University of Nebraska Books

Having read many of Howard's fantasy works (Conan the Barbarian, Kull the Conquerer, Solomon Kane), it's nice to read more hack n' slash works from him but with an actual historical backdrop.

Harold Lamb wrote historical fiction and was one of Howard's favorite writers. This most likely inspired Howard to write some historical fiction of his own. If you like REH, check out Harold Lamb. The two of them are probably my favorite writers. But I like REH for his violent sword and sorcery, whereas my favorite stuff from Lamb are his historical works such as Hannibal and Genghis Khan (2 books that are must-reads by anybody interested in these two generals). Harold Lamb's famous Cossack stories are now being re-released. I have not yet read them but am looking forward to them, so check them out as well.

Also, if anybody has Lord of Samarcand and Others, please provide a list of the stories within this book (I think I have them all, but I want to be sure). I would be very thankful.

Robert E. Howard is one of the best storytellers America has produced. The tragedy is that he died so young. This particular collection is excellent. The reader feels like (s)he is there. It's also amazing how prescient it is; the clash between the West and Islam is still with us.

This is a must read and great to add to any book collection. I thoroughly enjoyed it! REH was a genius! Anytime I can find a REH story it's a great day! Lord of Samarcand - Gottfried von Kalmbach in The Shadow of the Vulture. REH wrote: "A more dissolute vagabond than Gottfried never weaved his drunken way across the pages of a popular magazine: wastrel, drunkard, gambler, whore-monger, renegade, mercenary, plunderer, thief, rogue, rascal-I never created a character whose creation I enjoyed more. They may not seem real to the readers; but Gottfried and his mistress Red Sonya seem more real to me than any other chracter I've ever drawn." Collected in this book is the entirety of Howard's historical Oriental fiction-including some fragments. These tales are probably among the most somber ever written by REH; among his best, too. Prepare to embark on a journey unlike any other in the field of historical fiction. The place is Outremer, the time the early thirteenth centery... Must Reads of REH (1906-1936): Blood and Thunder, The Life & Art of REH by Mark Finn, Two Gun Bob, One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Ellis REH's girlfried, The Last of the Trunk-Paul Herman, Crimson Shadows-The Best of REH I & II, Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, Cormac Mac Art, The Black Stranger and Other American Tales has the scariest story ever called Pigeons From Hell, Bran Mak Morn, all of the Weird Tales issues, etc. Get them all. If you can't locate them at your local bookstore try used bookstores and/or the internet. A special thanks to Glen Lord, Mark Finn, Paul Herman, Dark Horse, and everyone else that kept REH's legacy alive and well.

I've been collecting the works of REH for a few years now, and have found this book to be an excellent collection. The stories in here are unique, containing none one of REH's 'big' heroes (Conan, Solomon Kane, Kull). Rather is about the later Crusades. Think if REH had written Kingdom of Heaven and you'll have a good idea as to what these stories are like. This isn't quite Sword and Sorcery... there are none of the monsters or magic found in many of REH's writings, but it is still worth reading for any true REH fan.

I live seven miles from Datil, NM whereof Ms. Morley writes. Not only does she write about her life but also about how the family, her mother, brother and sister, came move out here. She writes about the early cowboys and Native Americans. She writes about the Penitentes.

I am from the part of New Mexico that Agnes Morley writes about. My parents live in a canyon approximately 30 miles from the Morley homestead. This book tells it like it was and anyone living in Magdalena, Datil, or Pietown today can tell you so. Morley conveys a deep affection for the land and an independence of spirit that still holds true in the area today. It made me proud of my community to read her book. It was also fun reading some of the local history from a first-hand account. I particularly enjoyed Morley's portrayal of the lawyer Elfego Baca, who is a legendary figure in Socorro County. His reputation suffers quite a bit at her hands! The only aspect of local history that I found conspicuously absent from her book was any discussion of the local mining industry. Mining played as great a role in the area as ranching did at the time. I suppose it indicates that the miners and ranchers didn't mix much. Still, it seems odd that she doesn't even mention it.

