Iowa Books

The author spends four hundred interesting pages explaining in detail the geology of a state you would have thought didn't have any. It's well-written, with many charts, drawings and maps. For each period there is also a good list and description of the life forms prevalent.

I'd strongly recommend it to anyone interested in geology or just an interesting read.

Lovely photos. Even the extra image for the remainder of 2007 is stunning.

However 2 photos prevent this calendar from attaining perfection.

The sunset...thank goodness there is only one. I mean. Who wants black and orange shapes that could be photos of anywhere.

And why on earth do Browntrout smear all their images of running water with vaseline? Is it that difficult to take a photo of a river? Very strange.

Apart from those two minor complaints, this calendar is truely beautiful. The photographer has an excellent eye and a great talent.

An interesting collection of mostly first-person accounts of Iowa's participation in the Civil War. The organization of the book is ad-hoc and it doesn't have an index, but the table of contents guides you through the book adequately. I particularly enjoyed the accounts of the experiences of Iowa cavalrymen.

Each chapter is a short story on things a woman hunter had to endure (from her male counterparts) in the 1930s and 40s. The tales are amusing and often very funny. Fran frequently had to prove she was as good as the men, and sometimes outdid them. An extreme example: at a game farm men were trying to spear rats that were eating the birds' feed. With her bare hands Fran caught and killed more rats than all the men. Most stories are much more tame; e.g., duck and sharptail grouse hunting. If your female partner reads this before she hunts, you might assure her things aren't quite so bad in the 90s. Not quite. Fran Hamerstrom went on to become a world famous biologist who studied grouse, prairie chickens, hawks, owls, and eagles.

In the current US political environment, whatever your feelings about the Bush Administration's foreign policies, you might want to take a time out and have a gander at this little book. Its authors look at what they regard as two foreign policy failures in recent years. The fall of the Shah of Iran, while Carter was President, and the Iran-Contra affair under Reagan.

They discuss cognitive and bureaucratic dysfunctions in the two administrations. A common occurrence was groupthink, and the lack of a strong devil's advocate willing and able to speak against it. The latter often included the natural tendency to interpret events optimistically.

With US troops battling insurgents in Iraq, the book is very timely. Plus, given the recent Hurricane Katrina fiasco, the analysis might even be pungently extended to US domestic matters.

The American Civil war has gone down in the popular history books as a war to end slavery. In fact, there were many other social, economic and political differences between the north and the south that led to the outbreak of war. However, it is fair to say that the spark that lit the conflict was the attack on the Harper's Ferry arsenal by John Brown and his followers.
While there had been occasional small revolts among the slaves in the south, there was never any real chance for success. The only way that there could be a successful revolt among the slaves was if there was substantial white support, which mean an invasion from the north. Small though it was, the attack by John Brown's forces was just that By raising the possibility of such a revolt in the minds of southerners, the attack did a great deal to tip the southern mindset into one of revolt.
However, Brown's abolitionist career began long before the incident at Harper's Ferry. Brown and his followers were active in Kansas, ferrying munitions to the anti-slavery forces in Kansas and actively fighting while there. He received a great deal of help from Iowans, which is the main topic of this book. The Quaker community of Cedar County, Iowa provided him with shelter and some degree of protection.
Brown also received help from other abolitionist forces in Iowa. My favorite passage in the book is on page 2. A group of young men led by Richard J. Hinton transported 1500 muskets from Iowa to the anti-slavery forces in Kansas. They were from a State of Iowa arsenal in Iowa City, which was the state capitol. Then Governor Grimes left the key to the arsenal on his desk where Hinton "accidentally" found it and "borrowed" it to open the arsenal door.
This booklet is a demonstration of how strong the abolitionist feelings were among many in the state of Iowa. Many people were very active in the Underground Railroad and in pressing for the end of slavery. Brown and his band were well known for their violent tactics in opposition to slavery and yet such passive and non-violent people as the Quakers gave him active support and protection. I thoroughly enjoyed this book as it tells a side of John Brown that does not seem to appear in any other history books.

This is a fun first novel. It's set at the Boucheron (the big national mystery writers convention) in Chicago in 1984. Mallory's mentor and hero is found dead in the bathtub and there are rumors flying of a newly discovered Hammett. Add in a variety of writing types, two widows of the dead man, a slimy publisher and a cute magazine editor. It's a fun, light read - not cozy cute nor noir dark. I'll read more of this series.

This book is an instance of a class that I like reviewing on occasion. Written by a man who lived in rural Iowa, it is a recounting of his life and some of the high points he noted along the way. Most significant to me in my role as an amateur historian is the aspects of the story that demonstrate how dramatically rural life has changed in the last fifty years. Only a few decades ago, a farm life was a physically vigorous one, one was in regular physical contact with their livestock and there was always something else that could be done. Now, massive machines till the soil and enormous confinement units are used to raise hogs and keep chickens laying eggs at a regular rate. Most food is now raised on what can best be called a factory that happens to produce food in its original state.
From the perspective of the events in his life, there is not much in this book that will excite most people. In general, it is a rendition of what was a typical life of a man in that profession, in that area and at that time.

today You re not even aware anymore of what your soul used to be...read and you might recover..

It is a Cardinal Rule for this reader and reviewer of "true crime" books (See my List - True Crime 101) that books of this genre *Must Have Pictures* - of the participants, the "scene," etc., for the reader to understand whither thou goest and wherefore. Although author and former Guthrie Center citizen Carroll R. McKibbin is familiar with the people and place, the reader may not be, hence photos are essential and their absence gets this 1st Book docked one star. Nonetheless, McKibbin paints appropriate prose pictures of the not-so-bucolic life, death, and legacy of battered farmwife Lillian Hedman Chalman Randolph.
Here's his introduction:
In American folklore gangland killings only occur in big cities like Chicago and New York. Rural towns like Guthrie Center [Iowa - think Meredith Wilson's Music Man Professor Harold Hill] are supposedly the innocent and law-abiding backbone of America. These are the people who, far removed from urban violence and crime, produce the amber waves of grain and supply the Private Ryans. The good people of Guthrie Center were shocked when the brutal ways of organized crime struck in their midsts."

Our Hosts here at Azon have discontinued the "if you liked this, try that" feature of the site, but this book begs to bring it back. If you like "Lillian's Legacy," try Donald Harstad, former Deputy Sheriff in Clayton County, Iowa, now writer of the Carl Houseman/Nation County, IA fictional police procedural series. /TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer