Southern Books

The book shows an amazign amount of knowledge and background concerning the subjects in the book. The Author does a great job of not only educating the reader on the findings of 30 years of research but teaches the reader what he has done. The use of non-participant observation in the book is flawless. I thought i learned a ton from the book till i read it again and learned so much more.

By far the most thorough and comprehensive text on the teen drug subculture. It's the only text I have seen that follows the subjects for an extended time period- in this case 30+ years. The depth of inside information on the subculture is second to none. You won't be disappointed.

Fr. Lowney has years of sociological real life experience all recorded in this book. I was shocked from the statistics of drug use/abuse, it certainly brought me out of "The Cave". Kudos for telling it how it is...

This book is thorough--covers 31 years of research, but presents a very human understanding of my generation. It combines the story of the young people with the author's own life journey (he even enters the priesthood during the course of his research). Brings back some great (and not so great--now that I think about them) memories!

We bought three book by nick greaves while travel in south Africa. We buy books for our three grandchildren( age 4,6,8) while travelling in South Africa last year. We have given them so many books through the years from around the world. They love these books so much. First the parents read to them,every night now the oldest reads to the younger ones. I wish the author writes more books for children.

My 9-year old son came home from school today very excited about this book, which his teacher had started reading to the class. He took out his wallet, counted his money, and asked, "Can we go on line and buy this book right now? I have enough of my own money to buy it." This is enough proof for me that kids love it.

The sub-title "And other tales from Africa" seems to suggest that this book was written for children, but it is fun to read for adults as well. Nick Greaves tells stories, tales, fables and legends from the African tribes about different animals and after each section gives facts about them. By doing this especially for tourists the book gives a general idea of the wildlife one might come across while traveling in Africa and furthermore the book supplies the not native speaker with useful vocabulary. The illustrations of Rod Clement are just as good as photos, sometimes even better, because good close-ups of mainly the small and nocturnal animals are quite rare. "When Hippo Was Hairy" was followed up by "When Lion Could Fly", which is highly recommendable, too.

We recently moved to South Africa and, prior to our first visit to a game park we bought this book to read on our adventure- it is wonderful, full of short entertaining stories that were gathered from the various tribes of Africa to explain why certain animals have spots, long trunks, sleep standing up etc....

Our children loved it and we bought the other 2 in the series.

Except for the first two books, I have read all of Patricia Sprinkle's Thoroughly Southern Mystery series to date and have loved each one. The stories envelop the reader in the cozy comfort of visiting with old friends, without ever letting them overstay their welcome. Each book reveals something new about returning favorites and introduces enough new friends, family members, and villains to keep things fresh and interesting. The mysteries are clever, intriguing, complex. The setting is rich in the regional flavors, customs, and manners of the small-town South, but never at the expense of other cultures or groups of people. This series never disappoints.

I hope Signet will one day offer BUT WHY SHOOT THE MAGISTRATE? and WHEN DID WE LOSE HARRIET? in the same style as the rest of the series so my collection may be complete.

Judge MacLaren Yarbrough has her hands full running Yarbrough's Feed, Seed, and Nursery, managing her magisterial duties, keeping care of her home and taking care of her husband Joe Riddley. Joe is recovering from a head injury and has to relearn how to care for himself as well as read and write. His memory is cloudy and he is prone to violent episodes.

To show their support for Joe, two hundred people come to his birthday party and he enjoyed it as much as a kid would. Only a very few knew that in the house was the body of a dead man, shot to death by a bullet to his head. The sheriff conspired with MacLaren to keep it quiet until the guests left and they succeeded. Once the investigation got underway, MacLaren does her best to find out who the killer is and to prove to the authorities that Joe had nothing to do with it.

Patricia Sprinkles has created a complex mystery with many viable suspects who had ample reason to see the victim dead. Life in a small southern town where everyone knows their neighbor and a stranger sticks out is seen as a positive thing. The heartache of living with someone who has undergone severe brain trauma is shown in agonizing detail and readers can't help but empathize with the protagonist for caring for her man.

