Oklahoma Books

I recommend reading this book if you are interested in the rituals and culture of the Lakota. It provides clear and interesting discussions of major rituals that form important components of their way of life. The material is drawn largely from interviews with Black Elk, and the writing really explains significance of important details in the various practices. The book also provides a good basis for understanding how the cultural practices fit into Lakota history. This book is also a fine one to read in relation to "Black Elk Speaks," "The 6th Grandfather," and "When the Tree Flowered."

Black Elk is and was sacred Elder. Through his life we are given this knowledge. He has helped many to understand the way of the Lakota; following the natural law. While not all Lakota follow the traditional ways as closely as they did before the arrival of the white man, they are still connected to these rites and inhierently understand these teachings. It's only to outside world that these things become suprising moments of clarity. Joseph Epes Brown took time before it was too late, to record these teachings, which is a blessing and a gift of knowledge to all who would read, understand and heed these words. If you wish to learn what dwells is in the hearts of Native American people, you would do well to open this book and your minds.

I haven't actually finished this book yet but I'm looking forward to doing so. This spirituality is deeply sophisticated and elevated. I think the whole world is greatly indebted to the American Indian Nation. Furthermore, thank you for wonderful service.

Joseph Epes Brown was fortunate in meeting men who possessed great human and spiritual qualities, especially Black Elk who had a unique quality of power, kindliness and sense of mission. Born in 1862, Black Elk grew up when his people had the freedom of the plains, hunted bison; he fought at Little Bighorn and at Wounded Knee Creek and knew Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, and American Horse. He traveled with Buffalo Bill to Italy, France and England. During his youth Black Elk was instructed in the sacred love of his people by Whirlwind Chaser, Black Road and Elk Head from whom he learned the history and deep meanings of his people's spiritual heritage. Through prayer, fasting and deep understanding of his heritage, Black Elk became a wise man, receiving visions and acquiring special powers to be used for the good of his nation. Because of his sense of mission Black Elk wanted this book to be written so that the reader could gain a better understanding of the truths of the Indian traditions.

In his foreword Black Elk tells us: "There is much talk of peace among the Christians, yet this is just talk. Perhaps it may be, and this is my prayer, through our sacred pipe, and through this book in which I shall explain what our pipe really is, peace may come to those people who can understand, an understanding which must be of the heart and not of the head alone. Then they will realize that we Indians know the One true God, and that we pray to Him continually. I have wished to make this book through no other desire than to help my people in understanding the greatness and truth of our own tradition, and also to help in bringing peace upon the earth, not only among men, but within men and between the whole of creation."

The wisdom of the Indians is based on such concepts as "The Earth is your Grandmother and Mother, and She is sacred. Every step that is taken upon her should be as a prayer" and "Every dawn as it comes is a holy event, every day is holy." The Indians developed their own religion based on the gift of the sacred pipe given by a very beautiful woman who approached two Lakota Indians out hunting. One of them had bad intentions and he and the mysterious woman were wrapped in a cloud. When the cloud lifted the sacred woman was standing there and at her feet was the man who was nothing but bones and terrible snakes were eating him. Black Elk interpreted this as an eternal truth: "Any man who is attached to the senses and to the things of this world, is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by snakes which represent his own passions." The mysterious woman presented the tribe with a pipe and stone, explaining the significance of the gift. On her departure she said to the Standing Hollow Horn: "Behold this pipe! Always remember how sacred it is, and treat it as such, for it will take you to the end. Remember, in me there are four ages. I am leaving now, but I shall look back upon your people in every age, and at the end I shall return." These four ages find a parallel in the Hindu tradition during which true spirituality becomes increasingly obscured until the cycle closes with catastrophe, after which the primordial spirituality is restored and the cycle begins once again.

Through the rite of the keeping of the soul, the Indians purified the souls of the dead and increased love for one another. This rite is followed by the rite of purification, known to us as the sacred lodge. The ritual of "Crying for a Vision" was used long before the coming of the sacred pipe. Crazy Horse received most of his power through "lamenting" or crying for a vision for some great event or ordeal such as going on the war path. "But perhaps the most important reason for 'lamenting' is that it helps us to realize our oneness with all things, to know that all things are our relatives; and then in behalf of all things we pray to Wakan-Tanka that He may give to us knowledge of Him who is the source of all things, yet greater than all things." Chapters are devoted to the Sun dance - one of the greatest rites; to "The making of Relatives" reflecting the relationship between man and Wakan-Tanka; preparing a girl for womanhood; and the rite of "The Throwing of the ball." Through these ceremonies we learn how the Sioux have come to terms with God, nature and their fellow man.

If you question the superiority and validity of the goals of western society; if you are conducting a self-examination; if you are re-evaluating the premises and orientations of our society; if you are concerned about our environmental crisis; if you are concerned about the problems created by highly developed technology; if you are questioning our basic values concerning life, nature and the destiny of man; if you are open to look at the models represented by the American Indians; if you want talk about peace to become action about peace you will find something of value in this book.

