Kentucky Books

This is an amazing stoy of love, death and survival. The story takes you with an amazing family and helps one understand how difficult and precious life really is. I could not wait to see what was going to happen next. Even if you are not a history lover, you will not want to put this novel down.

Rather you are a history buff regarding the earlier days in America or just like a good book to settle down with, you'll find what you're looking for in THE DRIFTERS. The story captivates you from beginning to end while at the same time you learn about the hardships this people group experienced during such a tumultuous time in our nation's history. Harriet was one tough lady who suffered deprivation and heartbreak yet
never gave up--and to think she is the great, great-grandmother of the author who did a suburb job of intertwining history and story.

A great historical novel about the lives of a shanty boat family. The author takes you through their love, happiness and tragedy. She makes you feel you were there with them when they endured pain, hunger,cold,heat, even death. You lived with them on the rivers,moved with them through the Civil War and the Texas cattle drives. Harriett and Canady Holmes and their eight children had great abilities to survive. It is a book hard to put down, one that leaves you thinking about the lives of these people long after you.ve read their story. One of the best books I've ever read.

I enjoyed the historical aspect of the book. Especially since it was a part of history I had never heard or read about. Such a interesting part of our country's history that is not included in any school history books that I have ever come across.

A must read for history lovers...

It is not often that you read a novel and come away with a real educational experience. I thought I had a good handle on early US History but I admit that I knew absolutely nothing about this ethnic group of Americans that have had their history lost and omitted over the centuries. The people known as Melungeons were here on our shores well before Jamestown was ever settled. They came here as abandoned slaves of the Vikings who had captured and taken them away from various nations around the world including Portugal, Spain, North Africa, Turkey and Greece. They ended up surviving as a group by intermarrying and being assimilated by Native American tribes.

In her wonderfully written novel, Tonya Holmes Shook weaves a fascinating story very much like "Roots" tracing her own family history from long ago stories that had been passed down from her great-great-grandmother. Her book "The Drifters: A Christian Historical Novel about the Melungeon Shantyboat People" tells a tale that has not been told before. She chooses fiction to tell her story so she could fill in the emotional spaces and bring the characters to life--which she does superbly.

This book crosses through many historic times including the Civil War. The author makes this story come alive and will keep you glued to the task of finishing her book so you know what happened to everyone. It is truly a classic novel. There have already been several movie producers looking at it for future projects. It won much acclaim and even some awards including recognition from The American Authors Association.

This is a must read book. This book is suitable for all family members to read. The MWSA gives this novel its HIGHEST RATING - FIVE STARS!

I personally endorse this book!

Every time I see a review of this book, it mentions something about Hannah being a "strong pioneer woman." Certainly, she IS a strong pioneer woman. But re-reading the book recently, I noticed just how important a role Tice, Hannah's husband, plays in the story. This book has great anti-romance-novel romance. Tice is too old to be a romance novel hero, and Hannah is too plain and bashful, yet their love story rings completely true to life. I really appreciate the ways Giles shows the love between Hannah and Tice, whether it is describing how Hannah keeps watching down the path to the creek to see if Tice is coming home yet, or letting us know Tice's thoughts about Hannah while he's waiting for the raid on the Indian village. It's a love story I enjoy reading again and again.

I've read most of Janice Holt Giles' books but this one (my first) has got to be my favorite. It certainly isn't your conventional love story; but then, Hannah isn't your conventional heroine. Nor are she and Tice a conventional couple (she asked HIM to marry HER) but they don't seem to be any less happy for it. Giles' beloved Kentucky hills are the perfect setting for the story, and her writing style is wonderful in its simplicity.

By the way, the best subtle reference to sex I've ever found is in this book. When Tice says, "Let's try out that new shuck tick of your'n" and gives Hannah a gentle shove in that direction... and the rest is left to the imagination.

As an English teacher, and a lover of historic fiction, I am surprised that Giles does not rank with Willa Cather and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps she should have chosen another publisher when she was first writing her multi-book series that starts in Kentucky and ends in Denver with her novel Six Horse Hitch. At any rate, Hannah Fowler, in my opinion her best, is a wonderful read. I know. I have read it many times.

I first read this book over 15 years ago. I have since gone back and read it over about every year or two. The writer has created such real characters and a story line that is just as readable as it was when it was first written. I can not recommend this books strongly enough.

Enduring? This book has been around since 1956 and is still in print, now that's enduring! I first read Hannah Fowler over twenty years ago and I also "re read" it every couple of years. It is my most favorite work of fiction. An incredibly simple and beautiful work of art, Giles weaves regional lore with a touching love story. Since I first read this book Janice Holt Giles has become my favorite author, she writes with an honesty and wisdom that draws you to her characters. If anyone is remotely interested in Hannah Fowler, please read it, you won't be disappointed. I especially recommend it to teenagers.

