Virginia Books

This short book details the first year of the excavations made to try to find the site of the original James Fort, the first permanent English settlement in Virginia. This book, which is the first in a continuing series of publications highlighting the discoveries, is richly illustrated with pictures of the various objects recovered which include armor, crockery and items of daily life. It is enhanced by the inclusion of paintings from the period that illustrate identical or very similar objects. There is a bibliography and informative endnotes that include accession numbers and measurements of the artifacts.

This book is written for the lay person and would be appropriate for older children. I highly recommend it!

In 15 years, I've not found another source book that compares. The author thoroughly researched the available census and county records to produce a very faithful and detailed book. a great but at this price.

Remember Marios Pizza? They are still around! Remember putt putt golf on Glebe road? That's long gone but they are about to put up a new course at the Ballston mall. Who were the Donaldsons? How did Arlington get its wierd shape? Where did the high school boppers go for ice cream on a date? This book is filled with wonderful history of a tremendously historic place, Arlington VA.

One of the most useful and interesting publishing phenomena of the past decade has been the appearance of a number of collections of Civil War diaries and letters written not by famous names but by the line officers and common soldiers who actually fought the war--and who suffered the diseases, quibbles and boredom of camp life in the often-long intervals between battles. I found this particular book especially insightful on both the details of military life and the ambience of the war years. The letters themselves are marvelous--even in their mundane concerns. This truly is a slice of "real life" that a standard history text can't offer (the book reminds me of the wonderful collections of courts-martial, reports and papers assembled by Dr. Thomas Lowry, who is consistently one of our most interesting Civil War historians). Credited as the book's "editor," Eric Ward has actually done far more than simply getting the narrative into shape for publication (a tough enough job by itself). Ward has set the book off superbly, and his interlocutions to place Benedict's jottings in context are masterful in their accuracy, succinctness and insight. For those seriously interested in Civil War studies, or simply for a reader anxious to enter that bygone world for the first time, this book is an excellent choice. Very well done!

Art and Enterprise: American Decorative Art 1825-1917: The Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta is a catalogue of the collection as of the date of publication. Catalogues of exhibits and collection have always been a wonderful source of knowledge and this one is superior even in this elite category. The collection's goal has been to represent the period from 1825-1917 in American Decorative Art with masterpieces whose superior quality is matched by their historical significance. This goal is key to this book as a major focus in not just the object but the history of the manufacture or of those involved in the object. With a total of 227 objects arranged chronologically by style, this book is a wonderful reference for this period.

The Kluge-Ruhe collection, housed at the University of Virginia, is among the largest and most diverse Aboriginal art collections outside of Australia. This book, the first published guide to the collection, highlights many of the important works held by the Kluge-Ruhe, covering many Aboriginal cultures and regions with a strong focus on Arnhem Land and the central desert. Thought provoking essays by many of the top scholars in the field accompany beautiful color images of many sigificant pieces. Unlike many introductions to Aboriginal art, this guide discusses themes in depth, providing solid meaningful analysis which places the art in its social context, rather than the usual 'Bark Painting of a Bird' type annotation, which provides no insight into the culture which produced it. Highly recommended--you will not be disappointed.

Jeanette Wright has done a most interesting, difficult and helpful thing. THE ART OF ATTENTION is a work which does not fit neatly into any particular genre of literature. It is, but is not solely, memoir. It is, but is not solely, instruction. It is, but is not solely, artistic critique. It is, but is not solely, a very good "How To" book. It is, but is not solely, an introduction to and interpretation of one of America's most gifted and neglected philosopher/psychologists, Silvan Tomkins.

Ms. Wright is 23 pages into the Chronicles before attempting to express the theory upon which her understanding is based; the affect/script theory of Silvan S. Tomkins. True to life as it is lived she immerses the reader in her own experience, her remembered anguish at the childhood loss of her mother and that anguish re-experienced. Long hidden inarticulate memories flowed down her arm and through her fingers on to a page and now addressed her in those drawn images as cryptic revelations.

Those inarticulate and somewhat misinformed memories have guided so much of her behavior. Her childhood appraisal of her mother's death and the way in which her emotional life was thereby conditioned provoked so much unnecessary anguish. What those drawn images revealed finally led Jeanette to write letters to her mother. One of them begins, "Dear Mother, I thought I killed you. No one said I didn't." And in another she writes, "This core belief that I was unlovable because my mother died was a major and continuing source of shame for me." Now as an adult those powerful hidden images could be looked at, examined, expanded and reappraised and the power of what they symbolized transformed. She could now begin to attenuate the strength of that childhood misinformation which had been made a part of the bedrock of her life so long ago.

It is a process, of course, this re-scripting of the rules by which our affective life has become habituated. Realistically, but hopefully she writes on page 50," I have learned.....that a transitory peace must be repeatedly earned." But the gains have been salutary and she shares with the readers not only what has happened to her and many of those whom she has had in treatment, but also in her protocols on the several affects and her instructions for non-mimetic drawing she leads the reader to see how through the drawn image troublesome implicit elements of scripted memories can be symbolized and refashioned.

The drawn image, under the guidance of Jeanette Wright's unique system can `draw' from implicit memory vital clues for unlocking mysteries of the emotional bondage from which so many people tragically suffer.

Silvan Tomkins and I were close friends and a rather thorough knowledge of his work has helped guide my thought for many years. I know he would be gratefully surprised and keenly heartened to see what has become of his ideas in the creative imagination of Jeanette Wright.

This book teaches the latest in parli debate while still being down to earth and really easy to understand. You'll laugh - you'll cry - you'll learn a lot. It comes with easy drills and things as well to get you started as well as a host of topics to try. All in all - I couldn't do without it!

This is an excellent book, written by a very knowledgable and good teacher. I was lucky enough to take a class from him, and from what I have seen of his book, it is just as a fantastic survey of art in India as the class was.

This book is written by a missionary to the Congo. It is very encouraging for "new" widows.