Mississippi Books

I stumbled across this book at the local community college library. I thought it was interesting title, so I sat down with it instead of my Calculus homework. I then spent the next four hours immersed in the hidden history of 20th century domestic counter-intelligence programs, aka "negative intelligence." Suddenly, I understood that the COINTELPRO of the 1960s wasn't an isolated American phenomenon. There was 50 years of practice behind those programs, and this book is the nitty gritty history of that. For those with an ideological bias towards the "right," don't dismiss this book just because it has the term "left" in the title - you need to know about how your government conducts surveillance and agitation against counter-establishment groups, too.

Talbot concludes the introduction to his book noting, "Most Americans, I dare say, have had a pristine vision of a country unencumberd by a meddling army. Like so much of our history, that belief turns out to be largely mythical". This book is essential reading for anyone interested learning about the destruction of the American left or interested in understanding how America's security aperatus rationalizes setting aside the law to enforce conformity to their social and political objectives.

I *LOVE* this cookbook! I have (and love) the earlier edition, but this is completely different, and incredibly wonderful. Like many community cookbooks, it contains families' most treasured recipes -- but they're very clearly written, most describe why they're such favorites, and they're all contributed by writers, many of whom you'll know and love. Truly, one of my all-time favorites!

I must confess that since the advent of the Internet, I have not found it necessary to buy many cookbooks (sorry, authors), because the recipe for just about anything can be found on the virtual Web, but this book caught my eye, went on my Amazon Wish List and was received for Christmas. What an absolute treat! The recipes as such are almost secondary in this book, because the point is that all of them have been contributed by American authors, including such jaw-dropping talents as Pete Dexter and Elmore Leonard. And Jay McInerney and E. Annie Proulx. And many more. Now, as one who likes to cook and has by dint of circumstance done so in Eastern Europe for more than a decade now, I find a distressing reliance in some of these recipes on such things as Campbell's soups. With the possible exception of the most detailed bisques and, perhaps, Bouillabaisse, soup is so easy and wonderful to cook at home that there should be no excuse for this. But I digress. The true joy to this book is the writing which accompanies many of the recipes. Thus, for instance, you would never find this ingredient in the oeuvre of Julia Childs:

1 lb. turkey hearts (Do not attempt to collect individually - very messy and inconvenient to the turkeys)

Or instructions such as this; "Now serve with rice and, on the side, a well-iced can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, one per guest, with extra in the icebox. Without the Pabst is okay, but not true Appalachian".

This is a book which would be appropriate not just for those who spend lots of time in the kitchen, but to anyone who enjoys American literature. There's enough for both kinds of people (and I'll bet lots of Amazon users correspond to both descriptions). I can't recommend this book more highly!

This book, like the three previous books in the series, has a solid, logical plot, entertaining action sequences, and interesting characters. Set along the Mississippi in the latter days of the riverboat era, NO REMORSE is well-researched and gives a realistic feel for the time it is portraying. The only flaw in the series is that the bad guys ALWAYS reveal their plots while holding one or more of the protaganists at gunpoint. This has happened in every book of the series. It's a minor annoyance, since the detectives have usually figured most of it out by this point anyway, but it does come across as a bit of a "duex ex machina." But this is a minor complaint that is more than made up for by the many strengths in the series--strong plots, interesting setting and good character development.

In 1873, Luke Williamson, Masey Baldridge, and Salina Tyner form an unlikely partnership when they established the Big River Detective Agency. Luke is a riverboat captain with two ships. Masey is a drunken gambler. Salina is a retired hooker. However, Luke realizes that he needs a new venture (ergo: he jointly opens the detective agency) because the age of the steamboat seems to be nearly over as the railroads have taken a lot of his business away. So far, the new venture has been a drain on Luke's assets.

The trio soon have their first major case when one of Luke's riverboat competitors, Hudson Van Geer, is killed. The victim's wife hires the trio to find out what really happened to her spouse because she does not believe that her son Stewart, who confessed to the police that he killed his dad, is the culprit. The agency has one week to prove otherwise or Stewart will be hung for murder and suspects are everywhere with plenty of motives.

