Pennsylvania Books

An anthropological viewpoint is vital to understanding FGM or female circumcision. Surprise, it isn't just an Islamic rite (some Christians in Africa adhere to this age old tradition) Surprise, it isn't mandated in the Koran. Surprise, strong village tradition makes it hard for parents to say no to the practice or even to marry off their daughters. Surprise, some women agree to have it done. It's important to have a researcher do the field work so that we can understand the origins, cultural background and practice of FGM for better understanding.

In "The Female Circumcision Controversy," Ellen Gruenbaum provides readers with a highly informative anthropological perspective on female circumcision that is not weighed down with anthropological jargon, making it highly accessible to the "average" reader. She takes on a cultural relativistic point of view, exploring female circumcision through the context of the different cultures in which it is practiced, highlighting how it can be affected by patriarchy, ritual, marriage, mortality, ethnicity, sexuality, and economic development. An important point that Gruenbaum stresses is that while female circumcision has been practiced by many cultural and ethnic groups, the practices themselves vary (i.e. what is removed in surgery, at what age circumcision occurs, etc.) and this point makes it hard to generalize and blame only one factor for female circumcision. She includes her experiences in the Sudan and at the end of the book discusses how female circumcision practices are changing and the how we in the international community can get involved.

Gruenbaum does not condone female circumcision but she believes that many anti-circumcision advocates have taken the wrong approach to fighting the harmful practice. She stresses the need for discussion (not one-sided lecturing) and the fact that other problems such as economic insecurity and education need to be addressed so women will not feel as compelled to continue female circumcision. While a lot needs to be done to ensure that women's rights are not infringed upon, Gruenbaum gives the reader hope by showing many cases of progress.

This book is a gem! It has also made me rethink some things that I thought were "normal" in my culture.

I had to read this book for an anthropology class in my freshman year at college. It's a real eye-opener. I had no idea before this book that FGM was practiced anywhere outside of Africa. The description of what can be done was enough to make me mildly uncomfortable (inserting a straw during the healing process to make an extremely small hole for urination and menstruation?) but I could not put the book down. I have a drastically different perspective of this practice now that I understand more of it's cultural significance, rather than seeing it as a cruelty carried out to keep women in a totally inferior state.

The book reads like a diary, but it's a fictionalized story of the real Civil War surgeon Zabdiel Boylston, and it would make anyone grateful for modern medicine. Amputation was pretty much the treatment for everything, and that he was burned in love a couple of times during his period as a combat surgeon puts a very human face on this story.

I got it at my local library; it was part of a display in advance of the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.

I enjoyed this book tremendously. The research and realism was amazing. I was fortunate to see the author lecture on the subject in Indiana. Dressed in the full civil war soldier uniform I thought the author to be an enthusiastic Civil War Buff. I was amazed to find out that the author was a modern day trauma surgeon whose interest in the civil war goes beyond the superficial, dry information one reads in text. His interest draws on real life experiences with bullet wounds and infections that he has treated in modern times.

An excellent novel of a surgeon who signs up to serve in the Union army during the Civil War. Written by a modern surgeon, Kernek obviously had researched his predecessors well. It might be a bit detailed for the squeamish, but for those who want a good "feel" for what a surgeon went through during the Civil War, I highly recommend it. It is a relatively short read, and the story line carries one right on through. This book belongs in every Civil War buff's collection, because it tells about an often overlooked part of the war and tells it very well. At this price, one can't afford not to buy it!

Pennsylvanians had to wait 20 years for Governor Casey to come to office. On three separate occasions in the 1960s and 1970s, Bob Casey lost elections for the office of Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. On the third such occasion in 1976, many observers attributed the election result to voter confusion in which many Casey supporters cast their votes for another person named Robert P. Casey who was a candidate for Lt. Governor. In 1986, he made another run for Governor, this time as "The Real Bob Casey," and he won. In 1990, he was reelected, receiving 68 percent of the total vote. Shortly after his reelection, Casey learned that he was suffering from a rare, incurable disease that sometimes affects persons of Irish ancestry who live in the Appalachian region. Three years later, Casey underwent a heart/liver transplant that enabled him to finish his term in office and write this autobiography. He died in 2000.

