Boone Books

Smith certainly knows how to interweave characters' plots. This is a delightful book. A bit more obvious than her later books, it is also more humorous, with several laugh-out- loud moments. Mostly, it has a wry sense of irony, as people believably rail against the very vice they are illustrating, for instance. The title is ostensibly about an event in competitive baton twirling (a quintessentially Southern event in 1965, the time of the novel). But, the title is also about the self-congratulatory town celebrating its 150th anniversary, and all of the town's population are represented doing their own version of a "fancy strut." I think my favorite is Manly Neighbors (a too-obvious name, but fun), the owner/editor of the weekly paper, a happily complacent guy who knows he doesn't like to think too much. I also like batty, snobbish old Miss Iona Flowers, a belle left over from a finer era, as she alone sees it.

I have read most of Lee Smith's books, I found this one to be one of the best, It flows and keeps you guessing

I had a very hard time getting through this one. I have enjoyed some of Smith's other work, but I had to force myself through this one. The characters were one-dimensional caricatures and the plot seemed contrived and disjointed. This story was certainly not as tightly woven as FAMILY LINEN, which I enjoyed immensely.

This book made me laugh so hard, so often, I had to run to the bathroom on more than one occasion to avoid wetting my pants. The characters are all a delight to get to know, even the ones you love to hate, and it made me wish I lived among fun folks like these. What better compliment could a writer get?

Idaho Place Names is an interesting, informative, well organized, easy to carry book. It provides a predictable set of informtion regarding every town, county, creek, river, peak, lake, post office,spring, pass, landing, mountain, canyon, park, basin, or bay in Idaho. Information includes origin of place name, coordinates, county, elevation & a brief history. A map of Idaho's counties is on the inside front cover.

More maps, such as a map of each county, would have been fun.

JGR

I have not yet received the product.....do you have an idea when it will be sent?

OK, a book about how places in Idaho got their names is not likely to appeal to everyone, except perhaps those who live in, once lived in, were born in, or come from stock derived from that amazing and beautiful place called Idaho. This is not a book that the average American will buy, unless he/she is one of the folks aforementioned. But every state should be so blessed as to have at its disposal a book like this one. It's delightful. It's fun to look through, even if you've never been of Mackey Bar or the Owyhee Mountains. It's full of history, cultural and political. It's full of characters. It's fun. It should live a long and prosperous life.

Only now the University of Idaho Press, publisher of this exceptional little jewel of a book, is gone. Killed by its "parent" institution in the name of budget-balancing; which is to say, killed by craven politicians. Get the book now, from Amazon, or any other way you can. Because when it's gone, no publisher will ever bring it back. That is a shame. And it is shameful. Idaho's millionaires, like all the others, have gotten themselves numerous fat tax breaks these last few years. Meanwhile, its universities, and its one real university press, are gone. Alas, so will be this extraordinary book.

RIP, UI Press. You did great work that mattered. On those who let it die, a pox on your sad, well-heeled houses.

"How did my town get it's name?"...Idaho Place Names gives you the answer. It will give you the history about the founding of your town and the succession of names to the present. It also includes the origin of names for mountains, rivers, hills and hollows. It takes you from "Abandon Creek" to "Zumwalt Lake" with 400 pages of intriguing history in-between. If you are interested in the history of the west you will enjoy this book.

This book was very different than I was expecting and I'm rather disappointed. First of all it's tiny and I didn't find the cookie recipes appealing.

Christmas At Home Just Cookies by Cathy Marie Hake and Deborah Boone may be small in size, but it is big in taste and versatility. Within these pages are delicious recipes, and all the ingredients are right in your pantry. There are several eggless recipes. That is important to me; my little grandson is allergic to eggs, and it is hard to find recipes that do not call for eggs. Many of the recipes remind me of cookies my grandmother baked. Christmas At Home Just Cookies has something to suit everyone's taste buds. Several of the recipes are for cut out cookies. The authors share great ideas for decorating them. There is a recipe for Mason Jar Cookie Mix! What a great gift idea! I tried it and it is very tasty.
Reviewed by Helen Boling for ReviewYourBook.com

Clear instructions mean successful results. I have tried several already and look forward to adding some of these great creations to my standard Christmas cookie list. A great deal for less than $4.

Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (10/07)

If you are looking for a last-minute stocking stuffer or a small gift, the books in the "Christmas at Home" series are a sure bet. The "Just Cookies Cookbook" features an amazing array of cookie recipes that would be extremely suitable for holiday baking, but will definitely taste good during other seasons as well.