A beautiful book. You can learn about Siuox religious practie and beliefs. The reader will come away with a sense of how similar religios faiths can be. The Sioux it turns out are not so different from Christians, Hindus or any other group that uses faith to guide people through what is both difficult and beautiful in life.

I bought this book for my grandfather who is retired and just wanted to know about all the different birds and so now he knows everything.

I like the book because it has close up actual pictures and good descriptions of the birds which is vital in identifying them. So far I have found all the birds I've been looking for. I also like the size of the book. It's better than the Audubon Society's version of the book.

The book was sent in a timely manner and it was in the promised condition.

I love this little book. Birds are listed by color and then size. It makes for very easy and quick IDs. The color photos of each bird are also immensely helpful in makeing IDs. I have already ID four different birds that I have been seeing in my back yard for years but haven't found in other books. If you live in Oklahoma, this is the reference guide to have!!!

This is a great book for our family. We are novice bird watchers, but placed bird feeders around our home and have identified several birds using this book.
It's simplicity makes it so usable. The birds are classified by color first then shape or activity. The pages are "tabbed" by color so you simply turn to the appropriate color tab and determine which bird you are looking at.
We also have the National Audubon book and find it more difficult to use. Their system is to categorize the birds by shape or activity first and them color. We find that the bird is long gone by the time we figure out whether is shaped like a "perching bird" or a "swallow like" bird.

It is just simpler to begin with the obvious - what color is the bird? and then turn to the corresponding pages. The book is easy for older children to use. We find that the more success we have the more we remember to open the book and identify that bird at the feeder.

I think I stuck this book in someone's stocking one Christmas, but we have all enjoyed it!

This is possibly the finest single volume history of the Sioux War of 1876. I never realized from the Army's position what a concentrated effort, involving thousands of soldiers, this was. I also never realized that the Sioux inflicted not one but two significant defeats on the Army, both by 2 different groups of Indians and each within just a few days of the other.

From the Army point of view this was a determined campaign, involving 3 separate, converging columns over thousands of square miles. From the Indian point of view this was an uncoordinated, chance thing, with 2 different groups rendezvousing with each other within just a few days.

This is an excellent work about a strange pseudo war whose centerpiece is the Custer massacre. John S. Gray provides a meticulously researched, somewhat controversial, account of what appears to have been a totally unnecessary war. The maps are very well done, allowing a greater understanding of the tactical issues and terrain faced by both sides.

fair, balanced and packed with incredible information
worth 6 stars !

This is a great book to learn everything about the 1876 Sioux War from the political and economic situations that fueled the conflict (gold and the Black Hills, dissolving the 1868 Peace Treaty), the behavior of the independent Sioux, Grant's ultimatum, the Sheridan three prong attack on the Sioux, the political (Custer and Grant) and weather problems hindering he start of the campaign and General's Crook and Terry's frustrating attempts to catch the Sioux and Cheyenne who fragmented into smaller groups after the Little Big Horn. Also covers Crook's March campaign that resulted in a controversial but failed battle on the Powder River and the critical battle of the Rosebud in June 30 miles southeast of the Little Big Horn which occurred just 8 days prior to Custer's annihilation. Crook, the great Indian fighter with twice Custer's number, becomes displaced out of the Sheridan attack plan due to the furious attack by the Sioux and Cheyenne. Gray also documents how the winter roamers left the agencies to join the summer roamers (Sitting Bull, Gall, Crazy Horse, Two Moon) which peaked with one of the largest villages ever on the North American continent at the time of Custer's attack. The book completes the story by detailing the aftermath of Custer's battle with Crooks and Terry's joint and separate campaigns and the addition of General Nelson Miles. Not a total story on Custer, for that you should read Gray's "Custer's Last Campaign" but start with "Centennial Campaign" to get the complete picture.

In 1981 I made a phone call to a retired medical doctor named John Gray. I told him I had just finished reading his book, CENTENNIAL CAMPAIGN, and would love to talk with him. I figured we would talk on the phone, so I was surprised when he invited me to visit him in his home in Ft. Collins, Colorado. I accepted his invitation without hesitation.

We spent the entire afternoon talking about his book. There was one question that I was anxious to get answered. Why did he write less than a page about the Custer fight itself? Gray didn't really know what happened during that battle, so there really wasn't much to say. I laughed but it made sense.

This book is not about the Custer fight, but about the entire campaign of the Sioux War of 1876 and it is filled with new revelations about the causes and events of this war. Most interesting is Gray's narrative about the White House meeting between Grant and his aides concerning how they should deal with the Sioux problem and why they started a war.

The book is filled with detailed maps of the Indian movements during the campaign, where and when they camped and for how long. The same is done for soldier column movements.

