Georgia Books

Monty Don is very cool. I've not seen him on television, but he comes across as defiantly insistent on the inescapable value of organic gardening for our souls and our bodies. A great read that you will treasure forever.

A great read. Made me want to get out there and start digging. Make everything sound so simple.

This is one of the most practical and comprehensive books on organic gardening I have come across. It is full of useful advice on the plants he,(Monty Don) grows in his own farm, turned garden. It is also nice that it is not your standard gardening book, that is, one that gives sterile advice on every species(hight:10',hardy to:-5 ect.). He even has information on taking care of small livestock(chickens,ducks) In order to "complete the livestock circle". All in all this book is a must on the bookshelf of any gardener, as much for inspiration from Montys beautyful british garden as for the wealth of practical advice it holds.

Inspiring, warm, homely, earthy... a book to read, not just for reference... Monty takes you so deep into his garden, you can feel the mud squishing under your wellies, smell the lavender and taste the ripe tomatoes, with the feel of gentle sunshine on the back of your neck, and the scent of a thousand sweet peas helping you to forget the scratches from the pruning job you just finished.

The book is written in England, about a English garden with a particular climate and environment. But the practises can be adopted anywhere: know your land, know the climate, experiment, and don't be afraid to make mistakes.

I will read this book over and over and over again. Sweet peas don't do so well in Sacramento as they used to back home in Leicestershire, but... maybe this year I'll try them at a time of year that suits them, not me!

The Lonely Planet guidebook series is known for combining travel tips with cultural and historical education, and the Falkland Islands guide is no exception. The detail of this book is outstanding, and the stories it describes are very interesting as well - these little islands have played a larger role in world affairs than the uninformed would ever expect.

If you are buying this in conjunction with the Antarctica book, please note that this book is much smaller - but given the relative size of each landmass, the difference makes sense.

We are planning a trip to the Falklands soon, and I have searched every available publication for information. Suffice to say, such information is in short supply. I was ecstatic when I found this book. If you are planning a trip to the Falklands and/or South Georgia, this is the only book you need. Its information is both varied and comprehensive. Of special interest to us was the section detailing every location to view each type of penguin found in the Falklands.

An interesting, if brief, guided tour of what has to be one of the most remote tourist destinations on the planet. The Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)are a British Colony in the South Atlantic, a few hundred miles off the South American coast, that are also claimed by Argentina---in 1982 the two countries fought a war over the islands. Points of interest are noted, and an overview of the land, the people (population only 2500, with about 80% living in the capital city of Port Stanley), the history, and the wildlife is provided. Included are about 30 pages on South Georgia, a remarkably picturesque, but largely uninhabited island even further out in the Atlantic. My only complaint was the lack of photographs of the Falkland countryside. It would have been nice to get a feel for the terrain---m.p.

I'm a fan of the Lonely Planet (LP) series, both for armchair travel and for actual travel. This is one of the most obscure destinations covered by LP, and has the added distinction of being written by LP founder Tony Wheeler. However, it is a mystery to me why a successful entrepreneur would want to go back to the drudgery of collecting information for this book.

These 200 pages cover the Falklands in infinite detail. Every remote sheep farm that has a room for rent is described in detail, most of which are accessible only by non-scheduled plane. Keep in mind that the Falklands have only 3500 people, and only one place that could be described as a town or village, which means that this guide has a greater pages-per-capita ratio than any other LP guide (except perhaps Antarctica). There is a large emphasis on wildlife, with 17 pages describing varieties of birds. Also, 18 pages are dedicated to the even more remote South Georgia Island (pop. 10), accessible only by ship. As in all LP guides, there is background on the history and economy, excellent maps, and (in these more recent guides) many color photos.

This book is an excellent resource for any who are studying the American frontier. I am currently using this book as a resource for my Master's thesis.

