Virginia Books

The book is an interesting account of the struggle for western Virginia in 1861. It follows that year's rolls of Generals McClellan and Lee; the former using the successes of the campaign to further his reputation and career, and the latter struggling to straighten out a quagmire and failing to do so.

Newell covers some of the same territory as The Glories of War: Small Battle and Early Heroes of 1861 by Charles P. Poland, Jr., a longer book which discusses the 1861 actions in eastern Virginia as well.

The counties of Virginia between Ohio and the Allegheny Mountains are the scene for the action in Newell's book. They would eventually become the state of West Virginia, one of the results of Union victories there.

The campaign for West Virginia is little-known today, eclipsed by First Manassas and subsequent battles. This book tells you how it was important and takes you to the scenes of the interesting events that happened there in 1861.

Don't let the above fool you.

For as author Newell points out so clearly and so accurately in this captivating account of the little-known Fall 1861 campaign in West Virginia, McClellan had much going for him as Lee had much against him.

For McClellan and the Union, it was McClellan's devout yet crusty subordinate, General William S. Rosecrans who deserves much of the credit for the Union victory. Rosecrans was aggressive, and he didn't hesitate whereas his boss did. Indeed, Rosecrans own career skyrocketed after his success in West Virginia, only to nose dive so quickly two years later at Chickamauga.

McClellan also had the services of General Jacob Cox of Ohio, who would later distinguish himself in Sherman's Atlanta Campaign, and of the famed explorer Frederic West Lander, who at one time rivalled Fremont in his Westward explorations, but who died so suddenly after the West Virginia campaign.

Also involved was a then little-known NCO named Ambrose Bierce, whose own macabre writings, including "A Horse-Man in the Sky" and "The Mocking Bird" came directly out of his experiences serving in an Indiana regiment during the fighting in West Virginia. If you like the twist and turns of Bierce's fiction, then this non-fiction work is a must.

Also going for McClellan was the key factor of a mountain populace that was on his side.

In contrast Lee suffered from poor generals - one of them, John B. Floyd, bicked constantly with his fellow generals. Floyd, the treasonous Secretary of War in the pre-Lincoln Buchanan Administration, was in constant fear of being captured and hanged. One of the more gifted Generals, Robert Garnett, was killed early on in the retreat from Rich Mountain. Garnett's cousin, Richard, would die in Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg almost two years later.

Lee's troops suffered from poor morale - a fact not lost on the future Confederate commander, who learned from his lessons here, whereas McClellan quickly forgot his.

Of additional note is the fact that two future Presidents - Rutherford Hayes and William McKinley, served in the 24th Ohio during the West Virginia battles, while the Grandfather of George S. Patton fought with the Confederate forces.

Not only does Newell cover fresh ground, but the illustrations, particularly those at the beginning of each chapter, give the reader a "you are there" feel.

Western Virginia in 1861 was a Union dream come true and a Confederate nightmare. As both sides struggle to lean how make war, Western Virginia succeeded from the Confederate States of America. This is the story of the first campaign of the Civil War, the foundation of George B. McClellan's reputation. Facing a divided Confederate command structure, aided by William Rosecrans and operating in friendly territory Mac had all the trumps. Robert E. Lee, unable to grasp the idea that any Virginian would not follow the state's lead was slow to react. When he finally was forced to take command, it was to late and his reputation suffers for it. Granny Lee the King of spades was one of the nicer things said about him.

This well written book has maps in the right place and illustrations of the main players. An Epilogue covers how many of the characters fared during and after the war. Over all, this is an above average account of a small but important campaign.

After listening to Clayton Newell during one of his many speaking engagements I went out and purchased this book. The anaylsis of General Robert E. Lee vs. George B. McClellan is both riviting and thought provoking - cover to cover. In 1861 both sides had little in the way of experienced officers who commanded higher than the regimental level, yet these two men took up that challenge and the end results are still being debated to this day.

The author does an outstanding job in analyzing their strength's and weaknesses, along with their usage of junior officers. This analysis along with snippets of little known historical facts make this a most enjoyable book to read. Coming from a state born of this conflict, the studies within these pages hits real close to home!

