Virginia Books

Just the title provides food for thought: Blue Ridge 2020, An Owner's Manual, reminds us that the public has a responsibility for effective stewardship of the public lands in the Blue Ridge. I also like the play on words of 2020--hindsight is 20/20, and if we don't take a hard, clear look at what is happening to the ecology of the Blue Ridge and work hard to improve it, we will have deep regrets by the year 2020. The human scale of twenty years is very effective. I'm 31--what kind of Blue Ridge will I experience at 51? As a local environmental activist in the Page Valley, I find this book is a tremendously useful and motivating resource. In one book, Steve Nash provides an overview of specific problems and practical solutions. His writing style is clear and accessible. If you care about the health about the Blue Ridge or want up to date information about the quality of air and water in the mountains, this is a book you need to read. This is one of the best "state of the ecology" books I've read, and it is particularly useful for its regional approach.

"BLUE RIDGE FOLKLIFE is a serious study of the area from northern Virginia and the West Virginia panhandle to northeast Georgia and northwest South Carolina. The book covers the area's history, folklore, and culture."--KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL, May 1998

BLUE RIDGE FOLKLIFE provides "a basic overview of some aspects of local traditional culture as practiced by some members . . . of the Blue Ridge's people."--THE MOUNTAIN TIMES (Boone, N.C.), August 1998

BLUE RIDGE FOLKLIFE is an "extremely valuable work."--THE ORANGE NEWSLETTER (Northern Ireland), April 1998

BLUE RIDGE FOLKLIFE "should appeal to nonspecialists"; author Ted Olson "devotes the heart of his very readable book to describing the verbal folklore, customary folklife, and material culture of the [Blue Ridge] region."--THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW, October 1998

"Part history, part field guide, part travelogue, BLUE RIDGE FOLKLIFE is a fine introduction to the physical setting and folk culture of the storied region that makes up the southeastern extremities of the Appalachian Mountain range."--THE JOURNAL OF MISSISSIPPI HISTORY, 1999

This is a beautiful book full of vintage photos of Bluefield during days longed for today. The well-written history accompanying these photos helps create an understanding of the history of this largely coal-driven city. I have purchased numerous copies of this book to give as gifts and all who have received it have been delighted! My copy is already well-worn and provides a new glimpse into the heart of small town America each time I look through it.

I didn't know much about the naval history of Hampton Roads until I picked up a copy of Alan Flanders's Bluejackets on the Elizabeth! He writes with the right amount of historiography-
the facts are there-but he also writes it in a very entertaining style. You literally fly along once you start and go back to the colonial era and the first development of Norfolk and Portsmouth as colonial ports. But Flanders takes you through the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War of 1845, Civil War, Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Cold War and even gets you to the latest war on Terrorism all within the scope of maritime lore within Hampton Roads. I really recommend this book for both the serious student and someone who wants something entertaining and fun. I learned a lot about Norfolk and Portsmouth. Bluejackets made me want to learn more and more. Charles Recter, Ph.D.

I just bought this book last week. I've been real interested in this story since it happened 6 years ago. I feel sorry for poor John-wayne though. A lesson learned is, don't abuse your spouse, AND maybe it'd help to do the d*** dishes (even though I've always HATED dishes)!

As I read through this young people's book, I was surprised by the quality of the story. I thought that the story would limit itself to bobcats frolicking about and being inquisitive within their environment. Instead, what the author presented was a deeper story of reality. The bobcats are taught by their mother to kill prey for their food. There are struggles that the bobcats face which show death as a natural part of life's order. The story is illuminated by gorgeous drawn illustrations. This book is an excellent story about real life.

Grandma went to church with Henry Beattie. Her uncle testified for the prosecution. Granddad attended the trial. Dr. Trotti's article on half-tone images [featuring Beattie] in "The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography" whetted my appetite for his new book "The Body in the Reservoir." It was worth the wait.

Trotti's book represents a milestone in Virginia's cultural and journalism histories. For the first time [that I am aware] one work summarizes the crimes of Phillips, Cluverius, Marable, McCue and Beattie and their individual and collective significances. The book also reports on the newspapers' handlings of piracy, insurrections, lynchings [especially that of Thomas Smith] and other famous outrages peculiar to the Commonwealth. The author draws comparisons from a broad base of relevancy while maintaining focus on major cases.