This short (215 pages) book presents Bob Casey's vision of politics and government. Essentially, Casey believed that it is a function of government to help the weak and the oppressed in the community. Throughout the narrative, the Governor often mentions some segment of the population and then briefly describes the policies of his administration that provided that segment of society with assistance and support, be it in education, healthcare, job training, child support etcetera.

Especially important to Casey was the subject of abortion, which "excludes an entire class of fellow human beings from our care and protection." In Casey's words, "Who speaks for the child?" When Casey sought to "speak for the child" at the 1992 Democratic Convention the convention managers refused to let him speak, all the while putting pro-abortion speakers on the program. Despite that public insult, Casey chose to stay with his Democratic Party and try to change its present posture from within. The book sets out Casey's thoughts on that subject and also explains his evolving view on the relationship between the Supreme Court of the United States and the chief executive of a sovereign state with respect to interpretation of the Constitution.

Unlike most autobiographies, this one is not written in a sequential format. Instead, the heart/liver transplant is the main framework, spread throughout the book from beginning to end. From that main story, the book moves back and forth in time to cover Casey's family life, his early years in Scranton, his college years at Holy Cross, his law school years at George Washington, his early law practice and his political career. It is an unusual approach to an autobiography - but it works.

It is an excellent book.

"Fighting for Life" is a unique book of alternating stories connecting one person. One story is that of a man facing a fatal disease, undergoing and surviving a rare heart and liver transplant, and returning to productive life. The other is the story of a man who facing adversities reaching his goal of becoming Governor and, on his fourth attempt, is elected and serves two terms. Both stories are of the late Governor Robert P. Casey, and this book is his autobiography.

The one intermingled story is of Bob Casey's fight against Appalachian familial amyloidosis, a rare disease found only in a few people of Irish descent in Kentucky, West Virginia, Chicago, and then Pennsylvania. (Ironically, a similar disease would later prove fatal to both the Mayors of Pittsburgh and Erie.) It would be his Auditor General successor Catherine Baker Knoll who would get Bob Casey to read a book on transplants by Dr. Tom Starzl that would later lead Dr. Starzl to successfully perform this rare two organ transplant. This is a story of incredible medical work and a fighting patient who survived these procedures and not only would be only be return to work as Governor but continue to become a national leader on several issues.

The other story is that of Bob Casey, the State Senator, Auditor General, and then Governor. Bob Casey would arise from political death after losing three races for Governor. In his first race, he won the endorsement of the Democratic State Committee, failed to respond to his opponent's "man against the machine" campaign, and discovered too late the mistake in not answering the charges as that slogan helped defeat him. In his second race, he distanced himself from the political machines, only to discover the political machines such as that of Mayor Jim Tate's in Philadelphia, who then distanced themselves from Casey. In his third race, he was hampered by the inclusion of other Caseys running on the ballot which may have cost him some votes in the confusion.

Still, the name "Bob Casey" held some political magic, even if not initially for Robert P. Casey. Robert Casey, no related to the future Governor, was elected State Treasurer on the basis of having the same name. (Indeed, the Treasurer candidate avoided campaigning to allow the confusion over the two names to build.) Another non-relative named Robert Casey won the Democratic primary for Lt. Governor. Thus, when Robert P. ran for Governor the fourth time, he advertised himself as the "Real Bob Casey".

Bob Casey is to be credited with upgrading the office of Auditor General. Prior to Casey's tenure as Auditor General, it was mostly a lesser functioning row office usually held by a relatively inactive politician. Bob Casey turned the office into an aggressive auditor, not only of government finances, but of government functions. This not only provided a more powerful check on executive branch functions, but it also prepared Bob Casey to learn how to become a good Governor.