Part literary criticism, part poetry, part memoir, Letters To Virginia Woolf is associate professor of literature Lisa Williams' deeply personal examination of Woolf's writings. Presented in the format of letters that Williams wrote to Woolf about modern issues and the September 11th attacks, Letters To Virginia Woolf tells of the sad end to the author's pregnancy, reflects on how Woolf's ideas of war, memory and childhood reverberate through time, and strive to know how Woolf herself must have felt. A handful of poems intersperse the brief text passages, adding their own poignant touch to the quest for understanding. Miscarriage: You must be / covered now / by moonlight, / and sleeping, / sleeping so peacefully / in starlight / sleeping / in a place where the dead / wait patiently / to become what is alive / once again.

Through letters to Virginia Woolf, whose work
she has specialized in over the last decade, Williams
discovers her own perspectives on 9/11, motherhood,
her parents' divorce, among other things. An
insightful book, where she explores the relevance of
Woolf's nonviolent philosophy, and in fact all her
beliefs, through her own life as a mother of a small
child. A very good, fast read--even if you don't know
Virginia Woolf from Tom Wolfe.

Lisa Williams is an eloquent writer whose writing style makes you want to finish the book in one sitting. I got caught up in the complicated mind of a teenager and I shared the anxiety of the same woman's desire to become a mother later in life. Ms. Williams' book is a collection of the character's life events that provoked me to reexamine my own life and emotions, especially post 9/11. It is creatively written as letters to the writer, Virginia Woolf. Even those whose are not very familiar with Woolf's work could enjoy Ms. Williams' writing. I would highly recommend this amazing piece of writing.

Few write with more honesty and lyricism about tough issues than Lisa Williams in _Letters to Virginia Woolf_. Williams faces the complexity of adolescence, divorce, childbirth, death and war with heartfelt intelligence, reminding us that struggle and loss often lead to an appreciation of life's wonder. Like Woolf who grappled with "the angel in the house" almost a century ago, Williams continues to wrestle with the luminous presence of the past as she peels back "layers of selves we outgrow but never discard." _Letters to Virginia Woolf_ guides us through this world of contradiction and offers hope for the dangerous time in which we live.

Chella Courington
Author of _Southern Girl Gone Wrong_

The author's self-effacing style brought a reality to the situations that made me feel like I was there experiencing the insanity, fumbling along with him in search of a valid assessment of impassioned criminal complaints. The quick pace, wit and humor kept my interest such that I didn't put it down until I was done. The book gives a base working level picture of the front end of the criminal justice system in the Commonwealth of Virginia from the perspective of an individual (The Magistrate) who is interviewing cops as well as suspects and witnesses hot from the "scene of the crime" before they have had time to reflect on and organize their stories for their own benefit. It is a great study on the devious side of human nature as it applies to suspects, witnesses and victims weaving a tangled web to try to save their hides or punish their enemies. It is a window inside a government bureaucracy as viewed candidly by a bureaucrat that is still clinging to a conscience and a heart. This book is stimulating, amusing, emotional yet easy reading. I can see it as a best seller when it is discovered.

I've already ordered them as Christmas gifts. Certainly one of the most interesting, and well written, paperbacks this year. Sure to be a best seller.

Want someone arrested? But the police won't do it? In Virginia, you go to the County Magistrate (used be called Justices of the Peace) and tell your story under oath. If you are the victim of a crime, and your sworn testimony doesn't veer too far from the truth, the magistrate will issue an arrest warrant and you will get your day in court. After 15 years as a county magistrate, and after hearing thousands of stories, John Jasper has discovered that no one tells 'the whole truth and nothing but the truth'. We all lie, some of us are damn liars, and it's his job to get behind the lies as quickly as possible and winnow the truth out of the strong emotional stew presented to him in the guise of testimony. Oh, and it's also his job to issue search and arrest warrants requested by the police, interview drunken drivers and spouse beaters and drug dealers brought in by the police to determine if they wait for trial in jail or on bail, and to also try to solve heartbreaking problems brought to him by citizens who really need the advice of Solomon and the protection of Superman. You will read stories here, first told in the basement of the county jail, which will make you laugh, make you cry, make you angry, make you smile. They will also leave you, as they have left John Jasper, very wary of the judicial process in the county, the state, and the USA.

