Virginia Books

This is the third in a series of picture albums of Wythe County, VA featuring houses, schools, churches, barns, furnaces, etc. The book is currently available from Kegley Books, PO Box 134, Wytheville, VA 24382, and also from the Boyd Museum, Tazewell Street, Wytheville, VA, 24382. The first edition of the book is still available.

As far back as history takes us, it is clear that beverge alcohol has been consumed in most societies. When used with discretion, its mild mood changing properties tend to enhance the quality of life. Most alcohol research has been on men or people in general. But due to metabolism and other factors, alcohol reacts differently in women. In Alcohol and Women: Creating a Safer Lifestyle, the authors have reviewed research on women drinkers relative to qualtity of alcohol intake in relation to body weight. In some situations, abstinence is also recognized as the only safe limit. Thomas B. Turner MD,Dean Emeritus, Johns Hopkins Sch. of Medicine

Humankind and alcoholic beverages have peacefully coexisted for thousands of years. In this increasingly stern age, this readable and scientifically sound book about women and alcohol provides helpful information so that a woman can make intelligent and educated decisions about her own drinking habits. Morris E. Chafetz MD, Founding Director of the NIAAA

I am delighted that you have ventured to de-mystify this complicated alcohol business for the general readership. You have a nice balance of solid educational data and clear sound advice - the book deserves a broad audience. Dwight B. Heath, Ph.D, Professor Anthropology, Brown University

This book has all the info that is typically found in several books on ethanol. Feedstocks, yields, regulation and permits, distilling (although it only briefly touches on vacuum distillation), usage, engine modifications, history, etc.

ALDOUS HUXLEY AND FILM presents the first in-depth study of the career of Aldous Huxley in Los Angeles, where he lived from 1938 until his death in 1963. On that day, November 22, as he lay dying, unaware of President Kennedy's assassination, Huxley asked for an injection of LSD, and he slipped away tripping peacefully. His life in Los Angeles had been no less dramatic. There, he was part of a lively circle of friends, such as Greta Garbo, Christopher Isherwood, Anita Loos, Charlie Chaplin, Krishnamurti, and Igor Stravinsky. Besides producing a number of important books, he wrote for films, including screenplays for four major features: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1939), MADAME CURIE (1943), JANE EYRE (1944), and A WOMAN'S VENGEANCE (1947).

Set in a biographical/cultural context, ALDOUS HUXLEY AND FILM explores the symbiotic relationship between film and literature in Huxley's career. In addition to examining Huxley's four major screenplays in depth, the book investigates Huxley's attitudes and experiences regarding film throughout his entire working life. It also probes the influence of his involvement with the movies--along with his confrontation with the unique culture of California--on his other writings. Among those works, Huxley's "Hollywood novel," AFTER MANY A SUMMER DIES THE SWAN (1939; inspired by William Randolph Hearst and San Simeon) and his "lost screenplay," APE AND ESSENCE (1948; a kind of sequel to BRAVE NEW WORLD, set in the ruins of Los Angeles in the year 2108), are analyzed in detail.

ALDOUS HUXLEY AND FILM (Number 16 in the Scarecrow Filmmakers Series) presents new and important areas of study for both film scholars and literary critics. The book is well illustrated with photographs of Huxley and his associates, and with stills from his four major films.

The author, Virginia M. Clark (Ph.D., University of Maryland), has taught English and film at the University of Maryland and at Frostburg State University, and has been on the staff of the Library of Congress, and of the American Film Institute in her native Los Angeles. She has edited several AFI FACTFILES and contributed to the AFI CATALOG OF FEATURE FILMS, 1911-1920 and 1931-1940. Among her publications are articles appearing in FILMS AND FILMMAKERS, MAGILL'S SURVEY OF CINEMA, THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PERFORMING ARTS ANNUAL, INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF FILMS AND FILMMAKERS, and THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM. She co-edited with Ann Martin WHAT WOMEN WROTE: SCENARIOS, 1912-1929. She also writes screenplays.

[This review was written by the author, so you would know what the book is about, and who the author is. Thank you for reading it.]

As being the daugher of an Alexandria Policeman, George Stinnett, Page 80 in the book, I was very pleased in the way that it was written. It covered alot of the old days and knowing quite a few of the officers I was touched. My aunts, sisters, brother and children were very happy seing the book and it was a nice addition in having "Dad" home for Christmas! Thank you.

