Maryland Books

I believed that the Insiders' Guide to Baltimore was a travel guide when I bought it. Unfortunately, it is an odd hybrid of travel book, relocation guide, and general source of information about the Baltimore area. As is often the case with a book that tries to do too much, it doesn't excel at any of them.

All the basic information is here including entries places to stay, eat, and shop. Local attractions are also covered in addition to a chapter on day trips. One problem is that these entries tend to be shorter than you would find in most guides. I also would have appreciated more of a critique of the attractions. All the descriptions read like something out of a marketing brochure from the operators so it's very hard to know what is most worth your time. Similarly, I found no critical comments of any kind in the descriptions of restaurants and hotels when clearly some will be better than others.

The truth is that if you want a guidebook to Baltimore, you have very few choices. Still, I would probably recommend using the web to gather information on the few real tourist attractions (like the outstanding National Aquarium) and accommodations and save your money rather than purchase this book. If you want happy-talk that sounds like it came from the local Chamber of Commerce, you can always to the actual Chamber's web site and get it for free.

THE INSIDERS' GUIDE TO BALTIMORE is a great book, even if some of the radio station info is outdated. It features detailed information on where the best neighborhoods and dining are, as well as mentioning several great shopping malls. The only other problem, besides outdated radio station listings, is a lack of discussion of the planned Baltimore suburb of Columbia, which is really a city of its own. Other than that, though, this book is essential.

Aunt Wendy is going to move to be closer to Sarah when Mr. Specky passes. Until then, she is going to stay in Texas. I'm buying her this book, or one like it. Then she'll know where all of the hot spots are. Specky will be looking down from doggie afterlife jealous of Aunt Wendy's cool new life in Balto. Have fun in the Bay area Sarah and Wendy, without Specky, but with this book.

My husband and I just returned from our trip to Baltimore, and might I say, I don't know what we would have done without this book! We went to attractions recommended by the book, and we were not disappointed. I love the way that the book gives you the kind of information that you need and leaves out the subsidiary parts. The book also had an invaluable map that showed the main streets that we wanted. We chose restaurants based not only on price, and neighborhood, but also the "vibe," that was very well described by the authors.

I saw this book at Barnes and Noble and thought it was too big and complex for a labor day weekend in Baltimore, but my mother surprised us by sending this version via Amazon. I am so glad she did. It was so easy to understand and really helped with a trip that we wanted to have a "winging it" feel, instead of a very "planning it" feel.

We liked this so much that I have just ordered the version of my own hometown to "explore" the parts of our own city that would be interesting to visitors.

Hats off to "The insiders guide" folks!

I actually thought this would be a real how to book on making Baltimore Album quilts instead of a chat session on the author's experiences doing the same.

More of a diary of interactions of a wonderful woman doing gorgeous applique' despite disabilities. She never let her body let her mind down. A remarkably encouraging book for those who feel they can no longer do this art. She shows true love and strength of character to continue under such circumstances. A true award quality quilt in the end. Bravo.

This is a delightful little book for the experienced person who is knowledgeable about Baltimore Album quilts. It Will NOT tell you how to make a quilt or the blocks shown in the book. There is background introduction by Elly Seinkiwicz and several letters from the quiltmaker to friend about her trials in making the quilt, since she was severely disabled. Each page has a quilt block in glorious color and large enough for to look at inorder to draft your own pattern, if you like. The entire quilt is on the back book cover, and not inside the book itself. What makes this book (it's a small sized book) outstanding is the fantastic workmanship, the very close up pictures of the varied appliqued quilt blocks, and the wonderful combinations of colors used that can act as a primer for a person wanting to start their own Blatimore Album Quilt.

Written by Frances Benton, The Making Of A Baltimore Album Quilt is not a "how-to" book, but rather a celebration of a quiltmaking master's finest work. The Making Of A Baltimore Album Quilt consists of compiled letters of expert quilter Frances Benton, written during the year and a half that she dedicated to creating the twenty-five blocks of the Baltimore Album quilt despite her own severe physical pain, alongside full-color photographs of each of the quilt's blocks. The finished quilt celebrates life with the colorful symbols of flowers and birds, exquisitely handmade and balanced. A message of passion for the craft, from the "Everyquilter" to all quilters, The Making Of A Baltimore Album Quilt is especially recommended as a giftbook for quilting enthusiasts.

