Alabama Books

It is truly a "postcard" history. Minimal words or captions. Would have liked more information or pictures of other mining camps (Goodsprings, Americus, Gorgas,. . .).

Where the Wild Animals is Plentiful is worth a look if only because it offers a (sometimes frustratingly incomplete) window on the life of a young woman in rural Alabama some 90 years back. The diary contains some tantalizing hints at a life lived in frequent solitude and understood through a powerful but circumscribed sense of place and community. Unfortunately, it also seems to reflect well the monotony and repetitiousness of life in rural Alabama at that time. The occasional points of interest come packed between pages of very detailed accounts of May Jordan's fur-buying trips with her father, including frequent comments on soil quality, lists of furs they bought and descriptions of the routes they traveled. Which isn't to say that this sort of material doesn't have some value in understanding a life like May Jordan's, but it does keep the book from being a real page turner. Elisa Moore Baldwin has done a fine job editing the diary insofar as she has left the text alone except where the reader might have had problems with comprehension (most spelling and punctuation irregularities are preserved) and used the introduction to give a more than competent sense of May Jordan's particular historical context.

Frost's retrospection of an old Black man with sharp memory, good eyes and true words, drags you down an Alabama road kicking. You don't want to believe that your ancestors suffered or inflicted these horrors yet you are living proof it happened. Frost's southern road gives hurtful, ugly, vivid images that set the norm in life for Blacks & Whites in old Eufaula. Recollections are frightening and ironic in a mood typical of southern storytellers. Hate in Frost's world is ignorance and...yes, eventually, time heals all that compassion neglects. WITNESS TO JUSTICE serves as a strange valentine from antebellum to the new, stronger south.

I wanted to request a refund on the amount of money that had been wasted on this terrible piece of writing, but it was much more fun to use the book in building a fire. Wickman's research was padantic; obsessively detailed. However, there was no linear (or other) thinking involved in the final synthesis. In fact, having read the same research literature as Dr. Wickman had poured through, it is amazing to me that someone could write so many pages that are comprehensible only to people who have actually read the same research literature. Her writing evokes a rememberance of a criticism of Henry James (slightly reworded): "This author (not a writer) fills a much needed void." Let us pray that the Seminole Tribe of Florida will soon experience a void that once was occupied by this author. Osceola was a great War Chief, and a very interesting individual. Wickman's work does great injustice to both legacies.

If you're into reading heavy-handed college textbooks then this book is for you! Exhaustively researched and abstrusely (look that one up!) written, it makes Osceola's dynamic and fascinating life as exciting as stale crackers. The author even has the audacity to rate other researchers in the back. The research is exhastive and you will be too once you finish this book. It gave my dictionary a good workout tho!

I thought this work was marvelous. It's prodigiously and compassionately researched and written, exploring such varied facets of a single individual's life from what his parentage was (and how that may have shaped his identity,) what he wore (and how *that* may have shaped his identity,) the mistakes he made during his lifetime, who he might have been romantically involved with, and the disposition of his body after his death.

It's not a very theoretically-oriented text, but as a biography of the most famous Seminole who ever lived -- I though it made Osceola jump off the page. Only note of warning: this does contain a rather graphic couple of chapters on both Osceola's decapitation by his doctor immediately following his death and the exhumation of his corpse in the sixties. Sensitive readers should be aware of this.

BTW, Dr. Wickman is currently the Director of the Department of Anthropology and Geneaology at the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and was formerly the state of Florida's historian. I'm not saying this makes her unimpeachable as an historian, but I really do think she knows what she's talking about.

This guide is 15 years old and with that age many of the trails have been changed substantially (Pinhoti Trl) and some no longer exist at all (ie Lookout Mountain Trail). Do not use this book as a stand alone resource.

Also in the past 15 years there have been alot of new trails opened that are not included (Huntsville Land Trust trails).

Probably the best, if not the only, book availiable on trails in the state. I have met Patricia and she is a very informed person on the state of our trails in the state. This book is a good book to carry with you in a backpack though it could have been a little smaller for better packing. If you plan on hiking any trails in AL, I recommend you buy this book first.

This book is an example of bad packaging that's the publisher's fault, not the author's. The colorful cover and title "Beachcomber's Guide" make you think it's for kids and casual beach-goers. It isn't. I found it great for helping me identify the little bioluminescent comb-jellies off our dock, and if you've ever puzzled about why the eastern Gulf is like the Atlantic and the western Gulf is so different, this book explains it beautifully. It's nicely organized according to habitat, so you can concentrate on looking for the right things in the right place. If you spend a lot of time on the Gulf Coast and have a serious interest in knowing more about the non-fish fauna, get this! But don't buy it for a vacation stroll on the beach.

I was looking for a book for our kids and us to use to identify marine life we found and to learn a little about it. This book reads more like a graduate school textbook. Also, a few color pictures would have been nice; this book has only ink drawings whick are dull and not very helpful in distinguishing different creatures with subtle variations. There is nothing fun about this book. A friend who is a marine biologist looked at it and agreed with my assessment.

This book is terrible. It is "hyped up" and amounts to nothing. I could of watched A & E and would have gotten the entire story in 30 minutes. I feel the author carried on and on about points that were ridiculous. This is a true story therefor we should state facts, thing's of importants. I laughed when I saw the "shocking photos" in the middle of the book. If you think a picture of the street sign, an aerial photo of the house and a collections of photo's of all the detectives and so on is "shocking" this book is for you. However, I felt this book was done very poorly and would not recommend it to anyone.