Readers will feel NO REMORSE if they peruse this interesting Reconstruction Era mystery. The who-done-it is very easy to solve, but that does not diminish the fact that this is a well written and interesting tale. The lead characters are charming because their flaws seem so real and the support cast adds a feeling of authenticity to the period. James D. Brewer clearly knows his way around the first decade following the Civil War and warmly provides a rich description so that his audience will know the time frame also.

Harriet Klausner

Summary: A collection of stories about moral and ethical dilemmas and the impact of individual choices on society.
This volume of nine passionately written stories is, if nothing else, a lesson in perseverance.
Author Peter Baida submitted his title story to 22 publications. All rejected it. A more easily discouraged writer might have given up after, say, the 10th rejection, but Baida continued submitting his story. Eventually, editor No. 23, Peter Stitt of The Gettysburg Review, accepted and published "A Nurse's Story."
You can probably guess the rest. "A Nurse's Story" won first prize in the 1999 O. Henry Awards. It was a vindication for the author and an indictment of the 22 editors who apparently saw no merit in the story.
However, this book is more important for its contents then for its history.
Peter Baida's voice is distinctive. His short stories boast a solid moral center, a concern with day-to-day ethics and responsibilities. Baida appears to be an unsentimental Christian whose outlook is similar to that of the Catholic Worker movement. He is clearly for the "little guy" and against the dehumanizing effects of both corporations and unions. He reveals a social consciousness that harkens back to the proletarian literature of the 1930s, but leavened with the irony and ambiguity of the 1990s.
Baida also reveals a streak of mysticism and other-worldliness - in stories such as "A Nurse's Story" and "The Rodent," the dead come back to converse with the living - qualities that perhaps turned off editors more inclined to realism and minimalism.
But Baida's writing isn't screechy and preachy. He writes smoothly and subtly, with humor and some experimentation. "Points of Light," a story of how one's politics change with age, is written almost entirely as dialogue.
Many of Baida's stories don't follow the classic unity of time; instead, they experiment with chronology, skipping back and forth through the decades, covering a lifetime or several lifetimes in a few pages. Baida can show us "the big picture" while still focusing on the details. Not unlike the short stories of Alice Munro, Baida's short stories feature enough character and plot to sustain a novel.
In stories such as "Class Warfare" and "Mr. Moth and Mr. Davenport," Baida comes across as pro-union, but with a jaundiced eye. He doesn't ignore the sincere concerns of management, nor does he ignore the corruption and violence of the unions. "Class Warfare" is a pitiless account of a newspaper strike, narrated by one of the strikers, and tells of deals made with the devil by both sides in the conflict.
Baida knows that all actions - and inactions - have consequences, some of which reverberate through society and across generations. This is what Robert Penn Warren once called "the spider web theory of history": No matter what spot of the web is touched, the entire web vibrates.
Baida also knows that individuals sometimes must make agonizing choices in life, and that sometimes the morally correct choice can still have disastrous consequences for the innocent.
In the heartbreaking "The Rodent," a corporate whistleblower prevents his company from marketing a potentially dangerous drug. His choice saves countless unknown lives, but destroys all he holds dear - his reputation, his career, and his family.
That story's moral counterpoint is "The Reckoning," a tale of how a college administrator's pride and greed ruin the lives of his children long after he has died and they have grown into unhappy adults.
"A Doctor's Story" is also about choices - how a doctor in the Germany of the 1930s chooses his patients' quality of life over their right to life, and thus helps jump-start his society from euthanasia to the Holocaust.
The O. Henry Prize-winner, "A Nurse's Story," is about Mary McDonald, a nurse and union organizer whose humble but principled life has a domino effect. Her choices benefit the lives in her community for generations to come. The story has almost the same virtues as "It's A Wonderful Life," but without the saccharine and treacle.
Sadly, the author's own Cinderella story of winning the O. Henry Award - a story O. Henry himself might have penned - does not have a happy ending. Peter Baida died of complications of hemophilia two months after winning the prize. He was 49 years old.
It was the kind of hard reality that Baida the artist would have appreciated.
Peter Baida's A Nurse's Story and Others is thus a posthumous publication. It is also a worthy memorial to the humanity and vision of its author.

