Missouri Books

I hope someone makes a movie out of this book It was really good, I enjoyed reading it,in fact I couldn't put it down. Written very honestly and from the heart. I don't know how this family lived through all that .I would advise future paranormal investigators to read this.

LaChance/Laura Long-Helbig in this chilling "true" story tell of LaChance's struggle as a single father struggling to pick up the pieces of his and his children's lives once their mom walks out. LaChance finds himself lured into the perfect house at the seeminly perfect price. That is until he finds the price is his and his children's souls!

The story seems a typical "ghost story" in some ways until LaChance has to face a choice of whether to walk away from the truth he knows about the house he had by then left or to take on the burden of doing the right thing by another person who eventually comes to live in the haunted house.

At this point the story becomes a story of friendship despite all odds and of belief despite all doubts.

I was so enthralled by this story I read it in a single sitting - not wanting to stop till I knew the end. This story is one to haunt home renters and buyers alike as they go out to rent or buy their next home. What if that place that seemed like such a deal was really such a trap?

I loved how LaChance didn't paint over the darkness of the struggles with his faith or how he reacted at times when he found himself facing things few could ever imagine. I will be show casing this book for review-in our newsletter for the Seattle Metaphysical Library in October 2008. This is a book to make one wonder - did I really leave that light on??

Captivating Horror! My only advice is to read this book with the lights on! I watched the documentary on the Discovery Channel's A Haunting; however, the television show didn't do the true story justice. This book gives a full account of the horror that this family endured. This is a true story as told by Steven. It will make you think twice about what you see from the corner of your eye. I highly recommend this book; you won't be disappointed.

I read this book in one sitting. I just couldn't put it down. If you like books about the supernatural, you will love this book.

The Uninvited is a gripping tale that you won't want to put down! I read this book in 2 sittings, but could have done it in 1 sitting. The first part of the story is your basic ghost story, but by the time the tale is finished, you will not believe what has happened to Mr. Lachance and his family, friends, associates, etc. I do hope that the house on Union Street is no longer for rent...and if so, someone needs to put a BEWARE sign in the front yard!

Though BOSS-BUSTERS is a first-rate piece of scholarship, the most striking aspect of the book is the quality of the writing. The story of Kansas City and its Star is told by Harry Haskell in a supremely readable prose style that allows the fascinating characters who are the actors in this drama to live in the imagination of the reader. Kansas City in the 1880s was a town with dirt streets and an outlaw mentality; from this mean beginning arose the City Beautiful, a great and influential newspaper, and a host of individuals whose lives altered the course of the twentieth century. Though sympathetic, Harry Haskell's portrait of his grandfather, Henry J. Haskell (the Pulitzer-prize winning editor of the Star), is informed by a remarkable objectivity. BOSS-BUSTERS is a splendid piece of writing on political and social history, the history of journalism and, ultimately, on the human character.

First and foremost this is a first -rate read that is meticulously researched. A recall of the days when KANSAS CITY and ITS STAR were a vibrant center of the United States and print journalism not only reported the news but often made it. A time before corporate media and newspaper chains were the name of the game in one newspaper towns, when bright energetic men with little money and brash bravado could set up shop and produce a paper and maybe make a lotta money. One such man was William Rockhill Nelson . This is his story and how he done it pushing the boosterism that both endorsed and transformed the booming cowtown on the bend of the Missouri River into the CITY BEAUTIFUL. He also became a big-time player on the national scene . Fun to read as he plays politics loving the intrigue and being buddy-buddy with the likes of Teddy Roosevelt. And he made more than a pot of money. Well those not so halcyon days am gone. Print journalism is on the run. The Kansas City Star is part of the McClatchy Company which if you hafta be part of a chain is, I suppose, as good as it can get. Nelson's real legacy is the Nelson-Atkins Gallery of Art built on the grounds of his estate and housing a major collection of Chinese art.

Haskell's meticulously researched account of the history of The Kansas City Star is a brilliant journey through history. Not only does this work describe the political and social passions and conflicts of America from the late 19th century to the present, it sheds light upon the humanity and foibles of such players as Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and numerous civic and national figures. It shows how the powerful forces of a newspaper and its founder, William Rockhill Nelson, could alter the course of a young city's growth, as well as influence an entire nation. Haskell is to be commended for this very readable, scholarly addition to American social, political, and economic history.

Comments written by:
Dr. E. Grey Dimond
Kansas City, Missouri
December 10, 2007

This is an excellent book for someone who has been deep enough into Kansas City to have a "feel" for its politics, its Establishment, the dynamics of this town at the river's bend. Here is where the Missouri River suddenly turns east, crosses the width of the State, to reach the Mississippi River at St. Louis. To fully be "filled in" on these basics of this community, the recent book about the Establishment of Kansas City should be, would be, the right beginning. Even then, one should have lived here, read its newspaper the Kansas City Star, and participated, even marginally, in the who's who--what makes it tick arena. I speak not of myself but of the author. Haskell is the grandson of one of the do-ers, leaders that shaped the newspaper and the community and for several years was on the Star's staff.

