Caribbean Books

I am a teacher of a year three class (age 7-8 years). I chose to read the children (30 of them) the story of Two Peculiar Pelicans as I myself found the illustrations breath taking.
The children's responses were outstanding;
'it's beautiful - it's like the real thing' - age 7
'the colours are amazing, miss' - age 8
One child had to get up to touch the book when he was talking about the sunset.
Truly a sensational book that evoked lots of conversation and dialogue. It is now continually picked from the shelf, by the children, to browse thru' .

A delightful story about a pair of pelicans who arrive too late at the sea gate to go fishing for their dinner. They are sent on their way by the officious dolphinfish, keeper of the sea gate, who can't understand why they would want to fly off to further reaches, away from his beloved sea.

A great introductory text for young readers, but the real high point is the illustrations, which are vibrant, exciting and filled with intricate detail of exotic wildlife. A treasure trove for children of all ages to explore, with lots of beautifully drawn detail rewarding closer inspection.

Deeper messages too, about a sense of belonging and the opposing call to adventure, to explore the big beautiful world beyond the limited horizons of one's own place.

For older children there is also excellent explanatory text, giving detailed factual information about the brown pelican and the dolphinfish, the two main characters in the book.

The British Virgin Islands have a very different atmosphere from their close neighbors, the U.S. Virgin Islands. This guide was helpful in giving valuable information that helped me plan my vacation to the area. The excellent hotel and restaurant reviews, as well as information on each of the individual islands on things to see and do made it a very indispensable source for finalizing my trip plans.

The British Virgin Islands have a very different atmosphere from their close neighbors, the U.S. Virgin Islands. This guide was helpful in giving valuable information that helped me plan my vacation to the area. The excellent hotel and restaurant reviews, as well as information on each of the individual islands on things to see and do made it a very indispensable source for finalizing my trip plans.

Now retired Marine Corps Colonel Williamson was a young officer when he first went to Haiti in 1958. One of the few still alive who took part in the ill-fated effort to professionalize the Haitian "Army", which was what Papa Doc Duvalier asked the U.S. to do, he is uniquely qualified to chronicle the events of a group of Marines trying to carry out their orders in a byzantine situation.

The US Naval Mission, begun with such high hopes, gradually came face to face with the reality that Duvalier's motives in asking the US to his country were anything but simple, and that a professional, well trained corps of officers and soldiers was the last thing he wanted.

As the US Mission labored to do what it had been sent to do, Duvalier, like Penelope at her loom, seemed determined to counteract every US action, cashiering the most promising officers, allowing graft, killing when he deemed necessary.

While encountering resistance from Duvalier, the Marines were also charged by Haitians opposed to Duvalier with being midwives to the birth of the feared Haitian secret police - the "Ton Ton Makouts". Drawing on many heretofore classified documents, Williamson chronicles in great detail the frustrations encountered by a highly motivated group of professionals who came to love Haiti even as their eyes were opened to the havoc wrought upon it by its Machiavellian Dictator.

Until now, the most read accounts of events in Haiti from the election of Francois Duvalier in 1957 until the tragic events of April 1963 were Diederich's and Burt's, "Papa Doc: Haiti and Its Dictator", and the Heinls' comprehensive 785 page history of Haiti, "Written in Blood". The former barely covered the military advisory missions, while the latter could afford just a few pages to this era.

No matter, because Colonel Charles T. Williamson's "The U.S. Naval Mission To Haiti 1959-1963" is now without doubt the definitive record of that episode in U.S and Haitian history.

Colonel Williamson has masterfully researched, organized and presented a story of foreign policy that started with good intentions, gung ho American military advisors. and Haitian armed forces (FAdH) officers eager for military assistance, all of which soon turned into disastrous foreign policy, disenchanted American advisors, and young Haitian officers and soldiers and their families fighting for their very lives. The author makes clear that the times were challenging, exciting, sometimes dangerous for Americans in Haiti and, sadly, always dangerous, often tragic for the Haitians.

