Vermont Books

This book keeps getting beaten up for not being science or pure sociology, and reviewers keep missing what is excellent about it--the intersection of the writer's own reflections, aspirations and ideas with the violent, dull, and endless world of incarcerated young men. Padnos's honesty about his own motives and feelings give this book a rare freshness. In his attempts to connect the books he loves to the real and brutal world of these men, he illuminates much about the struggles of growth, the uneven progress of our ambitions, and the enduring power of stories to shape all of our lives.

Jailhouse literature is a rising trend these days, and it is producing some of the toughest, most original, most disturbing nonfiction on the market. From the lost souls at Guantanamo Bay to the terrifying Aryan gangs that kill and terrorize from behind bars to the dread-soaked life of a Sing Sing guard, a composite portrait is emerging of the mostly invisible Hell that is the American prison system and the dehumanizing effects it has on inmates and their keepers alike.

Theo Padnos has made a quirky, but brilliant and unforgettable contribution to this literature. From his vantage point as a part-time English teacher in a gothic juvenile detention center in Vermont, Padnos draws us--almost against our will--into a collection of scary, wretched, lost young men who have been obliterated from the view of "respectable" society. In terse, electric, revelatory prose, sparing neither his subjects nor himself, he obliges us to see them for who they inescapably are: versions of ourselves, versions of an America drifting toward apocalypse.

This is a book that demands attention--more attention, by the way, than it received from the prissy, careless Publishers Weekly reviewer quoted above. In garbling the name of one of the chief characters in this book, Laird (not "Lance"!) Stanard, the PW scribe unwittingly represents the blindness and indifference of a society that is a lot more complacent about its incarcerated alter-egos than perhaps it can afford to be.

In this autobiography, Vermont Royster (1914-1996), late editor of the Wall Street Journal, notes that when he published personal thoughts about small matters they would bring in "far more letters than a more `significant' column on a major political issue." That same hierarchy seems true of the book itself. Royster's commentary on his childhood and youth is full of engaging detail, whereas his comments about the influential politicians he interviewed at the height of his career seem commonplace by comparison. So the book draws the reader in with its careful prose and good humor and then eventually disappoints because the original tone can't be maintained. A further problem is that Royster, a moderate conservative, has no religious, and few philosophical, anchors for his editorial positions-or at least few he cares to share with the reader.

Vermont Royster (1914-1996), was in his day one of the most respected and influential journalists in America. As the editor-in-chief of "The Wall Street Journal" from 1957 to 1970, he won 2 pulitzer prizes and transformed the Journal into one of America's major newspapers. Yet this memoir is far more than just the story of Royster's tenure as the Journal's editor. It is also an eloquent and nostalgic account of his boyhood and adolescence in Raleigh, North Carolina. Royster writes wonderfully of what it was like to grow up in what was then one of North Carolina's most distinguished families. One of his more entertaining tales is of how he obtained his unusual name. It seemed that Royster's great-grandfather decided to name all of his children after states, so they would "stick out" in the Raleigh area. The names were outlandish: Louisiana Carolina Royster was a daughter's name, and some of the son's names were Arkansas Delaware, Wisconsin Illinois, and Iowa Michigan. (These names were so unusual that they were included in the "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" books). Mercifully they were called by their first and middle initials. Vermont's grandfather, for whom he was named, was Vermont Connecticut Royster. The Roysters were an unusually well-educated and successful family for the time (pre-Civil War), and one even taught Latin and Greek at the University of North Carolina. But the Civil War devastated the family - several of the older brothers were killed or crippled in the war, and Vermont's grandfather and namesake lost his chance at a college education because of it. To rebuild the family fortune, Vermont and his crippled brother Arkansas established the Royster Candy Company, which was a major success and sold candy all over Virginia and the Carolinas. Vermont's father inherited the family business, and Vermont's accounts of his childhood visits to the family's chocolate factory in Raleigh are delightful. Royster went on to become a somewhat rebellious and stubborn youth (and he leaves the impression that he must have been a stubborn and combative adult), but he did discover a talent for writing at the University of North Carolina, where he ran the student newspaper. Like many ambitious Southerners prior to the 1960's, he left the South after graduating from UNC and moved to New York, where he soon obtained a job as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, then a small (35,000 circulation) financial newspaper still struggling to recover from the 1929 Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression. Royster spends a good deal of the book describing his slow but steady rise from the Journal's White House correspondent (where he covered Franklin Roosevelt) to editor-in-chief. This part of the book is filled with plenty of behind-the-scenes office politicking and power plays, and Royster often seems more of an amused onlooker than a participant. Another outstanding chapter in the book is Royster's account of his naval experiences in World War Two as the captain of a destroyer in the Pacific. His ship saw a considerable amount of combat against the Japanese (and survived being caught in the teeth of a major hurricane). Royster vividly describes his trip at the end of the war to Nagasaki, where the USA dropped the second atomic bomb on Japan, and where Royster and a small group of officers were the first Americans to see the city's devastation. And, history and political buffs will be delighted by Royster's vivid anecdotes describing the Presidents, major politicians, and other celebrities he encountered in his life. After retiring as the Journal's editor in 1970 he taught journalism at the University of North Carolina and wrote a weekly column for the Journal until the mid-1980's. There have been many memoirs and autobiographies penned by members of the World War Two generation, but in my opinion this is one of the most eloquent, nostalgic, and thoughtful. If you're looking for a book that will provide a weekend's worth of fine reading about a time and era that continues to haunt the present, then Vermont Royster's "My Own, My Country's Time" will more than meet your expectations.

