Ohio Books

Ellen Bromfield Geld's new book View From the Fazenda is a delightful chronicle of her life as an immigrant to Brazil in 1961 up through today. She and her entrepreneurial husband Carson moved to Brazil as bright newlyweds, but without many material things other than the clothes on their backs. After several jobs on ranches, they accumulated enough funds to buy a small farm of 240 acres. Unlike most typical Brazilian farmers who lived in town, the Gelds quickly built a small house, making it the focal point for the recreation from a monoculture coffee farm into a diversified model. Showing a true love of the land Geld, writes of the many conservation innovations they bring to the farm with terracing, crop rotations and other ecologically friendly improvements.

Her travels throughout Brazil are interesting and well told. The best are her experiences in the fragile Amazon in Alta Floresta; Riding the riverboat on the River Sao Francisco; and the beauty of the relatively unknown Plantanal. She vividly describes the wonders she encounters in these sparsely populated, wild west areas of Brazil. While explaining these new areas, she also expresses her uneasiness and concern with how development is occurring in many of these areas relating them to the older areas of Parana that she saw develop when she first arrived in Brazil.

Several of her stories in the book are particularly humorous. Two of the better ones are how she has to show a group of Brazilian tourists that an American motel is not paid for by the hour and her experience of riding the Brazilian equivalent to the Orient Express.

Her forty year experience of adapting to a new country, raising a family of five children (all of whom study abroad but return to Brazil), and seeing the changes that occur over forty years is extremely interesting. It brought to mind what my ancestors might have faced when they came to the U. S. several generations ago to begin a new life as farmers in a very strange land.

I started the book over a weekend and couldn't put it down. It is highly recommended.

After posting my review of Geld's book, I read the review written by an unnamed person in the Publishers Weekly. This reviewer read a different book from the one I did, or worse chose only to skim it, with the thought of writing from their own biased understanding of Brazil. I would be willing to wager that this reviewer has never set foot on a farm nor taken the time to understand a country as big and diverse as the U. S.

The reviewer obviously wanted Geld to delve into the ecological problems of developing in the Amazon River basin and discards completely Gelds questioning of the long term issues related to development in the Amazon River basin. Geld very interestingly compared development in Parana, which she witnessed when she first arrived in Brazil, with what she saw occurring in the Amazon.

The political realities of agrarian reform are also lost on the reviewer. Several times in the book Geld explained how politicians in their attempt to improve conditions for small farmers, often complicate and hinder proper development of land. Geld's description of the small farmer who couldn't get title to his land, because the government was concerned that title would allow him to sell his land, but resulted in him not being able to borrow money to properly improve the land was but one example of her understanding and admirable description of these complex issues. Geld's quote of her father, "Poor people make poor soil," is very appropriate.

Your comment, "...parallels between the rich Ohio agrarian society of her youth and the subtropical poverty of a Brazilian farm economy", is laughable. I have visited Louis Bromfield's Malabar Farms twice in the past ten years and can tell you that the surrounding farms are anything but rich. Due to the diligence and innovative farming practices of her father, he slowly turned a run-down Depression era farm into a marvelous, model, working farm. Brazil's agricultural economy is far from poverty, as the country is rapidly overtaking the U. S. in farm production and productivity. This unnamed reviewers comments reflect either ignorance or some other hidden political agenda...

Walks Around Akron: Rediscovering a City in Transition (Series on Ohio History and Culture)
Having grown up in Akron, and later living in Akron for ten years as an adult, it was nostalgic to read about Akron's neighborhoods and the surrounding towns so familiar to me. Also I loved the artistic illustrations. The book itself is published on good quality paper stock which makes it all the more valuable. It is well written and illustrated by Russ Musarra and Chuck Ayers both residing in the Akron area. I purchased a book for myself and two more books for relatives who currently live in Akron. I consider it a book I will always treasure.

GREAT BOOK....a great way to see Akron if you can't walk around here and a good way to go to the places listed in the book....and the cover picture is the garden in my neighborhood.