A collection of anecdotes, told by a real magistrate in Virginia which is at times poignant, funny, and distressing. Oh, the trouble some people have just getting on in life! The author describes what he deals with day in and day out, sharing his values and conclusions. I highly recommend this book to anyone, as it is both entertaining and educational. Would be excellent gift for high school or college students thinking about careers in social services or law.

The author expended a tremendous effort in researching the Jeff Davis Legion. He has created an interesting history of this unusual cavalry unit. Any one who is interested in the Confederate Cavalry will enjoy the detail information the author has dug out of the archives.

Amazon says book has 40 pages. It has 325

The author obviously performed a great deal of research in order to extract such detailed and little known facts about the "Little Jeff". Truly a gem for all interested in the Civil War. Highly recommended.

This is the first complete history of The Jeff Davis Legion, initially designated the 2nd Mississippi Cavalry Battalion. Fighting under Jeb Stuart and Wade Hampton it later followed Hampton to Georgia and the Carolinas. Though companies from Georgia and Alabama joined the regiment, it remained officially a "Mississippi" cavalry unit. They were the only Mississippi cavalry to fight as part of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

Among the men of the "Little Jeff" were educated elite from Natchez and Savannah and rustic farmers and country tradesmen from Kemper County, Mississippi and Sumpter and Barbour Counties, Alabama. Through first hand accounts we follow these soldiers from their early enthusiasm until camp life and sickness brought war into perspective. They fought their first engagement in late 1861 and from then on fought in most of Lee's campaigns. They were at Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Seven days, Antietam, Trevilian Station, Brandy Station, Gettysburg and countless smaller engagements They sustained some of their greatest losses at lesser known places like Upperville, Funkstown, Stony Creek, and Bentonville.

Readers of this history should come away not only with an accurate characterization of the Confederate cavalryman, but also with an understanding of their place in the overall strategy of Lee's army. The related book, published simultaneously, "Horsemen of the Jeff Davis Legion" gives information taken from the individual cavalryman's service record from the National Archives as well as a wealth of information from other sources about each man. This should be useful as a geneological reference. Also contains statistics related to the Jeff Davis Legion and brief biographies of senior officers associated with it.

Donald A. Hopkins

Len Wood presents Dollars and Sense in a practical manner enabling readers to absorb its content. A must read book for those that "watch" their local governments, school districts and elected officials. Written for fast reading,yet covers the subject matter extensively. If you want to be certain your local government is working at its fullest potential, Dollars & Sense can be a great help to you.

Here is a "no holds barred" approach to describing "real life" shortcomings in handling public finances, and then providing tips to local government policy makers and managers on how to avoid a similiar circumstance.

Len Wood writes from first hand knowledge and experience. He describes the situation; outlines the facts; details the results; and provides the reader with suggestions to lessen financial risk and/or failure in the expenditure of public funds.

While the author's primary target is the newly elected official, the importance of this work to experienced elected and appointed public officals cannot be overstated. No one who has worked in the public sector can peruse this book without saying, "There, but for the grace of God, go I!"

As an elected Treasurer and local government finance director for the past several years, I found this book to be an excellent primer for all elected and appointed officials. The practical advice offered by Mr. Wood is based on his experience and input from his peers and is extremely valuable. The book is written in a very informal and concise way and should be required reading for all elected officials. In fact, I gave this book to each City Council member and they have all indicated that this book provided excellent financial advice.

What a delightful book. The author has presented his subject in an understandable and capitivating manner. He does this by using lots of real life vignettes to make his points. People who want to know what their local officials should and should not be doing will want to read this book.

I really enjoy this author's writing style. Unlike most fantasy, it's not filled with the verbose paragraphs of description and the characters don't all speak 100% proper English. Thank you! This is a great, exciting, fast moving read with wonderful, lovable characters. I look forward to the sequel!

