Iowa Books

Let me now say a few words in praise of a great writer and 1949 Grinnell College grad Curtis Harnack. I finished Harnack's "The Attic, a Memoir" a while back and was deeply impressed for two reasons. It brought back memories of my years in Iowa and it's a well-written appreciation of the heritage that forms a person's character.

The Iowa experience may be, as my English professor told us back in '60, "soft cultural primitivism"--simply nostalgia for the good old days. Those days may not have been very good or even very old, but being at Grinnell was an academic oasis not unlike that portrayed by Herman Hesse's fictional "Magister Ludi." Today, my life is relieved by the Internet and confounded by computer viruses, made safer by medical breakthroughs but scared into insensibility by TV commercials for spurious pharmaceuticals. I wonder at times if I'm really ready to continue into the 21st century, or whether I could go back to a softer time when the big decision meant ordering corn showder or a pork loin sandwich. Happily, Harnack seems to appreciate these choices too.

My classmates from the '60s would ask if I'd read Harnack, who went on to take a Master's at Columbia and become executive director of Yaddo, the artist's colony at Saratoga Springs. I hadn't. A former classmate mentioned him again last year, so I finally bought "The Attic." I'm not a great fan of memoirs, although I've written some. "The Attic," however, successfully defines and then fulfills its mission: "One writes a memoir," Harnack states, "to discover what recollection of a time or particular event might reveal, seeking to make the personal into something universal to which unknown readers might relate."

The book's form introduces the reader to his hometown and farm through the journalistic device of closing up his family's homestead. It devolves somewhat lengthily into an examination of relatives he grew up with--including a genealogical table--but this offers perspective from many different points of view.

There may be a third reason for appreciating the book and author. Harnack is the solid and memorable writer I wish I could be. Describing "The Glorious Fourth," he writes, "Once upon a time we citizens felt impelled to demonstrate with Fourth-of-July hoopla that America had been strong enough to make a country for itself, and the smallest popping ladyfinger suggested the shots fired at Lexington and Concord. Now [World War II] nobody in the world needed to be told."

I wish I'd said that.

This book was published in 1908, and the author approaches his subject in a way designed to acquaint the reader with the unusual achievments of a man not often mentioned today. Augustus Caesar Dodge was the first man born west of the Mississippi River to become a United States Senator, as well as the first Iowa Senator. (I call him that because he was the first man chosen by the Iowa Legislature as U.S. Senator--in 1848, tho Iowa was admitted to the Union in 1846!) Before Iowa was a state Dodge served as a Delegate to Congress and did yeoman work for the future state. The account in this book of the border dispute with Missouri is especially revealing, few Iowans today being aware of the state's victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Missouri v. Iowa, 7 How. 660 (1849), which defintively settled the southern boundary of Iowa. While unfortunately Dodge had a benighted view on slavery, on many other questions he was a statesman. After his defeat in 1854 he served as Minister to Spain, and his efforts there to secure Cuba for the U.S. were strenuous but unsuccessful. How different the years since 1858 would have been had Cuba become a part of the U.S. back then! Your time spent reading this old book will be well spent.

Author: Collins, Max Allan.
Title: The baby blue rip-off / Max Collins.
Publisher: New York : Walker, c1983.
Edition Date: 1983
Language: English
Physical Details: 160 p. ; 22 cm.
Subjects: Mallory (Fictitious character)--Fiction.
Authors--Fiction.
Iowa--Fiction.
Genre or Form: Detective and mystery stories.

The author of this book is an instructor at the University of Sheffield in England, but his handling of his topic is sure and not marred by any deficiency in knowledge of the subject which some might expect of a non-American. He traces Iowa politics from its beginning as a Territory in 1838, thru the rise of the Republican party in 1856, and that party's securing of the dominant positioon it acquired in Iowa before the Civil War began. It acquired that dominance because it was right on the issues leading to the Civil War, altho the author shows that Iowa Republicans for political advantage did not want any accord with the South and thus may have made the War more likely. After the war, Senator James Grimes played a pivotal role in defeating the effort to impeach Andrew Johnson, and thus is a hero for Iowans, since a successful impeachment resulting in removal would have altered the American system of government--even as a successful impeachment in 1999 would have altered that system. Anyone interested in politics of the mid nineteenth century will find this book of value. There is an excellent bibliography and the book is well-footnoted, with a good index. It is a book typical of the good books Iowa State University Press publishes on Iowa topics.