The stories in this volume are incredibly well-written and moving -- Peter Baida was obviously a talented, caring writer. I was unfamiliar with him or with his work until I chanced upon this book on the 'recent fiction' shelf at the library -- I'm really glad I picked it up.

The stories here deal with people we might consider to be ordinary until we read about them. The love of his characters gives Baida the power to flesh them out fully, to make them whole -- to make us care about them. Mostly told as reflections on their pasts, they depict turning points -- times at which we are given a choice to make in our lives or in our actions. The characters don't always make the best choices -- as in real life, hindsight is much clearer that our 'real time' options -- but Baida passes no judgements upon them. He presents the facts of their lives and allows us to draw our own conclusions. Even those characters whose choices are poor -- even reprehensible -- are not without their redeeming qualities, rather like the human beings who populate this globe.

Baida's narrative powers are immense -- and his characters live and breathe on the pages before us. The title story in this collection was the first-prize recipient of the 1999 O. Henry Award -- and well-deserved. It's a shame that Baida died shortly after receiving this honor. We can only imagine what literary gifts he would have given us since then -- but this volume is a fine testament to his wonderful talent.

Ol' Man River: Memoirs Of A Riverboat Captain by Captain William D. Bowell is the intriguing autobiography an influential, energetic, charismatic, inspired and inspiring man. Readers will follow Bowell through the Great Depression, D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, publishing marketing for Holiday Inn, Oldsmobile, Greyhound, United Airlines and more well known American companies, as well as creating a national catalog for discount merchandisers. All followed by a lifetime of captaining the Padelford Packet Boat Company which he founded in the year in 1970. Ol' Man River is an encouraging story of a man who truly made a difference, highly recommended to the non-specialist general reader, especially those captured by adventurous and true tales.

Captain Bill Bowell's "Ol' Man River" offers readers a view of the Mississippi and one man's life with it as broad as the river, itself. That Captain Bowell has lead a life rich in experience, art, lore, and courageous endeavors is obvious in this wonderfully illustrated book. Not only does Bowell treat readers to his wild escapades on the Mississippi, but we also hear the inspiring stories of a man who parachuted out of a plunging plane at Normandy who survived landing behind enemy lines. His story is one of wit and humor. Truly a Renaissance Man of our times.

Beverly brings a novelist's sensibility to literary and cultural criticism. An incisive, engaging read, and a timely one: in a day when fugitives from American-style justice capture the headlines, Beverly observes the importance of the fugitive figure to American culture at the dawn of the modern.

I sat down to read a page or two and could not put the book down...On the Lam opens with the account of Robert Burns--a man sent to the chain gang for armed robbery of roughly ...--and his escape to Chicago where he founded a successful press. His landlady falls in love with him, finds out he's wanted in Georgia and blackmails him. When the Georgia officials find him in Illinois, they persuade him to return to finish his 10-year term in a matter of months. Once he returns, it's evident they plan to force him to serve the whole term. So he escapes *again* and makes a living selling his stories to detective magazines while on the lam. His novel is made into an academy award winning movie (I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang) starring Paul Muni; the movie exposed the cruelties on a chain gang and the resulting public outcry created drastic improvements of the system. And so begins this book's focus on a subject that has captivated America for years--the fugitive.

Beverly's discussion of the deadly and dangerous contest between Hoover's FBI and the Midwestern bandit John Dillinger is one of my favorite parts of the book.

This book presents a deep survey of African American professional and commercial entertainment from the late 1880s until the turn of the century. In doing this, the authors document an aspect of music that is often neglected. Yet, we cannot discuss this volume alone. When I speak of this book, all the same words apply to _Ragged but Right_, by the same authors which continues the story to the first twenty years of the 20th Century.