The title says it all. First, the characters, by whom I judge a book. They are unique individuals. One cannot help but like them, sometimes in spite of themselves. They are real. The heroine may be a mage and have to rescue queen and crown, but she is a school teacher and wants to go on being a teacher. There is humor, spirit, and refreshing (even annoying) imperfections. Above all, there is courage, loyalty, love, and a driving sense of right and wrong.

The fantasy. Here is a well-crafted, fascinating society with a logical explanation for mage power, natural laws and restraints on its use, a completely believable integration with the 'normal' segments of society and life.

The adventure. Excellent, carefully directed building of tension and danger (emotional and physical both) until the final duel, the Mage Challenge. That is almost more experienced than read.

A good book. Good fun. Buy it and read it, preferably more than once. I did.

This has been the best book I have read in a long time! The reader is instantly swept into the story line and these characters will remain in your heart forever. I strongly encourage everyone with a love of great books to read "Mage Confusion."
A really good book is often thought of as buried treasure, and Mrs. McMorrow has struck gold! Can't wait for books 2 & 3!!!!

I hate to admit this but it has been years since I have been interested enough in a book to get past the first chapter. This book not only got me through the first chapter but I had the book done in two and a half days. For most that may not seem like much but if you had my schedule.....I honestly think this book along with the other two to come would make a great motion picture. You can picture so well in your mind the characters, events, places, ect. like you were there. I was so surprised to find that everything I thought was going to happen was wrong which is the kind of book people like to read. Mrs. McMorrow has done a wonderful job on her first book and I'm sure the sequels will be even better. Kudos to her and I hope more people will read this book and I'm so excited about getting the next installment. Thanks Mrs. McMorrow for a great book!!!!!

Clear and concise, this book has taken me from knowing nothing about web design to publishing a site of my own in 3 weeks. While there is much more to learn, my site is running smoothly and 100% W3C Strict compliant.

this book is the greatest that i have read ever.
though that i have a little expiriance with HTML and CSS , but this book give you the actually way to write your code only at XHTML and CSS , with a great way of explaining .

Virginia DeBolt's newest book is an excellent resource for modern, standards based design. It combines the depth of a well qualified instruction with lively, real world examples of practical web applications. This book will save you so many hours of work and research by showing you how techniques have evolved and how each application meets the various standards. Webpage structure (including columns), various navigation methods, working with images and picture galleries, banners, links, blogs, and much more are all discussed. Also included (in color) are inspirational website designs showing these modern CSS based techniques.

In the course of designing our numerous large websites for parent support I have read over a dozen design and coding books on html and css, and this is one book I return to over and over again.

I've been studying at web design and construction for over 10 years. Since I'm both dyslexic and limited in my short-term memory, I've had problems with doing more than just the basics. Understanding XHTML and CSS have been problematic for me, and I've had to rely on programs like Dreamweaver and Front Page to write my pages. This book is finally bringing home how web pages are constructed, and how CSS is used for both styling and positioning things. Virginia has put together the best method of presenting the material in a manner that I can comprehend, and hopefully retain. I've purchased a lot of books on web construction, but none have helped me as much as this one has, and continues to do. I'll keep it over all the others as a reference in the future.

I really enjoyed this book as it shedded light on parts of my family I had not known about. Despite the personal connection, I believe the book provides a unique perspective on the hazards of coal mining [particularly timely read based on the Sago mining disaster], life in a company coal town and the struggles of a work force to unionize to raise wages, benefits and increase safety issues.

"Memories From Dante: The Life of a Coal Town" is far more than just a trip down memory lane of a small town in the coal fields of SW VA. The detailed oral histories and the huge number of photographs do provide those living in the area with the chance to renew old memories but it also provides researcheers and scholars with a social, economic, political, religious, and family history of the town and area. Anyone interested in a comprehensive study of a coal town needs this book. I especially recommend it for libraries and archives. Kathy Shearer has done a remarkable job of helping the people of Dante tell their story. Perhaps she never saw a lumb of coal before she came to the area (all the Dante mines are closed now) but the town and its elderly residents live in her book. Without any sense of superiority she has enpowered these people to tell the world what it was like to live in a time and a place now largely forgotten.

