Iowa Books

I have a fondness for writers from rural American; Taylor, raised in Iowa, attending college in Idaho seemed worth a chance. While this volume did not impress me, I am certainly willing to read more of his work. He writes in a very quiet and observant style; he knows precisely what details will be telling; he can recreate his reactions at an earlier age with astonishing believability. With only an occassional misstep, his language is precise and well chosen. Unfortunately, his characters never move beyond the particular to a universal observation of something about humanity and the reader never cares about the particular characters of the stories.

The Hiding Place is a slight piece of a ring of sentimental value being "lost" is moving, its sentimental value and hiding place recalled, and it's being returned to it's multilayered hiding place.

Musette Disappears is a short character piece of a small girl leaving church - and the memories of her.

Blacky's Story is the tale of the family dog, apparently never well trained, his exile, and the family joke/strain surrounding him.

The O'Connell Sister is the tale of twin spinisters who were anything but friendly to the neighborhood children.

Mr. Pierre is a story of the hairdresser with flair - a gambler, a cheat.

Thirst is a paragraph regarding dreams and thirst.

I am oversimplifying the stories - but they truly are more sketches, dreams, character studies, memories than stories of a more formal nature. Essentially a talented author has presented us with a solid collection of author's exercises.

This book contains a series of essays on Paracas art on the following subjects:

-Paracas an ancient cultural tradition on the south coast Peru.
-Paracas: Discovery & Controversy
-A technical & Iconographic analysis of Carhua Painted textiles
-Stucture, Image & Abstraction: Paracas Necropolis headbands as system templates
-Paracas necropolis bundle 89: A description
-Physical & Chemical Analysis of Paracas Fibers
-Ecology & Society in embroidered images from the Paracas Necroplis

-Social & Political leadership in the Lower Ica Valley: Ocucaje Phases 8 & 9
-The Paracas problem: Archaelogical perspectives.

As you can see from the above contents list this book is aimed at specialists - and the language is dense in academic and thick with reference terms. The illustrations are meagre and all in Black and white.

While there is a lot of information in this book, as a person doing research in areas relating to some of these subjects I have found this book hard going. I'm sure to find some useful things but only after much digging and decoding of jargon.

So, if you are after a book with beautiful pictures of Paracas textiles - avoid this like the plague. If you are after archaeological research by people who have worked in the field and have finally been able to publish what they have found then this book is probably for you. I'd classify this as a reference work, not a general use book, especially for people new to the area this book would be difficult to use.

Revising is the key to good writing, at least it is for me. This book is an attempt to trace how several reknowned authors make revisions on their own work. The lesson I took away from the book was that authors rewrite many, many times and work through a highly individualized process to discover a process that works. That is a worthwhile message, and I did leave the book with some ideas to try.

Unfortunately, the book is quite uneven in that not every author seemed particularly willing to share their process. For instance, I left the section with Joyce Carol Oates wondering why Woodruff bothered included it; plainly, getting information from her was tantamount to pulling teeth and the result is superficial.

This story of the serial murders of candidates running for the governorship of Iowa is interesting up to the point where it introduces a connection to an absurd conspiracy theory. Once this farfetched and unnecessary notion rears up, the remaining story lacks some of the plausibility needed for a good murder mystery.
The premise is that the race for the governor's chair is wide open, the incumbent having announced that he will not seek reelection. The cast of characters running for the office is a wild one, from a Republican with a checkered business past to an openly gay man. In between there is a known cross-dresser and a "priest" with a past that no one seems able to track down.
As the campaign continues, someone is systematically killing the candidates and the authorities are baffled, as it appears to be the work of a professional killer. However, once the conspiracy theory is put forward, the professional becomes a nitwit and engages in a set of foolish actions. For someone who has been clever enough to evade police for so long to attempt an armed takeover of the Iowa government with only a few people and in front of television cameras is absurd.
The story was serially written by eighteen different authors and as always is the case suffers from the lack of style continuity. Since the tightness of the plot becomes unraveled towards the end, the quality of the story is not enough to overcome this.

The writter lacks of the knowledge of the industry in Cuba,the people interviewed are in the majority employees of the same firm in Pre-Castro Cuba, mainly the book is a "propaganda" to Goar Mestre, a Cuban Zar of Cuba's Radio and Television.

Samuel Butler wrote one great book ("The Way of All Flesh"), one good one ("Erewhon"), and numerous minor ones, including translations of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey". The problem with this book is that it dedicates roughly equal amounts of time to each of these.

The first half of the book is the stronger, discussing Butler's family life (much of which was incorporated into "The Way of All Flesh," a wonderful study of a dysfunctional familty) and the five years he spent running a sheep station in New Zealand. The reader comes away with a sense of the man.

The second half is simply tedious, focusing on Butler's fights with various critics over his later works and his relationships with three men with whom he was close. I found none of this to be interesting, and think other readerrs are likely to reach the same conclusion.

Prof. Raby has been thorough in his research, leaving no stone unturned. Unfortunately, he seems to have felt compelled to discuss each and every stone, rather than focusing on "The Way of All Flesh."

A typical scholarly work.

"Spillville" tells about Anton Dvorak's stay in this small Iowa town. The author has captured the essence of life in rural Iowa. As for the engravings that illustrate the text, I can't say anything nice about those. But the story is interesting, especially for someone interested in Iowa or Dvorak.

Emilio Moran's book could reasonably be called the most recent definitive anthropological work on the Amazonian region. In addition to the ecological analysis, it encompasses a huge amount of secondary research. This book is meticulously detailed, and is also quite well written, but is not especially accessible to a general audience. Without a basic background in the Amazonian region or at least in ecology in general, the reader will have a hard time following Moran's arguments.

I sort of understand this book and I sort of don't. Some of the poems in it stun me with their elegance, transcenence and dexterity; others merely stun me with their flatness. I feel like Swensen is up to something very very cool here but I don't always get it, and I feel like I don't know enough about the paintings.

Still, the first poem in the volume is amazing, and Swensen's ability to mix innovative and more lyrical styles is remarkable.

"Doc" Dorman coached longer at one university than any other coach in football history. As a player/coach and then a coach, Dorman linked almost sixty years of Upper Iowa University football history. Dorman was a local resident when Upper Iowa played Coe College in 1893 and he remained an integral part of the college and college football for half a century. Breckner's account of the kindly dentist and coach is concise and well written. He provides an interesting look at small college football from the turn of the century to the turbulent 1960s. The biography, although hardly a critical analysis, is a good read for all football fans.