Arkansas Books

The Cherokees And Their Chiefs: In The Wake Of Empire by historian Stan Hoig is a solidly researched and superbly presented history of the Cherokee Native American nation, with particular emphasis on the tribe's leaders throughout the centuries. Individual chapters also focus on the conflicts and traumas that involved the tribe from before the United States' independence, to their removal westward and the infamous Trail of Tears, to their rise in political and social clout during the twentieth century. The Cherokees And Their Chiefs is a highly literate, thoughtful, and readable account and a welcome addition to personal and academic Native American Studies collections.

Having read several books on related subjects in the past few weeks, this selection is one of the most complete and erudite. Primary sources have been used. Despite the dry, intellectual style--the author is able to relay the deep emotional content of his subject.

LeMaster, Carolyn Gray. "A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 1820s-1990s", University of Arkansas Press, 1994.

Fascinating History

Amos Lassen

I love reading history and I love reading Jewish history so it was only natural that when I relocated to Arkansas after Hurricane Katrina that I take some time learning the Jewish history of my new home. Carolyn LeMaster's "A Corner of the Tapestry" provided me with just needed to know. This is a mammoth book of over 600 pages and is one of the most comprehensive studies ever done about a single state's Jewish community.
Jews do not often think of Arkansas as a place where they would settle and quite frankly neither did I. However I have been more than pleasantly surprised the community here. Not only is it warm and welcoming but it has quite a history. "A Corner of the Tapestry" is the story of the Jews who not only helped to settle the state but who stayed and built lives and became part of the culture and history of The Natural State. The book looks at the lives and families of many Jews--from the wealthy to the poor.
What is so amazing about this book is the amount of research that went into writing it. LeMaster worked very hard to piece together this story and what a story it is! LeMaster has meticulously assembled all that she found into a very readable account.

My interest in the book was my husband's family history, and found quite a few bits on his family and those they married. However, there were very interesting bits about unrelated people that drew me in. Readable.

This serious book tackles the huge topic of discrimination in a very real and easy to understand manner. Students are able to grasp the frustration of ninth grade Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine African American teens that struggled to integrate Little Rock High. I have successfully used this book to discuss civil rights and freedom with grades 4-6.

A great book to teach in conjunction with The Sneeches by Dr. Suess, and Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals (another of the Little Rock Nine).

This book allows the reader to see 1957 Little Rock Arkansas from the viewpoint of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine African American teens to integrate Centeral Highschool.

Richard Kelso writes in a manner which allows young readers to grasp the political situation that America was in ,and the racial tension that was blatantly displayed at the time.

Students who have read this book also find the personal viewpoint of teenage Eckford easy to relate to. The characters were very real and understandable.

I have taught this book to both 4th and 6th grades with great success. It is a great discussion starter and tolerance teacher.

It may be useful depending on your needs. It is somewhat brief and more than half of it contains listing of nurseries and garden centers with address and phone numbers. It begins with a brief description of each area and 2 maps. For each area it has a simple list of plants, shrubs etcs which have been selected based on zone, watering needs, soil requirements, sunlight, and design, with a very few pictures, and that is it. There are stars to note plants which are native. All the list contains is name of plant, latin name, and star if native. So I assume you would pick from the list and then refer to another text to learn more about those plants. So if this is what you need you may like this book.

I was really looking for a gardening book to help me make make a beautiful landscape! And this did just that.
It was very helpful with specific details.
It has a range and varitey of pictures and step by step processes. very well organized and easy to read and understand.
Great for people who want to improve their yard.
All and all this was a great book and helped me make a beautiful yard! i advise it to you!

I found this book extremely interesting. It follows the Scottish Rite, Southern Juristiction, from its beginnings in 1801 to the new millinium. I like the way the book focuses on each of the Grand Commanders and what problems and circumstances they had to face in their years of office. My only complaint is that there were not enough photos, however, that comlaint is minor. By the way, after writing this book, William L. Fox wrote 'Valley Of The Craftsmen', which is an illustrated history of the Scottish Rite, SJ. Both compliment each other and are excellent!