Finally, on his fourth try in 1986, Bob Casey hired Jim Carville, who had never managed a winning campaign, to be his campaign manager, believing that people who have tried hard without winning would work harder for victory. This proved to be the case as Casey finally won elected as Governor. Jim Carville went on to manage the successful Presidential campaign of Bill Clinton.

As Governor, Bob Casey writes that he is proud that he put "family formation" on a similar perspective as "capital formation". His Administration fought dead beat dads and made Pennsylvania the top state in child support collections. He fought for and won passage of laws making it tougher to get abortions. He stopped efforts at bringing legalized gambling to Pennsylvania. He created a program that eradicated water borne diseases that had plagued parts of Pennsylvania, providing us all with safe drinking water that today we all take for granted.

This book summarizes Bob Casey, the politician, and Bob Casey, the man struggling against a rare disease. This is a terrific autobiography that brings together Bob Casey, the person.

Governor Casey writes eloquently about his opposition to the violence of abortion, while trying to advance politically in a party that has wholeheartedly embraced unrestricted abortion on demand. His pro-life beliefs were only strengthened by his own life-threatening health challenges as he became even more convinced of the importance of protecting lives that others have concluded are not worth living (the weak, the disabled, the unwanted).

At the same time he makes the case for protecting and respecting the innocent unborn baby, he insists that society must have great concern and compassion for the young women who find themselves in the desperate position of having an unplanned pregnancy.

There are no easy answers to abortion, but Gov. Casey's prescription of love and compassion for BOTH mother and baby would certainly be a good beginning to a possible resolution to this tragedy.

My son still throws lines at me from this book from time to time! He is now 12 and remembers it well. We read it daily (sometimes more than once) for about 2 years between his ages of 3 and 5 and now, when we do the annual bookshelf cleaning, he still insists on leaving that one on the shelf! No, he doesn't pick it up to read anymore (boo hoo...they all have to grow up), but boy, on that bookshelf-clean-out-day, he likes to remember! Also, when someone brings a child to our home, its one of the first he chooses to read to him/her! This book is beautifully illustrated, reminds us of our hometown (Lancaster PA) and has a GREAT alphabet learning rhythym with this prose! I reccomend this book to parents with toddlers and to early readers!

Better than the usual A-Z teaching tool in that it's a well-written piece of prose--how surprising. Lovely illustrations with an Amish theme. Will please adults as well as the young.

I used the book with my students and they really enjoyed it. They learned about the Pennsylvania Dutch and their life style along with the alphabet. A new word, "row", was introduced and lead to a wonderful dictionary lesson.

This comprehensive book beautifully illustrates an extraordinary home built by Henry Mercer in Doylestown, PA. The color photographs give the reader a glimpse of this tiled concrete castle. What a fascinating book about a fascinating home!

In 1908, tile maker Henry Chapman Mercer turned his artistic talents to planning and constructing Fonthill, a "castle in concrete". Fonthill served as Mercer's residence and a personal museum for his decorative tiles, prints and artifacts from 1912 until his death in 1930. Fonthill: The Home Of Henry Chapman Mercer is an informative survey and presentation of this architectural achievement, enhanced throughout with photography (22 b/w, 56 color), heretofore unpublished illustrations, as well as sketches and comments from mercer's own construction notebook. The photography, architectural cross sections and floor plans for each level of Fonthill highlight the innovative design, artistic detail and decorative tile work comprising an original American architectural treasure. Fonthill: The Home Of Henry Chapman Mercer is very highly recommended reading for architectural students and anyone with an interest in American architectural history and the National Historic Landmark series.

I have visited Fonthill Museum many, many times and finally there is a book that does this fantastic place justice. The color photographs and the floorplans alone are worth the price of the book. Fonthill is a unique artistic expression of a relatively unkown renaissance man, Henry Chapman Mercer. As the book describes, despite its random apperance from the exterior and interior, the house is built with a great deal of thought, intent, and philosophy. If you love tiles, architecture, archaeology, the Arts & Crafts Movement, and history, then this book is a must read, and Fonthill is a must visit!

