Morrison Books

The most horrible book I have ever seen.

Let us start: This book is written for kids in their 1st grade. We are using it for a 500 level class in database and the material is not dense. They do not need to tell us that after we enter our login name and password that we have to press the Enter key.

Why do not authors of books understand that we, the students, are not idiots ? OK, now creating one text field is the same as creating 100 text fields. The authors goes through creating 4 number fields, 3 text fields in a form. God! guys teach me how to put one text field, connect it to the database, give me a couple of days, I can you teach how to make Oracle do your dishes.

If you know any programming language at all, if you have seen Don Chamberlin DB2 book, Khalid Mughal's Java Book, Richtie's C book, and liked them, this book is not for you.

Compared to this book, Steve Buboraski (not sure of the spelling) Oracle 8i for NT book is great.

God! the emphasis this book has on using Wizards is so much. Also if you want to learn PL/SQL, Steve's book teaches you in 30 pages what this book teaches you in more than 130 pages. Quote from page 272, a problem solving case

" Save the package specification as a file named ch4ex6spec.pls in the chapter4 folder on your Student Disk, save the package body as a file name ch4cex6body.pls in the cpater folder on your Student Disk."

as if I have nothing else on this world to do....

This book really helped me understand Oracle from the very beginning. At the same time it gives you an introduction to all aspects right from sql to pl/sql to DBA concepts etc. It also gives you a headstart for web based applications which is a big bonus! Its a well rounded book for those who need a start and want to be experts in Oracle.

Our class used it and it was great! There are 10 chapters and each chapter will get you running in no time. They use the same two tables throughout the chapter so you are familiar with the tables. Introduces triggers,PL/SQL coding - basic stuff. By the end of the 6th chapter you can program a pretty decent application. Great for the beginning Oracle user with a little knowledge about sql and database theory. I felt it brought you along each chapter. Only minus is the price. Too much compared to other books but this book is the most complete for the beginner.

Well. What can I say. Being a Doors collector I had to buy this book as the author promised some new insights in the Jim Morrison and aimed at trying to tell "the real" story of "the real" Jim Morrison. First of all the book looks like it was typed and printed on the author's home PC with a font size of approx 36. Thus the book can be easily read in 45 minutes and is already not worth the dollars. But the really embarassing thing is that the author does not tell us what the real Jim was like...It appears that he only met him 3-4 times (at least only 3-4 meetings are described in the book). Obviously there contact was not as close as the author proclaims. Whereas the author certainly was married to Jim's sister it appears he not really had an intensive contact with him. And so the book does not contain ONE photo with Jim and the author. Funny, isn't it? But we have several pictures of his father and mother (what does this tell us about the real Jim Morrison?) or pictures that have been published in tons of other books. And everytime the author describes a meeting with Jim he tells a story of Jim being intoxicated or freaking out. This is already covered in tons of books and the Doors Movie. I am still desperately trying to understand what the new insights are on Jim other than that he contacted his sister every now and then.

So - totally disappointing and way to pricy. If you want to learn about Jim's youth buy Mark Opsasnicks book ("The lizard king was here") which gives you tremendous insights into the pre-doors Jim Morrison.

I am a sixty-year old woman, born and bred in Liverpool, England. Looking back on my youth, the Sixties were most certainly an unforgettable and magical era. I recall sneaking off to my clandestine lunchtime sessions at the Cavern Club where the not-yet-famous Beatles would gig almost daily. My three big brothers, John, Alan, and Frankie, were in the thick of that magical time and I used to follow them around like a puppy dog.

John was the first to depart Liverpool and head for London where all the action was. He went on to become the road manager for a then famous group known as Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.

Alan followed soon after where he met his American girlfriend whom he later married. I travelled from Liverpool to Surrey in London where they were living to meet their beautiful new baby boy, ''Dylan''. Shortly after, they left England for a new life in America. I was heartbroken. My two big brothers had gone from my life. Only Frankie remained in Liverpool where he met and married his childhood sweet heart, Lana...

