Virginia Books

La famille Cutler est la 3eme saga de VC Andrews que je lis. Tout comme la famille Logan et les Orphelines j'ai adoré ce livre. Comme dans chaque roman de Andrews il y a beaucoup de suspense caché derrière une histoire de famille, des épreuves a surmonter et bien sur une belle héroïnes sur laquelle le destin s'acharne. Après avoir lu le 1er tome de cette série j'ai acheté le tome 2 que j'ai aussi adoré. Maintenant j'ai commandé le 3eme tome que j'attend avec impatience afin de decouvrir la suite de l'histoire. Un livre que je recommande a n'importequel fan de VC Andrews.

Thank you, Virginia. Your story is truly the American dream put into print. From a childhood of poverty and hardships, this remarkable young woman has raised herself to a caring, influential teacher, much beloved by her students. This book is written in an engaging first-person style that brings the reader point-blank into the author's life and gives us a front row seat to the struggle of overcoming disadvantages on the way to achieving the goal of bettering oneself.

"It is definitely an off the beaten path philosophy" says author Robert Moore when referring to his new book. With over 300 miles of self-guided driving tours to over 94 stops at 70 different historic buildings and sites, Moore's new book guides travelers all over Luray and Page County chronologically following events that took place there. Beginning with a chapter/tour that sets the stage for the war, following stories of personalities and places in the Page Valley, the book begins to literally "follow the armies" as they marched through Page County either on reconnaissance missions or on the advance to several battlefields throughout the Valley and Virginia. While no major battle took place in Page, the veil of cover offered by the Massanutten Mountain was one of the greatest appeals of the region. Several of the book's tours lead to major battlefields in and out of the Valley such as McDowell, Front Royal, Port Republic, Cedar Mountain, and Bristoe Station. Other tours follow events immediately in the wake of battles such as Gettysburg and Fisher's Hill. However, all intermesh with various stories of Page County civilians as they observed the ever-moving line of soldiers pass through, Blue and Gray. The last chapter closes the book with reflections upon what is referred to as Reunions, Monuments and Remembrance in Luray and Page.

Publication information: The Donning Company Publishers, Virginia Beach, Virginia, 2002. 7 inches X 10 inches. High Gloss, full-color soft cover. New/mint. 144pp. Over 130 photos of people and sites in Luray and Page County as well as six four-color maps (including the Gilmer 1864 maps of Page County and one never before published 1862 Jed Hotchkiss Map of the Page County area), table of contents, acknowledgements, introduction, note to the reader, bibliography, and index. Initial run: 3,000 copies.

Hard to believe is this day of computer and video games, but my children like this book as much as I did! The illustrations and the fun story about Wolfgang the excitable dog are wonderful!

This wonderful little board book is perfect to slip into your purse or diaper bag and take with you to Mass. Its interactive text and charming illustrations make it a fun way to share the joy and beauty of church with the littlest member of your family. A lovely Parents' Prayer at the end of the book is sure to inspire!

A professor of history at Armstrong Atlantic State U., Hendricks writes on how towns in backcountry Virginia came about from the designs and ambitions of entrepreneurial individuals. They did not just spring up randomly in some pleasing meadow or on some riverbank happened upon by a frontiersman, for example, or a group which had struck out into the wilderness. "The people who put these plans [for towns] into action were motivated by a variety of economic, social, or philanthropic factors and sometimes purely by circumstance and opportunity." These entrepreneurial-like individuals were not a part of any organized movement. But their activities in toto played a large part in opening up the western parts of Virginia and setting a pattern for westward expansion. Among the towns Hendricks studies in larger topological areas such as the Piedmont and the Great Valley (Shenandoah) are Winchester, Marysville, Leesburg, Woodstock, Charlottesville, and Brent Town. Early maps of many of the towns especially demonstrate the ideas and purposes of their founders. Along with the maps, the authors specifics on the conception, establishment, and early period of the many towns makes each oe stand out distinctively. The enterprises and goals of the town were as varied as the individuals who conceived them.

This is a well written, highly interesting and fun book. The rides in here are great fun and well documented. Mr. Rogers should devote more time to sharing his in depth knowledge and expertise with all of us!

One of my professors recommended this book in 1990. I bought it then and have never regretted it. It's even easier to use than the Merck Veterinary Manual and can give you information quickly and understandably. If your vet clinic doesn't have one, GET ONE.