If you are interested in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont history,then this book is for you. It was fun to see some of the places listed and know where the name came from.

This is a spare but informative little volume that will inform you about the origin of many place names in the nation's three northeasternmost states. Originally published in 1909, the book begins with a preface respectful of the region's aborigines and an introduction that discusses the principal tribes of the area; these are articulate and thoughtful, and a real pleasure to read. There are chapters for each state (Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont) with brief, alphabetically-arranged entries of Native American names, many translated, for cities, towns, rivers, streams, lakes, waterfalls and islands.

The book concludes with a list and short descriptions of the regional tribes, a list of Abnaki words and a bibliography.

While my 6 year old found this book "sad," we both enjoyed the true story of a flood in Vermont and how the community banded together to help each other. A good, gripping read aloud!

I picked up Nora's Ark at our local library to read to my 6 and 8 year old children. I assumed it would be a sweet little story, about a family dealing with a flood; and it is. But it is so much more than that. It is about neighbors, and the bonds we share with them. It is about bravery, strength of character, and love. It is based on a real-life event, The Vermont Flood of 1927. It snuck right up on me, and at the end of the story, my 6 year old looked up and said, "Mommy, you're crying." The watercolor illustrations by Emily Arnold McCully are very nice too.

"Old Sam's Thunder" is a wonderful story which becomes a real page-turner, and it is filled with wonderful New England characters. This book is a wonderful read, and is a worthy sequel to "Big Fish."

This book was very entertaining, the author was very well informed on the area. the tale told was amusing.

At the start of A PIECE OF THE WORLD, a 12-year-old girl named Calder is sent to live with her Grandmother in Weldon, Vermont. Calder's mother needs time to herself; she and Calder's father have just gotten a divorce. At first look, Weldon is horribly boring for Calder and so she decides to go on a hike to see some local scenery. It is then that she discovers a giant boulder set deep in the woods. She later learns that the rock is actually a serpentine boulder, which broke off from a giant glacier hundreds of thousands of years ago. Soon Calder becomes friends with a boy her age named Walt, whose father owns the wooded property, and Mr. Cooley, a kind old man and a retired geologist. Together, they try to save the rock from a rich man who wants to buy it, and from the Weldon Development Society, who want to turn the area into a tourist attraction.

A PIECE OF THE WORLD, with a beautiful title and a sweet story, is simply written with memorable character. It is a very touching story with a satisfying ending. There are a few black and white drawings of some of the characters and scenery. A little old-fashioned, the novel's themes of friendship and ecological concern are still universal.

