Virginia Books

This important study is highly astute in its analysis--and very accessible. Ratcliffe is a first-rate thinker and writer.

Three great geniuses are presented here. Where would we be without the unbelievably courageous Mary Daly? And Virginia Woolf is still an important early voice, especially as presented by Jane Marcus and other brilliant radicals. As for Rich, is there a more brilliant writer in "America" today? I think not.

This book dares to include three of the very greatest writers of the century. Mary Daly is the incredibly courageous voice of contemporary radical feminism, Woolf is still valuable for her essays, and Adrienne Rich is a truly visionary poet who has changed the way contemporary discourse is conducted. A wonderful book.

It's a little hard to see how Mary Daly can even be mentioned with a great genius like Virginia Woolf, especially when one considers that Woolf was able to make a new rhetoric apart from patriarchal language, while "theorists" like Daly have only succeeded in questioning contemporary discourse. Nevertheless, a worthwhile book that, when dealing with a major figure like Virginia Woolf, deserves to be read.

This book was displayed in the Welcome Center at the Virginia State line.
I looked through it and decided it was one I HAD to have. I made note of it in my little "black" book and when I returned home to the Northwest I knew I could count on Amazon.com to get it to me.

This is a wonderful book loaded with recipes, pictures and Virginia history.I ahve tried many of the recipes and they are delicious. This is a great book to give as a gift to everyone you know.

I rarely buy cookbooks, and I was glad to have purchased this one. Not only are there a variety of recipes, but there is also lots of Virginia-related history and information to read as well. I think this will be the first cookbook that I actually read cover to cover!
If you are familiar with Virginia restaurants, there are recipes from places like Baliwick Inn and Shields Tavern.
The one thing I wish was different about this book is the way it's organized. For example, there is a chapter on cheese and eggs. There could be a variety of recipes in this chapter, from quiche to creme brulee.

Much more than a cookbook, The Best of Virginia Farms contains intriguing automobile tours to plantations and historic farm sites in the Old Dominion, some I didn't know existed and most I hadn't visited but will now. There are 8 (36 by 12-inch) full color foldout panoramic photos of Virginia, interesting interviews of Virginians who had a great impact on agriculture, and so many interesting facts I didn't know -- either about food, agriculture or Virginia history. Best of all, the recipes are delicious and easy to make with clear directions and background information about the Virginians who created them. Anyone who likes good food and likes to learn will really enjoy this book about America's first farm state.

The best book I read in 2007 was originally published in 1925. And, as a bonus, it was actually read for me. The plot of Beyond the Outposts is unlike any I have encountered before: young Lew Dorset runs away from his uncle (looking after him since Lew's father went to prison) in search of his father.

Along the way, he makes a great friend in Chuck Morris (and that's Morris, not Norris, in case you weren't really paying attention yet), and fights Indians, later befriending them. There's a lot more that happens, but I don't want to ruin this epic experience for you. This is one of author Max Brand's most ambitious plots and he handles it deftly. Also, the complexity of the father-son relationship (even in the absence of the father) is dealt with especially well, giving Lew a depth that is not found in many characters.

As for the audiobook of Beyond the Outposts, let me begin by saying that it is a special occasion when an actor you were previously unaware of makes an impression -- and to do so twice is extraordinary -- but that is just what happened to me with an actor with the distinctive name of Kristoffer Tabori.

The first time I saw Tabori, he was truly inhabiting the usually thankless role of Henry Baskerville to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles. (In fact, I defy you to name anyone you who has ever played that role memorably.) His portrayal, I wrote at the time, "offers up a sympathetic rendition of the lord of the manor that actually makes the viewer care about his safety (and his heart)."

Fast-forward a year. I came across this audio of Beyond the Outposts (Brand is one of my favorite authors, and one whose audiobooks, for some reason, I have a good deal of trouble tracking down through the library) -- read by Kristoffer Tabori. Well, I knew the name rang a bell and looked up the Holmes review to reread it. Interesting, I thought, a Briton reading a Western, but I decided to give it a go anyway. (It turns out Tabori is actually an American, and the son of director Don Siegel and actress Viveca Lindfors, but I was ignorant of this at the time. Thanks, Wikipedia!)

