Kentucky Books

This true story has great insight into race relations in small-town midwest/southern America in the early 1900s. It is a spellbinding tale that I couldn't put down until I had read the last page. Now, nearly 100 years later, it is hard to believe that lynch mobs and frontier justice still existed in the 20th century in this small western Kentucky town that is my home. Judge (now Kentucky Supreme Court Justice) Cunningham is a great writer and storyteller. I recommend this book to anyone interested in west Kentucky history, lynch mob history, race relations (then and now), or criminal justice, or to anyone who just wants to read a good story. Not only is this book very insightful, it is very entertaining.

This is a great book for anyone who is interested in the politics of Kentucky. Although the title of the book indicates a focus on the years 1930-1960, it actually starts out with the founding of the State. WARNING: If you are a A.B. "Happy" Chandler fan this might not be the book for you. However, if you are interested in a accurate enjoyable read that focuses on the struggle of Kentucky Politics, I highly recommended this book.

I am extremely impressed with Taylor's book, which explores the real and imagined consequences of the Civil War on families in border states, where the question of secession was the most complicated and the most fraught. This book not only documents (in writing that rises to the level of great literary writing -- a rarity in young historians) the actual occurrence of split families and what they had to say for themselves, but also the psychological, moral, and political implications of families at odds with each other. That is, this book gets beyond the idea of "the brother's war" as merely a curiosity or a sentimental metaphor, and shows how the state of the society -- the relations between men and women, white and black -- itself is revealed in the experience of these families, observed in extremis.

The writing, again, is extraordinary. Fans of Doris Kearn Goodwin or David McCullough will love this book, and will be pleased to know that Taylor is of the new generation of historians and likely to be around and writing for a very long time.

I love horses and I like to read about romance. Put it together and you've got The Dream Horse. A must read!

This book seems to be a tribute to Black womanhood. It is a lifting of the veil of invisibility, to show an infrastructure, on which much of this country's literature has been written. This author gives voice to a history that exposes the appropriation of more then just bodies. She writes into history from an obscured position that of the female, revealing the deep hidden story of the way things were, acknowledging her story. It is like the backbone to the imagination and depth of American literature is being revealed. This book outlines such a delicate, intricate, detailed thing, the evacuation of wholeness, the extraction of worth from the Black woman, to be grafted onto White women, while at the same time making Black women a depository for the myth of sexual deviant, the origin of impurity. I wrote in all in the margins of the book! I really enjoyed the careful unfolding of the history of women (white) meticulously layered within of the racial constructs of the Black female image. The analysis of the Biblical story of Sarah is thought provoking and painful. The process of the devaluation of Black womanhood is so insidious, so detailed, so diabolical, and so "well" efficiently done! I love the last sentence of the first paragraph on pg. 59! It is so small, such a little detail with huge ramifications! It is the difference. It is everything in such a gentle, seemly benign shift. It is only the difference between the happy slave relieved of that pesky responsibility of freedom and the oppressed masses laboring to death under tyranny! I enjoyed the book! I loved what I read, I savored the voice the book valued and recognized its uniqueness. It made me envision the possibility of a different path of history and the possibilities of a different future! Clearly one of the ways to achieve real progress, a greater revelation of truth is for readers, all readers, to read and reevaluate "the story" they have been given. As the author so clearly states, the path to understanding, to real comprehension lie in, an aesthetically removed, analysis of the concepts and ethics inherent in the foundation of the written word. This concept may be applied to all readings, in by pasting the pleasure, in resisting the seduction of the story a reader is gifted with a more sophisticated, inclusive appreciation of the ideologies hidden within a text.

This massive compilation contains genealogies of the early families of eastern and southeastern Kentucky, the section originally encompassing the counties of Floyd, Knox, Greenup, and Clay. The genealogies refer to approximately 12,000 individuals, many of them worked through seven generations. The main families, a number of them of Scotch-Irish descent, are listed alphabetically starting with the progenitor of the Kentucky line and continue chronologically thereafter according to the succession of children. Data furnished on each of the descendants generally includes name, date of birth, marriage and death, place of residence, incidental facts pertaining to military and public service, references to public records, and so on.