Reviewed by Jean, student and reading diva

Mildred Walker wins my heart again with her story, "A Piece of the World." While my favorite is "Winter Wheat", this book stirs the heart. I want to reach in there and solve all the problems that are going on in the story, but alas, I cannot, so I eagerly turn the pages to see how Mildred Walker spins the story and am satisfied with the results. I am going to order more of her books and absorb myself in them.

My nephew aged 5 immensely enjoyed this book. It was a really cute story with a surprise ending. He read it very easily, but he has a fourth grade reading level. The kidnergartener in him liked the story though although the reading level was not a challenge. Good Book, Good read, recommended.

I really enjoyed this book and felt like it dealt well with some real feelings children might have about moving. I liked how the parents handled their childs way of dealing with his problems.

Wetherell is very good at avoiding overstatement as in each of his essays he muses on the joys of flyfishing. This is as much a book about a writer as it is about an avid fisherman. There is range here, and humor, and research, one of my personal favorites being the essay where he delves into which writers were fishermen and seldom wrote about the sport, and which writers and poets such as Chekov and Yeats wrote about the sport with elegance.

Wetherell is not a self-indulgent type of flyfisher. For him the joy is in the being there, and being part of the life that brings fishing to reality.

It should come as no suprise that a book about the rural areas of Vermont will have much to say about public nudity. This book, and its sequel VUII are a product of that state's most famous nudist. Mr. Cunningham and his family wrote the book on public nudity in Vermont. The book visits the many popular spots where one would be likely to encounter regular folks engaged in a skinnydip. Good quality photographs, coupled with detailed descriptions of every site are there. This book is not your father's nudism; no hedonism or 50's idylic portrayals. Just contemporary portrayals of mixed nudity in public, which in Vermont is apparently the norm. Surprise, this book is authored by one of the country's most outspoken defenders of the Catholic faith, and quite conservative in his views as well. Go figure. Wow, what a book.

This book is for anyone that believes that the human body should be celebrated and not hidden. It is the ultimate guide for naturalists living or visiting Vermont. Every naturalist resort, every skinning dipping site and every clothing optional hiking trail is well documented. I encourage all naturalists to get a copy and follow the format to make guides to naturalist sites in your states and locations. Nudity is natural, not obscene.

Just unbelievable!
I don't think the main character would do this. The characters are interesting but very conventional in their description. Dunno. Not so hot all round

I've hated everything about the book, which - bizarrely - was given to me by a friend's mother (whom I barely know). It's portentous, humorless and rather stilted style, persistent moralising, the author's incredibly obvious views and 'sensational', gruesome subject matter aside, it just oozes a certain kind of New Englandy smugness which I just can't abide... While not developing any feel for any of the characters, you simply KNOW that the heroine (the midwife) is meant to look like some well-preserved gray-haired model from a Land's End catalog, and we're supposed to LIKE THAT.

I'm not giving it one star because it's at least SLIGHTLY above the level of garbage like The Da Vinci Code, but good literature it's surely not. Bleah, I was so happy when I recycled it.

Surprised by how much I enjoyed this book...couldn't put it down. Very suspenseful, enlightening, thought-provoking...VERY well-written.

Just a quick note to say that I "loved this book". It was compelling and thought-provoking. I cried, I love a good cry. Excellent, Excellent

Apparently writing about a subject such as birth from the point of view of a fourteen year old girl is too much of a stretch for this male author. It seems like he started from the point of view that home birth is an incredibly stupid idea, tried to play devils advocate, and failed to create an even remotely sympathetic cast of characters.

He portrays women who decide to have home births as uneducated, hippie, misinformed women instead of the truth that many educated and compassionate women choose to have home births. His statistics and information are inaccurate (for example, that only lay midwives perform home births today, which simply isn't true in many states).

His unimaginative writing style is also lacking. He doesn't trust his reader to remember an event that happened twenty pages prior, like restating the fact that the trial was difficult for the family, which is obvious. All in all, disappointing and irritating.