Oklahoma Books

A typical trail drive story. Lots of problems but what would you expect when you're driving thru a thousand miles of Indians, harsh land wet and dry, raining hard and hotter than the worst desserts. You may have survived the civil war but this is a different story. Another very intertaining trail drive except Mr. Compton had just to many rain storm disasters.

Victor Montejo's latest book is an important and brilliant analysis of recent Mayan history by one of the Mayan people's most significant scholars. It is especially important because this is an Indigenous voice speaking about Mayan history rather than the however well-intentioned and scholarly rigorous recent work of non-Mayan Americans like Drs. Nelson and Warren. Montejo, a Popti Mayan from Jakaltenango in Guatemala's Western highlands, was both an eyewitness to much recent Mayan history as well as a US-trained academic.

Gene therapy may hold the key to a brighter future for those born with a deadly disease. Dr. Anderson has spent nearly 30 years developing procedures to carry out human gene therapy--replacing a defective gene with a healthy gene. In 1990 Anderson performed the first government-approved gene transfer on a 4-year-old Ohio girl. The transfer was a success. This is the story of Anderson's life and how, as a senior at Harvard University, he developed the concept for this type of treatment. The authors take an extremely complicated subject and provide the reader with complete understanding. A must read for all!

War Dance At Fort Marion: Plains Indian War Prisoners is the true story of Kiowa, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Arapaho chiefs and warriors who were held as prisoners of war by the U.S. Army from 1875 to 1878 at Fort Marion in Saint Augustine, Florida. The prisoners participated in an educational experiment, as introduced by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, as an alternative to standard imprisonment. While they were incarcerated, the Indian leaders followed Pratt's rules and met his educational demands, while keeping hold of their own identities. Author and history professor Brad. D. Lookingbill draws from primary sources, particularly Native American accounts, to piece together the story of the war prisoners, as well as portray Pratt's evolving vision to mold Indians into model citizens of American mainstream society - an undertaking that came at a cost of personal suffering and cultural loss for the Indian generations so molded. Of particular note are the coping strategies that Plains Indian leaders used to survive their internment with dignity and return to lead their people with pride. Highly recommended.

Interested readers should know that this is the exact same book as STORM AND STAMPEDE ON THE CHISHOLM, published by Bison Books, that appears above. I believe WARPATH AND CATTLE TRAIL was the earlier title. Both editions are excellent.

This book is a compilation of eyewitness reports. From the moment of the blast to the demolition of the building, we hear from those who were there. What they saw, what they felt, what they experienced. Cops, firemen, office workers, FEMA experts, Red Cross volunteers, every aspect of the disaster except the hard details of the investigation are covered. (The book was created during the investigation and the pending criminal trial, so these details were not available for publishing.)

After reading this book, you will know at least a little about what it was like to be there at ground zero, about what the building was like inside (without many graphic details), about the willing sacrifice of all involved, about the effects of the terrorist's bomb.

Highly recommended.

This is a very interesting and fun book to read. Serious Wild Bill fans will enjoy all of the excellent pictures that help bring Wild Bills life alive. The limited text explains each picture well. People with just a passing interest in the Old West will enjoy this book for all of the original pictures. The pictures diffently speak a thousand words. The book also follows Wild Bills life in a step by step process so you get a good feel for the order of things that happened in his life. This is a must have book for all Wild Bill fans and any Western fan who enjoys period pictures.

