Virginia Books

A quick read loaded with wisdom to digest on your own or with your partner. Dr. Cadle couples her professional and personal experience creating an honest look at what it takes to develop and build on the foundation of your relationship. "Building Blocks for a Beautiful Marriage" provides poignant questions at the end of each chapter to assist with personal application of knowledge. Dr. Cadle examines the familiar verse of "love is patient..." in an innovative way that challenges growth as an indvidual, as a couple, and enriches your faith. I highly reccomend this book to couples at any stage.

"Building Blocks for a Beautiful Marriage"...this exceptional book provides an exciting opportunity to renew your relationship with your spouse from God's perspective. Married over 30 years, we have experienced joy and inspiration while sharing the wisdom of Dr. Virginia Cadle. Dr. Cadle speaks truth from both personal experiences and more than 20 years of marital counseling. Our recently engaged son shared this book with his finacee providing a wonderful foundation for their forthcoming marriage. We highly recommend "Building Blocks for a Beautiful Marriage" for all couples of all ages to include those dating, engaged, newlyweds and longtime married. Sally and Rob Townsend

I am truly surprised that nobody else has submitted a review of this book! It certainly deserves to be widely read as an original contribution to African-American studies, to food studies in general, to cultural studies, and most importantly, by anyone who wants to understand how sterotyping works as part of the process of oppression. I also learned a great deal about what 'signifying' means, and how it can be used as an analytical tool.

This is not a perfect book. Sometimes I found it moved to quickly from the general to the specific and vice versa. But Williams-Forson has taken a really tough topic - the way Chicken has been attached to African American women, and she treats it with sensitivity, creativity, wit and an eclectic set of tools from literature, social science and history. In the process she gets to the heart of how stereotypes cut in a lot of different directions; they reveal weaknesses and strengths, solidarities and divisions. She is not interested in passive victimology, nor does she ignore the violence and pain of slavery and prejudice.

The result is a book which really does teach you something new about the Black experience. It is the opening, I hope, of a new generation of black history which shakes off some of the old narratives which have served their purposes, and gets into really complex terrain. I look forward to more complex counterpoint with the work being done in the Caribbean and on the Black experience elsewhere in the Americas. I will certainly be using this book in the classroom, and I hope it gets the broader readership it deserves!

There are hundreds of children's books, but this one stands out as one of the best. My 21-month old can almost "read" this book, in that she has requested us to read it to her so many time, she has all but memorized the text. The clever idea of humans running about their lives busily by day, and mice doing so by night is fun for children imaginations.

Bottom-line: Busy Busy Mouse passes the kid test. We originally checked this out from the library, but ended up buying it, because our 21-month old and our 40-month old wanted us to read it over and over again.

Dr. Ausband's elegant, easy, affable writing style (threaded with humor and just a hint of the bawdy) mirrors that of his subject, and reading this book is very much like listening in on a conversation between two men sharing their thoughts, observations, and tall tales about their adventures in a land they both love, while warming their hands around a steaming mug of coffee before an autumn campfire. The fact that they are separated by three centuries of "progress" is no barrier to their camaraderie, and because the book is so well written, the reader becomes a member of Byrd's expedition team, too, as Ausband does---without having to clean the mud off his or her boots, or cut through the brush in the Dismal Swamp. Almost incidentally, he or she also gets an education in botany, ornithology, and zoology along the imaginary line that separates Virginia from North Carolina, the descriptions of the animals, plants, and people Byrd encountered (and Ausband revisits) as colorful as the Carolina parakeet that once overran the area--and nowhere to be found is the cloying smell of leather elbow patches and tweed the one might expect such a book to exude.

It's a skillful piece of work, written by a master storyteller, and will be of interest to anyone who is a student of Byrd of Westover, a resident of the geographic area, a fisherman or hunter or hiker, or a bibliophile unable to resist the lure of an exceptionally well-wrought book.

Ms. Beller has told the true story behind the myth of the VMI New Market Corps of Cadets and that story is even better than the one that procedes it. This is a wonderful history of their participation and their accomplishments. I'd truly reccomend this to anyone with any interest in the American Civil War or teenagers making a difference.

Very complete, well-written, interesting to read, this introduction to Modernism is just what you're looking for, if you're interested in Modernism. It covers a lot of ground, and gives enough context, historical and otherwise, so that Modernism can be seen in perspective. Highly recommended.

