Alabama Books

If you like old family stories, buy it! Buy all of Kathryn Tucker Windham. Each CD has different stories and all are very good. When she comes on AL Public Radio, it is hush - hush time! You listen very carefully to every word. You laugh at her tales of being young and wish you had recorded your own story telling!

from the book cover: Strange thigns were happening in the Alabama farmhouse next to Tucker Highsmith's property. It wasn't just the arrival of an unattached woman and her unruly brood. There were phantom raids in the pantry, mysterious moving objects and spooky things that went bump in the night. Tucker's heart went bump, too, the moment he met Justine Hale. She was all he'd every wanted in a woman. She'd just have to find room in her heart and
her full house for him...

Mark Murphy probably knows more about Auburn football than any other writer in the country. In this book, he interviews 28 former players about their career at Auburn and what they have done with their lives after football. The format reminded me of "The Boys of Summer" by Roger Kahn. For those who love Auburn and especially Auburn Football, this book is a must.

Searcy's book is a welcome and much needed addition to the early Revolutionary War period along the southern front. Her exhaustive research covers the turmoil along the Georgia-Florida border during 1776-1778 and its repercussions on the eventual outcome of the American Revolution. Her sweeping historical narrative ranges from the decisions made in the Continental Congress to the devastating effects on the settlers from the constant raids, skirmishes, and battles between the Georgia patriots and the Florida loyalists. The book can be read for historic detail or as an informative and interesting narrative or both. It certainly rates a place on any bookshelf to complememnt the considerable literature on the Revolutionary War in the northern colonies during this period.

Elsie Singmaster, "Gettysburg's Poet Laureate," has long been neglected, her books forgotten and out-of-print.
This volume remedies this injustice and brings her work back into the public eye. Her spare, direct prose will strike a chord with the modern reader, as will her stories of everyday folk stricken by the terrible battle and its seemingly neverending consequences. Many thanks are due to the editor and publisher for returning this fine writer to the notice
of modern readers and the Civil War community. Her stories, once read, will not soon be forgotten; they will return to the reader at intervals and provoke more thought.
Buy and read this book!

Since I was a child, I have always loved this book. I have lived in Alabama all of my life and grown up with folklore all around me. This book is incredible from cover to cover. It also has a few good laughs. I reccomend it for anyone who is interested in folklore and superstitions or loves a good ghost story!!

This book, Gifts of Grace, is truly a piece of art! Very educational and inspiring. I am proud of Bob and his work for showing some of the most beautiful churches in Alabama and one in New York. Awaiting a second book on some more of our great and beautiful, historic churches!
Virginia Greene

Skillfully written by John Michael Burton (a Vietnam Veteran and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans with experience reenacting the Civil War), Gracie's Alabama Volunteers: The History Of The Fifty-Ninth Alabama Volunteer Regiment is a close and detailed study of a Confederate unit which was filled with volunteers ranging in age from sixteen to sixty. Many of the men were illiterate; very few of them owned slaves; and the entire regiment would face harsh conditions and the loss of its dynamic general before the war came to a close. Gracie's Alabama Volunteers is a vivid and strongly recommended Civil War history that brings the experiences, battles and hardships of these Confederate frontline soldiers the welcome attention of a contemporary readership.

A masterpiece. This is a book I will constantly use for reference.

This book provides fascinating insight into how a diverse group of individualists including speculators, slaveholding farmers, Jewish merchants, physicians, college students, workmen, European immigrants, and others united for common causes and in turn created a community. Also it does yeoman service in dispelling many of the cherished preconceptions and myths of both lovers of the South and her detractors. By focusing on a small town the author has created a metaphor for hundreds if not thousands of other American communities that arose in the Nineteenth Century.

I recommend this book for everyone. It is a satisfying read for the academic as well as the casual student of history and the War Between the States.