More than just being one of the funniest books I've ever read, the book is a masterpiece of economy of language. I've re-read it many times and always wish that other writers took such care to craft every sentence so perfectly. Rumor has it that the Kinky Friedman of Kentucky has a sequel in the works. Stay tuned for the Return of the Son of Needmore!

If he upped his output, Ed McClanahan could be the Faulkner of the Midwest. He can certainly run-on a sentence like the Laureate of Yoknapatawpha could, only using it more sparingly.

This book is a lot funnier ... probably owing to the geography as much as the subject matter -- growing up male, insecure, and horny in small-town southern north central Kentucky, on the cusp of television and Masters and Johnson. I split a gut every time I read my copy from the first paperback printing.

McClanahan creates a delicate and engaging balance of innocent nostalgia and R-rated humor, chronicling the adventures of bored (but never boring) high school students in a tiny, rural Kentucky town in the late 1940's. Charming, light-hearted, and well-written.

As the other reviews attest, this is a very funny novel. And my only question, after reading it a dozen times since it's publishing date, is: how come some smarty-pants hasn't seen fit to make it into a movie?

This is one of those memorable books that will have you constantly laughing. And what makes it so memorable is that it's a veritable encyclopedia of "off-color" popular culture of the '50's. You will find hundreds of ancient raunchy jokes imbedded in the text as well as side-splitting acounts of the prissy mores of that time. What's striking is how innocent it all seems--what was considered offensive back then is virtually G-rated next to something like Eminem. A wonderful read.

Phantoms of Old Louisville is the second in David Domine's fascinating collection of authentic ghost stories from the largest Victorian neighborhood in the country. You can read this one first or you can read Ghosts of Old Louisville first, it doesn't matter because each book reads well by itself. This one, like the first, is a great collection of stories dealing with reportedly haunted locations in the area known as Old Louisville. But, don't worry if you're not from Kentucky. These stories are fascinating no matter where you come from. If you love ghost stories, as I do, you will love this book. Each chapter combines equal parts supernatural events with local history and wonderful architecture. The author makes the neighborhood come to life and draws the reader in on a fascinating journey to the past. The level of writing is excellent, and the only thing that surpasses it is the unbelievable degree of storytelling involved. Although it is a work of creative non-fiction, it has a novelist's flare about it. This, like the first, is a book that will keep you up all night till you have finished it early the next morning. I cannot wait for volume III! Thanks to the author for an entertaining and informative read!

I recently moved to Old Louisville and knowing nothing about the area, read the first book by David Domine, Ghosts of Old Louisville. I was sorry when the book ended and started immediately on the second book, Phantoms of Old Louisville. I also took the Ghost Tour of Old Louisville, which was hosted by David Domine himself, last Friday night. I am so glad that he did write about these old homes and the area, otherwise I would not have known any history or folklore to accompany me here, on my move from Los Angeles to Old Louisville this last January. He allowed those of us on his tour into his wonderful home, which was magnificent. I could see the actual place where one of the purported hauntings happened and it was decorated and restored beautifully which made it an extra bonus. These books have given me a perspective on this area that I really would not have had if they weren't available. I am so waiting for October and the "haunting" season to begin. Another aside, I still don't know if I really believe in "ghosts", however, when reading these books late at night, I found myself having to put them down, and listening very closely to the sounds of my own Old Louisville home, and sometimes, I couldn't start reading again until the next day.....just too many chills and possibly a wild imagination at work. I found these books to be wonderful reads, never dragging, held my attention, and I now use them for reference when looking at the places and events described.

In his latest book, Phantoms of Old Louisville: Ghostly Tales from America's Most Haunted Neighborhood, David Domine does an admirable job following up on the chills and thrills of last year's bestselling Ghosts of Old Louisville: True Stories of Hauntings in America's Largest Victorian Neighborhood. In this sequel, Domine has managed to unearth even more tales of the dearly departed in the grandest Victorian neighborhood in the country, and he presents them to the reader with the same engaging prose and mouth-watering descriptions he employed in his first book. And, as before, he has managed to capture a distinct feel for the neighborhood he loves so much, and he successfully uses it to create a mood piece that transports the reader back to a time when spirits from Beyond looked on as bustled ladies served tea in elegant front parlors, servants gathered for modest meals in the back kitchen and the domestic arts (unlike today) occupied a hallowed spot in American households.

I look forward to his next book and recommend this one to all who enjoy a good ghost story with added architectural tidbits and lots of local flavor.