..even though I knew the outcome from reading the captions for the photos in the middle of the book..I was mesmerized by the cruelty of this murderer. To murder one's wife , who was "slow" (mentally retarded) in such a horrific way (shot three times and then a spear plunged through her!!) and to murder her mother at the same time in the same way!...and all for insurance money! The murderer was described later as having a "brilliant mind"...I don't get it..then why was he making just $6.00 an hour in a menial job?? All of the people in this book sounded like "po' white trash to me..book takes place in Alabama. One has to admire the tenacity of the investigators over the years, esp. the female one, who would not let go until justice was done.
The writing was sufficient for the material..I have already ordered Sheila Johnson's other book on true murder.

This book is a silly and self-congratulatory celebration of mediocrity. Ms. Windham had one book in her, and from there it's been the bottom of the barrel, the backside of nowhere.

Mrs. Windham does a wonderful job of giving us a look back at a fading rural lifestyle and a few of the people she has encountered.

I found this book to be wonderful, I have been looking for this book for years, and no one has ever reprinted it before. This book was originally written during the Civil War and Mr. Carver has allowed us to see it once again.

I unlike the other reviewer think the collection of photos is wonderful. The photos helped allow me to 'see' what the author was talking about.

Great Book, and I recommend it highly. If you are interested in regimental histories this one is wonderful.

I ordered this book with the hopes that it would be a detailed history of the 14th Alabama. I received it and was immediately disappointed. The book is 115 pages (+/-) and conatins very little history. The muster rolls are all available on the internet. Pages 38-115 contain photos. The right page contains a single photo approximately 2x3 inches. The left page contains a one to two line location/explanation of the photo. No mention is made of the 14th's involvement in the photos. A real waste of paper putting only one photo per page and using a whole page for a description. A waste of money overall in my opinion.

Just received my book and read it in about 15-20 minutes. There is very little in the way of historical facts in the book. It contains mostly pictures that don't indicate the 14th Alabama was a part of the photo displayed. The only way this book contains 115 pages is because of the way they stretched out the photo section. The right page contains a single picture of roughly 2x3 inch. The left page contains a very brief description (one to two lines)of the photo. This method took up pages 38-115. The list of names on the muster rolls in the book can all be found on websites making this book, in my opinion, pretty much a waste of money.

THIS BOOK IS NOTHING BUT PICTURES. VERY UPSET WHEN RECIEVED BOOK.
WOULD NOT RECCOMEND TO ANYONE

I used this book when backpacking on a trail in Mt. Cheaha State Park, and found it to be drastically lacking in accuracy. The time the author estimated it would take to hike the trail was vastly underestimated, and the dirt roads he said we would cross were not where they ought to be based on his description. I wondered if the author had even hiked the trail in the last four years. Given that my trouble interpreting the author's book appears to mirror that of other users, I think people should be very hesitant to rely on this book for serious backcountry hiking.

That said, the author does at least describe a lot of great trails in Alabama, and he explains how to get to the trailheads. If you want a book to explain where you could go hike, this will be useful. If you want a great guide to the trails themselves... Well, this book may leave you hiking for hours in the cold dark of night wondering why you are not yet at a destination the author claims should take only a fraction of that time to reach.

I feel that I should add that because this book is ambitious and the author appears sincere in his effort to describe the beauty of Alabama trails, I don't want to be too negative towards him. Nevertheless, I am still reluctant to rely on (or recommend) this book for specific details about backcountry trails. Finally, I suggest that were the author to add gps coordinates to his trail descriptions, then anyone using his book would be able to determine for certain whether any apparent inconsistency between the trial and the book was due to a miscalculation on their part or on the author's.

I work at Monte Sano State Park and when I compared the section about the "Plateau Loop Trail" (also known as the North Plateau Loop and South Plateau Loop) with our trail map (which is not, as is stated in the book, 50 cents, but $2.00 because it is a very detailed and excellent map) I saw numerous mistakes. Firstly, only a very fast and experienced hiker could do the entire trail in an hour. I can do the North Plateau Loop in 40 minutes, but that is at a fast pace, and it is only 1.2 miles, whereas the entire loop is about 4.8 miles. Also, hiking is not free at the park. There is an admission fee for all hikers, bikers and picnickers. One of the "ruins" the author describes is the site of a lodge built several years ago, which is used for meetings and events. Some of the landmarks and cross-trails he describes are not correct, and he doesn't even mention where the North Plateau Loop crosses the road that leads into the park! Someone unfamiliar with that trail would have difficulty picking it up on the other side of the road, as it is not easy to see. He also has the Bog Trail meet up with the South Plateau Loop twice before it meets with the Mountain Mist Trail, where it actually meets it the second time after the intersection of the Mountain Mist Trail. There are so many mistakes in this one trail description that I wonder how many other trail descriptions are in error. As far as Monte Sano State Park goes, we have twenty miles of hiking and/or biking trails, and your best bet would be to come to the park and purchase one of our trail maps, and if possible talk to one of the rangers, who are extremely knowledgable about the park trails. And a $2.00 accurate map is certainly better than an inaccurate $13.00 book.

Having now hiked several of the trails described in this book, my wife and I have found the book lacking in accurate details more than once. At points on several different trails as well as driving directions to trailheads we have had to make notes in the book to add or even correct information. While realizing that trails change and even back roads to trailheads change, at some points we found details to be completely different than reality (such as a the details of a cemetary in the Sipsey Wilderness that proved quite different than what was described in the book.) While the book does prove to be useful (we continue to use it) a real trail map and a detailed road map must be consulted especially for the more remote trails.