University of Missouri Books

I've read many memoirs by World War II veterans. I doubt if any memoir will ever top "With the Old Breed," by E.B. Sledge, but this one certainly ranks in the top tier. With humor and a remarkable degree of candor, Kingsbury tells what it was like to be 18 years old and find yourself in front-line combat, among men you had barely met. There's no padding here, no lengthy passages of background information about the big strategic picture--just a straightforward, well-told, well-edited story that paints a remarkable portrait not just of one young man but of the entire generation of reluctant citizen-soldier draftees who fought and won World War II. Highly recommended.

This book takes you back to World War II in great detail. You could almost feel their emotions as the soldiers slept in foxholes and fought the battles. I loved reading the story of their courtship as their love grew while Richard was fighting for his country. It made you aware of what those young 18 year old men went through defending our country.

This book provides a fascinating look at the reality of being drafted just out of high school in 1944, and immediately facing active combat duty at the front-lines during world War II. Excerpts from the many letters written between Kingsbury and his girl friend (later to become his wife) provide a romantic thread throughout the book, as well as supplying detail of how life was during the 1940's. The stories ring true, and reading this book gives you a real appreciation of the sacrifices made by our fathers and grandfathers to preserve our freedoms. I strongly recommend this book.

Too bad the joke about reviewing a book about reviewing books is already taken, so those professional reviewers (at Publisher's Weekly, see above) really do have an edge over us amateurs. Gail Pool can thus rest assured that the market for her services, which she sees as endangered, will not be diluted to the point of total dilettantism, as I sensed from her slight animosity towards online reviewers who can afford to do it for free (I, in particular, take exception and offense to her statement that reviews spare in numbers are "probably" placed by the author's friends).

Aside from occasional pokes, however, it would be unfair to call Pool's plight a rant, since she does give good reasons for her concerns. It was about time someone who knows what they're doing spoke up about the caprices of the media machine that make and break careers, in this case inflationary, over-the-top, often misinformed book reviews, and, at the heart of it, the schemes that get an author reviewing space in the first place.

Fortunately, she does not leave it at that, but also offers viable guidelines and approaches that might very well serve the overall quality of literature, if not the book industry, which appears to be the underlying problem. Since, presumably, Pool is too experienced to bear any illusions that she is stronger than the system, the most valuable message of "Faint Praise" has universal appeal: be independent-minded if you can, do not take the path of least resistance by becoming just another particle of mass culture, and read, read, read--carefully.

Informed and informative, "Faint Praise: The Plight Of Book Reviewing In America" by Gail Pool (a freelance journalist, reviewer, and review editor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts) is an impressively insightful, deftly written, accessibly articulate, expertly knowledgeable, and decidedly analytical survey of the multifaceted and complex world of book reviewing today. Getting a book reviewed can result in prestige for authors and their publishers, improved sales, and a raised public awareness of a particular title struggling for attention against thousands of competing books. They can also bury worthy and literate titles in a sea of inane and flawed books that are published by the tens of thousands every month. "Faint Press" provides a descriptive and comprehensive introduction to the institution of book reviewing, including such issues as why bad reviewing happens despite good intentions, why so many intelligent bibliophiles, knowledgeable readers, and gifted authors can fail at the art, craft, science, and business of writing book reviews. "Faint Praise" takes the reader behind the scenes and shows how books are chosen for review, the context in which book reviewing takes place, including a book review culture that is shows little interest in literature, a surprising antipathy toward criticism, and a vulnerability to the 'seduction of praise'. It's a sad fact of contemporary publishing that reviews so often degenerate into unmerited hype. Very highly recommended for both academic and community library Literary Studies collections, "Faint Praise" should be considered mandatory reading for anyone aspiring to become a book reviewer, and is especially valuable reading for authors, publishers, academicians, and the general reading public.

This book about a surprisingly complex subject manages to be both authoritative and highly entertaining. It is compelling reading for anyone who relies on book reviews and essential for anyone who writes with the hope of being published.

This is a well written, but extremely brief, account of the Lost Battalion of WWI. The story, with myths & mistakes removed, is pretty amazing. Robert Ferrell clearly knows the details and larger picture, but only offers glimpses of this knowledge in this tiny little book. It's well written and worth reading, but may only be of interest to someone already familiar with the Great War in general and the Lost Battalion in particular.

