Connecticut Books

I enjoyed the book but had hoped that it would have more of an American perspective on the Gurkha soldiers, with whom I am familiar. Instead, the book presents an interesting narrative of the way in which an American became an officer in the Indian Army, with a Gurkha regiment. (An American officer with Gurkhas was a significant surprise for me, as I'd not assumed it had ever happened.) Additionally, there is a significant portion of the book written on parts of the Burma campaign against the Japanese.

While I had hoped there would be more reflection on the Gurkhas as soldiers and people, and perhaps a different view than that of the typical British officer, I do recommend the book for any with an interest in the India/Burma components of WWII. I'm sure I'd enjoy sharing a cup of coffee and some tales with the author.

In all the books that have been written on the Burma theatre of operations, this is one is perhaps not so stark and vivid as John Master's, "The Road Past Mandalay" or George Macdonald Fraser's "Quartered Safe Out Here."

It is noteable in two respects: It details the training involved in making one an officer in the Ghurkas and it also gives a good account of some of later fighting around Arakan and final push against the Japanese in Burma. It is a vital memoir but it pales in comparison to, Michael Calvert's "Days of Hope" or Bernard Fergusson's "Beyond the Chindwin."

I very much enjoyed reading this very well written, interesting, and compelling war memoir!

I initially purchased the book to read about the author's experiences with the American Field Service in North Africa. Manned by mostly-well educated individuals from almost every state in the nation, the AFS consisted of young volunteer ambulance drivers who served with the British Eighth Army in North Africa before the United States entered World War II.

Those volunteers not only drove ambulances but also carried stretchers and served as medics for wounded British, Commonwealth and French soldiers fighting the Germans in North Africa. A few of them, such as Scott Gilmore, the author of the book, volunteered to join the British Army after their one year contract tour with the AFS had ended.

Gilmore went on to fight the Japanese in Burma with the 8th Gurkha Rifles. The author faithfully recorded his impressions of every aspect of military life and especially Great Britain's loyal Gurkha soldiers. The result is an excellent World War II memoir.

This book is recommended for anyone interested in the roles of the British and Indian armies in Burma during World War II and Gurkha troops and formations.

I have'nt read the book but what I have read in the summary I know I will not read it because it is not the truth. First of all the mans name they claimed to be the head of the white hats was not Al Ross IT IS ALLEN MOSS... He was not Mayor of Cairo at that time and was not a NEO-NAZI Yes he was a white hat they were a group of people who were only trying to protect our white neighbors. Yours truly. The one who lived through it.

I don't remember how I heard about this book, but I remember reading it--several years ago soon after the paperback edition was published. It is a model of how to write about changes and crises in a particular place. I am a book author and editor, journalism professor, newsletter editor, and former newspaper editor and publisher, who usually does not read books like this one. The best and only connection I have to this book is that I am interested in historic preservation of "main streets." Yet I read this book carefully and thoroughly, enjoying nearly all of it. The section on Cairo, Illinois was better than the section on Connecticut, but that's no real complaint. Highly recommended.

Hamilton spent less than three years researching the 39 lighthouses in this book. If you have ever researched any historical site, you'll know that he could not have been very thorough. His research skills are suspect (as he continues to display in articles for Long Island Boating World), and he does not delineate between fact and folklore at times. He even lists the Latimer Reef Lighthouse as being in Connecticut (it is a New York light). There are plenty more errors, but I won't bore you with them.

I wouldn't recommend this book to serious lighthouse fans. It's not up-to-date (1987 publication date - much has changed since then) and the information inside cannot be taken as absolute.

This is a first rate book describing the lighthouses of this region. Each lighthouse is given a chapter with good descriptions of the station and it's history. There is also an very good explanation of fresnel lenses and modern optics which lighthouses use. I highly recommend it for any one who loves lighthouses.

Lee Dickenson is one of those increasingly rare prison guards who manages to survive in the institutional setting with his humanity intact. The Sounding Tree is a powerful collection of vignettes on the numbing senselessness of prison inhumanity. It should be read by everyone concerned with the real cost these concrete bunkers­­popping up like mushrooms after rain across the country­­are having on our nation. -Daniel Burton-Rose, editor, The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry.