Whenever I have a question about core acoustical problems or find a reference to give to colleagues or students, it is Graff's old but great "Wave Motion in Elastic Solids" I end up using or recommending by far the most. This book is a rare treat for it's clarity, the material it covers and the derivation it contains. The book does things right in terms presentation. It does not leave important core derivations as exercise but presents them fully throughout the book. While exercises are present they are not needed to find material but do illustrate important concepts. The mathematical language is that of engineering mathematics that is still mostly typical today. My only critique is that alternative and more modern ways to arrive at certain derivations are missing (for example deriving the fundamental solution of the wave equation in the plane using distributions rather than through Hankel transforms or a treatment of the method of descend to relate wave equations of different dimensions). But this is a minor critique because the book at least contains comprehensive treatment of the Hankel transform path, while it is hard to find it in many other acoustics books of comparable level. In general a lot of concepts are derived and explained in unusual clarity and misconceptions about the applicability of certain methods beyond its realm is often not only avoided but also explained.

To cover the missing ground of treatment of the wave equation in terms of distributions and a nice and easy treatment of the method of descend I'd recommend Stein and Shakarchi's recent, very accessible and overall just excellent "Fourier Analysis", Princeton University Press, 2003.

Anybody that looks for a quality reference for acoustics, this is a real catch and if one wants to buy just one reference, this may well be the best one to get despite its age. Given its clarity it certainly is suitable for self-study.

This book is great. This book describes the full theory of wave motions in elastic solids. Great mathematical descriptions and interpretations. Good derivations of equations of motion and their assumptions. This book is a masterwork and an awesome referencebook for everything that has to do with waves!

The information complied by Captain Way is invaluable to anyone interested in the towing industry of the " Western Rivers".
This book not contains names of vessels, but photographs and tid-bits of first hand knowledge.
This book has already become a prized addition to my collection.

This is by far one of the best if not the best research tool for looking up the towboats during the steam era. It list the boats what type, type of hull, who built it and where, and a complete history of the boat from begining to its end. With the Way's Packet boat Directory you have a total history of steam river transportation. Totally unsurmountable in knowledge for your research or just curiousity of the history of steam travel.It includes wonderful black and white photos that enable you to feel like you are ready to board and take a trip into time.

This book is about a boy who was considered borderline retarded, with an IQ of about 80. He suffered a lot of abuse in various institutions and foster homes, but later as his life went on, thanks to kindness of others, determination, and a patient wife or girlfriend who tutored him, he went to school, and earned some degree. One line in the book sticks out in my mind, where he wrote: "I know this story is true, because that boy is the author of this book."

I read the book years ago (and again fewer years ago in between then and now) for a paper I was writing on juvenile delinquency, but everytime I say those lines to somebody about the book, I get chills down my spine, tears in my eyes, and goosebumps on my arms!

If you haven't read it, put it on your list.

This book is a masterpiece of investigative reporting and heart rending storytelling.

At a time when we are actually considering doing away with juvenile justice and sending children to adult court and making them vulnerable to capital punishment, every voting citizen in what is left of America must read this book.

Careers are made on the backs of children who are abused more thoroughly in institutions taxpayers support for their "care" than had ever been abused at home. Most of these children were homeless to begin with, neglected and abandoned. Juvenile justice is supposed to be a safe harbor in a storm while lives are sorted out and treatment applied, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Kenneth Wooden includes a chapter on Charles Manson which this book is best known for, but there is much, much more rich territory to explore in the pages of this masterpiece, including jobs, kickbacks, and million dollar contracts.

This book just recently was reprinted as a second edition. It was out of print for awhile. I have seen it referred to in so many other books that I've read that I can't tell you how valuable the research is between its pages.

Get your copy now while you can. It is one of the most important books you will read all year.

...geminiwalker

Flavor of the region near Taos in the time of transition of Los Alamos from an isolated boys' school to a nuclear weapons lab. Charming, gripping mysticism and sociology of local Indian mentality. Very good reading. Fabrication based on history, the real story (The House at Otowi Bridge) is less romantic and less gripping but equally interesting. I read both with pleasure.