But I digress -- never a real Doors fan, I read every book that was ever written about them. The reason being was that the American girl my brother Alan had married in 1967 just happened to be Jim Morrison's sister, Anna. After reading each and every book, I would call Alan and ask him, ''Is this true or fiction?'' His reply would always be the same. ''Norma it is lies, all lies. Nobody outside the Morrison family ever knew the real Jim. One day when the time is right, I am going to write my own book and tell it like it really was, who the real Jim Morrison was''. Like a mantra he would repeat, ''One day when the time is right I will tell it like it really was.''

Well, lo and behold, he did it! Alan's new book, "I REMEMBER", is an amazing read and an absolute must for the millions of Morrison fans all over the globe. It is extra special to me because over a forty-year span, Alan had already told me all those crazy stories especially as those concerning Jim. My brother, Alan Graham, was then and still is a lunatic of Olympian standards. He is also a true humanitarian and works tirelessly devoting his time and energy to numerous charities.
In my opinion, it is like he brought the Lizard King back to life for a while. He told it like it really was. Well done, our kid! Your family in the great city of Liverpool, England beams with pride.

Norma Veronica Malins

Reading "I Remember" you sense you have been privileged to be sitting in a cozy living room, after a family holiday meal, listening to the stories and memories of relatives past and present, being told by those who were actually there to experience them.

With this new book, Alan Graham doesn't purport to offer yet another "know-all, tell-all" exposé of some famous character who is no longer present to speak to the validity of the events. Instead, Graham relates, with no pretentiousness, the sometimes funny, sometimes poignant personal association with Jim Morrison.

If you're looking for sensationalism, Grahams book will not satiate your curiosity. However, if you want to experience the true dynamic of the real Morrison, you won't be disappointed by Graham's personal revelations.

The stories Graham presents read like a stream of consciousness, but streaming from a sane and stable mind with no personal agenda. "I Remember" allows the reader a personal insight into the real life of the legend. Alan Graham's style is both candid and sophisticated while remaining ingenuous. He is able to draw out philosophical and psychological essentialities that were Jim Morrison.

Reading Alan Graham's new book gives you the sense that you have had an intimate glimpse into the life of the Lizard King, told by a family member who was actually there to experience it.

"AN AMERICAN PRAYER" was published privately by Jim Morrison in the summer of 1970 as a limited edition of 500 red leather-bound, cover gilded with title & author "JIM MORRISON", by Western Lithographers (of Los Angeles) copyright 1970 James Douglas Morrison. Jim had recited this publicly in Spring 1969 at poetry readings with his friend who encouraged publishing his works privately, beat poet Michael McClure. The long-form poem first appeared in print as an untitled poem at the conclusion of Jerry Hopkins' Rolling Stone interview of Morrison in Issue #38 July 26, 1969 - Jim's private edition a year later was almost identical. On his last birthday, Dec 8, 1970, Jim recorded three hours of his poetry with friends Frank & Kathy Lisciandro, Alan Ronay, a swedish girl, and a fifth of Irish whiskey presented to Jim by studio engineer John Haeny as a birthday gift. "An American Prayer" was among the selections Jim read from neatly typed pages he brought to the session. This recording headlined the posthumous 1978 LP album of the same name, credited to "Jim Morrison, Music By The Doors", along with other recordings from that night as well as another recording session in Mar '69. The CD was released by Elektra in 1995 with a few bonus tracks and a front-cover insert booklet that was a reprint in miniature of the 8-page libretto that graced early editions of the LP - the booklet is illustrated with photos and drawings by Jim, and concludes with the complete lyrics of the recorded "An American Prayer" which is more than 90% of Jim's privately published book with all its primal, albeit crude, imagery intact. The typeset and format is identical to the stanzas printed by Jim. If Elektra had the b*lls to publish Jim's words as written and spoken by him, then Zeppelin Publishing Company did not even have the cahonies - therefore only a 4-star rating from this reviewer.