There is an excellent analysis of the size of the warrior force at the Little Bighorn that historians accept to this day. The numbers will surprise you.

If you have not read much on the Sioux war, then I highly recommend this book. You'll learn that the Custer fight was just one of many events of a long brutal, bloody war.

This is the best book on this subject! You should also get his book on the last stand.

As an author who loves small towns...I felt right at home with Fred Harris's first Okie Dunn novel, "Coyote Revenge." It was like finding a wildflower pressed in an old Bible, or a photograph in a shoebox at the back of the closet.

"Coyote Revenge" was reviewed in the New York Times under Crime Fiction, but the mystery is pretty thin. Who killed the old sheriff? There aren't many suspects, so take your pick. The protagonist, Okie Dunn, is the new sheriff, but there's so little violence and so much examination of personal relationships that I'm tempted to call it a cozy. Police procedures in that time and place consist of shipping a gun off the State Crime Bureau by Mistletoe Express.

"Coyote Revenge" is a small, scrumptious slice of American life in the 1930s. Harris sets his novel in a fictional version of the little southwestern Oklahoma town of Walters. That's where he grew up, and where I was living at about the same time, so I know the territory well.

The story is simple. Okie Dunn is suspended from law school at the University of Oklahoma for decking a professor. He goes home, where his father is dying of lung cancer, and gets work as a cattle trader. When the sheriff, a boyhood buddy, is murdered, Okie pins on the star and sets out to discover "whodunit."

Harris has perfect pitch when it comes to the way we talked back then and there (and still do sometimes). His dialogue is a flawless rendering of what may seem like a foreign language to some readers. His description of the home cooking of that day will ring bells with anyone who grew up on either side of the Red River in the first half of the 20th century. Example:

"Most of Mama's recipes, if she'd ever written them down, would have probably started out with: 'First, get the grease hot.' All the meat we ate -- home-cured ham and sausage, newly killed chicken, a meat-locker steak -- was salted with a heavy hand and then fried nearly stiff. She salted and fried potatoes and mealed-okra, too, in plenty of lard. And Mama's string beans or a mess of greens always went into the pot with a good dose of bacon drippings that she'd saved in a tin can on top of the stove. Then, salted generously, too, they were boiled to kingdom come."

If you want an honest look at life in rural Oklahoma during the bleak years of the Great Depression, in a story told with humor and affection, this is your book...

One of the most impressive things about this book is the period detail; set in the Depression, it convincingly captures a way of life unique to Southwest Oklahoma. There is wisdom, poverty, strength of character, humor, prejudice, and even a nice little mystery story woven in.

The only reason I didn't rate the book 5 stars was because of the mystery itself, which I think suffered because of the book's compact length. With too few red herrings, the short list of suspects made the "whodunit" aspect a little too easy.

Still, a very enjoyable read, and I will be reading the sequel soon.

As a mystery author with my debut novel in its initial release within this culture that worships youth, I suppose I should not reveal my age by admitting I actually once wore a presidential campaign button for the author of this mystery. I would've voted for him too, save for the fact that Fred Harris dropped out of the race long before the California primary. He would've gotten my first ever vote (see, I'm not THAT ancient!), but now I get to vote strongly in favor of his first mystery novel. COYOTE REVENGE is set in Oklahoma during the Depression. Times are tough for everyone, especially Hoyt and Inez Ready. Someone shoots them and then burns down their home. Two years later, the mystery is still unsolved when their son, Dub, dies under dubious circumstances. Dub Ready was sheriff, and the sheriff's job then goes to Okie Dunn, a friend of Dub's who recently returned home after dropping out of law school. Okie begins to investigate the deaths, and the investigation produces some interesting answers. Fred Harris has written a terrific historical mystery here, and it captures its time and place perfectly. I would expect nothing less from a man I still think would have made an excellent president.

I started out giving it five stars, but downgraded to four because the mystery was so easy to solve. However, and this is a big however, the sense of time, place, and people was so right on the nose that I could hear my grandfather's voice coming right out at me off the pages. He was born in the Oklahoma Territory and was one of the "Okies" to migrate to California to be called "fruit tramps." To write in such a way that I could see, hear, and taste the depression era thirties, I think, is evidence of an outstanding writer. To know these people, as Mr. Harris does, makes me understand my own family who were as taciturn as the characters in this book. With a few exceptions, everybody he wrote about came alive as someone I've known and loved.

Perhaps, in the end, the mystery of the story should not be the main focus, but the introduction of these wonderful people who shared the painful, hungry, trying times of the era should be. As I began this review by downgrading, I will end it with upgrading the book back to five stars.

o/~ "Many months have come and gone since I wandered from my home in the Oklahoma hills where I was born... Way down yonder in the Indian Nation, I rode my pony on the reservation, in the Oklahoma hills where I was born .." o/~ (that's Woody Guthrie singing about Eastern Oklahoma.) In prose resonate of the era, Fred Harris, formerly of the western Oklahoma prairie, and former U.S. Senator, has created a sheriff/sleuth that Sooners can be proud of. This is also a tale of those who stuck out the Depression in Oklahoma while the Joads went to harvest "The Grapes of Wrath" in California. I only have one question: Whatever happened to Progess Beer?