Unexpectedly, this novel was richer and smoother than the other 5, in narrative style and in the dichotomies of small-town, trivial-tensions etched through the welcoming warmth of familiarity and intimacy. In the pilot to the series, THE COOKING SCHOOL MURDERS, it seemed that Rich was writing with all cylinders primed and pumping. At retirement age at the time, possibly she had harbored a long banked dream of writing this type of novel, and she was giving it all she had saved in her writer's soul through a rich lifetime. See my review (link page).

In BAKED BEAN SUPPER MURDERS, the second book in the series, the author's style seemed more relaxed. She seemed to have settled her author's hat comfortably on her head, and to feel she would be allowed by her publisher and readers to take time setting the foundation of an extensive collection of characters, which were her neighbors and friends with a few newcomers to the community mixed into the brew, most of whom would become suspects. Rich wasn't just developing depth into an intriguing group of characters to carry a "still waters run deep" plot. She was developing various types of Character from ethical, philosophical, sociological, and psychological perspectives. And she was "doing" an edgy Norman Rockwell portrait of small town life, this time with a slightly bitter twist (booze slurped tastefully, and socially tended), which eloquently exposed the dynamics of greed and offensiveness which can fester within a small community, especially when wide spreads of class structures, and a variety of social attitudes attempt to mix (or not) within a small, seasonally lush geography.

Below is a paragraph from my review of COOKING SCHOOL MURDERS, in which I noted the warmth Rich dramatized about another small town area, that of her own point of origin in Iowa:

You might expect a more simply sophisticated version of Mrs. Pollifax, a version of that feisty, restless, elderly spy; a version which is contented to settle into her last chapters of life by leisurely honing the luxury of cooking, of nurturing the body and soul by being comfortably in and seeing the significance of The Basic Life within small-town-communities existing in various places on "The Route 66 Literary Continuum" from Sinclair Lewis's MAIN STREET to Grace Metalious's PEYTON PLACE, with Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen cookie jar series taking the cake for the sweetest, perkiest view of small town life (warm hearts in cold places; see my Listmania).

THIS time many of Eugenia's friends and neighbors, with those among them who were neither, treated her like an old-lady-widow who should be done with the vital part of her life. Poor souls. They should have been warned. In one scene Mrs. Potter was rendered speechless several times, by this group, and each time I smiled, knowing this cattle rancher (her other home was in Arizona), horse riding lady would eventually get her feet under her (or in the stirrups), and the cow pies would fly. Loved that scene. Loved how Rich had Potter work herself out of the offensive affronts.

Since this # 2 in this sequence was my last novel in this series to read, I applied ginger to my reading recipe. I've reviewed the other two novels, by Virginia Rich, and those by Nancy Pickard who successfully published three Mrs. Potter novels after Rich's death. Possibly I had left this one to read last because I hadn't felt the pizzazz for THE BAKED BEAN SUPPER MURDERS title, as I had the others. I wondered if that might have been because baked beans, though I love them, didn't hit my palate as anything special in the currently jazzed-up culinary world. When Rich composed this one (probably during the transition from the 1970's to the 80's), especially from her secondary home setting in a lobster fishing village near Bangor Maine, brown bread and baked bean recipes were treasured and held close by the old guard cooks in the community.

While you're drooling over the opening supper entrees and ingredients, allow yourself to read leisurely through the character setting space in the early plot. I doubt any reader could have more trouble than I do with remembering a slew of names. I was helped by knowing that Rich doesn't just drip them and let the water run out without containment, she continues (underwater basket?) weaving names, faces, bodies, and social styles, through each other and throughout the mystery, completing several tangy tapestries which will thoroughly incorporate not only each name mentioned, but will add the reader into the design, from his complimentary side.

"Here's looking at you, kid."

This was an unusual mystery, in warm, spicy, and feisty ways. In this one I felt the characters' grief for the loss of each murdered character. I felt a deep disgust for some of the potential perpetrators.

Long live the soul of a true novelist who happened to have a plethora of mystery spices with which to season ... A Great American Novel.

Richness was achieved here, and shared well.

Thank you, Virginia. You've risen perfectly to your current residence and its unlimited views of many oceans. No old lady, you. Lady of the first water.

Holding a crystal water-goblet in both hands, looking through prisms of multi-colored light, I see not a cozy culinary. I see a true author, Virginia Rich, and a true novel with a tangy, tasteful mystery included.

Linda Shelnutt

Whether you are a slight fan or an avid fan of trains and railroads, you don't want to miss this book! It is very well written and the pictures are great! Bob Withers is one of the best writers ever.
S. Smith, Ravenswood, WV