Mississippi Books

Albert manages to get another great book! This was enjoyable as expected. Although many people have complained about the bad pickle jokes, I thought it was rather funny - after all, they admit they are bad and just add to the overall fun. A murder mystery can always use a little humor to keep it from getting too depressing.

Herbalist and sometime sleuth China Bayles is in a tizzy. The daughter of her best friend Ruby has turned up on her doorstep pregnant and needing a place to stay. Her husband had decided to make a career change and become a private investigator.
His first client is Phoebe Morgan, the Pickle Queen of Texas. She suspects an employee of cooking the books and hires McQuaid to follow the money. Just before Picklefest kicks off, Phoebe disappears. . .

Another great China Bayles mystery. If you're not already a fan, you will be by the time you've finished!

The herbal detective, China Bayles is back and she's in a pickle this time. China and best friend Ruby are on the board that stages the annual Picklefest in Pecan Creek. The event is lorded over by the pickle queen herself, Ms. Morgan, and when she gets offed, the pickle juice flies. Hubby McQuaid is tired of his boring life as a teacher and opens his own PI service, and Ms. Morgan is his first client. She believes one of her employees, Vincent, is fixing the books. So there's a plethora of suspects once again. Add to this the arrival of Amy, Ruby's just discovered daughter, at China's door, announcing she is pregnant and needs a place to stay. Seems like the father of Amy's baby may be involved in the murder too---until he turns up dead!
Wow...fans of the series will love this worthy addition to the China Bayles series. Ms. Albert knows how to combine her herbal expertise with good mystery plotting. A dilly of a book.

This series is one of my favorites and I love going back to the Texas hill country with each new installment of China Bayles' intrigues. I like getting reacquainted with China's friend and partner, Ruby. The other characters in the book don't disappoint either. Interesting facts about pickles and pickle making are included throughout the book, with recipes at the back. Ms. Wittig gives us well-written cozies with a modern flair.

Unlike other titles sitting on the table by my bedside, A Dilly of a Death kept me reading late into the night. I admit that I am a China Bayles fan; however, it was not always that way. Even as I admired the author's writing style and the details about herbs and gardening and local color, I did not like China Bayles all that much in the early stories. There were times when she just wouldn't deal with her feelings. I wanted to say, "Grow up, China." Somewhere along the way, she did. Not to say the earlier books were not good. They were yummy. In every book, Albert focuses on a different topic, such as the dying of cloth or chili peppers. We learn about China's shop, her friend Ruby, and her hunk of a boyfriend, then husband. She even tosses in a couple of good, relevant recipes. China becomes a friend.

Dilly revolves around a pickle factory family. In this tale, we, too, go round and round. Who did it this time? Was it the neighbor who had a past with the victim? Was it the secretary? Was it the son? How about the artist in the guest quarters? We are kept guessing until the end.

Meanwhile, life in Pecan Springs, Texas, moves along. Flamboyant Ruby, who is mostly a grown woman, finds her past repeating itself when her daughter tries out her wings. In the ways that count, though, Amy isn't at all like her mother. Ruby has the wisdom and self-confidence of a few decades of life experience under her belt, while Amy hasn't yet discovered True North. If Amy has gained any wisdom, she doesn't bother to display it very regularly. Ruby has trouble remembering that she, too, had trouble discovering True North.

Albert has written another winner with psychological insight, wit and an absorbing plot. Read it. It will capture your imagination, and you will learn a lot about cucumbers and pickles along the way.

by Judith Helburn
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviews.org
reviewing books by, for, and about women

This is a compelling story, but it's full of inference and excessively fluffy. From a historian's perspective Huffman does not have enough evidence to be legitimate. If you're looking for a real history of either Mississippi or West Africa (my two areas of expertise) look elsewhere.

A 20th century Missisipian explores how the actions of a few slaveholders before the Civil war have affected modern history. A very good read.

Huffman takes readers through quite a journey as he gives the history of abolitionists in Mississippi and the ultimate return of blacks to Africa. His story is fascinating and I simply couldn't put down the book until I read every page.

