Bell Books

I READ BELLS OF FREEDOM SOME YEARS AGO AND HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN IT. AT THE TIME I WAS SO IMPRESSED WITH THE STORY THAT I PURCHASED A WHOLE CLASS SET FOR MY SCHOOL SO THAT THE 4TH GRADERS COULD READ IT....IT WAS A WONDERFUL ADDITION TO OUR COLLECTION OF AMERICAN REVOLUTION LITERATURE. I, MYSELF, LOVE LEARNING HISTORY THROUGH READING YOUNG ADULT NOVELS. I RECENTLY PURCHASED A SECOND HAND BOOK TO SEND TO A YOUNG 4TH GRADE FRIEND, CONOR, WHO LOVES HISTORY. BETTY COLLINS

I consider this book to be an easy reading mystery. It flows well and keeps you in suspence without so much of the guts and gore you see today. I thoughly enjoyed it and will look for more books by this same author.

"The Bells of San Filipo" was my first Max Brand western, and what a treat. Just an absolutely wonderful tale. The story had all sorts of things going on and took numerous directions. The story begins with a prospector who leads a very simple, mundane life. But where it goes from there, and utimately leads the reader is a story you'll thoroughly enjoy.

Is there a western writer alive today who can do as much with the western as Max Brand did 80 years ago? I'd have to say no. The Bells Of San Filipo simply defies description. It begins with a hapless prospector who stumbles upon an ancient cache of silver and then... the book takes turns and twists the reader cannot even guess at. Shakespearean scope, myths, criminals conspiring, gang wars... in a book of 200+ pages. Picking up a Brand western is always something special but, every now and then, he tosses a tale at you that just makes you read in awe of his imagination. If you like the unconventional, Brand is for you. The Bells of San Filipo is something very, very different. And very, very good.

Yet again the folks at Amazon have bungled matters. The other "review" of this book is in fact a review of (or a puff for) the Penn series of translations of Greek tragedy, not of Euripides' "Selected Fragmentary Plays," a scholarly edition offering Greek texts, English translations, and detailed notes on several of Euripides' fragmentary plays. It should also noted that the book in question is the recently published---and long-awaited---second volume of a work whose first volume appeared in 1995. Eventually, there will be a Loeb Classical Library edition of the major fragments of Euripides, but it is unlikely to replace these volumes of Collard et al., for their very full notes will remain invaluable.

I went to Columbia, with the most prominent 'great books' curriculum still in existence. 25 years later, I'm finding myself re-reading and discussing many of the titles. The Penn Greek Drama series is a handsome library of new translations that give fresh takes on the classics. It's useful to have Euripides on the shelf when you return home from the recent bravura performance by Fiona Shaw as Medea--it settled an argument too on how it 'originally' ended.

This is a lovely story which teaches the brotherhood of all races without being didactic or heavyhanded. It is a doll's story, and is told from her point of view. First, a financially struggling white mother sacrifices to buy the white Dolly for her daughter; later, the daughter paints Dolly brown and gives her to an African-American friend; and finally Dolly is sold to an antiques dealer, through whom she is reunited with her now-grown original owner. Dolly's story is interspersed with details about the struggles and joys of the two families: black lung disease, poverty, segregation, discrimination; and playtime, birthdays, holidays, and the progress made by the Civil Rights Movement.

This is a lovely story which teaches the brotherhood of all races without being didactic or heavyhanded. It is a doll's story, and is told from her point of view. First, a financially struggling white mother sacrifices to buy the white Dolly for her daughter; later, the daughter paints Dolly brown and gives her to an African-American friend; and finally Dolly is sold to an antiques dealer, through whom she is reunited with her now-grown original owner. Dolly's story is interspersed with details about the struggles and joys of the two families: black lung disease, poverty, segregation, discrimination; and playtime, birthdays, holidays, and the progress made by the Civil Rights Movement.

This book was published to accompany the exhibition Black Male Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art 1994. It comprises a collection of thirteen essays by different writers, a Bibliography, lists of Works in the Exhibition and Film and Video Programs, and Notes on the Contributors. There is also a section of Plates.

The book covers all aspects of the visual arts, painting, film and photography and three dimensional art; the essays discuss a wide range of subjects with perhaps the emphasis on film and screen, but there are also essays specifically on social and political issues, music, gang culture, pornography and gay issues. The contributors, a mix of men and women, while predominantly university professors also include a writer and a critic and film maker. They are intelligently written and very illuminating.