Bill McCloud, himself a Vietnam veteran, has written a most important book. Serving in Nam from 1968-69, as a flight operations coordinator for the 147th Assault Support Helicopter company, based near the coastal city of Vung Tau, McCloud viewed the war up close and personal.
After leaving the service in 1970, he eventually became a junior high school social studies teacher in Oklahoma. After twelve years in the classroom, McCloud had the revelation that he had never discussed the war with his students.
He then began thinking of ways to teach about it. He started sending surveys to sixty junior high school principals to see how others were teaching the course.
Thirty-five percent responded that the war was not taught at all in their schools. Others reported it was usually taught in 8th grade American history class, with only 1 or 2 weeks devoted to it. McCloud also surveyed more than seven hundred junior high school students in three Oklahoma cities to find out what they already knew about the Vietnam War, and what questions they would like answered.
Surprising answers came back. "They don't teach about that war in school." "All I know about the Vietnam War has come out of movies." "It might be kind of a shame, but I don't know anything about that." "How come they don't teach more about the war in school?" "Is anyone else as dumb about this as I am?"
McCloud notes "students have made it clear to me that they see this as the war no one wants to talk about. They seem to be saying that they know the war is the skeleton in America's family closet, and they think they are now old enough to be let in on the secret."
McCloud found that there was tremendous interest in the subject among students. He came up with the idea of writing letters to well-known people who had been somehow involved in the war. He asked them in personal, handwritten letters, "What do you think are the most important things for today's junior high students to understand about the Vietnam War?"
Replies started coming in immediately. In 1987, (inerestingly the same year the film "Platoon" was released) McCloud began his American History course with a discussion of the Vietnam War and the 1960's.
The collection of letters soon developed into something he knew would be of national interest. The book contains letters from soldiers, politicians, military officers, POW's, nurses, refugees, writers, and parents of soldiers who died in the war.
Included are insights from Jimmy Carter, Barry Goldwater, George Bush, Oliver Stone, George S. Patton, Gary Trudeau, Kurt Vonnegut, and others.
All these different perspectives provide an important testimony on the most divisive event of our past hundred years of history.
Philip Caputo, a Nam vet, author of the highly acclaimed "A Rumor of War" contributed this: "The two most important things for junior high school students to understand about the Vietnam War are 1. The United States learned that there are limits to its power and that to exceed those limits invites tragic consequences. 2. The American soldiers who fought in the war did so out of a sense of duty to their country, but their country betrayed them by sending them to an unwinnable war."
While this book was published in 1989, its lessons seem very timely. It is a fascinating retrospective on America's turbulent 60's and 70's, and their lasting impact on our national psyche. Highly recommended reading, an important history lesson for all ages.

This is one of the most interesting books I've read in years. I recommend it highly to anybody interested in good fiction--both avid readers and those who have let too much time slip by since their last read. Perfect pacing and control of revelation and suspense allow you to lose yourself in the delight of a good story.


There's music in the language and complexity in the characters and the plot lines. As a bit of a history buff, I'm often let down by this sort of novel. I was astounded by the accuracy with which this book brings a historical world alive.

The book is funny at times, and tragic, like our lives. The human relationships in the book are all so real I was often deeply shaken.

Of all the book's many admirable qualities, though, what I would say was the most rewarding to me as a reader (and RE-READER) is the this book's innovative form.

Like any great work of art, the form of this book honors our long literary tradition and renews, adds to, or deepens that very tradition through innovations so subtle and yet so fascinating that their meanings unravel only slowly--a strong brain-satisfaction lasted on long after I had finished reading.

It's a collection of stories that intricately interconnect. The gaps make the world of the book enormous; the overlapping makes it real. Characters from earlier stories turn up later fully grown, with their lives already lived, so that what I take away is the most amazing twist of the Postmodern "fragmentation" theme yet to be written: diverging plots and wandering characters somehow converge again because our lives are not only hellish at times and lonely and hard but magnificent--and mysteriously whole.

Written and published in loving memory of her husband, who "had unquestioned character and integrity."

This true-life story will change your life.

The review on the back cover calls it a "living testimony to the virtue of hard work and to the triumph of determination over personal tragedy."

I picked up this book quite by accident, and, thumbing through, came upon the first black & white photo -- of two lovely children, a little 7-year old 'Our Gang' or 'Little Rascals'-type precious daughter, standing next to the crude crib or playbox of her little baby brother. Then I read the caption: "1933 -- Died 10 days apart, of the measles."

My own words will pale into insignificance after that; though I could recommend that every parent, every honest struggler, and every business enterprise venturer get this book.