This Book took me back to a childhood that many of us only wish we could revisit. Kathy Shearer was able to catch the history of a wonderful little coal town and bring it to everyone's attention. People who grew up in a small town will be able to relate and relive the pleasures of a hometown community. Kathy Shearer took us all back to a time of childhood happiness. This is a wonderful book to read and learn of the struggles these people lived while trying to make a living mining coal and how they held on to each other for support and survival.

I bought this book thinking it's just another novice trying to write about something they know little about, but what a suprise when I started reading it. Kathy has done a thoroughly wonderful job describing these hard working, hard living and honest people in such vivid color you become friends with them instantly.
They become your family, and you love them, laught with them, cry with them, and hate them but you cannot forget them.
She is a first class writer and deserves high praise for a book which is both entertaining and historically founded.
I am just waiting for the sequel.

Francine Prose is one of our more important writers (novels 'Blue Angel', 'After', 'A Changed Man', 'Primitive People'; probing biographies 'Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles'), a writer with a profound respect of the past, for the art of writing and the art of reading. Her most recent book is titled 'Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them' should give an idea of what is in store in this most enjoyable and illuminating book THE MRS. DALLOWAY READER.

Prose writes an Introduction that, while brief, offers keys to unlocking the genius that was Virginia Woolf. 'She longed to fill the book [Mrs. Dalloway] with "speed and life", to "give life & death, sanity & insanity; I want to criticize the social system & to show it at work, at its most intense.' Prose extracts quotes form Woolf's writings in an astute manner that allows us to understand the tortured genius who wrote them. As far as the book 'Mrs. Dalloway', Prose writes '...its all here: life, death, sex, love, marriage, parenthood, youth, age, the present and the past, memory, London, war, reason and unreason, loyalty, medicine, social snobbery, friendship, compassion, cruelty; the occasionally apt but more often unfounded snap judgments we make about ourselves, each other, loved ones, strangers, and the world in which chance and fortune have thrown us all together'. She touches on Woolf's insanity and conflicted sexuality that blossomed with Vita Sackville-West, and with her suicide by drowning, but she is far more interested in sharing the manner in which Woolf created her books - her fleshing out of the state of consciousness.

As editor Francine Prose then gathers writings form such erudite dignitaries as Katherine Mansfield, E.M. Forster, Michael Cunningham, Daniel Mendelsohn, Sigrud Nunez et al, couples these observations with Woolf's own serialized beginnings of her famous novel, and then offers us the entire MRS DALLOWAY at the end of the book. Reading Virginia Woolf in this atmosphere serves to enlighten the reader and once again prove that this novel is one of the more important writings of the last century. This book is a treasure! Grady Harp, December 06

Francine Prose's Mrs. Dalloway Reader makes the enigmatic and brilliant Virginia Woolf's masterpiece and bit easier for us modern readers. Since the publication of Cunningham's spectacular The Hours and the movie titled the same, Woolf's writing has undergone a renaissance, rising once again on bestseller lists everywhere. But she's STILL difficult, with the loooong sentences, endless paragraphs, the convoluted windings of words and thoughts and phrases and explanations and descriptions and disclaimers with which her writing is rife.
This book is the missing link. It includes the complete text of Mrs. Dalloway and Mrs. Dalloway's Party, plus relevant journal entries and letters by Virginia Woolf relating to the creation of Mrs. Dalloway. Also included are essays and reviews by other writers, all about Mrs. Dalloway. Taken all together, these snippets function like a lovely roadmap into not only the character of Mrs. Dalloway, but into the mind of her creator.
Top notch.

`Mrs Dalloway' is a kind of cultural phenomena.

Everyone that I know has a different take on who she is, what this book is, and what the novel is supposed to stand for. Enter into this fray the authors own opinion about the whole of it and you have an all-out melee of fiction versus fiction.

This book, The Mrs Dalloway Reader, attempts to focus this problem somewhat. In it, not only will you find the novel itself, but you will also find various supplementary materials that help to ease you into what this novel is and what it means to so many different people. From those whose experience began with trying to impress a girl (and the lucky happenstance of finding the book at a Book-Mobile) to those who fought off the strains of absinthe addiction, the short pieces in range from essays to the first `draft' of the novel `Mrs Dalloway's Party'. Include in this assortment such lovingly-crafted emulations as Jane Mansfield's `The Garden Party' and you've got yourself a real winning combination.

