Mississippi Books

"Faulkner's County" was photographed by Martin Dain in 1961. He came by the Forest Service's office (which was the same up-stairs office as the Lawyer's office in the movie "Intruder in the Dust") and asked if any of the people working there would guide him around Lafayette County. The Government couldn't help, so Dain ended up following the Watkin's Products salesman on his rounds to kitchens flung far and near around the country side.

"Faulkner's County" went out of print, and, as I heard it, there were copyright problems with Dain's estate, so it was never republished. Fortunately, the University of Mississippi Press published many of these same photographs in a volume entitled "Faulkner's World" in 1997, for Faulkner's 100th birthday. The primary differences in the two books are: 1) "Faulkner's County" accompanies the photographs with quotations from Faulkner while "Faulkner's World" accompanies the photographs with identifications of the subject matter; 2) the dust jacket for "Faulkner's County" is a wide angle shot of the dismal looking Sardis Reservoir in winter, while the photograph for the jacket of "Faulkner's World" is the town square in Oxford; and 3) Faulkner's World contains photographs of Faulkner's funeral that Dain made on a second trip to Oxford in 1962.

As luck would have it, Martin Dain captured Oxford just as it was beginning to rennovate the store fronts, figure out a workable traffic pattern for the town square, and before all the roads in the county were paved (or even gravelled for some of them). Many of these photographs are, in a sense, historic, because some things Dain saw hadn't changed very much since the Civil War. In fact, it is hard to identify some of the places today because the University, the city and the county have changed so much since Dain was there.

In my opinion, these are excellent photographs, making effective use of high speed black and white film with a wide angle lens. The team of mules plowing towards the camera, while the rest of the scene converges into endless rows of plowed land in the distance; the barren feeling of the country school room, the grassless yards; and most of all, the faces, complement the photographic style very well.

There has been very few times in the past that I have ever considered buying a coffee table book, most in my opinion just collect dust.

This book however is a wonderful pictorial account of Oxford Mississippi during the time when Faulkner still walked our streets. What I think is amazing is that some of the people pictured in this book as children still live in Oxford and are still an active and beautiful part of our local history.

This is an ideal gift for friends or family that have attended the University of Mississippi and have learned to love the small town personality of Oxford.

This is one of my new favorite cookbooks, the recipes take some time to make but not so long you have to start a day in advance. I only wish there were more pictures for the recipes. Overall it is fantasic, a really great gift.

Fine Dining Mississippi Style: Signature Recipes From Mississippi's Restaurants And Bed & Breakfast Inns is a simply superb regional cookbook that would grace any kitchen cookbook collections. Showcasing more than 350 recipes that range from the quick & easy to the delightfully gourmet, John M. Bailey compiled and organized according to various regions of the state, these dishes that are the pride of 81 of the finest chefs working in the restaurants and inns for which Mississippi is so well known to their discerning clientele. From Country French Bread and Butter Pudding; Boneless Cajun Barbeque Ribs; Cane Syrup Vinaigrette; and Spanish Red Bean and Yuca Soup; to Shrimp and Artichoke Chimichanga with Goat Cheese Sauce; Scallops in Tequila, Citrus and Chile Dressing; Butternut Squash Cheesecake; and Smoked Portobello Salad with Mixed Greens and Balsamic Vinaigrette, Fine Dining Mississippi Style is one culinary compendium that fully lives up to the promise of fine dining!

This is a very sweet book. The author writes so you truly "feel" her words. The author's grandmother, Ociee, is a delight. I hope Milam Propst writes a sequel as I would enjoy reading more about Ociee in her later years. I have bought at least 6 copies for gifts for my friends.

If you want to read a nice book that gives you a warm, cozy feeling, this is for you..no violence, no bad words. The author's charachters come alive and by the end you feel you know the protagonist, Ociee, personally.

I am ordering additional copies for several friends and family members.

I hope Milam will come out with a sequel. I want to know more about Ociee.

This is the story of Medgar Evers - one of the lesser known heroes of the Civil Rights Era - and the story of how his family and the movement managed to continue after Medgar was brutally assassinated in the driveway of his home while his wife and children were there.

The story is lovely in parts, terrifying in parts, joyous in parts, humbling in parts, and poignant throughout.

Any student of American history should read this book. It's more than the tragic love story of two amazing people; Mrs. Evers's fine writing adroitly details life in the Deep South before the civil rights movement gained widespread recognition and appeal.

