran by your purchase.

Thank you to our veterans for your service to our country!

For those interested in the history of the music they play or listen to - specifically country, bluegrass and old time - Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers is a detailed and lively introduction to the beginnings of popular American music.

Subtitled, "Southern Culture and the Roots of Country Music," Singing Cowboys analyzes American musical currents across three centuries. Beginning in pre-Colonial America, the book moves rapidly forward to the "industrialization" of country music in the 1920's that reached its apogee in contemporary Nashville.

By demonstrating how rural and urban Americans entertained themselves musically, author Bill C. Malone deftly debunks stubborn linear-inheritance theories of musical transmission. Using countless examples, he shows how American popular music has always had multiple influences.

Favorite tunes like "Coo Coo" or "Shortnin' Bread" did not descend in a straight, "pure" line from slavery. Instead, Malone underscores the significance of close-quarters housing and labor among poor whites and blacks in the 19th century. Despite overt racism, such proximity was particularly common in the south, and forged an active and ongoing interchange of style and repertoire among both groups.

The author also makes a strong case for how music was routinely "traded" between these groups and the professional minstrel troupes performing throughout the big cities and backwaters of 19th century America.

For those who feel that many of our reels and hornpipes remain intact from the British Isles of earlier centuries, this book suggests amalgamating factors not commonly addressed in theories of Celtic or Anglo-Saxon musical influences on American southern music.

Of particular importance to the perpetuation of American folk musical traditions was the Civil War. Men from all over the country circulated songs and playing styles - especially fiddle and 5-string banjo. When soldiers returned home after the war, they brought these musical influences with them.

Underscoring the role of war in cultural transmission, the author points out that American men also went to war in 1775, 1812, 1846, 1898 and 1917.

Where the book really shines, though, is in its analysis of the transition of rural music, performed largely by amateurs and "part-timers," into a multibillion dollar industry. Pivotal to this change was technology. Radio and tape recording were critical factors without which no popular music could have grown to the degree that country music did in the 1930's.

Unfortunately for posterity, there are no eyewitness descriptions of actual playing technique and tunings from earlier centuries. And of course no recordings were made until the first decade of this century. However, banjo players like "Uncle" Dave Macon, born in the 19th century, may have represented somewhat accurate glimpses of these earlier styles in their performances.

Field recordings of rural musicians were made primarily in the American southeast - and most often in the Appalachians. This seeming regional bias was primarily one of convenience: This region was easily accessible from large eastern metropolitan centers -- New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta - that housed the academics who ventured out with tape recorders to "discover" rural music and musicians.

Malone's thoughtful annotations to each chapter of Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers are a Who's Who listing the significant contributions of ethnomusicologists, historians and field recordists to music preservation. Some of those early pioneers mentioned include Bascom Lamar Lunsford, John and Alan Lomax, Cecil Sharp, and Francis Child and, more recently, Ralph Rinzler, Mike Seeger, Norm Cohen and others.

Other musical forms discussed include shape note singing, Child ballads, Tex-Mex conjunto music, German fiddling, Scottish fiddle and bagpipers, the banjo craze of the 1890s, Bill Monroe's inspired creation of bluegrass and the phenomenon of singing cowboys.

Much attention is paid throughout to the powerful role of minstrelsy in transmitting music from rural "amateurs" to professionals and back again. Pop music, after all, has always influenced rural players' musical choices and styles just as much as "mountain music" affected professional performers.

One amusing anecdote from the book highlights the frequent confusion of "genuine" traditional music with commercial recordings:

"At a conference on traditional music held in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in April 1989, ballad singer Doug Wallin presented a short program of songs he had learned growing up in that citadel of old time music, Madison County, North Carolina, where Cecil Sharp had found his richest repository of traditional ballads.

"After reverently announcing that he would perform a song he learned from his mother, Berzilla, Wallin...launched into 'After the Ball,' the monster pop hit from 1896 written by Charles K. Harris. The story and lyrics were basically as Harris had written them, but the modal melody and style were Wallin's. Some of the eminent folklorists in attendance sat in embarrassed or stunned silence." [END OF BOOK QUOTE]

Ultimately, the commercialization of country music created its own influences. Song pluggers and the media would help sustain powerful fantasies, created in the 18th and 19th centuries, of rugged individuals, hillbillies, rubes, singing cowboys and lone mountaineers as enduring American cultural stereotypes.

This book is divided into three chapters : 1) Southern Rural Music in the 19th Century 2) Popular Culture and the Music of the South 3) Mountaineers and Cowboys: Country Music's Search For Identity.