The essays are illustrated throughout in black and white, mostly quite small images, but one or two are about half page size. They include many stills from films, photographs of personalities and other individuals, art photographs; too many to count they appear on almost every page. The section of plates contains 39 full page images in full colour, with the exception of a few originally black and white pictures; they include original art works and photographs and stills from films. The artists include Basquite, Leon Golub, Lyly Ashton Harris, Barkley L Hendricks, Jeff Koons and Robert Mapplethorpe.

This is a well presented book with a very smart matt-black card cover with minimal white lettering (probably screen-printed) on the front and spine and the words BLACK MALE blind embossed on the front. The book is attractively laid out. My only complaint is that I would like to have seen more and larger images.

This collection of essays may have come from a particular exhibit or conference. It is a book that discusses black men's status as objects of art. Don't sleep! The art world is racist. Coco Fusco and bell hooks have effectively documented this. So this anthology is a very needed intervention. Articles cover topics such as gay black men in movies, the visual representation of gangsta rap, Mapplethorpe, etc. The contributors analyze numerous art mediums, not just painting or film. What I love about this book is how straight black men and gay black men are treated equally; a discussion of one does not marginalize the other. I especially love the article "The Gangsta and the Diva." This book is incredible!

This is a great history of a family ice cream business that expanded beyond the bounds of its original county and state of Texas. The developments of new flavors and stories make it a fun coffee table pictorial and a must for any Native Texan.

In the late 1980s, my family moved to Brenham where we lived for three years. Blue Bell Ice Cream was just beginning its tremendous expansion through Texas at that time, and we were excited to be moving to Blue Bell country. As we quickly found out, Blue Bell ice cream defines Brenham. Whenever the Creamery comes out with a new flavor, it makes the front page banner headline of the local newspaper. And in Brenham you can get ALL the flavors, many that you've never even heard of before.

The schools serve hand-dipped Blue Bell in their cafeterias. So do all the restaurants, and even some of the gas stations. To us, it seemed there were buckets of hand-dipped Blue Bell just about anywhere we looked. We once counted 28 places that served hand-scooped Blue Bell in Brenham, which at that time had a population of only 12,000. And then one day, during a rainy football game, as we sat in the high school stadium right across the street from the Creamery, out came a rainbow and arched right into the top of the Blue Bell factory.

This year, Blue Bell Ice Cream celebrates 100 years of production, with a handsome picture book in commemoration. It is filled with gorgeous color and black-and-white photographs, but also laden with historic ads, some extraordinary engineering information, and lots of just plain gee-whiz facts, the kind that will be so much fun to tell other Blue Bell Ice Cream fans.

For instance, in 1907, the ice cream was made in hand-cranked freezers just like your grandma's. On a good day they could coax out almost two whole gallons. Then delivery boys would hitch up a horse and buggy and rush the ice cream to nearby families where they ate quickly, before it melted!

Even up into the 1940s, ice cream sandwiches were made by hand slicing slabs from a 64-ounce ice cream block, and fixing the slab between two chocolate wafers. Automation came later, in the late 60s, but by 2006, Blue Bell had expanded from the single little creamery in Brenham, Texas into sixteen states, with forty-four creameries churning out Homemade Vanilla, Buttered Pecan, Cookies `n Cream, and Moo-liennium Crunch.

Also included in the book are some of the flavors that didn't make it, like Jelly Terror, Dill Pickles `n Cream, and Licorice which turned a consumer's mouth black. At the end of the book are letters from people, mostly funny letters, most requesting that Blue Bell hurry to their towns.

There used to an Apple Tree store on Market Street in Brenham. On weekends they often had demonstrators handing out samples. One Saturday, a lady was offering tastes of a startup ice cream brand from the Valley. She gave her pitch to everyone who walked by her table. People were polite, but they were also declining, and by the time we arrived, the poor lady was desperate. My younger son, feeling sorry for her, went over to take one of the small cups of melting vanilla. She watched gratefully as he ate the single scoop in one bite. He shook his head at her, and with pity, said, "Lady, this is Blue Bell country."

"I know," she answered. I can still hear the surrender in her voice.