Harriet Klausner

While growing up, Nancy Drew was always my heroine. Although about my age she seemed so much more clever and independent than I. Her relationship with her friends, her car, everything about her was interesting. All in all she was a great role model for negotiating those adolescent years. And she was so good at the business of detecting. She made me a life long mystery reader!
Now that I am of an age where AARP is looking for me, I have found my new Nancy Drew in the character of MacLaren Yarbrough. She is such an interesting woman with a great zest for life. Never preachy (or almost never), she yet stands out as a shining light of mature womanhood. She bears the responsibilities which come with age so well that the word burden becomes the word challenge. She makes being a mature citizen a very proud thing indeed. And the best part for an avid mystery reader is that she really gets involved in some very interesting murders and very cleverly works out the mysteries which lie behind them. Who Invited The Dead Man? is a wonderful book - read it yourself and get copies for your mystery reading friends. They will love MacLaren Yarbrough and the mystery she solves.

Oh, yes, I should add that even the current Nancy Drew fans will enjoy the Southern comfort and charm of this book. This is a mystery which can be savored by all!

any mystery lover knows how hard it is to find an author who can fool you. well, patricia sprinkle can fool her readers completely.

in addition to a first-rate plot, there are well-drawn characters, sprinkle's wonderful turns of phrases--the woman can write--good dialogue, and realistic responses to situations.

i enjoyed this book a lot, but i'm giving it four stars instead of five because it will probably not end up in my permanent collection, as sharyn mccrumb and margaret maron, for two examples, automatically do. however, i will be loaning it out with an enthusiastic recommendation to all my mystery-reading friends.

The miscellaneous writings include (among other writings) Bartram's responses to carefully worded questions about Creek and Cherokee Indians. This edition has numerous glossy color and black and white prints. There is a picture on Amazon that shows the book in a slipcover--it doesn't come in a slipcover. Otherwise, a high quality edition.

This is the best edition of Bartram that is available today.
Like all Library of America volumes, it is an attractively designed book with a ribbon marker.

I didn't read it , but my son, the Forester has worn out his older copy.

Imbued by his father, John Bartram, with a love of nature and a passion for learning, William Bartram set forth in 1773 to explore the flora and fauna of the wild frontier country of the American Southeast.
The elder Bartram had established a Botanical Garden on the outskirts of Philadelphia, where he cultivated trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants indigenous to America. He sent seeds, animal and plant specimens to horticulturists and naturalists in England, sometimes including drawings by his son. William had accompanied his father on botanical expeditions to Connecticut, New York, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

The Travels reported in this volume were sponsored by Dr. John Fothergill of England, to whom William sent drawings, specimens, and a 2-part written account of his discoveries.
Publication of his pioneering work was delayed by the intervening Revolutionary War. The American edition, containing numerous errors, was printed in Philadelphia in 1791; a British edition followed in 1792. Irish and German editions appeared in 1793, and a French translation in 1799. The "Travels" had a significant influence on European Romanticism. Coleridge, Wordsworth, Chateaubriand among others drew on their imagery.

William Bartram's travels took him, between 1773 and1776, from Charleston and Savannah to the coastal region and the interior of Georgia, then to Florida as far south as Cape Canaveral and as far west as Pensacola. He ventured into Alabama, visiting Mobile, and journeyed on to Baton Rouge. Sometimes he joined survey crews or traders, but mostly he traveled alone - on horseback, by boat, or on foot. He kept extensive lists of the plants he found, some of them heretofore unknown or unreported. Franklinia alatamaha and Magnolia auriculata are famous examples.

But he also gives vivid descriptions of the wildlife he encounters: alligators, wolves, bears, panthers, turtles, snakes, fishes, birds and insects in great profusion. He examines the soil and the quality of the water, comments on meteorological phenomena - in short, nothing escapes his observant eye. His Quaker spirit fills him with admiration and gratitude for the magnificent design of nature; it might be called Edenic except for the mosquitoes - and he doesn't appear to be too fond of alligators, either. Curiosity wins out over fear, however, when he pokes into alligator nests to see how they are constructed and how the eggs are arranged.
Forty-eight splendid plates and a number of drawings accompany the text and give a lively impression of what he saw and how he saw it.