As a comment not needed but meant as a compliment: the title under-sells the book. Perhaps it will help sales but Haskell has produced so much more than this 'reach for eye-catching' label suggests. This is a book about the life of the Kansas City Star from its founding to that point that it sold its ownership away to distant buyers who never knew the town, who lost the boldness, activism, guts that made the paper and certainly helped make the city. I have lived here in both eras and each day's newspaper is a reminder of the loss.

The book is the story of William Rockhill Nelson, J.C. Nichols, Tom
Pendergast, Senator Reed (Nelly Don's husband), Roy Roberts, Henry J. Haskell and the Kansas City of the 1980s through the FDR era. For me, it is a reminder of efforts, good and bad, of the founders of local fortunes to secure it for their heirs: comparing Nelson to Nichols to Joyce Hall.

Kansas City was known as a "cow town" in Canada. By delving into the history of Kansas City and the impressive dominance and power of its newspaper, The Kansas City Star, Mr. Haskell's easily read book has shown me that this Mid-Western city was anything but a lowly "cow town." It was involved with highly important events at home, as well as abroad. Helen Keller, Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, Katharine Wright (sister of Orville and Wilbur Wright), Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Harry Truman are well-known names associated with Kansas City. However, William Rockhill Nelson, Roy Roberts and Henry Joseph Haskell were vastly influential socially and politically throughout many sectors of the United States. There is a wealth of fascinating information in Boss-Busters and Sin Hounds that will appeal to the general public.

THE RAGTIME KID is a historical mystery based on actual people and events surrounding Scott Joplin's composition and publication of The Maple Leaf Rag in Sedalia, Missouri in 1899. The story is told through the eyes of Brun Campbell, a young white piano player who hears Scott Joplin's "colored" Ragtime music and becomes obsessed with it and the composer. He leaves his home to study piano with Joplin in Sedalia and becomes involved in a murder case and an interracial struggle for control of the black composer's music.

Until I read this book, I knew little about Joplin or Ragtime music, but I found this book fascinating. Karp has done a wonderful job of bringing to life a time and place that seems very distant to many us now. Karp's Sedalia is a turbulent mixture of blacks and whites with strongly held feelings about the desired relations of the races - former Union and Confederate soldiers, freed slaves, freeborn blacks, abolitionists, and KKK members all live in this small town. And when Scott Joplin, a talented, educated black man, refuses to sell the rights to his music cheaply to a white man, it is like putting a match to a powder keg.

The thing I found so interesting about this book was the amount of historical fact that Karp has used in the story. He has basically created the mystery to suit and explain the fantastic and unprecedented events of 1899. While he did create several fictional characters for the story, Karp populated Sedalia with many of its actual inhabitants and businesses. Those of you who know more about Ragtime than I did may already know that Brun Campbell isn't a fictional character, that he did study with Joplin in 1899, and was a professional musician for much of his life. Me? I was surprised.

While the resolution of the mystery is a little too sensational to ring true, Karp's exploration of the motivations of the different historical characters is a delightful study of conflict and compromise. Frankly, I couldn't put the book down because I wanted to find out how these real-life people from long ago turned out.

Favorite character? Dr. Walter Overstreet. Did I guess it? Mostly. Will I read another? This is the first book of a Ragtime trilogy and the quality of Karp's writing and the ability to draw in the reader makes this a definite yes. I have to know how it ends!

We already knew that Larry Karp was a talented mystery writer, thanks to his previous novels. This latest work shows that he can write historical fiction and make it fascinating. Even though I started the book knowing nothing about ragtime music, by the end I wanted to learn more!

His other strength is his ability to create characters that are so real, and so endearing, that the reader quickly begins to identify with and root for the protagonist(s). This makes the book a real page-turner, because you can't wait to read more about what "your" characters are doing!

If you haven't read anything by Larry Karp yet, you're in for a treat!