What a great story. This book covers so many subjects in a complete and interesting way. There is the detective story of the slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and their lives, a story of the current state of affairs in southern Mississippi and finally a gripping account of modern day Liberia and its turbulent history. Just a great story that I wished would go on longer.

Alan Huffman's book on the history of a group of freed slaves, their journey back to Africa and the modern story of Liberia is important and very interesting. Huffman gives us (1) a view of life and history that formed our society and culture in Mississippi, (2) provides an overview of Liberia's history and our connection to it (a chapter of US history that is seldom mentioned ... I never heard of Liberia and the US role in its founding before arriving in West Africa in 1978), and (3) shows that Faulkner was right in saying that the past continues to impact us.

In 1978 I went to Guinea Bissau,West Africa, to work on a USAID (foreign aid) program in the country's rice growing region. It was there that I heard, for the first time, of a group of freed slaves returning to Africa and establishing a country, Liberia, in 1821 with it's capital named after the fifth US president James Monroe. By 1838, 20,000 American blacks (ex-slaves and freed men --- including the slave group from Jefferson County that was the subject of his research) made up the population of the Colonization Society and Liberia. Today the descendants of these settlers make up about 5 percent of Liberia's population. This elite group dominated the political and economic sectors for more that 150 years. A backlash against this group in 1980 by descendants of local tribesmen caused the chaos that grips modern day Liberia. It's important to me and you today because of the potential links that states in chaos have to terrorist groups (Huffman talks of the potential laundering of Al Queda money through diamond sales in Liberia and the attempt to use the country as a conduit for the purchase of illegal arms --- including stinger missles).

Huffman brings the reader full circle and gives interesting details of his research and the people he meets along the way. He also provides details on our Mississippi history about slave and slaveholder interaction and the cultural values it imprinted on our society. I also liked the tidbits of history like the origin of Alcorn State University (evolving from a school for the sons of plantation owners to the first land grant college in the United States). This is a good book that I highly recommend.

This book is just okay. I would give it 2.5 stars if I could, to reflect the true averageness of this book. It starts out well, with colorful characters in desperate circumstances. The parts about Kiki's life, Soupspoon's battle with illness, and his early introduction to the blues lifestyle are interesting and well-told. The story peters out about halfway in, however, and one never really shares or believes in Soupspoon's obsession with his past with RL. The last half of the book seems hurriedly written, and contains some unexpectedly hackneyed story elements--the stuff with Chevette, in particular. (Didn't this same ridiculous male fantasy crop up in that other truly average novel "About Schmidt?")

this is the first book i have purchased written my mr. mosley. his descriptions and character development are very good as is the plot. the only issue i have with his work were the romantic relationships and the sexuality described in them. i am hardly a prude and i know that this is fiction but i felt that the sexual liasons that took place were not beleivable and not relevant to the storyline. other than this one issue, this is a very good book and i would recommend it.

I don't know that I've read anything like this before - the guy has his own very readable style. It starts a bit like the movie `Paris, Texas', where you suddenly are in the middle of seemingly unbelievable people in extreme circumstances, and then over time you realise how credible they are.
 
I don't know how `real' these characters are - everything is always life or death, intense pain and/or emotional climax: is it that Mosley's skipping the bits where `nothing much happened that afternoon', or is he suggesting that this sort of overwhelming life is actually happening constantly? At times it feels like a `Pulp Fiction' style sensory overload fantasy, at others a `serious' character novel.
 
The issues they're facing are not mine, but the stories and characters are engaging (and confronting), and well told. There's some background thriller/suspense - well done too - but this is a million miles from a formula paperback.

RL's Dream is a haunting story that will change the way you see your life. Through this book, you will see ways that facing up to your pain can bring redemption.

The book opens as elderly black Jazz musician, Atwater "Soupspoon" Wise, painfully returns to his apartment in lower Manhattan. His respite is brief when the landlord's men evict him for many months of not paying his rent and call Social Services to pick him up to be returned to a homeless shelter. It's cold as Soupspoon lies amidst his few belongings on the sidewalk, and it's getting dark. He's so sick he can barely speak, and has a horrible pain in his hip. He feels death standing over him.