Wounded after intervening in a student's life, Faye Harper retreats to a childhood haunt to find respite. Rather than the expected peace, however, she quickly finds herself in the midst of a criminal investigation. Detective Aleksy Denko, also from Chicago, unofficially seeks answers in arms deal gone wrong that left a former partner dead.

Aleksy underestimates Faye's resilience, viewing her as a cream puff. Cute like Faye is not his type, although she can make him understand its appeal. What he really needs is a cover, and Faye can provide it. Unfortunately, Faye has to get involved with anything that involves risk. Too bad her own actions have already put her in danger.

A faced paced, heart pounding read, ALL A MAN CAN ASK provides unexpected twists that makes author Virginia Kantra's novels a must read. Unexpected courage and surprising compassion bring these characters vividly alive, even as drug addicted teens, stretchy bras, and romantic entanglement also intriguing elements that prove these character's all too human flaws. Indeed, the fast paced plot and the strong characterizations are nicely balanced, resulting in a tale that is at once deadly yet richly balanced by powerful emotions and physical attraction. ALL A MAN CAN ASK comes very highly recommended.

Thematic poetry anthologies are a risky business nowadays. A generation of language writing and post-avant work has productively questioned both representation and subject matter as distinct ideas. It has also contested the traditional lyric "speaker" in favor of other forms of self: fragmented, culturally determined, political. By its nature, a thematic collection walks right into the middle of these debates.

So why does this one work so well?

For several reasons. First, London as a site stands for the idea of metropolis--the place where relationships between an individual self, however constituted, and the human collective are forged, fought over, savored, and resented. Spaar has brought together a diverse range of voices and points of view about this process, sparing no tender feelings. Here is Stein's "Threadneedle Street" (on which stands the Bank of England):" I am going to conquer. I am going to be flourishing. I am going to be industrious. Please forgive me everything." Linton Kwesi Johnson's "New Crass Massakah" about the racially motivated New Cross fire resonates with the "Fire-coal sky hanging over that biblical city" from Martin Sorrell's translation of Verlaine's "Limping Sonnet." Such cross-cultural and -temporal resonances make the book both stimulating and provocative.

Another reason for the book's success is that many of its poems take London as a motif or incidental setting rather than subject. So the anthology's "theme" also works as a kind of formal constraint, like an acrostic. Thus we see Ted Berrigan and Patience Agbabi making poems out of snapshots of life-in-progress, Adrian Mitchell apostrophizing the statues in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, and the cavalier poet Herrick celebrating in Ovidian style "His Returne to London" from his "exile" in Devon. This idea of London as motif or formal device is strengthened by Spaar's division of the book into four sections named for the elements--earth, air, fire, and water--an arbitrary structure that allows her to juxtapose poems by characteristics other than narrative content or their place in an "emotional arc."

And it's those juxtapositions, along with the selections included, that give the anthology its third strength: it's full of surprises--unfamiliar poems by familiar poets; exciting newer writers rubbing elbows with the great dead, and a satisfying variety of tone. There's humor, sadness, Masterpiece Theater propriety, and raucous outrageousness. Whether you know London personally or only as a literary idea, this collection, like all good anthologies, will send you looking for more work by the poets collected here.

Clarkson's off-beat, charming life lessons, from a to z are accompanied by Vehslage's loving, humorous and tender drawings. Her signature big noses are there and so is sense of the endearing inner life of children.

This book contains orders to record deeds, wills and powers of attorney for this period, lawsuits, witnesses, records of some Orphans Courts and Courts of Oyer and Terminer not found elsewhere. The names of many individuals not found in other county records appear here. There is a detailed index, and an index of names of slaves. 291 pages, softbound.(Prince Edward County was not cut away from Amelia until 1754, and Nottoway county was not cut off until 1789, therefore this record contains the court orders for both of these present-day counties at a very early period in their existence.)

American Lives: The Stories Of The Men And Women Lost On September 11 provides a bibliography of the men and women who lost their lives on Stepember 11th, recounting their achievements, their family ties, and how they came to be victims of disaster. American Lives is an outstanding tribute which brings to life their stories and those they left behind.