Mississippi Books

"James B. Eads: The Civil War Ironclads and His Mississippi" by Rex T. Jackson has a long title but is a short biography, 116 pages, of an interesting and impressive engineer who greatly affected naval warfare. Eads is best known for his triple-arch steel bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis (1874), but another project provided a year-round navigation channel for New Orleans by means of jetties (1879). He made a fortune at an early age inventing a diving bell to salvage steamboat wrecks from the bottoms of rivers. His knowledge of the Mississippi prompted the U.S. government to contract him and build an inland navy fleet of ironclad gunboats during the Civil War, which captured Fort Henry a month before the famous duel of the Merrimac and the Monitor. This little book, with lots of illustrative photos, is a great way to learn lots about a great Missourian who ranks with Samuel L. Clemens and Harry Truman in importance to our state history. ?Fred Pfister, editor "The Ozarks Mountaineer"

Jackson does not just recount historical facts and dates; he presents them in a way where they are interesting and vivid. In an almost poetic style Jackson describes the accomplishments of America's most brilliant engineer and the process that took with it many little known American heroes.

If you advocate a strong free market, you will admire James Eads uncanny ability to secure resources and money for his private masterpieces. If you are a believer in the virtues of common people, you will cherish how a boy who quit school to sell apples to provide for his family, could divine such structural wonders. If you enjoy an amazing and true story and agree with me, you won't let this one go without reeling it in.

I just read this book. I wish I could tell the author how much I appreciated it.

Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua's slim volume packs a lot of power. As an African-American rhetorician and Twain scholar, she eloquently makes the case for book's continued study. Using the lexicon of classical rhetoric, she carefully examines the role of Jim in Twain's book to show that he is elevated to a place of prominence and importance in conveying Twain's message of humanity. She examines closely Jim's words, his dialogues with Huck, and the language of slavery used by the society in the novel as a way of exposing Twain's methods.

If one carefully reads Twain's masterpiece and then thoughtfully reads Chadwick-Joshua's book, s/he must surely see that _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ needs to remain an important element in the American landscape of literature. Without Twain's honest look at race in the 19th century, an important part of the American experience would be lost. We need this book, black and white alike. __The Jim Dilemma_ helps us to appreciate Huck and Jim's journey to freedom all the more.

AND THEY SAID IN IT THAT THE MANSION THAT HE (JONATHAN CARVER) USED TO OWN WAS HAUNTED BY HIS GHOST - THEY SAID THAT A FAMILY HAD BOUGHT THE OLD PLACE CALLED 'SUMMERWIND' THAT HAD SINCE BURNED DOWN BY LIGHTNING BUT THEY MENTIONED THAT THE MALES FATHER HAD HAD A REGRESSION WHERE HE WENT RIGHT TO THE PLACE IN THE BASEMENT THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE HELD THE DEED TO THE SUMMERWIND ESTATE AND THAT IT WAS IN A SMALL BOX BEHIND A WALL IN THE BASEMENT BUT WHEN HE WENT TO THE EXACT PLACE WHILE THE HOUSE WAS STILL STANDING HE STUCK HIS HAND INSIDE THE HOLE AND FOUND NOTHING BUT A BLANK SPACE.

== For those interested in the early explorations of what is now the Midwest, this is an outstanding and interesting read.
From its initial publication in London in the late 1760's Carver's travels thrilled readers both in the colonies and in Europe.
== It is not exactly an action-adventure book, but for those who enjoy accounts of Louis and Clark this would be an excellent addition to a library.

The photographer does an excellent job of using his subject to tell his thoughts. By keeping some photographs on a long exposure, he also shows the fleeting nature of these somewhat depressed settings. Also a strong use of color to illustrate the cultural setting and importance despite the deprived economic environment. Of high importance for anyone interested in the deep south and the heritage of the mississippi delta.

Birney Imes has done us all a favor by revealing, with stunning photos, a slice of Southern life not normally exposed. The fifty-eight images show the interiors of several colored drinking establishments and what amazed me was the incredible ramshackle nature of these rooms. Everything looks so temporary, walls with exposed brickwork, ceilings that obviously wouldn't support a second floor, doors, tables, seats and bars made from whatever wood was available. The decor and many of the signs seem mostly to be home produced which contrast with the slickly produced commercial work for beer and cigarettes.

Despite the very temporary nature of these joints that the photos reveal I felt they showed something else though, an earthiness and honesty for the customers that is perhaps missing from the typical white bar with its respectable decor and artificial facade. I can just imagine the various bars in Juke Joint coming alive with the sound of raucous blues and relaxing good times, plate thirty-eight shows a hand-made sign in Juicy's Place, Marcella, saying 'BE NICE OR LEAVE'.

Juke Joint is well produced with a large photo per page and generous margins and my only criticism would be that there are not enough exterior photos of these amazing joints. Apart from that I thought this was a fascinating book.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

The author gracefully narrates his past as a black man living during civil rights movements, race riots, unequal oportunities, war, the Kennedy assination, and urban sprawl. It was at this time in history that Clifton Taulbert, the author, migrated from the agrigarian community of Greenville, MS to the industrial St. Louis, only to fulfill his destiny.

It's very interesting how much he accomplished in 5 to 6 years during the 60's, and despite the odds against him and black people in general, he triumphed in many ways. This autobiographical recount conveys a warm message of hope and family tradition. Read it to believe it.