The first two chapters are largely devoted to explaining one of Malone's central ideas - that old time country music did not appear as a pure descendent of an Anglo-Saxon/Celtic heritage. But was rather, like nearly all American music, a product of multiple influences. These included German hymns, French cotillions and, perhaps most importantly, black blues and gospel songs. Also the early country classics of the Carter Family and others weren't always pure folk songs. Malone explains how, much to my disappointment, many came from Northern Tin Pan Alley commercial songwriters. For instance, "Mid The Green Fields of Virginia" was actually written by a New Yorker who had never even set foot in Virginia. Other popular entertainment, such as the minstrel shows and the travelling medicine shows, also played a major role in providing new material to rural Southern musicians.

The third chapter deals with country music's fascination with two types of cultural symbols - the cowboy and the mountaineer. The first big stars of country music were Jimmy Rodgers and the Carter Family. Rodger's adopted the image of the cowboy - a tough, masculine rounder who rambled about in search of wild women and good times. The Carter Family, in contrast, were seen as wholesome mountain folks who embodied the traditional virtues of home and hearth. These country musicians were popular not only with their fellow Southerners but also with urban Northerners who liked to romanticize America's rapidly vanishing days of simple family farms and wide open frontiers. Malone goes on to describe many other cowboy icons, from Bob Wills to Willie Nelson, and how they came to symbolize freedom and independence to the American public. The mountaineer influence also remained strong, with a multitude of Appalachian born perfomers such as Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Ricky Skaggs. But while the cowboy hat and boots remained in fashion. The mountainer's image as a hillbilly in overalls tended to become the subject of cornpone humor such as on the Hee Haw television show.

Malone has a top flight knowledge of country's musical and cultural roots. This book is a terrific read for anyone wanting to learn more on the subject

The book's title says it all; if you have ever searched for a comprehensive book on this ancient, beautiful monument, this is your book. Christopher Chippindale takes you on a wonderful, sometimes odd, journey through the history of Stonehenge. I didn't realize how far behind the times I was in Stonehenge theory until I read Mr.Chippindale's book; for example, if you are still under the impression, (as I was), that Stonehenge is a calculator for astronomical phenemenon, (solstices, equinoxes, lunar phases, etc), Chippindale shows that, if anything, aside from possible solar alignments, the old Hawkins' theory of every stone being aligned to some celestial event is now out. And the modern day "Druid" revivalists get a few pokes-in-the-eye too! A fun and fascinating read; the photographs and artwork are wonderful. Highly recommended!

This is a terrific book about Stonehenge! Mr. Chippindale has created a wonderfully informative and readable book about one of the most famous archaeological monuments in the world.

This book takes the famous quote from Jacquetta Hawkes "Every age has the Stonehenge it deserves and - desires", and illustrates it by giving an overview of all the various paradigms that have been used to explain Stonehenge. Instead of giving the reader dreadfully boring and mind-numbing details about Stonehenge and the research into it, he gives us a brief description of what is physically there at Stonehenge, then he outlines what each succesive era has thought of Stonehenge since its "re-descovery" in the 12th century A.D.

All the theories, from Geoffrey of Monmouth and Merlin to the current fad of UFOs and extraterrestrials are explored. Mr. Chippindale lists sources, so that if you are interested in any particular theoretical perspective you are welcome to explore further.

Mr. Chippindale is a well-respected archaeologist and the editor of one of the pre-eminent archaeological journals, "Antiquity". He does state that he firmly is in the camp of the archaeologist, as far as explaining the origin and history of Stonehenge. However, that does not prevent him from presenting many of the other competing paradigms of Stonehenge's origin.

The book is richly illustrated throughout with photographs going back over 100 years, plus drawings and paintings that date back at least to the 16th century. The paintings of Stonehenge also help illustrate what the artist thought of this monument.

It was also quite fascinating to read about the various ideas for "preserving Stonehenge" over the last 150 years. There have been many different ideas about how this monument should be presented, and even now there is controversy about the way Stonehenge is presented to the public.

In this book you get to meet many interesting characters who left their mark on Stonehenge and its interpretation, from John Aubrey, William Cunnington, Inigo Jones, Colin Renfrew to modern new age researchers. They and their concepts are all presented here.

I strongly recommend this book as a start for anyone interested in learning more about Stonehenge. It is written with a sense of humor, and in a very readable style. You can then branch out to read more in-depth studies of the various theories and paradigms that you are interested in.

Three Mean Alligators is a positive prevention instrument, aimed at preserving our nation's most valuable resources, the lives of our children. Three Mean Alligators is a responsible step in facilitating open and honest communication between parents and children, by providing a platform whereby parents can gently enter into the private places where their children live inside themselves, ands learn ways to plant seeds of healing.

My children and I have read Three Mean Alligators over and over again. They enjoy the educational puzzles and the illustrations are charming and very colorful. I bought an extra copy and framed the pictures for my children. Sometimes when I put them to bed we discuss the alligators by putting them in situations of moral dilemma.