What started as a concise monograph that might serve as an "official history" of the U.S. Naval Mission To Haiti grew rapidly as the author sifted through national archives, daily reports, contingency plans, and old military records. All the while he searched for Haitian and American friends and acquaintances of four decades ago to rekindle memories of their experiences and perceptions of the period. The book is an interesting, easy-reading chronological narrative, punctuated with anecdotal material about events and people, both Haitian and American. Williamson lists every member that served in the naval mission, even noting what a few are doing now. He presents his own incisive analyses of the U.S. foreign policy for Haiti, (especially shortcomings), the successes and frustrations of the American advisors and many of their FAdH counterparts, and the motives and intentions of Papa Doc and others. The author's commentary continually emphasizes the never-ending plight of the Haitian people.

Admittedly, it is very easy to be biased toward a book that accurately, interestingly, and minutely recounts a part of history that one has lived through. The plain fact is that Colonel Williamson has given us a great read. Graham Greene would have liked it.

This is the best book, academic or recreational, that I have read in a VERY long time. While I was anxious about my distance from the subject matter, I quickly realized that Contreras' ability as a writer rendered this worry obselete. He takes the immensely complicated and makes it seem simple. His explanation of love and longing is complex, yet refreshingly straightforward. I can't wait for this man's next publication.

I was drawn to this book by the intriguing title even though I am not an academic and wasn't overly familiar with the subject. Happily, I found the book to be easy to read and full of interesting connections between books, movies, artworks, and theater in ways that you don't normally see. Although it mostly focuses on Latino/Chicano texts, it also points out the power of feeling/longing/loving in our everyday lives and how that is manifested in different types of creative expressions. It really made me think!

Even in translation (although I wish this were a dual language book) a very distinctive use of repetition and very tight construction shines through. I would call the work less "political poetry" than "poetry of human relationships that have a political context". Even poems of anguish regarding the Argentine "disappeared", have a universality rather than a stridentcy. The poems include exquisite turns of phrase that make reading it a pleasure of waiting for the next magnificant phrase.

"Unthinkable Tenderness: Selected Poems" is an important volume by Juan Gelman of Argentina. This collection has been edited and translated into English by Joan Lindgren, and features a foreword by Eduardo Galeano.

Gelman spent time in exile during a period of Argentine military dictatorship; his son and daughter-in-law disappeared under the dictatorship. Much of this book deals with these painful realities. The book includes a helpful chronology of the Argentine turmoil from 1966-95. Unfortunately, this is an English-only edition; I would have preferred a bilingual edition.

Many of Gelman's poems are dark and mournful. This is understandable, since many of them deal with such subjects as exile, torture, and assassination. There are also poems about love, and about poetry itself. I was especially moved by his series of prose poems that explore the psychological landscape of the exile. He writes, "I am a monstrous plant. My roots are thousands of miles from me and no stem connects us" (from "Under Foreign Rain" XVI).

This is a haunting and powerful volume. I highly recommend this book to those interested in Latin American poetry, literature of exile, and human rights.

An acknowledge expert in Latin poetry, academician Estelle Haan brings to the attention of modern audiences the work of a largely forgotten 18th century British poet in Vergilus Redivivus: Studies In Joseph Addison's Latin Poetry. Drawing upon the resources of th British Library, London, Magdalen College, Oxford, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford, as well as the Special Collections and Inter-Library Loans divisions of the Queen's University Library, we are treated to an impressively detailed, original, and seminal scholarship that is hallmarked by an informed and informative text enhanced with a profusion of notations and references, as well as an extensive bibliography and detailed index. No personal or academic library's "Latin Poetry Studies" collection can be considered complete or comprehensive without the inclusion of Estelle Haan's Vergilius Redivivus.

An acknowledge expert in Latin poetry, academician Estelle Haan brings to the attention of modern audiences the work of a largely forgotten 18th century British poet in Vergilus Redivivus: Studies In Joseph Addison's Latin Poetry. Drawing upon the resources of th British Library, London, Magdalen College, Oxford, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford, as well as the Special Collections and Inter-Library Loans divisions of the Queen's University Library, we are treated to an impressively detailed, original, and seminal scholarship that is hallmarked by an informed and informative text enhanced with a profusion of notations and references, as well as an extensive bibliography and detailed index. No personal or academic library's "Latin Poetry Studies" collection can be considered complete or comprehensive without the inclusion of Estelle Haan's Vergilius Redivivus.