Agnes Morley was the daughter of a Civil War vet who went home to Iowa and got an engineering degree that led to his becoming a premier engineer for the Santa Fe R.R. He was there when the race took place to be first over Raton Pass and also through the Royal Gorge (where Bat Masterson organized a posse that unsuccessfully held off the Denver and Rio Grande RR as I recall with members of the Dodge City fraternity that included Doc Holliday, Ben Thompson and other notable gunfighers and even Eddie Foy, later a great comedian, who went along for the excitement)all typical of the early days of railroading in the West. Morley was also an associate of the New Mexico participants in the Colfax County War in New Mexico, a parallel to the Lincoln County War that made Billy the Kid famous. Equally famous was Clay Allison, a wild man of the West who was a principal character of the War, which was centered in the vicinity of Cimarron, New Mexico. Agnes's father died in Mexico while pushing the railroad from Benson, Arizona to Guamas, Mexico. He was either accidentally shot in taking a rifle from his buggie, or as his grandon thought, was murdered as part of a plot relating to railroad competition. After his death his strong wife took over the rearing of their children. She managed the Cimarron newspaper that irritated Clay Allison, and he burned it out one night. In the aftermath he learned that a widdy woman ran it, helped set it back up, stating that he didn't make war on women. She later settled on the large range that her husband had aquired north of the present small town of Datil. The adventures there of her family are classics of Western experience that are not exactly things of the past. Read about her and her brother (who went to college and is in the football hall of fame) as they walk down the top rail of their corral with a pet bear cub, a rooster, a goat and sundry other animals following along on the ground. Read how, when she was away to school her brother wrote of the mountain lion that raided the place, killed their bitch hound who defended her pup and generally wrought havoc. Her brother wrote her the information and told her, "You should have been here, there was a hellacious fuss." which she read to her horrified teachers and class, not realizing it was anything out of the ordinary. She knew outlaws and lawmen, such as Elfego Baca, who Disney immortalized in a movie. When he defended her neighbor in a self-defense killing, she recommended to Elfego that he forget the fancy arguments and just tell the truth. He said, "The truth! The truth! This is a murder case. We lie. They lie. Everybody lies." As I recall the killer was convicted on his first trial. He told Agnes, "Elfego took my cattle on the first trial and when he got me off on appeal, he took my ranch." Elfego lived until 1946 as a fixture in Albuquerque. His type are by no means gone. You can go to Datil and vicinity today and see the old west exactly as it was then, with the bark off. The last big cattle drive took place just to the east on the San Augustin Plains. Moderns drive rapidly by and console themselves that the violent old west is dead. If so, the body is keeping damn well. The sheriff of Catron County which encompasses the old Morley ranch requires all heads of households to own and keep handy a gun. Good idea, too. I used to roam that country with my five dogs, camping out in my specially designed pickup which everyone called "the teahouse of the August Moon," due to its resemblance to that edifice. Agnes also tells of such characters as Montague Stevens, an Englishman who lost one arm in a hunting accident, who was a famous bear hunter. I'm writing this substantially from memory but it's close enough. Go see for yourself. And if you only read one book about New Mexico this would do. Another dandy is "Land of Enchantment."

I work for a school that just purchased 600 acres of the ranch described in this book. The area IS as beautiful as she describes, is as rugged and the people are just as hard-working and caring.

I found the book to be a great story. She says she is just a story-teller, but what a good one! It makes the past come alive. My husband and I read parts of it out loud, while camping in the very ranch she describes.

WARNING! Once you start, it is hard to put down.

The title is misleading, as she truly must have been a great lady. This is a classic memoir by a woman who grew up in 19th-century New Mexico, and worked and rode side-by-side with the men, taking the full responsibilities and knocks of a hard life and keeping a great sense of humor through it all. The only concession to her gender is that she apparently rode sidesaddle, remarkably enough!

Kees is a brilliant modernist poet, who describes the world he sees in dark and apocalyptic tones, filled with biting satirical wit. He poems read like photographic images of the dark reality in which he lives. His style is inventive and original. The world around him is hollow and meaningless, as seen through the eyes of bathers, lovers, scholars, soldiers, politicians, businessmen, actors, and Robinson -- the caricature of the average man of the cold-war era. His vision is the opposite Whitman with a vision that's closer to Kafka and Samuel Beckett, expressing the pointlessness of war and mechanistic civilization. As he writes: "If this room is our world, then let / This world be damned. Open this roof / For one last monstrous flood / To sweep away this floor, these chairs, / This bed that takes me to no sleep. / Under the black sky of our circumstance, / Mumbling of wet barometers, I stare / At citied dust that soils the glass / While thunder perishes. The heroes perish / Miles from here. Their blood runs heavy in the grass, / Sweet, restless, clotted, sickening, / Runs to the rivers and the seas, the seas / That are the source of that devouring flood / That I await, that I must perish by." Kees is one of the best American poets and deserves a wider audience.