The voice that came from my car's speakers was so different from that of Henry Baskerville that I had to do some Googling to confirm that it was in fact the same person. Tabori's reading reeks of the Old West. His personification of narrator Lew Dorset surpassed even my expectations for a Max Brand character. And his voice never falters as he gives each character a voice distinct enough to be different, yet similar enough to remind us they are all from the same area. Tabori makes these people live in a way they simply cannot on paper. And anyone who can actually improve on a Brand story gets high marks in my book.

Wow! This story is char-broiled!

I'm not sure how accurate the portrayals of the Sioux and Pawnees are, but the white Virginian who narrates his life story winds up living with the Sioux to his delight, and being a captive of the Pawnee. It's a real rip-snorter. Fleeing from an abusive uncle, searching for his father, he meets up with a colorful cast of characters from the pre-Civil war West. Initially it has tones of Huck Finn (abusive parental figure, misguided racism from the South) but becomes a dramatic, rip-snorter of a tale, fighting and living with Native Americans, hunting an almost mythical white horse, and telling a tale of great friendship and disaster.

The reader of the CD audio book is a perfect match - one of the best I have heard. It's like you are sitting at the campfire with him.

Reading Max Brand will spoil you for the insipid pop fiction being written today. Here was a guy who knew how to tell a story! What a craftsman! Kristoffer Tabori -- who won an Audie Award last year for his version of J Eugenenides' "Middlesex" -- does a nuanced, exciting rendition of this vintage Western.

Best western I've ever read from any author.

Blind Singer Joe's Blues is a novel set in the birthplace and time of modern American music. The complex and all-too human characters whose live play out against this backdrop are the musicians who create what we now call blues, rag-time and country music.

The author's deep knowledge of the music of that era is obvious throughout. It complements his ability to draw strong portraits of the characters and an engrossing story line.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Highly recommended.

I couldn't put this beautifully-crafted book down once I started it. Robert Love Taylor's masterful handling of perspective and dialogue, his insightful and sympathetic development of characters, and the precise perfection of the language throughout make this a rare gem. You won't find its match in evoking the feel of music. I loved it.

More truth in reviewing: I know the author too, and I knew he could make a fiddle sing like God's choir of spring-morning birds -- but I had no idea he could do the same thing with mere words of clay. Blind Singer Joe's Blues sings through hard-bitten characters and hard times; through soul-searching, generosity, orneriness and forgiveness; and through the greenbrier thicket of family ties.

Taylor eases the reader through viewpoint, time and place, just as a tune effortlessly weaves from chorus to verse and back again. The plot unfolds so sparely that you wonder at how he creates such a complex tapestry in such a small space.

His characters -- Hannah Ruth, Pink Miracle, Dudley Crider and his mama Pearlie, Mama Bayless, Emmett and Amelia Holt -- reveal themselves, their stations, their hopes and beliefs through their language, all of it sounding as true as a tuning fork, as when Dudley gives a piece of his mind to the toddler, Singer Joe: "We are Criders and don't have no fear, he told the boy, and he imagined some of O.T., some of Uncle Crockett and Uncle U.S., some of Daddy, some of himself, yes, and then all the Criders before them, grandaddies and grandmamas by the score, crowded up in Singer Joe's veins."

Religious passion and personal passion meet sorrow and self-denial and all of it makes up the blues that are the fabric of Singer Joe's life.

Start this book on Friday night; you'll want the weekend to finish it.

Truth in reviewing: I am acquainted with the author, but haven't seen him in ages. Years ago he promised another novel with the old-time fiddler character Pink Miracle from his earlier book, THE LOST SISTER, and he has finally delivered. It is well worth the wait: it is highly readable and atmospheric, filled with memorable people. It's about souls who may seem kind of marginal in global and universal schemes but who find a way to be heard, to matter in the middle of it all.

Taylor has drawn on family history and legend out of his ancestral territory of Oklahoma and the mountains of eastern Tennessee for his past books. In this new work, in which he is at the top of his powers as a storyteller and fiction stylist, he looks at the early 20th century country folks who poured their lives into the songs that became the modern bluegrass, jazz and folk traditions. The jazz musician of the title and his blues are the legacy of the stories that flow together in this narrative, swirling around a restless songbird teenage mother who deserts him as well as everyone else in her life.

