Missouri Books

The title and cover of this book suggest a book about men and their struggles; however, my favorite short stories by Michael White in this collection are the ones told from a woman's perspective - and there are quite a few of them. Michael White's men are all one and interchangable. Perhaps, a male himself, he is better able to detatch himself from the female characters. They are real: unsteady, afraid, human, and a must-read. I have read his novels and find that this carries over; the female voices in A Brother's Blood and The Blind Side of the Heart are captivating - the narrator in A Dream of Wolves pales in comparison.

MARKETING THE BARD: SHAKESPEARE IN PERFORMANCE AND PRINT, 1660-1740 is more than just another biographical sketch of the bard: it offers a business perspective in considering exactly how he rose above the rest of his colleagues to make his reputation over the centuries. Performance and publication alike affected his growth, with London theatre and key performances changing him from just another author to the most popular playwright of his times. Chapters focus on both theatre and publishing history, providing close inspections perfect for college-level audiences studying in either theatre or literature. In fact, the latter would do well to absorb the business/marketing aspects of this unusual approach to a often-covered bard.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Dr Kuehne takes on an important aspect of the political thought of the time and how that influence is important in US political development into the modern era.

"Consistently intelligent, thoroughly researched, gracefully written.... This is an excellent study, probably the definitive study of the criticism of James and Howells."
--John W. Crowley, author of The Dean of American Letters: The Late Career of William Dean Howells

written to portray life as lived by Afican -Americans from the perspective of the boy/the man who searched constantly in his work for truth,for reality and to artfully paint the word pictures which he labored to make the real stuff of life.not sweet or easy.

Set in a small American town after the turmoil of World War II, Merry Town, Missouri 1945-1948 is a novel about a 12-year-old boy and his talented politician grandfather, who has a gift for being able to "read" people an events. Their adventures together bring the spark of change to history, economy, politics, religious, social, and musical life of their home. An upbeat look at small-town life, written with the sparkling wit and charm of a Missouri native.

This excellent book is about the the long and difficult battle to do away with the Central Jurisdiction in order to integrate the Methodist Church, at least at the regional and national levels. The Central Jurisdiction had been established in 1939 when northern and southern Methodism --split in 1844 over slavery-- were reunited. It was an organizational and structural device designed to keep the Methodist Church segregated, so that no white pastor would be under the authority of an African-American bishop and so that no white church would be assigned an African-American pastor. Once established, the Central Jurisdiction was almost impossible to do away with, even when the larger society was rapidly moving beyond Jim Crow.

The book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the United Methodist Church and for those who are interested in the history of racial integration in the US.

Find a longer discussion of this book at http://untiedmeth.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_untiedmeth_archive.html#111695396969978434

Meuse-Argonne Diary: A Division Commander In World War I is unique, for during the length of America's participation in World War I, only one commander of a division - the author William M. Wright - is known to have kept a diary. It chronicles General Wright's two months at St. Mihiel and particularly the Meuse-Argonne, the largest and deadliest battle in American history. Wright's division of 28,000 draftees from Missouri and Kansas was one of two American point divisions when the U.S. First Army pressed the German defenders back to the Meuse River. A remarkable and pinpoint-critical eyewitness account of a pivotal time in world history, that bravely commisserates with those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country in desperate times.

Since I, too, grew up in Boonville, I'm inclined in favor of this book--I'm sick of reading about people who grew up in New York. I'm also inclined to be highly critical--though I now live two thousand miles away, my hometown is dear to my heart. If Bob Davis has the audacity to write a book about Boonville, he'd better he get right. Well,he did! From the descriptions of food (". . . red Jell-o with marshmallows in it was a dessert. Green Jell-o with cole slaw in it was a salad.")to the interaction of children and adults (he's expected to apologize to an adult who nearly runs over him with a car), he's dead-on accurate. Even his thought patterns are straight out of Boonville ("I don't want to malign anybody either way, but I am pretty sure that all four of the town boys in my class were virgins when they graduated and that at least three-fourths of the country boys were not.") Highly readable and a font of information for people who think the Midwest is dull.

This is a review of all major literature on Middle American Herpetology, herein defined as the region from southeastern Mexico through Panama. There is a brief introduction and description of methods in English and Spanish. This is followed by a table listing publications which deal with a specific taxa or group. The body of the book is a listing of taxa in Amphibia and Reptilia at species level. For each of 782 species, the authors list citations for key literature, illustrations, and distribution. This is followed by a bibliography of literature cited and a scientific name index. There are 91 color plates, 5 to 7 per page, in a section at the front of the book, and 21 small black and white plates inserted into the body of the text next to the relevant taxa. These photographs, which show a small range of the species covered, are very attractive, but they do not add appreciably to the overall value of the text. Overall this is an excellent book and an invaluable scientific resource to any researcher working on the herpetofauna of the region. I find this book to be extremely useful, and it is consistently my first refernce for bibliographic material.