Kentucky Books

Rebeccasreads highly recommends DR. MAX as a fine collection of stories from the life & times of this veterinarian who more often than not, manages to escape the rigors of tending large animals, by the hair on his chin, although sometimes teeth & hoofs do find their mark.

You'll find yourself turning the pages & wincing at all the "gloved hands into orifices" tales, thrilled by this vet's adventures, & the fragments he offers of his domestic life.

Give this book to your vet & to anyone who loves & cares for animals -- great & small. It will make your hair stand on edge, & tickle your funny bone.

The collaborative effort of writer Marilyn Dungan and veterinarian Max Harding, Dr. Max: Adventures Of A Kentucky Vet is a charming memoir is laced with anecdotes and reminiscences drawn from the life of a country veterinarian in the central region of Kentucky. These true life stories are deftly written invocations of what it was like working with animals and their owners. Enthusiastically recommended reading and a welcome to any community library Biography/Memoir collection, Dr. Max engages the readers total attention and interest from first page to last.

I couldn't put it down! This book was great - from cover to cover! Entertaining, humorous and thoroughly enjoyable!

In photographs and words, Lucy Zeh captures the often beautiful monuments and sometimes the very simple graves of Thoroughbreds, some who are immortal & others who have been forgotten with the passage of many years.

There should be a special link between the breeder/owner of the racers who give so much in the oftentimes difficult life at the track. How the champions - and a runner did not have to be a graded stakes winner for the accolade - are treated in death speaks volumes about their handlers.

Etched In Stone reminds each reader that the Thoroughbred should be treated well in life and with dignity at death.

I just got my copy of Etched In Stone and thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful book. It is not the slightest bit morbid but rather a fond look back at those equines who have made an impact on racing. Seeing the graves and reading about (for many) forgotten Thoroughbreds brings these long-ago champions back to life. I hope to some day be able to visit these memorials myself. This is a must have book for the racing or horse fan!

This book, paying tribute to some of our nation's greatest athletes, has been long awaited and greatly overdue! Thoroughbreds, especially those from Kentucky (the horse capitol of the nation) have always been admired by all and this book only makes their legends live on more vivedly. With it's pictures and stories of the headstones and the great athletes that lie beneath, the author takes a vivid look at these magnificent beasts. I cannot wait to explore the graves highlighted!

In my short time studying with him, Al Tillson instilled in me a love of this fertile time in history, as well as a love for four pocket cuban shirts. The title may not grab you, but the gripping history and Tillson's flowing narrative style will. Less a book about a specific time in history than it is about all history, it speaks to us universally, and gives us a deeper understanding of what is it to be human.

Albert Tillson could have easily written this book solely for the "gentry" of historical society, but instead took the brilliant path of penning this award-winning tome for the rank and file multitude of history buffs who relish the simple, compelling tour of Virginia's colonial commorants. He scrawls out a story so enchanting that I can only describe it as enchanting. Yes, the endnotes get rather long, but if you're like me you'll bask in the hedonism of his note structure and devour eeach of his many sources in the order he so masterfully lists them. Brilliance!

Dr. Tillson so thoroughly researched Virginia's history for this book that when I finished reading it I felt I could be considered a scholar on Virginia's history. This may seem like a book for graduate students, professors of history, and history-philes, but I am a lowly undergraduate student with an interest in history and appreciated and enjoyed this book. Any questions, comments, or concerns I had about the material while reading the book were answered quickly and thoroughly. If you aren interested in this time period or are taking a class on early America, this is an excellent read.

This excellent book is a collection of essays from folklorists and academics regarding the persistence of fairy faith beliefs in the Celtic lands, their diaspora, and related cultures both ancient and modern. The contributions have been well and thoughtfully selected to present a diversity of views and studied regions, so there's likely to be something in there of interest to most people familiar with the genre. There's plenty of discussion of Celtic lore as carried across the ocean, both as cultural curiosity (Canadian Celts using fairy terminology to describe the tangles in their horses' manes, but no longer believing in actual beings) and as living practice (down to a discussion of why some Irish fey could cross the ocean with immigrant families, not being rooted in the soil, and others couldn't). Plenty of the studies are from the original Celtic nations, and there are also excellent comparisons of Celtic and Norse approaches to resident land-spirits; Asatru folks are likely to find that essay of interest. It's solid scholarship which still reads well to the layperson -- I'll be buying a lending copy as well as keeping a reference copy for myself.

Peter Narvez has written a book for those of us who are Celtic and for those of us who wish to see the Other, be it fairy or alien, in a different, perhaps more complete, way. The book is comprehensive to the date of its publication. It offers a number of points for consideration or additonal study. While some essays are stronger than others, and some are clearer than others, in the main, "The Good People" is a wonderful treatment of the Otherworld as it is known in the non-UFO community. Along with folkloric treatments of the Other, Vallee's "Passport to Magonia" and Thompson's "Angels and Aliens," it should be mandatory reading for all of us who are concerned that the debate on extraordinary experiences and alien encounters is too narrow, too full of heat with little light, and too parochial.