I confess to having been haphazardly acquainted with bluegrass music through occasional street festivals and local arts events. Coincidentally, as I was reading BLIND SINGER JOE'S BLUES, an Alison Krauss concert video was brought into the house. Listening and reading at the same time, I realized just how much Taylor's novel is alive with the music and explains how it got that way; and Krauss, well, she and bluegrass have a new fan.

The lives of Victor Chambers-who was born on the battlefield at Gettysburg to a runaway slave and later became an artist in Providence-and his mother are chronicled in this book based on letters that Victor Chambers wrote to Rinaldi's great-grandfather, a Civil War veteran, in 1931. The story Rinaldi relates is emblematic of the fate of countless others whose lives were shaped by the scourge of slavery. Chambers' mother, a daughter of free blacks in Philadelphia, was kidnapped from her parents by slave catchers, who most likely included the notorious Lucretia (Patty) Cannon. After the kidnapping, Chambers' mother was enslaved on a Virginia tobacco plantation for 37 years before she made her escape to Gettysburg on the night before the historic Civil War battle erupted. She was nine months pregnant with Chambers-and determined that her child would not be born a slave. Gettysburg was a key stop on the Underground Railroad. This riveting chronicle provides valuable insights into the tactics and routes used by slave catchers in abducting free blacks, especially children, the atmosphere in slave markets; the role of religion as a means of control by owners, as well as a means of self-expression by slaves; the treatment of slave children; physical and psychological measures used by masters and overseers to control slaves; sexual abuse by masters; and the Underground Railroad as a clandestine operation.

" Born At The Battlefield Of Gettysburg: An African-American Family Saga is the true story of an African-American family that suffered from the unspeakable evil of slavery. The protagonist's mother was the daughter of free blacks in Philadelphia; kidnapped from her parents by slave catchers, she was enslaved on a Virginia tobacco plantation for 37 years before making a daring escape to Gettysburg on the night before the historic Civil War battle ensued. She was nine months pregnant, and determined that her child would not be born a slave. Born At The Battlefield Of Gettysburg is an impressively in-depth, heavily researched and brutally accurate portrayal of the methods and means by which the monstrous evil of slavery was justified and perpetuated, how religion was used both as a club to keep slaves in line and as a means of self-expression for the slaves, the operation of the Underground Railroad, and much more. Riveting and highly recommended, yet also shocking in its literal, realistic portrayal of man's historical inhumanity to man."-- Midwest Book Review

Born At The Battlefield Of Gettysburg: An African-American Family Saga is the true story of an African-American family that suffered from the unspeakable evil of slavery. The protagonist's mother was the daughter of free blacks in Philadelphia; kidnapped from her parents by slave catchers, she was enslaved on a Virginia tobacco plantation for 37 years before making a daring escape to Gettysburg on the night before the historic Civil War battle ensued. She was nine months pregnant, and determined that her child would not be born a slave. Born At The Battlefield Of Gettysburg is an impressively in-depth, heavily researched and brutally accurate portrayal of the methods and means by which the monstrous evil of slavery was justified and perpetuated, how religion was used both as a club to keep slaves in line and as a means of self-expression for the slaves, the operation of the Underground Railroad, and much more. Riveting and highly recommended, yet also shocking in its literal, realistic portrayal of man's historical inhumanity to man.

The lives of Victor Chambers-who was born on the battlefield at Gettysburg to a runaway slave and later became an artist in Providence-and his mother are chronicled in this book based on letters that Victor Chambers wrote to Rinaldi's great-grandfather, a Civil War veteran, in 1931. The story Rinaldi relates is emblematic of the fate of countless others whose lives were shaped by the scourge of slavery. Chambers' mother, a daughter of free blacks in Philadelphia, was kidnapped from her parents by slave catchers, who most likely included the notorious Lucretia (Patty) Cannon. After the kidnapping, Chambers' mother was enslaved on a Virginia tobacco plantation for 37 years before she made her escape to Gettysburg on the night before the historic Civil War battle erupted. She was nine months pregnant with Chambers-and determined that her child would not be born a slave. Gettysburg was a key stop on the Underground Railroad. This riveting chronicle provides valuable insights into the tactics and routes used by slave catchers in abducting free blacks, especially children, the atmosphere in slave markets; the role of religion as a means of control by owners, as well as a means of self-expression by slaves; the treatment of slave children; physical and psychological measures used by masters and overseers to control slaves; sexual abuse by masters; and the Underground Railroad as a clandestine operation.