A force of raw Americans, cut off by German troops, in the last full month of World War I, makes for a compelling story line. Ferrell gets all of it. Ferrell has done scrupulous research. He apparently scoured all of the relevant archives and surfaced notes, records, letters and material previously unreported. He corrects errors from previous works on the subject and tries to place the entire story in context. His writing is clear and straightforward if a bit too academic. His multi-layered maps are useful in attempts to zero in on the battlefield, but the maps themselves are sketchy, absent topographical detail, and show none of the movements. "Boundaries" appear, and while much of the time the 'battalion' was lost, the run up to the 'lost' five days needs more dynamic mapping and more than the background personalities of Pershing and Alexander. There is still too much of a sense that the men found themselves surrounded, fought herocally from being overrun, and then the media created a plethors of false heroes and images for the battle. Some pictures of the brush-filled "pocket" finally give the setting a three-dimensional feel, but it is too little, too late to make this battle late in the war very colorful. Two airmen of the nascent 'air force' earn Medals of Honor trying to supply the men. Three men on the ground also earn Medals of Honor, including the bespectacled leader, Major Charles Whittlesey, portrayed in a recent film version by Ricky Schroeder, a film worth watching for dramatic, three-dimensional effect.

The book itself is small and short. Eighty-eight pages include eleven pages of photographs. Three appendices, including one devoted to a battalion roster, cover 27 more pages. This is a quick, even brief, pretty dry read. The sad, even ironic fate of Whittlesley is worth more of an explanation.

A must read for the history aficionado with a sense of history, military terminology and brushy French terrain.

Five Days In October: The Lost Battalion Of World War I by Robert H. Ferrell (Professor Emeritus of History, Indiana University, Bloomington) is the incredible story of five hundred American soldiers comprising elements of two companies from the 77th Division who were entrapped on the side of a ravine in the Argonne Forest by superior German forces from October 2 to 7, 1918. The courage displayed against overwhelming odds as they fought under siege in the midst of rifle, machine gun, mortar, and artillery fire both day and night, with nothing to eat after the morning of the first day, and with water that was highly dangerous to obtain, is among the finest examples of the American troops under fire as is recorded in the annals of American military history. With Five Days In October, Professor Ferrell offers new material that was previously unavailable in earlier treatments of this event and reveals what really happened during those horrific days in the Argonne Forest. Although "Lost" is not an accurate description because American high command knew where the men were, during the five days the men were on their own Five Days In October will elaborate striking details of the ordeal, and includes the findings of court-martial records and 77th Division files that contain full accounts of the taut relations between the Lost Battalion's brigade commander and the 77th Division commander providing the most complete account now available. Five Days In October is an impressive work of scholarship and a welcome contribution to the growing library of World War I Military History.

Many commanders, both North and South, thought Jo Shelby to be the best cavalry general of the South. From the black plume he wore in his cap to the large sorrel horses he rode (after getting three shot from under him at Cane Hill, Arkansas, he superstitiously would only ride sorrels) to his daring tactics, Shelby struck an heroic figure. A successful businessman in Missouri before the war and a prominent slaveholder, he raised a three-regiment cavalry brigade in 1862, taught it western fighting tactics, and conducted a number of raids in Missouri and Arkansas for the rest of the war. A real thorn in the side of Union leaders, Shelby's "Iron Brigade" inflicted much damage in raids all along the western border region. Most distinguished were his operations in Sterling Price's raid into Missouri in the fall of 1864, especially at Glasgow and Sedalia (both of which he captured), Waverly, and Westport. When the war ended, he refused to surrender, and simply took his men to Mexico to fight for Maximillian. But after Maximillian was killed in 1866, Shelby returned to Missouri. His popularity only increased in the hero-hungry post-war South, which was bolstered further after he appeared as a defense witness in the trial of the James brothers, who had ridden with him during the war. He died in 1897, and his funeral was the second largest in the post-war South for a Confederate leader, after only Jeff Davis's.

O'Flaherty's approach is that of a popular, rather than an academic, historian. So much conversational dialogue is included that sometimes the book reads more like a novel than a biography. At times he over-quotes sources: for example, he includes the complete transcript of an interview that appeared in the Kansas City "Journal" with Shelby just before the James Boys trial. It's interesting, but could have been abridged. His purpose, though, seems to be to present Shelby as a hero in the Sir Walter Scott mold: brave, loyal to a cause, fair and democratic, tough on the battlefield, concerned with the welfare of his charges. In this he succeeds admirably. [This is a reprint of the original 1954 edition.]