I've just re-read Larry Karp's The Ragtime Kid, and just as you shouldn't play ragtime too fast, you shouldn't read Karp's book too fast, either, lest you miss the music of his prose and the nuances of the stories he tells.
In this, his latest book, it's 1899, and young piano player Brun Campbell has run away from his rural home in Oklahoma to Sedalia, Missouri. He's only just heard ragtime for the first time, and hopes to learn this new music from the master himself, Scott Joplin. Arriving in Sedalia, and looking for a room for the night, he stumbles, literally, upon the body of a woman, and picks up two objects that will become vital to the solution of her murder. He finds employment at a music store, and begins studying with Joplin, but when a man he knows is innocent is arrested, Brun is, however unwillingly, drawn into the search for the real murderer.
Though Sedalia is a town filled with music, it is only 30 years since the end of the War Between the States, and racism is very much a part of this story. Joplin insists on being taken seriously as a musician, and receiving royalties on the sheet music which will bear his name as composer, an unprecedented demand for the times. Thus, another plot line develops, as Joplin pursues his ambitions despite some unprincipled and amoral adversaries.
The characters here are a mixture of real, from Joplin and Campbell and other musical figures, and fictional, to some of the townspeople. In skin color, they are black and they are white, and in character they are black and white, as well, but the two categories do not necessarily overlap. Brun himself is a fifteen-year-old, a musical Huck Finn in some ways, coming of age in a world more complex than he ever imagined, and he's learning, at first hand, what black and white are all about. As events unfold, Karp vividly captures the sheer awfulness of racial (and other) bias as it was then.
Just as there are two plot lines, there are two narrative voices here, speaking in a gentle counterpoint. One voice is someone who knows Brun and tells his part of the story, occasionally noting that "Brun once told [him]" about one event or another. The other voice is an omniscient third-person narrator, who recounts Joplin's story, and the ongoing search for the murderer of the woman whose body Brun found. As Brun's music lessons commence, his plot and Joplin's intertwine, connected by some unscrupulous music promoters, and by his own efforts to absolve the innocent man.
All the characters, and some of them are surprising, are vividly realized, and they all speak very much in their own voices. Those voices, moreover, are often eloquent. Early in the book, Joplin tells Brun that ragtime is like "a bright sunny day, just a perfect day, but . . . sooner or later, the lovely day will have to end." Even more moving is a grieving father's lament for the brutal death of his son, which he knows will not be investigated: "[We] was born slaves, and now we been set free, but I don't see the leas' difference. White men kill us on the plantation, they kill us now, an' it's no matter."
From the geography of Sedalia to its weather, the sense of place in the novel is intense. It's a book that takes place in a hot Missouri summer, when the air is "close to drinkable," and we breathe in that heat and humidity as we follow Brun through the city. More characters appear, his life becomes more complicated, and as he puzzles out the solution to the murder, the action leads up to a triple denouement. First there's a violent confrontation with some brutal men, followed by an even more suspenseful encounter which culminates in the unmasking of a murderer. Then, in a shocking turnaround, Brun's own "lovely day" is over, and his life moves in a new direction.
The Ragtime Kid is a scrupulously researched look at a time in America's musical and social past, a fiction that can, as Karp notes in the concluding pages of his book, tell "a truth more striking and wondrous than any historical reality." It's a book written with humor (and not a little irony), with occasional pathos, and always with generosity . Listen to some Joplin while you read it

Larry Karp writes books. He doesn't just write genre fiction; he writes each work as an individual, well-crafted, offbeat narration. Even in his Music Box series, published by the now-defunct Write Way, all three novels were entirely singular, and unique. So, too, is *The Ragtime Kid*, an outstanding piece of historical intrigue that focuses on the origins of ragtime music and is written within the murder mystery/crime literature category of fiction.

Dr. Karp is a particularly fine writer, and his prose shines, but here, the story itself--and the characters--truly dominate.

The protagonist of the book, young Brun Campbell, is so drawn by the allure of the new music craze, ragtime, that he runs away from home to study with the great Scott Joplin in Sedalia, Missouri. Just off the train, Brun stumbles over the body of a woman, Then, not long after, he has himself a job and becomes a student of the elegant black composer, Joplin, who very well might be a homicide suspect.

Another great theme of the book is American racism. Although the Civil War has been over for a good long time, those who fought in the war--and many in Sedalia did--haven't forgotten--from one side of the great divide, or the other.

Racism, ragtime, and murder are his topics, and Karp intertwines the three adroitly for the novel's readers, then throws in a little romance as a sort of seasoning. Male/female relationships are as complex in The Ragtime Kid as they are in real life.

But perhaps the element that tickled me most about the book is the fine detailing of the time and place. Karp, a longstanding ragtime enthusiast, took the Scott Joplin biography and that of the real-life Brun Campbell, and without distorting the documented facts, wove a tale of what might have occurred. Behind that marvelous foreground though lies a backdrop lending the intoxicating particulars of the time: memories of the Chicago's World Fair in 1893, a young woman eager to perform in vaudeville, a spring-powered fan to drive away the heat, and yellow streetcars providing the Sedalia citizens their transportation.

In short, Karp has created a darn good read, a compelling and literate story that entertains on many levels--as a novel, as a mystery, and as a chronicle of one stage in our national history--a tale peopled by very real and believable characters.

*The Ragtime Kid* proves itself to be both a fun and an enlightening pastime.

G. Miki Hayden, author of *Writing the Mystery* and *The Naked Writer*.

What makes a historical novel work for me is that the story as presented could not take place at any other time or place in history than where it is. Too many times in recent years, I've stopped reading because the characters are not sensible of their time in history, or the clothing or manners or locale or vocabulary just don't match the time and place. It can't happen there just because the author says it does. To me, that indicates a lazy author and/or editor, and the result is simply not worth my time as a reader.