Very well written and spell-binding! In short, another great book by David Domine. These stories bring to light the ghostly past of America's supposedly most haunted neighborhood. After reading this volume, you might tend to agree. Apart from hair-raising stories of the supernatural and the ghosts and goblins that populate this historic neighborhood, these tales include interesting historical tidbits that backup many of the aspects of these accounts. It seems that are many, many reportedly true encounters of the paranormal in this unique neighborhood, and David Domine has spent a bit of time digging up this haunted past. The author incorporates enticing descriptions of the local architecture that bring the stories to life, and to satisfy your appetite for more, he includes details of the wonderful dinner parties that he hosts. Check out his cookbook Adventures in New Kentucky Cooking with The Bluegrass Peasant for a preview of some of his famous dishes.

His first book in this series is: Ghosts of Old Louisville: True Stories of Hauntings in America's Largest Victorian Neighborhood

Another great book by David Domine. Fascinating stories full of history and just the right amount of ghostly tales.

Rose Pressey
Author of "My Haunted Family"

Ed Prichard was called "the brightest of our generation" by no less than Katherine Graham. He was Felix Frankfurer's first law clerk, and served ably and brilliantly in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.

Then came 1948. In Texas, Lyndon Johnson won a Senatorial election, as the saying goes, by the votes of 49 dead Mexicans. That same year, Prichard helped stuff ballot boxes in his home county, Bourbon County, Kentucky, for a forgettable Senate candidate who had the election locked up anyway. But, hounded by J. Edgar Hoover for his "socialist" views (such as championing civil rights for blacks and an eight hour work day, with a decent minimum wage), Prichard, not Johnson, went to prison and was disbarred.

This short, but imminently well researched book is his story, recounting all his sparkling brilliance, the arrogance that helped bring him down, and his ultimate redemption as the father of the education reform movement in Kentucky. This is an elegantly written and masterfully documented history from a first rate young historian. The biggest revelation is the story of J. Edgar Hoover's targeting of Prichard, which was gleaned from declassified documents, and never previously reported.

If this book teaches us that we are all flawed, it also teaches that we are all capable of redemption. This is one of the finest biographies I have ever read.

Edward F. Prichard, Jr.'s life makes for high drama; this excellent biography makes for engrossing and informative reading. "Prich" was yet another of the terribly bright Frankfurter students at Harvard Law School in the late 1930's who gravitated to Washington, first as a Supreme Court clerk to Frankfurter, and later with involvement in New Deal and wartime public service. The Greek chorus appears when Prichard returns to his home state of Kentucky to practice law. The book superbly recounts his conviction in connection with a 1948 vote-tampering scandal, his incarceration, and his eventual return to the practice of law and a role as respected educational reformer in Kentucky. Unfortunately, serious illness inflicted near blindness and other frailties which ultimately caused an early death at the age of 69. The reader can only sit back and wonder as to why one with such unlimited promise and talents chose the course he did. Nonetheless, as the book traces Prich's life, it provides an fascinating perspective on Harvard Law, Frankfurter, the wartime FDR administration, the early presidency of Truman, and the rise of the super lawyer-lobbyists such as Thomas Corcoran. One's time is well invested in reading this volume.

This book tells well of a brilliant student, high in the ranks of his class at harvard Law, law clerk to Justice Frankfurter, holding responsible positions in the Government in wartime Washington, who by an unbelievably reckless and stupid act destroyed his career, then , after years of struggle redeemed himself before his death in 1984. This is a most worthwhile read for anyone interested in the law or in Kentucky politics,or in the shakers and movers in Washington in the 1940s.

Who would of thought that here in the third millennium we would still take time to read about Ed Prichard, whose life story will be linked through eternity with a third rate felony-and a blundering, ham-handed felony at that? Prichard is dead more than 20 years now, as are almost all those who loved and hated him. He never held public office-indeed, more generally, never came close to fulfilling the promise of his admirers. Why would anyone care?

To this question, it is possible to give an uncharitable reply. Kentucky, one might say, is a place with more past than future. To dwell on a footnote may be read as saying: we almost amounted to something, we could have been a contender.

And yet, and yet. And yet we have the testimony of the best and the brightest that Prich himself was the best and the brightest; if not as an actor, perhaps as a thinker and certainly as a talker.. Indeed, I had the privilege to observe Prich in what might be called his rehabilitation phase: the early 60s when his friends were trying to ease him back from obloquy and exile onto the political stage. I will add my testimony to those of legions who swore that Prichard in full spate was simply the greatest three-ring oratorical circus of which a simple country boy might dream, his whooshes of insight keeping easy company with his flashes of savage wit. No wonder he won the affection of Felix Frankfurter, of Phil Graham, of-good heavens, is this true?-of Sir Isaiah Berlin.