My husband works in a gold mine in Nevada. He, as his father before him, has worked in mines for many many years. I enjoy buying him mining related books which he collects. This book, Deep Enough: A Working Stiff in the Western Mine Camps by Frank A. Crampton , I have not read yet, but my husband says it is a , "really good book". When my hubby say's THAT then it IS a really good book! I'm glad I bought it and I'm looking forward to reading it myself soon.

A great way to learn about life in the American wild west arid zone in the early 1900's. The author describes his life experiences with a rich cast of rugged characters who are hard to find these days. If you have either visited or lived in a mining town or been to the Australian outback opal diggings, you'll have extra appreciation for the entertaining detail and perspectives on what really is important in life. One of the better books I have read in a while!

An excellent book about life in the western mining camps
in the early 1900s. Born to privilege and wealth in New York
and with a good education, Crampton ran away from home, riding
the blinds to the western US. He worked as an ordinary stiff
in the toughest conditions, but unlike most of his fellow
miners, his education also let him work as an assayer and
surveyor, and later as a mining engineer. So he became
thoroughly knowledgable about all the aspects--from prospecting
in Death Valley to being chief engineer at large mines. About
the only side of mining that he didn't experience was a Wall
Street mineowner. His education also gave him fine writing
skills--this is definitely not an "as told to..." book ghost-
written by someone else.

You'll encounter a plethora of wonderful characters, and a
wealth of old photographs. There are stories about gold,
silver, uranium--all the kinds of elements you can hard-rock
mine for. Crampton was trapped for 10 days when a shaft
collapsed. He shows what can happen when you use a metal
spoon (rather than wood) to tamp down a shot hole. He was
nearby Ludlow and barely missed being part of the massacre,
but had friends killed. Deep Enough is not a social "cri de
coeur" as are "The Banditti of the Plains" about the Johnson
County War in Wyoming or Sinclair's "The Jungle". It's very
honest and heartfelt, and completely up close. Crampton
enjoyed the life, the camps, the people, and the work, and
it shows. If you want an honest view about what mining was
like, this it it.

I live in Arizona and picked this book up in a map store. Once I started reading I couldn't stop. The style of Frank Crampton's writing is so descriptive that you feel you are listening to him tell the stories of his life as a hard rock miner in Arizona. This is not a documentary, but accounts told by the one that lived them. One chapter is so graphically described that I could feel the pain of the miners. This chapter is followed by the funniest of any I have read. I have used this book as a guide book of the mines and ghost towns of this area and have found many of them. I've given this book as a gift to many people and highly recommend it for anyone interested in the old west and mining.

Frank Crampton didn't have to become a tramp miner, he chose too. Born well conneced, he gave it all up to discover what it is like to become a working stiff in the western mines. His discriptive writings of the every day workings under ground are so real one can smell the powder after a blast. His experience while being traped under ground in the Bingham Canyon Mine, and being cold boiled,made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The loyalty of his fellow miners to rescue his crew,espically his two old friends who traveled hundreds of miles to help get Frank out can only be understood by a miner of that era. Frank Crampton's drive for self improvement is in it's self a blueprint for any young person to succeed the hard knocks of life. The Frank Crampton's built this country, what a wonderful gift he left us.

You can't judge a book by its cover or, in the case "Following the Wrong God Home", by the advertising blurb on the dust jacket. An acquaintance who works at a local bookstore fairly frothed at the mouth while singing the praises of this book, and she had only finished half of it (the first half). As her tastes agree with my own generally and as Mormon history happens to be my bag, I bought it and started to read.

After the first chapter, I put it down and scratched my head. Somehow the reading wasn't going as planned. I've read hundreds of volumes on as many aspects of Mormonism as I can think of, but something wasn't clicking with me. I didn't want to admit to my bookstore acquaintance that I didn't "get it". So in an act of preemptive bravado, I plunged back into its pages, determined not to be outunderstood by the bookstore lady. As chapters rolled by, I grew more accustomed to Scott Chisholm's meter. Although I'm sure his method may be shoehorned into "the seven holy principles of good prose" and thereby explained, this book does not have the feel of such an effort. Rather, the structure and tenor of the tale mirror the rhythms of the difficulty of those first Mormon pioneers. Instead of simply describing the experience, he paints it as a work or art. Like the Russian masters, the most poignant observations of life are made by those who have experienced the worst of it. Suffering has no value without the introspection that follows and Scott Chisholm guides us through that experience.

Spoiler: the Mormons do make it to Utah.