It's 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. The state has recently enacted legislation requiring that creationism (known now as intelligent design) be taught in all publicly financed schools. John Scopes, a highly principled teacher and "infidel" refuses to comply with this edict. His defiance becomes the catalyst for one of the most anticipated trials in US history, the Scopes Monkey Trial. Attorney for the defense is Clarence Darrow. State attorney A. T. Stewart is the prosecutor, aided by erstwhile presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan. Covering the trial for the Baltimore Sun and for posterity, is that acerbic scribe, H. L. Mencken.

In a packed 90 degree courtroom, litigants and audience alike endure 11 days of sweltering heat and blistering condemnation from both sides of the most volatile issue since the issue itself.

Mencken's daily reports from July 10 to July 21 are replete with critism and witticism. His, at times, withering commentary is clearly slanted agnostic. He makes no affectation whatsoever toward unbiased reporting. With his amazing command of the english language, he's more an elegant verbal assassin than news reporter. Mencken leaves no earth unscorched, from the "local yokels" to the "ignoramuses" who purport to govern them. His most potent venom is reserved for William Jennings Bryan. Bryan is seated as a bible expert and witness for the prosecution as he faces off against Clarence Darrow. Darrow presents compelling scientific facts refuting creationism, while Bryan defers to meaningless scripture and ridiculous superstition, advancing neither his cause nor his standing amoung the country's thinking elite.

A Religious Orgy in Tennessee is a compilation of newspaper articles. One should probably be an agnostic and Mencken fan to enjoy it. Also, have a dictionary close at hand. You'll need it.

I am a huge fan of H. L. Mencken and this addition to the library doesn't disappoint. Mencken was one of America's most respected, despised, and feared journalists. As the number one literary enemy of the fundamentalist most of his career, Mencken was in his element at the John Scopes trial that pitted the science of evolution against the mythology of fundamentalist Christianity.

In 1925, Mencken drew the nation's attentions to a trial taking place in Dayton, Tennessee that would test the boundaries of a new law (the Butler Act) that prohibited the teaching of: "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." One enterprising individual set about testing the law by asking a local teacher (a friend sympathetic with the cause) to teach Darwin's theory of evolution. That teacher was 24-year-old John T. Scopes. Lasting eight days in the courtroom and eleven days in total, the weather was painfully hot probably irritating Mencken even more.

Writing for the Baltimore Evening Sun, Mencken's verbal energy and acute wit are stunning (no journalist, pundit, or commentator today even comes close). And much of his sarcastic eloquence comes, of course, at the expense of the key figure at the trial William Jennings Bryan. As the billing promises, these reports are by the most famous newspaperman in American history are vivid, highly intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny.

Mencken saw the transparent attempt at keeping evolution from being taught in schools contemptible, and the Scopes trial as ample opportunity to ridicule the "yokels," "half-wits," and "buffoons" who believe that man is not a mammal and the earth is less then 6,000 years old. But Mencken left his most venomous criticisms for those representing the prosecution, especially Democratic presidential candidate and fundamentalist Christian William Jennings Bryan. Five days after the end of the trial, Bryan died. In writing one of three scathing Bryan obituaries, Mencken opines:

"The meaning of religious freedom, I fear, is sometimes greatly misapprehended. It is taken to be some sort of immunity, not merely from governmental control but also from public opinion. A dunderhead gets himself a long-tailed coat, rises behind the sacred desk, and emits such bilge as would gag a Hottentot. Is it to pass unchallenged? If so, then what we have is not religious freedom at all, but the most intolerable and outrageous variety of religious despotism. Any fool, once he is admitted to the wholly orders, becomes infallible. Any half-wit, by the simple device of ascribing his delusions to revelation, takes on an authority that is denied to all the rest of us."

"I do not know how many Americans entertain the ideas defended so ineptly by poor Bryan, but probably the number is very large...though they are thus held to be sound by millions, these ideas remain mere rubbish. Not only are they not supported by the known facts; they are in direct contravention of the known facts. No man whose information is sound and whose mind functions normally can conceivable credit them. They are the products of ignorance and stupidity, either or both."

"What should be a civilized man's attitude to such superstition? It seems to me that the only attitude possible to him is one of contempt. If he admits that they have any intellectual integrity whatever, he admits that he himself has none. If he pretends to a respect for those who believe in them, he pretends falsely, and sinks almost to their level. When he is challenged he must answer honestly, regardless of tender feelings. That is what Darrow did at Dayton, and the issue plainly justified the act. Bryan went there in a hero's shinning armor, bent deliberately upon a gross crime against sense. He came out a wrecked and preposterous charlatan, his tail between his legs. Few Americans have ever done so much for their country in a whole lifetime as Darrow did in two hours."

