Louisiana Books

Shery St. Germain here skillfully combines melancholy and ecstasy, hard environmental science & frank emotional discovery. "Swamp Songs" amounts to creative non-fiction as *bildungsroman* -- a portrait of the artist as a Louisiana woman. In a style enriched by poetic hooks to all manner of sensory intensity, these essays detail how Germain has escaped a family addled by drugs and argument, and the many dangerous temptations of an upbringing in and around New Orleans. Yet at the same time she dramatizes her ineradicable connections to that world, even to the fragile bayou lands and their denizens, animal, vegetable, and mineral; she neglects none of the delights her moss-scarred roots have left her with. These pieces are songs indeed, full of thought to be sure but also, more powerfully, rising and keening straight out of the blood-drenched and ever-endangered swamp-stuff within our ribs.

Robert Outland III tackles a subject that until now, had only been covered in "fits and starts." The gum naval stores industry of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal states spanned more than 200 years. Yet today, it is little known by those outside the now fading generation that witnessed its last years of backwoods prominence. Outland does an outstanding job of explaining production methods and uses of naval stores. Also, the many times wretched life of the turpentine worker is discussed at length. Often a stepchild in discussions of the South's great timber industry, naval stores finally get a fair, thorough treatment by a worthy historian.

There is an old school of journalism, one that was still known in the seventies and eighties, and faithfully taught about in grammar school classrooms then. That was the first introduction to the proper editorial in which the journalist actually offers real information as well as opinion for many American adults. Edwin Yoder is a part of that tradition in journalism, and Telling Others What To Think is an excellent illustration of that disappearing art, not only in finished product, but also in process.

Yoder covers what is obviously for him well-trodden trails in this book, but that does not lessen the value, since this time he has taken a meandering pace. He does not shy from drifting off course to give the reader a greater insight into his own life, or the great tapestry of history that is its backdrop. The love of history is pervasive, leaving the reader with not only the story of one man's life and career, but also with an eyewitness account of the past.

From the stories of his childhood and parents, to those of his last days in the Washington newspaper scene, Yoder welcomes his readers to a rare in depth look at a phenomenal life. Accounts of great achievement are given the flavor of happy accidents, such as Yoder's acceptance to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. Heated issues of his times, although not cooled, are treated with a candor seldom seen in either historical accounts or memoirs. Segregation in the eyes of a true southern gentleman of the 1950's takes on a totally different hue, as Yoder points out that it was just a matter of everyday life, something that wasn't sincerely questioned or discussed by either side. Yoder holds with the theory that many of the racial issues since could be attributed to man rushing history by insisting on desegregation too soon, citing an unprepared economic structure. In hindsight, this theory is something historians and citizens alike would be well served to consider when enumerating the past sins of the segregationists and the current racial issues.

In spite of his claims that he lacks the eloquence of at least one of his contemporaries, Yoder weaves his tales with the precision that would be expected of any of the great journalists. The humility comes from a notion that prose of different styles can easily be compared with fairness. From another this may seem shortsighted or even foolish, but from Yoder it is merely another example of a master maintaining the sense that there may only be flirtations with perfection, the unattainable pinnacle.

Telling Others What To Think is a triumphant history of a great journalist from the time when newspapers were still considered the primary vehicle for news in the U.S. In this time of canned news and sound bite journalism, Yoder's writing is as a welcome old friend reminiscing about the days when getting the news was just that, and not a leap into the battleground of the media wars.

Hankla's prose is exquisite. This book is wonderful, I recommend it to readers of poetry and fiction.

Donald Reynolds shines a long-deserved spotlight on what may have been an incendiary set of events to start the Civil War, a series of events neglected even by Texas regional historians.

By midsummer 1860, Southern "fire-eaters" such as R.B. Rhett and W.L. Yancey despaired of getting more mileage out of John Brown.

Then, in the midst of a scorching, bone-dry Texas summer with the thermometer hitting 110 at times, a series of fires in the Dallas area provided new spark for secessionists.

The fires all were mid-afternoon, an unlikely time for arson. In fact, Reynolds shows that writers of the time warned about "Lucifers," the new phosphorus-compounded matches, having a tendency to spontaneously combust in hot weather.

But, secessionists in Texas soon saw an opportunity, and ran with it. A number of blacks in the state were hung; so, too were some northern whites, including a minister from the northern Methodist Church. (Methodism's main body in the U.S. split in 1844, in part over the slavery issue.)

The Texas "arsons" were cited by Rhett, Yancey, Edmund Ruffin and others as the advance guard of "Black Republicanism," despite that party's disavowal of abolitionism.

Would the Civil War still have happened if Lincoln were elected, but without the Texas branch of fire-eaters spreading the "arson" myth? Well, Reynolds throws a little counterfactual history in his epilogue, with a couple of different scenarios.

If you're a Civil War buff, you'll want to look at this book.

A welcome addition to CW sources. Weaver does an excellent job filling in the background and the epilogue. The actual diary takes up less than half the pages, but they are intriguing nonetheless. Daniels is a true hero toiling in the heat and humidity of the Gulf Coast against the prejudice of other Union officers and soldiers. He can be inspiring at times.

That Which is Hidden has not only been inspirational but also informative. This book not only helps one to understand the struggles faced from others, but most imporatantly the internally struggles which keeps us from reaching our full potenial in Christ. God wants to see his people happy and prosperous. Satan does not. That Which is Hidden explains so well how Satan tries to attack our families, jobs, homes, relationships and finances. Once you start reading this book, you will not want to put it down. Hope there's a part II.

I was enchanted by these poems. I also enjoyed reading the comments of others about them which appear on the dust jacket: "A body of work full of distinctiveness and sustained vigor." --Richard Wilbur; "A poet confident of his craft's resources and his heart's determined fidelity to what it knows and loves."--Robert Creeley; "How timely this splendid showing of Sandy's invaluable work! Now, after praise here by Merrill, there by Clampitt, this poet of intelligent wonder can be savored in full, as we say, by further readers ready to disciver such dark winnings, such luminous wounds."--Richard Howard Then I saw in Publishers Weekly a great review including the comment, "Sandy writes sometimes dense, sometimes narrative poems that are colloquial yet steeped in a love of attaining the grander sweep of poetic utterance." I agree with all of these observations!

This biography about the life of lesser-known Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer, reveals details about the Harlem Renaissance that helps to link people, places and events together. Mrs. Spencer's gardenhome was an important nexus between the North and the South for many of the Black intelligentsia during that time. Her biography shares her friendships with James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B. DuBois and others; giving us a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of these great figures of African American history.

We also receive the gift of learning about Mrs. Spencer's literary contribution to the Harlem Renaissance, with a healthy collection of her poems placed in an appendix in the back of the book. "Time's Unfading Garden" would be a wonderful addition to any Harlem Renaissance collection. It is a rare item today, but if you can find it, it is worth the investment.

After reading Gerard Patterson's 'Debris of Battle' and Robert E. Denney's 'Civil War Medicine', I was left yearning for more information on the role of Catholic Sisters in nursing during the Civil War. Sister Mary Denis has done an outstanding research job, not just with the history of their nursing, as well as otherlay female nursing during the Civil War, but also with popular opinion of Catholics and nuns, and why the Sisters were so uniquely positioned to be of such value. A welcome book on a subject too long ignored.