Clive Scott Chisholm recounts his walking retracement of the Morman trail across Nebraska and Wyoming to Brigham Young's"Zion",Utah.This book is about people,places,perceptions,and the nebulous envisagement of the American Dream.
To Chisholm,born into a Morman Family and faith,the walk it vividly personal.He weaves parenthetical"Acccording to Hoyle" chronicles of Morman history in each chapter.
The author crosses the bounds of genre with timely placed sidebars.He touches geography,natural history,hydraulics,soil management,native indian movements,railway and highway beginnings,politics and a host of others.
He describes eating,sleeping and entertainment establishments past and present;"watering-holes",museums and libraries with a generous portion of humor.There are no sacred cows,be it presidents or prophets.
This book just gets better as it goes.Clive Scott Chisholm doesn't disappoint his readers by slipping off the rails in the final chapter.He runs strong to the end.
The last entry adds a homey"Where are they now"(fifteen years later) about many of the people and personalities we meet in the book.
End

scott MacDonald wrote a book called "The Garden in the Machine" and this book reminds me of "Following the Wrong god home" because they both discuss the meaning of landscape. But if you read both books together you can see how Chisolm's book on the mormons is much more personal mostly because he actually is doing the traveling himself and having the experiences he is talking about. I think that a lot of people who don't know anything about Mormon history could love this book because he is using the mormon history as a way of writing about the western dream. The writing of this book is superb and it is one of those rare books that I never wanted to finish.

I was enthralled by Clive Scott Chisholm's brilliant meld of personal experience, social criticism, and history. On his 1100 mile trek from Omaha to Salt Lake City, he encounters a rich variety of experiences involving the weather,the landscape, historical markers, towns, and human personalities which he describes in vivid detail. Independence Rock in Wyoming, for instance, evokes a discussion of the natural forces which created it and its role as "a geological semaphore of good-bye" for travelers venturing into the unknown West.
Threaded through this account are Chisholm's thoughts about his life, his friends, western history, and particularly about "the American Dream" and the Mormons. He is often brutally frank in his judgments, especially of the Mormon leader, Brigham Young, for whom he can say nothing good. All-in-all, this is a brilliantly written, deeply personal account of one man's adventure in space and time.

Is the American Dream an empty hole(or whole)? Clive Chisholm takes a hard look at that in his trek across the American West, following the trail the Mormons blazed in 1847. Those Mormons were seeking their dream, their promised land. Chisholm, looking deeply at their experience through their journals, overlaps them with his modern day rediscovery of what is left of their trail. In the process, he digs deeply at the Mormon faith, at himself and at all of us, trying to find what gives us the courage and the passion to get up each morning and try it all again. The stories of the young brides who, far from home, died the horrible death of cholera, and his battles with dysentery and toothache; how they drug all their worldly belongings in handcarts, and he a dilapidated hand-golfcart, soon discarded in a highway culvert. Their is no shortage of dispair and heartache for either story, yet there is hope. Chisholm fills the pages with his gift of humor, and the quirky characters that he collects like mile markers on his road. He masterfully weaves both stories together. In the end, he questions what it all meant. Americans, he determines, believe everything works out simply because they are Americans. It's not the same experience for the rest of the world but we, as americans, are comprised of the peoples of all the world. We inherit a legacy of ancestral dreams. The dream is a lie, but it's the dreaming that counts. That's what fills our "common well of human hope." Buy it.

"Hollywood Beauty" is a thoroughly well researched bio of the late actress, Linda Darnell. It definitely portrays a tough, life in the Tinseltown whirlwind. HB also offers a solid overview of life in the old studio system that wedded performers to one autocratic employer. We read how actors were assigned to a picture, then suddenly pulled or shuffled off to another job with no thought given to personal feelings or effects on careers. Fox boss Darryl F. Zanuck and director Joseph l. Mankiewicz are portrayed as hedonistic cads. This reviewer is too young to remember but that system broke up in the early 1950s. TV was the culprit. Fewer Americans were going out to movies so fewer films were made. Linda was cut by Fox but such stars as Clark Gable, Betty Grable, Gene Tierney, and Jeanne Crain also received pink slips. This reviewer encountered one minor disappointment with HB: He would like to have learned more about the making of that classic, brooding western, "My Darling Clementine". How did LD like react to working with director John Ford? (Do we remember that scene where she tries to cheat Henry Fonda at cards?). That minor complaint aside, HB is highly recommended to movie fans of any age. One may be too young to remember LD but that is what VHS and DVDs are for! Some may believe that HB is a sad story but this reviewer disagrees. For all her troubles, LD never gave up. She hung in there through it all and was gainfully working as a stage actress right up to her untimely death in that fire. Readers should enjoy HB more if they approach with an optimistic mindset and a desire to learn of the old Hollywood studio system that is gone forever, for better or worse. Most likely the latter.

