North Carolina Books

I love this book. I know how hard and time consuming it must have been to put the book together. I live in North Carolina and it was great to see pictures of what it looked like years ago next to pictures of what it looks like now.

This book, based on the author's doctoral thesis, is an excellent exploration of the development of ethnographic museums in Germany. These museums originally evolved from scattered ethnographic collections. They were developed and funded as a result of competition between different municipal governments. Originally the stated purpose of such institutions was to understand man kind by collecting exhaustive examples of material culture from "disappearing" societies with a view to understanding them through evaluating these materials. Later there was more of a focus on the public nature of museums and how certain types of displays could make human variation more accessible to the public. One major change was from typological arrangements to geographically oriented arrangements. Display cases went from being packed with examples of spears from a variety of cultures to thoughtful arrangements of objects from a single culture. He discusses problems such as lack of space, need for more labels and the focus on accumulating more and more objects at the expense of cataloging or evaluating them. He gives numerous interesting examples of political strife and also how collecting was carried out in the field in the colonial context including a descriptions of some less than ethical collectors. Overall, for someone who is interested in this topic, this is an excellent book which held my interest throughout.

Alyce Pickelsimer Nadeau lives atop a Blue Ride in Ashe County, North Carolina, surrounded by a natural splendor. There she feeds wild animals, reads, writes, gardens and observes. Her poems showcased in Observations Of An Uppity Woman offer keen insights based on her blended roles and experiences as wife, mother, teacher, counselor, musician, herbalist, nature lover, and student of philosophy. Warning: She sits in my lap/wee girl, seed of my seed,/because the Snow White video/has a scary part./How can I explain to her/at thirty months of age/that the/"happily ever after,"/"someday my prince will come,"/notions/hold more inherent adversity/than one jealous queen/before a mirror?/That giving your self away/is truly the scary part?

Every place as special as Ocracoke should have a writer like Pat Garber to bring it to life.

Pat Garber has spent years getting to know Ocracoke, its beaches, marshes, seas, seashells, seasons, storms, and wildlife, and in this book and its companion book, Ocracoke Odyssey, she tells Ocracoke's story with knowledge and with heart. Each chapter stars a different character, maybe a dolphin, a pelican, a turtle, a bear, a storm, a comet. Garber tells their stories through accurate natural history, through personal encounters, and through a deep sense of wonder. She loves the beauty in nature, but she also feels the pain of an injured bird and the terrible power of a hurricane. She sees great dramas in the smallest things. She sees with the eyes of a poet. She quietly teaches the value of a life immersed in nature.

She encourages us to wander and to wonder and to find ourselves in a seashell or a flower: "It is slowing down, allowing not only the feet but the mind as well to wander where they will; to turn down new paths with no specific destinations in mind. It is a way of opening the soils of our minds so that new thoughts, new ideas, new dreams can take seed and flower; not the ones we deliberately plant, but those that may float in on a wisp of seaform or a moonbeam."

"Ocracokers" describes the people, the village, and the island of Okracoke on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It's about as isolated a place as can be found in the eastern United States, still reachable only by ferry. Traditionally, a few hundred people eked out a living on the island by fishing, piloting vessels, and salvaging wrecked vessels -- of which there were plenty in the treacherous waters off Cape Hatteras. Blackbeard the pirate raided in these waters. In recent decades, Ocracoke has become a tourist destination, but it's still relatively unspoiled by the standards of ticky-tacky beach resorts. Most of the island is now a National Park

The author, a high school teacher, is a descendant of the early residents of Ocracoke and he interlaces stories of his own experiences with interviews of old-timers, historical accounts, and descriptions of present day (1980s) trends and issues. His chapter-long account of his mullet fishing expedition with a pair of old time fishermen is superb. He has chapters on hunting, churches, the school (94 students from K to 12), hurricanes, and history including World War II and the growth of tourism. He also devotes a full chapter to a bittersweet interview with the matriarch of the only African-American family on the island.

"Ocracokers" is a complete and authoritative account of life in a small unique community. The text is enhanced by black and white photographs, mostly of people, and maps of the village and island, although a better map showing places mentioned in the text would be welcome. It's worth your time to read the book and to visit Ocracoke.

Smallchief

This is makes for good browsing OR handy reference. You can discover the meaning of an unfamiliar word or the origin of a word you know. For that matter, you can find new terms with which to jazz up your own sentences.

It's particularly interesting for us Americans to learn about British slang along with our own. Did you know a "bath-dodger" is, in British-speak, "an unwashed or habitually dirty individual"? Some of these are worth adopting!

It's easy on the eyes and easy to find what you want (plenty of white space, and main entries in bold type).

Definitions are written in clear ordinary language, and examples are given where useful.

There's everything from the graphically sexual to the criminal to the eminently printable like "mugwump" and "penguin suit". There are ones you never heard of and there are vocabulary staples ("cool", "OK"). This was published in 1990, so anything newer won't be here, but that's not saying much.

So much of the time we receive our history distilled by other people's views. Of course there's nothing wrong with this, but sometimes it is refreshing to read what the people at that time thought was happening. Documents like the ones collected in Warren Billing's book are often the only way we know of certain events and practices, especially in seventeenth century Virginia, when so little was recorded and so little is known.
Mr. Billing's notes on the chapters give context and an experienced evaluation, but the best thing is to dig into the documents themselves. The chapter on the lifestyle and treatment of the African people in Virginia is especially interesting and brings up a section of history usually forgotten or ignored. Because so many of our founding fathers were from Virginia, the seventeenth century background is important to understand the laws and lifestyle they were coming from.
Virginia is well known as a center of colonial revolt in the eighteenth century. This book shows the often forgotten story of the just as important previous century through the eyes of those who experienced it.

This book stands out amongst all the publications of its kind for the good taste with which it was written and the nobility of its purpose. It intends to illuminate your darkening path, lonely traveler, and will take you to the ancient Salem, even if you never step upon it.

This is one of my favorite books! Well written - an adventure! Walsh is a gifted author. The invention of the aeroplane is an incredible story of one of the most important technologies of the 20th century. Unfortunately there is much misunderstanding about how it came to be. This book is based on new information that became available around 1970. You won't be disappointed.

The title is a bit misleading. It covers the Wright's work from it's beginnings up to 1909.

I have a great interest in the U.S. Civil War and I have read many books on it. You always here about the most notable generals like Lee, Jackson, Stuart, Grant, Sherman, etc.., but you hardly here of the lesser known ones like Pender. Being a North Carolinian, it is very gratifying to know that some great men and officers fought from your state. Pender was one of those men. In this book, his letters to his wife reveal his true character. He was a loving husband and father, a dedicated soldier, and a man of faith who believed himself to be very unworthy before God. As the war progresses, his letters become more mature and earnest in nature. He desires for an end to the war; to live to a good old age with his wife; and to see his children grow up. He is a strict disciplanarian as an officer and he soon earns the respect of his troops and his superiors including Lee and A.P. Hill. Just before Gettysburg, he is promated to the rank of major general at the age of 29 and fights gallantly on the first day. Unfortunately, he is wounded on the second day and dies a few weeks later. His death is mourned by his troops and especially by Lee and Hill. Pender was a promising officer who died to early in the war and at a very young age. His letters are heartfelt and very touching; a must read for anyone interested in Pender and great officers of the Civil War.