His gentle disposition renders his encounters with Indian "savages" peaceful and friendly, marked by mutual respect. The Seminoles call him Puc Puggy, the Flower Hunter, and offer him hospitality, protection, and assistance in his quest for medicinal herbs. He gives a highly sympathetic account of the daily lives, customs, social organization and religious beliefs of various Indian tribes. An expanded version of these observations is part of the Miscellaneous Writings included in this volume.
In a philosophical vein, he muses about the "innate moral principles" that guide unlettered and untutored men, and deplores the detrimental effect civilization has on them: commerce with white traders who provide them with luxury goods in great profusion causes the Indians to kill more animals than they would normally need, because the traders take the hides and pelts in exchange for their wares; and the women are beginning to forget the ancient skills of weaving and pottery-making since everything can be obtained ready-made from the white men.
He does not fail to mention the existence of slavery among the Indians as well as among the white planters, but he takes no definite stand on this issue.

After his return to Philadelphia, William devotes his time to reading, writing, teaching, and cultivating his father's garden which is visited by many famous men, including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and the leading horticulturists and naturalists of the time. It is still there today, "worthy of the attention of lovers of Science and admirers of Nature", as envisioned by its creator.

This book was awarded the 2004 Gold Medal "Book of the Year Award" in the Adventure/Recreation Category by Foreword Magazine. It was also a finalist at the prestigious Banff International Mountain Book Festival, a Silver Medal winner at the annual Publisher's Marketing Association Ben Franklin Awards, and Runner Up in the Travel Category at the Publisher's Association of the West Book Design and Production Awards. Thanks for your interest.

It's obvious that the author has perused plenty of climbing books and learned from the successes and failures of others. This is a gorgeous book, with concise route descriptions that are informative without wrecking the adventure of the climbs themselves. The photos are clear and useful and the book is well-organized. I have climbed a few of the longer routes in Cody as well as several in Montana and have yet to find any inaccuracies. 99% of the book is about routes - the obligatory stuff about local ethics and history is interesting but brief, unlike some guidebooks that fill half their pages with Leave No Trace advice.

Highly recommended for all ice climbers interested in seeing the Yellowstone ecosystem from high on an ice climb!

for any outdoor enthusiast, not to mention 'climber',this is a striking book. the paper quality and photos would in itself be a great addition to your library. the read is well done and in the true climber lingo, would recommend highly.

This guide book is well written, thought out, and has some reall really nice photos. All routes are photographed, making finding them alot easier. They could almost slap a hard cover on it and sell it as a coffe table book.

I'm not sure what I was hoping for when I saw this book being offered. I just had to have it, so I eventually ordered. Upon reading through it, it is somewhat interesting with a lot of little tidbits. It is just not as great as I was hoping.

I am Patrick A. Gainer, whose name my late father, Dr. Patrick W. Gainer gave me so I would not be called "Junior". Any review I might give would be biased by my love and respect for him and his scholarship. All I can say is that I doubt any one who reads this book will disagree with me.

This collection is a rare treat. The information contained in its 177 pages is a goldmine for writers, folklorists, and storytellers. Want to know how to cure a wart, stop a bleeding nose, or to tell when rain is coming? It's all here. Ghost stories, tales of witches, weather and nature lore, tradtional mountain social activities and folk remedies combine for a great read.

I LOVE this book. It's chocked full of surprising and interesting West Virginia folklore such as superstitions, home remedies, ghost stories, appalachian dialect and more. It's highly reminiscent and entertaining. This book is a real treat. Availability is increasingly limited. I am from the same town as the author (now deceased) & had to order my copy from FL. Even his family didn't have a copy to spare.

I think this book was good and interersting and to me It was a good book.This author is my only uncle and I think he is a great poet/author!!!!!!

Neal Bowers made an interesting discovery one day - one of his poems was published under someone else's name.