As a person who has known Lee Dickenson for 12 years and has worked at two of the facilities that he talks about in the book (as a matter of fact, I'm "James Young" in the "Numbers, Not Names" chapter) I found that although he did not outright lie, he left out enough information in many incident to alter the facts. In the Chapter "Hector Rodriquez" chapter, he implies that all an inmate has to do is request to be transferred to a new facility and it's a done deal. That is simply not the case. And, to collude with an inmate to throw a trash can in order to get transferred is insanity. In "Numbers, Not Names", he calls me "Lt. Infanti's yes man." No problems there. When a lieutenant gave me an order, the answer was "yes." Lee expects obedience to his orders now that he is a lieutenant. The inmate in that situation was in posession of contraband. He was putting the wire up in front of me. I took the contraband and refused to return it to him. I'd take it again. It's called, "doing your job." The character, "Chuck Daniels" is cited as being one of the best officers that Lee ever met. The real "Chuck Daniels" was promoted to lieutenant and then promptly demoted. His friend, Sal Christaldi was and is a nice guy, but his nickname at Niantic CCI was "The Marshmallow" because he was so soft on the inmates, a quality that Lee despises. I could, but I won't go on and on about the half truths in the book. All of us have felt frustation from time to time but Lee tends to find more frustration than most of us. My son, who is a correction officer asked, why, if Lee is such a terrific lieutenant, has he left almost every facility that he has ever worked at under a cloud and why is he always in trouble. That is a valid question. Everyone gets in trouble once in a while, but Lee seems to be looking for the world's indoor record. This department has more problems than it deserves. Those of us who succeed know that this is not a perfect world and that this is not a perfect department and we adapt. Lee needs to learn how to choose his battles. He loses most of his battles, and his victories all seem to be Pyrrhic victories.

Spunky Etta, 11, has had enough of the foster homes. She runs away from her last hoping to find a place that she and her brother and sister can be together. That dream of being a family once again keeps Etta's spirit going. She finds an old foreman's cabin that has been squatted by Walter, 12, who is hiding out from his father, the town drunk. Together, with their friend Jake, they make a home for themselves and Etta finds herself belonging to a different kind of family. Hurst drew me in from page one with Etta's humor and non-stop chatter. The dialogue was good, description great, and the plot interesting enough to keep me turning the pages. Although some parts were predictable and I thought there could be a bit more tension with her brother and sister and if they would be coming to live with her or not - it was an enjoyable read.

I was anticipating a book full of vivid descriptions of life and scenes in the Pioneer Valley during the 1800's. Instead, this book is a series of unimaginative and uneven dialogues between woodenly uninteresting child-characters. Too bad, given that there are few stories written in that setting. The story begins in an abandoned foreman's house along a minor canal system. The lead female character, Etta, is in the house eating the nuts she has found there when the lead male character, Walter, a boy who is living in the house, finds her. Written in Etta's voice, we hear the flat dull thoughts as they go through her mind, or as she expresses them to Walter. She is an orphan with siblings. She needs a place to live. Walter, who has his own problems, tells her she must leave, but changes his mind without reason. A third child character enters, but the dialogue goes on in the same dumbed-down way, sprinkled with the odd modern idiom, as they plow through the story trying to find employment and stability. I found it difficult to sympathize with the plight of the characters, and reading the story became a chore rather than a pleasure. The best part of the book comes at the end: A few historical notes give us some background. This brief afterward reinforced the disappointment I felt in the story; given the lush and interesting setting, it could have been a much better story.

In this work, the author considers his professional life through reminiscences of his academic acquaintances. In this way John Rodgers presents the rarified world of academia in general and the study of geology in particular, though very few workaday details are recounted.

He repeatedly writes things akin to, "Later in August I visited Dr. Nabholz for two days in his field area, in the mountains around the head of the Vorderrhein. Those rocks had a good deal in common with those that Bearth had shown me and indeed provided a small test of my hypothesis, favorable as it turned out." And he essentially leaves the description of the encounter at that. We don't learn much about what Rodgers really studied and we don't hear descriptions of the areas he visited. Norway could be the basically the same as China for all we know based on the sparse descriptions he gives.