Indeed: Berlin was once his roommate and like so many was stunned and horrified when Prich was convicted by a Kentucky jury The details are there Tracy Campbell's account, along with a great deal else one may have remembered or forgotten about the politics of Kentucky in the last Century. Campbell tells it all earnestly and unflinchingly, and a strangely compelling story it remains.

Is there a larger context for Prich's story? Probably not a great one, but by a stretch, you could fit it into more general story of the history of the New Deal. It was here, after all, that Prich occupied center stage: as the brilliant young scamp who enchanted Felix Frankfurter, and who put himself at the elbow of Robert Jackson, of Fred Vinson, of Jimmie Byrnes (although both Jackson and Byrnes stayed aloof, and even Vinson saw Prich's limits). One can, at least with caution, take Prich as a kind of symbol for what was right and wrong with those years: the brilliance, the optimism, the energy, together with an overlarge dose of self-admiration, bordering on downright narcissism. Prich was, after all, as dazzling as they say he was. But he was an appalling abuser of friendship, a serial shirker of duties, and at best no more than a mediocre husband and father. Even after he started taking fees from the strip miners, he never really paid his taxes. Indeed, one of the remarkable parts of the Prich story is the way so many people were taken in by him-not merely by his skills at rhetoric and dialectic (which were indisputable) but by the notion that these virtues somehow translated into political gravitas.

Campbell does a conscientious job of surveying the evidence surrounding Prichard's pivotal bout with ballot-stuffing in 1948. Laudably, he hesitates to draw any grand conclusions. I will indulge myself a bit more. Prich came back to Kentucky touted as the next governor, senator, president-offices to which (says Campbell), absent his "lapse" he "would certainly" have risen. But by Campell's own testimony, this is nonsense. Campbell himself says that Prich "had not the ambition or the personality for such posts." Quite right: probably nobody knew this better than Prich himself. His friends saw him as the next Roosevelt; he knew he was closer to Peter Pan. By sticking his hand in a ballot box, he relieved himself of all these impositions: he may have left his friends bewildered and disappointed, but he gave himself the freedom to remain forever young.

In this accessible, informative biography, Campbell presents the tragic story of one of the brightest stars on the 20th century American political scene. A man of acknowledged genius, fragile ego, and an almost childlike attitude, Prichard was seen by many as the most gifted and promising of the new generation of liberal politicians that arose out of the New Deal. Though his hopes for political office were ended by J. Edgar Hoover's irrational vendetta against him, Campbell makes it clear that the person who ultimately brought about Prichard's downfall was Prichard himself. This is an excellent book about the lofty heights and tragic depths that a man could sink to, and I highly recommend it to any history buff or political wonk.

There's much to be said for those who pen their first books at an age when many working folks are winding down their careers. Such writers can draw upon decades of experience, giving their writing the kind of nuance and ambiguity that comes with mature hindsight.

For these reasons, one may rejoice in Jim Tomlinson's debut short-story collection, "Things Kept, Things Left Behind" (University of Iowa Press, $[...] paperback), for which Tomlinson won the prestigious Iowa Short Fiction Award.

Born in 1941 three weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Tomlinson grew up in a small Illinois town and now lives in rural Kentucky. Perhaps not surprisingly, most of the 11 short stories in this collection have the Bluegrass State as their backdrop and have struggling, working-class folks at their center.

An example is LeAnn McCray, who appears in the two title stories, "Things Kept" and "Things Left Behind." In the first, we learn that LeAnn sometimes "felt restless, strange to her own skin. It was a troublesome feeling, one that would come on her without warning, as it did one Tuesday afternoon in late October."

That day, LeAnn's sister, Cass, needs to talk about helping their stubborn and widowed mother, Georgia, out of debt. Cass suggests that LeAnn ask a mutual friend, Dexter Chalk, for help. The married LeAnn agrees, never letting on that she and Dexter are having an affair. The plan to aid Georgia spirals into an unintended climax, in which LeAnn learns that it's not just the living who have secrets.

In "Things Left Behind," LeAnn's secret affair with Dexter is unwittingly divulged to her husband, Lonnie, by a well-intentioned hotel maid. Because Lonnie is far from a perfect husband and father, Tomlinson allows ambiguity to seep into LeAnn's infidelity.

In "Prologue (two lives in letters)," we are introduced to two young, idealistic teenagers, Davis Menifee Jr. and Claire Lyons, through a sampling of their correspondence spanning 34 years.

Thrown together as delegates to the 1963 Congressional Youth Leadership Conference for one week in Washington, D.C., Davis and Claire become close friends in the wake of Kennedy's assassination and political uncertainty. But they take radically different paths. Claire becomes an activist lawyer and eventually a member of Congress. Davis protests the Vietnam War and flees to Canada to evade the draft.

