Virginia Books

THE MORE I READ OF THIS BOOK, THE HARDER IT BECAME TO PUT IT DOWN. I FELT A PART OF THE WRITER'S EXPERIENCES, FRUSTRATIONS AND LONGINGS. READING A BOOK LIKE THIS PUTS ME INTO THE LIVES BEING DESCRIBED AND EXPOSES ME TO THE HEARTBREAK THEREIN. VERY TOUCHING AND ONE THAT I WILL READ AGAIN. MY HEART GOES OUT TO THE SUFFERINGS OF MARION AND AMANDA AND THEIR FAMILIES.

If you want to know what it was like to be a soldier in the Civil War, read this book. It gives incredible insight into the day to day hardships that a soldier faced. It is an emotional journey that presents the pride of fighting for a cause and the heartaches of leaving ones family.

This book captures the feel of a soldier's life during the Civil War. The hardships and the heartaches of the war are made all too clear through the letters of this simple Georgia farmer to his beloved wife Amanda. A must read for any Civil War buff and an excellent slice of real history for anyone.

This simple farmer who went to war wrote letters home to his wife and child describing what his daily routines were in the army, including the homesickness and heartaches. The daily truths he describes make it hard to idealize and glorify any war.

My great-grandfather fought along-side Marion Hill Fitzpatrick as a member of the 49th Georgia, a sister regiment of Thomas' Brigade. This book gave me a very personal, heart-wrenching insight into not only what these men went through, but also the daily ordeals of surviving of their families back home. My thanks to the the folks who produced this wonderful work.

C. Bryan Smith

This is a heart-wrenching account of the lives lost on April 16, 2007. This tragedy will never leave me, but neither will Lauren McCain's words. Her faith, evident through her journal entries, her words of praise and her love for God have touched me so strongly that I think of her and her words of praise daily. She lived her life so deeply for someone so young and she will continue to witness to others through this book and inspire others as she has truly inspired me. She is a true child of God.

Some stories stay with you. This is one. You'll find yourself thinking of it long after you put it down, and you'll be happy you spent the time doing it!

I started reading this book last night and just could not put it down.

What an amazing story and what a special young lady Lauren McCain must have been. His story is an absolute inspiration and her parents ae very special as well.

Using the story and journals of VT freshman Lauren McCain, whose love for Christ emanates from her like a sweet fragrance, combined with other witness testimony and police accounts, Lueders explores the events of the Virginia Tech tragedy and tackles tough issues like God's presence in tragedy and whether forgiveness is necessary and possible.

This is not the first tragedy where someone was asked "Where was God?" or suggested vengeance and blame were more probable reactions than forgiveness. The book covers well the accuracy of understanding God is with us even in the midst of the fallout from the evil humans choose to enact. As for forgiveness, it examples and guides a truth I have learned to live long ago and wish more people knew - with Jesus Christ in your life, true forgiveness is possible and life can go forward.

The best parts of the book are taken from Lauren's journals, her myspace page, and statements from friends and family which show Lauren not as a victim of violence, but a victorious inheritor of Heaven. The book gives you permission to grieve, and power to know what a difference God really does make when the relationship is real.

While interviewing the author Pat Robertson said, "People asked, 'Where was God when this happened?' He was right there." And that point is made throughout this book. Award-winning journalist and author Beth Lueders brings her years of experience to bear in crafting a book that not only tells about a tragedy and its aftermath, but challenges us all to "lift our eyes" and see the good that can come from even the worst mass-murder in U.S. history.

Besides the well-written story, the book includes a comprehensive appendix with tips on how to help or receive help--both from a biblical and psychological point of view--when trauma invades our comfortable world.