I purchased this book as a retirement gift for my husband's boss. I decided not to give it as it was underwhelming.

This is a great book. Philadelphia was blessed with some beautiful buildings and sad to say many did not service so called progress. The vintage images were very interesting and the text was very informative. Philadelphia did lose many buildings that never should have been destroyed, but many of the historic buildings on Society Hill or great buildings like Independence Hall and its annex buildings, survive and I do like what the park service did to house the Liberty Bell, it's sort of Modern Georgian. It's hard to believe that the iconic City Hall building was so close to being pulled down, it barely survived, I mean can you image Philadelphia without City Hall?!!! so it could have been worse...and Wannamakers is still extant, though it's now called Lord and Taylor and at least the greatest of department store buildings is still open and glorious, but i do wish they would get rid of that ridiculous steel stucture substituting for the great Franklins home..its awful..just rebuild it and let people know it's a reproduction..this is BEN FRANKLINS HOUSE, people!!! I do love how Philadelphia cherish's the great Franklin, he is the greatest of the founding father's and he gets his due respect in his home town..i still cant believe that he does not have a huge memorial in Washington, it's a travesty. Great book..if you have any love at all for architecture history of Philadelphia in general...oh and Philadelphians dont let them tear down Lynnewood Hall in Elkins Park, it's the last of the great Gilded age estates in Philadelphia, it's on it's last leg..dont let it go the way of the late, great Whitemarsh Hall.

Tom Keels has produced a treasure of a book. There are many compilations of photographs of old Philadelphia, but Keels supplies what others mostly lack -- a brief but rich history and context for each of the lost buildings he documents. Many of the photographs will be familiar to anyone interested in Philadelphia history, but this should not discourage you from buying the book. You will learn a great deal, thanks to Keels' perspicacious research. Moreover, his prose is graceful and witty, never stodgy.

This is an amazing book and concept! It's a guided tour of Philadelphia history like no other. The maps in the book are especially effective in highlighting the changes in the Philadelphia landscape over the years. I used the same Philadelphia based cartographers, NaZa, for ABC Philadelphia to highlight the best and most current places for Philadelphia families today, now I'm wondering about the best family places in Philadelphia from yesteryear. This will be on the top of my holiday list this year.

I have read many cop stories but this is one of the tops on my list. From start to finish you can not put this thriller down. What makes it especially interesting is that it seems so real especially since I live in the area. The character development is superb and the street imagery is so lifelike. This is a new author for me and I hope he continues to write more great stories such as this one.

In Philadelphia, two white police officers Mutt and Roy, call for supervisory help. Sergeant Eddie North arrives only to have African-American Councilman Sonny Knight scream at him to get the two cops away from him. Later, Sonny accuses Mutt and Roy of beating him up and adds Eddie to his list of accusation. Both officers deny ever touching Sonny and Eddie believes them because he knows he is innocent and neither of the policemen on the scene showed any sins of using force, let alone excessive.

However, the brass, the politicians, and the media think otherwise forcing an Internal Affairs investigation. As this scenario further splits a city divided over another controversial case, Eddie tries to learn why Sonny lied, but soon finds he is drowning in a polluted cesspool of corruption, bad cops, and duality racism.

The inquiries made by the IA staff and by Eddie are intelligent and entertaining so that police procedural fans have a powerful enjoyable tale. However, FOUR TO MIDNIGHT is more than another urban police story. Instead the theme focuses on how racism engulfs everyone in a swamp and destroys the innocent and their friendships. Thus the audience receives a superb police procedural with a cleverly interwoven powerful message.

