Virginia Books

This is volume one of Ms. Stinson's magnificent research series, "Historical Records of Buckingham County, Virginia." She utilizes the poll lists for contested federal or state elections to locate residents of this burned county in space (voting district) and time.

This book contains an abstract of the minutes taken at the Board of Supervisor's meetings containing a chronological history of the rebuilding of the Court house and other facilities at the Court House Square. The Poorhouse accounts and the County Treasury Accounts are also included. Lists include jurors, persons dealing with the poorhouse, premiums paid for "scalps" and election officials.

This is volume two of Ms. Stinson's magnificent research effort into the records of Buckingham County. She utilizes the almost forgotten file boxes of undetermined chancery suits (many of which give evidence predating the 1869 fire) to elucidate the lives of many Buckingham residents who came in contact with the court system.

The author, who has numerous titles on this "burned county", fills in the period just prior to the courthouse fire by transcribing the county clerk's death records from the surviving copy held by the state auditor of public accounts in Richmond. In addition, she has searched contemporary newspapers from the area as well as secondary published sources (including the W.P.A. records) to produce the most thorough death record of this county to date.

I thought it was great. very informative and detailed, which was exactly what I was looking for. I recomend it to anyone that has any intrest what-so-ever in the mofia or organized crime.

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.