While he's been going through this, one of his neighbors, Ms. Kiki Waters, a young white woman is also painfully coming home after being released from a hospital after being stabbed by a young boy. She is appalled to find Soupspoon on the street, for he is the man whose happiness had just cheered her a few days before the attack on her. Knowing her duty as a human being, she orders the men to move Soupspoon into her apartment along with some of his belongings.

Kiki nurses Soupspoon back to health, but uses methods that leave her life at risk.

In the course of their evolving relationship, each one learns how to turn pain into beauty and goodness. Soupspoon does it by playing and singing the blues. Kiki does it by facing up to and overcoming her fears.

The story is beautifully developed around the memories that Soupspoon and Kiki carry around of their younger days in the South. Soupspoon is frustrated that he cannot reach the heights as a musician that his friend RL Johnson could. Kiki carries intense fear from the abuse she suffered at her father's hands. Both are prisoners of those memories until they take steps to move beyond them. Those steps are their redemption.

To me the most powerful part of the book is the opening. Imagine yourself riding home on the subway full of stitches from a knife attack. Emerging, you see a poor, old man lying on the street who is your neighbor. Would you stop to help? What would you do to help? Chances are that you would not do as much as Kiki does. Yet we are supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves. Kiki hasn't known much love, yet she gives all she has to Soupspoon. It's a beautiful story, and shows how beautiful life can be.

If you also love the Blues, this book will reward you with wonderful sketches of what is was like to create that rich music that grew out of pain in the South during the early 20th century.

There are some writers whose talent is so special that you want to save their books and make the reading of them an occasion. Walter Mosley is one of those writers. He invests his characters with such depth, such full histories that you cannot help but care about them. RL's Dream is populated by a cast of such characters; even the most minor ones (including a baby) are fully fleshed and very real. Soupspoon and Kiki are two almost-lost souls who bring each other back to life in unexpected ways. It is a credit to Mosley's rare and splendid talent that the book itself resonates with music; its cadence is almost audible in the spare prose, the all-too-human behavior of people who, often, do things without even really knowing why. To comprehend the blues, to put words, literally, to a musical theme and to do so in a kind-hearted and deeply understanding fashion is to deliver magic in the form of a book. This is a "must read" novel.

when you dive into this amazing novel. this will be my all time favorite book. when kingbury wrote this book she made sure the reader could feel the mississippi summer-time heat and smell the bbq. if anyone is a sucker for sweet summertime romance and a little bit of mystery then this is the book for you. make sure this is one for your collection. you will not be dissapointed.

The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me depicts the life of Haley Ellyson and her Mr.Greel who together capture the story's unforgettable characters, sultry summer location, and timeless themes. Although many books claim to have unforgettable characters, Suzanne Kingsbury's meet and exceed this expectation. Through Fletcher Greel we see empathy and an uncanny understanding for life; Haley teaches us what it is like to young and on fire. The atmosphere in which the story unfolds also adds to the reality of the novel. The story takes place in a fictional town in the Deep South where scorching temperatures brew up racial conflicts. Haley and Fletcher's summer love, the secrets Haley keeps inside, and the cultural ties of the town's people all present themselves as major themes in the novel. We see these themes unraveling before us to an ultimate and tragic demise. Suzanne Kingsbury's novel pulls as all the heartstrings within us leaving us with a sense of loss and a yearning for more.

The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me depicts the life of Haley Ellyson and her Mr.Greel who together capture the story's unforgettable characters, sultry summer location, and timeless themes. Although many books claim to have unforgettable characters, Suzanne Kingsbury's meet and exceed this expectation. Through Fletcher Greel we see empathy and an uncanny understanding for life; Haley teaches us what it is like to young and on fire. The atmosphere in which the story unfolds also adds to the reality of the novel. The story takes place in a fictional town in the Deep South where scorching temperatures brew up racial conflicts. Haley and Fletcher's summer love, the secrets Haley keeps inside, and the cultural ties of the town's people all present themselves as major themes in the novel. We see these themes unraveling before us to an ultimate and tragic demise. Suzanne Kingsbury's novel pulls at all the heartstrings within us leaving us with a sense of loss and a yearning for more.