I found the narrative of this book very enlightening. The mind's eye could
see the descriptions of land and waterway problems of our ancestors. I recommend it for the historical value and the referenced materials. Enjoyed the comments made by the travellers on the roads and the inns in which they stopped.
Sadly, the maps were not of a very good quality. Too small and required a magnifying glass to read the numbers along the trails pictures.
Hopefully the next edition of the book will have enhanced maps of the roads and perhaps also an added overlay map with the counties through which the road ran for a better perspective of the route the roads took.

Enlarged beyond its earlier incarnation as an article in "The Alabama Review", this work has emerged as a highly valuable resource for readers and researchers of early Alabama history. Utilizing maps and exhaustive primary and secondary sources, the authors present evidence of the profound impact of the Federal Road upon the Alabama in its formative years. Here, the reader will learn that antebellum Alabama was far from a unified state, but rather a politically polarized collection of sectional counties, interspersed with tribal lands of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw. North Alabama, with a citizenry constituted largely of emigres of Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina, held political power from Alabama's Territorial period (1817-1818) and through early statehood (1819-1840). Entering Alabama at a point roughly near present-day Columbus, Georgia/Phenix City, Alabama, and proceeding southwesterly to New Orleans, the Federal Road accomodated the massive influx of settlers emanating from Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia. This book reveals how the surge in America's westward expansion affected the present-day formation of Alabama. With pent-up demand for land, and a sympathetic Andrew Jackson in the White House, the Federal Road became the venue through which the white combatants prevailed in the Creek War of 1836-37. The resultant final removal of Creek and Cherokee tribes to Oklahoma, caused such a rush of new settlers into South and Central Alabama that Alabama's political structure underwent a drastic and lasting transformation. The shift in legislative power to South Alabama and, particularly, the Black Belt of Central Alabama, resulted in the 1846 removal of the state capitol from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery. The rise of the "Bourbon Democrats" of this region was to shape the landscape of Alabama politics for over 140 years thereafter. The authors, through scholarly, annotated research, offer the reader an opportunity to attain a thorough understanding of the significance of the Federal Road as the single most important element in the formation of Alabama's geography, government, economy and sociology. This reviewer highly recommends this book as not only valuable, but essential for anyone seeking to attain a thorough understanding of Alabama history.

Most enlightening. I was able to track my ancestors as they traveled thru Georgia and Alabama. With the aid of a good map, one can pinpoint their exact route. Highly recommend for anyone doing research on their family that settled in Georgia or Alabama.

Devlin and Georgia write well together and the story line is really good. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes romance and a little bit of spanking! I loved this book but then of course I could be bias since I love ALL of his books as well as the ones he co wrote with Georgia Lynd.

Fasten your seat belt, for you are about to go on an arousing adventure filled with action, romance, spanking and steamy sensual sex. A rugged but charming hero, a beautiful and mysterious heroine, intrigue, deceit, battles against injustice, spanking and erotic sex. What else could one want? Unlike Mr. O'Neill's previous solo work, "A Fine Deceit" is not a spanking story, but rather, a story which contains spanking. Although I came for the spanking I was hooked by the story. Every scene is beautifully crafted, with characters so finely drawn they elicit emotions ranging from love to hate, from respect to disgust, and do so from the story's outset.
"A Fine Deceit" is not your mother's historical romance. It will satisfy both the spanking aficionado and the vanilla fan who read bodice rippers secretly looking for spanking scenes. Actually, there will be no turning back for the vanilla fan once they read "A Fine Deceit" because stereotypical historical romances will no longer quench their erotic thirst.
Home to England from the latest war with France, Captain Drake finds himself seduced by the beautiful but willful Lady Roselind. His quest to find her and win her leads to heroics, romance, righting wrongs and a very satisfying conclusion.
Devlin O'Neill is a writer of erotic spanking fiction with whose excellent work I am familiar, but I was unfamiliar with Georgia Lynd, so I didn't know what to expect from this collaboration. Happy to say, like strawberries and cream, the two partner to provide an extremely tasty treat. Earlier I asked the question what else could one want? The answer is MORE! I certainly hope Mr. O'Neill and Ms. Lynd continue their very successful partnership.

