Virginia Books

Chris Manning's book is an outstanding account of the importance of teamwork. Manning avoid drifting into cliche, as other "True stories" do, in order to present us with real life characters, warts and all. Through an almost game by game recount, Manning keeps the reader on the edge of his seat every game, conveying the emotion that he and his team felt during every pitch. This is a definite must read for anyone who loves baseball, especially anyone who wants to be a baseball player. It's refreshing to read about athletes who put their team, instead of themselves, first.

Being a kid that spent every minute of his time growing up wanting to be on a baseball diamond, Chris Manning's book "One Team One Dream" brings back all of those feelings that I had so many years ago. He does a wonderful job covering the highs and lows, the ups and the downs, essentially the true roller coaster emotions that embodies high school baseball. It was easy to relate to the players as the games and season unfolded, each chapter bringing me not only closer to the ending, but bringing back those lost memories of my high school glory days as well. I recommend this book for any sports fan, or even just the casual one who wants a reminder of the innocence of the game.

I re-read this book from time to time, the focus on different essays depending on where I am in my own life. The chapter on Virginia Woolf is one of the best essays on Woolf for this Woolfian scholar. Fraser describes how Virginia and Vanessa Stephen's father, Sir Leslie Stephen, wandered around their Victorian house weeping after his wife died. "I am a man without a skin," he said. He reportedly told his fragile, beautiful, and talented daughters: "When I am sad, you should be sad. When I am angry, you should weep." According to Fraser, Virginia Woolf believed her father "the model of the patriarchal family, with men given license to bully and rant while women and children submitted and served...." Fraser says Woolf believed that when such conditions are tolerated in private life, in public they can lead to fascism. "The tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other."

Fraser interviewed the Russian ex-patriot Nina Berberova many times. Nina Berberova only became known to the English-speaking world in her eighties, and is a role model for those who hope to thrive to their final breath. Berberova was active, thinking, writing, and living on her own to her death at 92. Fraser quotes the questions Berberova poses to herself as a writer: "Did you try to look inside yourself, or did you play the victim and look to others to blame? ... Did you speak out and tell the truth? Were you bold in your work? .... Did you fulfill your promise, the talent you were born with? ...Were you cooperating with the life force, or were you willfully moving in the direction of suicide?"

Also of interest is Fraser's reading of Edith Wharton. After describing an attempted rape in The House of Mirth, Fraser poses the possibility the author knew enough about such events to portray this scene and its impact on the heroine so vividly. As happens with so many young women, the character, Lily, feels shamed. "I am bad--a bad girl--all my thoughts are bad." She keeps the attempted rape a secret even from her best friend. Again, Fraser hones in on the secrets, the "ornament and silence" so many women continue to observe.

"Lily, though a grown and sophisticated woman, is strangely spellbound, lonely, and unprotected, like a girl in an incestuous house," Fraser says.

The other evidence the author might have been molested include her childhood illnesses, and in young womanhood, "symptoms of what her Victorian doctors called neurasthenia but which contemporary diagnosis often links to early sexual trauma. Panic attacks, breathing difficulties...migraines, debilitating depressions. .... Nausea so severe...she became incapable of eating."

After citing the famous quote from Flaubert: "Be regular and ordinary in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you can be violent and original in your works," Fraser politely observes how easy it can be for some male artists and writers to pursue their art with mothers, wives, lovers, or daughters to cosset, cook, and keep the household quiet.

For example, Fraser says, "In the old, old female story, Penny embarked on the old, old course: trying to mend a wounded man in an attempt to heal the hurt little girl from her past." This refers to Penny Scott, who married Paul Scott, a British novelist. Penny Scott kept the world quiet for her husband even though he disdained and possibly abused her. She didn't "know" of his homosexuality or his alcoholism, though at least one of these should have been fairly obvious, and she later had to take refuge in a shelter for battered women.

"As an alcoholic who couldn't stop drinking, he was still committing suicide. The disease of alcoholism is as patient as a tiger; it will life in wait for its victims for years and years," Fraser observes of Scott. With this, Fraser astutely hones in on yet another "secret" many continue to believe in poor taste to discuss.

