Mississippi Books

Very clearly presents the organization of the Confederate armies and sorts out a lot of the confusion regarding regimental consolidations and duplicate naming. A great tool for genealogists and Civil War researchers

Mr. Sifakis has done an excellent job chronicling the Arkansas and Florida Confederate Armies, citing dates of organization, battles, commanders, mergers, and dispositions. I would highly recommend this book to any serious researcher.

This is a most worthy men-at-arms series; like the book's description says, it shows the much more colorful side to the uniforms of the Confederate Army. One man depicted in the color plates for Volume One that I found particularly interesting was a soldier in the Union Light Infantry, a SC unit based on the British Black Watch (42nd Royal Highlanders).
The plates are pretty much the highlight of this series, and show realistic looking soldiers surrounded by beautiful women and scenery, and baring all their various weapons. The text, nonetheless, reveals numerous interesting details. This is an excellent source on the uniforms and appearances of the soldiers of the Confederacy.

Osprey Publishing has issued Volume 5 of their popular book, The Confederate Army 1861-65. A part of their sprawling Men-at-Arms series (this is book #441 in that series), this one covers the uniforms and arms of troops from Tennessee and North Carolina. Written by Ron Field and lavishly illustrated with Richard Hook's watercolors, this book is a worthy addition to the Osprey family. Retailing for $15.95 here in the USA ($21 in Canada), the book has 48 pages, nearly all of them with period photographs or full color drawings.

The new book focuses on each state's antebellum militia and the hastily organized volunteer regiments that were pressed into Confederate service in the initial stages of the war. Using contemporary newspaper accounts, letters, state and local records, and early photographs, Ron Field presents an extensive array of early war military units, their uniforms and accoutrements, drawing heavily upon primary descriptions. He also takes a cursory, but interesting look at how the transition occurred from locally supplied clothing and equipment (which often varied widely from company to company) to state-issued regulation Confederate uniforms, particularly in North Carolina, where, by the end of the war, the term "ragged Rebel" would be made obsolete from the vast stores of supplies held by the state.



Field starts with Tennessee, looking at the outfitting of the militia and early volunteers in 1861, and examines the role various ladies aid societies played in clothing the soldiers of the Volunteer State. He then discusses the role of the state's Military and Financial Board in taking over the administration and logistics of supplying the troops. Field then shifts his focus to North Carolina, again discussing and characterizing the antebellum militia and contrasting them to how the state later took charge and made its forces appear more uniform in appearance. He also briefly compares winter clothing to summer issue for troops from both states.



The book includes a select bibliography for readers wanting to dive a little deeper into the outfitting of Confederate troops from Tennessee and North Carolina. The index is comprehensive, as is the discussion that accompanies the Richard Hook's illustrations. All in all, The Confederate Army 1861-85 (5) Tennessee and North Carolina (ISBN: 9781846031878) maintains the tradition of excellence we have come to expect from Osprey, and is well worth the modest investment.

Well, he's not God I guess, but the wisdom he espouses over the course of these interviews (and in his fiction and poetry) will serve anyone well who has questions on how to live in this world or the more Natural one.
I've highlighted and underlined my "Bible" as any student would.

I'm glad I found this book. You know a writer has finally made it when "they" start publishing books ABOUT him, eh?

Jim is a great writer, poetic in a totally accessible way. Don't like poetry? Read his and you'll be a convert.

Jim is a GREAT conversationalist. This book lets you into that world for the first time. This is a compilation of all his major interviews along with some rare ones. As the preface says, there is some repetition in them, but it wears well and shows what is important to Jim.

(I bought the "True Bones" book as well: the bio-pics of the longhair 70's days is great, the cover art is great, but the academic writing style is unreadable. It's a PhD paper in hardcover. Caution flag unless you're fluent in artspeak.)

In "Conversations" we get great insights into the guy and the game. How many top writers today hammer at MFA's like he does? He's pretty honest about Hollywood as well. Hey, his pals there helped him when others wouldn't. He's up front about that and about the banality of the place as well. At the same time, he gets high on the power, the talent and the $1000 dinners. Who wouldn't? He keeps the books as open as anyone.

We have to admit in this country that if someone wrote the actual literature that would keep our culture alive THEY WOULD STARVE TO DEATH. I think Jim is very clear about this. I'm not sure how many other writers who 'made it' are as candid. But he's a 'flyover' and values candor like so many here do.

American literature isn't dead. There are writers out there who have picked up the ball and have been moving it further all these years since Jim was in his prime. They just haven't seen print yet due to the MFA stranglehold. But not for long! "Flyover" spirit lives in the Underground Literary Alliance...The ULA is the first group to do something about the racket and tragedy that Jim laments about in his interviews.

