Georgia Books

This book is an amazing resource for anyone interested in Georgia flora.
The information on all the different natural communities that can be found throughout the state is great. The guide is easy to use and the information contained on each species is fantastic, the line drawings especially. The section on non-native invasive plants is also a nice addition. I can see this being useful for both the amateur naturalists and professionals; highly recommended!

as a wildlife veterinarian, this is one of the first manuals I recommend to people who are interested. however, it is available for $20 at the SCWDS website (brand new) which is a lot cheaper than the $50 it is advertised for as used on this site. Great pictures, straight to the point. worth every penny.

The author , Kevin Dallmier, is an skilled fisherman and talented outdoor writer who does an excellent job of pointing the Georgia angler to the peach state's most productive fishing waters.Whether you are a novice or expert angler , you will find useful information in this book that will make you a more productive angler and I highly recommend it!

Offers eighty-nine black-and-white photographs intended to provide readers with a visual perspective of O'Connor's fictional world.

The photographs present typical middle-Georgia scenes, including: house trailers, signs with fundamentalist slogans, junk yards, "articial niggers," Stone Mountain, old barns, country stores and a "pig parlor."

Features a number of photographs of O'Connoresque individuals relaxing, socializing, worshipping, or working in agricultural settings along with photographs of the interior and exterior of O'Connor's homes in Milledgeville and on the nearby family farm, Andalusia.

Includes a twenty-page introduction to O'Connor's life preceding the main body of photographs, along with an additional twenty-one photographs of Flannery, her parents and friends.

R. Neil Scott / Middle Tennessee State University

Kinney provides an indexed, annotated bibliographic list of books and other items included in Flannery O'Connor's personal library. The Library was given to the Ina D. Russell Library at Georgia College & State University by her mother, Regina Cline O'Connor.

Bibliographic annotations include: whether the book is in hardcover or paperback; publication and series information; publication or copyright date; and, whether editorial information is included.

The annotations are followed by descriptive acknowledgements of markings in the book contents, including: whether O'Connor had signed or dated the book; and, whether any marginal linings, marinalia, underlining, check-marks, or asterisks are visible. (States that O'Connor's original form and spelling were preserved.)

Notes that her magazines and journals are listed separately.

Also includes references to reviews that she wrote on a particular book and whether any mention of the book, "its preparation, publication, reception, or the ideas in it and O'Connor's evaluation of it," are in any of O'Connor's letters published in The Habit of Being, edited by Sally Fitzgerald.

Provides insight into O'Connor's reading interests from excerpts of letters to "A" [Elizabeth "Betty" Hester] and Janet McKane. Reports how she acquired the volumes included, notes significant gaps in the collection, and suggests titles of more than thirty books that the compiler (Kinney) is certain that she would have used extensively.

Suggests that the contents of the Library reflects O'Connor's "staunch Catholicism" and supports those who view her as a "keen amateur theologian." Focuses on marginalia and various other underlined and penciled portions of text that serve as "direct signposts" to help readers map out O'Connor's "aesthetic theory."

R. Neil Scott / Middle Tennessee State University

Coles describes the "social scene" and the civil rights movement in Georgia during the early 1960s. Contrasts O'Connor's "northern reader"-- and the perspective of the South that he or she brings to a reading -- with the version of reality that O'Connor saw and portrayed in her fiction.

Discusses her view of the grotesque, her treatment of black characters, and the various philosophical and religious themes seen in her work. Provides a fairly close, but informal reading of "The Displaced Person." Sees it as reflective of the South as a region, and asserts that, through this story, O'Connor "pursued her main business of storytelling as a means of showing the depth of God's mysteries." Contends that the result is "a series of reminders about God's earth as well as His universe, [and] His Commandments," resulting in "a rare and exceedingly high kind of sociology, history, [and] social psychology."

Discusses her comment that the South's alienation was "`not alienation enough,'" and her belief that the South was finding itself forced not only out of its sins, but its "`few virtues'" as well. Considers such topics as: pride, intellectual conviction, "practical heresies, the South's "`old-time religion,'" and "backwoods fundamentalism" as seen in "Parker's Back," "Good Country People," and "The Artificial Nigger." Suggests that O'Connor's "own theological sophistication enabled her to connect the sights and sounds of back-country, southern twentieth-century life to a history that began in Christ's time, and even before."

Coles illustrates his points with lengthy explications of O'Connor's novel, Wise Blood and her story, "Parker's Back." Regards O'Connor as a "Southern intellectual" who "steeped herself" in literature, religion, art, psychology, and in "her own sharp fashion, the South's social and political matters." Sees this background evident in "her repeated jabs at social science, psychology, theorists, and ... the entire liberal, secular world." Reads "The Lame Shall Enter First" as O'Connor's attempt "to dramatize an incompatibility she has seen about her in this modern world: intellectuals who mock traditional religion, then take a certain religious way of getting along with others."

Contrasts intellectual and spiritual knowledge in "Good Country People," "The Enduring Chill" and The Violent Bear It Away. Refers to works by Simone Weil, St. Thomas Aquinas, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Georges Bernanos.

Concludes that O'Connor was "a writer with few peers...of enormous promise...a soul blinded by faith; hence with an uncanny endowment of sight."

R. Neil Scott / Middle Tennessee State University

Jennifer Dick is a superior wordsmith whose poetry benefits from her awareness of the limitations of language to convey all of the yearning and pain inherent in the human condition. By embracing these limitations, she creates poetry that challenges the reader on an experiential level. Reading and re-reading her is a very rewarding experience.

Camuto takes the reader through one year of fly fishing in the Blue Ridge Mountains, delving into the changes he observes in his streams. The book contains much that is of practical use to fly fisherman, such as the timing of hatches, etc, but its real strength lies in the beauty with which Camuto describes his surroundings. He is a true naturalist in that he actually participates in that which he describes, unlike so many who only observe. I have camped in his Blue Ridge and fished his streams, and I must say that my time spent there has been enriched by his thoughtful commentary. I highly recommend this book for naturalists and fly fisherman alike.

With summer here, it's great to have so many ideas on keeping the kids entertained in Atlanta. This is a fun, practical guide for parents with all kinds of helpful info like kid-friendly food near every attaction. No other travel guide has so many cool, off-the-beaten-path attractions specifically aimed toward parents and kids.

Food is important to me - and this book has a great selection of restaurants in the first section. (No long and boring descriptions of Atlanta's history here!) The restaurants are organized by food type. However if you looking for one by name or by neighborhood, the index at the back is quick and easy. The restaurants I have visited consistently have had a good quality/price ratio.

The nice map section at the front of the book is a major feature of the book:
Positives:
- right at the front
- high amount of detail in the city center (where I live)
- easy to quickly find what I'm looking for using the map index number at the start of every attraction

Negative:
- the master map of the Atlanta area does not show boxes for the smaller more detailed maps! Therefore if I am on page 8 and am trying to get to a location on page 12, it is very difficult to determine how far it is, or even which direction to go.