The book is divided into eight chapters, each of them more tempting than the next: Holiday Festives, Chocolate Decadence, Delicious Drop Cookies, Pretty to Decorate - Roll and Press Cookies, Bountiful Bars, Marvelous Meringues and Macaroons, Oh-So-Quick and Easy and Mason-Jar Cookie Mixes for Gift-Giving. With the recipes as diverse as Little White Mice, Secret Kiss Cookies, Aggression Cookies, Amnesia Cookies and Polka Dot Oatmeal cookies, you can bet you will find one for anybody on your Christmas list. The recipes come from a number of countries, among them Germany, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Scotland, Mexico and more. At least one of them dates back to 1880s.

All of the recipes that I've tried turned out well and they were easy-to-follow. As with any cookbook, I would have preferred to have photos of the finished cookies included to have as a reference and guide. I also would have liked to have an Index of the contents.

The recipes in this charming little book, "Just Cookies Cookbook," are interspersed with quotes about holidays and joy; and together with the cute, tiny format would truly make this a gift to bring joy to anybody who will receive it.

This book is wonderful and should be read by all who love "A Fan's Notes." The unforgettable final image stays with me (don't want to put any spoilers in here, but check the cover illustration).

It is true. This is a very disordered work, and at times seems to be doing its best to instill the reader with the same kind of wild confusion the writer often confesses himself suffering from. True the last part of the book seems to me anyway far less satisfactory than the first. True also that there is something sort of contemptible and dismissive in the author's attitude to most of the people he meets.
But against all this is one more powerful truth. Exley could really write. His language is alive, and his characters are real characters, crazy originals who he gives a strong feeling of the presence of. He too within this all has a kind of moral outrage a stance which I think comes out most strongly in what for me is the best part of the book his writing about his brother. The tone of outrage and anger with which he tells the story is fierce and deep in feeling.
His brother 'The Brigadier', ( This is a nickname as the brother has worked himself up from the ranks to 'Chicken Colonel' only) a veteran of three wars, the Second World War, Korea, the Vietnam War is diagnosed with cancer at the age of forty-three. The opening chapters of the book describe the author -narrator 's plane-trip with his mother to say farewell to the brother, and as it turns out attend his funeral. In the course of this Exley meets on the plane a stewardess who will become his off and on-mistress in the years ahead, and is another of his spectacularly crazy and original characters. She will turn out to be such an inveterate liar that nothing she says or for that matter which is said about her, can be relied on. This by the way applies to the whole story as Exley himself it is clear is a tremendous fantasizer, whose gift is not only fictionalizing reality but in letting his fantasies become his reality. The bottle apparently helps him in this.
But the story of the brother is a moving one. Exley's description of the unit his brother is apart of coming to the Yalu river and looking out at vast wastes of Manchuria in the Korean War is a gripping one. His claim in the course of this that MacArthur actually knew the Chinese would make a counter- offensive that would decimate a large share of this unit is so far as I know not substantiated by evidence. But part of Exley's outrage is his sense that his brother and the grunts like him were betrayed by the military higher- ups .
In fact one other fascinating side of Exley here and in his work is in general is in his involvement in and description of a very male world, the worlds of fighting and violence. This is brought out in other sections of the work when he is involved in bar- hopping with a character who proves to be incredibly violent. There is one description of a bar- fight in which this character goes overboard beating up and incapacitating two drunken construction workers.
Clearly part of the charm of Exley was his toughness, a certain macho quality in his language. His work is in the tradition of Fielding's Tom Jones and is like Donleavy's 'The Ginger Man' and Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano" in being a kind of alcholic's picaresque. Only in Exley's case the elements of failure and disorder are so great as to make it clear that this is no celebration of self , but rather a kind of rough fight in which he most of all beats up on himself.
But again at its best the work can be both moving and hilarious. There is tastelessness in it and a degree of vulgarity beyond that which I am accustomed to or really like. But there is also some kind of redemption here , or rather the reader's wish that somehow it would turn out all differently and that Exley 's life and this book would turn out better than it does.
In any case. This is a real writer and one whoever cares about him can be proud of.

One of Mr. Exley's greatest: a whole pantheon of eclectic and original characters woven into Fred's life, from the redoubtable Lord Lisdoonvarna, Tobey and the Ass and Robin who likes to give ()... a book not to be missed. Read it with fresh eyes and think of Fred.

A Fan's Notes was so good, I should have known that the subsequent contributions would not hold up. I was correct. I found myself having a difficult time finishing this book. It was obvious Fred was struggling to recapture the magic of a Fan's Notes, couldn't do it, and acknowledged same in Notes from a Cold Island. The spontaneous hilarity of AFN was warmed over and forced in NFACI. NFACI (and the subsequent Final Notes from Home) only serve to demonstrate that he had considerable talent but it was wasted away in his losing battle with the bottle.