With this minor irritation (one never gets rich from poetry, one's own or others), Bowers began the trek down a bizarre path to try to find out who was plagiarising his work, and why. Bowers discovered a man going by the name of David Sumner, aka David Jones, who had a habit of copying the poetry from others (not only Bowers), changing the title and a first line or two, and submitting these to poetry journals, magazines and other media outlets as his own. Exactly why was unclear - any pieces of note would undoubtedly be discovered, and few publishing successes came with any kind of monetary compensation attached.

Bowers never intended to become a detective, but the trail just kept on going. Bowers actually made contact with the person, threatened legal action, abandoned because, after all, there was no money in it beyond Sumner/Jones sent to Bowers (some $600 or so that he managed to make from the poems), copies of journals from which he'd lifted poems, a marked book that showed his submission patterns - each step of the way, Sumner/Jones claimed to be operating in good faith, but there was inevitably more to be found.

What was going on?

The more Bowers dug, the more surreal the situation became. Sumner/Jones had been a teacher in Illinois and Oregon, dismissed under terrible circumstances (molestation of children from his second-grade classrooms), jailed for the actions, and strangely, focussed his plagiarism on poetry that dealt with family issues and loss. Bowers was not the only poet plagiarised - as it turned out, Sumner/Jones was successful enough to have many publishing successes, and even had poetry readings arranged.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this is near the end, the attitudes of various persons towards Bowers and his quest for some sort of justice. Journalists by and large were sympathetic, not liking the idea of someone stealing the words (the stock-in-trade of their profession) and getting away with it. But there were those in the media, including poetry journal editors, who seemed to think that Bowers was the 'bad guy' for making such a fuss. Because of the attentions of journalists, others who felt they'd been wronged (not only in plagiarism, but in other realms, too) assumed Bowers would be a kindred spirit and naturally willing to help them - Bowers' mail quadrupled, with all manner of bizarre requests.

Bowers even discovered plagiarism from his friends - one friend, a calligrapher, set some of Bowers' poems in her art, and even produced her own hand-drawn book of his poems (offered at a very high price) without permission, and perhaps more surprisingly, without any recognition that what she was doing was in any way wrong - words were hers for the taking.

In the end, the story ends the way it began - Jones/Sumner still sending out plagiarised work, now having 'graduated' to short stories. But one assumes that Bowers will let others continue the pursuit. Sumner/Jones, in finding Bowers to be a reasonable, even nice, person generally, may have focussed upon him more directly because of this. No good deed goes unpunished!

A fascinating and unexpected tale.

This is a fascinating and scary book.

WORDS FOR THE TAKING is by the poet Neal Bowers, who stumbled on one of his poems that appeared under another writer's name. After some detective work, he found out that the plagiarist, David Sumner/David Jones, had ripped off several other of his poems, and had also stolen from poets as well known as Mark Strand and Sharon Olds. Further investigation located the man, and it turned out he was also guilty of child molestation -- a second-grade teacher who was convicted of molesting 7-year-old girls left in his care.

I wonder if you have to be a writer yourself, to understand how violated the author felt. (And how terrifying it must have been to find out how completely bereft of morals the violator turned out to be).

The first instance Bowers found was "Tenth -Year Elegy," a very personal remembrance of his father. Most of the other poems stolen were about family relations, which in context is sinister.

(One must quote, for fun, the response that he got from the editor of _Poetry Forum_, with an unlikely name, Gunvor Skogsholm, the burden of which seems to have driven him to reinvent the history of poetry in his own eloquent terms: "It's my strongly felt opinion that a good poet by nature ought to possess humbleness and that he or she ought not to think to [sic] highly of him- or herself. Throughout history, those have always been the personal traits associated with a POET. If you have read any of the literary histories associated with the great names in the art of poetry, you will know this is so.")

It's a very well written book on a fascinating subject. Bowers understands that merely ordinary people might see his concern and the steps he was driven to as being excessive, and I think in that light, both he and the publisher, W.W. Norton, are to be commended for keeping a proper perspective.