Both start families, question their choices, wonder where their youth has gone, and hope for better times. For many readers who have spent a few decades on this good earth, the words of these two Americans may be painfully familiar.

There are other gems in this collection: In "Stainless," Warren and Annie have one last dinner together as they divide up their belongings at the end of their marriage. In "Squirrels," a man is bedeviled by his ex-wife because she is bedeviled by squirrels that invaded her attic. And there are the two brothers in "Lake Charles" who share a bond forged in a horrendous, life-altering childhood accident. In such stories, Tomlinson keeps his observations and humor sharp, his prose lean as a marathon runner.

Sometimes in a Tomlinson tale, it's difficult to tell the winners from the losers, the resilient from the fragile. But his magic lies in the shadows of people's lives, those dark recesses where uncertainty reigns.

It's as if Tomlinson holds a mirror up to us and says: It's all a confusing mess, but we will survive because the other option is just too damn scary.

This is unadorned wisdom earned through experience. And it takes a skilled, mature writer such as Tomlinson to bring it to life.

[This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]

Jim Tomlinson's book is truly deserving of the Iowa Short Fiction Award. This is the best collection of short stories I've read in the past few years. His characters are not doing anything extraordinary, yet they are compelling. His sense of voice and place are exquisitly honed. This is a must read; again and again.

Jim Tomlinson's book Things Kept, Things Left Behind is a collection of short stories which won the Iowa Short Fiction Award, and rightfully so. I have never been a fan of short stories, as I've mentioned in previous blogs, but slowly, I'm starting to change my opinion.

These stories were unlike any short stories I've ever read before. Rather than leaving me wanting more from the characters and the story line, they truly left me satisfied. After each story was finished, I felt as though I had just spent a novel's worth of time with the characters. They were that well developed, and the stories, though tragic at times, are written with a humor and wit that I really enjoyed.

In each story there is conflict; be it within the characters themselves as they dream about things they've sacrificed or lost out on, or be it between two or more characters. In each story the conflict is real; the stories are utterly human, and I think this is why I enjoyed reading them as much as I did.

If you like short stories, or even if you don't; this is a book I would recommend you pick up in your travels. You won't be sorry.

Jim Tomlinson's "Things Kept, Things Left Behind" is peopled by rounded, entirely believable characters--victims, as we all are, of life's quirks and mis-matchings. The almost inadvertently criminal couple, the absent father and his disengaged adult son, couples who should have married each other and couples who shouldn't have: there are only so many situations in the world, and all this has been written about before. What sets this collection apart--what makes it such an enjoyable read--is Tomlinson's solid craftsmanship. He writes with the assurance of someone who doesn't have to show off: a fine, empathic writer and a first-rate storyteller. I loved reading this book; I loved his respect for his characters, his simple spot-on dialogue, the hope he plants in small gestures. There is a depth to his prose that lingers in the mind, together with the small mysteries he plants so artfully for the reader to consider. Excellent collection, well-deserving of the Iowa Short Fiction Award.

Susan O'Neill, Author, Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam

I loved so much about Jim Tomlinson's short story collection, Things Kept, Things Left Behind. It was one of those reads that I felt compelled to carefully portion out so as to not have it be over too quickly. I wanted to savor it.

The working-class Appalachians that Tomlinson creates in his stories really resonate with me. They feel real. When Cass (in the the half-title story "Things Kept") says, "When he comes to see Ma, don't matter if it's a hundred degrees, Dale here is wearing long sleeves so she don't see them tattoos he's got drawed on his arms," I KNOW her. She is utterly, absolutely real.

I was also impressed by how the women in Things Kept, Things Left Behind are portrayed. They have flaws and desires and idiosyncracies that allowed me to see and appreciate them, warts and all--like real people. There is no gender divide in this collection. Men cheat, women cheat, men love obsessively, women love obsessively, both succeed, both fail. It is a totally engrossing, even-handed look at what makes us human.

I have always been a fan of Orson Welles on radio and television. Having collected a ton of radio broadcasts on CD and audio cassette and having watched most of his movies, I appreciate the genius of his work. I picked up a copy of this book recently and am amazed at the amount of research put into it. An aspect of Welles rarely discussed is his magic career. At the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention this September in Aberdeen, Maryland, I plan to attend the presentation about Orson Welles and his magic career so I can watch rare footage and films with Welles, and get an even deeper insight to his trickery. Book comes recommended.