Linda Darnell has been a long favorite of mine, so to read "Hollywood Beauty: Linda Darnell and the American Dream," was a real treat. Well written, with a good insight to this lady as both an actress and woman.

Madam Shopper
http://www.marchars.com

This was the only bio I could find on Linda Darnell and I must say, it was worth the money. The author's honest depiction and narrative of this actress is wonderfully written. I highly recommend this insightful biography!

I always liked Linda Darnell. My mother had told me about her when I was in my early teens, saw some of her films, and was quite taken by her. She wasn't a great actress, but she certainly wasn't a bad one, either. But when you look like that, who cares? Linda, born Monetta Eloyse Darnell in Texas, was blessed, or cursed, with a strikingly beautiful face. Pushed by her volatile, ambitious mother, Linda was signed to a contract at 20th Century Fox at the age of 15. Touted as Fox's "Glory Girl", she was featured in several films as a decorative brunette. With her lovely "Latin" looks (her grandfather actually was part Cherokee) and voluptuous figure, she adorned the screen in films such as "The Mask of Zorro" and "Blood and Sand", playing "good girls". When her box-office appeal started to wane, she was still barely over 20 years old. Her personal problems began to mount, dealing with her overbearing mother, a mounting drinking problem that began when she was married to her first husband, (who was some twenty-odd years older), and the fact that she could not bear children. Ms. Darnell's career picked up, however, when she started playing gorgeous "bad girls" in films such as "Fallen Angel", "Hangover Square", and the overblown costume epic "Forever Amber", in which she played an upwardly mobile woman of ill repute. Her best role, as the golddigger with a tender heart in Joseph Mankiewicz's "A Letter to Three Wives", came in 1949, but from then on it was pretty much downhill. Ms. Darnell's personal life became a series of unhappy marriages, exploitative relationships, a spotty career, alcoholism, and ultimately ended in a spectacularly awful way: she was horribly burned in a house fire in 1965, with 2nd and 3rd degree burns on 90% of her body,lingered for about 33 hours, and died, aged 41.
The book is a quick, albeit depressing read. Ronald Davis, also a native Texan, writes with compassion for his subject. Several interviews with her siblings, friends, and adopted daughter give a sympathetic portrayal of the "Fallen Angel". To put it in a nutshell, Ms. Darnell wasn't tough enough to handle the ups and downs of show business. Her tale isn't the first nor the last about the cruel world of showbiz, but it just seems even more depressing, when one thinks of the beauty with the face of a Madonna, going downhill at such a young age, and dying so horribly. I may add that there are eerie foreshadowings of her demise in three of her best known films. In "Hangover Square", she is strangled by Laird Cregar, who places her body on a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Day; in "Anna and the King of Siam", Linda, playing the runaway concubine Tuptim, is burned at the stake; and in "Forever Amber", she bears witness to the Great Fire of London. Creepy, isn't it?
Just a word of warning: Don't read this book if you're depressed!

Very well, written, but the author couldn't decide the year of Linda's birth. On the copyright page, one year of birth was given, then in the book, another year. It made me question the other facts. Aside from that, the book was very interesting-- the strange homelife, the thyroid problem, the marriages, the films, the decline of her acting career and the section on her burning and death are just gripping. I recommend this one.

Monte Forman should be recognized as the Father of Clinics. He started it all and, along with the wisdom and knowledge of Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt, gave us the foundation today that has sprouted so many well-known clinicians. Twenty-five years ago, all I heard about was Monte Forman from my "old friend" and a true horseman, Cliff Fisher. This book is a definite addition to any serious horse person's library. It is well written with simple directions and photos to achieve many tasks one would like to successfully complete. Highly recommended for all breeds and disciplines as horse talk is horse talk.

Monte Foreman's Horse Training Science, was written by Monte Foreman and Patrick Wyse, his long time student and his first certified insrutuctor, who has also been my instructor and mentor for nearly 30 years.

To really appreciate this book, a little background is helpful. Monte Foreman pioneered the use of video analysis in the study of how and why horses and riders interact.

Back in the days when almost everybody just leaned back and jerked the bit to stop a horse, Monte Foreman started taking home movies of good riders in various situations. He taped the same horse/rider combinations stopping while roping a calf, and stopping in a reining class. The differences in the horses and riders were astounding! Because of this, Monte started developing his own method of stopping horses, based on the calf roping stop. Horses trained in this method would stop balanced and relaxed from the rider's subtle signal, instead of getting suddenly yanked into the ground, as was commonly done.

Foreman also used video analysis to develope more effective methods for lead changes, roll maneuvers, and other elements of his training system, dubbed the BASIC HANDLE.

This method has been proven with thousands of students of Foreman and co-author Patrick Wyse. They focus in the book on practical and humane training methods, that have stood the test of time. Although this book is dated, the information is and always will be relevant.

In this age of "Horse Whisperers" who all seem to have some kind of hidden secret, Foreman and Wyse teach that all the elements of horse training can be learned by any student with enough time and desire to achieve it.