This volume includes all of Mencken's daily reports for The Baltimore Sun, as well as additional stories filed for The Nation and The American Mercury. It also includes his coverage of Bryan's death just days after the trial, plus numerous rare photos, and the full transcript of Darrow's historic cross-examination of Bryan. Oh wouldn't Mencken have a field day with with our fearless fundamentalist leader were he alive today! Alas, journalists like Mencken just don't exist anymore. Highly recommended reading and very contemporary as it seems little has changed in the "bible belt."

Religious Orgy in Tennessee was like filet mignon for my brain. To think that in 1925 the voice of reason was so strong yet now all we hear are whispers. Chris Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris are all very good, but they don't have the flare and finesse of H.L. Mencken. Yes, he's blunt, but he's right about religion. We need to stop being polite to superstition and H.L. Mencken is a good example to emulate in our endeavors to bring rationality back to our reason-starved nation and planet.

The Scope trial would fit into today's world so easily. Each side was absolutely 100% correct and the other side was 100% wrong. Now compromise was even thinkable.

H.L. Mencken was sent to cover the trial and report on it. I always like first hand accounts of historic events, and find them to be best place to get the true atmosphere of what was going on at a specific time or place.

H.L. Mencken's reporting tells almost NOTHING of the trial, and is page after page of blistering indictment against anyone who has the slightest glimmer of faith in their life. He came across to me as a very sad individual.

And to previous reviewers who states: "We need to stop being polite to superstition and H.L. Mencken is a good example to emulate in our endeavors to bring rationality back to our reason-starved nation and planet.", In this case, 83 years later, the roles are now 100 reversed. Any whisper of "intelligent design" or faith be even mentioned in schools is immediately attacked and squashed as fanatically as the evolutionists were in Dayton in 1925.

If you want an indictment of religion from the media circus that was the Scopes trial, this would be an excellent book. If you want to learn anything ABOUT the Scope's trial, this isn't it.

Book was written by Winston Churchill, an American from St Louis. He also wrote The Crossing, The Crisis, and a nukmber of others. Richard Carvel may be his best. Highly recommended.

Winston Churchill wrote this book when he was still in his twenties ; this intrigued me enough to read the book. It is a novel that focuses on the life of Richard Carvel ; a wealthy young man from a prominent Maryland family just before and during the Revoloutionary War. Although sweeter and more sentimental than the modern approach itis still a captivating and exciting story.

This was Churchill's first historical novel (his second book), and it was wildly popular (historical fiction was all the rage at the time). Set at first around Annapolis, it's about a boy (Carvel) who is kidnapped and sent to England by pirates under his wicked uncle's direction in order to cheat him out of his estate. Meeting all sorts of major figures of the day, including John Paul Jones and Edmund Burke, he has all kinds of adventures in London. When the war breaks out he goes to sea again, this time aboard a ship commanded by Jones. He participates in the famous sea battle between the "Bonhomme Richard" and the "Serapis" (these might be the best scenes in the book). Wounded, he is brought to London to recuperate; he marries his childhood sweetheart there and they both sail to Annapolis to live.

It's a rousing good adventure story, though it does have some major flaws. The biggest for me was that Carvel is the narrator of his own story, which makes for very awkward situations when he is involved in heroic and daring deeds. How does a "hero" brag, or even talk, about himself under those circumstances? Well, he can't, so Churchill has to come with ways to get around that, which is not too easy or natural at times. Some of the character portrayals are pretty stiff and unbelievable, the worst perhaps being George Washington (Jones he gets down fairly well). The novel presents a very idealized story with all things either black or white, good or evil, right or wrong; yet the historical aspects of the book are accurate (Churchill did his homework). If one can suspend belief along the way in terms of character portrayal, and take the book on the level of pure adventure story, one might get enjoyment from Churchill's book.

I read this book just after I got out of college in 1976. My father read it when he was in prep school in the '30's and had been pestering me for years to read it. After I finished it, I scoured every antique shop and used-book store to find other titles by this American author. Three of his books: Richard Carvel, followed by The Crisis and then The Crossing, team up to form what could be one of the first trilogies in American fiction.
This is the story about a young Marylander in pre-Revolutionary America and his journey to independence. Anyone who likes historical novels will love reading this author. I will advise you, however, to have a good dictionary nearby as some of the words are archaic and need looking up - but that's half the fun of it.