Everyone knows that Orson Welles made _Citizen Kane_, possibly the most audacious and most analyzed movie to come out of Hollywood. And then what happened? He had been called a "boy genius", having made the movie (co-written, directed, and starred) when he was but twenty-five years old, but within a decade the term was used with sarcasm, and Walter Kerr wrote that Welles had become "an international joke, and possibly the youngest living has-been." Welles had been knocked down, and in the view of many, he never got up. Certainly, he never made anything like a _Kane_ again, but that isn't really fair: no one has. It is true that he never produced the sorts of films that were Hollywood-popular, but he did not at all disappear. Joseph McBride, a film historian who knew Welles, has answered the title question in his book _What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career_ (The University Press of Kentucky). The answer, quite simply, is that Welles worked and worked for decades in film, writing scripts, making movies, and (perhaps because few would bankroll him) doing things his own way. It's a sad story, in many ways. No one could doubt Welles's genius, and there are so many "if only" episodes in this book that it is often a depressing account. But Welles was not a tragic figure; he reflected years later that he might have made a mistake in staying in films (rather than, say, returning to the theater in which he had previously made his mark). But he would not have had it any other way: "I'm just in love with making movies," he said, and indeed, it was only death that stopped him.

McBride necessarily describes the problems that beset Welles immediately after _Kane_, when Welles could no longer get anything close to the full control of a film which he had practiced on his first movie. Still wanting to make movies, he left Hollywood to continue in Europe. McBride makes the case that contributing to Welles's decision for self-exile was his fear that he would be called to testify in the Communist witch-hunts. Welles loved shooting films and he especially loved editing them (as anyone who has seen _Kane_ can tell). There are plenty of pictures Welles worked on whose footage has been lost, but many others have the footage saved by fans or by creditors, and they frequently propose bringing out a finished version, hiring someone to pull the scenes together into a finished movie even so long after Welles's death in 1985. One producer mentioned she'd like to see a particular film screened not as an unfinished work by Welles, but as a film the way he might have finished it; but she says, "Finished by whom? Who can you substitute for Orson Welles?"

McBride does not go deeply into Welles's inability to finish things. Certainly it was attributable in a large part to Welles's way of skin-of-his-teeth filmmaking, whether or not it was some deep-set psychological disability. Welles could have written a magnificent autobiography, but when he got advances for such a work, he always returned them to the publishers. McBride writes, "Welles was deeply ambivalent about reminiscing, perhaps because he would have had to address issues he usually found too painful or delicate, such as his sexuality, his family life and some of his more traumatic experiences in Hollywood." Some of the stories of incompletion here, however, are extraordinary. His finished negative of _The Merchant of Venice_ was simply stolen from Welles's production office in Rome. The Iranians held funding for his meditation on filmmaking in the sixties, _The Other Side of the Wind_, and then the Shah was overthrown. "It's hard to imagine a movie career more littered with sensational catastrophes than mine," Welles admitted. He seldom admitted that he was the source of the less sensational catastrophes; a cameraman who worked with Welles late in his career said that Don Quixote was never completed because Welles "moved around too much, stuff got lost." For sensational and unsensational reasons, the losses recounted here are staggering. Nonetheless, McBride shows that they cannot be blamed, as some critics say, on Welles's being lazy or dilatory. The decades were filled with work for him, and he was pounding out a manuscript for a brand-new project on the night he died. As an independent filmmaker, Welles may have never fully lived up to his potential, but with a record of films that includes _Touch of Evil_ or the supremely weird _Lady from Shanghai_, his pattern of incompletion must be a minor sin. Much of McBride's personal account comes from his being an actor in _The Other Side of the Wind_ (of course, never finished) as were such droppable names as John Huston and Dennis Hopper. McBride's story won't re-make Welles's post-1950 career, but it isn't just a story of loss and lost opportunities; it is one of real movie history and at least some genuine artistic success.

Along the cinema's history - from time to time - the lucid conscious tends to appear in certain regions of the world. If Griffith gave the first step with (Intolerance and the Birth of a nation), Stroheim made the same with Greed , Robert Wiene with Dr. Caligari, Lang with Metropolis, while the comedy counted with Chaplin and Keaton, then Renoir with The rules of game and The grand illusion and Jean Cocteau emerged as if the same spirits of the Greek dramaturges would have reappeared with his wild mythic expression. Then came Orson Welles , while Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi showed us unknown facets of Japan, Luis Buñuel , the lavish son of the Surrealism in the cinema, half Spanish, half Mexican but France would have among his most sharp and talented artists as the portentous and unique Robert Bresson, and other not less relevant figures such as Marcel Carne, Max Ophlus, Rene Clement; Denmark with Dreyer, Italy would count with De Sica, Visconti and Fellini , Russia with Tarkovsky, Sweden with Bergman and Germany would have to wait until the early sixties for Scholondoff, Fassbinder, Wenders, Herzog, Von Trotta sisters and Hauff. And so, during the early eighties in Italy the brothers Taviani, Bernard Tavernier in France, Kaurismaki in Finland, The Coen brothers in North America , Quedraogo in Africa, Angelopoulos in Greece, Jarmush, Lars von Triers, Kim Ki Duk, Shohei Imamura and more recently Alexander Sokurov in Russia. Because more than artists this constellation of artists-filmmakers had something to say and how they did it.