Monte Foreman's passing on was a tremensous loss to the equestrian world, but co-author Patrick Wyse is still teaching and training in clinics all over the North America, and at his home in Townsend, Montana. More about Patrick Wyse can be learned from his website, www.HorseWyse.com.

I bought this book way back in 1983. I still have it today.When I bought a green horse,it was like a bible to me. I still have the same horse too, so that should tell you this book helped me immensely. I believe in the methods that they teach in it because they really work. I also believe that the methods are timeless. I'm an East-coast backyard horse owner.

I am so pleased that this classic has been resurrected. It offers instruction that is clear and logical. This book made a lasting impression on me 25 years ago, and I heartily recommend it. Its techniques helped me to achieve many blue ribbons with my horses.

A very informative well written book. Great for allowing average rider to get there horse handy with all the basic reining moves you could want. While I dont always agree with all he has to say I beleive that he has the horses best interest in mind. There are some things that have changed due to the times but his basics are still very good

Wonderful retelling of Cherokee story handed down through the oral retelling of old stories by the grandmothers of the tribe.

I am a former fifth grade instructor, a National Board Certified Teacher, and a college professor in Teacher Preparation. I highly recommend the Grandmother Stories series to elementary and early childhood instructors and parents who are homeschooling their children. The books have appropriate vocabulary and tell stories that explain nature in a creative manner. I learned several things I did not know about nature and its interactions from these books. Children love to have the books read to them and to read them to themselves. Duvall and Jacobs are a wonderful creative force as they merge their talents to produce books that will be enjoyed for generations to come.

This review appeared in Roundup Magazine, Oct. 2004. A children's picture book that recounts Cherokee historian and storyteller Duvall's latest rabbit tale. Volume 4 of the University's "Grandmother Stories," Rabbit and the Bears tells the story of Rabbit accompanying his friend, Yona the Bear, to the Mulberry Place in the Smoky Mountains where Yona participates in the bears' ceremonial dances every autumn. Rabbit sees a bear with an arrow in his shoulder running from a hunter. Yona and Rabbit follow the wounded bear to the Magic Lake, Ata-Gahi, where the injured bear is healed. Rabbit wishes to know more about bear medicine, but Yona teaches him many other things...a wonderful story suited for the very young as well as elementary school children.

The Grandmother Stories are eloquent, beautifully illustrated tales that recapture the imagination of Native America. Deborah Duvall and Murv Jacob have done a brilliant job of revisiting the mythic world of Rabbit, Bear and Otter and introducing them to a contemporary audience. These characters are timeless, as are their stories, and readers of all ages will delight in their antics and unique insights. (...)

Takes the reader into a magical world where real problems are solved in the ancient way by teaching examples of timeless characters, such as Rabbit and Bear. Based on Cherokee legend and tradition, the prose and the artwork are subtle and refined enough for adults but also intriguing to children. I'm sending all four of the books now available to all of my grandchildren, knowing that not only will the kids enjoy them but their parents as well. It's a pleasure to be able to recommend something new in the world of children's books that is so fun and worthwhile.

this is a well put together book. the history of which was only 85 years ago is ugly but yet THE BURNINGS CONTINUE. the history of tulsa oklahoma at least on the black side demonstrates that blacks were never lazy and that we wanted a piece of the "american pie". in 2006 after the death of Mrs. King it will take you more than two hands to count the burnings of churches after her death. THE BURNINGS STILL CONTINUE. this book demonstrates that blacks are not lazy,or even 3/5ths of a human being or sub-human rather. ever since 1619 8 years after the king james bible, us blacks wanted all the good things in life as well. it took a long time to come, but we started to do for self rather than have it done for us by masters who did not know us or care! if we could not live along side the masters we lived next door meaning on the other side of town. naturally we would build a church and a school and yet still be slaves. now if our town that we built up became to nice, or just better than theres they would riot. before 1865 and well into the early 1900,s all riots were white inspired. riots were synonymous with whites only. only free people could riot. a slave held against his will does not riot but revolt and obviously thats what all living things do when held against there will.
a phrase by public ememy is " it took a nation of millions to hold us people back". (i can see why the kkk wears the mask, because you might of had presidents out ther lynching as well) this book demonstates how media,police,mayor and even govenor was all part of what was conspired against the black people of tulsa. reader if you research media you will find all types of racist media that inspired riots. in this book the media lied as usually, and said a black boy sexually assualted a white girl. next thing you know everything is burned down and hundreds of people die. this book covers one riot in one city. there were hundreds of riots maybe even thousands in different cities all for the same reason; to keep the black man down! but tulsa was a lot different obviously because it was compared to wall street which is synonymous with money. this is a great book but i encourage the readers to get a book first on riots in general and then get a book on a riot per riot. fire is synonymous with the white man. in europe where it was cold and always cloud covered they had no sunshine(no tans either)so they worshipped fire. today the racist christians burn there own cross? THE BURNING STILL CONTINUES AND ITS TIME FOR THEM "TO GET OVER IT" like us blacks are told so often.