The map can easily be carried around, opened and folded. It is laminated and should last a long time. All the major touristy things to do are listed right there for you.

Despite the copyright date, I have been using this map to get around Baltimore for the last three months and have yet to find anything outdated. City streets usually stay put. My only complaint is that it doesn't cover enough area. You are still very much in the city when you leave the part that the map covers. Overall, an extremely useful map.

This map had a copyright date from the early 90s, which wasn't mentioned in the product description. I doubt the map is up to date. I sent it back.

I purchased this map to use while on vacation and it was perfect for that purpose. It is laminated and the right size to fit in a hip pocket, purse, etc. The streets on the main map are printed large enough to easily read and many landmarks are clearly highlighted. There is an expanded map of the downtown area including Inner Harbor that does a fantastic job of showing you all the details you need to navigate the area. There are also indexes for streets, universities, museums, hotels, shopping, and other places of interest. While this is by no means an exhaustive street atlas, it does provide a great tool for someone visiting the city. It is especially useful if you plan to focus on the Inner Harbor area where all the major tourist attractions are. It was well worth the few dollars it cost.

I bought this book a week ago. It is well organized and easy to use. not a wealth of information, but the color coded pages make it easy to identify quickly. If you want a lot of detail, this book is not for you.

Only big problem I have with the book is the quality of the binding. After barely a week of use, the pages are separating from the binding. I'm planning to return the book for a different guide that will last through rigorous field use.

My neighbor the birdwatcher loves this book. Birds are grouped according to color, so it's easy to identify the bird you've sighted. Photos are sharp and beautiful. The write-ups give nice info on size, nests, eggs, and habits. "Stan's Notes" provide additional observations. Fun, educational, and easy-to-use.

As a mostly clueless beginning birder, I found this book the perfect place to start. To ID a bird, the book says to first note the color. (And it's conveniently organized by color). Then it says to note the size: is it bigger than a robin or smaller? Within the color sections, the book is organized by bird size. Next the book has one note characteristics of the bird's bill, as well as other characteristics such as habitat, what the bird is eating, the way it perches, and how it looks in flight.

I find the book quite logical and helpful in identifying mystery birds. One somewhat annoying feature is that water birds are grouped in with non-water birds, but still the book is easy to use. Each bird has a decent color photo of a typical bird of that type. If the male and female are different, there's a picture of both. Juveniles are also described and sometimes pictured, such as a juvenile cardinal.

Basic information is provided: size in inches and centimeters, appearance of the female, male and juvenile, type of nest, number of broods per year, number of eggs, incubation, information on fledging, migration type, food, and information similar birds. For example, in the turkey vulture section, Stan tells you how to tell it apart from a black vulture. He also provides a helpful little map of Maryland and Delaware showing where you'll find a particular summer, winter or year-round.

I especially enjoy the "Stan's Note" section providing some interesting tidbits about the bird. For example, Stan notes that "The vulture's naked head is an adaptation to reduce risk of feather fouling (picking up diseases) from carcasses."

Overall, this is an excellent beginner's book covering 140 common species in Maryland and Delaware. The audio CD of bird calls is sold separately. In my local bookstore, it comes packaged with the book in a small leather binder, which I as a vegan am not happy about. I would love to have bought the both together without purchasing leather.

At last a perfect guide for hiking and biking in Maryland! I don't have children but found this book to be a great resource for the short hikes and bike trips I enjoy with my husband. We went to the Cranesville swamp and had a difficult time finding information. This guide had the trails, directions, and plenty of interesting info on the natural history and ecology of the sites. I have used it for two of the other sites and have dogged-eared several more. I find it to be the perfect companion.

From the standpoint of a cyclist who doesn't live near Baltimore, this book is no help at all. It offers a description of 16 bike rides, most of them near Baltimore or Anne Arundel county, and a few rides in Pennsylvania and Virginia. This may be helpful for anyone near the city, but I feel calling it a guide for Maryland is misleading.....However, their descriptions do go into great detail about directions, what kind of traffic you can expect, and the wildlife you may encounter. There are about 10 pages for each trail described.

If you're looking for good biking near the city then I highly recommend this book.....

I first purchased this book a few years ago and have used it so often that I may have to invest in a new copy. As a lifelong outdoor enthusiast and Marylander, I was surprised at how many little known gems Mr. MacKay packed into this one book. The trip descriptions are accurate and complete; directions are easy to understand; and the natural history info is authoritative, sharply observed, and truly fascinating. It's the best Maryland guidebook of its kind. Thank you Mr. MacKay. I've recommended it to so many new paddlers, cyclists, hikers, and out-of-towners that I should probably get a commission...