--Alexander Shaumyan, poet, author of "Spirit of Rebellion"

If the passive despair of Prufrock (or should we say Eliot in a Prufrock mood) could be entwined with the searing wit and rage of S. Plath, the result might resemble Weldon Kees' unforgettable best poems -- twenty of them perhaps, all included in this book. And the comparison with Plath is fair I think, not because both lives ended in suicide but because both were spectacularly inventive imagists and masters of the craft whose poems peer into the abyss. Although this collection contains some of the most harrowing English language poems of our times -- the final poem in the "Robinson" series, certainly -- flashes of black comedy ensure that this book is as pleasing as it is troubling. I for one, find the following lines from "The Crime Club" devilishly pleasing: "Consider the clues: the potato masher in a vase,/The torn photograph of a Wesleyan basketball team,/...The unsent fan letter to Shirley Temple,/The Hoover button on the lapel of the deceased,/The note, 'To be killed this way is quite all right with me.'"

Kees is a master of image, and has a profound sense of time and place--his language has the direct and unselfconscious quality of a newspaper headline, and his meters are natural and terse. There is a lumious, jarring quality to his work that makes you feel like you'd found something important that's been lost for a long time. You have. This is the first collection of his work that has ever been generally available.

It would have been sad indeed if the work of Weldon Kees had disappeared into obscurity, as it was dangerously close to doing. Nothing escapes this poets' dark, razor edge sensibility;
the whole thing reads as a kind of pessimistic culture shock. Taking his cues from Joyce and Eliot's "Waste Land", he is pitiless in his assessment of the human condition and civilization.

He is not, however, tiringly depressing like Philip Larkin. He has a voice all his own and it is compelling and vivid. It is pretty obvious that his "Robinson" poems are autobiographical, at least in terms of Robinson's perceptions of the world around him. "For My Daughter" is a poem you will not soon forget.

For my part, I do not believe Weldon Kees is still alive. After reading and re-reading this collection I can't help but see that as wishful thinking. You can't fake this kind of sincerity. I would liken him to Leopardi, Beckett, and other masters of poetic darkness, but he has a voice so individual that he needs no predecessors. An absolute must read.

Weldon Kees has been recommended to me by more than one person. And the reason is that he is a very dark poet, and a very interesting one at that. Kees is slightly outside of academia, though his reputation is getting bigger. I found his earlier work to be better than his later work, that's not to say that there isn't good stuff in his later work, just that I preferred his early work. I'd also recommend you did up a good biography of Kees, since he also has an interesting life.

This is an account of a woman's journey from the wilds of Oregon to the wilds of Arizona around the turn of the century. These are honest and simply told tales of life on the frontier told with an innocence and freshness that captures the reader. This is a western classic.

I couldn't put this book down. I felt as though i was alongside the wagon on it's way from Oregon towards the "Four Corners", and with Hilda & Ken through life at their trading post. Early 1900's life on Navajo Land was anything but simple. Hilda's writings carry you with her through suspense, joys, dancing, humour, births, sickness, deaths, everything we experience now, but as a white woman in an Indian world in a time when life was much more basic, survival was difficult & and instant gratification didn't exist...I loved it!

Ably narrated by Jane Merrifield-Beecher, Desert Wife is the story of Hilda Faunce and her life as a trader's wife on the Navajo reservation before the outbreak of World War I. Hilda faced challenging experiences as she came from Seattle, Washington to live in the bleakness of the southwest desert, learning the Navajo language, and acclimating to an alien territory and a strange new world. Hilda presents the interaction between Navajos and whites in their trading practices and how the Navajo coped with sicknesses transmitted from the white man. She touches on the sweetness of Navajo singing, the misconception of war when they had to register at For Defiance, and a great deal more. Desert Wife is the product of Hilda's four years of reservation life and learning to appreciate the cultural differences between the Navajo world and her own background. Desert Wife is highly recommended listening for students of Native American studies, the twentieth century American west, and Women's studies.