For such a huge talent, I hate to say anything at all detracting, but we fans have our rights. I have one complaint: Harrison lets some of the obligatory Hollywood vibes into his books. It's the "old geezer gets the hot babes" thing. But Jim has always been up front about his need to pay the bills and play the ONLY game that writers are allowed to play if they don't want to teach or starve: the game with Hollywood. It's either feast or famine. (The ULA is changing this!)

Another thing is the jet-set stuff. His characters and even his memoirs tend to be about idle rich guys causing trouble in fancy and rustic places. His rich writer friends from the 70's often used the same plot. It's fine enough, but runs a little short on relevance. The rich aren't like you and me. They aren't even like themselves much of the time, if you consider the theme of confusion in their work. Yeah, I know it's silly: take out the cross-generation sex and jet-setting and what's left? (The Michigan woods all alone?) Where's the tension? Well, that's for the writer to worry about. : ) Jim's dualism of cabin/mansion, stew/caviar is of course like catnip even while a part of it bugs me. He's marvelously joyous about his fancy dinners and famous friends so I'm happy to call it art and not fret about it. He sure is more candid than others about this kind of thing. What else is he supposed to do really. Well, on a different vein: use that bully pulpit more. He's always railed against the MFAs but with his clout now it would stick.

Though some of the topics in these interviews are repeated, overall they provide entertaining reading about Bowles, Tangier and his world. If you are not familiar with Bowles, I'd read Michelle Green's "The Dream at the End of the World" first, as it gives a fascinating and very well-written account of the expatriote community in Tangier, of which Bowles seems to have been the unelected president, or should we say sultan.

I don't regard Bowles as much of a fiction writer. (Apparently, he never got de-kiffed enough to see how sophomoric much of it is.) However, he is a very good conversationalist, as well as travel, or adventure, writer. (See "Without Stopping" and "Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue.")

Edith Wharton's "In Morocco" is a great primer for the cultural backdrop in which Bowles lived and thrived and, like Bowles, she documents people, places and things very well. (If you like Bowles, you'll love her.)

Especially considering the current crisis between Islam and the West, it is important to read about the other guys without having to demonize them all the time. Bowles has an affinity for "the other guys" that is very refreshing. Yes, the North Africans are somewhat unreasonable, but then who isn't? And, is there a connection between Spain having the lowest confidence in President Bush's abilities (7%) and its proximity to, and long, troubled relations with, North Africa? Did you know that 90% of Morocco's Moslems were, at the time of Bowles' writing, not really Arabs, but Berbers, with a very different (and, from other Islamic pov's, unacceptable) approach to the religion? No?! Then read the book. (I had no idea.) If you want schisms, you got schisms. So the subjects discussed with Bowles are often more interesting than the man himself, who is a bit of a pervert and stuffed-shirt. But, he is also a sorcerer and magician, especially if you're stoned out of your mind on kif or majoun. He cultivated a following that was all too open to suggestion.

O.K., now, if you can put up with a lot of name-dropping and self-aggrandisement, then you'll enjoy this book, as much of the interesting "dialogue" between Islam and the West has occurred in Morocco. From Tangier, Bowles could actually see the coast of Spain, and, with his cigarette holder fully extended, flick an ash or two toward Europe. But he could also venture south into the mysterious countryside, with its Atlas Mountains, unnerving desert, oases and towns.

While the man himself might have been a sometimes irritating exercise in stoned-out tweed, many of his observations regarding the onslaught of civilization reflect this bizarre combination of aristocratic teahead, ethnologist, and sadistic dandy.

Caponi's collection of interviews, spanning several decades up to the early 1990's is a must for all real fans of Paul Bowles work, and an intriguing introduction to his life, work and influences for those who know little about him. As with any such collection of interviews, there is bound to be much repetition - different interviewers ask often essentially the same questions, while Bowles gives (more or less) the same answers. However, even for someone like myself, who thinks they know quite a bit about the man and his work (and maintains one of the Paul Bowles pages on the Web -

Many of the interviews touch on many of the other literary figures Bowles has known - Tennessee Williams is a frequent topic of conversation, as are William Burroughs and the other beat writers, and their time spent in Tangiers. It becomes very evident from the few interviews that dwell on the subject that Bowles is not going to talk much about his late wife, Jane. His hatred for the biography 'An invisible spectator' comes through clearly in several places, but I found it intriguing that his preferred biographer (if he had to make a reluctant choice) would be Millicent Dillon, author of the biography of Jane Bowles.

Altogether a very worthwhile read for anyone with any interest in Paul Bowles.