The Woman at Otowi Crossing is about a white woman in a mostly Indian and Hispanic community in northern New Mexico who experiences an epiphany which confounds her family and friends. It's hard to explain it in a few words here, but basically she experiences a sudden, shocking insight that all things in the universe are connected in one big whole.

When she tries to relate this experience to her boyfriend, her daughter, and the scientific community at Los Alamos, they have a hard time grasping what she's trying to express. As time goes by, however, she becomes a mythic figure to many people.

This book is written with a lot of detail about places and atmospheres, but doesn't get bogged down in it. The development of the atom bomb is a central metaphor relating directly to the main characters' lives. I could not put the book down.

Now in an updated and expanded second edition, Women Who Kept The Lights: An Illustrated History Of Female Lighthouse Keepers continues to be a unique and informative contribution to Lighthouse histories and studies. In an occupation dominated by males, Mary Louise and Candace Clifford reveal the names of 141 women who received official keeper appointments in the lighthouse service. More than twice that number received appointments as assistant keepers. Most of this number were wives, widows or daughters of former keepers, beginning with Hannah Thomas at Plymouth Light on the Massachusetts coasts in 1776 (her husband went off to fight the British), and ending with Fannie Salter, who tended the Turkey Point Light on Chesapeake Bay from her husband's death in 1925 until she retired in 1947. It was only with the introduction of automated lights by the U.S. Coast Guard in the 20th Century that the lighthouse keepers became obsolete and passed into history. "Must" reading for lighthouse history enthusiasts and women's studies groups, Women Who Kept The Lights wonderfully details the careers of 30 of these vigorous women.

Until I found this book listed by Amazon.com, I never realized women *were* lighthouse keepers. Clifford and Clifford's book will banish forever the image of the lighthouse keeper as crusty old batchelor, and will bring a renewed sense of awareness of the many accomplishments of which women are capable. The careful research done by the authors brings out a rarely publicized image of the women who tended the big lights, carefully pollishing the reflectors and the glass, keeping the lighthouses clean and functional, welcoming and educating visitors and doing their part - often heroically, to keep the vital paths of sea and lake open and safer by running these lights (often operating more than one beacon), running foghorns(either through mechanical devices or by hand), even saving lives. Through each vignette, a larger and more complete image emerges of the lives of the women who tended lighthouses, often while caring for invalid fathers and husbands, as well as bearing and raising children in these often-isolated locations. I must admit, I wish there had been more material on the west coast of America, and hope there might be a sequal. The photographs and sidebars added substance to this excellent publication. This will be a worthwhile addition to any library, especially if the reader enjoys American history and the role of women in American culture.

One of the subjects of these seven essays, which have their center on the theme of ' the wound and the bow', Ernest Hemingway spoke after his famous First World One wounding, about 'being stronger at the broken places'. The major idea and myth around which this group of essays center is the myth of Philocetes, the Wound and the Bow. The final essay of this work explicates and retells the myth. Philocetes has been charged with Heracles with the task of lighting his funeral - pyre. For this he is rewarded with Heracles, great weapon, a bow. On the way to wage the war against Troy the Greek stop in a small island. Philocetes approaches the local shrine to worship and his given a terrible bite by a snake. The wound does not heal, rather festers. And it gives off a terrible smell. The fellow- warriors of Philocetes abandon him to his terrible suffering, and to the additional suffering of loneliness. Years pass. The Greeks are not able to triumph over the Trojans. They capture one of the Trojan soothsayers who tells them that they will never triumph unless they use the arms of Heracles. Odysseus returns to the island where Philocetes has been abandoned. Wilson in retelling the story focuses on the version of Sophocles, and not on parallel ones of Aeschylus and Euripedes. In this version Heracles son at the behest of Odysseus attempts to persuade Philocetes to give over the weapon. The young man is honest and does not wish to engage in the ruse and deceptions suggested by Odysseus. Essentially Odysseus instructs him to be deceitful for this one time, so that they can be more honest later on. But the young man refuses, and in so doing provides his loyalty to Philocetes, his understanding of his suffering. As a result they venture with the bow to Troy where the Greeks at last have their victory.
For Wilson the heart of this book is in the theme that those who go through some extraordinary suffering may be granted with it extraordinary powers of creation. He illustrates the theme in reading the works of Dickens, Kipling, Joyce, Wharton, and Hemingway.
Wilson was a critic of enormous erudition who could sweep through and bring together learning from diverse worlds. He was a pioneer in his own seeing of the value of the great turn- of- the century literary creators . A master man- of - letters this book of essays remains one of his best works.