Harriet Klausner

FOUR TO MIDNIGHT is a very unusual police novel. As a good, juicy page-turner, it delivers the goods and then some - Flander's handling of action sequences is particularly exciting, and very nearly cinematic (I'd definitely like to see the movie of this one). But it's also an exceptional portrait of a city and the cultures within it - Philadelphia, its neighborhoods, its citizens and their multiple mindsets are all conveyed intimately and immediately, so that you instantly feel like you know this place and these people. Finally, the writing is quietly brilliant. There are very few great stylists in this genre, but Flander, in this book, announces himself as one of them - he has drawn together plot, theme, character and place seamlessly and masterfully, creating, not only a great read, but a great novel.

To the author: I can't tell you how fantastic I think it is that all of your hard work on this book really paid off. To me, it wasn't merely a history book; it was an opportunity to stand beside the men you described and to watch them be who they are. I could see the wear and tear on their clothes and almost smell the baked-in odors of days and months without baths.

From Home Guards to Heroes is a thoroughly researched, creative, and engaging history of the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry and the primary location from which its members came, Adams and York Counties, Pennsylvania. (Reviewer's disclosure: my great-great-great uncle, Daniel P. Reigle, was a member of Company F of the 87th, leading to my personal interest in this unit.)

The foundation of this book is Brandt's extensive research: U.S. census records, nearly 2000 Compiled Military Service Records, and over 1000 pension files for 87th Pennsylvania members, in addition to those records for over 800 men from the Adams/York areas who enlisted in other units in 1861. This study yields descriptive data on the 87th and comparative data relative to men in other units on factors such as their professions, age, physical characteristics, age at death, life expectancy, American-born and foreign-born, and their personal worth in personal property and real estate at the time they enlisted. The data on 1861 enlistments (both 87th and other units) is presented with the 1860 Lincoln vote for each of the fifty-five townships and boroughs in the two counties.

The quantitative research is complemented by extensive use of newspapers, including not only major city newspapers, but the local newspapers in the Gettysburg, York, and Hanover, important for understanding the political landscape and personalities in the area. For example, in addition to the rich contemporary information yielded by those newspapers, this research also yielded the valuable recollections by Michael Heiman in the York Gazette in 1891-1892. Further, Brandt has made use of any available manuscript sources, such as the George Blotcher papers at the excellent library of the York County Historical Trust, the Thomas Crowl papers at the U.S. Army Military History Institute and Penn State University libraries, and other materials provided by 87th descendants. He uses this information to create "sketches" of each company in the 87th, and the primary officers who were instrumental in its formation and its four years of service. I have seen many of these names "on paper" in years of reading about the 87th, but I found Brandt's sketches to provide an entirely new level of perspective on the men themselves.

This is a "real people" approach to the regiment's people and history, and it does not hesitate to share information that is delicate or uncomplimentary. For example, in the unit's rush to organize, there was no attempt to make any pre-enlistment physical examination of the potential enlistees. Brandt presents data to show that this resulted in more than 11% of the 1861 enlistees leaving the service for illness or injury; by comparison, the 7th PA Reserves' Company H, recruited in the same area, conducted full physical exams and experienced less than half that level of attrition. At another level that paints a less-than-heroic picture of some of the 87th's men, the unit was chartered and recruited primarily to provide security on the important Northern Central Railroad between Harrisburg and Baltimore. Although this was critically important to the Union effort in the first year of the war, such duty was not expected to involve major combat, long marches, or significant hardships at great distances from home. As a result, there was significant consternation among some parts of the 87th when their mission changed to becoming a fighting unit in the Union Army. Brandt examines the subject of desertions in detail, both real and on paper only, especially those occurring in the aftermath of the 87th's loss of 293 men captured at 2nd Winchester during the prelude to Gettysburg in June 1863. Drawing on Ella Lonn's classic Desertion During the Civil War for perspective, he provides many details on the individual cases of some men who intended to desert and did so, but also includes cases that illustrate how men could be tagged as "deserters" unfairly due to cumbersome administrative processes,. Finally, the chapter on "South-Central Pennsylvania and Race" will undoubtedly leave readers with roots in the 87th's home territory with a better understanding of the complex views of the community on race, slavery, emancipation, and the meaning of citizenship, but also with some embarrassment in accepting in our 21st Century the opinions of our ancestors in the 19th Century. These are difficult subjects to tackle objectively and fairly, and I commend the author for doing so. It provides additional perspective for the 87th's solid performance as part of the VI Corps in 1864 and 1865.