I highly, highly recommend it.

I am 38 years old and I read this book when I was 17 years old as a senior in high school. It wasn't a requirement that I read this book. I simply saw it in the library and was intrigued by the title. Now that I am an adult, I want my children to read this powerful book. I am also ordering the book today so that I can reread it. There were so many people who participated in the civil rights movement and it is time we learn about more of those American heros. I could not put this book down. I read it in two days! Myrlie Evers shares her darkest fears and greatest joy.

It is the centennial of the birth of one of America's visionary artists, whose fame continues to expand beyond his Mississippi home. Walter Anderson has never before had a full biography, but now University Press of Mississippi has brought out _Fortune's Favorite Child: The Uneasy Life of Walter Anderson_ by Christopher Maurer. It will be treasured by those who love Anderson's vision shown in his thousands of prints and watercolors, as well as his murals. It is certainly true that Anderson had an uneasy life as detailed here in full, but also an extraordinarily productive one. The biography cannot explain the idiosyncratic genius which inhabits his pictures; nothing can do that. But it does allow us to appreciate the way in which a talented man could triumph over enormous difficulties, not the least of which was a serious mental illness which prevented normal or reliable work habits or relationships with others.

Anderson was born in 1903, in the garden district of New Orleans, one of the big cities he would return to repeatedly, although his sphere of expression was almost always wilderness or rural areas. He was schooled in art in New York and Philadelphia, and during some of the time he was at school, his family set up a fledgling business in Ocean Springs. Shearwater Pottery, set on land acquired by his mother and financed by his father, was a real family endeavor, with his brothers throwing and designing pots, mother decorating them and worrying over aesthetics, and father balancing the books and promoting the business. Once Anderson returned, he took part in the effort, decorating plates and designing figurines. Shearwater was to become a mainstay in his life, and a financial anchor; he never made much money from it, but he didn't need much money for his unconventional way of living, and he was singularly uninterested in profiting from his artwork. He had an unconventional marriage with many separations and general unhappiness. Nonetheless, his wife knew better than others how to appreciate him, even in the beginning: "He isn't just gifted or talented. He really is an artist, a genius," she wrote to one of his psychiatrists. His attacks on others, and upon himself (with cutting and burning), fueled by delusions and paranoia, would land him into one psychiatric ward after another. He took long trips by bicycle all over the country, and even spent time in China to study murals there, always sleeping rough and traveling with no luxuries. His most famous excursions were of course his trips to Horn Island, the eight miles to which he would row with his watercolors and scanty supplies, spending weeks at a time, away from all humans and rejoicing in the neighbor animals he found.

Anderson died of cancer in 1965, during a hospitalization for a lung tumor, a hospitalization he smilingly admitted was the first one of his own volition. Only afterwards did his family start gathering up the huge amount of notes, sketches, and watercolors with which he had been consumed for a lifetime. But even they had no idea what they would find in the padlocked door of a little room that had been added to his cottage at Shearwater Pottery. When they pried open the door, they discovered that all the walls and the ceiling had been crammed with brilliant murals of sunrise, sunset, nighttime, and all the cranes, fish, pelicans, and other creatures that had been subjects of such intense lifetime study. It was just one more instance of his relentless motion to depict and to participate in nature for his own sake, realizing nature through art. The discovery of the room, now part of the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs, is the close of this satisfying, moving, and well-illustrated biography.

"The makers of great American watercolors -- Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, John Marin, Charles Demuth-- are a select few. Anderson is worthy of inclusion in that company... Here's this Mississippian whose light-struck pictures throb, as do [Van Gogh's], with furious, methodical ecstasy, and are as American as can be. Art poured from Anderson as it does from such unstoppable producers as Red Grooms and Frank Stella. Anderson was a natural."

Freedom Summer attempts to explain who gets involved in high-risk political action, and how their experience shapes their economic and personal decisions. McAdam uses the 1964 "Freedom Summer" program, where primarily Northern, white college students descended on Mississippi to register black voters. The experiences of the volunteers serve as a microchasm of the politics of the era; the lingering influence of the conservative 1950's with its fears of communism and idealized suburban nuclear families through the turbulent 1960's, and the collapse of the multi-racial civil rights movement into various atomized social movements - feminism, environmentalism, and of course, the anti-war movement.