Dickens was Dostoyevsky's master. Shaw and Chesterton saw Dickens as a very great writer. His grandfather had been a butler and his grandmother a housekeeper. When Charles's father went to Marshalsea Prison when he was twelve his life changed. His whole nature was penetrated by grief and humiliation. Wilson's theory is that the literary work is compensation for the wound. In the middle of his career Dickens experienced a mounting dislike for the top layers of middle class society. Dickens invented a new literary genre, the novel of the social group. In LITTLE DORRIT the fable was presented through imprisoning states of mind. Dickens was emotionally unstable, almost as unstable as Dostoyevsky.

The wound of Kipling also occurred in his childhood when his parents left him in the care of a heartless aunt while they returned to India. The trauma is recounted by Kipling in BAA, BAA BLACK SHEEP. Kipling's sister termed the place the 'house of desolation'. Kipling's work was shot through with hate. Kipling's failure of nerve may be explained by the fact that he lacked faith in the artist's vocation. Some stories show Kipling's morbid permanent sense of injury. Inescapable illness dominates the later Kipling.

The theme of Casanova's Memoirs is the many things life may hold. Edith Wharton's later work dulled the reputation of her earlier work. Kipling, Dickens, Wharton were all maladjusted. Edith Wharton writes of the conflict between the individual and the social group. Mrs. Wharton was always aware of the pit of misery, the wastefulness of the plutocracy. Wilson believes that Mrs. Wharton's genius was triggered by an exceptional emotional strain.

Hemingway possessed an exceptional mimetic gift. He mastered a precise and clear style. The actual title of the collection of essays is derived from Wilson's essay on Sophocles's play, PHILOCTETES. There is the conception that superior strength is inseparable from disability.

"Yankee Tigers: Through the Civil War with the 125th Ohio" by Ralsa Rice is a spirited and highly entertaining first person account by one of Opdycke's Tigers. Editors Baumgartner and Strayer extensively cross-reference Rice's account with Charles T. Clarks' regimental of the 125th Ohio, as well as the Official Records, pension records, and other pertinent source material.

The real treasures of this book are the numerous cartes de visite from Ralsa Rice's own album, discovered by one of the editors in an Ohio flea market in the 1980s. Of the 67 photos in the book, 18 are from Rice's collection, augmented with another set collected by Captain Edward P. Bates, one of the last commanders of the 125th. These photos allow the reader to put a face with the names of many of the men mentioned in the narrative, an give an added poignancy to the often impersonal statistics of killed, wounded, and missing.

Rice writes with a keen wit, and a soldier's eye for the humorous and ridiculous in the alternatingly frustrating, boring, and terrifying life of the Civil War infantry soldier. He also offers welcome glimpses of the often-overlooked second and third tier commanders in the Western theater.

This is a fine first-person account, and highly recommended.

Thoroughly enjoyable book that is well worth the cost for anyone interested in the exploits of the Western federal army and in particular one of the most gallant and honored regiments of the war. Excellent photographs.

I had to read this for an anthropology class prior to visiting Cameroon, little did I know how accurate it would be, I don't even think I grasped the whole story the first time because I had never been in that culture. This is an excellent work, fast reading and very informative. Good for anyone who wants to learn about Cameroonian culture or just another view of the world in general.