The third installment of Living Voices of the Past is another wonderful history lesson!

Hilda Faunce leaves her comfortable Seattle, Washington, home to journey to the Southwest and the Navajo reservation with her husband in 1914. While one may think that everybody had cars back then, the Faunce's made their way in the manner of the original pioneers: by wagon.

Hilda's journey is not so much a journal of her trip as it is her life on the reservation between 1914 and 1918. Hilda's writings are indeed an historical eye-opener.

First, there is the problem with the language; then the protocol; and the normal daily variances of two races trying to live side-by-side. Cultural diversity may be a late-twentieth-century term, but the fact is that many in America were already experiencing this phenomenon.

The entire journal is mesmerizing; Hilda uses very descriptive language to convey the sights and sounds of the unusual customs and landscapes that she encounters that transfers the listener to reservation life during the second decade of the twentieth century.

Two aspects were particularly telling of a different culture: contending with a white-man initiated illness and the onset of World War I.

The Navajo's were forced to face and contend with small pox, a deadly disease they had never known until the white man arrived. Many of Hilda's new friends died, devastating the young woman.

Newspapers were a rarity and treat on the reservation, so Hilda did not know much of what was going on outside her and her husband's little trading post. While the world was trying to blow itself to smithereens, the Faunce's and the Indians were trying to make a living by mainly trading...especially furs and foods.

Desert Wife is an important historical document that from which we can all learn tolerance and the need to just get along!

Hilda Faunce Wetherill uses pseudonyms for some people and sites in this book and the editor does not call that to our attention. The name of the trading post she describes as 'Covered Water Trading Post' is actually Black Mountain Trading Post about 20 miles west of Chinle, Arizona. She refers to Lorenzo Hubbell Sr. as 'Mr Taylor' and his daughter, Barbard Hubbell Goodman, as 'Mrs. Gray.' She also refers to the Hubbell Trading Post at Ganado, Arizona, as 'lugontale.' (See pages 125-126 and 144-145, "Indian Trader- The Life and Times of J. L. Hubbell", Martha Blue,2000. Walnut, California: Kiva Publishing Company).

She mentions that her husband bought the trading post but, in fact, she and her husband managed the Black Mountain Trading Post for Lorenzo Hubbell Sr. who bought the post in 1914. The Hubbell family continued to own the post after Lorenzo Hubbell's death in 1930 and they operated it until 1937. (see page 284, Appendix Two, "Indian Trader - The Life and Times of J. L. Hubbell", Martha Blue, 2000. Walnut, California: Kiva Publishing Company)

Like many reviewers, I read this after taking a river tour of Hells Canyon. Oh, how I wish I had read it before! Now I have to go back and spend my time at the Kirkwood ranch poking around and visualizing what it must have looked like when the young family of Len and Grace Jordan and their three young children lived there.

What's lovely about this book is how Grace recounts the events of their life, from the small things such as how they cooked and canned, to the big things like close brushes with danger, the harshness and isolation of life in the canyon. The author's tight writing style is down-to-earth and no nonsense, yet still human, warm and insightful. The character profiles she draws are filled with empathy and humor.

The only drawback is the lack of images in the book. I would have loved to see a picture of the Jordan family, photos of the horses and the sheepherding life, and images of the grounds and landscape.

If you are a fan of slice of life / coping & managing books (like Laura Ingalls Wilder books, pioneer diaries, etc.) then you'll love this. It's a treasure.

My husband and I are pleased and honored to know "little" Joe Jordan. He is taking us with a group back to the ranch this fall and we can hardly wait to see all of the places in the book. Now I am looking for all of Grace Jordan's books to find out more about her brave and adventurous life. She writes like an old friend who is talking to you and telling her story to you.

Hell's Canyon on the Snake River between Idaho and Oregon is deeper than the Grand Canyon and almost as majestic and awe-inspiring. About 20 miles of the Canyon is roadless and can only be reached by boat. The only people that live there now are park rangers who get mail from the outside world once a week, but the river can be crowded in summer with jetboaters, rafters, and kayakers. Fortunately, the Forest Service protects the river and the canyon walls from development and exploitation.