What these books document is the explosion of African American musical creativity that changed the entire popular musical world, once slavery was overthrown and African American creativity broke free. Every conceivable instrument from the banjo-newly reconstituted by European American manufacturers-- to the Oboe was taken up in the stream of instrumentalmusic expressed first in string bands, brass bands, dance orchestras, minstrel bands, circus bands, string quartets, ragtime bands, classical ensembles, and ultimately jazz bands and blues bands. Seroff and Abbot are wise to include the rise of Black religious music, if only in a formalized, Europeanized, and essentially entertainment rather than worship oriented form, as a central part of the world-wide impact of Black music.

We have an explosion of Black music on the stage, in the streets, in all kinds of touring companies, minstrels, play acting, dancing, and in comedy that begins in the 1880s. We have the explosion of Black dances, some rooted in Africa, that begin to create dance crazes for the entire society as the 19th century runs into the 20th. Best of all this book captures the performers and the producers and the entrepeneurs involved in this business as well as the Black critics.

The authors put the words of their sources, the African American entertainment paper the Indianapolis Freeman, first and foremost, ahead of their own voices. Most of the information comes directly from the Freeman and from other Black newspapers like the New York Age, and for general entertainment papers like the New York Clipper out of which a charming and informative obituary for Horace Weston, the great African American banjoist whose playing was hailed on both sides of the Atlantics from the 1860s until his death in 1889. Most words and information come from the voices of contemporary Black people, not modern analysts, and there is a wealth of photographs, playbills, and other memorabilia of this great age of Black entertainment.

Ragtime, Blues, Jazz, Spirituals, developed as truly world-wide musics based on African American music. Abbot and Seroff show that these Black performers were not just hitting all the stops in the USA, but circling the globe, headlining in Europe, China, Australasia, and bring the music back to Africa itself. This is one of the central cultural events in human history and Abbot and Seroff document this entirely.

Even without some of the superb cross referencing and indexing by song in this book, a knowledgeable student of old time country music, Black traditional music, and the Blues, will discover how many verses and how many songs you are already familiar with are the product of interaction between Black commercial song-writer songs and Black professional entertainment and these folk musics.

Of vital importance in this volume, Out of Sight, is the story of Ragtime and its progress. In discussions of American music and African American music Ragtime is overly indentified with the transcribed and composed piano music of geniuses like Scott Joplin. Yet, Ragtime was a broad musical movement that began in the Kansas/Missouri area in the 1880s based on the rhythms produced by Black rural string band dancing taken into city dance halls and taken up by the growing groups of African American pianists and band leaders as well as by string bands. As a broad music underlying much popular and folk music, Ragtime was a central thread in American music from the 1880s until the 1920s, although into the 1930s and 1940s, music that was really ragtime was being offered as either the Blues or Jazz.

Indeed, we need the understanding of Ragtime, its roots and extent as offered here to understand such musicians as Jimmie Rodgers, Gus Cannon, Charlie Poole, WC Handy, and James Reesce Europe, as disparate as their musics seem, were part of the large musical movement of Ragtime. This is one of many things offered here, not in ambitious and incautious analysis, but presented by the extent of primary source information in this book and Out of Site.

Finally, these books suffer a similar fate to other books that pioneer their field. We have the impulse to demand of them what a library of a variety of books on this history and music should do. The authors have done their job. Now others need to do their jobs involving such issues as theinteraction between Black commercial music and various forms of folk music, with political and economicdevelopments of the time, and with the changes in racial consciousness and images of AfricanAmericans within and without the Black nationality.

We can wrongly aim to criticize these books for not doing all of this and more, when it is the necessity of someone finally doing this work and highlightingall that this uncovers that makes the need for so much more suddenly apparent, but this is not the fault of theauthors. Instead, they call others into action to do this work!

This book and Ragged But Right are quite expensive, even at the remaindered prices offered here on Amazon. Wherever you are, even if you can afford one of your own, implore your local library to get one!