A fascinating book! I particularly appreciate the way the author integrates Du Pont's human strengths and frailties with the bureaucratic, logistical, and armament systems of the time. He provided just enough background information on Du Pont's family, peers, and related events for readers to appreciate their impact without being taken off track. Ultimately the reader sees the guy as very much a real man with skills, challenges, successes and failures that are just as relevant today as 150 years ago. (Anyone who doubts the relevance of history to modern events need only read this book.) Finally, I greatly enjoyed learning about the technological advances of the day in the context of the times. It's easy for us today to look back at the Civil War as being an "old-style war" like that of 1812, but in reading Weddle's book I was enlightened to the fact that from a technological attitudes standpoint, the Civil War was much more of a "modern" war than I had previously realized. What kid isn't fascinated by the battle of the Monitor and the Virginia (Merrimack), for example? In history books that event is always presented as an isolated incident, but thanks to this book I now realize that steam-powered vessels and ironclads were the wonder weapons of their day -- they captured the public imagination (and those of military planners) just as tanks, jets, and nuclear weapons have in more recent times. It has been a truly delightful read and I've learned a lot. Incredible the peers Du Pont rubbed elbows with at the time -- legendary heroes like Stephen Decatur and Matthew Perry. If you like history, you will love this book. Not only does it offer fascinating facts and insights into a man and his times, but it reads like a novel. Don't miss it!

Great read! Easy, smooth flowing syntax and text. Almost reads like a novel. A nice mixture of text, maps, and images. Substantial research has brought together the personal man as well as the public man and his concern for United States protection and the well being of his naval forces.
Coming from a naval family, I was very interested in seeing the evolving history of the US Navy. I was also interested to follow the interaction of husband and wife and her influence on DuPont. Highly recommend this book.

Kevin Weddle has blazed new trails in this long-overdue look at one of the U.S. Navy's most important but little-known leaders. He has tapped into the extensive resources of the Du Pont family to capture the essence of a complex figure who stood tall at the cusp of a critical period of American history. The book is a quick read and Samuel Francis Du Pont's story is told with balance, style, and accuracy.
The best biographies hold relevance for for present and future leaders - and this one is no exception. Du Pont plays key roles as mariner, technological innovator, personnel reformer, diplomat, strategist, combat commander, and family man. Through it all, he remains a man of steadfast principle.
Kevin Weddle has spun a superb yarn and created an impressive work that shines a contemporary lamp on a long-neglected giant of the U.S. Navy. This volume is a worthy addition to the library of those with an interest in naval history, the Civil War, or leadership.

Before I read this book, I didn't know alot about this period of our nation's history. What I especially enjoyed was learning about Samual DuPont's personal life and how it affected some of his decisions in war time. I can now say I have learned something and was entertained in the meantime.

For those of you who eagerly await the one book on Civil War naval history for every fifty released concerning the land war, you will not be disappointed. Not only is this book an exceptional biography of Admiral Du Pont, but it also provides a thorough look at the Navy during the service's formative years prior to the Civil War. This is possible because Du Pont's influence proved instrumental during this period; he authored the first comprehensive national maritime strategy (which provided guidance for transforming the Navy from a coastal defense force into a "Blue Water" service with offensive capability), as well as catalyzed much-needed personnel reform. Du Pont's at-sea adventures in the Mexican War and during a hazardous voyage to the Far East also make for great reading. What sets this book apart from any good biography, however, is the insightful discussion of civil-military friction and ill-conceived reliance on technology that characterize Du Pont's 1863 attack on Charleston, SC. Du Pont was against this operation (believing it to be an unnecessary peripheral enterprise that would siphon off valuable - and limited - resources from the all-important blockade), but Lincoln, Navy Secretary Welles, and Assistant Secretary Fox all though the capture of Charleston had important symbolic value. Since civilian leadership sets policy and related strategic objectives, Du Pont saluted smartly and began planning the operation. Friction arose when the admiral tried to persuade Welles and Fox that Charleston could only be captured via a joint Army-Navy operation. Welles and Fox (demonstrating blatant service parochialism) favored an all-Navy operation, and instructed Du Pont to proceed without Army assistance. Despite evidence to the contrary (Drewry's Bluff, VA and Fort McAllister, GA), Welles and Fox were convinced that monitor ironclads alone could destroy Charleston's forts and capture the city; as a result, they confidently assured Lincoln that the monitor technology would prevail. Of course, Du Pont was correct and the operation tragically ended in failure. Civil-military friction and technology as a military panacea are familiar themes throughout American military history - and we see them still in the current global war on terrorism. Colonel Weddle, therefore, does the reader a great service by providing such a thought-provoking discussion and analysis of these crucial issues. Superbly written, thoroughly researched, and well organized, this book was a pleasure to read and I highly recommend it.

