Alabama Books

If twentieth-century art managed to carve new possibilities for painting, sculpture, and music, it was by dropping the ideological baggage of narrative, says Loss Pequeño Glazier in Digital Poetics, and writing may be the last theater of this confrontation.

The digital medium is a real and present form of writing, one that has changed the idea of writing itself, he says. The web is now part of a transformed social fabric and writing will never be the same again.

Glazier founded and directs the Electronic Poetry Center (EPC) at SUNY Buffalo. He brings enormous erudition and great passion to this subject to challenge whatever notions we may have of 'poetry' and whatever notions we may have of communication technology.

E-poetry consists of innovative poetic practices in various digital media: It's writing/programming that engages the procedures of poetry to investigate the materiality of language, Glazier says. He cautions that one cannot assume that because a work is in digital format it is by definition digitally innovative.

Digital poetry, or e-poetry, includes a number of specific qualities. These include:
* works that cannot be adequately delivered via traditional paper publishing or cannot be displayed on paper.
* texts with certain structural or operative forms not reproducible in paper or in any other non-digital medium (works employing hyperlinks, kinetic elements, multi-layered features, programmable elements, and events).
* digital media works that have some relation to twentieth-century innovative practices.

I enjoyed giving it to my father as a gift. Pictures are spectacular and the narrative is just so interesting!

The state of Alabama has diverse geographic features, from lush green forests in the middle and northern sections of the state to white sandy beaches along the gulf coast. Wetlands cover a substantial portion of Alabama as well, covering some 3+ million acres. Before this region was settled, almost 8 million acres of wetlands were present. These wetlands are home to thousands of wildlife species and birds. Sadly, the wetlands of Alabama are often misunderstood and most people incorrectly associate them as mosquito infested bogs. This book serves as a showcase of spectacular photographic images by Robert Falls Sr. to illustrate just how beautiful these areas are. The text by Doug Phillips describes how the state of Alabama's economy and livlihood depend on these waters and it also delves into the scary possibility of endangerment and what this would mean to our state. The author makes future projections about the state's population growth and identifies areas that will have the most growth and how these areas will be impacted. This is a beautiful book filled with breathtaking images - a snowy egret perched on a log in the middle of a fog shrouded lake, breathtaking sunsets over bayous, close-ups of pitcher plants and water lilies, an alligator advancing from a stand of grass along the waters edge, etc. It should be an essential purchase for Alabama libraries and anyone who is interested in Alabama's ecology and environment.

This memoir is about the author's youthful life up 'til college time. He comes from a large family and makes it easy for the reader to keep track of everyone. His mother is the stable one (tho she has some strange ways, also) and his father an alcoholic, though he becomes more rational as he ages. Norman is now age 62 and he makes his life most interesting while a youngster in small Southern towns. A fast read, too.

As someone who has researched and studied the civil rights movement, I was impressed and moved by J. Mills Thornton's rich examination of how a movement that changed America sprang forth in three key cities - Montgomery, Alabama (my home town), Birmingham, and Selma. The famous dictum that 'all politics is local' has never read more true. What Thornton does is take the reader inside the world of local politics, re-introducing the readers to the importance of what may seem like small, local decissions, and how even one city commission election can change the course of history for a nation. This book stands with Carry Me Home, Parting the Waters, and Pillar of Fire as essential reading for those who truely want to understand our all too recent history of race, discrimination, and civil rights. While the text of the book is 583 pages (before notes and a detailed index), it is a worthy and enlightening read. Once read, I doubt anyone will miss voting in a local election again.

This is a very readable, enjoyable and inspirational memoir by a doctor who often used his intuition to find solutions to perplexing medical problems. The youngest (and smallest) son of immigrant parents, he grew up in simple surroundings in Mobile, AL. Through a long sequence of chance meetings and coincidental events he was able to put himself through college and medical school and achieve some very interesting medical breakthroughs. I recommend this book, especially to any young person thinking of becoming a doctor.

It's this book that has convinced me that the historical-critical method is one of the most misunderstood and least appreciated approaches to rhetorical criticism. It's not mere historicism, but much, much more. I heartily recommend this book to the critic who does not want to decontextualise the discourse they analyze. Rhetorical criticism must yield real-world implications, not merely critical "insights" based on an ivory tower view from a postmodern perch!

This book actually has 152 pages, not 75 as stated in the Amazon listing. The review below appeared in the Alabama Baptist newspaper:

Doing Unto The Least of These

John Hayman. Montgomery: Black Belt Press, 1998. 152 pp. $15.95. (paperback).

"The work of the Jimmie Hale Mission and the words of our Savior are to me inseparable," wrote Congressman Spencer Bachus. Carefully researched and extremely well-written, this volume tells the exciting story of this Birmingham rescue mission since its inception in 1944.

Named for its founder, the mission has reached out to thousands of people with physical and spiritual needs. Quite interestingly, "Doing Unto The Least of These" is organized around testimonials of personalities related to the mission whose stories are woven into a chronicle of events which are both informative and inspirational. Readers will be deeply moved as they relive the story of God at work in this indispensable ministry. Quite frankly, this reviewer plans to keep this book nearby for fresh spiritual nourishment.

To be sure, "institutional" books are generally not too popular. This one, however, will prove to be the exception, and rightly so. A native Alabamian, Hayman lives in Birmingham and has a rich background as an author, teacher and administrator.

I got this book in 1976, and it's still my alltime favorite cookbook. After 31 years, it's in rough shape because I have used it so much. I wish I could get another copy, but until that time comes this one is at the front of my kitchen cookbooks.The binding is a yellow hardcover with thich spiral bindings on the spine. At least that's what it looked like new.Mine has no front or back covering, but the spiral bindings are still holding strong.

Garrett uses his relationship with his fellow Southern writer, the late Peter Taylor, as a basis to explore issues of personal and regional identity and the demands of a writer's vocation. The way both the real-life originals AND the fictional alter egos are present in the text interrogates the wall between reality and imagination in a way that is provocative, mind-stretching, and always great fun. Garrett is a kind of stealth innovator in American fiction. He does not get the avant-garde headlines, but he has consistently been trying to ramify the creative potential of fictional narrative.