A very similar book from the authors of "Lady Faulcon's Rogue" (hereafter referred to as LFR).

Those who have read most of Devlin O'Neill's other books, with the exception of LFR, or indeed read the description of this book as "heroic romance and erotica" on the back cover, may be expecting a rather different kind of novel from the one that the authors have actually written.

This book (like LFR) appears to have started out as an attempt to bridge the gap between romance and erotica, but the book as published is much more the former than the latter.

The story starts as a group of six men, the survivors of a company under the hero of the story Captain Drake, have arrived back in England from "the wars in France" and are on their way home on the road from Hull to York.

While they camp with a friendly band of gypsies, Captain Drake gets a nocturnal visit from a beautiful woman. On waking he wonders at first whether she was real, or just a lascivious dream, but he soon discovers that she is indeed real - the dignified lady of a nearby manor. Sending his men on, he remains in the area to try to discover what she is up to - and soon becomes involved in a love triangle, a legal fight over a disputed inheritance, and eventually a murder trial.

The historical romance which takes up 90% of the novel is so lacking in contemporary historical detail that it is impossible to say for certain what century the tale is meant to be set in or which set of French wars the authors were thinking of. The cover illustration shows a 17th or 18th century manor house, but the social conditions and weapons described in the book reflect a time much earlier than that. There is one reference to gunpowder, but none to muskets or rifles and some of Drake's men are archers, which suggests a setting in the hundred years war, probably the first half of the 15th century.

In one or two places words and practices from modern America have been transplanted to medieval England in a way which is unintentionally comic. For example at one point the Lady of the Manor warns her maids that if they let her down "the lot of you will find yourselves in the woodshed" (e.g. be taken there to be spanked.) The type of punishment might well have been common to both the 20th century Mid-Western USA and 15th century Yorkshire, but both the wording of the threat and the selection of the place of execution were so much more apposite to the former than the latter as to have me laughing out loud.

The lack of any real attempt to engage with any significant degree of detail either of major historical events or of social history means that this story cannot really qualify as a historical romance. However, but the quality of the writing is at least two or three rungs up the ladder from the average Mills and Boon romance. The fight scenes are exciting, the love triangle at the centre of the story works well, as does the detective story at the end of the book, and you can easily start to care about some of the characters. The plot and dramatic tension are fairly well managed.

The erotic element which makes up the remainder of the story includes three or four sex scenes, none of them particularly graphic, and there are half a dozen spanking scenes which are clearly aimed at those readers who find that sort of thing a turn-on. (Some are carried out by the hero and are fairly mild, several rather more severe beatings are inflicted by less sympathetic characters and the reader appears to be intended to empathise with the victims.)

A number of authors and publishers have been trying to build stories which bridge the gap between erotica and other genres - usually romance, but sometimes science fiction or fantasy. A few have been quite good, but most have been dire. The most common problem with the bad ones is that they fall between two stools by not having enough sex to satisfy most readers of erotica, while not being well enough written to create the reader empathy with the characters to work as a romance.

Devlin O'Neill and Georgia Lynd have avoided this problem by working hard on their characters, the plot, and the build-up of dramatic and emotional tension. What they have ended up with is two reasonably well written books which have only slightly more sex than many "mainstream" romances or thrillers published in the last few years. In consequence some readers of Mr O'Neill's other books who buy this book or LFR expecting more of the same are likely to be disappointed.

I hope the authors find enough other readers who enjoy this book to offset that problem, because both "A Fine Deceit" and "Lady Faulcon's Rogue" are a good enough effort to deserve more work in the same direction.

Devlin and Georgia have done it again! They have constructed another beautifully written bodice ripper! I loved Lady Faulcon's Rogue and I loved this one just as much. Has a dashing, strong, authoriative figure that will melt any woman's heart. The spanking he gives is an added bonus!

A Fine Deceit may not have spanking in every chapter but the book can stand alone for both vanillas and spankophiles alike! It is good that the authors can blend both worlds and audiences!
If you want a good book to curl up with and read A Fine Deceit is it! Hope you will read it and enjoy it as much as me!