I bought this because my future sister-in-law has PKU. Her mother recommended it, and the book does a good job of explaning questions I wouldn't even think to ask. It is full of information, recipes, and other resources. Some of the contact information for the specialty food distributors is out of date, but easily updated by doing an internet search of the companies and penciling in the new information. I'm not the best qualified reviewer for this book, but as far as I am concerned, it is an excellent resource.

These women are saints!! There is not enough room on this forum to describe how amazingly awesome this book is. My 1 year old Niece has PKU, and luckily enough my nephew-in-law absolutely LOVES to cook. I got this for him (along with the PKU bread maker recipes) as a Christmas gift and he flipped! He said everything in the book looks fantastic, and there is literally everything from apples to zucchini. If you're needing a low protein diet book, or even just wanting to eat healthier, this is by far the best one out there. Thanks again to Virginia Schuett and Dorothy Corry for taking the time to make low-protein foods not so boring! Generations of PKU/Kidney patients and their families will be thanking you for years to come! I know this grateful Great-Aunt does.

The food in here is really good stuff! I especially love all the cookie recipies, I haven't made one I don't like! All the special food is expensive, but it's worth it. I really don't know how people managed a PKU diet before the book came out. If you can find the second edition, though, it's almost exactly the same page for page, and I like the spiral binding better, so the book lays flat when you're cooking.

This book is one of the best helps in the world for those who are going to follow the "very low protein diet" for kidney disease to delay dialysis. The renal dietitians at JHU use this as their Bible in developing diet plans for Dr. Walser's patients. There are a number of helpful suggestions at the start of the book to teach you how to read labels and weigh foods. There are also lists that help you find low protein foods which are updated on the PKU web site. The restrictions on protein for the "very low protein" diet for kidney disease are not as severe as those for PKU, but this book teaches you how to meet those limitations.

Just keep in mind that it is not a great place to find vegetarian recipes. People with PKU cannot tolerate protein and take a special supplement to provide it. Therefore these recipes will not provide the protein that your average vegetarian will be looking for.

If, however, you or a member of your family has PKU, you should definitely get this book and read the whole thing. TWICE!

If you accept the notion that insanity is an illness (in contast to the whacked-out anti-psychiatry crowd) then this is an outstanding history of how America's treatment of the mentally ill has been made into a disgrace by the very ilk (counterculture/New Left types) who cry the loudest and hardest about social injustice in America. Christ warned about certain men who tie heavy loads on other mens backs, but won't lift a finger to help them; well, the anti-psychiatry crowd has made it virtually impossible for concerned, compassionate Americans to help the people who need it most. One can only take comfort in the notion that at the Final Judgment the people responsible for bringing about such mind-boggling suffering will be certainly be held accountable.

I read this book and could not put it down. It really explains how our mental health policy in America became so distorted. The abandonment of our mentally ill in the name of freedom and self determination was ill thought out. This book is thorough and riveting.

Even ten years after it was written, no other book documents the origins and failure of deinstitutionalization of people with severe mental illness so well. I only wish that the authors would update the book for the new decade.

Public policy regarding mental illness has been shrouded by myth, ideology, and fanatiscism. Madness in the Steets explains the history and myths that have caused the criminalization and neglect of people with no-fault brain disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Those myths now exposed, it is a clarion for legislative change. A must read for sociologists, legislators, and those who understand the tragedy of lack of treatment.