A difficult choice for the author of any regimental history is how much detail to include on the battles in which the unit participated. Brandt made the choice to not attempt to relate in detail the battles at 2nd Winchester, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, 3rd Winchester, Fisher's Hill, Cedar Creek, the Petersburg Campaign including the Breakthrough on 2nd April 1865, and the Appomattox Campaign. He does include a more extensive analysis of Monocacy because of the 87th's pivotal role there in slowing down Early's advance on Washington D.C. This is clearly the right choice, in my opinion, because it enables Brandt to use the space of his book to focus on the 87th, while the reader interested in more depth on the 87th at the major battles can readily turn to other excellent studies.

This book will be of value to anyone studying the genealogy or local history of the York/Adams County area. However, I also believe this book to be of significant value to anyone interested in an indepth understanding and history of a Union infantry regiment. Although the 87th was, of course, a set of specific individuals and events, the themes, dynamics, and patterns likely have a high degree of similarity in other units. I will not only be re-reading this book more than once, but will use it as a valuable reference in my own Civil War genealogy and history research.

If you are looking for a Civil War story that is new and different this is the book for you. I was held captive from start to finish. Dennis Brandt tells, after 10 years of research, the story only he can tell. The story of the 87th Pennsylvania. It is a story about the lives of the boys from York and Adams county. Yes, Gettysburg is in Adams County but this is not another tired tale of that great story. It is instead about how the boys started their Army life rather dull, guarding railroads ect. as many battles raged on in other parts of the U.S.A. But our boys get taken captive, they escape, they die and in the end we ponder over whether The Grand Old Flag would still fly over those states south of Mason-Dixon if not for these HEROS.

To anyone that is not familar with coal region life...this is a good reflection of what it was like. The hard times, the good times, the cheating and politics that went on even in that era. I thought it was great and very interesting.

I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ANY ONE THAT ENJOYS A GOOD STORY. I FEEL YOU COULD PUT YOUR OWN ANCESTORY INTO SOME OF THE EVENTS IN THIS BOOK. ALTHOUGH IT WAS WRITTEN ABOUT EARLY DAYS OF THE COAL REGION IN PENNSYLVANIA I THINK LIFE WAS LIKE THIS FOR MOST IMMIGRANTS COMING TO AMERICA IN THIS TIME FRAME. I WOULD LIKE TO READ BOOKS NORM OLEY WILL WRITE IN THE FUTURE IF THE STORY KEEPS ME INTERESTED THE WAY THIS ONE HAS.

this is the 1st book i have read in a long time that made me want to finish it the same day. i found this book to be interesting showing accounts of how events actually happened in the early days of coal discovery in the coal region of pennsylvania. i believe this is a book the whole family would enjoy reading. writing was tasteful. being from the coal region and trying to put my own family history to the book although fiction could possibly been loosely based on facts. i am looking forward to the next book norm oley writes.

Just got the book the other day. It has plenty of information of all the golf courses around the NYC area. I also discovered plenty of courses around my area that I didn't know about before! If your an avid golfer around these neck of the woods, this book is a MUST HAVE.

An excellent reference for the Big Apple golfer. Info on all courses within a 70 mile radius of NYC. Including their Top 30 Public Courses, as well as listings of ranges, golf stores and all things golf...SCHWING Magazine-Summer 1999 issue.

If golf is your game...as their ads correctly say "you gotta have this book"...it has everything you need to know about golfing in the NY Metropolitan Area...invaluable !