Interesting book....creative ideas for party giving that may spark some of your own. Cool photos.

This designer Jonathan Fong has a wonderful sense of humor, you can see it in his creations. They are reasonable arrangements that can be achieved by the every day lay person with very good step by step instructions.

Any who love throwing parties who want to put on an outstanding celebration will relish the many ideas, from decorating to food to fun interactions between guests, which comprise PARTIES THAT WOW: SETTING THE STAGE FOR CREATIVE ENTERTAINING. More than your usual focus on foods, this teaches how to offer guests theme parties with fun, memorable experiences - and on a budget, too. Any general-interest lending library will relish the theme and seasonal ideas.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I was disappointed in this book - ther is nothing elegant or stylish about this eent planner and quite frankly it all seems amatuerish and cheap. Harsh, I know, but I do this for a living and look to other peers for ideas and inspiration.

I happy that he was able to fulfill a dream with a book. It just does not make the mark for excellence.

J.V. Bone's A Brief History Of Cryptology provides more than just a history of cryptography communications: it covers how it affects our daily lives; from secure financial transactions and communications to common cryptologic secrets. Boone provides a historical review of technological developments in cryptology and computers, covering major achievements and activities across the field. His is a lively account which may come from a military intelligence background, but which avoids the confusing jargon common in cryptology explanations.

Overall, this book is a short and easy read, but falls short of the title: "A Brief History of Cryptology".

Perhaps fearing inadvertently stating some piece of classified data, the author has chosen to focus on the cryptography vice cryptology. Cryptology is the combination of cryptography (making codes) and cryptoanalysis (breaking codes).

Indeed, this book is more of an analysis over the combination of advanced mathematics, communications theory, and networking in the development of modern secure communications.

This reviewer recommends "The Codebreakers" as a far better substitute.

This could certainly have been a much longer book. Boone gives us a precis of cryptology through the centuries. Though with a natural emphasis on the last hundred years. Because it in only within this period that mechanical and then electronic calculators and computers came to the fore, thus enabling ever more sophisticated algorithms and countermeasures.

But both during and before this period, the book is a tribute to human ingenuity. For all the power of the latest computers used in encryption, they are merely idiot savants.

Given the author's background, it is a pity that he could not have striven to write more, about strictly declassified matters. Which would have played to his strengths in his professional experience. While the historical material in the book is well written and accurate, other authors have covered those matters well. His comparative advantage perhaps was not put to full use here.

The thought that Emily Bronte might have actually experienced some of the passion she wrote about in Wuthering Heights is intriguing. I enjoyed the romance between Alex and Selena and the breaking of the "gypsy curse". My only criticism would be the characterization of Alex's ex-girlfriend who I thought was too one-dimensional in her jealousy of Alex. Since she was supposed to be a Bronte scholar, I thought her reaction to the discovery of Emily's letter wasn't what I would have expected. I also thought that Alex's reaction to Selena's subsequent destruction of the letter was a bit too understanding.

Bravo to Jill for writing this alternate history of Emily Jane's life. A lot of Bronte purists seem hostile to any attempt at fictionalized literary revisionism, but to me, as long as the references to Emily etc. are respectful, the whole subject is fair game.

I am in the process of completing an Alternate Emily Bronte novel myself at this time, which is why I was drawn to Jill's book. The idea that Emily was pregnant when she died has been expounded before, such as in James Tully's The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte, but the idea of contemporary blood relations to her alleged gypsy lover, is a relatively new twist.

As far as Emily's imagination goes, I think Emily was just one of those people who knew that she had brought many things into this life with her. The fact that she and her sisters could write about military campaigns from a male perspective, as in the Gondal/Angria sagas are further indications of the ability to project ideas that do not come from one's own experience.

Apparently Jill had a psychic, if not past life experience, prior to writing Emily's Secret, so she is obviously drawing on more than historical data in this interesting novel.

I would also recommend her excellent novel My Lady Caroline, which is about Lady Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron.

Was it possible for Emily Bronte to write passionately of a dark lover (WUTHERING HEIGHTS's Heathcliff) without herself having first had a romance with someone very like him? Author Jill Jones imagines that it was so. For no chaste unmarried English lady in the 1840s could have written the poems and novel that Emily Bronte in fact wrote without having met an injured gypsy horse trader on the moors and fallen madly in love. Having taught him to read and write, she eventually carries his child. But the fear of being expelled from her family, should her secret become known, causes Emily to commit voluntary suicide through a combination of starvation and refusal to see a doctor after taking a chill. Thus far the historical imagination of Jill Jones.