In the depression years of the 1930s the Jordan family was desperate and bought a sheep ranch in the Canyon to try to reverse their failing fortunes. They lived with their children at Kirkwood Ranch -- which can still be visited -- for several years. They had a few neighbors scattered up and down the canyon plus a few employees. This is the story of their life as written by Grace Jordan. It's a lively account, filled with descriptions of domestic activities and the eccentric people that passed through her doors. She tells a nostalgic and appealing story of pioneering life in a very remote place.

The Jordan's left the river at the beginning of World War II and Len Jordan went on to become a U.S. Senator, quite a feat considering the hard times he endured during the depression. I suspect, however, that the sheep-herding life he lived in Hell's Canyon was more interesting than his political career.

Smallchief

I read this book AFTER I took the full day Hells Canyon Jet Boat trip from Clarkston, WA and now wish I had read it before. We stopped for an hour at the Jordan's ranch for lunch and had I read this before I would have loved to explore the author's places. It's a lovely book, well-written, that describes her life with her family on the Snake River. Highly recommended reading for those planning to explore Hells Canyon.

I purchased this book after taking a tour of Kirkwood Ranch. The book is well written and gives so much information on what life must have been like during that time and conditions, but does so in a story type fashion that is a pleasure to read. Definitely worth the time to read!

I found this book just after having read the first of Terry C. Johnston's trilogy. The story was described by one of the characters in Book 1, and I decided to wait on Book 2 until I had read the full story of Hugh Glass.

I was not disappointed. What writing! Manfred has taken a set of facts, and created a great tale of the survival by imagining what Glass must have been thinking and saying during his ordeal.

The result is a great example of writing excellence.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves good Western fiction.

You will not be disappointed.

Manfred takes what is known about Hugh Glass, a legendary mountain man who was left for death and survived, and brings Hugh to life. The author includes amazing details about how people lived at the time. In a preface, the author summarized the real Hugh Glass' story, which I had read about in novels by Blevins. I was reluctant to read this book because I knew the ending, but there is a lot more to Hugh's story-- especially as told by Manfred. The novel is in the third person, through Hugh's eyes. This gets the reader very involved.

I was reminded of The Border Trilogy, three novels by Cormac McCarthy-- All the Pretty Horses, the Crossing, and Cities of the Plain. Lord Grizzly became part of 5 part series. I was disappointed in Scarlet Plume, but I haven't read all the others yet.

I don't know why the novel often seems to go out of print. I've always thought this was Manfred's best. The characters are well-defined (as in all his novels) and the narrative itself is compelling. Some subject matter is not for the squeamish, but it certainly reads as believeable and authoritative.

Though this is thought of as a "western" novel, it's not really about range wars or Indian battles; it's about betrayal, the desire for revenge (perhaps the positive side of it?), and forgiveness. It's about how deep a person has to dig within himself in order to survive.

You won't regret reading this novel, even if you don't like novels in the "western" genre.

I had never even heard of Hugh Glass when i picked this book up. Wow, what a life he led! If even half of it is true its an amazing tale in the spirit of Jeremiah Johnson.

What this man goes through is unbelievable and makes for a heck of a page turner. Great historical/fiction mountain man story.

This is one particularly unique western set in a time when the Midwest was untamed; it's probably like no other western ever written. I have read maybe two-hundred westerns, but I was naive until I read Lord Grizzley.

I always like to read an experience from the inside and this first person telling is very expressive and well worth the read.
I would like to also recommend Carol Levy's A Pained Life, a chronic pain journey.
It is of the same autobiographical mold.
The author in this book tells of her struggle with and against a facial pain disorder called trigeminal neuralgia - also called "the worst pain known to man" and "the suicide disease."
It has been called "hard to out down" by the American Chronic Pain Association" and "a fascinating story" by Steve Hall, writer, NY Times magazine.
If you enjoyed Out Of Joint I think this will also be a good read for you.


[...]

As someone with inflammatory arthritis and an advocate for making arthritis more visible to society, I was so glad to hear Mary speak and read this book. We have been lacking any sort of exploration of arthritis and its effects. Arthritis is epidemic in this country, but it is still invisible. This is one more step for bringing it to light.

This book explores so many different angles- the emotional, the artistic, the physical, the social, the private, the public. Sometimes her writing meanders over into poetry and somehow explains medical terms with poetic expression.