Fraser refers to women in their roles as ornaments to men's art, or their silence in the face of duty or shame. In her chapter on George Eliot, she writes: "To a woman writer, exposing family secrets can seem perilously close to going mad. Men have had the support of the culture as they recognized their own experience and laid claim to it by writing it down. On the whole, they have been able, without inhibition,to feed their creative ambitions with the details of other people's lives. Men had a mandate, after all, to inform the public about the nature of life. Things have not been--are not--so simple for a woman. Women have often withheld their stories, because honesty about emotions and about the family feels to many women like a sin. It means drawing aside the curtain, lifting lids. It means rencouncing the role of good girl....It may mean expressing anger....Women must set aside the bowl they have used to beg for approval and praise. George Eliot was not free as an artist until her respectable family had cast her out. Only a community larger than family, only powers greater than lovers or husbands, can sustain women writers....

Finally, of interest to anyone who has been a long-time reader of the New Yorker, is Fraser's memoir of her own arrival there in her early twenties, and her apprenticeship with William Shawn. Not only is the essay hilarious, with the author's description of flying up the stairs in her mini-skirt, her hair so long she could wrap it around her neck, but the reader gets to glean some of Mr. Shawn's wisdom about writing and writers as taught to someone who clearly learned her lessons well.

I read this book looking for something and I found in it the most strong women I could ever know. An inspiration in every way to my young mind I will be changed forever by this amazing collection. Kennedy Fraser captures the essence of each of the women (and the few men) that she writes about. She's amazing, it's amazing.

Full disclosure: Stephen Ausband is my cousin. Having said that, I give you my objective assurance that this book is a small masterpiece.

Outdoors Year Round is in the literary tradition of Izaak Walton and Thoreau, and in spite of its brevity and its stated quotidian purpose, compares favorably to the modern masters of writing about the outdoors - Stegner, McPhee, Peter Matthiessen, Norman Maclean. According to the Introduction, Outdoors Year Round is "for people who need to get outside during every month." That's true: Outdoors Year Round is a practical guidebook of the kind that hunters and anglers along coastal Virginia and North Carolina might carry in the glove compartment or the tackle box. But it's a great deal more, too. Ausband is an altogether accomplished writer, and his setting - the maritime forests and wetlands of the mid-Atlantic U.S. - remains one of the most beautiful and diverse expanses of temperate coastline in the world. The book covers the year in twelve chapters, "January" through "December." Into the local, topical month-by-month where-when-and-how, he has woven closely observed vignettes about hunting and fishing, and a series of moving and humane reflections on the relationship between the natural world and nature-loving hunters and anglers.

In particular, I want to recommend Outdoors Year Round to people who dislike or disapprove of hunting and fishing. The purpose of the book is not at all to address such concerns, and I don't necessarily think that reading this book will change anyone's mind; but I do think people who blanch at the idea of hunting or fishing will find it instructive to consider the love of nature that informs Ausband's text, and the active stewardship of wildlife and habitat practiced by the men and women who populate the pages of his book - the hunting and fishing guides, the proprietors of the bait shops and hunting lodges, and the hunters and anglers themselves.

Dr. Stephen Ausband, a professor at Averett University, is an avid outdoors man who has written a book on
fishing and hunting in costal Virginia and North Carolina. I found the book to informative, entertaining and easy
to read.

Ms. Virginia White's book about Hungary is indeed a valuable edition to the genre, and I congratulate her for this volume and her splendid life.

Virginia White tells two equally engrossing tales in her fascinating new book: that of Hungary as it makes a difficult transition from Communism to western style capitalism and her own personal story full of adventures, mishaps, warmth, wisdom and humor. As a "senior" Peace Corps teacher in Hungary in the early 90s, White was well-positioned to observe the unprecedented turn-around in that country, and her insights into the politics, economics, and society of the time are right on the mark. But it is her talent as an observer of everyday details and her fascinating interactions with her new neighbors, friends, and students that make this book so hard to put down. One looks forward to reading the further adventures of someone who is far from being "over the hill."