But is this a good reason to buy this book? Don't you need more reasons? Of course!

Take this one: I knew absolutely nothing about Virginia Woolf when I purchased this book. She lived about 100 years ago. She wrote many books and I've seen some of her diaries in the hands of female students when I was in high school about ten years ago. She is popular with the intelligent-female group, those who want to be well-read and know the difference between Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Add to this that I am a guy. Now, take all that and combine it, dashing in the fact that this book single-handedly introduced me to who Virginia Woolf is and what she stood for- just through the supplementary material- and you have not only a great novel but a good place to get your foot into the door of this wonderful writer.

Is that still not enough? Okay: supplementary material aside, how is the book? Wonderful. It is a style of writing that I've heard called `Impressionistic' by some learned person. This is true- until you read Virginia Woolf (who is far easier to understand than other stream-of-consciousness writers such as Joyce) you have no idea what great pictures such simple things as words can express. Mrs Dalloway does this too, moving the reader through a simple narrative that is painted with poetical words, bringing to life a novel that is to fiction what Renoir is to painting; only the basic outline is there, amid all the broad strokes, and you must look to find it...but it is amazing when you see it.

LP

Bottom line: If you know nothing about Virginia Woolf and want a good, solid platform from which to start, pick this one. If you know a lot about her and want to explore more, you pick this one too.

I admit that I almost was very middle aged when I read any of Woolf's novels. And, that was only because I read "The Hours."

I learned that the character names therein related to Mrs. Dalloway and other characters of her novels. So, I picked up "To the Lighthouse" and experienced my first "stream of consciousness" style which I analogize to ADD - now the novel is dialogue, then thought, then observation, then . . . and all in one sentence. But, within that one sentence, you learn more than most authors can present on pages.

Reading one page of Woolf takes twice or three times as much time as other authors. Basically, the density of the writing style prohibits skimming, prohibits glossing, or prohibits you from losing concentration.

Modern authors who can conjure as much in as little paper include J.M. Coetzee or V.S. Naipual. These are three great names in the all-time history of fiction. I truly believe that she influenced these writers and hundreds of others.

This book awakened me to many things which I did not know lay within the pages. And, it also helped explain some of the orthodox-like exactitude of the characters, names and plot of "The Hours." Woolf's fans are true blue, died-in-the-wool absolutists. And, this book reflects that more than anything. Many of the published fans herein are famous in their own right, and they are just as devout to Woolf as her secret admirers - like me and probably you (who else but a Woolfie would be reading about this book?).

I recommend this book greatly as it educated me more than I could ever have imagined about the relationship between the book and her life and other related events.

In today's world of multi-cultural marriages, the surprises seem to be endless. So many women have joined multi-cultural families in the Middle East to find their viewpoint on women is not the same as we see them here in the United States. Much easier to get into the marriage than to get out of it.

Ms. Dale's story of an 60s American co-ed who marries a Frenchman livingin Morocco really taught me a lot about the country at that time as well as expatriates who lived there. It is a captivating personalized history which easily brings the reader back to that time. A very good read indeed! I wish I, like Ms. Dale's heroine, had gotten to see Algiers then. It sounds so beautiful.

Going back to our post-college days and meeting a wealthy foreigner is such a romantic notion,but when reality strikes for the differences in culture, the romance hits a different level. A most enjoyable read on every page, an insight into personalities, cultural differences and the adventure of youth.

Well, first of all, after reading only the review online, I don't think I care to buy this book personally. I am a bit offended by the differences of the title and the caption of what the book is supposed to be about. I am an American and I got married to a Moroccan man in Morocco last October. His family is wonderful. But it seems like this book would have a different title than the one for which it is published. For instance: "Don't marry an aristocrat in Europe." or something to that nature. It seems to have nothing to do with actually marrying someone in Morocco or the family being from Morocco. The family mentioned only has a business in Morocco. This is a very misleading title. It would prompt one at first glance to think that the person was actually speaking of an encounter of marrying someone in the country and being subjected to the hassles of a foreignor marrying a Moroccan national.