Little serious work on the fairy faith has been done in recent times, but this collection of scholarly essays makes up for the lack. As is often the case in this fascinating area of folklore, a few of the essays make you marvel at the enduring and oddly consistent character of the accounts. It gives me a wee chill to read recordings of interviews with Scottish schoolchildren done in the 1970s, and realize that they repeat notions noted among Welshmen by Sir John Rhys fully three-quarters of a century before. An excellent, entertaining and scholarly book that should be in the collection of any folklorist interested in the fairy faith.

Most books on fairylore are collections first published in the nineteenth century or draw primarily from the author's imagination. Those wishing to know more must fall back on scholarly journals that may not be readily available to most readers. This book makes such studies available in an affordable form that you will reread many times. The studies in this book reflect beliefs and attitudes among people of the late twentieth century in communities of maritime Canada as well as Celtic countries. What is most illuminating is the consistency between recent attitudes and those collected earlier.

Fron the first opening page to the last one in the book, this is definitely a must-read!! Joy Shannon Balmer captures the exact touch of despair, frustration, helplesness, anger, hatred-all feelings you will experience as you read this book! Sorrow, sadness and hidden ghosts are all a part of the saga of this family, and you will actually feel as if you are a part of this family as you delve into their lives. Joy Shannon Balmer-a great author!! I will be eagerly waiitng for another one of her books!!

I always enjoy reading a book by an author I have never read before. Its nice not to have any expectations based on previous work, nothing to compare it to, so when I sat down to read Hand Me Downs, The Secrets I was very eager to get to "know" this author, through her words and character construction. From the first chapter I was not disappointed, the opening scene with Daniel and the Doctor just made my heart ache. Ms. Balmer's style of writing flows like a steady stream with only the situations in the story itself to change the direction of the current but not disrupt the flow itself.

If it was the author's intention to make you feel strong hate, compassion, exasperation, and hopelessness she did a fantastic job. I have to admit that this was not a book I could sit down and read in one sitting, although normally a book of this size would be finished in a day. I kept having to stop either because I was very angry or bordering on depressed. The fullness of the characters made me feel as if I were actually there, watching what was going on and I just wanted to shout.....Wake up Daniel!! Get a grip Hildy!!! I cannot recall a book character I have hated more than Bobby Ray, and I have read a LOT of books in my life. I wanted to castrate the man with a rusty knife.

Though my sense of humor may be different from a lot of other people, there were spots of humor that gave my anger a break and for that I'm most appreciative to Ms. Balmer. A person can only take so much heartache and despair and she certainly put humor in, in most needed places to help me be able to momentarily forget my hatred of Bobby Ray (I believe I have mentioned that she wrote him so profoundly well that I abhor him, but did I mention I wanted to castrate the man with a rusty knife more than I did John Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility, or more than Black Jack Randall from Outlander.)

The book gives me a whole different view of the time period my grandparents grew up in. I've always known the depression existed, I've known the things my grandparents did without and had to make do with....but this brought a lot of it home for me, someone that has never "wanted" for anything that was "needed" in her life. As a genealogist, it gives me a much more fuller picture of the statistics and facts I see on census pages and court documents.

I can honestly say that the ending definitely gives the much needed hope for healing and closure that I, as a reader, searched for, and leaves you wanting more, in a good way.

Joy Shannon Balmer captures the subtle nuances of a troubled Southern family; a group connected by love and tragedy. The family saga spans three generations,miggled with the flow of dark,hidden secrets lurking just below the surface. To read this book is to delve into the complexity of human emotions and drives. Joy Shannon Balmer is an author whose work I will follow. A rich, rewarding read!

Rhett DeVane, author of "The Madhatter's Guide to Chocolate" and "Up the Devil's Belly"

This book is a classic of Kentucky history. It is the first book I know of that methodically uses folklore sources to write history, rather than the usual method of being tied to written documents like a dog on a string.

If you are interested in going beyond the book, and of finding out how people in Kentucky actually thought about themselves and the world around them here is a good place to start.

This is excellent reading and will show you some interesting possibilities for historical research and writing you may have never thought about before.

Montell's book The Saga of Coe Ridge, A Study in Oral History, highlights local Kentucky and Appalachian history, telling a fascinating story about a 90 year old African American settlement in SW Kentucky. Montel uses oral histories and local folklore to integrate and document actual commmunity and historical sources and events, providing an intriquing story as well as an excellent example of how to incorporate qualitative interviews into both an entertaining and academic text.