I hope Georgia and Devlin decide to keep writing together since they make a womderful team!

I have been collecting and reading the Foxfire series for several years now and I consider them as some of the best reading that I have found.I think that they are a direct link to our mountain heritage as well as American history. I have learned many skills and lost arts from these books and I would highly recommend them to anyone who has such interests.

It's a great deal of fun to read about the historical needs and solutions of the Appalachian people that applies as well to my own history. There are great reminders of a simpler and maybe happier life.

Both my husband and I enjoyed this book. He is from W.N.C. and enjoyed reading about areas near where he grew up. I liked it also, having lived there for four years.

The Foxfire books are a wonderful thing and we are so lucky to have them. Many of the ways, crafts, planting lore, animal lore, and as the book says "affairs of plain living" are preserved here. This particular volume includes oral histories of the Great Depression, CCC Camps and their impact on the local areaa and ecomomy, folk art, chair makeing, and of special interest to me, gourd art. This is a wonderful recording of life the way it was and probably never will be again. The book is quite well written and has faithfully recorded even the dialect of these wonderful people, from which so many of us sprung. That is a big part of the charm of these works. This book includes actual interviews with folks from that region of the country which I am sure are long dead now. Their knowledge would be completely lost without works such as this. Another generation or two and it will all be completely gone. This book will cetainly be of great interest to those, like me, who are interested in the depression era and in the CCC in particular. Thank goodness we have recordings such as this. Recommend this one highly.

Seferis is great. These poems don't feel dated in the least, nor do they sound translated. They emerge from some deep root in the shared brain, and brim into life like grace. If you like Montale or Cavafy, you'll probably like Seferis as well. All three have a large vision that begins in the local and reaches the world.

The edition, by Princeton, is very fine, with clear print and a helpful introduction.

...(like myself). Seferis is graceful, erudite, and profound without being pretentious or willfully obscure. His work is lovely and haunting. I first became aware of his poems when Stephen King excerpted bits of them in SALEM'S LOT, which I think says something about how broad an audience Seferis appeals to. His poems tell stories as well as create imagery and mood, which helps make their beauty all the more affecting.

Although it is difficult for me to select my favorite modern Greek poet since I hold several of them in high esteem, among his peers, Seferis crests the wave of poetic intensity. His poetry is always laden with images often as tragic as they are beautiful. Like Kimon Friar, Edmund Keeley has brought the powerful verse of modern Greeks to the English reader (see the Amazon excerpts of this work). In sum, Seferis' poetic world is enthralling.

Seferis is the ultimate point of poetry. The real king of poetry. His name will be around throughout ages and the words he wrote will be remembered. The nobel was the least that people could return to him.

I sail the Georgia Coast and this book is invaluable to me. My wife and I plan on seeing all the places one by one. It is so neat to have someone that has been there, done that before we go. This book is a must have if you sail the Georgia coast. Amazon is the place to get it.

This is a great book! It contains an overview of the Georgia coast, along with a well researched ecological discussion. Then the writer analyzes each inlet and tributary right down to where to drop your anchor. A must for Georgia coast cruisers.

We were loaned a copy of this book before we took off on a two week vacation exploring the barrier islands by sailboat.
The expanded chart information alone was invaluable. By the middle of the trip, we had put away all our large foldout charts and used this book exclusivley to explore new waterways, find places to anchor for the night, and look ahead to decipher where to go next.
But this book is much more than an expanded chart guide. The historical background information, discriptions of what to do ashore, and the natural history information was interesting and useful. At the end of the trip the book was so worn we kept it and returned a brand new copy to the owner.

As an avid inshore fisherman, I regularly visit the Georgia coast. With so many inland waterways, the task of when and WHERE! can be quite a challenge. Fortunately, the Zydlers have accelerated the learning curve for me. Not only has the book been informative, it has also been a pleasurable read. It's not just a guide of the waterways (although it does that in great detail). The book brings a keen sense of history, a respect for nature and an armada of helpful resources that one could spend countless weeks investigating prior to a visit to this wonderland.