Mary Lowenthal Felstiner has written an important book on many levels. Out of Joint should become the classic for anyone struggling with a chronic problem, be it physical or mental. Mary has an amazing ability to express what so many of us feel ...but in an original, refreshing, and totally unique way.
I loved her refusal to quit or to accept that nothing more could be done. Like that energetic bunny, she just kept on going, searching for probable causes, exploring possible cures, and keeping a constant, sometimes hilarious, dialogue with herself. This book is also a lesson in how to go about family life and love the RIGHT way...an inspiration to us all.

Buy this book! And discover the magic which Mary
Felstiner, a prize-winning professor of history,
brings to words. This story about rheumatoid arthritis
is a page-turner. Felstiner's gift for mixing plain
speech with the technical and erudite is totally
astounding. Further, she demonstrates the healing
potential of narrative, a multi-faceted narrative
glinting with allusion. Through her account, Felstiner
manages to make us proud to be human, capable at the
same time of suffering and transcendence. Five stars.

I enjoyed this book so greatly. I love the way Mary Felstiner approaches the subject of joints, jointedness, connection, from such varied angles, using documents of cultural, personal, and medical history. Magnificent!! What a huge accomplishment this book represents. Apart from all else, I've learned a staggering amount from this gifted author about the body in a cultural context, and this has illuminated a lot of questions in my own life.

The Great Liberator of South America, General Simon Bolivar, had
a dream of an all-encompassing, Spanish-speaking, Latin American
Federation of Nation, based upon the concept and reality of the United States of America. Yet,four decades later, the 1864-1870
Paraguayan War shows that then, and even now, this wonderful
dream of Simon Bolivar is still many decades away. Bolivia still
wants it's pre-1879 seacoast returned. The Chaco War-1932-1935
shows this "irredentitism" spirit of revenge has followed Latin America into the new 21st Century. Paraguay has yet to recover
from the 1864-1870 War of Disaster. The 1826 speech of General
Bolivar, in Panama, was and stll IS a great hope for all of
Latin America, but the mechanics of Latin American Unity is
"just not in the cards". The continuing tragedy of Paraguay
haunts still--135 years later. May Paraguay find healing.
In terms of this fine book-
This book, the Paraguayan War is 10,000% "on target".
A "MUST READ" for old history-buffs, and all serious students of
Latin American History, and Social Structures.
A most-excellent work of historical literati. BUY IT!!
VIVA PARAGUAY Y Libertad!!
from
Dr. Nick Stage-PHD History--Zionville Indiana

While looking for background information on Paraguay I stumbled across Mr. Whigham's book. The book focuses on the Triple Alliance War fought in the mid-1800's. I found that he has a great writing style and I found myself not wanting to put the book down. The text is packed with the history of South America, but put in a way that was cohesive and interlinked. If your interested in the history of South America from colonial times to the mid-1800's pick this book up you won't be sorry!

This book is a valiant effort to understand the only true war in the history of Latin America but in the end it falls short. I feel that some of the classifications for starting the conflict are wrong and his analysis is shaky. He takes several liberties and makes excuses for the dictator in Paraguay. If you are looking for information on the war try reading To the bitter end by Chris Leuchars. It is much better written and focused. I don't think we will be seeing volume two anytime soon so if you want the whole war see the other book. Overall just stay away.

The Paraguayan War (sometimes called the War of the triple Alliance or the Lopez War)frequently appears as a line or two at most in military histories and is immediately dismissed as not worthy of note. Thom Wigham has rightly rescued this facinating and tragic story and given it its rightful place among the great wars of the 19th century. The story is placed in context with a thorough exploration of the politics of the Plata in the decades leading up to the war; politics which can be most generously be described as "byzantine". The early conduct of the war is also both described and dispassionatly analyzed.

I do wish there were more and better maps. Also as a hard-core military buff it would be nice to have more notes on uniforms, equipment and orders of battle (as an appendix, of course).

My other wish is for Dr. Whigham to finish the next volume, which I understand will be in a couple of years. Until then I will have to satisfy myself with "I die for my country".