Blue Bell has a lively web site: [...]. Go there to find out about the factory tours, (a terrific idea for Spring Break), to enter flavor-naming contests, and to learn all about the 100-Year Celebration planned for June 19-12 in Brenham.

In the era of Internet discussions, such "virtual timetravel" Blaise Pascal sounds a very ancient thinker. However, if you ever read "Thoughts" you might see that he isn't just a religious thinker and not just a strange scientist, who loves spiritual philosophies. In "Thoughts" Pascal is teaching mankind of a way of thinking that is a privilege only to the genies. Here he shares with us what is more, then "Homo-sapiens" we created, and what is waiting us to awake ourselves of that lethargic dream we call today "terrestrial boundaries"... Great book for all times and generations so long "we" exist! Call me for more.

It is a common fallacy to assume that science and philosophy first got underway at the end of the 19th Century, and that what went before were rudimentary efforts, at best. Blaise Pascal, writing in the early 17th Century, had the capacity for profound thought, and was blessed with the ability to reveal his thinking with a clarity that would have been the envy of Hemingway. Reading his "Thoughts" left me overjoyed.

This wee book is not in the class of the things we get from Behan,Shaw,Wilde, Doyle,O'Carroll or even the McCourts;but in spite of that,I really enjoyed it.Everyone who knows anything about the Emerald Isle,has a bit of knowledge of Blarney,The Blarney Stone and Blarney Castle;but Butler has taken the art of Blarney to a whole higher level.Make no mistake about it,real Blarney is a true art of the first order.
First of all,Blarney only works with things Irish,because only the Irish can master the language the way they do.That is not to say,that one cannot understand and love the gift of Blarney,even if it is not part of your soul.Reading this book kept reminding me of that master of Blarney stories,Hal Roach.
A couple of things in the book that really got me were:
"In the Blarney Magazine of long ago it was said that any hotel proprietor who failed to welcome a guest properly was a man who was quite likely to sharpen a razor on the tombstone of his father to cut his mother's throat."
"If you can deal with Killarney Blarney,you can deal with anything."
"It is a Blarney principle that truth is too important to depend on such things as facts."
"With what sort of evidence can anyone question our genius?"
"This story may not be true,but in Ireland a story that deserves to be true is given full factual status.So it must be taken for real."
"Money,it was said bitterly on all sides,is only an obstacle to financial progress."
Here's your key to understanding Balarney; Enjoy!

If one has a hunger for a bit of the wit and light-heartedness of Erin's Isle (Ireland), this book is for you. As it goes on a delightfull ramble trough all sorts subjects you get to see them in the light that only the Irish can. Whether you bleed green or not, this wee book of witt will make you smile.

I just got this book yesterday to use with my 7 & 9 year old in our homeschool. I read through it and can't wait to actually start doing all the things with my kids. This isn't your normal geography book - and that's a good thing. In fact, another homeschool family is going to be going through the book with us because they have their own copy and love it, too!

It puts the world into perspective beginning at your very own home. You don't just learn about maps, you actually make your own! Not only do your learn about the compass, you make your own! You also learn about different cultures and landforms.

As the back cover states, "Most of us live on great big hunks of earth that move around like dinner plates." They also say, "It's a trip around the world in 119 pages." Amazing stuff!

As a homeschooling mom, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book to teach my seven year old about geography and maps and where we are in our world. It's starts off with you in your house, then your neighborhood, then your town, then your state, then the US, the the world. It allows younger minds to wrap around the concepts of distance that can be confusing. I even learned concepts I never really thought much about. All the books from this publisher (Little, Brown)are good (The Book of Where, the Book of Think, The Reasons for the Seasons, Blood and Guts, The Backyard History Book- all awesome!)

This book is not only filled with wonderful recipes, it is a delight to read. Jo Foxworth gives an informative and often humorous perspective into some of the most infamous houses of pleasure around--most of whom maintained their success with extravagant dinners. With great pictures, delicious recipes, and fabulous stories, The Bordello Cookbook goes a long way toward proving the old adage that a way to a man's heart is through his stomach!

If you have a friend who likes cooking, or has a passion for history (or maybe a history of passion), I highly recommend this book as a great gift-giving idea, and for your personal library as well!

I bought four copies: one for myself and three copies to give as birthday presents. One recipient's co-workers were so delighted with the book, that ten of them went out and ordered it right away!