"A B of A Company, Louisiana, Baton Rouge", Zeppelin published two editions Copyright 1984, one titled on the spine and the cover "AMERICAN PRAYER" JIM MORRISON - illustrated against a red background with what appears to be a landing eagle about to perch on a muscled adonis statue posed with its back to the viewer (The same illustration appears on the cover of another Zeppelin publication "Light My Fire"). The other edition has a white cover with only the printing "Jim Morrison's AN AMERICAN PRAYER" and the "Zeppelin...Rouge" inscription at the bottom. Both versions have the same ISBN 0-915628-46-5 identified here on Amazon.com. Interestingly a Publisher's Note inside begins "This is a collector's book", suggesting the optimal state of mind, reading methodology, and reader motivation, then closes with "It is a good book", followed by "COPYRIGHT 1984 The B of A Company as Trustee for the various Copyright interests: Jim Morrison, The Estate of Pamela Coursen (misspelled, should be Courson), Zeppelin Publishing Company, and others. The book has every left page fully illustrated with art and photos (even the closeted Jim Morrison TV picture from the Prayer LP inside gatefold) that often complement the stanza printed on the facing right page. The poetry is pretty much true to Jim's original except for a few harmless word omissions or preposition swaps, but there are a couple glaring edits that can only be interpreted as sanitizing censorship that must have registered on the Richter Scale near Pere Lachaise cemetary in Paris when first published. Below are the 'edits' and the (original):

Cling to 'Darwinian organs' of despair (c*nts & c*cks)

We got our final vision by 'the disease' (clap)


A night of 'Light' (Lust)


...vegetable law
'For those who have not been blesed' has been inserted, blessed misspelled.

Hopefully someday the Courson and Morrison estates will publish or sell the publishing rights of the complete 3-4 hour American Prayer recording session from Jim's last birthday - what a great box set this would be!

You should anotate that this joker out of Louisiana is NOT theJim Morrison from the Doors. He claims he is channeling Jim's words.He's just ripping people off. His publisher is B of A something or other, but it's a scam. Anyway, thanks for the time. Dread and the Hillside Dance

It is a short book, but the words are as powerful as you know them to be. His words don't define an era. They define a creed. A creed so strong that his albums sell more now than when they were released. His desparity his yurn for people to see the truth as he saw it. I can find myself. I can find myself in the choas of this world through his work. I like this book and his others. Great reading. I am surprised amazon could find it.

After reading Soul Mate Dissapate I was so mesmerized by each chapter and felt sad when it came to my end. Imagine my delight when I read that Justice Just Us Just Me would be the next development from the book..........imagine my dismay when it was poem after poem of un-related prose...well I never got to past the fourth page as I was just disappointed. No good...no good at all !! Wouldnt mind my money back actually.....

The poems gives you a well-executed blend of short stories that nourish your mind and soul. The mix includes a variety of Americana, Soul, Hip-Hop and appears to speak directly from the soul of the author. The most interesting thing is, that the author could be your sister, your cousin, your good friend, your lover or the lady you are looking for.

JUSTICE Just Us Just Me is Mary Morrison's sexy, sassy, and straight-forward collection of poems. Ms. Morrison's speaks to the heart and soul of men and women everywhere. She treats the audience to an uncensored, uninhibited, and unlikely expedition of the human spirit.

As one who lives in Israel, recalls the live radio and TV broadcasts of that night and the newspaper details the next day, Dr. Morrison's book is indeed an eye opener into what most other people simply glanced over, chose to ignore as irreleant in the first place or have gone into denial about, simply because the consequences of inspecting the facts are potentially earth shattering and scandalous.

Unlike Barry Chamish's earlier book on the same subject, this book is footnoted with the precise sources of information, most of them readily available to the general public.

Even Rabin's daughter, in an interview several years ago to the Israeli Woman's magazine "La'Isha", stated at the time that there are questions regarding the events of the night of the assasination that are blatantly not answered by the official storyline.