Whether you are starting to read Virginia Woolf for the first time or have read and enjoyed her books in the past and want a resource to turn to that will quickly and reliably fill you in on the basics of her biography, her social and cultural background, her fiction, and her contributions to literary criticism, Goldman's introduction is the book for you. She doesn't talk down to beginners, but writes about Woolf in an accessible style while doing a good job of focusing on the important issues. I was especially pleased by the dignitiy she grants her subject. While some biographers have voyeuristically focused on Woolf's childhood sexual abuse, madness, and suicide attempts, Goldman reminds us of the incredible depth and range of Woolf's contributions and of the context in which Woolf took her own life (both that of World War II and of Woolf's fear that she was succombing to another period of madness). Woolf's output was phenomenal: 10 novels (most technically innovative, all worth reading); one drama; a biography of art critic Roger Fry; two important and engaging works of feminist theory (A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN and THREE GUINEAS); and countless essays and short stories. Add to these the volumes of letters and diaries that have been published since her death, and you have a glimpse of what an extremely intelligent, talented, and dedicated person can accomplish in a short life of 59 years. Consider that this was all accomplished under less-than-desirable circumstances, and your awe will muliply ten-fold.

Goldman divides her book into four sections: (1) [Woolf's] Life; (2) Contexts; (3) Works; and (4) Critical Reception. Add to this an index and a brief "Guide to Further Reading" listing carefully selected works by and about Woolf and you have a very helpful 157-page resource. Although all four sections are rewarding, I found section 4 (Critical Reception) especially helpful because it shows how scholars' understanding of Woolf has evolved over the past 60+ years. Knowing when critics wrote reveals a lot about which issues concerned them most and, conversely, which ones they were blind to. (For instance, early critics were universally oblivious to the anti-Empire and anti-colonialism themes in Woolf's writing.)

A heads-up to hasty shoppers: This Introdution by Goldman should not be confused with THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO VIRGINIA WOOLF, a collection of essays by a number of the foremost Woolf scholars and edited by Sue Roe and Susan Sellers (2000), nor should Goldman's book be considered the "lite" or "dummies" version of the "Companion." Both volumes are worth owning, though for different reasons.

As Continental forces and Virginia militia units were engaged in winning independence, American quartermasters and provisioners struggled to provide these units with all the necessities of life, from meals and guns to meat, fodder for horses, the horses themselves, firewood, and every other type of material. Much of this was requisitioned from the civilian population and certificates were issued payable in either continental or state funds, depending on the units supplied, upon presentation to court authorities. Thousands of these certificates issued to Virginians were duly entered by the courts, and they provide a fascinating insight into the period of the Revolution. These "Publick" Claims booklets contain interesting and useful information about the contributions of ordinary people to the Revolutionary War. They provide some details of people's service in the militia or as guards for prisoners of war; they indicate where some bodies of troops were at particular times; and they identify providers of horses, wagons, cattle, grain, or other supplies. Much of the information in these booklets cannot be found anywhere else, which makes the surviving records particularly valuable. Also remarkable is the fact that records survived from virtually every county in the state at that time with the exception of the newly formed Kentucky counties. This makes the collection even more valuable in covering areas which heretofore in this time period have suffered from a lack of personal data. The "Virginia Publick Claims" are published by counties. In addition to a faithful transcription by Janice Luck Abercrombie and the late Richard Slatten, a complete index is provided for each county booklet. This series is an extremely important genealogical tool for searchers in Revolutionary-era materials.

"Can You Dance, Dalila?" is a wonderfully warm and humorous story of a young girl looking for the kind of dance that speaks to her. The illustrations convey just the right visuals for the character, and follow her search through various kinds of dance,
as the writing informs the reader about the style and dress of each genre. What comes through as well in this story is that we are all of us unique, and if we keep looking, we'll find the activity that is a natural fit for us.

I just recently discovered this book when a friend loaned it to me, and I can't wait to order my copy. This is a nice reference book that will stay on my coffee table from April to September. I do a lot of canoeing/fishing on the rivers in the summer, and this book has already led me to a lot of great floats that I didn't know about, even though I'm a native West Virginian. It's not going to tell you what to expect around every bend, but it does list the more notable areas of each river, including the dangers and problems you may encounter.

The first section of the book has basic information on canoeing and kayaking, terms and definitions, dealing with locals, phone numbers and other sources of information, and more (Much of this is written in a humorous way, reminding me somewhat of Pat McManus).

The book then lists each river basin, and after a short description of the area and a little history, it breaks it up into sections. The layout for each section is as follows:

1.TABLE - Contains capacities and ratings of the section including rapid classes, river gradient, water volume, scenery rating, time of trip, and river level.

2.MAPS - List of the names of the USGS maps and county maps that cover the section area.

3.DESCRIPTION - Describes the river, the scenery, and any other noteworthy aspects of the trip.

4.DIFFICULTIES - Notes any dangerous areas or other problems you may encounter along the way.

5.SHUTTLE - Suggests put-in and take-out spots or if there are any shuttle services provided.

6.GAUGE - Notes locations of river level gauges, phone numbers to call for river level information, or just basic references to gauge the level of the river for navigability. (I especially like this. Many times it goes something like, "If there are three stones showing on the so-and-so bridge, you should have no problems from point A to point B." This is nice since so many of our rivers have isolated sections that are nearly impossible to scout.)

If you live in West Virginia and want to canoe or kayak, or if you are planning a trip here for some river sports, this book is a great buy for the money.