Alabama Books

This action-packed true story details the adventures of six teenage boys who, for 16 days and nights in the summer of 1957, drifted 385 miles down the Alabama River from Montgomery to Mobile on a 10 x 12 foot raft they built from scrap lumber and discarded oil drums. Using little more than push poles and a crude rudder, the teenagers found themselves at the mercy of the sometimes treacherous, sometimes gentle river. Buddy Estes, the author, was one of those teenagers.

ALABAMA'S YOUNGEST ADMIRALS is a modern Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn type narrative that appeals to the imagination of boys and girls ages 8 to 18 as well as adults who can relate to the adventurous spirit of youth. It is filled with suspense, danger, humor, history, legendary Indian stories, and alligators in the night.

She is from Alabama and can sure tell a tale on things about about her state.

What I love most about these recipes is how straight forward they are. The ingredient lists are usually under five items and nothing strange that will send you hunting in specialty stores. Everything I have made from it has turned out well and tastes great! Thank you for a real user-friendly cookbook.

This book is a fun way to learn about the different places and people in Alabama. The entire book is written in the form of a poem, which my daughter loves, and the illustrations are bright and cheerful. I received this book as a gift, and have since bought it as gifts for friends and family. It has the names of all the towns that are mentioned in bold type, which makes it very easy to reference the Alabama state map on the inside of the cover and locate the towns in the poem. This is a very educational book that also tells a fun and whimsical story that is interesting to children and grownups, too! I think this book is a must for every Alabamian!

I was looking for a good book, when I stumbled upon this one. I must have read this book within a week for I couldn't put it down. The characters are so real, its hard to believe this is a book of fiction. Almost Family is about A black maid named Nebraska Waters, and her employer Vivian Gold, and thier friendship. It mentions the struggles and joys they share. And the similarities they share, though they are very diffrent. You see their relationship not only through them, but through their children and through their acts to one another while overcoming a world of prejiduce. Its a book with vivid images and plots. The ending surprised me, but I was not ashamed. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a book that gives a detailed explenation of what life was like in the deep south, during the Civil Rights movement.

Baldwin's Flush Times is a great historical resource. Baldwin paints an interesting tale of frontier Alabama and Mississippi and the characters which lived in the region. Overall, a great illustration of the American frontier and the Jacksonian era.

This book offers a unique insight of the Korean War at its worst as seen through the eyes of an Orthodox Jewish Chaplain who shared the travails of the American soldiers at a most desperate time in our history. It is comprised of translations from the Yiddish, as it was published in the Yiddish Daily, The Morgan Journal, out of New York. The book has a fascinating introduction about the Korean War which in abbreviated form sets the stage for a true understanding of the depth, breadth, and tragedy of this conflict. It also gives a heretofore unseen insight into the thoughts and behavior of the Jewish soldier of that time. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the Korean War from "the trenches". Original maps and clear writing make the information come to life.

A work of detailed and painstaking scholarship, The Americas Might Have Been: Native American Social Systems Through Time by Julian Granberry (Language Coordinatior with Native American Language Services in Florida) is an in-depth study of the Native American populations and their positions of power before during, and after the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the Europeans in 1492. As an informative and scholarly analytical survey of the many Native American nations ranging from the southern, central, and northern America, The Americas Might Have Been covers the Mayan, Incan, and Iroquuois Confederacy, as well as the Eskimo, Taino Arawak, Navajo, Pueblo, Aztec nations, and others, providing an impressive account of the many Native American national social systems. The Americas Might Have Been is especially recommended to all students of the Native American history, as well as non-specialist general readers with an interest anthropology, linguistics, and ethnohistory, and pre-Columbian American History.

Before starting this review, I need to acknowledge that I am currently working on a project with Peter Siegel, and that my employer also employs Karen Anderson-Córdova on occasion.