Nearly 150 years later two competing scholars of the Brontes and two descendants of Mikel the gypsy lover blunder together through the evidence for Emily's secret. In the process they give rein to their own 20th century passions, including lust, jealousy, envy, greed and romance. DNA has its own way of telescoping time.

This book's greatest value is its potential to motivate young readers to pick up the poems and novels of the three Bronte sisters and read them with fresh eyes

Murray State University (Kentucky) history professor Ted Franklin Belue discovered the only known copy of Peter Houston's manuscript about his personal recollections of the famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone, in the Lyman C. Draper papers at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in 1990. Written in the 1840s by a friend and neighbor of Boone's, the original manuscript was stolen from the author's grandson in 1887, but luckily for future historians, the grandson had, mere weeks before the theft, mailed a copy of the lengthy work to the prolific historian, Lyman Draper. Belue has done a masterful job in presenting this rare piece of Americana to the reading public. Replete with extensive annotations and notes, a pictorial section, and an impressive bibliography, the book goes a long way in shedding light on everyday times on America's first western frontier during the 1770s and 1780s. For those of WWA's membership who believe, as I do, that "western" writing is defined as that which encompasses the entire American frontier experience, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific shores, this book will provide several hours of interesting reading, indeed.--Jim Crutchfield, Managing Editor, Roundup Magazine April 1998, Western Writers of America

Long ago Peter Houston's A Sketch in the Life and Character of Daniel Boone should have been properly annotated and published. Ted Franklin Belue has done historians a genuinely useful service in transcribing into a readily available and readable form this insightful contemporary view of Daniel Boone and the times. This is an addition to the Daniel Boone-Frontier America story, casting a new first-hand and contemporary light on the subject. Dr. Thomas D. Clark, Historian Laureate of Kentucky, professor emeritus of the University of Kentucky, and author of many books on Kentucky and the American South.

Houston's Boone is a diminutive book but one brimming with contemporary insights plus editor's annotations into frontier life featuring new stuff on Boone, hide tanning, buffalo, Indians, and early hunter anecdotes. An elegent little book with a gorgeous jacket, a highly collectable bit of old-time Kentuckiana.

I read this novel because I loved The Chess Garden by Hansen, and I found it very interesting. Each character in the novel provides a retrospective of the main character, Ethan Boone. Ethan held a deep love for his mother, and spent his adult life attempting to understand his father's betrayal of her and her death. AA raw novel, and at times disturbing, I found it a worthwile read.

Perhaps I favor the works of Brooks Hansen a bit too much to be objective....but, the magic and soul in his writing never ceases to amaze me. Read it.

In 1859 with the death of her beloved father in Paris, Cecile Villier decides to leave France to visit the Sahara where she was born two decades ago. Her beloved late father left the desert grieving the death of his Bedouin wife in childbirth. She asks her late dad's friend Mr. Blackmoor for help in locating her foster father, Raga eben Haddal.

Blackmoor sends his son Matthew to meet her, but he learns she has been abducted by a caravan planning to sell her to the Caliph. Matthew rescues Cecilia but introduces himself as El Faris rather than the son of her late father's friend. He treats her like the lowest creature on the planet and leaves her at a Bedouin camp to learn the ways of the women of the desert. Although not easy, the courageous Cecilia wins the respect of those at the camp when she risks her life to rescue a child from a wolf. As she and El Faris fall in love, he takes her to meet Haddal, who plans to sell her as a wife to the highest bidding sheik. Matthew proposes, but when she fails to return from a trek into the desert, he assumes she died and marries another. When she finally returns to accept his proposal, she must decide whether she wants to be his second spouse.

CALL OF THE TRUMPET is not the usual historical romance as the Bedouin culture serves as the prime focus of this strong mid nineteenth century tale. Thus a westernized Victorian style relationship between the lead couple even when the male is a sheik does not occur; instead the audience lives within the Bedouin camp and learns its ways along side of the heroine. Her struggles to adapt and her courage make for a rich saga as the audience will wonder will she willingly become the second wife, return to France, or be sold to the highest bidder.

Harriet Klausner

Cecile Villier was a daughter of France but a child of the desert. Born to a rich Frenchman and a Bedouin beauty, the lovely woman found no comfort in the immense wealth of Parisian society. Intent on finding a home to call her own, she returned to her mother's birthplace: the Sahara. There she found freedom in a new way of life-and the most captivating man she'd ever seen. Matthew Blackmoore had become one with the desert and its people. To Cecile, the dashing young Englishman embodied this strange place: He blazed with passion, and in the horseman's embrace she knew she risked destruction. But the oasis of his kiss proved a haven from the dangers of the fierce wilderness, and the resourceful beauty was determined to make both the man-and the land-her own.