If one has not read the three earlier histories of the Supreme Council, SJUSA (1801-1861, 1861-1891 & 1891-1921) then this work will be a very good look into many aspects of the development of the Scottish Rite and the birth of the Southern Jurisdiction. I have to wonder, however, why the author needed to spend as much time as he did on the earlier years of the SJ when it gave so very little new material (and actually less than the earlier works). In short, if you have no history of the Southern Jurisdiction, then this well written and easy to read work will be of value to you and wet your appetite for more information concerning the earlier years of Scottish Rite Masonry in America. If you already have the earlier histories of the SJ, then this will provide you with, at the very least, a nice coffee table book with some good information on the later years of the Southern Jurisdiction.

This excellent book on the life story of Bishop de Castro Mayer is as well the telling of the woeful catastrophe of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the last forty years. The prelate who stood with Archbishop Lefebvre at Econe to consecrate four new bishops is shown here as Lefebvre's intellectual and spiritual equal - high attainment indeed. The lives of these two men with differing backgrounds, differing temperaments and rich with differing circumstances, in the end reveal the same inescapably onerous story of the Church that devoured itself, cannabalising its various parts in a record spate of only ten years of incomprehensible flight from reality, leaving in its rapacious wake a skeletal heap of lies and spiritual betrayal. Bishop de Castro Mayer's formal association with Lefebvre takes up but a small part of the story, yet the deathly shadow of the root cause of their eventual union hovers over every page. While aspects of the book tend faintly toward hagiography, the author for the most part keeps his attention in check, tracing the early life and especially the ordinary diocesan life of Campos, revealing de Castro Mayer's foresight of what was to come in the wake of Rome's apostasy, and the means by which he prepared the people under his spiritual care for it. It's a cautionary tale told perhaps too late to awaken the Catholic world, but important nonetheless for revealing the wisdom of men who refused the treachery of the Roman authorities at every turn. The writing style of the author is banal but sufficiently effective to nourish and maintain interest through to the end. It is, ultimately, a quiet book about simple things, and simple things and quiet turns have a way of entering and illuminating those mysteries which are often obscured by presumptuous flourishes and philosophies.

This book shows us the effort of Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, to mantain the orthodox faith of the Roman Catholic Church in his small diocese of Campos, Brazil.. God heard his prayers and received all his sacrifies... now Campos is the most Catholic place in the World.

To Richard A. Horwitz: Hello Richard. Happy Holidays. Enjoyed your book "A Perfect Fit". Also, attractive Cover. But first page has summary of a Jack Pransky, not you, under title of "About the Author". Please contact me, or give me your tel. #, fax #, email address. William J. Hirsch, 150 Strafford Ave., Suite 115, Wayne, PA 19087-3114, voice (610)687-7792, fax (610)687-7704, email wjha@juno.com.

This satirical look at the "quirky" side of life is filled with humor and pathos, as well as a surprise around every corner. You'll have a wonderful time, regardless of whether or not you know anything about religion or the Ozarks!

I really wanted to like this book. It has a lot going for it: two troubled main characters, an intriguing setting (an island on the Mississippi River), some sex, a crotchety old man, and some of the best descriptions of a place you'll ever read. Ford is definitely a writer of power. I felt the importance of the setting in his detailed attention to every tree and rut in the road, yet I couldn't find a strong motivation for the two characters to be there. Robard Hewes is a lost soul, similar to other Ford characters (a lot like Quinn in *The Ultimate Good Luck*, but less self-confident) who goes south for all the wrong reasons. Robard I can sort of understand, but Sam Newel, the law student from Chicago searching for meaning in his life so he doesn't become like his father, just doesn't fit, and once he arrives on the island, he doesn't really DO much, except go on a fateful fishing excursion with the crusty old Mr. Lamb. I enjoyed reading it, but I'd probably not read it again. A little more focus would've greatly improved this first book by a wonderful writer. It should be read by all first time novelists to see how well setting and characterization can be done (and also to see how much a writer learns in comparison to his later work).