I was particularly interested in reading about Confederate General Jo Shelby as my great-grandfather fought under him during the Civil War, serving in Co. A, Elliott's Battalion,
Shelby's Brigade. The book was fairly informative, but relied too heavily on the writings of Major Edwards, Shelby's Aide, who was not always objective, and given to hyperbole.
All-in-all though, it was enjoyable reading and gave me a lot of information about the man my ancestor served under.
I am in the process of visiting the battlegrounds where Shelby campaigned and this book will help in visualizing the various battles.

Gen. Shelby did remarkable things with his small command. His genius was unappreciated due to Jefferson Davis' myopic pre-occupation with west point pedigrees instead of ability and results. A Southerner can only sigh at the lost opportunity, if Shelby had been given command of command of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi instead of Theophilus Holmes.
This is a very readable volume about the greatest Confederate cavalryman in the war who led several different lives. About a half of it covers the war, another 1/4th the Mexico adventure, and the remaining 1/4 are split between his growing up and the post-Mexico (1868-97)years.
It features vivid descriptions of many battles in MO and AR, as well as the tale of his expedition to Mexico after the war. The details of his tactics at the Battle of Cane Hill, which he used repeatedly after that is fascinating. The author's style is a bit colorful and folksy, sorta like you're there talking to him. If you demand that your history read like a textbook that may spook you off, but if it doesn't it's a wonderful bio about a neglected figure

focused particularly on events, dates, places and names in Missouri, with some mentions of the border battles involving Kansas

_Gray Ghosts_ is an excellent foray into a chapter of the Civil War that does not always garner attention -- the establishment of a police state in Missouri and the subsequent backlash and ensuing war of sabotage by local guerrillas. Complexifying the historical landscape, Missouri and Kansas had shared much animosity in the years leading up to the Civil War, and Kanasas, who was a steadfast Union state, used the War as an opportunity to raid Missouri towns as Union Army representatives. Missouri to this point had been a borderline state. Many of the bands of Guerrillas, while they received aid from the Confederacy, never considered themselves a part of any Civil War cause. As Bill Anderson wrote, "I am a guerrilla. I have never belonged to the Confederate Army, nor do my men . . . I have chosen guerrilla warfare to revenge myself for wrongs that I could not honorably avenge otherwise" (201). These "wrongs" included the murder of his father and mother and the imprisonment of Anderson's sisters. The book is excellently written with thorough footnotes and documentation. Most of Brownlee's sources are either primary from newspapers and accounts of the time or secondary dating from the early 1900's. Brownlee also shows himself to be an excellent writer, stringing together the accounts into a vivid portrait of the time. His conversations with such characters as Jessie and Frank James, Bloody Bill Anderson, and William Quantrill represent Lazaras-esque scholastic resurrections. I found the author to be very opinionated, although his judgements are generally limited to the realm of speculative ethics and do not seem to fall along Blue/Gray or political demarcations. As he remarks in the preface, "In dealing with the characters involved, the author has not hesitated to credit each with personal responsibility" and seeks to give them the "praise or condemnation they deserve." From such a perspective, Brownlee comments on both the contextual factors shaping the guerrillas and the decisions they made that in turn shaped history.

Brownlee does a good job of not letting his personal feelings get in the way. Unlike many authors who don't let truth enter into the fold. Brownlee uses numerous firsthand accounts of people who lived at the time and not his own opinions or that of a college professor from Kansas. Good historical book. Not to biased.

Fascinating reprint of a extremely interesting famous disaster in Saint Louis Missouri.Great for weather buffs!

So much has been written about this storm over the years and so much erroneous. Major tornado histories have stated there was no funnel cloud but as we know from this book that was true at the start of the storm but later in its path there clearly was a funnel--the book even describes its location at cloud level AND ground level--and then multiple funnels were evident. This contemporary account from more than a century ago still provides riveting reading. Perhaps one day someone will likewise document the Sept. 29, 1927, tornado which similarly has been misreported over the years (no funnel in that one, too, reportedly except I've spoken to people who SAW it).