Michael Sullivan's "The Three Perfections: Chinese Painting, Poetry, and Calligraphy" (Rev. Ed., 1999) is, in short, a beautiful book. It is not a comprehensive examination of the history of Chinese painting; rather, Sullivan starts with what seems a fairly trivial question (i.e., "What, and why, do the Chinese write on their paintings?") and uses that question as a stepping stone into an essay that is both lucid and thoughtful. The color plates, as printed in this edition published by George Braziller, are lovingly presented on high-quality paper. Particularly worth seeing are Ma Yuan's "On a Mountain Path in Spring" and Shen Zhou's "The Poet on a Cliff Top". (I would like to include the plate of my favorite Chinese painting, Fan Kuan's "Traveling Amid Mountains and Streams", in this listing, but such a large painting -- it is more than two meters high -- deserves a page larger than it would admittedly be practical to print.) Overall, though, an excellent volume, and one that will always have a place on my bookshelf.

"The Three Perfections" is a thin little book and takes about an hour to read, but that's an hour very well-spent. Sullivan does a wonderful job of explaining to the western reader in an engagingly erudite manner why Chinese paintings, well, have writing on them. In the process he touches upon the history of this phenomenon and on the different types of inscriptions and their varying significance as well as describing the fully-developed Chinese art theories on the interdependence of painting, poetry, and calligraphy. All along he keeps the discussion concrete with multiple examples, usually with an accompanying illustration--and these alone are well worth the price of the book. By the end of it, someone who has loved East Asian art for a long time such as myself will still come away with a new appreciation of the subject, but Sullivan's friendly, unpretentious, and lucidly clear delivery is ideal for the curious beginner as well. In short, this fine little volume is perfectly enjoyable, informative, and aesthetically pleasing.

Although this is a thin booklet, only 43 pages, it is to the point, scholarly, and balanced. If you're looking for a dual between to great theologians, this isn't it. Both Fahey and Meyendorff are faithful to their respective traditions without slinging theological mud. To give you an idea of its contents, I'll quote Maximos Aghiorgoussis' forward: "Our theme deals with ecumenical problems between East and West. Faith in the Holy Trinity is both the main mark of Christianity and the main problem in the relations between Eastern and Western Christendom. The Eastern and Western approaches to the doctrine of the Trinity go back to the patristic period. The entire patristic tradition of the East has a "personalistic" approach...whereas in the West St. Augustine authored the so-called "psychological" approach. This difference in approach is one of the main theological factors which played- and continues to play- and important role in the "estrangement" between Eastern and Western Christianity. [In this essay] two contemporary experts in these differing approaches examine the issue. On the Eastern side, the focus is placed upon St. Gregory Palamas. On the Western side, the focus is placed on the doctrine of St.Thomas Aquinas."

This is one of those gems that you are so thankful to find in the field of theological writings. It's a bit technical, but it's worth the struggle if you are just beginning and very illuminating if you're familar with the issues, since it poses the question from the point of view of St. Palamas; an often overlooked theologian from the often overlooked Eastern Church.

It is OOP but let me know if you are interested. Enjoy!

Although this is a thin booklet, only 43 pages, it is to the point, scholarly, and balanced. If you're looking for a dual between to great theologians, this isn't it. Both Fahey and Meyendorff are faithful to their respective traditions without slinging theological mud. To give you an idea of its contents, I'll quote Maximos Aghiorgoussis' forward: "Our theme deals with ecumenical problems between East and West. Faith in the Holy Trinity is both the main mark of Christianity and the main problem in the relations between Eastern and Western Christendom. The Eastern and Western approaches to the doctrine of the Trinity go back to the patristic period. The entire patristic tradition of the East has a "personalistic" approach...whereas in the West St. Augustine authored the so-called "psychological" approach. This difference in approach is one of the main theological factors which played- and continues to play- and important role in the "estrangement" between Eastern and Western Christianity. [In this essay] two contemporary experts in these differing approaches examine the issue. On the Eastern side, the focus is placed upon St. Gregory Palamas. On the Western side, the focus is placed on the doctrine of St.Thomas Aquinas."

This is one of those gems that you are so thankful to find in the field of theological writings. It's a bit technical, but it's worth the struggle if you are just beginning and very illuminating if you're familar with the issues, since it poses the question from the point of view of St. Palamas; an often overlooked theologian from the often overlooked Eastern Church.

Great Book. Some Intimate moments with alot of romance and action. A MUST READ!

This is a must read. Romance and Action. Everything in a good story. No messy murders. A man saving a woman's life while risking his own.

I am a Ball State graduate and met several professionals of the 1958 class of nursing at ball memorial hospital and they loved seeing this book and if you have any or know of any, list them you will sell them at a reasonable price. bsu class member 1986

I have started reading this book. It is getting interesting day by day. This is an amazing spiritual journey. The books starts with several experiments held in the 1860s in America and it shows the results of many doctors and scientists in this counrty during that time. They were seemingly convinced about the existence of the soul after death.

The author lived his most fo the life in USA.

This is the memorial speech of a great teacher of Judaism Rabbi Chaim Pearl about one of the giants of the generation, Rabbi Abraham Cohen.