The RAGTIME KID by Larry Karp is an absolutely perfect example of everything as it should be. There are a sprinkling of real people, so cleverly mixed with characters created by the author that the the two groups are virtually indistinguishable from each other. It's true I was not in Sedalia Missouri in the summer of 1889, but I can't believe it was one bit different from that location as described a century by Mr. Karp.

I know the music descriptions are accurate as well as the clothing, and I'm quite certain that the social history regarding the Civil War and left-over feelings regarding blacks and whites and their interactions with each other are presented exactly as they really were at that time. (Unhappily, as a nation, we still haven't progressed very far from too many of the ignorant opinions expressed by some very intolerant persons in this book.)

The secret to good ragtime is that it must be rendered slowly. That advice pertains to this novel as well. If you follow that advice while reading it, you will afford yourself innumerable pleasures as they expose themselves slowly, a layer at a time.

This is also a mystery novel, in addition to being a dandy historical tale, and all the clues are right there in front of one's eyes. This is where reading slowly and savoring it as you go will serve the reader well. Read too fast, and you'll miss out on myriad clues that will leave you asking 'where did *that* come from?'

Scott Joplin was a gentleman of great talent and intelligence. He was also dark-skinned, and that fact alone could easily have negated every other facet of his existence, had it not been for fair-minded persons who gave him the oppportunity to be himself. He was very capable of playing the 'classical' music of his time, by the pre-eminent European composers -- Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin and others. But he wanted to join their ranks by creating a new genre -- classic ragtime. In spite of the opposition he encountered, he did just that, as exemplified by his music that lives on, a century after he wrote it.

Of course, Joplin wasn't the only creator of ragtime music, but his particular style may be the best-known today. Fortunately, some of the events that unfold in this scintillating novel didn't really happen, afater all, or we might not know the music of Scott Joplin at all. We would all be the poorer, had that happened. Also fortunately, Mr. Joplin had the great good fortune to encounter people of foresight who could see past the color of his skin to the great talent that lay within, and were willing to promote both the man and his music.

This is, without question, one of the very best books I've read in a long, long time. I'll recommend it highly to readers of historical or mystery novels -- as well as those who just simply like to read, period. It will more than repay the time you spend -- all the more so for reading slowly.

This easy-to-read book provides a unique perspective on guerilla battle tactics and how the outlaw rebels of Missouri saw the Civil War conflict. As a former Kansan, it gave me an insight into the slaughter at Lawrence that I was unaware of. Other than John Brown, this subject was rarely discussed in the Kansas history classes I took! And, the viewpoint certainly would have been taboo. The story filled a void in my educational background. Should be required reading for high school students in the Plains States. No wonder the sports rivalry between KU and MU is so bitter! Ironically, published by the University of Oklahoma Press (1992), 232 pp.

I Highly recommend McCorkles first-hand account. It is not often that we can resolve much of the differing views of history with first-hand accounts by those that were there during most of the events. I would have given this book a five had it not been for the very "out-of-place" commentary at the front of the book by someone named Hattaway (of West Point New York). I taped the aprox 25 pages together with an adivosry to skip this section as it only appeared to be added to censor McCorkles account and done in very poor taste. Why would someone want to take the time to distort someone's personal account of history. The Introduction by Barton is done very well however. Why would the publisher think that a commentary should be added when the work already had an introduction? I think the Commentary might have been added after the book was submitted just to try to promulgate a pre-conceived notion of history. Skip the commentary and its a great short work.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Any interested individual or serious student of this era must read this book. I am fortunate enough to live in the present day setting where the author's story took place. This is the real thing. I only wish there had been more works of this quality produced and saved. We would have a much better insight to those times.

Although I don't like giving a 5 star rating to any book this book deserves 6! This is the real stuff, pre WWII, pre WWI, PRE-TV! It was written at a time before historic brainwashing by movies and television existed. Before people were self conscious about telling the truth. We can see the actual format of the "Civil" War sentiments. He reveals the concepts of dying, of The North, Slavery, and other aspects of the era that we are usually forced to accept from modern day writings, reflecting only current, politically correct viewpoints. The down to earth flow of this book is very enjoyable and is great reading for anyone with interest in this subject matter.

Quantrill is often maligned as a psychopathic killer and a despotic guerilla. John McCorkle not only refutes this common claim by the writers of the winner's history, but shows that Quantrill was a compassionate and honorable man. He shows a side to the War of Northern Aggression that is rarely told.

The introductions decry the author's side of the story, but they provide no evidence that is substantiated. The factual errors that McCorkle relates can easily be relegated to the fact that he was in his 80's when he told his story to O.S. Barton and the ravages of time on the memory are well noted throughout history.

This book is a rare glimpse into what made the Missouri Bushwhacker, or Partisan Ranger as they were properly known, what they were. What they did, how they fought, for what and whom they fought: it's all in here and with a lively color that brings to life the way life was in those most trying of times.

