Missouri Books

First Black Actors On The Great White Way tells the stories of the actors, critics and others involved in the production of Three Plays for a Negro Theater in the early 1900s, examining changing race relations and perceptions in light of both wartime and theater production of the times. An intriguing survey of black acting's changes in an early period of American rights issues just emerging.

"Woodrow Wilson never banged his shoe on a lectern, threatening to bury anyone. He never claimed to be a Berliner, nor offered to name names. But a ... book by Donald E. Davis and Eugene P. Trani ... makes the case that Wilson was, all the same, the first cold warrior. According to [this book] when Wilson was inaugurated in 1913, the American diplomatic corps in Russia was a shambles. Wilson entered the presidency avowedly uninterested in foreign affairs. He was quickly faced with a world war and then, in 1917, the Russian Revolution. Afraid of how the new government in Russia would affect the outcome of the war and uncertain how to talk productively to the radical Bolsheviks, Wilson embarked on a policy of diplomatic quarantine that lasted until 1933, prefiguring the Cold War."
--not reviewed by author, but taken from the Indiana University's Alumni Magazine's independent review

Best reference book on native fish and their locations. Very reasonably priced from mo. dept. of conservation for $17. A real bargain and it is updated.

This collection consists of a new novel and new short story starring "industrial consultant" Steve Madison in both; the other short story from the 1970s contains as its leading light a Madison prototype. All three tales are well written, filled with suspense, and star interesting lead protagonists.

"Fade to Tomorrow". Retired Army Ranger Steve Madison lives in an isolated section of mountainous Colorado with no human contact for weeks on end. He comes out of his roost to do 3-4 jobs a year requiring a special clean-up in which he expedites a musical hotshot from trouble. His client Arn Shapiro knows the ropes of dealing with Steve. Arn hires him to help music superstar Johnny Willow out of a bad spot. Drummer Eddie Chase runs cocaine and has something on Johnny to keep him silent. In St. Louis as Johnny prepares for a comeback, all will come to a head.

"A Hit for the New Age". Arn hires Steve to investigate the locked dressing room murder of agent George Kodopolous. The police lean towards rock star Tony Jardeen, but this case is going to hit home a lot closer to Steve as the musician's travel companion is Carolyn Gentry, a woman that Madison loved, but left behind.

"The Death Blues". Record producer Carl Hensman hires private detective O'Dair to determine whether blues great Stomper Crawford reported dead eight years ago still lives. However, as he searches for the facts, someone wants the truth to remain obfuscated and is willing to stomp on O'Dair to insure that happens.

Harriet Klausner

Assistant Curator at the St. Louis Art Museum Robin Lobianco meets gorgeous Vince and Amy Wheaton at a museum event. The trio hit it off and start to socialize, which is good for the curator who is separated from her husband Frank. Following one particular event, a somewhat intoxicated Robin joins the Wheatons in a ménage a trios.

What she did mortifies Robin, who wants to move on and forget the sexual encounter. They ask Robin to move in with them as they love her, but she is horrified by the suggestion and rejects it. They begin harassing her through greeting cards until Robin turns to the police for help. Detective Jack Jones, on clerical duty with the death of his third partner in the last two years is assigned to help Robin because the mayor declared the museum a key part of the city. As the Wheatons' campaign of terror increases, only Jack stands between them and their destruction of Robin, who, they insist, they love.

Fans of taut suspense chillers will be unable to refuse to read THE OFFER. The story line works because the key players seem human. The Wheatons are a Fatal Attraction duet whose obsession seems frighteningly real. Robin is a powerful victim filled with remorse while Jack is a cop struggling with being a death magnet that only his wife the stripper helps his esteem. Robert J. Randisi turns up the tension leaving the audience to think twice about whom they accompany home.

Harriet Klausner

Floating On The Missouri: 100 Years After Lewis & Clark is an engaging and informative historical travelogue of James Willard Schultz and his Blackfeet wife Natahki (Fine Shield Woman) who took a small boat along the route that the historic explorers Lewis & Clark once forged through uncharted territory a century after two of America's most famous explorers. A very highly recommended compendium of anecdotes, reminiscences, history, and much, much more fill the pages of this involving and absorbing narrative.

Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana, Volume 1

This volume commences publication of a multivolume flora that is the first full scientific account of the plants of a botanically rich and geologically ancient part of northern South America, the Venezuelan Guayana. This area is dominated by massive table mountains, tepuis, that tower over surrounding rain forest and savannas and provide a wealth of habitats for nearly 10,000 species of vascular plants.

Volume 1 is a general introduction to the southeastern half of Venezuela that encompasses the flora area, with chapters on geography, history of botanical exploration, vegetation types, endemism, and conservation. Keys to the families of seed plants are also provided. Volume 2 begins the alphabetical sequence of family treatments, first within the ferns and their allies, then followed by the initial 11 families of seed plants. Keys, descriptions, and illustrations of more than half the species treated - a feature rarely found in floras of even more familiar areas - make this work an enduring reference that will be useful far beyond the borders of the region now carefully documented. Nine volumes are anticipated for publication of the complete flora.

More than 180 botanists from around the world have collaborated on this project, which is based at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

MAPS ACCOMPANYING The "Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana" - Topographical Map of the Venezuelan Guayana, - Vegetation Map of the Venezuelan Guayana

During the Great Depression, Stu Paine signed on as a dogsled driver for Admiral Byrd in his attempt to reach the South Pole. It was Paine and his companions who set the record for the "farthest South" any American had yet gone. Now his daughter has edited his diaries for publication, with lots of contemporary photos. The result is a book that is raw and real. Paine's diaries have given me more of a picture of Antarctica than a dozen books I've read about that vast, cold land.

For example, he wrote on August 14, 1934: "Nature, strong + big, has let human ambitions contaminate her realm only at great cost. But it is only for a while -- We will return. Other expeditions will come + go, hanging like flies on an edge of a dish, to the edge of Antarctica, here to-day, gone tomorrow. And all the while the blizzards come, the temperature sinks to the seventies +eighties [below zero F], the seals + penguins + gulls come +go, the overwhelming forces of the ice pressing down from the plateau will go on, tremendous, grand + awful. How few see it -- what a pity, a land of inspiration and to most people a land of monotony + terror. As in no other place, peace holds sway, the peace of God perhaps --"

A great book for Arctic and Antarctic fans and also for those who love reading diaries to get a glimpse of the person who wrote them.

One of the most complete listings of the men who fought the war for Missouri. Fishery Report. Excellent source for finding your Confederate ancestor from Missouri.

Research historian Jerome A. Greene presents Fort Randall on the Missouri, 1856-1892, an in-depth study of the military post of Fort Randall: its establishment, the day-to-day life of its troops and their support of military expeditions against American Indians, routine patrols of Dakota and Nebraska territory, exploration and mapping missions among the Black Hills, and more. Black-and-white photographs and illustrations, including all twenty-four of the original stereopticon photographs of Sitting Bull's incarceration at Fort Randall, illustrate this heavily researched and meticulously accurate chronicle. A welcome addition to American and Missouri state history shelves.