But the case of Wells is particularly worthy to pay attention, because he embodied like nobody else the status of Shakesperian tragic personage, his ceaseless mind, his countless projects that never became materialized, the enormous efforts he had to do to make a film without abdicating in his ethic principles.

His devotion and everlasting admiration by Griffith, his sharp opinions, profane irreverence, mordacious opinions, his gastronomic excesses, among other singularities gained him respectable and unsaid enemies who neither didn't share nor understand his vision of the world. It's not easy to fit his hat, but the true of the case is he appealed to many filmmakers around the world, (Fuller, Casavettes, Allen, Saura, Almodovar, Waters, Loach, Huston, Roeg among so many others) to make the humanity would be aware (and I borrow a famous Buñuel's statement) we are not living in the best of the possible worlds. A biography that will absorb you from start to finish.

This excel essay allows us to approach the creative universe and the effervescent mind of a propulsive human being, who refused to accept outer impositions, filming what he wanted along his lifetime.

"A filmmaker is really great when the camera is an eye in the mind of a poet."
ORSON WELLES

Mention the name Orson Welles and his most famous involvement - with the radio scare 'War of the Worlds' - immediately comes to mind; but for a deeper understanding of Welles' life and career you need What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career. His later projects were largely self-financed and erratically distributed, but film critic and biographer Joseph McBride has a personal familiarity with Welles from previous projects worked on with him and here shows how the Hollywood studio system forced Welles out of the industry. Its value thus is twofold: as a biography for Welles fans, and as a history of film industry operations and politics.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

While I might be biased because a many parts of this book included stories about my father, Gary Graver, this is not something you want to miss out on if you have any interest in Orson Welles or the inner workings of the Hollywood movie industry. I knew Orson when I was a young boy and teenager during the time my father worked with him, but my memories are nothing compared to the vivid details and thoroughness of Joe's writings.

This book taught me a lot about a man whom I admired and feared. He was rather scary from the perspective of a ten year old, but he often took time to have me sit with him while he taught me card tricks. I am so grateful that these stories are now available for everyone to read. Thank you Joe for your commitment in documenting what no one else ever has and sharing these wonderful stories.

You don't have to grow up in Kentucky to love these wonderful recipes. It has the best apple pie recipe I have ever eaten in my life. The cookbook is divided into sections with content pages before each section so you can quickly find a great recipe without spending hours searching for that one special recipe. Sections include main dishes, vegetables, salads (everything but lettuce salads), pies, cakes, candies and others. The last section is Pickling and Preserving for those cooks with small back yard gardens who want to make some old fashion goodies. Recipies are made from healthy fresh farm products and flavorings - no chemicals and artificials - just the way our parents and grandparents cooked.

[ASIN:0938402102 What's Cooking in Kentucky]
A very fast transaction! I love this cookbook.
It has the best recipes, some hard to find.
Very well pleased!

I had the wonderful experience of meeting the lady that wrote this cookbook. Her personality shines through the great recipes she included in this book. When I was trying to decide what to send to a co-worker that lives hundreds of miles from me, this is what I chose to send her. She lives in Oklahoma and tells me she LOVED the gift!
I would recommend this book as a gift for a bride most definitely, or for any other occasion!

My wife is by far the best cook whose food I have eaten. My mother gave her this book some 16+ yrs ago and she has absolutely worn the thing out pages are missing the bindings have broken down and countless bellies have been filled through the years. I am just happy to find it still available. BY far THE ONE AND ONLY COOKBOOK A WOMAN WILL EVER NEED !!!!!!!!!

My wife's hobby is collecting cook books. She and I both enjoy cooking. This book is probably the cookbook that is used by us the most frequently in our kitchen. It is full of just plain good eating recipes that are authored primarily by Kentucky cooks. You don't have to go to the west coast nor Europe to get the ingredients that go into these recipes. "What's Cooking in Kentucky" was given to my wife several years ago by our grand daughter as a gift and we have thoroughly enjoyed it. We recently purchased four of these books to give as gifts. I would highly recommend this cook book to some one that is looking for a book of easy to prepare, great tasting recipes.
Carl Robinson

I was fortunate to have met Jesse Stuart on one occasion and I own every book that he wrote -- I've read them all, "Taps" multiple times. He wrote darn near as many books as did Agatha Christie.

Jesse Stuart, the former Poet Laureat of Kentucky, and a renowned Kentucky (and Ohio) school teacher, was probably second only to Mark Twain in hallmarking the humorous American Short Story, as is the case with "Taps." This book was really based upon an impoverished Eastern Kentucky family and, as the book generally portrays them as hillbilly scoundrels, I'm certain that Jesse would never have admitted this actuality to anyone other than a trusted friend. But it was apparently pretty clear, when the book was originally published, as to whom it was all about and a lot of folks were talking about it.

In any event, the fictional family of Private Tussie got the word that this unfortunate soldier was killed overseas in wartime and the large clan proceeded to reap an insurance benefit as a result. The body was sent home and carried up the rocky hillside to the old family cemetery for burial on the backs of Tussie's numerous kinfolk. Subsequently, the old family patriarch decided that they could quit living like trash, in squalor, and rent a nice big home. Other relatives also flocked to the scene to reap the dubious rewards of Tussie's death. Reveling in their newfound prosperity in the big new home, the clan does not endear themselves to the local community with their endless Hillbilly antics and peccadillos.

I cannot go further without revealing a spoiler of the story but I can assure you that it's one hilarious tale, in my opinion, Stuart's best. (Most would say that "The Thread That Runs So True" is his top read -- it certainly got him the most fame).

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed either "Huckleberry Finn" (Twain) or, "As I Lay Dying," (Faulkner). It's quite readable and a real page-turner. As a Native Appalachian, I can tell you, however, that "Taps" has been a minor topic for increasing controversy as political correctness rears its ugly head ever-higher in American sociology! *.*

This book was the winner of the 1943 Thomas Jefferson Award and the illustrator is THE Thomas Benton, the famous mural painter from Missouri.

This book is a literary classic in that it can be read on so many diverse planes of enjoyment by so many different kinds of people. It is folk-poetry sensuous and hilarious fun, but also lots of eager page turning to see what is the world can be going to happen next.

Everyone who reads this book will enjoy it.

This book was written after Stuart conducted interiews with my family (my grandmother on my mother's side is a Tussie) who still live in southern Ohio and Kentucky. It is a true-to-life tale of a poor country family who finds themselves suddenly "rich." The language of the hills and the nature of good ol' home folk comes to life in Stuart's telling. This is a story for anyone with family from the hills.

Do not read the introduction before you read the book!!!! Gifford explains why it wasn't made into a movie by giving away the surprise ending. I can't believe they put that in the book. It is a wonderful story about an Eastern Kentucky family in the WWII era that wastes the insurance money from thier dead son....)Hope you enjoy the book!

This book gives a look in the life of uneducated folks in the hills of Kentucky, and how money can make a change in thier life and relatives life. The language is true to the region this story happens in, and the life-style is factual. A book that can give a reader insight in the life of mountain people doesnt come along very often. The author has lived this life and know how to tell a story using his past experience

Harris Sklar has captured the essence of life on the backstretch. The pictures are gorgeous, and the people and horses come to life through the skillful intermingling of text and photographs. The backstretch really is a small city -- of people who work very, very hard and have dedicated their lives to chasing an elusive dream. They are out every morning, often in the worst kind of weather. Anyone who works with Thoroughbreds risks life and limb every day. This book is a tribute to their dedication. The section on Smarty Jones is compelling. My favorite picture is the one of Smarty galloping, his neck arched, the rider standing straight up in the stirrups. Talk about raw horsepower. Wow!

The track can be the height of glamour and ceremony where the genteel hang out with the touts. This book has haunting images of a whole invisible underworld society that is surprisingly complex. There is pathos and charm in these people's devotion to the horses and the challenges of producing a winner. The inside story on Smarty Jones was a special treat. Highly recommended for anyone who loves horses.

This book is a tour de force. The photographs perfectly capture the magnificence of the horses and the special relationship they have with those who care for them--a relationship that's rarely seen or appreciated by even the most avid racing fans. Sklar shows us a world few of us know (the backstretch), and it's almost uncanny how well he does it. I look forward to more work by this fine photographer. Highly recommended.

This book is about people, not only horses; an insider's view of a self-contained community little known to most of us. This is an informative, enlightening, candid exposure to the bonds between the workers and their families who RESIDE at the racetrack with each other and with the horses to which they dedicate their lives. The photographer evokes empathy from the reader because of his unusual sensitivity and stirring photos. It is a treat to enter and savor this special place.

I found the book to be entertaining as well as informative. It's like watching the making of a movie with spectacular photos of every aspect. The imagery evokes emotions from my childhood when I would go to the track with my father. I would recommend this to anybody who has ever felt a love for the sport of horseracing or just wanted to know more about it. You won't be disappointed.