The methodology here is fascinating in and of itself: McAdam obtained the original applications for the Freedom Summer program, and used them to track down both those who did and did not go to Mississippi that fateful summer. This allowed him to demonstrate not only how people are motivated to participate, but the difference that such participation can make on future life choices, not only for political engagement, but employment and even marriage. Along the way, he shatters some of the mythology about the baby boomers - especially the idea that everyone shed their love beads and picket signs for lattes and SUVs. However, he also is careful not to glorify the volunteers, many of whom found adjusting to life outside of "the movement" to be a difficult process (an issue McAdam handles with care and dignity).

Perhaps what is most admirable about this book, however, is that it gives a fresh view on the 1960's, an era that has been written about ad nauseum, and manages to do so in a way that is both academically sound (McAdam is a sociologist at Stanford) and easily accessible to a non-academic audience. Be sure to read the appendices as well as the main text; he includes SNCC's "incident list" detailing the daily litany of harassment and violence that the volunteers faced daily. It is especially chilling, not only for the savagery it details, but the matter-of-fact tone in which it is recorded.

Highly recommended.

This book should be required reading for any of us crusty old lefties. A nice reminder (along with Martin Luther King Jr's "Why We Can't Wait") that sometimes with enough strength and drive, we can make the impossible possible. A great recounting, not only of the civil rights movement, but also the emerging New Left philosophy. Rich and detailed to earn a place as a university textbook, but still as plainspoken and accessible as to be read by anyone.

Highly recommended.

When I see a book by Mary Stanton, I have learned to expect a well-research subject told in an interesting and engaging manner. Freedom Walk: Mississippi or Bust is no exception. This story of a unique individual is, for the most part, unknown. She has delved into his life to make him and his trek a part of the history of the civil rights movement. I applaud her efforts and look forward to her next book.

Ms. Stanton takes on a complicated story and pulls the reader along on a most insightful, informative and important ride. A real pleasure to read.

The verse of poet, writer and dentist Mahnaz Badihian (Oba) reflects the mystic poets of her Iranian childhood and is hallmarked by romantic, simple and philosophical qualities that resonate in the mind and heart of the reader. From Zayandeh Rud to The Mississippi: A Voice From A Road Between East And West is her debut anthology and showcases her experience and expertise in English. Modern Woman: I am a restless woman./A woman with strong shoulders,/That carries life./With iron feet,/That walk through fire every second./I am a woman with a wounded voice,/That bleeds inside, every day./I am a modern woman,/A woman of an age of ex, money, perfumes./I keep the pain in me, I paint the face for you!/I am a restless woman,/A woman of the modern age.

I think all the young people should have a copy of this touching,romantic and meditating poetry book

Game Gourmet: Recipes That Celebrate A Culinary Journey Through Mississippi Outdoors is an impressive collection of nutritious, delicious recipes. These are recipes that are easy to prepare and include appetizers, soups, salads, fowl, meat, seafood, and vegetable dishes that would grace any table and satisfy any appetite. From Gulf Bouillabaisse; Sesame Cucumber Salad; Rolled Stuffed Beefsteak; Crawfish in Orange Sauce; and Smoked Wild Turkey; to Curried Wild Rice; Grilled Herb Potatoes; Chipotle Mushrooms; and Roasted Balsamic Vidalia Onions, Game Gourmet offers something for everyone and would make a popular addition to any and all kitchen cookbook collections!

Dr. McKell gave my boss this book. I thumbed thru it and kept saying to myself "I have always wanted to know how to cook this". This is the first cookbook that is fun to read. The little tidbits of info by each recipe make this book special. You feel like you're there with Dr. Mckell and his wife Jackie. Everyone that sees my cookbook has to have a copy. You must have one too.

This is the best gardening book I've found with practical advice for gardening in the hot, often drought stricken South. His advice is right on, practical, and delivered in an often humous style. It is evident that Mr. Rushing has both first-hand experience as well as textbook knowledge. I can already tell this is going to be one of the most treasured books in my library.

I feel as if I know this guy. I use the book year round. I may not remember where I left my digging fork but I know where I left Felder's book. When I kill another plant, Felder tell's me where I went wrong. When I get a complement on a plant, I give him credit. The book tells you what to plant, when to plant it, where to plant it, and when to gather the seeds or divide the plant. Whenever I dig a new hole or pinch off an early bud I have already consulted this book to be sure the time is right. The monthly almanac pages are almost worn out. I do not turn the page on my monthly calendar before I consult the almanac to be sure the yard is ready for the next month. Felder is not just the holder of horticulture degrees, he is a dirt worker with lots of experience.