One of the problems with historical research is that we often get lost in summaries and highlights - and lose a sense of context, what it was really like to live in a distant time and space. This excellently done reference book is all about "being there" - it literally reprints music-related news stories from the black press of the period 1889-1895, along with some connecting narrative. The authors have long studied this era and give us a vivid view of the black music scene in the period when syncopated music was just emerging into the mainstream, shortly to morph into ragtime and then jazz. Many of the names will be unfamiliar (though I did sight such diverse figures as W.C. Handy and Antonin Dvorak), but any student of roots music will find this fascinating reading, not only for the "big" events, but for the little ones. There are even a few of the earliest black recording artists here (commercial recording began around 1890). There are fascinating illustrations, and extensive notation. Altogether a handsomely done book, as well as an important piece of scholarship on African-American music and history.

The southern states east of the Mississippi were in a territory that was for a long time under Spanish or Indian jurisdiction. By law, only persons issued passports were allowed to enter the southeastern territories, and so the passport records have the largest body of data relating to the pioneers to the Southeastern United States.

Dorothy W. Potter spent eight years doing research in the records of the War Department, the State Department, the archives of the individual states, as well as records of the Spanish and the British in West Florida. So she has assembled a complete collection of the passports and travel documents issued to individuals and families going to the Mississippi Valley area from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Never again can genealogists complain that research in the Old South is hampered by lack of a comprehensive source book, for in this one outstanding reference work there is now a huge and invaluable body of source material at their disposal. No wonder this book was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the Tennessee Historical Commission!

"...This is one of the finest reference books we have ever seen."--Winston De Ville, Alexandria (LA) Daily Town Talk

"...Mrs. Potter has made a major contribution to genealogical research in the southern states."--Charles F. Bryan, Jr., Tennessee Historical Quarterly

"May I take a moment of your time to tell you how impressed I am with your Passports of Southeastern Pioneers. It is a model work of genealogical scholarship...."--Letter to the author from Elizabeth Shown Mills

This book was well writing, with many unknown facts on the movement of American families caming to the Southern states. It is a shame that it is out of print.

I purchased the book for my daughter and she likes it. the book is in good condition.

This is not my first Chesnutt book. Over the years I read the Marrow of Tradition, House Behind the Cedars and several of Chesnutt's short stories. PAUL MARCHAND FMS is truly a lost treasure. The introduction is extremely well done and gives an excellent explanation to new readers of this genre. All readers will get a true sense of the racial lines that exsisted in early 19th century New Orleans and how some of these same feelings exist today. If you have not been a reader of Chesnutt, this is a good place to start. I'm sure that you will come to love his writings just as I have. As a native of Cleveland, Ohio, I'm proud to remind all readers that Chesnutt spent most of his live in Cleveland and is buried in Cleveland's historic Lakeview Cemetery.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. This very candid yet sincere look at the trials and tribulations of the Jubes makes it that much more amazing that the group still sings with conviction. Perhaps it is because of those trials and tribulations that the Jubes continue to make recordings that touch your soul.

Reading the book made me feel like I was a part of the group. In this book, the Jubes accomplished the task of taking you on a trip through the `60s, `70s, `80s, and `90s and pulling you onto the road, into their car, onto the stage and into the studio as if you were a part of the group.

I also found the layout of the book to be quite interesting. The stories told from the Jubes' perspective and in their own words served to prove why the Jubes is such a hard-hitting group and in such great demand. They tell it like it is (or was). That is one reason why they continue to be one of top group in the quartet industry.

Thank you for the history lesson. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in quartet music and to those who are interested in Black history.

As a quartet enthusiast I am very familar with the Pilgrim Jubilees and this is just the case of a deserving party finally getting their reward. Though only a handful of book on this genre of music have been written, this is only the second to focus on a particular quartet group (The first on Smithdale Mississippi's Williams Brothers). The book is definitely a well deserved tribute to these quartet Legends. Having established a very distinct driving sound that has become popular in the quartet industry, the Jubes tell a very powerful and heart warming story that has all the elements for good reading. From the hilarious stories of their youthful years, to the more serious questions of death within the group, the reader is taken on a gripping emotional journey. As a side note the book even includes one of the most inclusive discographies of the Jubes recorded works. If you love quartet gospel then you must own this book which features a handful of great stories about Quartet Legends past and even those still with us today. As quartet fans, supporters, and enthusiasts alike your quartet collection is not complete until you pick up this book.