Nebraska Books

The New Warriors: Native American Leaders Since 1900 is an anthology of essays portraying twentieth century Native American leaders from a diversity of tribes, and professions, including Menominee political activist Ada Deer, Kaw U.S. Senator Charles Curtis, Crow orator and reservation superintendent Robert Yellowtail, and many more. A black-and-white photograph of each individual accompanies the succinct, educational, and highly accessible text of modern day heroes, visionaries, and organizers championing their brethren today.

Robert Bringhurst devoted separate volumes to two great poets, Skaay (I'll leave out the lineage name) and Ghandl. Of the two, Ghandl is the easier. His poems are short, focused, intense and memorable. They're often eerie like nightfall on the water. But they're far more than entertainment. Like all real myths, they point to things that can't be stated outright; they teach us ways of finding ourselves in the world and recognizing the intricate weave of reciprocal forces that underpins what we think of as reality. The whole trilogy is eye-opening. Start anywhere; you'll probably end up with all three. And you'll be glad you did.

I have not yet finished this book, but have thoroughly enjoyed the first 20-30 pages after I got it yesterday in the mail.

When I looked back at this page in Amazon, however, I was amazed at how little information there was, so this is the flyleaf. I hope it helps!

"As a young adolescent, Hollis Dorion Stabler underwent a Native ceremony in which he was given the new name Na-zhin-thia, Slow to Rise. It was a name that no white person asked to know during Hollis's tour of duty in Anzio, his unacknowledged difference as an Omaha Indian adding to the poignancy of his uneasy fellowship with foreign and American soldiers alike. Stabler's story--coming of age on the American plains, going to war, facing new estrangement upon coming home--is a universal one, rendered wonderfully strange and personal by Stabler's uncommon perspective, which embraces two worlds, and by his unique voice.

"Stabler's experiences during World War II--tours of duty in Tunisia and Morocco as well as Italy and France, and the loss of his brother in battle--are at the center of this powerful memoir, which tells of growing up as an Omaha Indian in the small-town Midwest of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma in the 1920s and 1930s. A descendant of the Indians who negotiated with Lewis and Clark on the Missouri River, Stabler describes a childhood that was a curious mixture of progressivism and Indian tradition, and that culminated in his enlisting in the old horse cavalry when war broke out--a path not so very different from that walked by his ancestors.

"Victoria Smith, of Cherokee-Delaware descent, interweaves historical insight with Stabler's vivid reminiscences, providing a rich context for this singular life."

What a great book. Wish there was more of her life to write about I could have read so much more.
It refreshing to read about her adventures and laugh and cry at the hardships and all she endured.
Thankyou Lora Wood Hughes

Written by the late C. L. R. James (1901-1989) and expertly edited by the late Constance Webb (1918-2005), The Nobbie Stories For Children And Adults is an engaging collection of short stories showcasing a gifted storyteller's insights and creative narratives reflecting a quite genuine wisdom of the world skillfully tailored for the appreciation and entertainment of all ages. Authored in form of letters to his four-year-old son, Nobbie, during the time James was exiled in England by hostile American authorities, The Nobbie Stories For Children And Adults offers readers both young and old entrance into a world of original and illustrative tales of friendship, conflict, community, ethics, and power. As an eccentric and engaging collection of homespun stories suitable for children and adults alike, The Nobbie Stories For Children And Adults is to be given high praise and is very strongly recommended for both academic and community library collections.

I bought this book at a bookstore in a little town in Montana while traveling through the state. It was in the "regional selections" category, but it really was so much more than that. This story is a moving (true) story of a young woman in Montana who marries a rancher in the period when the West was still being settled. Widowed at an early age and left to fend for herself and her young children, grit and a sense of purpose keep her going. It was a true joy to follow the life of this heroic woman through difficult circumstances. This book is a gem and I would highly recommend it, as I intend to read it again and again through life. Perhaps women will enjoy it more than men, and mothers will likely appreciate it the most.

I discovered this book when I was living in San Francisco, and it convinced me to move back home to the Midwest. Le Sueur is an earthy, populist writer. This is a history of Minnesota, but its doesn't trouble itself with governors and generals. Le Sueur writes about Indians, farmers, cornhuskers, pioneers, the ordinary people who built the Midwest. And her descriptions of nature and weather are beautiful. She loved people, she loved her native country. If you're from the Midwest, buy this book. You'll either get homesick, or you'll be glad you never left home.

A great work. I think it won the Nobel prize. Yet so little known, now. And not published again till 1981? Hard to find in bookstores and libraries so this shows the advantage of Amazon.

Priscilla Sneff presents O Woolly City, a compilation of brief, free-verse poetry interspersed with moments of stream-of-consciousness writing. Sneff earned the Kenyon Review Poetry Prize for O Wooly City when it was a manuscript; problems with publication have finally been resolved, allowing readers to savor the rich, yearning verses for themselves. Dancing across the fleeting moments of human life and the endless cycles of nature, O Wooly City alights the mind with the keen observations of a scientist and the reflective contemplation of the mystic. "Picture": Having rolled my old glance / Like an agate well out of my twenties, now / I'm wearing a mother's eye, and a broom then a mop / Waltzes past; it is / Hat-clap't with some capstan. O / Mirth! and mistressing that mirror, my / Daughter; her armful of frail sleeve, her face flushed with the warmth.

This collection of three stories--each over fifty pages--contains what I believe is the most emotionally beautiful "short story" ever written: "Neighbour Rosicky".

Here is a story of love, and despair; beauty and tragedy. All life entails suffering, but it is up to us how we handle suffering: we either handle it with dignity or despair; this volume bespeaks of the former. When the crop fails, Rosicky takes his family on a picknick, so they can appreciate what they have, not what they don't. Rosicky--with a bad heart--rakes the Russian thistle from his son's neighboring farm because "he was afraid their seed would root and 'take the alfalfa'". Some call this "silly sentimentalism", but it is not: it is the beauty of appreciating life in the simple things.

Willa Cather, like Shakespeare, is a word-smith for all ages, and will be read--in a thousand years--alongside Homer and his ilk.