I am so disappointed that this book is out of print! I have been recommending it to everyone including political leaders. This book explains so well why our mental health system is failing! From the ACLU who allow our loved ones to "die with their rights on" to the anti-psychiatry movement who deny that mental illness exist.The authors have uncovered the web of a failed system which advocates need to have as a resource. This book needs to be available.

I ordered the book and requested to receive it on the next day. I recieved it the next day!! It doesn't get any better than that!! Thanks Amazon!

Very fast delivery, great price (for a textbook- all of which are rediculously overpriced anyway)and arrived in excellent condition. Thanks.

The book I bought from Eric was in excellent condition, plus it arrived only 3 days after I had purchased it! Great service, perfect product!

I have never been too crazy about or never been good at economics, but after reading this book, I feel I understand the real-world economics better. For a novice like me, it is relatively easy to follow the contents because it's full of examples from real business world. I assume this book will be satisfactory to more "academic" readers too because the book still doesn't fail to cover real economic materials like graphs and theories.

This book provides an excellent background for learning applied managerial economics. Mr. Baye uses interesting real-world examples, which is difficult when writing about the entirely hypothetical world of micro-economics. I felt that the section on Game Theory was especially useful in explaining real world market paricipant behavior in pricing decisions. Overall, I would highly recommend this book for both students of economics, as well as those non-students seeking a weekend of light reading in the topic of economics.

What a wonderful trip down Memory Lane! I had a couple of uncles that worked for Marx when I was a little kid and had many of the toys featured in Michelle's book. I can only wonder what happened to my Mark toys. I guess they found their way to cousins or younger friends, but I sure would like to have them back now! Good job Michelle - I truly enjoyed paging through your book - it appears to have been a labor of love as opposed to a for profit project. Thanks for the memories!

This book would be a great companion book. Most Marx toys collectors would benefit from information on part numbers, years of production and viewing the wonderful selection of photographs featured in the book. The book covers about 30 years worth of knowledge on toys produced at the Glen Dale plant site. There is even a partial price listing on items that Ms. Smith and Mr. Whipkey were familiar with. All in all. A good book.

I enjoyed this book because of it's detailed accounts of Marx toys that I grew up with. The price guide is also handy when I'm out looking for Marx items for my sisters' collections. History of a manufacturer is always interesting and the photographs help define the pieces I'm searching for. I appreciate a good book that shows great effort extended in presenting the information. I would recommend this book to the serious toy buyer and to new seekers of antique Marx toys. Kudos to the author!

I found this to be an ideal route to fond memories of my childhood. Many of the toys in this book were basis of several Christmas dreams. As a baby boomer, I have been collecting the dollhouses and furniture with the hope that my granddaughter will appreciate them, too! This is a good reference guide to have!

This brand new (year 2000)192 page book gives you an inside look at one of America's favorite toy makers. It takes you behind the scenes at Marx to help you see and understand the company and its people. There is a beautiful 32 page full color section, in addition to more than 150 black and white photos. Many of the photos have not before been published. More than 1,200 individual items are listed, including many values. Major topics range from Play Sets, Doll Houses, Lithographed Items, to Johnny West, and Sandy Dolls. A Marx time line from 1896 to 1999 is provided along with a handy index. Toy collectors will be delighted with this new reference.

WHAT A CHARMING PIECE ON THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH. CRAFTED WITH PURE GENIOUS AND A PEN FOR DETAIL, "THE MODERATES' DILEMMA" BRINGS TO LIGHT THE UNDENIABLE OBSTINANCE OF THE SOUTH'S PREMIERE SCHOOL DISTRICTS.THIS WORK IS A MUST READ FOR HISTORY GRADS OF ANY BACKGROUND.

I read the book, it is brilliant collection of writings. The editors offer an interesting, sophisticated analysis of the white response to busing. Being a former student of his, I can attest that Matthew D. Lassiter is an incredibly intelligent, dynamic individual. I highly recommend this book, and anxiously await his upcoming works.