Other than attempts to smear Dr. Morrison, this book has yet to be contradicted or have its questions resolved. If you haven't heard of the book until now, it's because so many people would wish it would just disappear.

It is indeed beneath contempt that the Israel government and left wing press have stifled the issues brought up and have caused a complacent and exhausted Israeli public to long ago forget what they themselves said and reported at the time.

This is yet another in a series of authors who try to twist history to prove that "Rabin was not murdered by the extreme right and even if he was, he brought it upon himself". We have certain words for enemies of the Jews who say similar things about our six million murdered brethren. Unfortunately the menu does not allow me to give it "minus five stars".

This book will infuriate, frustrate and frighten you -- but it is a 'must read!' It proves beyond a doubt that the Rabin assassination was much more complicated than has been presented. Crucial evidence was lost, tampered with, or stolen. Doctors' reports disagree. The book leaves the reader with haunting questions. David Morrison, a practicing psychiatrist in the United States for 20 years before moving to Israel, joins a growing number of authors who are challenging the official version of who, how and why the late Prime Minister of Israel was killed. Despite attempts by Israeli politicians, the media, and book distributors to suppress alternative opinions, the disturbing questions will not go away. Even the family of Yitzhak Rabin have publicly voiced their doubts and disbelief.

One of the most important contributions of this book is to place the assassination in context -- a deliberate and sustained official attempt to destroy the opposition. The police, the Secret Service ("Shabak"), and other institutions of government maintained a systematic attempt to discredit and undermine the settler movement and its supporters. The plot involved Ministers and the Attorney General's office, one of whom is now on the Israeli Supreme Court. Rabin's tenure in office may have been one of the greatest threat to Israeli democracy.

Morrison carefully shows that the Shabak had been caught lying to official commissions of inquiry during the previous administration of Yitzhak Shamir. But the real shift came with Rabin's appointment of Carmi Gillon to head the organization. With opposition to his policies growing, and his popularity slipping dangerously, Rabin saw that the real threat to his policies was from the Right -- Israeli settlers and their supporters. Gillon's war against the settler movement involved recruiting agents to infiltrate their communities and engage in provocative acts, including violence. One of these agents was Avishai Raviv, who is currently on trial in Israel, although all the proceedings are closed.

Raviv set up phony "terrorist" organizations, attacked and claimed responsibility for killing Arabs, and incited violence. His activities, although known by the government, elicited arrests and wide-spread attacks in the media against the Right wing opposition and the settler movement. It was Raviv who lured Yigal Amir into his cult and encouraged him to kill Yitzhak Rabin.

Morrison presents a number of disturbing contradictions in the official version of Rabin's death, and the events surrounding that tragic event. There are major discrepancies in doctors' descriptions of Rabin's wounds, and their locations. The official autopsy report indicates that Rabin's spine was unhurt, while all other doctors that examined him noted that his spine was shattered.

Yoram Rubin, Rabin's bodyguard testified that he was shot by Amir. His clinical report shows that he was only treated for superficial wounds. Leah, Rabin's wife, was told by Shabak agents at the time not to worry because Amir was only shooting blanks. There is no explanation for the absolute breakdown in security surrounding the Prime Minister. There are contradictions in ballistic evidence. The bullets that were recovered were missing for 11 hours between the time of the murder until their mysterious arrival at the police station. Moreover, the bullets do not appear to have been fired from Amir's weapon.

Was it a "sting" operation -- an attempt to discredit the right-wing -- gone awry? A conspiracy gone wrong? Or an insider "hit?" One of the things I learned from the murder mysteries I've seen in movies is the detectives always ask: who stood to gain the most?

This book is a true 90s book. A color pallet that looks like Easter on steroids, horrible breakdowns that have no flow, hyper imagesque poses and flat dialog. That said, if your reading this because you're a fan of Morrison or Millar, then you're in for a treat!