I was fascinated by this book, especially since I worked with Bowers in his quest to catch up with his plagiarist, a quest detailed by this book. Although the editor before me published the poem, I was the editor of a small poetry magazine which had printed a plagiarized version of one of Bowers' poems. Both in our brief correspondence and in this book, Bowers' impressed me as a brave soul. Plagiarists, on the other hand, are not the pranksters they imagine themselves to be; they are the cowards of the literary world. "Words for the Taking" is a tale of courage, both in the story it tells of the tracking of a criminal, and in the example it sets of one man believing in his writing. There are many lazy, slack-off writers out there. "Words for the Taking" shows us more than any writing course could that putting effort into and believing in your writing is one of the bravest acts possible.

In the interest of full disclosure, I've known Liza Wieland since we were children. But even if I'd never met her, I'd recognize her significant talent. In all of her stories and in her novel (The Names of the Lost), Liza exhibits tender feelings for her characters and for their struggle to connect with others. Yes, some of the stories are tinged with sadness, but they're also buoyed by kindness. Way to go, Liza!

The stories of Wieland's second collection reveal a series of displaced characters longing for intimacy in the wide open spaces of the West. Often, what these characters find is that they are not alone, but joined by a series of presences, ghosts that weave themselves through the nine stories, haunting these characters with reminders of pasts they do not fully understand.

Irradiation, for example, begins with the death of the narrator's husband at the hands of Christine, a teenage cancer patient. When Christine recovers, an infatuation develops, forcing the narrator to befriend Christine, follow her to New York, and eventually lift her life from her, stealing a career and a boyfriend in the process. In Salt Lake, Em plays witness to the deterioration of her mother's health, and in the process learns of her mother's past, including the story of her own father. These revelations hint toward a legacy Em ultimately cannot bear to inherit.

Ghosts also haunt the narrator of Gray's Anatomy, the man who almost invented Nylon. He and two other men - one the inventor of Styrofoam and the other a Disney animator - meet in the hospital waiting room while on vacation on the California coast, in a story that creates a beautiful dance between their histories and the sometimes uncertain promise of a future for the ailing children these men cherish.

The wide open spaces are not always wide enough. In the stories Laramie and Purgatory, the narrators find themselves on long car trips with lovers they have grown distant from. As the narrator of Purgatory ruefully dreams of escape all the way to their destination, the family home, only to find the chaos that exists there somehow empowers her to dismiss her lover. After a blowout on the way to Yellowstone, the narrator of Laramie and her lover become further delayed by Al Laudermilk, his poet sister, and their senile father, who open their lives and offer a vision of how one gets trapped in Laramie, a vision that frightens the narrator out of love.

In the title story, an absent father named Mack travels across the country to the Bay Area at the request of his dying son. Their sprint of a relationship transforms both men, leading ultimately to a dream-like state of motion that Mack almost cannot control.

Wieland balances this longing and sorrow with a sense of hope - filtered through the lives of children. In Halloween, several neighbor women reveal private childhood secrets, which begin to sink in for a young girl as she learns to cope with the death of her father and the motherly responsibility she seems to feel for her younger brother. In the wonderfully lyrical The Loop, The Snow, Their Daughters, The Rain, two young families enjoy a trip to Chicago while their young daughters delight in discovering the power of language.

This power is at the center of Wieland's prose and her command of the craft of storytelling. In Laramie, her narrator recollects that:

". . . there were two kinds of poems, the kind that when you read them, they fill up a space inside you, an empty place that you didn't even know was there. And then there was the kind that when you read them, they made a space that you had to learn to live with, had to carry around until something, some experience filled it in."

These stories have done both.

It moved me, caused me to think, and many times made me sad. There is a thread of melancholy running through Wieland's work, a kind of hovering sadness that tends to move in closer in some stories and sometimes hover farther off in the background in others, yet it is always there. This quality seems to me to be one of expressed intelligence. I think the more aware we are of the world around us, the more empathetic we are, even in our happiest moments, to the pain, injustice, and bitterness in life. And this, for me at least, often makes itself felt in a kind of melancholy or sadness that can never be quite defined, never quite confronted, but simply known.