Coming from someone who grew up in the neighborhood where this crime happened and knowing the murderer, I found this book chilling. For those of us who knew him, Larry was anything but antisocial. He tried hard to please. I think the book depicted the case in very factual details. It's difficult to read even now many years after the incident.

Not your typical whodunnit, Sudden Fury is one of the better true crime books I've read. It's an emotional whodunnit of sorts, a chilling account of a boy abandoned into the foster care system who grew up to be violent. I especially liked the alternating story lines--the present-tense crime investigation alternating with the child's upbringing. I found the writing style objective in a way that made it compelling. The tragedy, I felt, was heightened by the fact the adoptive parents were so well meaning, however misguided they may have been. I felt the author struck a delicate balance between blaming the adoptive parents, the boy and the social welfare system for the horrible outcome. While depressing, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the psychology of violence.

As is typical of many of the current trough of poorly written "true crime" books, Sudden Fury begins by almost immediately letting you know "who done it". After that, it becomes just a dry recitation of the facts, including the background of the "abused" murderer. It leaves the reader wondering why she would bother writing a book when a simple magazine article could give almost as much factual information.

Of course, in the author's view, the victims' requiring their adopted sons to make decent grades, not steal, and obey society's rules is "abuse". The constant whining theme of "he just needs love" conveniently whitewashes the fact that the parents, though flawed themselves, adopted the children with the idea of doing just that, and the boys continually and willfully did wrong, often for no purpose other than to just show they could. Although it sounds like the father had a bad temper, even a patient parent would eventually get sick and tired of the antisocial behavior they were dealing with from two kids who, typical of adopted children, wanted "unconditional love" and continually pushed the limits to make their adoptive parents "prove" their love. (If you believe in "unconditional love", try cheating on or stealing from your spouse repeatedly, and then demand it.) These kids had free will, a great 2nd chance in life, and they stupidly threw it away with their selfish and sociopathic behavior. Not once does the author bring up the topic of "evil" or even mention in passing that perhaps if the young lad were so unhappy, he should have asked someone at his school to get him removed from that house.

Other incidents of "abuse" the author describes are: 1. not paying for his drivers ed class, and not letting him drive unless he passed all his courses. (Oh the horror!) 2. discouraging him from dating any girl more than once at 15-16 years of age to avoid problems with sex. (with over 60% of births now out of wedlock, not such an unwise idea at his age, and certainly not "abuse") 3. The father getting angry the night of the murder because the boy and his friends had ruined a computer disk containing countless hours of his father's accounting work and programming. I wonder what the author would say to her 16 y/o child if he had trashed her only copy of this book's manuscript after months of work. I'm sure she'd just smile and buy him an ice cream cone.

This "boy" will be getting out of jail before he's 30, probably, and god help the people who come accross him then. Unlike the theory of one person in the book, his problem wasn't his adoptive parents, it was his inability to understand that being adopted and having a tough childhood isn't carte blanche to vicimize the rest of us. If you want to prevent tradgedies like this, start making people who recklessly have children out of wedlock pay the price.

The victims' families should sue the author for libel, if they already haven't. Though perhaps overly rigid and imperfect, they were trying to help these kids, and the author used primarly the MURDERER'S point of view and that of their INSTITUTIONALIZED CRIMINAL older son to assasinate their character.

The final fact is, this "boy" CHOSE to murder two people because he didn't like their rules and "felt bad". Society is better off without such people and their excuse mongers as well.