I love both of them and you can see their parts of this stream of consciousness script battling for supremacy. Grant Morrison's constant use of virus and infection as metaphor for enlightenment and Millar's love of blockbuster Michael-Bay-style-action are actually a good pairing here. Since they both have that cynical opinion of America they can riff pretty well back and forth. Whether it's making fun of America's hamburger consumption or Captain America, they hit the mark pretty humorously.

I think were this book made today, it would have been quite an interesting piece of satire, but Yoewell's art is flat and the writers' seemed rather rushed.

It was a fun book, I liked it. I didn't LOVE-LOVE it, but I definently strongly liked it. Glad I read it. Neither the art nor the writer were disapointing.

Back in the mid-90's, Marvel released this mini-series that was actually a pretty edgy book for having the Comics Code Approval stamped on the covers. The great Grant Morrison (New X-Men, JLA, Doom Patrol, Invisibles; you know the list) teamed up with a pre-fame Mark Millar (The Ultimates, Civil War) to tell this frenzied and surprisingly violent tale. Skrull Kill Krew revolves around a gang of inadvertantly super powered youths who go on a killing spree. Their targets: undercover alien Skrull agents in human disguise. Though it is far from the best material you'll ever come across from either writer, Skrull Kill Krew features enough popping ideas to make any fan of either writer happy. The dialogue may reek of the 90's, and the characterizations (particularly of Krew leader Ryder) may be a bit on the stale side, but there's enough good here to outweigh the bad. Steve Yeowell's pencil work isn't anything spectacular, but it's suitable enough. With appearances from Captain America, Nick Fury, and a Skrull-impersonating Fantastic Four, Skrull Kill Krew is an overlooked and nice and neat little treat.

This book has good, useful content, however I found the quality of Bolen's writing to be horrid. There were many run-ons, incomplete sentences, bad syntax and LONG sentences combining sometimes unrelated ideas. I know this isn't a grammar or English book, but his writing style made it difficult for me to read, not to mention understand what he's trying to say. I've read a good deal of textbooks, and many of them were much better written than this one. He also tries to write figuratively at times, and personally when I'm trying to learn, I don't care about figurative speech and just want the raw concept. Additionally, the text was swamped with examples (most of the academic ideas were in the forms of examples) and while examples help remember material, when they come one after another, and never end, it just creates confusion. If Mr. Bolen spent more time editing his material for grammar and comprehension rather than using "pretty" words, this would be a much better text. Otherwise, it was definitely not worth the $100-some it cost.

This textbook is very easy to read and includes a great deal of diagrams, pictures and illustrations to increase understanding. It explans technical terms thoroughly, and provides the scientific names of animals in the text.

It's a textbook! I have no basis for comparison or description of how good this book is. It reads Well, though...easy to read, that is.

Interesting...meant to be read by an American- appeals to an American reader through examples and case studies, but could still be interesting and of course, useful to anyone studying North America and Europe.

The book covers a lot of critical subjects in an in-depth manner. The topics it touches on are : detectors and sensors, analog and digital input-output hardware for signal processing, data formats and manipulation tools, software development using c/c++, and hardware-software interface. I highly reccamend this book for anyone involved in data acquisition and analysis.

Boy was I disappointed. I was hoping for information on the doing computerized measurements, actually how you do it. Not at all what this book describes.

The first few chapters have some good background information on general measurement techniques, such as transducers and what they measure. Unfortunately it went down from there. A whole chapter is devoted to computer selection (a 486 is probably powerful enough!), and of course this is starting to show its age.

A large portion of the book is devoted to getting data out of some kind of data-acq board or from products like Labview (TM, R, (c), whatever), which I wasn't that interested in. Also included is lots of example code that describes how to get data of the same products. A lot of information is also devoted to IEEE-488 bus (GPIB), which while accurate, is starting to show its age.

If you're looking for a modern book on the subject of computerized measurements, this probably isn't it, and more importantly, much of the information in here is now pretty out of date.