The following families are representative of some of the main lines found in this book: Adams, Auxier, Bailey, Ballinger, Bennett, Biggs, Black, Blair, Boone, Borders, Brack, Brown, Burgess, Burns, Campbell, Carter, Cecil, Chandler, Childers, Conley, Connelly, Davis, Dils, Dixon, Dupuy, Dysart, Elliott, Everman, Fairchild, Fields, Fitzpatrick, Flaugher, Fuson, Fuqua, Garrard, Gerred, Gee, Gilbert, Graham, Grayson, Green, Hackworth, Hager, Hampton, Hannah, Harkins, Harris, Hatcher, Hockaday, Hood, Hord, Horton, Howe, Howes, Hylton, Jacobs, Jayne, Johns, Keesee, Kibbey, Kirk, Kouns, Lackey, Lane, Leslie, Lewis, Lyttle, Martin, May, Mayo, Mays, Meade, Meek, Mobley, Moore, Morris, Osenton, Parsons, Patrick, Pogue, Porter, Preston, Price,Pritchard, Ratliff, Redwine, Reeves, Rice, Richards, Robinson, Rupert, Salyer, Seaton, Scott, Siler, Sparks, Stafford, Stewart, Stratton, Strother, Stuart, Swetnam, Theobold, Turner, Van Hoose, Vaughan, Vincent-Peay, Vinson, Virgin, Ward, Walter, Waring, Warnock, Weddington, Wells, Wheeler, White, Wilhoit, Williams, Witten, Womack, Worthington.

This book is filled with Fleming County history and genealogy. I am unaware of any other history book on the historically significant Fleming County in Kentucky which contains this kind of information. Fleming County is the Covered Bridge Capital of Kentucky and was the site of many historical events, from the early exploration of Kentucky to the Civil War to railroads to Sousley of Iwo Jima fame and much more. From the preface: "The intentions of this writer was to put into print the history of Fleming County, Kentucky according to records he has had in his hands for a number of years and to honor the brave pioneers of this section of Kentucky, both men and women who came to make their homes and rear their families when this was a vast wilderness. Out of this wilderness has been carved some of the best farms in Kentucky. Their descendants are honorable men in the various business fields." Table of contents: Fleming County and The Man It Was Named For; Michael Cassidy, The Amazing Irishman; The Forming of Fleming County; Salathial Fitch; Old Fleming County Records; Life of John Cochran; Life of Joseph Porter; The Botts of Fleming County; The Overleys of Fleming County; William Quaintance of Fleming County; Prominent Citizens of Fleming County; Taken From "The Flag" - 1847; Judge R. H. Stanton; M. M. Teager, Attorney of Flemingsburg; The Ryans from Ireland to Flemingsburg; Flemingsburg and Fleming County, 1828 - 1833; E. M. Money of Fleming County; William H. Fischer, Grocer, Wholesale and Retail; Dan T. Fischer, Jeweler and Optician; James P. Harbeson, Circuit Judge; Life Story of Charles L. Dudley; The Powers of Fleming County; County and City Directory, 1871 - 1873; Bath County Killing, 1872; Charles Lawson, Druggist; 16th Vol. Infantry, U.S.A.; A Letter from J. T. Walker, 1882; Marriage and Deaths, 1883; Marriages of 1895; James P. Hendrick, The Presbyterian; Baldwin Piano Official; Fleming County, Kentucky Election of 1894; Dr. John Reynolds, Druggist; Railroad Accident, 1907; Judge C. E. Booe; Avenged At The Stake; Husband's Ire; Lynching; First 500 Draftees - World War I; Gems, Flowers and Bible Facts; Mason-Dixon Line; Isaac VanArsdell; House of Foul Play; Geographic Facts; An Old Account Book of 1792; My Old Kentucky Home; Concert of M. E. Church, South; Facts of Fleming County; The Slave Boy; Groundhog Day; Atlas of Fleming County; Fleming County's Worst Storm on Record; The Lost Town of Gath; The Gretna Green of the Ohio Valley; School Superintendents of Fleming County; Fleming County's Representatives.

Precise detailed listings, excellent index, should be in every rock-hounders back-pack. However, it's only failing are the rather crude maps. The maps would be more helpful if they included topographic elevation bars. But, all in all, a very delightful reference tome.

EATING AS I GO: SCENES FROM AMERICA AND ABROAD maintains that a common meeting ground for different cultures is over the dinner table - and offers a blend of travelogue, memoir and culinary exploration to reinforce this idea. It's an autobiographical account of the author's travels and investigations into food culture around the world, and offers both destination and armchair readers a heady mix of cultural interactions and insights all linked with a fascination of and appreciation for food. General-interest collections as well as college holdings strong in world culture or culinary history will find it a popular acquisition.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

An excellent guide for eating out. I've lived in Kentucky all my life, and my wife and I are always looking for unusual places to eat. This book covers them, from the tiniest most out of the way places, to some more well known restaurants. It's a good way to avoid the fast food franchises while you're traveling, and still get a good and different meal. I wish more states had guides like this.