The author traces development of newspaper sensationalism in Virginia from colonial days to the early twentieth century. Trotti credibly shows how cultural, technological and developments in social sciences encouraged such reporting. He identifies elements common to the South and unique to Virginia. In chapter five, he pauses to further hone his earlier work on image technologies.

Trotti's style is precise and logical. His conclusions are astute. The roles of police/dectectives in later cases may be understated, but the author presents newly compiled facts and statistics important to better understand these influences.

Illustrations and endnotes support the text well. The endnotes double as an informal bibliography. The index is optimal.

For scholarship, analysis and historical value, "The Body in the Reservoir" ranks high. The work compliments Lebsock's "A Murder in Virginia" by expanding the contributions of the African-American publisher/editor John Mitchell. Trotti's research on sensationalism belongs on a shelf beside Hamm's "Murder, Honor and Law;" each illuminates a different, key aspect of Virginia's legal psyche and that of the "New South."

Trotti covers all the great murder sensations of Virginia's yellow journalism period . . . . . all, of course, but the last one. The sensational Hall Case and its subsequent cover-up were only revealed recently in "Murder At Green Springs."

This book is a gem if you are a teacher, elementary or secondary who is interested in using literature in the classroom. Often called literature circles, literature study and here, book clubs, this book provides the theoretical background as well as the in-class applications for use in any situation. Students become motivated, engaged lovers of reading.

I can't believe I'm the first person to rate this exceptional work of fiction! This novel is so real it's almost unreadable - it can be breathed. Pharr holds a key to the lifestyle and lingo of a wonderfull black south.
The Book of Numbers describes the coming up of young Dave Greene, who leaves home after his wannabe-lawyer father's death and quickly becomes the king of numbers, leading a fast and lucrative sporting life of the depression-era south. Business begins booming before Dave has a chance to realize he knows little to nothing about maintaining a business, he only had a dream. Now that it has taken off he worries briefly if he can handle it all. He manages well, though, and becomes a hero and a millionare. Dave, with the help from his best friend and sort of mentor Blueboy, try to maintain the numbers operation under the noses of jealous and curious white citizens by dealing only with the negro occupants of the Ward. Gambling,murder, alcoholism, police brutality, sex, and race all play a powerfull role in this book. This is a phenomenal piece of black history. Go get this book! Amazing!

Seems to me that there is a lack of good books written about the free men on the Ohio River frontier. And by free men, I do not mean the tribalists nor the military men who killed "in the name of freedom." There were some hunter/trappers who simply lived freely in the woods, men like James Sherlock and Adam O'Bryan, but it seems like authors never choose them to write about. You can get glimpses of them in books like Glenn Lough's NOW AND LONG AGO and like Lucullus V. McWhorter's volume here.

There are some excellent novels about the free hunter/trappers who lived later in the Rocky Mountains and on the plains, but there is no eastern frontier equivalent to, say, Vardis Fisher's THE MOUNTAIN MAN, upon which Robert Redford's JEREMIAH JOHNSON was based. A few others spring to mind, all later and west of the Mississippi.

Here is Lucullus Virgil McWhorter on historical Ohio Valley trapper Adam O'Bryan:

"When asked how he came to seek the wilderness and encounter the perils of sufferings of frontier life, he answered that he liked it and did not mind it a bit and in further explanation said that he was a poor man and had got behind hand and when that's the case, there is no staying in the settlements for those varmints, the sheriffs and constables, who were worse than Indians..."

"That after the King's Proclamation for all the settlers and surveyors to remove east of the big ridge from off the western waters, there was no white people on the west side except those who had run away from justice, and they were as free as the biggest buck a-going, and after the peace of sixty-three, it was all quiet in the backwoods..."

"He said that they lived quite happy before the Revolution, for then there was no law, no courts, and no sheriffs, and they all agreed pretty well, but after a while the people began to come and make settlements; and then there was a need for law; and then came the lawyers and next the preachers and from that time they never had any peace any more, that the lawyers persuaded them to sue when they were not paid, and the preachers converted one half, and they began to quarrel with the other half because they would not take care of their own souls, and from that time they never had any peace for body or soul, and that the sheriffs were worse than the wildcats and painters and would take the last coverlet from your wife's straw bed or turn you out in a storm, and I tell you, mister, I would rather take my chances and live among savages than live among justices and lawyers and sheriffs who, with all their civility, have no natural feeling in them..."