Montel uses the art of oral history to entertain and educate within a historically accurate framework, showing the often overlooked history of Black Appalachians and their history after the Civil War to the present.

Montell uses oral sources and folklore to reconstruct the history of a small African-American community in Kentucky. The book provides a permanent record of a vanished town, and it is an important foundation for contemporary interest in rural black communities. The book includes interesting discussions of ways to use oral sources when doing historical research, and the author provides useful ways to ascertain the validity and usefulness of these types of resources. His methodology includes ways to assess the historical accuracy of various stories, and the book also demonstrates how to interpret less verifiable stories to gain an understanding of social attitudes and cultural values that emerge in storytelling traditions. This is an especially interesting resource for discovering ways to integrate oral history with folklore study. (But it isn't about Appalachia.)

Truly an uncovered treasure that is dedicated to the men who so bravely fought with the 6th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry. My Great Grandfather, Henry Altfeltis was one of those infantry soldiers, wounded at the Battle of Stones River. This book not only pays tribute to him but all of the men who were wounded or killed, paying the ultimate sacrifice with their lives, to perserve the freedoms that our nation enjoys today. Because of this book, "their heroic deeds will never be forgotten."

Joe Reinhart has done the boys of the 6th Kentucky Infantry the greatest service possible by memorializing their story. If the reader is unmoved by the courage and sacrifice of these Kentuckians and immigrants after reading about their patriotism, then I cannot recommend anything which would suffice. These men were as adept at fighting and as courageous as those in any Eastern regiment. All regimental histories should emulate this one.

Joseph Reinhart's history of the valiant 6th Ky Volteers
is a wonderful and comprehensive story extensively researched.
He follows the unit from it's initial formation in northern Ky
through camps, marches, battles until the unit is mustered out
after Atlanta.

It is full of wonderful first hand accounts with some pictures and maps. This history is valuable addition to a reader's Cival War collection. It even has a roster of each company with
muster in and muster out information. It is a precious account
of those tragic times. A reader having an ancestor or family
member in the regiment will find this history a great treasure

While many of us remember our own families' vicisitudes during the Depression, Summers gives us so much more...insights into the characters of different family members and friends, their virtues and faults, the deprivations suffered and overcome. This is a striking and memorable account of people facing difficult economic times and with their own courage, ingenuity and help from outsiders, winning through to productive lives.

U.T. Summers eloquently details the moving story of hard-working people in Depression-era America, when opportunities were few but failures were still condemned. Today, when cuts in government support systems proceed even as many two-income families struggle to meet mounting health, housing, and education costs, it is important to remember how harsh life can be in a country that turns its back on its poor.

I loved this bittersweet memoir of a family struggling to get by in the 1920s and 1930s. Summers has a wonderful memory for details that perfectly evoke the era and the personalities of her parents, grandparents and siblings. Alternately heartbreaking and filled with joy. A fascinating look at the life of the rural poor during the Great Depression.

Set in rural Kentucky around WWII, this book is so good, it should replace Huckelberry Finn as "the great american novel". It is a shame that it isn't better known, but unfortunately Arnow-Simpson is thought of as a regional writer. This is a very deep book, but it also has some very funny parts. Her description of pre-consumerism country life is very detailed and insightful. She saw how the world was changing, and captured a piece of it that is now long gone. I'm not even an hunting type, and I wanted to go out and get a couple of hounds after reading this. Better even than The Dollmaker, and not half as sad. Highly Recommended!

This book captures the spirit, character, and complexities of the mountain people of eastern Kentucky better than any other I have read. The individuals are simple, strong-willed, and proud like many of the people I grew up with. The descriptions of the landscape are detailed, accurate, and compelling as I remember them. For anyone interested in a better understanding of the depth of human character explained in a very readable way, this is a terrific book

If you've never read Harriette Arnow, or only know her through The Dollmaker, you'll be shocked at how stunning this novel is. Beautiful written, with some of the most complex and moving characters in literature.

I grew up in Kentucky and traveled as a nurse for 4 year. My last assignment was truly the best one and was in a state other than Kentucky. Although the company I worked for gave me a going away gift, I wanted to leave them with something that would connect us and they would be able to see pictures and learn something about where I was from. I chose this book and it was a solid gold hit! They loved it. The book is so bautiful and the pictures are breathtaking! Highly recommend this book and the photographer's work.

This book is filled with outstanding photography from Kentucky, the beautiful Bluegrass state! You will find pictures of the famous landmarks in the area, as well as ones of more remote and hidden treasures you might otherwise never see! In fact, on page 49, you can see a good old-fashioned baptism in a creek, conducted by the church where I attend! This book is much less expensive here than on other online purchasing sites, as well! You will not be disappointed! Enjoy!

Stunningly beautiful photographs of the history and character of the commonwealth of Kentucky. A must have for the Kentucky collector.