The Paraguayan war which lasted from 1864-70 was one of the bloodiest wars in Latin American history. More then 70% of the men of Paraguay perished in a terrible war that destroyed the country to such an extent that it has not recovered to this day. The Paraguayan was launched due to political machinations involving a civil war in Uruguay and this wonderful book delves into the root causes and opening campaigns. This is simply a must read and a needed contribution to a period of history that has been totally neglected by historians. Any student of Ltin American history will be happy with this work.

Seth J. Frantzman

This little-known book is, IMHO, one of the greatest books ever written. Reading it as a boy, I was puzzled by how it made everything seem so real in so few words - everything in it seems to have a life off-camera that we had just glimpsed part of.

I've decided to write reviews of the books that not only caught my attention early on, but lived in my memory all of these years, words and phrases coming unbidden to mind occasionally from a literary experience far removed but not forgotten - a spirit residing within your own as an old friend. This book was one that probably never got the acclaim it deserved, although I never spoke with anyone who didn't like it. If your culture or experiences spring from a youth originating in the West or Southwest, you will be enchanted with it because you will recognize parts of it as your own.

This is the "long hot summer" story of two boys, friends since infancy, South Boy, a white youth, son of an Arizona rancher, and Havek, a Mojave Indian boy - whose intertwined trails to maturity took one last summer to complete for them.

During the course of the summer,it takes you through the complex and oftentimes uneasy coexistence between white and indian culture; and the coexistence between the "cultured white" and the "earthy ranch people" is equally tenuous. In the words of the long haired outlaw foreman that ran the ranch for South Boy's father during one of South Boy's Learning Sessions: "Don't put no stock in those wild ideas of you mother's. She's a Lady. Naturally, she's ignorant!"

The adventure begins with the rising thermometer and a youth sleeping in the shade of the grape arbor - he makes his way to the river under the blazing summer sun, goes to sleep on an overhanging limb with the muddy water flowing beneath him; and there Havek finds him "with a dream on his face". Havek is aspiring to become a "great person", is of an age to take a better name for himself in the Mohave tradition; and reads into South Boy's slumber something South Boy is reluctant to dissuade him from for appearances sake, so he agrees to travel "name taking" with him.

They spend one last glorious summer together as adolescents blundering through the Arizona mesquite and greasewood, in a variety of scenarios, some curiously noble, some ill-conceived and dangerous - before the final departing from the comfortable innocence of childhood, where a friend is a friend regardless of anything else; and moving into the complex world of the adult where nevermore will their friendship be as simple as it was on the banks of the slow-flowing, muddy river that day. It is evident in a very poignant scene as they are returning home after the adventure of death, rituals, ignorance, survival, all stunningly woven by Mr. McNichols into a tale spawned from the living of some of it, you can tell. The mesa is awash in rain water dropped by a violent storm after a long draught; South Boy suddenly applies the teachings of the "Foreman" to his immediate reality and comes up with the idea that he can make a lot of money putting weak, cheap cattle on it. Havek, on the other hand, is on his way home to celebrate his new name with his people, and "financial gain" is of absolutely no interest to him - and there they go their separate ways, each to the world he springs from, the same physical world, but in all other ways as different as the ideals and teaching that shaped them.

One feels a certain sadness that it should be so and most of us probably secretly wish that we could reside in our youth forever, never growing up.

McNichols crisp writing, detailed knowledge of Mojave Indian and Colorado Desert ranching, and realistic plot make this a genuinely timeless work., My tattered copy was given to me 45 years ago by the writer Madge Harrah. Every half decade or so I dig it out and read it again. It taught me to write and, in a way, was a model for my North Of Nowhere. Bravo Charles!

South Boy goes with his friend Havek on a Mojave name-quest. It sounds simple -- but under the surface is a breath-taking wealth of experience, mythology and understanding of the many personalities in one person, or one horse, or one culture. Every sentence of this book is laden with knowledge of its time and place. Even the mention of the "little yellow catfish," about which no more is said than that they "make good eating," reflects the fact that in this period the US Government seeded the Colorado river with the Yellow Catfish, a transplant from Texas. This is the key to the book -- that everything is in flux, as two cultures melt together, and new ways try to live with old ways. The ending seems to be a conclusion -- until you realize that it's only one more step to escape from final decisions. The book begins a long way before the first sentence -- and would finish a long way after the last. Dreams and visions reverberate through the telling, and Great Things are done.

