Ohio Books

I suppose anyone who would make that trip would have to be intrepid, but he seemed really to be.

The thing I like the most about him is that he was such a civilized person. A gentle, intelligent, well educated, modest, and very friendly person.

The other review about his insights into what he was describing is, in my mind, quite correct also.

I may be a bit prejudiced and certainly am more interested because my middle name is Bradbury as a result of being a descendent of his.

One of the earliest, and very well written, accounts of life on the upper Missouri River. This is a classic of the fur trade era. Bradbury, a botanist, went up the Missouri with the famous Astorian overland expedition of William Price Hunt, Ramsay Crooks, Donald McKenzie, naturalist Thomas Nuttall and others in 1811. His descriptions of Indian life, geology, botany, geography and overall life as it was in 1811 being so far removed from civiliztion is incredible. He was a very articulate and keen observer of the world around him. Bradbury gives further insight into Manuel Lisa, John Colter, Henry Brackenridge, trading with the Indians, etc. The last chapter he devotes to the soon to be mass immigration into the western parts of the United States. His thoughts on this are ahead of his time. There is simply too much good to say about this timeless masterpiece. The book itself may be somewhat difficult to find, but it is worth looking for. A+

In 1811, Thomas Keene, a minister, loses his faith and travels to Ohio. In this sparse, concise "diary," we get to know Thomas, his mundane activities, his fantasies, and his remarkable adventures on the American frontier. Thomas writes of routine events (his cash accounting, his business selling home-made whiskey), his sexual fantasies and realities, his relationships, his drunkenness, war, Indian legends, and the remarkable hardships of frontier life.

Through the series of simple journal entries, sketches, drawings, and accounting entries, author Hugh Nissenson creates a profound portrait of a fascinating man. Nissenson is a master of "artificial reality"- the structure, style, and false references lend an air of truth to this work of fiction. Historical facts and figures weave seamlessly with the fictional elements. The War of 1812 and John Chapmann (Johnny Appleseed) are prominently featured in the story. And Nissenson himself created the drawings and sketches attributed to his fictional character (the cover is a sample of his work).

I loved this book. It creeps into your mind and comes back to haunt you. I admire Hugh Nissenson's ability to paint, with deceptively-simple strokes, a deep, rich, intimate, lush landscape and a deeply moving character.

If you read and enjoy this book, be sure to read Nissenson's The Song of the Earth, in which he leaps forward rather than back in time for a stunning vision of what might be.

This book is like nothing I've ever read before. It is brilliant. Read it. This is history come alive. Rattlesnake bites, Indian skirmishes, visionaries and slaves and frustrated widows--all the true voices of the American Frontier come through this "journal" with unbelievable power and desperate longing.

I generally don't read short story collections, but this one may have changed my mind. The stories were at once beautiful, funny, sad, and compelling. Jahna has a gift for creating characters the reader cares about. I look forward to reading more from this author.

An amazing first book, Ric Jahna's True Kin is a remarkable collection featuring narrative versatility and authentic emotional resonance. The linked stories are compelling, well-written and worthy of the highest praise.

Enhanced with maps of the area, sketches, and photos showing the original Tyrconnel and neighboring Covington Park Maryland farms, Tyrconnel: An Antebellum Adventure Along The C&O Canal by Charles Furtney is the thrilling story of Army Lieutenant Jeff Shirley set out in 1859 on a secret mission to investigate mysterious and violent activity along the C&O Canal at the Tyrconnel farm in the vicinity of Harpers Ferry, Maryland. There the young lieutenant encounters John Brown and his band of rebels in their destined appointment with history on the eve of the American civil war. A superbly written history fiction, author Charles Furtney pays meticulous attention to history detail making Tyrconnel a welcome and highly recommended addition to any school or community library collection.

A book for all ages!! This part fact, part fiction, tale is an enjoyable read !

