Louisiana Books

Ms. Cherry's *Exiled Heart* deserves any accolade one can muster: moving, extraordinary, strikingly intelligent, and--yes--heartbreaking. Ms. Cherry's meditations upon fate's intrusions into love are a balance of braininess and passion.

Steve Vivian

Dr. Bainard Cowan's masterpiece on Moby Dick is the result of a deep and thoughtful consideration of the work in the great context of the epic tradition. The cosmos of Moby Dick is presented in light of the puritan world picture which denies the open and honest exploration of the untamed beauty of creation. This in depth penetration beyond the glassy surface, of what some have mistook to be merely an adventure novel, reveals the mystery that Ishmael is so hungry to experience. Faced with the figure of Ahab, whose character is revealed in very short bursts of narrative clarity, Ishmael must wrestle with the corrupted view of Leviathan bestowed on him by Ahab and the indifference of nature. Dr. Cowan's book is good for any serious scholar of literature who faces the problems of a withering Academy. I entreat you to explore these exiled waters to come to a deeper understanding of the American Myth which is so important to the restoration of our culture.

Great! THis is the best book I've ever read

I found this book to be a great way to learn about public hiking trails in CNY area. It has many details about access, estimated time, and conditions on the trails. One particularly useful feature is that it has a copy of a topographic map of the area with the trail clearly marked. Has a map showing the relative positions of each trail across the region with the table of contents. I like this book because it gives me ideas about new places to explore with lots of specific information.

I highly recommend this book and LSU grad Chris Warner's "A Tailgater's Guide to SEC Football"

Both are must-haves for the die-hard LSU fan.

This book is an extremely comprehensive collection of LSU Tiger Football history. I have had it for months and have just begun to scratch the surface. Anyone who ever played for the Tigers up until the publication year is listed in this book, along with the years and positions that they played. In addition, there are amazing facts and stories recorded here. Finney does a fine job of capturing the spirit of LSU Football. This ain't light reading, however as most people know, most Tiger fans don't do anything lightly.

This is a marvelous effort which offers insights into the philosophical background of key spokesmen in the Disunion/Secession movement. Focusing on nine such figures (such as Rhett, Wigfall, Ruffin...), Walther weaves a mini-biography of sorts, along with discussion of the contribution these "fire-eaters" made to the fruition of their efforts - formal Secession of core Southern states, after the election of Black Republican apostle, A. Lincoln. Walther shows the how the "abstract" art of politics finally leads to "tangible" armed conflict - conflict which in many ways was given an intellectual basis by the writings and actions of the nine Southerners outlined in this book. As I often tend to more military oriented studies, Walther's Fire-Eaters was a wonderful sidebar! I recommend this book to all Civil War students, especially, of course, those with a particular slant toward CSA studies.

Fred Chappell, First and Last Words (Louisiana State U., 1989)

If every poem in Fred Chappell's eighth collection, First and Last Words, were as good as "An Old Mountain Woman Reading the Book of Job," Fred Chappell would have written, hands down, the finest book of poetry released during the twentieth century. They aren't, not all of them, but a fair number are good enough to put this book in, say, the top twenty, sharing the rarefied air of Charles Simic's The World Doesn't End, Robert Lowell's Lord Weary's Castle, Hayden Carruth's Collected Shorter Poems, and other such lights.

First and Last Words, a book that can loosely be called the beginning of Chappell's modern period, is where the poet turned slightly from the hardcore imagist work he'd been doing previously and looked toward a more abstract notion of poetry. He did so, however, without falling prey to the vagueness (or, lord help us, the idea that poems should be "message-based") that turns so many potential poets into unreadable hacks. Nowehere is this better illustrated than in "An Old Mountain Woman Reading the Book of Job."

"...She moves her lips to read but does not speak.
What is there to answer these terrible words,
To these sharp final words that engrave the fate
Of a hammered old man?..."

Beautifully rendered images combine with musings of characters, animals, even the elements at times. First and Last Words is brilliant, and deserves to be on the short shelf. **** ½

I wrote the book to move the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion, "Wheat's Tigers," from the shadows or margins of history to its forefront. I felt that I had to improve upon the work of Charles Dufour, who did a solid biography of Roberdeau Wheat in: Gentle Tiger: The Gallant Life of Roberdeau Wheat, but who mentioned little if nothing about the rest of the battalion and who got too many of the battle sequences wrong (but what was accepted during the time of publication). Although am most pleased with my chapters on the filibuster wars, the battalion's formation in New Orleans, and the battles of 1st Manassas (esp. the phase on Henry Hill), Front Royal, and Gaines Mill, I have already found room for improvement, especially on the confusing engagement on Matthews's Hill. Since my publication, Ross Brooks has written a fine article entitled: "Desperate Stand: Wheat's First Special Battalion, Louisiana Volunteer Infantry on Matthew's Hill, 21 July 1861" in Military Collector & Historian Magazine. Hopefully, in a possible second edition, Ross an I will better articulate the confused battle. Either way, I recommend you read both accounts and synthesize them on your own. Also since publication, Ross Brooks has also found some new material that shows that the that the entire company of Tiger Rifles was outfitted with blue Zouave jackets with red cotton trim in New Orleans and that after the battle of Manassas, the survivors received a second issue of gray with burgandy trim so as to avoid any future friendly-fire incidents like that which occurred at the foot of Matthews's Hill (they therefore wore blue in 1861 and grey in 1862). I also recommend Ross's article in Military Collector & Historian Magazine: "Part Irish and the Rest the Flower of Southern Chivalry: Clothing, Arms, and Equipment of the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion of Louisiana Volunteer Infantry, 1861-1862." What I intended to do with the book was to take the Tigers from the shadows or margins of history and bring them to the forefront to elicit constructive debate and to spur future corrective research (i.e., Pie Dufour inspired me and maybe I can inspire others). Other good books to read about Confederate Louisianians are: Irish Rebels, Confederate Tigers: A History of the 6th Louisiana Volunteers, 1861-1865 and Lee's Tigers: The Louisiana Infantry in the Army of Northern Virginia (Civil War (Louisana State University Press)). You'll note that both titles use "Tigers" in them but thay are not the original--or Wheat's--Tigers, but those who assumed the moniker of Wheat's roughneck filibusters who conducted frontal assaults one too many times. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it, for it was a labor of love (although it was a very difficult unit to tackle). Today, the Tigers are best engendered by: The Fighting 69th: One Remarkable National Guard Unit's Journey from Ground Zero to Baghdad ,the New York National Guard unit, which, before 9/11, was considered to be at the absolute bottom of the Army food chain, but then rose to the occasion on the infamous day in their own way and ended up in Iraq, fighting like the Tigers of old. Some things just never change. A TIGER FOREVER!

My book was used as the basis for a documentary on Camp Ruston released September 2007 by PBS through Louisiana Public Broadcasting. See [...]. Wesley Harris, author