I wish that Fletcher Greel had loved me. If only he were real! This book was so good that I felt as if I were there with the characters that summer. What made me like this book so much was how descriptive Suzanne Kingsbury was - she put so much INTERESTING detail into this novel. If my eye accidentally wandered to another line - I went back to read the previous one - I did not want to miss a single thing - my mind drank in every word.

The descriptions were so real, I was astounded to realize that she did not grow up in the South.

There are no quotation marks in the book, to denote when a character starts and stops speaking - but after a chapter or two I got used to the format.

You will smile, laugh, and cry when you read the story of four young friends who experience love, heartache, reality, and life all packed into one summer.

Normally, I'm kind of wary when someone writes a novel taking place in the South, espically if they're not Southern. According to the back, the author, Ms Suzanne Kingsbury spent a year in Oxford, Mississippi while writing her debut novel. It shows because she captures the spirit and the essence of the South. The characters are vivid and became alive and real to the reader as the novel progresses. To those who've never been to or lived in the South, this novel is excellent window into it. And to us natives, this novel reminds us what we love and don't love, about the most surreal part of America, the South.

I finished Velvet Sky and it was absolutely brilliant, a work of fine art. I finished it, closed the book and just cried. I was so moved and I was so glad I read it... You did a wonderful job.. keep up the good work... thanks Connie (Newton, MS)

As I read this gem of a book the word "evocative" springs to mind. It has been a long time since I've read something that so moved me. Buy this book and just sit back and enjoy the read.

Rusty Van Reeves is 10 days younger than I am. He describes the childhood and coming of age of young people in a small Mississippi town in the early 1970's. This town could be anywhere in the south, the children anyone of a group of forty-something people. I felt so many of his descriptions in my heart, and deep in my memories. He could have been describing any number of days and summer nights from my growing up.

The main characters are all very different, yet linked in many ways. Patrick is a young man who is being pushed by his father to become a prize athlete. Chase has been his best friend since grade school and is struggling with a secret he feels he must keep or risk losing everything he holds precious; Chelsea has a secret of her own that is so horrible it could slowly destroy her. Kelley is a beautiful, yet kindhearted girl who cares deeply about everyone.

These characters are slowly drawn together when Chelsea's secret comes to light when a horrible murder is discovered. The characters in this book are very believable. The reader grows to understand and care about each and every one.

The book progresses from the early ages of 9 or 10 until the characters are graduating high school. The mystery of the two young people's secrets and the growing love between the other two keep the book interesting and rapidly moving forward. All in all, Velvet Sky is a wonderful read and I would gladly recommend it. ~Susan Johnson /reviewer

During the summer I like reading books that remind me of my childhood and growing up in the south. VELVET SKY is the perfect book to transport you back in time (1960's/1970's) to that magical era. The novel shows you the frustrations of first love and does a wonderful bit of storytelling that keeps you flipping the pages. I loved it!

The time, place and characters, even references to music, in the novel took me back to younger days, and while my own trials and tribulations of that time were not those of these characters, the struggles bear similarities. The book reveals how different facets of love touch the characters--family love, friendship love, sexual love, puppy love, sadistic love, romantic love, obsessive love, idealistic love--and how their lives are affected. It was as if i could have been a part of the story without actually being a character mentioned in the book, because these were people i knew or could have known, and the pacing of the book kept my interest to find out what would happen next in each storyline. Mainly, however, it reminded me that somewhere back in 1978, there remains a kiss on my lips and a sweet slow dance for the boy next door. Thanks for the memories, Mr. Reeves! Looking forward to more...

tom sawyer is a young boy who always causes trouble. when he teams up with huckleberry finn the trouble doubles.tom is lazy and doesent like to work so he tricks every boy in town to make it sound like its a privlage. tom and huck decide that they are going to run away and be pirates. the town seaches the river and find their boat whih floated domn the river. after a week the town decided the boys were dead and held a funeral and tow snuk into to his house and the boys walked into the funeral. after the funeral the boys decided to be tresure hunters and find a treasure. they decided to search a hunted house before they find a treasure injuan joe finds it first. injuan joe runs away. tom and a girl named Becky get lost in a cave and find injuan joe in the cave. tom and becky get out of the cave and the town locked the cave shut. when he told them that injuan joe was in the cave the town opened it and injuan joe layed dead on the floor by the door. om and huck snaek in the cave and find the treasure and that basically ends the story.