Gayle Pritchard has done a remarkable job in capturing the essence of how the art quilt movement began in Ohio. She documents Ohio's importance in putting art quilts into the art world as art rather than craft. The documentation, photos and overall information creates a strong picture of how the art quilt movement started in Ohio and has now infiltrated into the rest of the world. This is a must have in one's personal library.

This is a history of the Art Quilt and it's makers. Nancy Crow was the star pioneer in the Art Quilt field and an Ohio native but there were many great quilters from Ohio that emerged at the same time. Gayle Pritchard chronicles the history in an easy-to-read format with biographies and photos of the prominent players. A concise cohesive treatment of the artists that will make you want more. The only thing missing was a biography and more work from Gayle, herself, also a major player in the Art Quilt World.

An enjoyable read! Mary Weems is able to concisely present the raw experiences of life off on a tangent. Drunk Ugly kicks your teeth out while the lucid flow of Moon Story afford many contemplative moments and a reflectively provocative evening!

Dr. Weems' work is a rare example of quality work on the page that can easily be performed on stage as well. The language is active and fiery, with skillful cadence. This collection is necessary and poignant especially in our current political and economic state. It exceeded my expectations and I look forward to others.

Ebani Edwards, MA
Performance Poet

Being someone not of the catholic faith, at first i was driven from anything with the word "Pope" on it, but those religious inhibitions were shortly erased when I saw thise book! i had no idea the vatican contained such spectacular works of art, and from periods which i adore such as the Boroque! The collection is not just a few alter pieces from Byzantium, but rather is a study of art itself and a study in the masterpieces of the periods in its history. This book is incredibly inspirational, i would recomend it to anyone! even someone who doesnt like art! this fabulous volume is worth every penny one pays for it, and is one of the great finds of my endless book collecting

Being someone not of the catholic faith, at first i was driven from anything with the word "Pope" on it, but those religious inhibitions were shortly erased when I saw thise book! i had no idea the vatican contained such spectacular works of art, and from periods which i adore such as the Boroque! The collection is not just a few alter pieces from Byzantium, but rather is a study of art itself and a study in the masterpieces of the periods in its history. This book is incredibly inspirational, i would recomend it to anyone! even someone who doesnt like art! this fabulous volume is worth every penny one pays for it, and is one of the great finds of my endless book collecting

Ellen Bromfield Geld's new book View From the Fazenda is a delightful chronicle of her life as an immigrant to Brazil in 1961 up through today. She and her entrepreneurial husband Carson moved to Brazil as bright newlyweds, but without many material things other than the clothes on their backs. After several jobs on ranches, they accumulated enough funds to buy a small farm of 240 acres. Unlike most typical Brazilian farmers who lived in town, the Gelds quickly built a small house, making it the focal point for the recreation from a monoculture coffee farm into a diversified model. Showing a true love of the land Geld, writes of the many conservation innovations they bring to the farm with terracing, crop rotations and other ecologically friendly improvements.

Her travels throughout Brazil are interesting and well told. The best are her experiences in the fragile Amazon in Alta Floresta; Riding the riverboat on the River Sao Francisco; and the beauty of the relatively unknown Plantanal. She vividly describes the wonders she encounters in these sparsely populated, wild west areas of Brazil. While explaining these new areas, she also expresses her uneasiness and concern with how development is occurring in many of these areas relating them to the older areas of Parana that she saw develop when she first arrived in Brazil.

Several of her stories in the book are particularly humorous. Two of the better ones are how she has to show a group of Brazilian tourists that an American motel is not paid for by the hour and her experience of riding the Brazilian equivalent to the Orient Express.

Her forty year experience of adapting to a new country, raising a family of five children (all of whom study abroad but return to Brazil), and seeing the changes that occur over forty years is extremely interesting. It brought to mind what my ancestors might have faced when they came to the U. S. several generations ago to begin a new life as farmers in a very strange land.

I started the book over a weekend and couldn't put it down. It is highly recommended.