Why do I regard the publisher's remarks about this text being unabridged (read: sanitized to corporate "standards") with such lingering skepticism? Is is a question of having no faith in corporate ethics, or one of needing, however subconsciusly, to deny Sontag's virtuosity of intellect? If the transcribed interviews are reliably authentic, here is a mind quite literally capable of extemporizing sophisticated philosophical discourse. No wonder Camille Paglia attempted to make a cottage industry of ridiculing, belittling, and otherwise attacking this author, who not only anticipated many of Paglia's themes by decades, but who has also shown herself capable of stating in a few laconic phrases what takes Paglia (for all her verbal music) hypomanically-digressive chapters. This is a refreshingly intimate encounter with what "Hurricane Camille" herself has dubbed "one of the great minds of the Twentieth Century", in addition to being far more engaging reading than I had anticipated. Read Paglia's more serious endeavors to exercize your right brain; but read Sontag (this compilation included) to exercise your left. My only regret is noting that certain of the interviews included here were translated back into English from other languages: The smoothness of translation, for good or for ill, gave no clue.

These essays of Sontag's deal in a small part with questions of taste in the fields of art and literature. Also with the encroachments of post modernism onto the Enlightenment education Sontag received in the nineteen fifties. Also, they provide a little context to some of the books Sontag wrote during her lifetime. Sontag always took her subjects and her work seriously, in a culture that frequently asks that we ridicule ourselves and our work.

Although Percy's output was prodigious compared to some literary greats, his six novels and two major non-fiction works leave his still-growing network of fans looking for more. "Conversations with Walker Percy" meets that need. While the biographies of Percy are helpful, there's nothing quite like hearing it straight from the author in this series of interviews. I finished the volume feeling ready to tackle his novels again prepared to look for gems I'd missed the last time around.

This volume (and its companion, More Conversations With Walker Percy) offers a fascinating and compelling glimpse into the mind of Walker Percy and a valuable study of the development of his literary and philosophical convictions as his career progressed. Though Percy's funny satirical piece "Questions They Never Asked Me" would seem to indicate that he found interviews dull and repetitive, the best pieces here clearly demonstrate the pleasure he took in discussing his ideas with an interested, engaged interviewer.

Just loved it and read it twice...you have talent, sir!

This book reminded me of a Hatfields and McCoys type feud going on with two local families in Hancock County. I really thought it was quite a page turner. The author made me feel like I was there in postcivil war Illinois. Very good descriptions of the area, times, people, and ways of life for the people then. I was sorry to see the story end as I felt like I'd made friends with all the characters.

CYCLING TO THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER is as close to experiencing bicycling hundreds of miles as I could get--without actually doing it The Johnson's 4000-mile bicycle trip is s feat which ninety percent of us could not physically do. Or mentally.

To read about the author's visit to her grade school in St. Louis was amazing. What a memory she has--for the names of the six Bettys in her class, and to describe the beautiful kindergarten room with arched windows. Then the chapter, "The Benches of Beaumont High"! Read it, rejoice and rave--in all senses of the word.

This adventure of 2000 miles makes me think Johnson is an iron woman. I can hardly believe she is more than 60 years old! Her descriptions of biking against winds, crossing an old bridge, and climbing hills--all on a 100-mile day--show how energetic she is physically. Her writing shows her intellectual energy, too.

I suppose she was tired a little at the end, but satisfied to take a good rest. Her husband Ted sounded like the best companion for a trip like this.

Being from Greenvile, the heart of the Mississippi Delta, this book was such a pleasure to read. It was how I remember the Delta of my childhood. I knew some of these characters in real life. The story takes place in Port City, which is really Greenville. The levee, cotton, catfish, kudzu, the unique smell of the oil mill cooking cotton seeds, it was like being home again in the 40's.
Whoever said "you can't go home again" was wrong. If you are from the "Delta", all you have to do is read this book and you are home.

In her debut novel, Ms. Bolding has vividly captured the feel of the late 1940s in the Mississippi Delta. Her lens brings into focus not only the lives of her gripping characters, but also the Southern canvas on which she has beautifully painted them. For fans of Gone With the Wind and other Southern classics, The Cyclops Window is a must-read. Let this tale grow on you just like that reknowned Southern vine - kudzu.

The greatest poet, along with Rilke, of the twentieth century . This collection of interviews, almost exclusively since the Nobel Prize year, only demonstrates the generosity and elegance of the great master and , to my delight, the good man. Like Matisse, Milosz grows in our hearts as we find more about the artist. The great artists are differentiated by their scope, depth, and convivial openness to eternity, as it enlarges their vision, poem by poem, painting by painting, created in the blood of heartache and the courage of faith that goodness endures.

a must read, give yourself a gift, spend time with this book

I am indebted to Ms.Haven for bringing Dr. Milosz and his conversations to the world. A literary giant and genius,he was an unassuming and humble man . Such accomplishments,such trials and suffering and yet through his poetry and writing,he strove to make a better world for us all. He bled
for us all,still able to retain his faith. Superb.
M.Baker