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 first picked up Patriots' Gold while visiting my grandfather. I loved the book so much I stayed up all night reading it. It is definatly a page turner. Even though it is a "children's book" don't let this stop you from reading a very interesting story. Historical fiction books may not be true but the make certain parts of history come alive for us and also gives us insight on how people acted in that time period. So, if you ever happen to stumble upon Patriots' Gold don't hesitate to read it.

"Patriots' Gold" is about an eager young boy who experiences many suspenseful situations on his unexpected mission to deliver gold to General Washington during the American Revolution. It is full of patriotism and loyalty to our country and conveys a sense of moral duty, even among the young, by working to make a positive difference in a developing new nation

I heard about the book and read it with great interest,and passed it on to my son,who was age 19 at the time. We both enjoyed it,and moved on to other interests. The next year, my son traveled by auto to Alaska(from Virginia) and upon his return,he said to me,"Dad, this is a beautiful country,but you can't see it very well from a car. Why don't we go on a bicycle adventure from Richmond to Toronto like that father and son did in "Pedaling Northward" . At the time I was 48 and son was 20, and we were targeting the following summer. I looked him in the eye,and said, "Sounds like a good idea to me." We did it in 12 days inclusive, and 10 days of cycling. We followed the same course as the author until Elmira,NY at which point we headed northwest toward Buffalo and Niagara. We stopped along the way to talk with people Lind had met ,and learned from his mistakes. We were luckier with the weather...it was cool and dry. I recommend the book as a guide for any father and son who want to enjoy the beauty of this country, the power of bonding, and who want to create a memory that will last a lifetime.

This book made me wish my knees were not so creaky. In this time of point-to-point travel (skipping everything in between) it is wonderful to be on the land with this father and son as they make their way north. Their adventures and misadventures have the immediacy of real-life experience. I recommend it to arm chair travellers and bike-seat travellers alike! It is suitable for young adult readers as well as adults. My children loved the audio version!

I read this book while doing research on my Great-Great Grandfather, who fought in the War and was a member of the 11th Virginia Infantry, Company B. The author of this book being of Company C, 11th Virginia, I was able to trace somewhat the actions of my Great-Great Grandfather during the war. A compelling book from the perspective of the young men of the South who bravely fought to defend their invaded homeland. It only pains me that the truth written in this antiquted volume has been all but forgotten in todays "history" lessons.

In this book, Captain William H. Morgan, (a member of "The Immortal 600"), relates personal experience "in camp, in bivouac, on the march, on picket, on the skirmish line, on the battlefield, and in prison" -- and also gives a history not only of his own company, but of the Eleventh Regiment, Kemper's Brigade, and Pickett's Division. Captain Morgan's writing is delightful and a valuable addition to the story of the war. He tells his story in a direct, pleasant, graphic way which conveys his thoughts, opinions, and the facts very distinctly -- and holds the interest of his readers in a very engaging way. A complete index adds to its value.

Phoebe Clappsaddle for Sheriff is every bit as fun as Chrismer/Roeder's first book, Phoebe Clappsaddle and the Tumble Weed Gang. It is great to see a strong female character with a touch of fimininity. Chrismer's Texas voice puts a spark to the text, and Roeder's delightful illustrations add the fireworks!

Chrismer has done it again! Phoebe Clappsaddle is one heck of a cowgirl, and being sheriff is a real spur in the Tumbleweed's butts. This is a must read for all kids (and their parents). Virginia Roeder brings Phoebe to life with her adorable illustrations, imbedded with clever humor. I said it once, and I'll say it again. I love Phoebe!

This book is great for young deaf and hard of hearing children in schools, especially in mainstream settings. It has a child-friendly drawing for almost any word you can think of (I have always been able to find what I'm looking for). It also shows the ASL sign, as well as some SEE signs, for each word and uses each word in one or two sentences. It will be helpful for children and adults, hearing and deaf, who are learning sign language, learning to read, and/or who need help learning word-concept relations.

I got this book because in the process of teaching our hearing daughter sign language we came upon some words our little starter book didn't cover (starter book was 'Sign With Your Baby' by Joseph Garcia). This book, in conjunction with the American Sign Language Browser Web Site, helped our 14-month-old learn 50+ signs so far. It's a great, comprehensive, and friendly book.