Westmoreland, Joe. "Tramps Like Us", University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.

On The Road

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

I just revisited Joe Westmoreland's "Tramps Like Us" and found it to be as wonderful and as honest as it was when I first read it. It's a novel written in the first person, a gay odyssey across the United States. It reads like a memoir and a travelogue rolled into one. We visit the gay scenes in various cities--the New Orleans and San Francisco undergrounds and also spend time in New York, Florida and Kansas City. The details are extensive as are the drugs and sex. We get a look at a wasted life but one full of humor and it works beautifully.
The book is the story of a modern Huck Finn--a guy who searches for a place to call home, for a better life. It is a novel in the style of the American picaresque tradition. Written in straightforward prose which at times is lyrical, its humor takes the reader on a tour of America during the 70's and 80's. Things were wilder then, before AIDS, and out narrator took full advantage of his sexual freedom.
When one feels like a refugee in his own country, he tries to find a place where he can fit. Here is a story of coming-of-age at that era when gay liberation began and the epidemic had not hit.
Simply told in simple sentences "Tramps Like Us" embodies both sophistication and purity (not of body but of mind). Possessing the idea of America's manifest destiny, there is an endless search for spiritual truth. Out two heroes--one who has seen and done it all, the other, a naive beginner remind us of the classic road stories.
During the 70's and 80's, the young traversed America having random sex and experimenting with drugs, concerned about music and style and living only to live. That world is gone now, we have been tempered by the threat of disease and drugs gone bad but as Westmoreland writes of it, it sounds like a place that we should all want to visit. His voice is original yet controlled. Everyone has that desire to run away but few actually do it. It is always interesting to read of someone who is running from something to something. Here our narrator (we never know his name) is running toward self-discovery.
Westmoreland gives an epic look at gay life in America with intensity of vision. Aimlessness was the way during the era of the book and the meanings offered in the book give definition to an age altered by the AIDS epidemic. I remember these years ad how things were. We lived hedonistically and without apology and it was both amusing and appalling, but it was real. Westmoreland shows us that.

What got to me most about this book is the author's absolute pureheartedness, despite the hell he's been through. (It's obvious that this is a memoir, despite the disclaimer.) To grow up middle class in the middle west in seeming normalcy, but actually with a psychotic tyrannical father who rapes one's sisters and a mother who does too little too late--and then to maintain one's goodness, well, that's a real achievement, that's something we really should take note of. In that sense, this book reminded me of Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot" because it's about someone who remains good in a world of evil.

There is a good deal of wonder in Tramps Like Us, Joe Westmoreland's engaging, accessible and only occasionally monotonous first-person novel, a work of fiction that reads like a memoir while functioning like a travelogue. Ripping through a series of fevered gay scenes, mainly in underground New Orleans and San Francisco, and briefly in Florida, Kansas City, and New York, Westmoreland's nose for telling detail is always keen, even as his narrator's stays buried in an endless supply of heroin, coke, and whatever other drugs he can get his hands on, along with a non-stop catalogue of frantic sex, dead end jobs or simply joblessness. Combine these trappings of a wasted life with the raging humor evident on nearly every page of this book, and you have a brilliant mix.

The United States of the 70s and 80s that comes across in Tramps Like Us is a relatively easy place for the aimless, good looking, young men and women who fill its pages, so it's especially fitting that Westmoreland let's his characters' actions speak for themselves. It's admirable also that there's a minimum of authorial comments and editorializing, though Westmoreland does spend a great many words on his own thought processes -- as his drug-addicted narrator, who it's impossible ultimately to separate from the author-would be prone to do.

And it's only initially disconcerting that episodes seem to bog down as if with no discernable trajectory, because it's not until the book's last quarter - and the onset of the AIDS epidemic - that one sees, horrifically, that there has been an ongoing and unspoken direction. What happens to the narrator and his circle, who are not passive so much as resolute in their addictions, does have a cumulative effect. Details do not merely agglomerate: they evince meanings greater than the sum of their parts.

If you're young enough to have missed these turbulent years and this lifestyle (no doubt persevering somewhere), this book may be a welcome and probably rude eye-opener. If you simply don't want to believe that people ever lived as hedonistically and unapologetically as they do in Tramps Like Us, you will be amazed and probably appalled. But you won't begrudge the read.

What a wonderful book. Honest, funny, poignant, and ultimately full of the sorts of things that sees a thinking person to actually come through rough experiences to some sort of peace. If you ever wanted to read "Candide" hits America in the late 70's and early 80's this is your book. Joe Westmoreland really has something here. Highly, highly, highly recommended.

This is a wonderful book in the American picaresque tradition, a great read that I couldn't put down. Westmoreland's clean, straightforward, often lyrical prose and deadpan humor carry the reader along on his journey through the America of the mid-70's to 80's. It's a tender reminder of wilder times, told by a narrator who you can't help but love whether you're gay or straight, male or female, or ... whatever!