This book was really good. I like the adventure in it. The book was very exciting. It really kept my interest. This book made me realize what it would be like in the 1850s.

This book works brilliantly on two levels. The first being a simple story of boyhood adventures the second as a subversive multi-layered literary masterpiece. You can see this dichotomy clearly from the other reviews on this book.

Mark Twain is able to write a seemingly straightforward adventure book that consistently questions and pokes fun at the conventional wisdom of 19th century America. He rips on the hypocrisy of Christianity, slavery, class structure and most of the widely accepted paradigms of American society.

I love his sense of irony and the subtleness of his ascerbic wit. My guess is that even when he wrote this book most of his readers did not understand the subtler messages he was conveying. Good for him, otherwise it probably would not have been the best seller it was.

I urge the readers of this book to really take a look at the subtext. You will find a treasure chest of thought provoking jabs aimed at American society that are, for the most part, still relevant today.

This prequel to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn focuses on Tom Sawyer. The story chronicles the day to day events of the protagonist, and with Twain's vivid imagery and colloquial style, it will seem like you are there with Tom.

The first time I read this, I found this simply to be a rather light-hearted book with some drama mixed in with romance, perfect for kids just reaching their tens and beyond. The most I got out of it was the plot, how Tom becomes a hero after seemingly on a whim, decides to run away onto an island where they can do anything they want. Later, upon his return, he testifies against a murderer and finds hidden treasure. (How can someone not blame me for not saying that that this is almost a kid tale, reminiscent of the Hardy Brothers... brings back nostalgic memories).

Anyways, when I read it again, this time older, I found this to be a classical tale to be a bildungsroman. The telling of the story of the growth of a boy, named Tom. Twain incorporates many symbols within the story, filling into the archetype of the bildungsroman structure, from the village, the gold, to the cave. While the village could be interpreted to be a minuscule model of the United States, it could also be simply the place where Tom experiences his growth. The cave symbolizes the trial that he has to pass in order to reach into adulthood and be incorporated into society as a full-fledged adult. The gold that Tom finds in the end, may well also be the end of his journey and the reaping of his rewards. It is his happy ending.

This book, construed with the image of a small town in America and written in that colloquial style too, simply enthralls the readers and lures them in. It should be read by all children of all ages, well, considering that when they actually have the ability to read. Twain's book may not need to be limited to just children, as it also has some rather mature themes and motifs underlying the story. These may include the presence of society's hypocrisy present within the story, the presence of crime ranging from misdemeanors like playing hooky and all the way to murder, to messages about freedom, how society may inhibit that freedom.

These are some things, to think about, regardless, I strongly urge anyone with the slightest possibility of buying this book to purchase it. It may also be purchased in conjunction with its sequel. A warning, however, the second book is not as "adventury" as the first, because its themes are a little bit more mature than the first.

I first read this book in high school and at the time, I found it boring and didn't like reading it, but then again I was forced to read it for English class. Anyone knows being forced to do something isn't as fun as willingly doing so yourself! LOL

But, years later I decided to re-read this book on a whim, and to my delight I found myself enjoying this book immensely. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer chronicles the day-to-day happenings of a young boy in Missouri and his mischievous and playful antics about town. Tom Sawyer is a rascal. He has no qualms about cutting school and romping in the forest to play pirate or tricking his peers into wanting to whitewash a fence (which I found totally hilarious!). Despite his reckless and selfish ways, he is a character that arouses feelings of sympathy and amusement.

I found myself sympathizing with his woes (of course, all which came about because of Tom Sawyer himself) and smiling at his antics and beliefs (his superstitious beliefs, for instance his belief that burying a dead cat in the graveyard at midnight will cure warts!).