Matthew Lassiter, editor-in-chief of this seminal collection, sets forth, once again, a fresh standard of scholarly excellence and eloquence. His essay, "A 'Fighting Moderate,'" illustrates one of his innumerable intellectual virtues, the ability to electrify his arduously acquired historian's sobriety with an innate psychological acuity.

Matthew D. Lassiter, perhaps the world's pre-eminent scholar of the American South, co-edited this penetrating and resonant collection of essays, to which he has contributed a characteristically elegant and astute study of Benjamin Muse, who figured prominently in the turbulent early years of desegregation in Virginia.

For my senior seminar, I wrote a paper on desegregation/busing in the South. While I was doing research, a librarian found this book for me. I had to wait 2 weeks to get it through interlibrary loan, but it was worth it!! The essays really bring home the complexity of Southern desegregation when viewed through the lens of class issues. I can only aspire to produce such insightful scholarship!

This biographical work is essential in understanding the author's greatest works. She discusses "scene making" and how it relates to memory. After reading this I plan to reread "To the Lighthouse" and "Mrs. Dalloway."

Virginia Woolf's Moments of Being is one of the great artifacts of literary modernism -- and it also possesses the virtue of being superbly written; few writers are of the caliber of Woolf when it comes to documenting the subtle nuances of human emotion and thought. Her voice is unwavering and clear; it is analytic and critical without every sacrificing its self-effacing quality and humility - and the clarity of its emotional tone. She handles the pain and loss in her life with a kind of imaginative double barreled shotgun: she destroys those that have inflicted pain on her, while exalting those that loved her. But as she hacks away at one and beatifies the other she always places both in very real, very human terms. There are also sparks of real humor here that cannot be overlooked, like the moment in the essay "Old Bloomsbury" when Lytton Strachey walks into the room and seeing a stain on Vanessa's white dressed pronounces "Semen?" and with one word ushers in the 20th centuries fixation with discussing sexual matters. We are to believe that one word carelessly said becomes the hallmark of an entire century.

This collection of autobiographical essays was not published until 1976. They do not supplement the Diaries, but stand on their own as indispensable to an understanding of the novels and thinking of this revolutionary writer. They articulate - as the Diaries do not in an explicit way - her philosophy, and this alone makes the book essentail reading for anyone interested in Woolf or, indeed, modern fiction. But these essays offer more than that. They detail sensitive and at times painful background memories of her death-ridden childhood and adolescence, of the physical abuse by her half-brother, Gerald Duckworth.
To read 'Moments of Being' is not an exercise in the prurient, but to gain an understanding of the inner life of an extraoprdinary artist and human being.

Virginia's genius is all over this volume, esp in A Sketch of the Past. From the first sensations of childhood (waves splashing against the shore) to the tragedy of the death of her mother and sister, it is the most revealing work of creativity ever written. You'll learn about her life, her work, and even how you might become a great writer. Examine the parallels with To the Lighthouse and you'll be amazed. Yes, this is how she come to be what she is; and her life and what she writes.

People who have enjoyed Woolf's novels or diaries will surely find her essay "A Sketch of the Past" deeply moving and helpful in illuminating her other works. In "Sketch," the longest essay in this volume, Woolf recounts her earliest childhood memories--both beautiful (hearing the waves break on the shore at her family's summer home) and sinister (her stepbrother's unwelcome sexual advances when she was a small child). She develops a theory about memory and about transcendent experience in this essay. She discusses her powerful drive to reshape and write about the past: "I feel that strong emotion must leave its trace; and it is only a question of discovering how we can get ourselves attached to it, so that we shall be able to live our lives through from the start." In this essay Woolf proposes that in moments of ecstasy we have a meaningful vision of the world itself: "it is a constant idea of mine; that behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we--I mean all human beings--are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words, we are the music; we are the thing itself. And I see this when I have a shock."

Knowing a bona fide eccentric, especially a benevolent one, is simultaneously an entertaining and exasperating experience. Sharing that experience with others is usually daunting. Either the essence of the person being described becomes lost in a jumble of amusing but disjointed anecdotes or eccentricity overwhelms the eccentric, rendering a flat, one-dimensional cartoon in place of a complex, multi-faceted portrait.