In this collection of essays and articles, John Shelton Reed tackles the zeitgeist of the South. He goes about it with an academician's skill that enables enlightened humor and sound argument while avoiding cheesy, low-grade cliche.

Reed emphasizes the importance of cultural/regional distinction. He acknowledges that the South, like any other region, has its problems; however, when it comes to culture, it rules the world. In a country becoming more and more like the James McMurtry song "I'm Not From Here, I Just Live Here," this distinctiveness is more important than most people think; therefore, Reed takes great pride in it.

If you live in the South, Reed will articulate things you've always felt and will give you an appreciation for what makes your homeland unique. If you're from somewhere else, perhaps you'll gain a new understanding of what makes Southerners tick. But whoever you are, I think you'll like this book and I highly recommend it.

This book cannot be recommended too highly to anyone with the slightest interest in the South. It is, in every sense, a delight to read and will easily withstand repeated readings.

This is the third of John Shelton Reed's books that I have read and its style sits somewhere between that of "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South" and "My Tears Spoiled My Aim". The book comprises a collection of dispatches culled from Reed's contributions to newspapers, journals and magazines between 1979-1990. Most of these are 1,000-1,500 words long. The book begins with observations on two of his favorite themes, Southern identity and the New South, before moving on to Southern culture, food, politics and religion. Reed is a favorably prejudiced but acute observer of Southern manners, quirks, oddities and behaviour.

The dispatches are written to entertain and don't disappoint. I found plenty at which to laugh out loud. However, this is not to say that Reed is not surreptitiously engaged in a secret mission to raise his readers' awareness of the character and virtues of things Southern. There's plenty enough here even to make a Yankee laugh - especially some of his more elliptical humor. I particularly liked his comment on Ted Kennedy: "For my part, I rather like the fellow. He's certainly the closest thing to a good old boy that Massachussetts will ever produce - which isn't to say that he ought to be president, merely that I think he'd make a pretty good drinking buddy as long as somebody else did the driving."

Reed is exceptionally good at capturing the spirit or the essence of something and making it seem familiar to you. I have never visited Bob Jones University but, in just over three pages, Reed made me feel I knew what kind of place it was. He does the same for a number of Southern characters and institutions.

Reed is a gifted cultural interpreter who appraches his topics with respect, affection and good humor. It's tempting to say that Reed is a popularizer but that belies his considerable writing talents. Whilst everything is written in an engaging style, Reed makes few concessions to his readership - he delights in his use of language and deploys an extensive vocabularly that would make some of my students reach for their dictionaries.

All in all this book is an unqualified delight. Go buy it now - you won't be disappointed.

Mr. Reed sure can write. I don't always agree with him; to turn around what he says about Steve Earle, Reed's politics are suspect. And more importantly how can he believe that Randy Travis is better than Earle and Dwight Yoakam? Still even when I didn't agree with the book I enjoyed reading it. The essays on country music and Ted Kennedy are worth the price of the book by themselves. Best of all it's wonderful to see someone defending my home region who isn't a confederate flag waving idiot.

I've long been a fan of John Shelton Reed's "Letter from the Lower Right" in Chronicles magazine, and gave very high marks to "1,001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South," which he wrote with his wife. But for some reason, I had never made an effort to track down and read any of the collections of his essays. I see now what a mistake that was. I wish I'd read this back when it was new.

It was some consolation to find that the articles and essays here assembled were definitely worth the wait. Reed is a very funny writer, but he's not a "humorist" or humor writer in the sense of, say, Dave Barry or even (to move outside the region) P.J. O'Rourke. You'll definitely get a laugh out of many of these pieces, but you'll also find them deeply informative. Reed is, after all, a serious researcher and thinker, and the two indisputable facts that define his writing -- that he loves the South, and he *knows* the South -- feed off one another.

Granted, many of the essays here are more than a little dated (some date back to the Carter Administration), and I'd love to know how things have changed in the thirteen, fifteen, or almost twenty-five years since some of them were written. But that's no doubt just one more reason to track down Reed's more recent collections.

Southerners, including expatriates, will nod knowingly at much of what Reed says, and will get a kick out of seeing themselves depicted so accurately in print. I hope they'll also take to heart his commitment to preserving many of the things -- from culture to accent -- that make the South truly distinctive. Folks from other parts of the country will find that Reed has not only made that sometimes-puzzling region a little easier to understand, but has made the trip a remarkably pleasant one.

When I took Sociology of the South under Dr. Reed at the University of North Carolina, he immediately won the respect of everyone who heard him speak, by virtue of the mix of humor and humble generosity with which he offered up quite a prodigious wealth of knowledge, and because of his graceful personal style. These qualities are evident in his writing.