There are very few books on the market about this subject. Luckily, this one is excellent. The author covers all topics very extensively-- supplies, techniques, color theory. The variety of flowers is phenomenal, and the directions are easy to follow. Many of the illustrations are in black and white, but the color plates (there are 21 of them) are beautiful. If you are at all interested in creating lovely flowers from beads, you need this book.

This is a phenomenal book for the beginner or intermediate flower beader! I tried other "newer" booklets when I first started beading and was so confused. This book is very easy to understand with concise illustrations and instructions. This is a must have if you want to learn the beautiful Victorian craft of beaded flowers! Happy beading!

This book is a huge help with color, design and balance. Thanks.

Although it is dated from the 1960's nothing about this forgotten craft has changed. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. The pictures, although mostly in black and white, are large, and show what the flower is supposed to look like when you are done. Each and every phase of the process of making French Beaded Flowers is discussed in detail. There is a section on arrangement and the kinds of containers you can use. I bought this book to add to my collection of books on this subject and was pleasantly suprised by how good it was.

this good is so good. it's about a 16 year old girl name Kitty- Lee Carter who needs money, so she gets a summer job at DQ. Kitty Lee lives in a small not wealthy town and when a man w/ a nice car pulls up and askes for her to baby sit his 3 kids b/c the mother is ill. Kitty- Lee doesn't want to leave her friend but when he offers her dubble what she gets @ DQ she takes it. Then she finds out he likes her!! well u gotta read the book for the rest but it's so good!

This was the cutest book I have ever read! The author did a marvelous job at writing the story! It made me wanna keep on reading and readin! I thought this was a great book!!!!!!! The ending was really nice and I like the way the book was foreshadowing! I thought the cutest part was the love part at the end!

The novel The Brightest Light was a heartwarming book. It had its sad times like when Kitty's (main character) grandma was talking to her about how her mother died in a car accident.I love how the author kept me hanging at the end of each chapter. It made me want to read the book all at once. The author did an excellent job in describing the characters' feelings. This is a great love story. I recomend this book big time.

Have you ever faced confusion, disapointment, and excitment at the same time? In The Brightest Light by Colleen McKenna, a 16-year old tells her story of a time that her childhood friend is abandoning her, her "cousin" seems to hate her, and a very handsome, older man doesn't discourage her liking him (not to mention he has a wife and three small children). My discription may not impress you, but the book is just indescribable. I hope that you will purchace this wonderful and unexpensive book that you will enjoy over and over again.

"Bringing Down the Mountains" is only the latest in a line of books about West Virginia mining diasters, industrial carnage, and coal wars, going back to H.B. Lee's wonderful "Bloodletting in Appalachia" and Hubert Skidmore's heartbreaking "Hawk's Nest." You could fill an entire library room with these books. As a West Virginia native, my heart breaks whenever I read them. Most, like Ms. Burns' stirring expose of present-day mountaintop strip mining, show the most ruthless side of capitalism and Big Industry. And yet West Virginians have lately ignored the lessons of their own history of corporate exploitation and "gone Republican." Part of the problem is that the schools don't teach real state history and tell students about Buffalo Creek, Monongah, Union Carbide's Hawk's Nest tunnel, and the rest of the human tragedy and ecological degradation that seem so much a part of West Virginia, going back to the 1880s when the robber barons of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania essentially "colonized" the state and began mercilessly plundering its resources and grinding down the lives of its citizens. Like many Third World countries, West Virginia provides a bitter example of why large corporations, amoral by nature, should never be unregulated. It's a lesson, unfortunately, that too many West Virginians have either forgotten or never learned.