Richard Ford's first book, A Piece Of My Heart, scored big with reviewers across the country, but has largely been ignored by the reading public.

All the more a pity, since this book deserves a large readership, perhaps even as much or more so than The Sportswriter or Independence Day. If there is a fault with this book, it is that it flows too easily. It is the kind of work that can be devoured in a few hours. It reads so smoothly that it's rich detail can be easily overlooked.

The cinematic quality of this work cannot be understated. The sometimes stark, sometimes lush and haunting landscapes of this novel are so rich in description that they are seen effortlessly and because they flow so easily, the unwary reader is tempted to speed ahead like a traveler on the interstate, driving at breakneck speed through breathtakingly beautiful scenery.

Ford's characters are quirky and so three dimensional that they rise up before the reader with startlingly familiarity. I suspect that Ford loses many of his more urbane readers with the grittiness of these characters--their down home rustication and the sense of danger inherent in their ferocious living of lives from moment to moment.

For those who plunge into this work with abandon (as I did on my first reading), one warning: slow down. Savor the power of each scene. Don't go crashing through from page to page like a tourist in New York with one day to see the Metropolitan Museum. Enjoy each wonderfully crafted scene and avoid the temptation to read through at breakneck speed.

The amazing juxtaposition of whimsy, darkness and doom are quite extraordinary in this work. The plot, ostensibly, revolves around the actions of Robard Hewes, an uneducated but shrewdly obsessed and compulsive character who drives from his dusty desert home in California to his past in Mississippi in pursuit of Buena, a wanton married woman whose siren call is enough to overwhelm Robard with an inexplicable burning desire.

Sam Newell is Hewes opposite. Newell, a severely depressed man down from Chicago on the suggestion of his lover for some ill-advised convalescence as a guest at her grandfather's island hunting camp, is filled with self loathing and unintentionally invites the scorn of almost everyone he encounters. Newell, on the verge of commencing practice as a lawyer has broken down and drifts rudderless throughout the action of this work. Nevertheless, he is an important character and his short musings on his childhood are remarkably evocative and superb and this along with the stark nature of his intellect give insight into the workings of Ford's mind and the detached alienated characters that evolve in his later works.

Mark Lamb (the grandfather), his wife, and TVA (his cook and handyman), constitute an extraordinarily quirky and wonderfully drawn backdrop for a good part of the action in this novel. Lamb is one of the most endearingly cranky old men you will run across in any short novel. The odd domestic scenes that take place on the island are redolent with humor and are brilliantly drawn.

I cannot recomment A Piece Of My Heart too highly. It is a must read for those who appreciate good literature.

Besides the Bible (seeing it is at the top of my list), this is one of the best books I have ever read. If you have any fascination with the Arkansas Razorbacks, this is the book for you. Wonderful!!! I might have to get it out and read it again.

This is a good overview of the history of the Arkansas Razorback football program. Henry glosses over many good teams, however. He focuses particularly on the mythical championship team of 1964 and leaves a lot out about the better teams of 1969, 1988 and 1989. He has also left out many lettermen from the list in the appendix.

Was really thrilled when I found this book. I have a personal relation to some of the people and/or places depicted. My family settled in Wedington, Washington Co, Arkansas in the late 1840's. There is a picture of the cabin my great-grandparents built (which is no longer standing)- and pictures of my father and uncle that I had never seen.

Many thanks to Velda Brotherton for this wonderful snapshot of Washington County, Arkansas.

I was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the Washington County seat. There aren't many books about the region so I was pleased to see this book at first. It quickly became a disappointment when I saw that the book is really a collection of old photographs of limited interest. Many group portraits, pictures of old buildings and the like. A picture of a lumberyard in Elkins looks pretty much like a lumberyard anywhere else in America. Not too many pictures that really say, "Washington County". Many of the pictures aren't well reproduced, either. Too dark or washed out. Unless you had any personal relation to the people or places depicted, the book seemed to become rather empty to me. The caption may say "Washington County", but many of the pictures look like they could have been taken anywhere. (11-2-06 revision of a review written 12-01)