Now that I live in gritty Gotham, and am faced daily with a culture amazingly alien to the one in which I was raised below the Mason-Dixon, I think every day of the issues he explored in his class (and in his books). He has done depthy and earnest sociological study of issues which plague the minds of Southerners and people who know them: Why Are Country Lyrics So Sad? Why Are Cheating Husbands More Likely To Get Shot Down South? What Exactly Is A 'Southerner,' and Why Won't They Shut Up About That Old War? (and) What, Exactly, Is The Big Deal With Kudzu? I highly recommend this book, as well as My Tears Spoiled My Aim.

I found THE BUSHWHACKER to be readable, interesting and informative. Although the setting is the Civil War, the book opens many opportunities for discussions as the situation is similar to events in many parts of our world today (such as Kosovo, N. Ireland). The theme of forgiveness and peacemaking can never be emphasized too often. Though I am an adult, I found the book held my interest to the very end.

J.J. Garrity's book The Bushwhacker is the story of a young boy and girl in war-torn Missouri during the Civil War. After being burned out of their home by a Rebel-sympathizing Bushwhacker, Jacob and Eliza learn important lessons about forgiveness and looking beyond stereotypes and prejudices.

Jennifer Johnson Garrity has given us a wonderful gift in this juvenile novel. The Bushwhacker tells of events in Missouri during the early part of the Civil War from the perspective of a young boy who has been forced from his home by bushwhackers (rebel sympathizers who were intent on pushing Pro-Union folks out). The story does not take the easy way out on any of the real-life issues that are at the heart of this story. This reader (an adult) found the story wonderfully paced and very thought-provoking. The Bushwhacker is highly recommended for young readers, especially those interested in the Civil War. Adults will enjoy the story as well.

Jennifer Johnson Garrity has captured the hearts of my children with her true-to-life Civil War story, "The Bushwhacker." American history, to them, used to be filled the drudgery of memorizing dates and names, but through reading "The Bushwhacker," the Civil War has come alive through the story of two families and their struggles.

The story is of Jacob and Eliza Knight, two children severed from their parents by masked gunmen with torches, as they fled their home being engulfed by flames. Finding themselves alone, they struggle to survive in the war-torn state of Missouri, where a bushwhacker's mask at night hides the smile of a lifelong neighbor by day. They're forced to take refuge in a home of an enemy sympathizer where Jacob learns through the bitterness of revenge the freedom of forgiveness.

Through Eliza and Jacob's trials, my children gained an understanding of both sides of the war along with a message of forgiveness and unity that is powerful and engaging.

My ten-year-old is studying the Civil War this year at school, and shared her copy of "The Bushwhacker" with her teacher. Her teacher not only enjoyed reading it herself, but has also added it to her class curriculum.

I am a home-school tutor and have read this book to some of my students. Besides thoroughly enjoying the storyline, they were able to grasp what life was like during this terrible time and understand that the Civil War was not just about slavery as so many people believe. They were also able to learn about forgiveness and that there are always two sides to every story. My students begged me to read it each day and were wanting more books by this author when it was over.

General George S. Patton's younger daughter, Ruth Ellen, has written an interesting and readable memoir about growing up in this military family. The hero is her mother, Mrs. Beatrice Patton.

Beginning before World War I, the author takes us on several tours; life on military posts, growing up before radio and television, the folkways and mores of a society where children were raised by nannies.

Although replete with anecdotes and family myths that reveal Mrs. Patton's role in the success of her husband, the events and relationships which give her substance in her own right are a major and significant part of the story. Not a hagiography, the author easily and with good taste recounts family matters that would not have been shared with outsiders.

For some, the connection to 'Patton' will be the reason to read this book. I think, however, the publisher, The University of Missouri Press, saw this memoir in a much broader context.

If you think you've read everything there is on George Patton as I had, then you owe it to yourself to read this book or you will never really understand his life's story. His daughter did a masterful job of putting the family story in a readable fashion and I could only dream of having such an adventurous life as their's was.

Great Read for any Patton fan. Reads quick and is insightful.

Ruth Ellen Patton Totten has left us with an extraordinary insight into the lives of the Patton family & most especially a wonderful tribute to her mother, Beatrice Ayer Patton. This book does more than present facts as a biographer would. Ruth Ellen tells the story from an insider's perspective. She not only tells the story but more importantly gives her mother's reaction to some of the most trying events in her lifetime & how she handled those events. The underlying theme of the book is the way Beatrice faced life; positively. She summoned courage, dignity & perseverance in the face of trials.

Ruth Ellen makes a great point by saying that soldiers are not the only casualties of war & it is evidenced by the sufferings which Beatrice, Ruth Ellen & Little Bea (Beatrice's daughter) endured, each of them being married to husbands in the Army.

This is an inspiring book that makes you wish you had met Beatrice Patton. Ruth Ellen herself is an incredible story teller & must have been one amazing woman in her own right. The Patton family has much of which to be proud because of the courage & strong character of Beatrice Patton. You don't have to be a fan of General George S. Patton Jr. to read the book. If you simply want to read a great book about a great woman, read this book.