After posting my review of Geld's book, I read the review written by an unnamed person in the Publishers Weekly. This reviewer read a different book from the one I did, or worse chose only to skim it, with the thought of writing from their own biased understanding of Brazil. I would be willing to wager that this reviewer has never set foot on a farm nor taken the time to understand a country as big and diverse as the U. S.

The reviewer obviously wanted Geld to delve into the ecological problems of developing in the Amazon River basin and discards completely Gelds questioning of the long term issues related to development in the Amazon River basin. Geld very interestingly compared development in Parana, which she witnessed when she first arrived in Brazil, with what she saw occurring in the Amazon.

The political realities of agrarian reform are also lost on the reviewer. Several times in the book Geld explained how politicians in their attempt to improve conditions for small farmers, often complicate and hinder proper development of land. Geld's description of the small farmer who couldn't get title to his land, because the government was concerned that title would allow him to sell his land, but resulted in him not being able to borrow money to properly improve the land was but one example of her understanding and admirable description of these complex issues. Geld's quote of her father, "Poor people make poor soil," is very appropriate.

Your comment, "...parallels between the rich Ohio agrarian society of her youth and the subtropical poverty of a Brazilian farm economy", is laughable. I have visited Louis Bromfield's Malabar Farms twice in the past ten years and can tell you that the surrounding farms are anything but rich. Due to the diligence and innovative farming practices of her father, he slowly turned a run-down Depression era farm into a marvelous, model, working farm. Brazil's agricultural economy is far from poverty, as the country is rapidly overtaking the U. S. in farm production and productivity. This unnamed reviewers comments reflect either ignorance or some other hidden political agenda...

Walks Around Akron: Rediscovering a City in Transition (Series on Ohio History and Culture)
Having grown up in Akron, and later living in Akron for ten years as an adult, it was nostalgic to read about Akron's neighborhoods and the surrounding towns so familiar to me. Also I loved the artistic illustrations. The book itself is published on good quality paper stock which makes it all the more valuable. It is well written and illustrated by Russ Musarra and Chuck Ayers both residing in the Akron area. I purchased a book for myself and two more books for relatives who currently live in Akron. I consider it a book I will always treasure.

GREAT BOOK....a great way to see Akron if you can't walk around here and a good way to go to the places listed in the book....and the cover picture is the garden in my neighborhood.

Whenever I have a question about core acoustical problems or find a reference to give to colleagues or students, it is Graff's old but great "Wave Motion in Elastic Solids" I end up using or recommending by far the most. This book is a rare treat for it's clarity, the material it covers and the derivation it contains. The book does things right in terms presentation. It does not leave important core derivations as exercise but presents them fully throughout the book. While exercises are present they are not needed to find material but do illustrate important concepts. The mathematical language is that of engineering mathematics that is still mostly typical today. My only critique is that alternative and more modern ways to arrive at certain derivations are missing (for example deriving the fundamental solution of the wave equation in the plane using distributions rather than through Hankel transforms or a treatment of the method of descend to relate wave equations of different dimensions). But this is a minor critique because the book at least contains comprehensive treatment of the Hankel transform path, while it is hard to find it in many other acoustics books of comparable level. In general a lot of concepts are derived and explained in unusual clarity and misconceptions about the applicability of certain methods beyond its realm is often not only avoided but also explained.

To cover the missing ground of treatment of the wave equation in terms of distributions and a nice and easy treatment of the method of descend I'd recommend Stein and Shakarchi's recent, very accessible and overall just excellent "Fourier Analysis", Princeton University Press, 2003.

Anybody that looks for a quality reference for acoustics, this is a real catch and if one wants to buy just one reference, this may well be the best one to get despite its age. Given its clarity it certainly is suitable for self-study.

This book is great. This book describes the full theory of wave motions in elastic solids. Great mathematical descriptions and interpretations. Good derivations of equations of motion and their assumptions. This book is a masterwork and an awesome referencebook for everything that has to do with waves!