Georgia's coast is best discovered by boat, but having a capable "road map" will certainly enhance the journey. Whether you're a yachtsman, fisherperson, naturalist, or history buff, this book offers much for its reader.

I would encourage anyone that wishes to visit coastal Georgia to buy this book. I'm confident it will enhance your experience as it has done for me.

Thanks to the Zydlers!

Whether on land in a Big Apple jazz club on aboard a private yacht on a stormy Atlantic, the tension is high. Racial and romantic conflicts are described by someone who'se been there. I would've liked the tale to continue. A sequel, maybe?

If you like your jazz cool and your seas rough, you'll enjoy this erotic thriller as much as I did.

Wet water, cool jazz and steamy love-a combo that kept me up the night till I finished this noir tale. Send more!

Right on with the jazz scenes, sailing adventure and racial turmoil. Couldn't put it down. Author not afraid to deal with politically correct or incorrect issues.

I received the book, SILENCE IN THE GARDEN on time. The book is in good condition and I'm looking forward to reading it, soon. Many thanks.
From Annie Cunningham

...and therein lies only one facet of William Trevor's amazing gift. When I began this book, I thought I had stumbled upon a novel in a 'lighter' category by Trevor -- before I realized it, I was completely enmeshed in this story and its characters. Trevor's prose is incredibly crafted -- his attention to detail and his ability to develop his characters are almost without peer, but neither of these talents overshadows his story.

As in most of his marvelous writing, there are twists and turns awaiting the reader -- revelations completely unforseen and unimagined. As always, he brings the Irish character -- both individual and en masse -- to life completely and gently. Meticulous details are made known to us quietly, so that by midway through the this absorbing work, we almost feel that we are living among these people. He has the ability to allow us to know them without feeling we've been told about any of them -- more like we've gained the knowledge over time.

We see Sarah Polexfen come to the Irish island estate of Carriglas to serve as governess to the children of her relations, the Rollestons. Life there seems peaceful and detached -- but she senses there is something troubling under the surface, something of which she is not told and is unaware. Years later, when she returns to the island -- the children are grown, their father dead, the grandmother an aged matriarch -- events from the past begin to come clearer, verifying her earlier intuitions. The story is played out over a period from the early part of the 20th century, seeing the beginning of the 'troubles' in Ireland, to the early 1980s -- and the family looks much different in hindsight than when she first arrived.

There is a sweet sadness present in this story -- as in much of Trevor's writing -- but it never becomes maudlin. The events and dialogue are intelligent and, in their own way, endearing -- for we find ourselves growing to care about these characters, even the ones who are less than admirable. For in the end, they are only human, and humans have frailties and warts, and commit transgressions, no matter how admirable they may seem from a distance.

Every single work of William Trevor's fiction that I have read has been a great experience -- if you've never sipped from his cup, start here...start anywhere. His novels and short stories are equally amazing and well-written -- I cannot recommend his work as a whole highly enough.

William Trevor has crafted yet another wee gem of a tale in "The Silence in the Garden", drawing upon class differences between the Protestant aristocracy and their Catholic neighbors and the bloody violence of the Irish civil war. Most of the tale is set in the 1930's, though events span decades from the early 1900's till the beginning of the 1970's. Sarah Pollexfen arrives on the estate during World War I as a governness to her affluent Rolleston cousins. Through her diaries we read of an unspeakable tragedy and quiet lives of desperation led by the Rolleston family.

This lovely novel is sort of William Trevor's take on a Henry James ghost story. A governess arrives at an enormous estate and discovers there is more than meets the eye. As always with Trevor, the prose is luminous and the characters are complex, deft and compelling. I recommend this, just as I would anything Trevor has written. He is the greatest prose writer of our time.

Fascinating story of a man with a quest. Not only is it interesting to try to understand the mindset of a holocaust survivor, but also paints a very real picture of what it was like to be in the US Army in the 1950's.

A child escapes from Germany with 4 of his siblings and finds his way to America. This is his history including joining the army even though he is still a German citizen, and afterwards becoming a prize winning architect.

There is something very special and moving in the telling of author Benjamin Hirsch's life story that is much deeper than just his own memoirs; it is like he is here to remind all of us about events that happened long ago. In his well written and inspirational book, "Hearing A Different Drummer: A Holocaust Survivor's Search For Identity", he becomes another voice for the victims of the Nazi extermination camps. It is clear that his voice is needed in today's world that tries to forget, hide or worse yet--to deny the holocaust ever happened.

Hirsch tells us about his childhood in Germany and how his father was arrested in his own home and taken away by the SS and put in a work camp. His mother sends off her older children--three boys and two girls to France to remain in hiding and eventually to find their way to America. His mother keeps her two youngest children with her so the family is broken apart in many ways and not just physically. The author finds out after the war that both his parents and his little sister and brother have been killed in the Nazi Extermination Camps.

Hirsch ends up in Atlanta, Georgia joining the rest of his surviving siblings. He is raised in a supportive Jewish community but he is an orphan none the less and there is all the emotional pain and loss of not knowing what happened to his family. This story is heart wrenching even though the author himself understates the obvious emotions that must have troubled him in his youth or even today.

The bulk of the book focuses on the author's U.S. Army experiences in Germany and his personal search for what happened to his family. In the course of discovering his family history, he reconnects with his Jewish roots and rediscovers his spiritual life. It is a touching account of a young man alone in Europe finding his old country of Germany. However, it is not a home coming since he remembers so little; having been just 6 years old when he was sent off by train before the out break of WWII.

There are some touching moments of reconnections with others from his past in almost miraculous ways and he reunites with the French couple that took him into their home some man long years before. There is so much more that I wanted to know about this man and his life that he left closed or veiled for public reading; it is my hope that his next book takes us on an inner journey to learn more about this most interesting man who also designed memorials to Jewish holocaust victims.

I found myself on a personal level with his story for two reasons. One reason is that I have a six year old grandson and wondered what life would be like if he was suddenly taken away and sent to another country never to see his parents or grandfather again. The other reason deals with my wonderful experiences in Atlanta in 1968 with an Army buddy from Fort Benning. He had relatives there and had asked me to join him for some Jewish holidays with them. I was accepted into their home and at their temple for services and ate at their table afterwards. I was emotionally made to feel so welcomed and loved. I felt like family. That memory still makes me feel, warm inside remembering it.

The only negative note from that visit was when one of the relatives told me about some of the discrimination that they had to deal with even in the late 1960's in the south. It seems socially there were still some major barriers to clubs, organizations and even employment. It blew me away because I never thought that was an issue before. It was never a part of my world. They seemed very surprised that I joined them in their temple as well. But to me, there is but one God and all temples and churches are places of worship so I saw no conflict. After all, didn't Jesus to the temple services.

This book will make you think, feel and have emotions. It also has some lighter moments and is an easy to read book. If you were only going to read one book this coming year make it this one!

The MWSA gives this book its top rating of FIVE STARS! I also give it my personal endorsement!

In Hearing A Different Drummer: A Holocaust Survivor's Search For Identity, Benjamin Hirsch offers a riveting memoir that related how as a nine year old refugee he first arrived in 1941 at New York Harbor. He, along with his two older sisters and two older brothers, had been sent away from Frankfurt am Main, Germany, by his mother to avoid the holocaust that was descending on the Jewish communities throughout Nazi occupied Europe. During the years of the Korean War Hirsch was an American solider stationed in Germany, where he discovered the horrific fate of his parents and younger siblings. Hirsch writes with candor and vivid description, in introducing us to the life of his uncle Philipp Auerbach, who recorded German atrocities that are still denied today -- that soup was made from some of the bodies of the murdered Jews. Hearing A Different Drummer is an important, exceptionally well written contribution to 20th Century Judaic and Holocaust studies.