Interestingly, I found that in reading this book I started recalling my *own* childhood and the games and activities I participated in as a little girl. This book doesn't have any great moral lesson to teach the reader, or some profound idea to enlighten us with. It's allure lies in its ability to compel the reader into looking back on one's own childhood with feelings of nostalgia and longing for the carefree and innocent days of childhood where anything is possible. This is a book of pure entertainment. Twain wrote a brief preface to the book and he stated that this was one of his reasons in writing this book: to hopefully create these kinds of memories in the reader, to have the reader wistfully think back on their childhood and remember the way they once were as children.

Anyways, the book was very easy reading, the language simple to understand and not flowery in its descriptions. The characters and locale leap from the pages and come alive. You are there with Tom Sawyer and are privy to life in a small town off the Mississippi, and it's all so vividly and simply told, that when you reach the very last page and finish, you wish the story could go on and you could get more glimpses into Tom Sawyer's world. In fact, the next book is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and although it's not a sequel to this book, it does continue with some familiar characters introduced in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

I loved this book--especially the evocation of seventies-era Baton Rouge. Strong characters and a vivid sense of place. Highly recommended for those who love their short stories clean and unvarnished.

Red Stick is English for Baton Rouge and these stories take place in the wetlands of Lousiana. The last story in this collection reads like prophetic hallucination of Hurricane Katrina -- but then every story in this book makes you ache for the places that were wiped out as if you had grown up there. Very few writers can create characters out of the dirt of some obscure landscape as if they were God -- Faulkner, Steinbeck -- and at the same time make you feel you've know them all your life. The strongest part of the book is a cycle of stories about a family -- all of their relationships are palpable, and you miss them when the stories are over. There is a unusual texture of suspense to Parrish's writing -- even though the stories are not narrative they are filled with dramatic anticipation. You go from page to page, episode to episode blinded like someone in a storm, sensing that at any moment lightning will sear through the dark and illuminate something so tender and fragile that your heart is in your throat.

The south has a strong tradition, and this book is in that tradition. Tim Parrish uses lots of dialog, and it works to bring us into the story and round out the characters. The endings are interesting. There is no bump, no huge climax, at the end of each story. Life goes on after each problem has worked itself to a completion. I like this book and I would recommend it to a mature audience.

Tim Parrish does a wonderful job of bringing his young male, and female characters to life in these stories com plete with their southern creole accents in tact. Its a book that almost any man can relate to his youth and indentify with some of the things happening in these stories. They bring back a real sence of nestalgia. They may not be of events thats actually heppened to you but they are universal enough to transend certain cultural boundries. Parrish tells some delightfull stories, not too deep or bruting just really good tales. Will the female population like it or relate as much? probably not but if you liked the movie "Stand By Me" then you will like the book too. and

Tim Parrish has written a collection of stories from his experiences living in and around New Orleans. The title reflects the nickname given to the men who worked around the Mississippi. The rain,floods and humidity invasively turn everything wet,soggy and a dull reddish hue. There are five stories in this collection that center around growing up at the time of the Vietnam War.

The characters are Jeb and a few buddies going through the rights of passage from boys to men. In one scene they are boys daring the river currents and amusing themselves by throwing stones to break up treebranch jams. Their talk and interest turns to the war and the news Jeb is able to surreptitiously overhear about his older brother, Bob, who is serving in Vietnamin. Though the setting is precise, the conditions and conflicts of getting their first kiss,getting jobs and fearing their own possible fate as soldiers are universal. That Parrish can tell it so well is a compliment to his skll at making his characters real and believable.

He does this by using dialogue in the Creole vernacular. The reader can feel the red dust on one's face, smell the damp and dank moisture in the walls of the house, one clothes and emanating from the river. It is also possible to imagine the turmoil of a hard existence with little to hope for except more of the same.

His character's personalities are well drawn and the contrast betweeen his Mother and father, for instance, underlines the difficulty the young man has in making decisions about his life. Jeb's older brother returns from the war and goes through many of the tortured mind battles of veterans in those years. If you were too young to know it then, you can get a good feel for the difficulty of the times when Americ was cought up in a controversial war.

Parrish joins the ranks of many short story writers by presenting true pictures of growing up but sets the tales in a unique environment. Another author to consider, for a view of the same but in early Oklahoma, is Rilla Askew's Strange Business.