Your Madness, Not Mine - A Review. "We're the matches that will light the gunpowder that has been lying cold like ash. If we don't take a step who will . . . ?" This definitive assertion and rhetorical question, posed by an enterprising Beba woman in Juliana Makuchi Nfah Abbenyi's collection of short stories,Your Madness, Not Mine,is evocative of the author's own project which in many ways is as potent and innovative as the above metaphor. To read Makuchi, a Cameroonian woman writer, and postcolonial intelligentsia in the West, is to land at once in a rich, complex and contradictory world, bubbling with tensions ensuing from gender conflicts, polyglossia and constant shiftings of center / periphery, self / other dichotomies. In a span of nine short stories, Makuchi guides us through the contours of her native African land which shares the patriarchal history with the rest of the world, while exposing its own unique gender quarrels, compromises, and victories. The first story, "The Healer", for instance, plays upon the myth of motherhood that is upheld as the major or sole criterion of womanhood in most cases. It shows how a society that sees barren women as a curse, can end up shoving them into the hands of wicked charlatans who cheat them ruthlessly and drive them insane. The title story also has a woman domesticated and deprived of individual freedom by her typically patriarchal husband despite being educated and capable of making financial contributions to the household. But if these are stories of women's biological pathology and gender vulnerability, then in "Election Fever" we have a story of women's manipulative and conniving powers. The grandmother in this story takes her entire family by surprise when she secretively joins many (opposition)political parties and accepts bribery in the shape of cash and Pakistani rice. She also instills a lesson on flippancy and exploitation that leaders and followers mutually play as part of the political game, in her young granddaughter who accompanies her to party meetings. "Bayam Sellam" however, is the story that presents the traditional strength and entrepreneurship of Camaroonian women in the shape of market women. Descendants of strong willed mothers and grandmothers, these market whizzes possess the solidarity and business acumen required to call up a strike and force the government into declaring a state of emergency. If the women in Makuchi's world are economically and politically aware and active, than her men are by no means lacking behind in this arena. They have their own share of pondering and debating over the postcolonial scramble that Camaroon has become since independence in 1960. Hailing from that part of central Africa which has been thrice colonized (Germans, Britishers and French, all had their share of plunder of this land) and is still struggling to wrench free from the clutches of the neocolonial beast gnawing in the shape of capitalist America, the men in these narratives are often concerned about the grim socio-economic fate that awaits them. "American Lottery" and "The Forest Will Claim You Too" are two such stories which delineate the myriad of home grown as well as imposed problems that jitter the heart of this country. Government corruption in particular, and elitist callousness in general, French aggression and racism, in addition to the economic exploitation by next door neighbors like Nigeria, deforestation or "environmental genocide" by both French and Asians, leading to other social hazards like "timber babies", and loss of ancient herbal medicinal provisions are some of the ailments that contribute towards breaking the backbone of Camaroonian economy, and falsifying its persistent efforts towards modernization. No wonder Makuchi blatantly points at the devaluation of the CFA (the Camaroonian currency) and the escalating inflation scenario to be the root cause behind the brain drain that America is enjoying today. The implicit question that lingers right under the narrative surface seems to be: If the "Third World" youth is often eager to have a way out of this labyrinthian hole and aspires for that alluring land of promises, who is to blame? Nonetheless, it is relieving to find that not all Camaroonian youth are attracted to the West. Peter and his friends in "American Lottery", for instance, are well aware of the dilemmas of identity loss, alienation and frustration that are quick to follow the fate of those who turn their face away from the poverty and confusion of motherland in the hope of totally adopting and assimilating a foreign culture. The same densely packed story depicts local riots, curfews and rebellions to be amongst other things that keep Camaroonians perpetually involved in their country's future. Like her themes, Makuchi's images and metaphors are often drawn from both indigenous and foreign sources. So we have palm and plantain, wrappa and nsaa, juxtaposed with the image of the Marlboro man with his will - o'- the - wisp pose and foreign embassies with their whining twining queue of locals. Her stories, with both rural and urban settings also often break into poetic strings of thought and are embellished with sprinklings of the Beba language, some pidgin, Anglophone as well as Francophone diction. Reading these superb pieces of fiction has definitely been a very enriching experience for me. If you are looking for thought provoking yet lucid, and passionately written fictionalized theory, or theorized fiction, then this is the text for you.