What an amazing window into the true lives of the "Cold Roast Boston" aristocracy, and what a tribute to a strong, multi-talented and insatiably curious woman. Hilarious, insightful, poignant, historical, and best of all...completely uncensored.

If you're a Royals fan (like I am), if you can remember the disappointments of 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981 and 1984 (like I can), if you were on top of the world when the Royals won it all (like I was), this is a book to buy. It is chock full of memories of the 1985 Series, with little interesting facts thrown in about various player's lives after the Series, (where have you gone Buddy Biancalana is answered among others), and neat insights into the running of the Royals that year. "The Call" warrants a chapter of it's own, as does a member of neither team, Don Denkinger.

The only reason I didn't give this book a "5" is that the writing of the book itself is only average, even for a sports book. It doesn't come up to the level of some of the great true-sports authors of our time such as Halberstein.

If you are a true-blue Royals fan, you need this book. If you aren't, it is still a nice story of a team that came together at the right time to win the World Series.

The Kansas City Royals won the World Series in 1985. Most people aren't aware that the team had a few occasions when they were really good and competitive. Sure, those were many years ago, but you can't take away a World Series victory for a team that truly deserved it that year.

The opinions and memories that this book provides is worth a serious read. Every baseball fan should order this book right away.

I am a lifelong Royals fan and like many Kansas Citians, I have vivid memories of the games that year. However, I have very limited information about what this series meant at the time to the actual players. This book transcends the box scores and recaps to provide true insights to the thoughts and emotions of the players and the fans. The importance of this series to this team and city is epitomized by the graphic descriptions of players' mental impressions surrounding the key plays in that series. This series was the greatest sporting event in this city's history and this book is a wonderful way to relive the splendor.

As a faithfull and lifetime Royals fan, this book is amazing. The stories and memories of that faithfull series are brought back very vividly. The author does a very good job of re-creating the suspensefull moments of one of the most exciting times in Kansas City History

It's a shame that any Royals team wouldn't be inspired by reading this book. Former Kansas City Royals outfielder Frank White is right, "You've only got a few chances in life when a special challenge is put before you." So I hope future Royals teams will read this book, and maybe that inspiration will help improve the franchise. It was wonderful to experience what the former Royals are up to now-a-days, and Mr. Spivak did a great job in describing the feel of all seven World Series games. Finally, "The Curse of The Call" was a brilliant twist.

I have read "Dying to Live" once and I am currently reading it a second time. The book is unusual in that it tackles a difficult subject in a down to earth manner. Senkbeil, a pastor in Wisconsin, knows the Bible and he knows people. He does a wonderful job of making theology understandable. Forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian faith, Senkbeil explains, and thus of the Christian life as well.

Senkbeil begins this engaging book by showing the loneliness and worry that faces us in today's world. Written in a down-to-earth manner, Dying to Live opens with an examination of our society's desperation for life. Our frantic lives are lived in constant pursuit of happiness, and are full of communication. But all too often we seek happiness in materialism, and our communication is superficial, leaving us feeling empty and lonely. Instead of this, Senkbeil points us to the often over-looked simple answer. Christ offers forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation freely. Rather than "a crutch to escape reality," Christ is the eternal life present in this dying world (p.28).

Pastor Senkbeil continues the book by explaining the amazing reality of Christ's coming into the world as both God and man, facing our same trials and sufferings, and enduring the punishment for the sins of all humankind at the cross. Yet our glory and hope is in the knowledge that Jesus Christ did not remain dead, but overcame the grave and promised the same resurrection to all who believe. Senkbeil shows us how this grace is carried to the church through the Word and Sacraments (the tangible means by which we receive God's forgiveness), which equips us to face this earthly life.

In the last section of the book he overviews the fellowship we have in the church and how it is centered around God's word. This builds the way we worship, as God serves us (God's service=divine service=meaning of "liturgy"). He also shows the implications for our prayer life and for our daily life in the the world. Overall this book points us to the comforting truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His gift of forgiveness and salvation. Dying to Live would be an excellent read for any Christian or even a non-Christian interested in learning about this hope that we have.

This book is well written, and an easy read. It has great theology, with points made well supported with Scritpure. Excellent points on the central theme of the Bible.

Senkbeil stands at the forefront of writers in Confessional Lutheranism. While often a sharp critic of many perceived sins, evils, and errors in modern society and Christendom, he is still at heart a parish pastor with a pastor's heart for those in need. While not a "how-to" book, ~Dying to Live~ certainly shows how a true Christian lifestyle flows from a life of forgiving and being forgiven.

Senkbeil has blessed the body of Christ by penning for us in his own tight, creative style, what should become a basic, classic work for Christians. The problem and solution are quickly laid out for the reader, then all the other elements of a believer's life are revolved around this center. Explains concerns that many pastors have with the "hot tub" christianity that so permeates our times. His sections on sacramental focus and liturgical shape are brilliant!