Iowa Books

Set in small-town Iowa, this thriller kept me reading and interested until the end. In addition to the obvious delights of the genre, the book confirmed my view of the contraints and joys of life in a small Midwestern town. Ms. Murphy obviously knows her setting. My question? Why isn't her SF romance, For the Emperor, here on Amazon. Both are electronic books (Rocket and other formats) available at Hard Shell Word Factory.

Based on more than twenty-five years of painstaking scholarship and exhaustive research, "Tied To The Great Packing Machine: The Midwest And Meatpacking" by Wilson Warren (Associate Professor of History, Western Michigan University--Kalamazoo) presents an informed and informative history of the meatpacking industry's considerable impact on the economics, culture, and environment of the Midwest over the past 150 years. Meatpacking was a part of both the rural as well as urban areas, moving from the huge railroad supplied stockyards of Chicago and Kansas City to the meatpacking companies of smaller and less populated communities. The result is a complete and comprehensive picture of the meatpacking industry and its influence within the agro-industrial landscape of the American Midwest. Enhanced with numerous tables, regional and city maps, extensive notes, a bibliography, and an index, "Tied to The Great Packing Machine" is a seminal work and a strongly recommended addition to academic and community library American History reference collections.

Simply put, "Tight Spaces" is an excellent read. But not an easy one. Anyone who what ever been through some thangs, knows the pain of reading through those thangs. You may have to weep, put the book down and reflect on your life, and where you're headed. Not that the book is all (or even mostly) pain. Sometimes, you just need a silent moment to reflect on the meaning of the purposeful words on the page.

This book is my prized posession. I thank my favorite professor for giving it to me 14 years ago.

I have read this book three times; the first a couple of years before starting flight training when it inspired me, then again during pilot training when it encouraged me and most recently as I was finishing my instrument rating and could appreciate all that Tom had written about. The author's skill with aviation narrative compares well with that of Ernest Gann and Robert Buck, making this book a minor classic of aviation literature, especially for current or future flight students.

An excellent history of the Mercy Medical Center in CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA. Printed in 2000, this 44 pg. pictorial paperback celebrates a 100 year legacy and traces Mercy Hospital's growth from humble beginnings. A very inspiring story.

Edited by English professors Denise Kohn, and Emily B. Todd, and English university lecturer Sarah Meer, Transatlantic Stowe: Harriet Beecher Stowe and European Culture is an anthology of scholarly essays by learned authors concerning the literary writings of Harriet Beecher Stow, perhaps best known for her novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Transatlantic Stowe particularly focuses upon Stowe's personal and literary ventures into Europe, drawing upon source material from London and Paris as well as Stowe's own writings. Essays include "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and the Irish National Tale", "Stowe, Gaskell, and the Woman Reformer", "Stowe and Religious Iconography", and much more. An extensive list of works cited and an index round out this in-depth intellectual contemplation of the broad-reaching repercussions of Stowe's literature, which was wildly and internationally popular in Stowe's heyday, to the extent of being pirated by publishers. Recommended for college library literary studies shelves.

This book did not make a big splash when it came out. And I don't know why not. In a fair world, this book would have been read over every breakfast table in the English-speaking world. Because it is fabulous. It is an absolutely wonderful collection of short stories. I happened on it by chance, and have now read it many times. The stories mostly detail the lives of women in New York city, but the insight into human nature can be appreciated by anyone, anywhere. The stories are poignant but funny. I strongly recommend that you not miss this rare book.

I bought this for my students to use as a resource in my Vietnam War lit course. I'm enjoying it as much as my students.

The author was a winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize in 1994 for his title work "Tree of Heaven." That is one of many of his quality works that appear in this book. My favorite in the collection is "Fake ID", a tale of a sixteen-year old boy using a fake ID to enter a bar. The descriptions of his mental state, the new to him and crusty ambience that he enters, his adopted persona as "Chuck Luna", a sailor of the seas on Barrow sound, the response of the bartender and his feeling of triumph as he departs bearing the desired two cases of Oly beer are delightful. While the individual circumstances will differ, this is the story of all underage men who arm themselves with a fake ID and stroll purposefully on a mission to buy illicit alcohol.
The imagery in the remaining poems is in the category that makes the best poetry. There is just enough description yet a lack of precise imagery so that the reader has the freedom to imaginatively fill in the details. It was clear to me why McKean has won awards for his poetry.

As a lover of music and theatre I was thoroughly engrossed in this astonishing feat of family 'portraiture' of three people dedicated to their art. Although I had not previously known anything about this particular theatrical dynasty, many of the other names, plays and operas were not unfamiliar to me and I was fascinated to discover how they were connected to each other. Stanislavsky, Meyerhold and Chekhov are household names in the theatre world, but it is always enriching to learn something new about them. And because our opera and theatre traditions in the West developed separately, it is interesting to see how closely allied they were in Russia and then see how the Russian tradition in turn influenced ours. As for the Komissarzhevskys themselves, I was carried along with their joys, hopes and disappointments. I only wish I'd been alive at the time to be able to sit in a darkened auditorium and witness their genius, whether it be singing, acting or directing.

The author has obviously consulted and collected a great deal of material in the writing of this book. He gives the reader a balanced view by the many wonderful reviews, both 'good' and 'bad'(and sometimes funny), of the various performances. The excellent quality of the photographs helps to bring these people and their work to life, re-creating the atmosphere of the age.