One of the most important books WVU Press has published to date is Bringing Down the Mountains, by Shirley Stewart Burns. This book documents the effects of mountaintop removal on human communities and is the best study to date. The author focuses in detail--with rigor of mind and fidelity of heart--on the human impact of moutaintop removal. MTR may as well be called "extractive desertification," both in ecological and sociological terms.

This book is already having an impact and is serving to link more and more voices around the most compelling criticisms of MTR. The author is the daughter of a coal miner and knows first hand what devastation this practice wreaks: like me, her hometown is being encroached upon by one of these sites.

Mountaintop removal is not coal mining and it does not participate in that cultural legacy. Those who work these sites are excavators, and their employment is short.

If you care about Appalachia, the most diverse temperate forests in the world, a major source of water, or the impact of globalism, read this book.

I personally know the author, Shirley Stewart Burns, and knew that the caliber of this story would be of the highest order. I was not surprised when I read it, and her emotional connection to the story and in particular the small mining communities of West Virginia shines through from start to finish. This is a story that should be read by all, as it highlights the power of the people and the ever increasing need for communities to rally behind a cause.
I congratulate Dr Burns on a wonderful, thought provoking and personally touching account. Even from the southern hemisphere where I am living, stories like this are relevant, and a number of my environmental friends have shown an interest in reading it.

I bought this book the day it hit the market and have read it twice. Dr. Burns lays out the case against mountaintop removal as only a native of southern West Virginia could. If everyone read this book the nation would finally understand the horror that is mountaintop removal, and take action to halt the practice. This is without doubt the authoratative academic work on this subject!

The author has done an excellent job documenting the experiences of Hank Aaron, Billy Williams, Felipe Alou and others who broke minor league baseball color lines down south in the years after Jackie Robinson opened up the major leagues. His book includes poignant and compelling interviews with these and other ballplayers who relate their painful experiences of enduring Jim Crow racial restrictions while playing baseball. The author also places their achievements within the historical context of the times, the 1950s and 1960s. These players were truly civil rights pioneers, helping to integrate a closed society. This is a must read!

A compelling and very well-written account of Jim Crow and minor league baseball in the American South. The book is a fascinating cultural and historical study. The author clearly devoted a great deal of time in researching this book. His presentation of the oral histories is fantastic.

This is a wonderful book, recounting a largely unknown story of American and baseball history - how the southern minors' integration was part of the larger civil rights movement. 20th century baseball integration began but did not end with Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby. Unitl now, no one had taken their legacy to the next step. Bruce Adelson now has in a powerful account of what it was like being on the front lines of baseball and civil rights in the Dixie of the 1950s and early 1960s.

The author does a great job of capturing both sides of the integration battlefields (ballparks) of the South. He effectively uses narratives of former players, both the famous (Felipe Alou, Billy Williams, etc.)and the not so famous (Joe Durham, Percy Miller Jr., etc.) to detail exactly what those pioneers had to endure. Those narratives are interwoven with clippings from various newspapers of the day to tie the intergration of minor league baseball in the South with the overall racial climate of those cities. This book, I believe, would prove to be an interesting and informative read, even for those who are not baseball fans. Adelson obviously did a lot of research and successfully shows how baseball "broke down the walls" for total integration in the South. Spend the money and the time on this book - it's worth it!

Helen Konz has done a magnificent job of researching material for her novel. She then tapped her imaginative mind and wove a story of tragedy and triumph from that historical cloth. As well as learning some history I did not know I thoroughly enjoyed her fictional characters and their development. This book, and the other two in this series, would be a wonderful addition to any school library. The history of our nation's founding, told in such an entertaining and interesting way, is a story many would enjoy.

Helen Konz has the gift of telling a story and making you feel like you're there. The characters are very believeable.

I had so much fun adding my imagination to historical events that I've written and self-published two sequels. Young adult and adult readers tell me that the books have rekindled their interest in our nations's history. That makes me feel that I've written something worthwhile.

The book was interesting, exciting, gripping and fun to read. I love the way things worked out. Helen Konz has a great way of telling stories.