Having majored in geology as an undergraduate myself, I enjoyed reading the book for the reminiscences that the book called up for me. But it occurred to me that someone who has not participated in a geological field trip would not know what really went on during such an excursion, or what the real objective was, after reading this book.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is Rodgers' story of how he contributed to helping the Japanese people just after World War II. They were in danger of starving and, as a civilian employee of the U.S. government, Rodgers toured the Pacific Islands in search of a source of mineral fertilizer so the Japanese could grow rice.

So, in short, if you are an academic or a geologist, you may enjoy reading this book. For one, it gives a taste of how academia has changed over the years. It is also a small picture of the life of one gentleman geologist.

Beautifully illustrated and composed. A must for the dealer/collector turned on to rare and expensive early American furniture with a regional flavor. Handicapped in a traditional way unlikely to be noticed: unchallenging scholarship that barely passes muster, to bring respectability to a costly, whimsical business.

Janet Dailey is one of the most prolific writers. Now, these old romances are being re-issued and look like new. Though they may be dated, some are 'interesting.' Others I enjoyed of hers are 'Dangerous Masquerade,' 'Terms of Surrender,' 'Western Man,' and 'The Best Way to Love.' In this one, we find that Debbie has entered into a world she didn't know existed. Mr. Wilding was forceful, not humble any more (that was just a ploy to get her to trust him), determined to have his own way by all means.

After all, he is the professional and must show her who's boss. She trusted him at first, against her basic instincts, as being an "in-charge" male with an ego to feed by putting women in their places. As times goes by, she learns some of his secrets (a loveless marriage, an alcoholic wife, an autistic son), and discovers a kind of admiration for his sense of dignity and sad plight. Her adoration turns into love with no future and heartaches by the dozens. "I deal with facts and statistics." Sylvia fell down the stairs in a drunken stupor and had a slight concussion.

He declared that whatever he had felt for her died a long time ago and the marriage had ended as a peace of paper for years. "She is the mother of my son and there is no one else who cares for her." Sounds familiar? You'd think they would grow up sometime and come up with something original. It is a difficult decision to end a relationship especially one which had existed for a period of years. No matter how empty the marriage had become, he could not just up and walk away. He had responsibilities. And yet...when an empty life is transformed into a rewarding, relaxing "fellowship" with another human being, it's worth a try. If it doesn't work out, so be it.

Debbie is still young enough to find someone else, someone who needs her. But, for now, she must decide if he is real or imaginary. Sometimes, he seems like Karl, supposedly his son, more than himself. She has to make a difficult decision, stay and end up with a broken heart, or seek love somewhere else before she gets too old.

Ms. Dailey is master at this kind of romance. This series is about each different state in America. Wonder what she had to say about Tennessee. Some time ago, Phyllis Whitney came to East Tennessee and wrote a fascinating novel about life in the Smokies. We're not all hillbillies here. Trust me.

The title of this book can be somewhat intimidating. Do not let it be so! Grant is seeking to find if the small towns of New England were organized in a democratic fashion. I found Grant's work to be more than a question of democracy, and more than a book about the town of Kent. The period covered in the book is approximately 1732-1800. Great social history emerges from this work, both on a regional basis and a much larger one- that of many similar New England towns. I chose this book as a genealogist looking for background material on one of my ancestral towns. It certainly gave me that, and more. Gaining an understanding of life during the time covered in the book was most helpful. In addition, many people from the town of Kent are specifically mentioned, a plus for Kent researchers. I would recommend this to anyone who is a history buff, especially if interested in New England. If you are looking for a no-brainer, this is not your book. But it is not dry or complicated either. I would say that the author reaches a wide audience in his style. It is not for anyone who does not wish to give the question raised some thought. I finished it quickly and will read it again.

This is a serious consideration of a suburban synagogue. It provides good feel for what goes on both in the religious and social side of the institution. Reminds one of Synagogue Life by Heilman, although without some of the conceptualization and with a very different writing style. Good for anyone who wants to see what goes on in those suburban temples.