I have enjoyed both and look forward to discovering other authors and other areas of the U.S. that put forth unique societal values.

W.R. Morris was Buford Pusser's authorized biographer, he wrote the best selling "The Twelth of August" however in 1973 he told People Magazine, "Buford can be a really nice guy one day and the next day he's barely civilized. I thread delecitly in the book." Did Pusser and Morris have a falling out or did Morris' research cause him to have a change of oppinion on the hero?

Regardless, this book is the origins of the loose mob that Pusser destroyed. The crime element along the Tenn and Mississippi border was the result of a government crackdown on the illegal activities in Phenix City, Ga in the late 40's. The displaced con artists and prostitutes settled on the stateline of Tn/Miss on highway 45. Morris provides a fasinating discription of the self destructive lives of this murderous group. It seems that Alcorn County, Miss is the hot bed of much of the criminal activity-yet McNairy County, Tn got the title of "Murder County USA" due to it being the dumping ground of many of the unsuspecting victims of the so-called "state line mob." One of these victims was a young Buford Pusser, who had the guts to go back and rob the robbers.

The ring leaders of the mob have an amazing ability to avoid long term jail sentences. They are soon challanged by a new sheriff- Buford Pusser, who has an amazing ability so withstand knife wounds and gunshots. Pusser believed in "fighting fire with fire" a true unconventional law enforcement warrior. Shortly after taking office he picked up a mob leader and took him out to the swamps and beat him up for three hours. Morris, as well as the author of "Mississippi Mud" believe that Pusser knew who was behind the ambush that killed his wife, but he kept the information from the authorities only to track down and kill, or hire to kill, the men himself. The result of this book is that Buford Pusser may have been a flawed and tragic hero, but in the end he got the bastards- and walked damn tall doing it, even if outside the law.

Morris covers some interesting material. However, I don't believe he did as good a job as he did on The 12th of August. Much of the material in this book is just a reprinting of some of his previous book. I compared the two books as I read this one though and sometimes the wording of conversations had some variation. This book is not well written for someone with the journalistic background of Morris. Yet there are some interesting theories in regard to Buford Pusser's possible involvement in taking out some of those who he believed were involved in murdering his wife. I think the book is an overall worthwhile read but there are places in the text where Morris used vulgarity for no other apparent reason than to be vulgar. It did not help drive home the point any better.

Once I started reading the book, it was hard to put it down. I live only a few counties north of where all this was taking place. I only thought I
had an idea of what was taking place and about the people who were running the gambling, illegal whisky, and prostitution operation. That was one tough
area vs one tough sheriff who had to "fight fire with fire".

It took only one day to read this book. It was like a magnet in my hands I could not put it down. I have seen
the movies, and heard stories of Buford Pusser, but now
I know the facts. What an awesome book.

as a little boy who grew up thinking sheriff andy taylor had a cool job, i've always found the sheriff pusser stories interesting.(in a 21 year law enforcement career, i found the job required a little buford pusser and a lot of andy taylor) i read the twelveth of august back in high school and thought the story fascinating but poorly written. the state line mob was better written and after meeting w.r. morris,his lovely wife cathy and spending an afternoon riding the roads of mcnairy county, i began to understand the relationship between him and the sheriff pusser. he couldn't tell the story inthe state line mob while sheriff pusser was living. i think he did a good job of telling the story. he told me about getting into a discussion with one of the characters in the book, who was voicing his displeasure with his portrayal in the book and mr. morris asked him one question: did i lie about you in the book? the man answered to the negative but he still didn't like being mentioned in the book. i've just order my second copy seeing how i loaned my first out to a so-called friend who never returned it. it's a keeper.

While one can quibble with some things in this book (the author seems to draw on anti-Kennedy books for his material on the Kennedys) all in all it tells the story well, and is really exciting, even tho one is appalled that there could be in the 20th century such benighted persons as instigated and participated in the insurrection to prevent a student entering Ole Miss. The last chapter tho makes a person feel better and I am glad the author spent some time finding out what happened to the people involved in the tumultous events of October, 1962. How pleasant to know that the student body president, the newspaper editor, the quarterback, and the head basketball coach in 2000-2001 were all African-American, and how stupid the rioters must feel now about the views they had in 1962. This is a popular account but it is great reading.

found this to be superficial and pompous. it overwrites facts and at the end fails to provide sufficient perspective. i am an academic and would not use for my students.