In Never Ask Permission, Mary Buford Hitz tackles this daunting task head on, the subject of this memoir being her mother, Elizabeth Scott Bocock or, as she often signed herself, ESB. Rather than take a sequential, "I-am-born" approach, the author chooses to devote separate chapters to different aspects of her mother's personality, each chapter a self-contained essay, overflowing with anecdotes, quotes, and, perhaps most illuminating of all, snippets of ESB's autobiographical sketches. (Most of these autobiographical excerpts, by the way, come from essays ESB wrote during her college years, which began after her sixty-seventh birthday.) Just as a puzzle becomes a picture as each piece falls into place, so does ESB's complex character come into focus, chapter by chapter, with a poignant, but essential clue to this charming, but undeniably complex Virginian saved until the very end.

Many CEO's could learn from ESB's capacity to set goals and achieve them. As ESB emerges from the pages of this lovingly crafted book, the reader meets a determined and creative thinker who probably would not have been impressed with "left-brain/right-brain, lateral thinking, creative problem-solving, if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem" lingo, but who embodied the positive persona such jargon seeks to describe. With one foot firmly planted in late Victorian America and the other constantly, restlessly forcing her into the future, she was a visionary with an astonishing ability to get things done.

If you enjoy biography, if you are fascinated by Virginia, if you want some side-splitting laughs, or if you are just interested in a good read, this is the book for you.

I bought and read this book in preparation for moving from San Diego to Norfolk...I wanted to get a flavor of the area. What a pleasant surprise! A fascinating read and one that will make you want to visit the area to see where ESB lived, and where she had such influence in preserving historical Richmond.

Mary Buford Hitz has done a remarkable job of portraying a very special person in a very special place during a very special time - the middle to late years of the twentieth century. Elisabeth Scott Bocock was a mover and shaker in Richmond, Virginia, the person who did more than anyone else to see that the city became aware of the importance of preserving its antiquities. She was one of a kind. Her daughter has written a family memoir that touches all the joys and sorrows that all families know and many delightful eccentric experiences that only her family knew. As a sensitive but un-self-conscious exploration of the mother-daughter relationship, this book cannot be beat. Mary Buford Hitz is perceptive about herself, her family, life and the world. In describing her remarkable mother, she also describes herself. Beyond that, she puts her finger on the changing mores of the twentieth century and paints a marvellous picture of her mother, a whirlwind catalyst who left no one she touched unchanged. Auntie Mame pales beside Elisabeth Bocock. This is a well-written, absorbing, wonderful chronicle - ostensibly of one woman's odyssey, but at the same time it touches on every one's odyssey.

If the moral of Never ask permission lies in the title, I will jump to the front of the line to praise it. The narrative careens around corners and bounces over bumps so merrily that the reader has only fleeting moments to enjoy the insiights and hoot at the comedy while holding on tightly to that pale yellow tailgate.

Mary Buford Hitz has done a remarkable job of portraying a very special person in a very special place during a very special time - the middle to late years of the twentieth century. Elisabeth Scott Bocock was a mover and shaker in Richmond, Virginia, the person who did more than anyone else to see that the city became aware of the importance of preserving its antiquities. She was one of a kind. Her daughter has written a family memoir that touches all the joys and sorrows that all families know and many delightful eccentric experiences that only her family knew. As a sensitive but un-self-conscious exploration of the mother-daughter relationship, this book cannot be beat. Mary Buford Hitz is perceptive about herself, her family, life and the world. In describing her remarkable mother, she also describes herself. Beyond that, she puts her finger on the changing mores of the twentieth century and paints a marvellous picture of her mother, a whirlwind catalyst who left no one she touched unchanged. Auntie Mame pales beside Elisabeth Bocock. This is a well-written, absorbing, wonderful chronicle - ostensibly of one woman's odyssey, but at the same time it touches on every one's odyssey.