Georgia Books

Sharron Martin has lead quite an interesting life. A music teacher by education (at Alabama College, now Montevallo University) she followed her husband through his educational process and finally landed in Augusta, Georgia. She found a job teaching music, but had to commute between two classrooms twenty miles apart; taught around 1,000 students; and lugged her equipment from classroom to classroom every half hour. She finally realized that writing was her first love and waved goodbye to her unorthodox teaching situation. And like many great mystery writers, she and her husband have a cat.

Elizabeth Poindexter is an amateur sleuth. Her twin sister, Mary Peach, is a doctor, and Elizabeth's grandson, Michael Davonport, is an assistant with the District Attorney's office. So when Dottie Mathison's strangled body is found behind the organ after choir practice, Elizabeth's sleuthing skills come in handy as Michael swings into action investigating the murder and holding the local deputy Sheriff Whaley at bay:

"'I hear we got another one and that it was done by a professional. I ran into Fred outside,' Whaley added as an explanation. 'I knew it. I told you it was someone from the outside. But, no. You don't ever listen to me.' He looked around the room before finally glancing down at the body. 'Good God! Why is that white thing on his face?'"

Martin spins an Agatha Christie type of cosy mystery in which the small town's citizens eventually reveal all their secrets in a Southern tale full of church politics; senior denizens; and small town Southern Americana. Her characters are delightful, whether it be the somewhat dazed and confused Cousin Felicity, whose hair color changes with the blooming flowers; the shy and sad Woody, whose pitiful life sets him up as a suspect; to the choir members themselves, who seem to have flaws they would rather cover up, including the clergy.

Martin's first mystery is a sweet and wistful look at human nature, written by a woman with years of teaching under her belt. She fools the reader completely until the end of the book, and each chapter compels a serious look at the featured character. MURDER SINGS OUT is thoroughly delightful and is a carefully crafted first effort by a natural writing talent.

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

Tracy Dean has done an excellent and most thorough job of surveying and assessing the historical architecture of Muscogee County, Georgia. This volume is a useful addition to Georgia's historic preservation library. This study represents many, many hours of outstanding work. I look forward to the sequel.

My Dear Friend: The Civil War Letters of Alva Benjamin Spencer 3rd Georgia Regiment Company C is a collection of civil war correspondence by Alva B. Spencer, a man who accepted the Baptist faith at a young age, graduated from Mercer University in Georgia, and enlisted as a Confederate private in the American Civil War. My Dear Friend is not only an up-close and personal look at the Civil War up to the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, but also a love story - the letters are penned specifically to Alva's beloved "Maggie" at home. An entrancing, and at times heart-rending chronicle.

I want to know where in his writings does he treat fairly extensively the "acquiring of a second skin" as a result of being absorbed into the Gulag? I have found a very brief reference in the glossary of my old paperback translation from the early eighties. I know in years past that I read a more extensive treatment of this topic, but scanning of all his major works except August 1914 (which I have not read) and Cancer Ward (which I have read, but the local library does not have a copy) has not turned up this reference. Please someone help in this matter!

With this Georgia garden journal, you will learn how to transform the garden pictured in your mind's eye into reality. You will discover which plants thrive, which ones struggle and best of all, you will appreciate the many suprises your garden offers from season to season. You'll learn a lot from this journal/guide and your garden will show the results!

This book is insightful, entertaining, and can connect with people of all faiths. I had a hard time putting this book down, as it makes you not want to get off of the roller-coaster ride of soul-searching and suprises.

I loved this book. It offers an illuminating glimpse into wildly different sects of Christianity - from mainstream to little-known sects you couldn't have invented if you tried. Ben Cohen took a bold and controversial journey into the Christian Bible Belt to better understand himself, and that moxie is just as apparent in his lucidly and humorously written retelling of his journey.

The message of My Jesus Year is that there is a spiritual intersection of all religions - that all religions have unique ways to tap into the souls of their followers. And that there is no reason why we can't all learn from each other to strengthen our own unique beliefs and styles of worship.

My Jesus Year has a body full of humor, intrigue, and fascinating tidbits - and a soul full of charm.

"Mysticism" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy" http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

A wonderfully written book about connecting children with nature. Definitely recommended for anyone with or without children!

During the short time of the Trustee Era, the leader of the British colony of Georgia James Oglethorpe worked to establish a mutually beneficial, peaceful relationship with the Creek Indians, whose leader in this was Tomochichi. The activities between the two parties have a resemblance to the diplomatic activities between two countries. On a trip to England to get guidance on the developing negotiations, Oglethorpe took Tomochichi and other Creeks as representatives of the Creek nation. The relationship between the Creeks and the Georgia colony eventually worked out involved trade, land rights, and legal protections; and it was the basis for a military alliance in the War of Jenkin's Ear against the Spanish over differences in north Florida. The "charter" between the English colonists and the Creeks did not hold up with the coming of the Revolutionary War. In the early 1800s, the Creeks were relocated to Oklahoma. Sweet's account of this exceptional charter, or treaty, between European colonists and Native Americans evidences sophisticated and enlightened political behavior by both parties. This author is an assistant professor of history at Baylor.

It could only have been written by a Canadian! No mainstream Brit or American journalist would hold up the dirty underwear of the East European "democratic transition" in broad daylight - if only because so many of the stains orginated in London and Washington.

Mark MacKinnon has done an excellent investigative job in portraying the packaged "democracy" of the color-coded pseudo-revolutions that swept through the former Soviet bloc (and, later, targeted other sites from Lebanon to Venezuela) within the last decade: how they were spawned in "think tanks" funded by Western governments, and their agendas formulated to serve strategic Western agendas. Ironically, MacKinnon sees no difference between this subsidized subversion and the Putin-style "managed democracies" they target. And of course he's right.

Promoting "democratic revolution" has become the surrogate for direct armed invasion - though, as in Iraq, both can work well together. The strategies these ersatz movements pursue are no different from Communist Popular Front tactics in the same region after World War Two - in fact, the Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" resembles nothing so much as the Czechoslovak "Communist coup" of 1948: a great betrayal of democracy when committed by Them, a flowering of the democratic spirit when choreographed by Us.

Of course there is real frustration and disappointment in the targeted nations, and the revolutionaries of color can find fertile fields for sowing. But the end result does not serve the people whose anger has been manipulated, but invariably the economic and "security" interests of major Western powers, principally but not exclusively the United States. The danger of raising false hopes in these client regimes has been all too plainly illusttrated in the case of Georgia, whose US-installed president launched an armed quarrel with Russia banking on the broad American support he'd grown used to, hoping to force his country's inclusion into NATO. When the US didn't "come through" pro-US feeling quickly turned sour, the disillusioned backlash inevitable after starry-eyed adolescent puppy-love meets the real world. Beyond doubt more such knee-jerk little wars and subsequent bad feeling await other "successful" color-coded regimes described in MacKinnon's book.