I read Martha Southgate's novel of three generations of black Tulsa women, each hiding a horrible tragedy. The name of the book is THIRD GIRL FROM THE LEFT. The oldest woman, Mildred, has lived through the Tulsa race riots of 1921 and has kept her secrets well. After reading this accomplished novel I wanted to know more about the holocaust in Tulsa, and to find out why it was so underreported at the time and for the next 50 years. James Hirsch's book seems to be about the best of a new crop of revisionist history, and I read the whole thing in about two and a half hours.

At this late date there is no smoking gun, and a five month search for rumored mass graves in the surrounding areas of Tulsa proper turned up nothing out of the ordinary. That will never stop people from assuming that more than the 36 victims of vigilante action were killed, their bodies disposed of summarily. Hirsch thinks that the figure is probably somewhere between 75 and 300. Thousands of people lost their homes, and acres of Greenwood, the so called "black Wall Street" were burned to the ground. The famed historian John Hope Franklin came to Tulsa four years after the riots and bears witness today to the sense that, in 1920 black Oklahomans had made some definite progress, but after the catastrophe they lost their confidence and never could make up the backwards steps. Of course trauma studies indicate that such a devastating blow can never be recuperated, not entirely. That is why the issue of reparations has come to the forefront of the debate in recent times, for it seems, following Freud, that money is the only thing that people really sit up and take notice of, and as such it is the only proper way of dissolving guilt from human relations. (One of Hirsch's chapters is called, "Money, Negro," which is what Hope Franklin told a black politician who asked him what reparations represent.)

The latter half of the book is almost a personality parade as two men, the aforemention pol, Don Ross, squares off against the driven, white liberal who wrote extensively about the forgotten tragedy as early as 1971--Scott Ellsworth. Neither of the two men care a fig about the other, it's plain to see, while elegant, courteous and magisterial John Hope Franklin rises above it all with his super acuity and his refusal to bend principles.

I had only heard of the Tulsa race riot of 1921 a few years ago, even though I went to high school in the early 1980s in Bartlesville, OK, 45 miles north of Tulsa (and have driven on the highways that now run through the Greenwood section more times than I can count). I remember the fear that was passed on to me about that section of Tulsa and the dread of facing students from its high school whenever we played them in football, a darker fear than seemed warranted for a city of its size. Now, knowing the history of the race riots and the fears both sides had of sparking another one, I understand why.

Hirsch does an amazing job of piecing together from both "official" and oral history the story of the riot, as well as what led up to it, and the racial climate surrounding the event. While he clearly favors the "black" side of the story, he doesn't give in to the most extreme views, and he does give the "white" views time and space. He also points out the difficult questions of reparations, and why there are no easy answers. Most importantly, "Riot and Remembrance" shows the readers why history can never be neatly tied up and packaged. We will probably never know the details of what happened on the ugly night and day of May 31-June 1, 1921, in Tulsa. We'll never know for sure the death toll, or what exactly was in the hearts of the African-Americans, the "ruffian" white, or the city leaders who coveted the Greenwood land. But at least with Hirsch's book, we have a chance to ponder all sides and draw our own conclusions.

And, by the way, this is one Oklahoman who thinks the state and city SHOULD pay reparations in the form of scholarships and economic development in North Tulsa. I suspect I am in the minority, though!

In addition to an important new chapter about race relations in America, James Hirsch's book is must reading for anyone interested in how histories are suppressed and can be rescued. There is no more important story that no one knows than the one covered here. The fact that the Tulsa riot never made it into our history books makes one wonder what other aspects of our collective past have slipped our notice.

RIOT AND REMEMBRANCE is a detailed look at the tragic Tulsa race war of 1921. The 1921 Tulsa race war story is simular to the well-known Rosewood, Florida event but on a much larger scale.

Mr. Hirsch includes both sides of the "truth", the black truth and the white truth. The entire event had been essentially remove from hisory until recently.

Mr. Hirsh's attention to detail makes one feel like they were in Tulsa MAY 1921. The racist Jim Crow laws along with the irresponsible Tulsa Tribune's reporting created an atmosphere that turned a simple misunderstanding into a race war.

African-Americans dared to stand up for themselves and the result was the entire Greenwood section of Tulsa was obiterated. Afterwards the city attempted to then take the Greenwood area away from the land owners.

Mr Hirsch includes testamony and documentation from black and white folks that were involved directly and via historical research.

He shows us how the story went from a whisper to the front page of major newspaper as the story was exposed.

See from a modern point of view, the fact that an event even approaching this scale actually took place is surreal. The nefarious pathological additude towards African-Americans during this time in history is beyond comprehension.