The late Wilbur Morrison's final contribution to our understanding of the airwar during WWII is a comprehensive yet deeply personal account of the B29 Superfortress, the 20th Air Force, and General Curtis E. LeMay. Another title that could easily fit in any number of the Booklist's categories, Birds From Hell not only recounts the genesis of the B29, but elaborates in fine detail the plane's many early teething problems; notably the propensity for its Wright-Cyclone engines to catch fire! Morrison served an extended combat tour as a bombardier aboard B29's in the Pacific and CBI Theatres. His accounts of the massive, staggering destruction of carpet bombing over various Asian cities makes for can't put down reading. General LeMay is singled out for special praise due to his keen insight into air operations and his almost singlehanded efforts to improve the operational effectiveness of the B29. Often, his decisions were viewed controversially, yet, without exception his decisions appear correct granted the luxury of hindsight. Morrison contends that the war against Japan was effectively over "prior" to the B29 nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and that the latter events simply speeded the inevitable Japanese surrender. Highlights include the author's recollections of his own combat missions in the face of repeated attack by Japanese fighters and ferocious flak. His observations on life in India, and post-war Japan also bear note.

A comment on the book's jacket notes that Morrison flew "five hundred combat missions." Obviously, this should read 500 "hours". The publisher is aware of the misprint and has said that later editions will show the correction.

The author, Wilbur Morrison, was a B-29 bombardier from the earliest days of this airplane's operational career during WII. As such, his personal experience with the B-29 makes for somewhat of an interesting read. But that's about it for this book.

Morrison was put into a ground staff position, which meant that a) he didn't fly as many missions as other bombardiers and b) his operational flight career got stretched out for the duration of WWII. This has pluses and minuses for the book - on the one hand, he has personal tales of flying missions on the B-29, and he was there for the entire duration of the B-29's operations in WWII, but on the other hand, he was on the ground watching others fly missions (and crash and burn) a lot. It also meant that he was close enough to the higher level people like Curtis LeMay to know them on a staff level, but wasn't high ranking enough to be personally involved in the planning of combat operations.

The biggest, most ANNOYING problem with this book is that the author re-counts a great deal of the history of the higher level planning involving the B-29's operations by re-creating these very long conversations between Curtis LeMay and others. Now, in the preface, he says that these conversations really did occur and that he got this information from interviewing LeMay and other people. I do believe that he did do these interviews, and these people did give him a lot of information, but I doubt that they actually could have remembered what they said verbatim like what is set down in this book. These long conversations read like extensive stretches of exposition from a movie script. A lot of what is said just doesn't sound like people talking in real-life. It just reads like a very artificial way of setting down third-person information that could have been recounted better from a standard historian's perspective.

Finally, there is surprisingly little technical information about the workings of the B-29 bomber itself in this book. This is the biggest bummer of all about this book. This book really isn't about the B-29 bomber.

I have read a few other books about the B-29. "Superfortress" by Curtis LeMay and Bill Yenne, has LeMay recounting in a much more realistic first-person style what his thoughts and actions were all about during the B-29 campaign, and is especially good at giving you a sense of how well LeMay managed the logistical difficulties of the B-29 bombing campaign. It's a slim book, though, and the technical aspects of the bomber are glossed over and appear to have been filled in by Yenne (the switching off between LeMay's rough and tumble jargon, and Yenne's formal historian-speak is a bit jarring). "Bombers over Japan" by Keith Wheeler, a Time-Life book, has an excellent mix of the technical workings of the B-29 as well as a solid account of its operational history. There are lots of photos and drawings of the innards of the B-29. "Saga of the Superfortress" by Steven Birdsall has a thorough historical account of the B-29's operational history.