Bravo to the Southern Illinois University Press for reprinting this wonderful historical account of a horrific natural disaster. The pictures alone tell an incredible story of destruction. Interviews with people show the biases of the time, and it is written in melodramatic tones typical of the 1890s. It is hard to read this book without picturing yourself as being a part of the event then, or picturing such an event happening today. This event changed thousands of lives a century ago, but its significance has faded with passing years. It is a valuable reality check to have this account reprinted, so that we can be reminded that battling nature, overcoming devastation, and exercising a will to rebuild are common themes which reach back far beyond our world today.

This is a complicated essay; like the previous reviewer mentioned it might be a good idea to have some Thomas Mann and Hemingway under your belt.

That being said, this is the most witty, insightful, coherent and thought-provoking essays I have ever read. Not only is Murray's style pure thrilling joy to absorb, but his examinations into aesthetics, the blues, tragedy, and improvisation are masterful. This book entirely changed the way I view the role of literature and art in life.

That is about all I can say. Murray knits a view of confrontation with life in art that nimbly leaps between Hemingway and Duke Ellington. I found his conclusions about the role of the blues and books in life endlessly compelling. I consider this book to be a treasure, from one of the unsquarest cats I've ever read.

This book is a great example of Murray's witty and lucid writing style. However, you'd better read up on your Mann, Hemingway, and Faulkner before you read this.

This is a complicated essay; like the previous reviewer mentioned it might be a good idea to have some Thomas Mann and Hemingway under your belt.

That being said, this is the most witty, insightful, coherent and thought-provoking essays I have ever read. Not only is Murray's style pure thrilling joy to absorb, but his examinations into aesthetics, the blues, tragedy, and improvisation are masterful. This book entirely changed the way I view the role of literature and art in life.

That is about all I can say. Murray knits a view of confrontation with life in art that nimbly leaps between Hemingway and Duke Ellington. I found his conclusions about the role of the blues and books in life endlessly compelling. I consider this book to be a treasure, from one of the unsquarest cats I've ever read.

Jerry Eskenazi, sports writer for the New York Times, among other papers, relates what it was like growing up in New York in the pre-war years. His mother was divorced, and worked full-time, making young Jerry somewhat of an outcast, although he grew up under the watchful eye of his immigrant grandmother. Radio became his solace in the hours at home alone after school. Like all kids in Brooklyn, he discovered and enjoyed baseball, especially when he realized that Ted Williams was also the child of divorced parents.

With considerable glee, Eskenazi writes of his introduction to the [then] rough-and-tumble world of newspapering, first at the New York Mirror, then at the Times. Along the way to writing this book, he compares radio memories with Tom Brokaw and Colin Powell.

Although the book is nominally radio nostalgia, it paints an excellent picture of the way both radio and newspapers shaped the American experience in the pre-TV era.

An interesting companion book to this would be Stud's Terkel's autobiography, Talking to Myself. Terkel, fully a generation older than Eskenazi, grew up in Chicago in similar circumstances (an immigrant family), and by the time Eskenazi discovered radio, was a bit player on many of the latter's favorite shows.

This is a very enjoyable book. It's a little difficult to categorize -- a memoirs that revolves around radio. If you are looking for an encyclopedia of old time radio, this is not it. This is radio as heard through the ears of one boy at one place in time. But it also presents a window onto what this device was in people's lives in a different error. There is a lot of information on the history of broadcast radio, the range of shows on air in the 40s and 50s and who listened to them, but this book is more about the role it played in the author's life (including a lot of coincidental meetings between the author later in life with many of his childhood on-air heroes).
It is particularly poignant because the writer was the only child to a single mother and found himself relying on the radio for company.

The 1930s, 40s, and early 50s were the age of Radio. This is when most of America would tune in nightly for their favorite comedies, mysteries, westerns, science fiction, adventure, news, culture, and entertainment programs for children and adults. This was the ultimate era of "theatre of the mind" entertainment that took place in front of the glow of a radio dial. I Hid It Under The Sheets: Growing Up With Radio is Gerald Eskenazi's personal account and recollection of radio's broad impact on his generation and explains how and why it became such a major factor in shaping American and Americans during the years of the Great Depression, World War II, and the first decade of what was called the Cold War when the United States and the Soviet Union had the power to exterminate the human race in a nuclear holocaust. I Hid It Under The Sheets is a simply fascinating, original, and highly recommended contribution to mid-twentieth century American Cultural History library reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Well written and informative bio of a very great and gracious lady. I have been an admirer of the froman sound for many years and it is wonderful to get to know the singer. It is to bad she is not known to more generations who sing today, they could learn a lot about there craft by listening too her.