I feel Wieland's work has always had a way of dealing with the day to day sublteties, the little battles won and lost, that is not only realistic, but intelligently observed and quietly expressed.

p.s. If the reviewer from Kirkus can't even figure out how to use quotes and apostrophes, how intelligent of a reader can s/he be?

This second short story collection is full of the same beautiful language that fills Liza Wieland's other prose. She carries us across state lines and into the minds of characters -- all of them filled with a haunting sadness that we come to feel ourselves. The stories are gorgeous in their telling and the voices, at times, begin to almost sing in your head. In the title story, as in others, we are witness to moments of beauty that seem monumental and bittersweet in the tragic lives of the characters. A wonderful book to make your way through, you will often find yourself stopping to reread a line or to soak in the full impact of an image.

The humor of Jeff Foxworthy reminds me of the old television show "Sanford and Son." The main characters were all black, and most of them were poor. Therefore, they could poke fun at it and even use the stereotypes used to depict poor blacks. It was the only network television show where the word ni**er could be used. Foxworthy claims to be a redneck, so he also can poke fun using the stereotypes of what many people call "trailer trash."
The people are depicted as dumb, toothless, crude and ill mannered. In only a few pages, he manages to hit just about every stereotype. My favorite is on page 32, where he says, "You might be a redneck if your Thanksgiving dinner was ever ruined because you ran out of ketchup." I found some of them mildly humorous, but most of them were a bit silly. I thought the dumbest one was "You might be a redneck if you think Volvo is part of a woman's anatomy." Foxworthy's humor does little for me, but that might just be personal taste. Therefore, if you like this kind of humor, you will probably bust a gut when reading this book. However, if your tastes are more towards intelligent humor, it will probably just bore you.

Fans of the 'redneck humor' of Jeff Foxworthy as seen on TV comedy shows will be glad to know his one-liner observations about what makes a 'redneck' translate well to text and one-panel comics, too. David Boyd's illustrations grace a funny book perfect for the non-reader fully aware of all-too-real 'redneck habits'.

Yep... if the directions to your house include "turn off the paved road" this is the book for you. As a person who has lived off the paved part of the road (and perhaps I've been out of NYC too long) but I recognize the people in this book. There's humor here because of the incredible sense of recognition. I've known people like this and I adore Jeff Foxworthy for pointing out the humor in these comical stereotypes!

this book by the southern flavored performer is a work out for the stomach muscles . foxworthy tells the story of his childhood , teen years and about his present day life in a manner that makes you jealous you didn't grow up with the guy. his stories about deer hunting and playing pranks on his mom will make you break out laughing in the middle of your train/bus ride. if you are a fan of foxworthy (as i am) you will recognise the classic bits and enjoy lots of new and hillariously funny ones. if you want to avoid embarrasing yourselves in public , read this book alone , because you will laugh out loud. click on the add to cart icon you will not be dissapointed

I've used this book to cook weekday meals as well as for entertaining guests. Some of my favoites are very easy- The Spicy Corn Dip and the Roasted Red Pepper Dip are great examples. Guests always assume they were difficult because they are so impressive. This book is an excellent gift because it is so useful and attractive.

I cook from this book all the time. I love the menu and wine suggestions. It is very easy to cook an impressive, multi-course meal from "You're Invited."

This book has some great recipes that are very easy. The Peppered Pork Tenderloin with Cherry Salsa was a huge success at a recent supper club and everywhere I have taken the Spicy Corn Dip, folks have raved. The menus also help with entertaining.

I am one of those people that go to the cookbook section of a bookstore before browsing any other section. I have several shelves of cookbooks and enjoy "reading" them in leisure time. I have many books that I may have chosen one recipe from and was minimally satisfied with the results. However this cookbook is a GREAT one. I entertain frequently and I have cooked numerous recipes from this book. Not once have I made anything out of it that wasn't delicious. The pork tenderloin with honey beer marinade is incredible, the side dishes are wonderful and the ham crostinis are a huge hit, even with teenagers! I can't wait to try all of the recipes!