This book is actually two stories--one takes place in the early 1990s Washington, D.C. and the other in 1738 Maidstone, MD. Marcy Heidish skilfully intertwines the two stories into one story with two parallel mysteries, characters, events, and with a touch of the supernatural thrown in for good measure. Other authors have tried this, and it often results in a choppy story, as the reader is pulled back and forth between the stories. Heidish is a success because I never had to go back to an earlier part of the novel to remind myself what had happened to the 20th century characters. The book begins ordinarily enough, with Alice Grey, owner of a bookstore in 1990s Washington, D.C. completing her novel about an 18th century midwife, Evangeline Smith, who is charged with witchcraft in Maidstone, MD in 1738. Alice is nearly done with her book when she feels compelled to do more research on her topic. (She literally receives a supernatural wake-up call from the past.) As she delves into the sources she should have read the first time, she begins to change her mind about Evangeline as she learns of multiple interpretations to events and to previously respected people. When she decides to find out the truth about Evangeline, that is when her life eerily begins to resemble Evangeline's final months, when she realizes that the people she thought were friends prove to be otherwise, and events in her life begin to parallel events in Evangeline's life 253 years earlier. There are some interesting and unexpected parallels done with the characters and their relationships, both romantic and platonic, in both settings. Heidish does a nice job in this book illustrating how people and events that may appear straightforward on the surface may actually be quite different once people decide to look below the surface.
This book is a good, fast read (I finished over a single weekend). I thought that the characters, both the heroines (& heros) and the villains were well developed, and I liked the storylines (both the 18th & 20th centuries).
What prevents me from rating this book 5 stars is the sense I have that the author (Heidish) had rushed to finish it and/or she had a page limit which she was close to exceeding when the novel ended. I found the ending to be rushed, and the destruction of the main character's (Alice Grey's) relationship with her best friend (who attempted a horrible crime against Alice) was brushed aside as if it were a matter of small consequence. The loss of any close friendship usually means some kind of introspection, and that was not demonstrated here. Readers are not given what Alice thought of this turn of events, nor how she dealt with it. I think that would have made a more satisfactory ending. Nonetheless, the positives outweigh the negatives, and if you like your mysteries with a twist, interesting characters, supernatural happenings to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up (but not so scary as to keep you up at night), and a well thought-out parallel story within the story, then this book is for you.

In this tale of history, horror and mysticism, events from more than 250 years ago take on a terrifying reality in the life of a 1990's woman.

Alice Grey inherited Wetherell's Rare and Used Books from her grandmother, who had taken Alice in after her parents were tragically killed. The shop was her community - she lived above it, provided a home to a nationally admired writers' group which attracted and nurtured both published and wannabe writers from all over the Washington area, and the people from the group and those who worked there were her friends.

Alice's latest book was the story of Evangaline Smith, an 18th century apothecary and midwife in a nearby settlement, who was sentenced to burn as a witch. As the investigation into Evangaline's life deepens, she becomes aware of startling parallels in their lives. It soon becomes apparent that the only way she can save herself and her reputation is to find out what really happened to Evangaline.

This well written book is skillfully and compellingly plotted, bringing the harsh, puritanical town of Maidstone in the 1730's as vividly to life as modern Georgetown. It seems greed, jealousy, and the lengths to which people will go to avoid being found out haven't changed at all.

If you like your thrillers with a bit of a spooky and mystical edge, this is for you.

I can't imagine why Marcy Heidish's entire fiction list is "out of print" - I borrowed this from my local library, and now I'm eager to read more of her work.

Marcy Heidish's book "The Torching" was an intricate web of the historical and the immiediate. She weaves a tale of a young woman, Alice Grey, who is obsessed with "rewriting" the history of an accused sorceress from the eighteenth century. There is an interesting twist as the events from the past come to parallel that which is occuring in the present. Heidish's see-saw between dream and reality makes this book a very tantalizing journey. However, many questions remain unanswered by the end of the novel. I felt it to be somewhat anti-climatic and I still wasn't entirely sure of the connections Heidish was trying to make. Despite this, it was still a fun read. Light but with enough thrills and suspense to give it depth. A pretty good book all around.

A beautiful book, nicely edited with notes so that you can get the obscure references, and funny--nay, uproarious--impromtu tall tales. Mencken and Goodman knowingly comment on the goings-on of all-too-human folk, with Olympian and sunlit wit and detachment. If you like to read Mencken, don't miss this one.

The discovery of a "new" book of H. L. Mencken's writing is always a special pleasure for those of us who love the old grouch and his work. This particular book, however, is something of an oddity. Anyone who has read much Mencken will be familliar with the style; from the scurrilous asides he liked to sprinkle into his narratives. In his published writing they served as a condiment, adding a scandalous spice to accounts of Political Conventions and the like. Here they are the whole meal, and it can become something of a muchness.

The subtitle "The Whimsical Letters..." is somewhat misleading. Whimsy has overtones of gentility, like two little old ladies exchanging stories about the faries that live in their gardens. Here we have two old so and so's raking up scandal in the "Old Neighborhood"; indulging in vulgarity, innuendo, and (had the subjects of their discourse been real) slander.

Fans of Mencken (and, presumably, of Goodman) will probably enjoy the book, although it is not a new Newspaper Days or Prejudices. Non fans should probably avoid it until they are familliar with Mencken and his world. This is not a good introduction.