This is a great book to sit down with on a cold weekend. Just grab a quilt and let yourself be taken to the South where the author writes about his life. Not one of them boring autobiographies but a good story.

My husband plans on using this book when he reads to his kids
at the local school. Rotary has a program of reading with grade school
kids as their project. But I also thought it was a good reminder to adults of all the great things that we have in this wonderful state(we are
not native Mississippians).

M Is For Magnolia: A Mississippi Alphabet Book Edition 1. (Discover America State By State. Alphabet Series)

A friend gave me this book and I bought it for my mother and sisters. I grew up in Clarksdale, Mississippi - Cross road of the Blues. What I didn't know is that my uncle (George Furniss) is related to the artist who illustrated the book, Rick Anderson. I'm delighted to have it and I learned some things about Mississippi I did not know. This little book is a treasure. Joyce Murrah Owens, Waxahachie, Texas

This book has marvelous images of just some of the fine works that George Ohr created. The summaries of his life are correct to some extent but it failed to provide any deatails of his offspring or how they may have carried on the innate artist abilities, this is why I only give it four stars.

this man was a a head of his time. i have never seen anythig that has come out of the 1800's that looked any thing like this.The photography is great and the biography is good , but the pottery is the best i have ever seen he had great form and great glaze you could not ask any more from a potter

Peter Cozzens and Robert Girardi provided an excellent service to Civil War scholars by assembling the collected newspaper essays that General John Pope wrote in way of reflecting on his Civil War career. Best known for his stunning defeat at Second Bull Run and his bravado, a very different Pope emerges here. Often witty, Pope left excellent sketches of President Lincoln (an old friend of the family), Edwin Stanton, as well as numerous commanders of both the North and the South. Pope is excellent in capturing the chaos and incompetence of John Fremont's command in Missouri in the first days of the war. His scathing attack on Henry Halleck's torturously slow move towards Corinth reveals the extent of this wasted opportunity. But Pope is best known for two battles: Island Number 10 and Second Bull Run. His account of Island Number 10 is a bit rushed though certainly through. While Pope does an excellent job of describing the layout of his forces at the start of the Bull Run campaign, he relies on official records a bit too much and seems willing to let the matter slide. That is understandable, after all Pope was humiliated by Lee at Second Bull Run. The problem is that the Second Bull Run campaign was Pope's moment in the sun and he has little to say on it. With the large exceptions of George McClellan and Fitz John Porter, who Pope believed deliberately undermined his command, there is little bitterness. Even Nathaniel Banks, who picked a fight at Cedar Mountain against Pope's orders and was mauled by Stonewall Jackson, comes off relatively unscathed. It seems as if all of Pope's fire was being saved for McClellan and Porter, as can be seen in the memoirs as well as in a correspondence with the Comte de Paris which is included in an appendix. The memoirs reveal Pope to be much more intelligent and witty than his traditional blowhard persona would indicate though the bile is still there certainly in the cases of Porter and McClellan. One can see from these memoirs why so many men, including Grant and Sherman, seemed to like and respect Pope and while others had no use for the man. All in all, an interesting and revealing memoir to some long neglected parts of the war though be warned the main course, Second Bull Run, remains a bit bland.

Peter Cozzens rightly compares General John Pope's memoires with those of U.S. Grant and W.T. Sherman. This is a highly readable account from one of the participants in some of the least-understood episodes of the Civil War.

Of course, Pope's writings are not "new." As Cozzens relates, the entries which make up this book appeared in the National Tribune and other Reconstruction-era publications. However, they have spent the last century forgotten by the general public. Cozzens and his colleague, Gerardi, have done a great service both to Civil War scholars and to the casual Civil War buff by bringing Pope's reminiscences and analyses to life.

What is most surprising is the humor, candor and generosity of a man who has gone down in history as a narrow, bitter mediocrity. For example, devotees of General Lee, whose comments largely consigned Pope to history almost as a barbarian, will be surprised to read Pope's poetic evocation of the beauty of Virginia and the nobility of its citizens.

In a similar vein, readers will benefit from a "fresh" take on a wide range of issues -- such as the relationships between Lincoln, Stanton, Halleck and McClellan -- from a player very much in the know, but whose views have gone largely unremarked.

My only cautionary note would be that an appreciation of this volume depends upon a basic understanding of the events of the war, and perhaps also upon an introductory familiarity with the post-war debates on those events.

Minty alley is one of the first books C.L.R. James wrote, before he found his niche as a historian and cricket writer. But This isn't because of any lack of talent in fiction writing. The characters of Minty Alley are real and rounded and tell us something about ourselves as well as the people of Trinidad. The vast class differences in colonial societies even among the colonised peoples is thrown into stark relief by James's caricatures. You might be shocked at the poverty or amused by the dialogue,

An important book in the litarary history of the Caribbean. The journey of a middle class voyer into the everyday world of a working class family. The class politics and the internal revelations of the main character drive the story and the relationships he has with the other characters. On the whole this is a book with a relatively simple language and implicitly complex themes.

This book encompasses all that I love about Mississippi and then some! The illustrations are so much fun to discover as you turn from page to page that the text seems to be a wonderful bonus!

What a fun book!An A-Z snapshot of Mississippi for kids and adults alike.The book,illustrated by the author,introduces the reader to Mississippi treasures like B.B.King and kudzu in a simple rhyme format.