I love her books. I watched the PBS Series when it was on and if anyone should have a show on the food network it is Ms. Smart-Grosvenor.

In the series and these books she highlights South Carolina low country cooking from her childhood and dishes she discovered on her travels. I would label it African Diaspora cooking; she has recopies from many cultural backgrounds including Caribbean, Portuguese, Spanish; all the cuisines that influenced the New World. She is a food historian and great at painting a picture of the history, culture and folklore of food.

I have made several recopies from both books and never had one turn out badly; she knows how to write a recipe and give you a sense of flavor and a context for the dish you are preparing. There are several dishes in both books that my children love to eat, my mother-in-law is always impressed when I make one of her dishes.

This is a great cookbook and I hope the food network calls her up now.

If you don't have a copy of Vertamae Cooks in the Americas Family Kitchen or Vertamae Cooks Again, order them now!

Vertamae Cooks Again is full of recipes from all over the Americas, with an emphasis on Mexican cuisine. No tacos or enchiladas here folks -- try my favorite - tres leches cake. Or give the ribs called "table cloth stainers" a try.

Besides being a great cook, Vertamae is a food anthropologist. Most of the recipes in both books are accompanied by historical information that gives you a feel for the culture. Her recipes are always clearly written and unique. And her books include listings of stores that carry some of the hard-to-find ingredients.

Check out the PBS series Vertamae Cooks in the Americas Family Kitchen, then buy both books and try the recipes. You'll hope that Vertamae cooks again and again and again...

I have long been a student of the Spanish language, and in my classes time and time again the reading assignments have been all but limited to pieces written by men. Last semester, a group of women at my college undertook an independent study project focusing on short stories written by Latin American women, and we used Voces Femininas as one of our primary texts for the study.

I was very pleased with this book, because it gave a variety of works - poems, short stories, and theatrical pieces. These varied widely in style and content. Further, the authors are not all from the same time period. Perhaps the only common thread is that they are Latin American women authors.

The editor provides historical backgrounds which give some insight into the time frame and life history of the authors, and although these do vary in detail and objectivity, they were useful.

I highly reccomend this book to anyone who is interested in Latin American literature, feminist literature, or both.

This is a great collection of writing by Latin- American women from Spanish-speaking countries. It includes poetry, theater, and one essay (by well-known Chilean writer Isabel Allende), from the earliest colonial period through the most recent outstanding writers. The best-known, to American readers, are doubtless Allende, Angeles Mastretta, and Cristina Peri Rossi. But you will also discover the great 17th-century Mexican nun, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, 19th-cent. Cuban poet Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda; modern Chilean Gabriela Mistral, and stories by Maria Luisa Bom bal, Rosario Castellanos, Luisa Valenzuela, Rosario Ferre (known here for "House on the Lagoon " and "Eccentric Neighborhoods"), and two theater pieces, by Argentine Griselda Gambaro and Lucia Quintero. The editor has prefaced each piece with interesting biographical and literary intros for the author, as well as a bibliography of critical works. >This book is a must for general readers who love Latin American writing, and would also be a good selection for an advanced Spanish lit college class. I'm really enjoying it.

this study is probably one of the easiest to read, and really makes you feel a connection with each person in the book. its a great read for tourism studies or sociological studies

This book was fascinating to read. It was well written and interesting throughout. I would recommend it to anyone who loves to read and wants to learn about something they may know nothing about.

i am currently taking a comparative study course on new world slavery, and this book interested me. i enjoyed this book.

This is a seminal study which compares the development of white supremacy in Southern Africa and North America. It is well researched and provides the reader with an insightful analysis into race relations in these two regions. Although the book was published in 1982, the analysis continues to be current and essential to those readers who wish to understand the historic context of this important subject.