As a fan and friend of the late Jane Froman, I found Ms. Stone's book factually accurate and researched thoroughly. As I had lost touch with Ms. Froman, I was pleased to learn about her retirement years and sad to learn how ill she had become. My only adverse comments is the tone of the book. Jane Froman was a kind, compassionate, warm human being that only one having known her could capture the essence of her personality and character on paper. I feel that "Jane Froman: Missouri's First Lady of Song" is a wonderful research essay, great for public libraries, but does not capture Ms. Froman's personality. But at any rate, I'm happy that after all these years. there is something concise in book form for Jane Froman admirers to read and own. Thank you, Ms. Stone.

Having been an avid fan of Jane Froman for many years, I was pleased to see that a long overdue biography has finally been written. Jane Froman was an outstanding entertainer and an inspiration to those that met her. Now sadly almost forgotten outside the USA her recordings to the few of us that know of her talent are prized additions to any collection of popular music. Now to the book, Ilene Stone was able to draw on the limited ammount of resourse material available from the Froman papers and Jane's few surviving friends. Given the fact that the subject died over twenty years ago Ilene has done a commendable job with her biography. This book is a mine of information about Jane, I do however wish that Ilene had expanded on some of the facts she quoted in her book, for example why was Jane Froman's hand held microphone technique famous? Bing Crosby, Marlene Dietrich and many other used hand held microphones after all.
All in all an excellent attempt to bring to public attention the talents and bravery of one of America's greatest entertainers. Perhaps that now Ilene has led the way Fox studio's will now make available "With A song In My Heart" on VHS and DVD.

Live from South St. Louis: Joe Baker is Dead by Mary Troy

It's not the first time an author has interwoven short stories in a collection, setting them all at the same place, or centering on the same characters. But Mary Troy's Joe Baker is Dead [U. of MO Press, 1998] does things a bit differently: while these stories make brief references to characters in its other stories (usually as part of this South St. Louis City neighborhood's character), every one of them is touched by this dead grocer Joe in some way. Although there is no story for Joe Baker himself, by the end of the collection, the reader gets to know the departed through all of the other characters' references to him.

It begins with a lumpy, middle-aged woman Joe had an affair with, and it ends with Baker's own twitchy, depressive son. In the other of these nine stories, we learn of Joe through both nosey and self-absorbed neighbors, customers of his lousy produce market, hopeless hairdressers and bad open-mic poets, insane preachers and every other type of local color the gifted Mary Troy can snag off of South Grand and hold captive in language.

But it's not really about Joe, and one doesn't need to read the whole collection to garner some larger truth. These are individual stories, in the best sense of the word. Each one is full of emotion, detail and personality that makes it an event to read on its own, sit with, and wait for the aftershocks before rushing into the next.

Perhaps most impactful and entertaining is "On Iron Street," which may just be one of the finest short stories this reviewer has ever read by anyone. Why it hasn't been at least nominated for a Pushcart Prize is beyond me.

As in Troy's follow-up collection of stories, The Alibi Café [Bkmk Press, 2003], a dark humor creeps through each tale in Joe Baker is Dead. But Joe Baker steps away from that predominant first-person, sassy female protagonist voice in the second book (which isn't to slight that voice in the least). Rather, her debut collection first shows her readers her great range with a more diverse character and perspective.

Indeed, Mary Troy's talent is inspiring and worth the extra effort it may take to find a copy. We all know a Joe Baker. Do it to remember him. You won't be sorry.


[this first appeared on Nighttimes.]

Mary Troy gives a wonderfully honest look at the lives of many different people in her debut collection of short stories set in and around the city of St. Louis. Each of the stories offers an insightful look at what it is to hope, dream, want, and live. Her characters are deeply sympathetic and powerfully portrayed, and at the end of each tale Troy leaves us wanting to get to know these characters that much more. This is a terrific book.

One of Mary Troy's sympathetic and world-weary characters says near the end of the book that understanding your luck in being alive makes you "want to live it up." So does this collection of stories set in St. Louis. Though many of her characters are lonely, confused or down-at-the-heels, Troy portrays them full-on, with their own humor and grace to console us in the reading. To write simply is like hitting the bullseye--it's always harder than it looks, and Troy shoots for the targets of Welty, early Faulkner and even Chekhov. Buy and enjoy.