Anyway, these other books are better, but are out of print, unfortunately. LeMay's book gives a more direct insight into his thoughts and plans, and has some excellent explanations and justifications for his campaign of massive firebombing (the original reason, as it turns out, was not to crush the Japanese into submission, but because a combination of poor US intelligence, bad weather, lousy navigation, and technical problems with the B-29 all made early attempts at "precision bombing" of Japan completely hopeless. The B-29 was able to successfully take out Japanese war factories or installations only by burning down entire cities. Later on, as the deadline for the US invasion of Japan loomed, LeMay desperately wanted to end the war with Japan before the invasion, to save US casualties, and at that point he was all set to completely annihilate all of Japan with firebombing if need be. He would have, too, if the atomic bomb had not intervened). The Wheeler book is really good for the technical stuff. There are other excellent books as well, but so far these are the only ones that I've found on the B-29. It seems like a lot of the best books are out of print. After being disappointed by buying this book, I'm mostly going to go to the library for other books like this one from now on.

Reading all of these books, one really gets the sense that the B-29 was an experimental plane, and quite dangerous to its own aircrews. The engines were just so unreliable that they could just quit at any time, or worse yet, set the plane on fire, which was why so many B-29's crashed and burned. Japan really did not have any sort of a developed air defense system, like Germany did; otherwise the B-29's would have fared much more poorly.

In summary, "Birds From Hell" turns out to be just another one of the many first-person histories of WWII experiences that are proliferating out there right now, as the Greatest Generation fades into memory. It tries to be more than that, but doesn't really succeed. And it is not a technical book about the B-29 bomber itself.

Nannette Morrison is a psychic, who after having a ghostly encounter in her grandfather's pre-Civil War house decided to research Civil War ghosts. On the way to a reenactment of the Battle of the Wilderness, she had a profound experience when her car spun out after getting lost. It's nose pointing toward an area where gunfire could then be heard. She felt that it was a message that she was going in the right direction with her writing.

Echoes of Valor blends ghostly encounters with the déjà vu reincarnation memories of Civil War reenactors. The Heater House is a particularly compelling story of an ancestor protecting his descendants. Once again the annoying story of a ghost soldier handing over ammunition to reenactors, also found in More Ghosts of Gettysburg by Mark Nesbitt, is included this time both at Gettysburg and at Sailor's Creek. In Nesbitt's case, he is a historian in Morrison's case she is a psychic and above all should know that a ghost cannot hand over something to a living person that no longer exists in this time period. The stories are reenactor legends nothing more. There are a couple questionable stories of reenactors finding things on the battlefield, though one is more believable than the other, in one the guy happens upon it. Things do tend to surface particularly after a good rain. In the other, the reenactor sees an apparition of an artillery crew and then finds a bullet by his shoe of course the soldiers wave to him. Artillerists didn't carry bullets. In the story John Beck's Shirt has a mysterious blood stain that surfaces when he's participating in reenactments, the author concluded it was the result of a spirit attaching itself to a shirt. I find that highly unlikely unless the shirt was original and belonged to a soldier who lost his life. It sounds more like some sympathetic stigmata coming from the reenactor.

While I don't doubt that many reenactors are attracted to certain time periods because they had past lives during them, I've had my own brushes with that sort of thing, the fictional imaginings made up around campfires to scare non-reenactors should be left out of the accounts. I recommend Barbara Lane's books on reincarnation and the first book of Mark Nesbitt's series Ghosts of Gettysburg and the second if you ignore A Wrinkle In Time.

1994's Echos of Valor is by far the best War Between The States ghost book. Having been familiar with all of Ms. Morrison's books, I feel this book and Blood Across The Water are the better of her four outings. I stood in Books-A-Million shivering while reading it before my purchase.

I do not doubt the authenticity of the tales. Re-enacters tell some stories for fun, but most Civil War re-enacters tell the truth. If they did'nt they wouldn't spend the great amount of time detailing their uniforms. The story of the artilleryman ghost handing a person a bullet should not be doubted. Artillery officers did carry pistols and it is another case of metaphysics. metaphysics is studied at universities such as Chicago Northwestern.

The pictures of spirits in her book will rattle your nerves. Don't miss out on Echos of Valor.