I purchased Ancient Borinquen, in part, to catch up on the literature of Puerto Rican archaeology. I was not disappointed. The editor, Peter Siegel, has done an excellent job of compiling papers that capture the breadth and diversity of archaeological research on the island. Ancient Borinquen is current, and its list of contributors includes many of the leading lights of Caribbean research. The volume provides an excellent overview of new approaches and new discoveries in Puerto Rican archaeology. It is not designed as a stand-alone text on the subject, but certainly should be included on the reading list of upperclassmen and graduate students.

The volume includes ten sections, plus a preface. Reniel Rodríguez Ramos begins with an interesting study of the Saladoid to Ostionoid transition. Unlike most studies of these manifestations, Rodríguez Ramos examines the change in terms of lithic technology rather than ceramic modes. The assemblage is from the Paso del Indio site, the subject of an important but as-yet-unreported, data recovery excavation.

In Section 2, Jeff Walker presents an overview of the Paso del Indio excavations. Because of a variety of fiscal, political, and personnel issues, it is unlikely that a full study will be available in the near future. His progress report on this complex, multi-component site will be the major source of information on this site for several years. Walker does an admirable job of condensing the extensive information and highlighting the most important points.

The contribution by Peter Siegel, John Jones, Deborah Pearsall, and Daniel Wagner is a strong example of the maturation of archaeology on the island. The authors utilize a comibination of chronological, settlement, geoarchaeological, and microbotanical data to examine the relationship of environment and settlement in the Maisabel vicinity.

Two leaders in Caribbean subsistence studies - Susan deFrance and Lee Newsom - provide a thorough overview of paleoethnobotanical research in Puerto Rico. Many of their primary data are contained in often hard to obtain CRM reports, and this synthesis will be helpful to area researchers.

In Section 5, Anne Stokes examines subsistence change through time from another perspective, stable isotope signatures of human bone. Using samples from Maisabel and Paso del Indio, Stokes documents significant differences in the signatures from the late Saladoid and mid-Ostionoid periods.

The contribution from Torres reports on his ongoing dissertation research into pre-Hispanic settlement in south-central Puerto Rico. He argues that archaeologists should be addressing communities rather than individual sites, to better understand regional settlement-subsistence systems. Torres correctly argues that the role of the Tibes Ceremonial Center cannot be fully understood until we know the relationship of Tibes with the surrounding communities. His broader perspective complements the detailed, site-specific work of Curet and others at Tibes.

After reading Jose Oliver's work on the roles of cemis (Section 7) and Peter Roe's excellent analysis of Puerto Rican rock art (Section 8), I felt I was finally starting to appreciate the complexity of Taino and pre-Taino ritual. Oliver's ongoing work in the Caguana region epitomizes one theme of this volume: it is time to shift focus from single sites and begin to consider regional patterns of adaptation. Likewise, Roe has recognized that sufficient data are at hand to begin addressing changes through time in iconography of rock art, and to relate those changes to broader cultural shifts.

Karen Anderson-Córdova extends the temporal range of this volume by addressing the sudden and violent impact of Spanish settlement on the Taino population of Puerto Rico. Anderson-Córdova addresses key sources in reconstructing the rapid decline in Taino population. Although some modern scholars and Taino descendants may argue with her statement that "the Taínos have been extinct for at least five centuries," Anderson-Córdova is correct in noting the rapid loss of a distinct Taino culture in the face of the European onslaught. She is also right in noting that almost no archaeology has been conducted at contact-period Taino sites.

Peter Siegel completes the volume with a summary chapter. Although he addresses each of the contributions, his section also defines future avenues of research, and is well worth the read.

Overall, Ancient Borinquen serves notice that Puerto Rican archaeology continues to be dynamic, interesting, and challenging. As a discipline, Puerto Rican archaeology has moved beyond the excellent baseline work provided by Ricardo Alegría and Irving Rouse, and the future is full of promise. To see where Puerto Rican archaeology stands in 2006, the student or professional archaeologist need look no further than Ancient Borinquen. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

This little guide fits nicely into a daypack or pocket for quick access. Provides info on more than 50 different mammal, bird, amphib and reptile species. It includes track patterns and a little info on each animal. Not a super specific guide, but one can only fit so much info into a pocket guide.