William Doyle has written an excellent account of the events surrounding Meredith's entry into Ole Miss. Particularly noteworthy is his detailed account of the behind the scenes negotiations between the Kennedys and Mississippi's segregationist governor, Ross Barnett. The book's depiction of the riot is also rich: Doyle vividly potrays the chaos that reigned in Oxford during the riot. The narration is gripping and this book is an entertaining read.

I thought the book was not nearly as strong in the final 30 pages. There is no clear direction to the book's "conclusion." Doyle sort of vasillates between providing updates on the book's main characters and attempting to place the riot into a historical perspective. While both are interesting, this portion of the book drags on.

Overall, a very enjoyable read.

I am 62 years old now. On that morning when
the 716th MP Battalion was brought to the campus,
I was in one of the groups exactly as pictured in
the middle of the book. At the time I had no idea
what the big picture was. I just did as I was told.
I was in the army for about a year prior to that day,
but never had live ammunition except for practice.
We had our gas masks on and our bayonets fixed. We
were each handed one clip of live ammunition for
our M-1 rifles. I vividly remember my knees literally
knocking together as we stood there waiting for the
trouble that never came at that time. We had heard
that a soldier had been killed prior to that. This
book is giving me the big picture and a full under-
standing of how we got there and why we were there.
I am finding this book to be riviting and educational.
I heartily recommend it. Mike Cuggino, NY.

Mr. Doyle has done very well what so many others have failed at. He has taken the stuff of a compelling story and told it as a straightforward and detailed narrative that needs no excessive or distracting "artfulness" to make it live on the page. Here are real, hateful villains, conflicted heroes, confused bureaucrats and the inscrutably zen-like James Meredith. Every one of these individuals - with the possible exception of Meredith - is caught up in circumstances way beyond his "job description" and required by fate to draw his best or worst abilities to the tasks he has been drawn into.
Whatever anyone else may say about this book it is first and foremost a wonderfully compelling reading experience. As a writer of history, Doyle is right up there with McCullough, Ambrose and Goodwin as a writer of skill, insight and a willingness to let the story take the front seat. You will appreciate this book; you will respect this story; but most of all you will savor every minute you spend reading it.

A good read. Premature birth can be traumatic for not only mom and dad, but the extended family as well. I have found that there are not enough books on the subject. This author's work adds to the list of quality material available.

I would reccomend this book as a companion to Equal to the Task, by Dail R. Cantrell. The books are similiar enough to be read together. Cantrell's book was a Book of the Year nominee, and fills in gaps left by this book. Both books present a powerful message.

Our daughter (now 3 and perfectly fine) was premature. Like the author's wife, I also had HELLP and had to be delivered early. The NICU is one terrifying place. Reading this book 3 years later helped to put everything that happened to us in perspective.

This was a great book. I had to read a book for a counseling class I am in, and it totally helped me to understand what parents are feeling and going through.

A good read. Premature birth can be traumatic for not only mom and dad, but the extended family as well. I have found that there are not enough books on the subject. This author's work adds to the list of quality material available.

I would reccomend this book as a companion to Equal to the Task, by Dail R. Cantrell. The books are similiar enough to be read together. Cantrell's book was a Book of the Year nominee, and fills in gaps left by this book. Both books present a powerful message.

While this is certainly a profoundly important book for families of extremely premature babies, I think it's almost as valuable for all parents of kids of every age. When you get mad at your teenager, frustrated at your eight-year-old, stressed out from the demands of juggling work and day-care, or just about any challenge that comes with parenting, reflecting on what William and Kim Woodwell did go give two little infants a shot a life will put everything in perspective for you. After reading this book, I gave my perfectly healthy nine-year-old daughter a bear hug and couldn't let go.
And if you're in a position to give counsel or advice to new parents (hospital social worker, physician, clergy), you'll better understand the incredibly complex range of emotions that parents in this situation are trying to cope with.