Having recently moved to Mohave County in Arizona (not far from the Colorado River), I was interested in reading "Crazy Weather" to get a little of the "flavor" of the area, and to learn something about the Mojave Indian culture as well. The book lived up to my hopes in both of those respects, but what surprised me was how absorbed I became in the story itself. On one level, it's a simple adventure story involving South Boy (who's actually white but was partially raised by Mojaves and was given that name by them) and his best friend Havec (a Mojave) as they travel up the Colorado River into Piute territory --- and in some places it almost reminded me of Huck Finn travelling along the Mississippi with the runaway slave, Jim, and meeting an assortment of characters along the way. On another level, though, it's really about the challenges of truly understanding another culture and way of thinking --- and in the end the pull of their respective societies is too strong and the two friends inevitably have to part and follow their separate destinies.

The author seems quite knowledgable about Mojave culture and history, as I've confirmed from subsequent readings on the subject. If you're interested in the American Southwest, the Colorado River, native American cultures, or just a good story, I think you'll enjoy this book.

After researching Connie Mack for more than 20 years, author Norman Macht definitely knows his subject. Macht masterfully weaves the story of Mack and the early years of baseball in this 675-page biography, which covers the time from Mack's birth in 1862 through 1914.

Mack is the ideal subject to use to tell about baseball's early years because he was involved, in one way or another, in virtually every development. Macht chronicles Mack's childhood, his family, his days as a player and manager.

Macht spends much of the first part of the book dispelling myths about baseball's early years and Mack.

As a catcher, Mack was underrated. Writer Hugh Fullerton described him as a "better hitter than credited and dangerous in the pinch. He was a perfect backstop; cool, unhurried, deadly in throwing."

Wilbert Robinson called him "a little tin god behind the plate."

Macht writes that "It's difficult to reconcile the later image of Mack the public remembers--dignified, kind and soft-spoken--with the sharp-tongued, hot-headed manager of the 1890s, which he was."

Macht does an excellent job of capturing what the times were like, both on and off the field. A reader will learn a lot about the issues of the times and how the rules changed during baseball's early years.

Macht is extremely knowledgeable about the personalities of the players associated with Mack. He has a habit of adding little details, insight and color that bring the players to life. He does the same with Mack's family life. You truly feel you are in Mack's shoes.

While Macht is a noted baseball historian, he is also an excellent writer. He avoids the pitfall of getting bogged down in too many details, and he tells the story in an easy-to-read manner.

Although Macht explains why his book doesn't have a bibliography or footnotes, their absence is disappointing, particularly since Macht is a baseball historian.

Macht plans a second volume which will cover 1915 through Mack's death.

Mr. Macht has done a scholarly job. This biography is thoroughly researched and presented in a style that is organized and interesting. Mr. Macht probes not only the business and baseball facets of Connie Mack, but includes the portions of Mack's personal and private life that contribute to a greater understanding of the man and the time. For those who enjoy baseball within a cultural and historical context, this is a delight.

This reviewer gives Mr. Macht's book on Connie Mack five stars. . .not for
the author but to honor the subject of this book. In all the years that
this legend of baseball was part of my family's life, I never heard him
utter an unkind word or anything approaching profanity. The A's had
their ups and downs and, in the down times, Uncle Con had no choice but
to trade some of his stars so that the club itself might survive. Uncle
Con was a loving and generous gentleman, adored by his children, grand-
children, great-grandchildren, and now another Connie Mack, the FIFTH, has joined the family. The Philadelphia A's are memorable for their
nine pennants and five world series championships. Readers: Kindly note
that the five stars are for Connie Mack, not for Norman L. Macht.

This book brings to light of the early struggles of Baseball and maybe the basis for the future establishment of the current players union. In the early days the owners had all the control. Billy Beane of the Oakland A's is not the original trader of A's players, Connie Mack long ago started that tradition. The problem with this exhaustive book on the early years of this Baseball legend is that it begs for more. What interesting stories are there for those bad teams in his final years when he had very little talent and no superstars. This is a great book but remember it doesn't tell the whole story of the legend Connie Mack.

This trove of valuable information and entertaining stories is must-read material for those who want to know about the old Philadelphia Athletics and Connie Mack's pre-eminent role in baseball history. A salient and exhaustive examination of the teams he built and the dynasty he started, this book was written with an authority only Norman Macht could have brought to the task.