In an agricultural society, the barn is a fundamental structure that was adapted to a diversity of tastes, materials, architectural experiments, and distinctive styles. History in the form of farm buildings, "Barns Around Iowa: A Sampling of Iowa's Round Barns" is a superbly produced collection of photographs about Iowa's round barns, which had once numbered well over two hundred thousand. One thousand of these barns vanish annually and only a fraction of that original two hundred thousand number remains. A piece of heritage and personal history, "Barns Around Iowa" is a sad farewell to what use to make up so much of what America held dear - its agricultural history and architecture.

Based on my 3000 hours instructing aerobatics in a Cessna Aerobat. The book was written as a project with Cessna Aircraft in 1969 and updated with each printing. I'm the chief (and only) instructor of the world's smallest aerobatic school--one airplane/one instructor/one comfort bag

My grandfather's book is a splendid summary of his experiences as practicing beekeeping, as well as a instructor of the subject at Iowa State University. If you are interested in bees, and if you can get ahold of a copy, it will definitely find a treasured place on shelf.

Gilliland gives an excellent commentary on the experience of being a minor writer. Basically, she does two things. First, she enumerates what she doesn't like in the prevailing ethos of literary criticism. True, the assumption the reader is likely to make is that the author feels that the bad tendencies of the arbiters of what constitutes major writing are in some sense responsible for her being minor. However, most of those tendencies are connected by her to these arbiters either being famous powerful writers or pandering to such, so in fact her theoretical discussion of literary criticism is inescapably relevant to the question of what it means to be a minor writer, even if it also largely answers, to be more blunt and impolite than Gilliland, why literary critics can be immoral idiots. To greatly simplify, and at the risk of putting words in her mouth, famous non-minor writers tend (at least in comparison with the minor writers who are their competition) to be jet-set powerful males whose money and power enable them to live a life full of gain and remarkable out-of-the-way experiences that are in their self-interest (and the self-interest of currying critics) to glorify, and so notwithstanding that writings about ordinary, minor life are most worthy, such writings get little if any of the acclaim they deserve. She also bravely argues for moral purpose in writing, which she distinguishes from puritanical excess. In her criticisms, Gilliland is very polite, being careful to be respectful, and not letting anger influence her arguments much. The second thing she does is to illustrate her experience as a minor writer by introducing numerous anecdotes illustrating various themes of that experience. These stories and her skill at using them to illustrate her points make for the most interesting part of the book; Gilliland is a great short-story writer and in talking about herself less needs to feel the need to frame matters obliquely or in terms of technical language (portions of the book were apparently presented as papers at academic conferences). However, the dance she does (especially in the beginning of the book) in order to avoid giving offense to the academic literary criticism establishment, though it does make the book somewhat longer and more difficult than ideal, is mostly rather amusing in the skillfulness of its execution. And the book is intelligent like a good book should be.

I grew up in Eastern Iowa, and had never heard of this event. I am amazed that Hollywood hasn't made a movie of it yet, as it would make a great story. The actual battle was much bloodier and larger than the OK Coral.

This book is researched to nearly the fullest extent possible (they have scans of promise notes from the 1830's), as there weren't really any records for the town four years prior to the 'war'. The author does form opinions, but these are made from the hard evidence available.

The pace of the book is what I like to call 'heavy history' as it details each event and background with citations/notes. It is a slower read, and sometimes you can feel like you are peer reviewing a paper, but the subject is great. Overall an excellent book.

Bells is a yellow lab dog that goes with her family to the Iowa State Fair. She loves the smells, sight and sounds of the fair and her excitement creates some problems. While there, she suddenly realizes that her leash has become undone. Therefore, she is free to explore the grounds by herself. She walks into the livestock barns and talks with the chickens, rabbits, sheep, pigs and cattle. She also slides down the giant slide and sings along with the humans in the competition. Bells also gets her fill of fair food that has been dropped on the ground. She has an ice cream cone, a funnel cake and a corn dog, the combination of which makes her stomach rumble. However, as it gets dark, she starts to get uncertain, as she is beginning to feel lonesome for her family. Fortunately, a member of her family has described her to an animal control officer. The officer encounters Bells and takes her back to her family where she falls asleep and dreams about her adventures.
This book is a playful glimpse into the events of the Iowa State Fair that is designed for children. It is superbly illustrated and Bells is highlighted in each image where she appears. It also captures much of the energy and excitement of the fair, how it reaches back to the past as well as looks to the future.