Kentucky Books

The books starts well, with a description of a man-made cave he discovered. It really goes downhill from there. Bill does seem to want to follow scientific method in his research, but the focus on his own experiences rob the book of any objective perspective. In addition, his drawings of the cryptids seen by others are disturbing, not from a " we saw a monster" perspective, but from the details he adds that could not possibly have come from a verbal description. They all look like the same thing; a demon-like creature with long claws and a bad attitude. I would not buy the book again. This is not in the same league with books from Lauren Coleman and Jim Brandon.

BM Nunnelly does an admirable job chronicling the strange and weird creatures that lurk in the hidden places of Kentucky. Although I found some of the reports very hard to believe myself, it is fascinating to read about the unbelievably odd encounters that average people are reported to have experienced in the pursuit of the mundane. Who would have thought that the Bluegrass State had such a rich history of UFO sightings, as well as those of other inexplicable creatures and oddities throughout the state? (I'm waiting for the History Channel to do a documentary about the 1948 UFO chase that resulted in the death of the pilot.) Although there are some typos, misprints and grammatical errors throughout the book, they in no way make the book difficult to read. (The publisher is supposed to catch those things!) Nunnelly is overall a good writer who knows how to tell a story well; however I wish he would have treated the purported accounts in this book with a healthy dose of skepticism; it would have made for more balanced reading. That having been said, I do look forward to learning more about Kentucky's strange creatures and undiscovered mysterious in his next book.

Fortean author and field researcher Bart Nunnelly warns us in the introduction that the stories in this book are not mere folklore but eyewitness reports of every conceivable anomaly, except for hauntings.
Chapter 1 guides readers on a tour of historic--or prehistoric--Kentucky, examining a catalog of eerie artifacts, strange petroglyphs, supposed remains of Roman legionnaires and Vikings, and giant humanoid skeletons unearthed at various spots between 1792 and 1965. Chapter 2 pursues aquatic cryptids, ranging from a turtle the size of a Volkswagen Beetle to various serpentine creatures reported from various rivers throughout the Bluegrass State.
Chapter 3 reviews a range of aerial anomalies, including unexplained rains of stones, dried flesh, cookies, fish, and coins. UFO sightings from 1869 to the present make up the bulk of this fascinating chapter. Chapter 4 brings us back to the realm of cryptozoology, with reports of tiny humanoids from all parts of Kentucky.
Chapter 5, by far the longest, draws extensively from Nunnelly's Kentucky Bigfoot web site, presenting both archival and modern eyewitness reports of unidentified humanoid creatures. While Bigfoot remains the most common subject, their competition includes scaly lizardmen, werewolves, dogmen, and an elusive goatman from the 19th century.
Chapter 6 completes the crypto roundup with black panthers and hyenas, giant snakes, huge birds of prey, "devil monkeys" that slaughter livestock, and hairy "gravediggers" who will not let the dead rest in peace. Nunnelly rounds off his tour with a brief biography of psychic Edgar Cayce, known to his admirers as "the Kentucky Nostradamus," who was born there in 1877 and lived there until 1920, when he moved to Texas
Fact or fiction? Nunnelly wisely leaves readers to judge for themselves. One fact is indisputable, however--fans and students of the paranormal should run, not walk to their nearest bookstore, to obtain a copy of this book.
--Michael Newton
Mysteries Magazine issue #20

I should have spent my money on another book of Kentucky. There was not one decent story of hauntings by ghosts. In other Whitechapel books, tagged with "Mysterious", you get a well rounded variety of history, mystery, spooks, and then some creapy creatures. One of the drawings of a sea serpent looked suspiciously like Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent from Beany and Cecil. I'm so afraid!
For those looking for good stories to tell around a campfire, this is a great book. I wish it were titled more closely to its content. I could have gotten Ghosts of Louiville instead, where I can assume I will read some good paranormal stories.
I've been to KY more than any other state than my own. I love the state. This book gave me nothing to look back on, and say... Yes, I yearn to go back there.
I would rather give this a 2.5, but that is not possible. Troy Taylor, please visit Kentucky and give us the ghostly lowdown! Please!

I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys reading about scary, mysterious, events...you won't be disappointed. This unassuming looking book is full of some of the most terrifying accounts of every kind of weirdness you can think of (and some you probably can't).

Because it seems you can't throw a rock in Kentucky without hitting a Bigfoot, Goatman, Little Person or some other anomaly. The only problem was that eventually I began to wonder why none of the numerous subjects in this book, including the author, ever seemed to have a camera on them, or even think of carrying one, during any encounter, even though some of them, including the author, were described as having so many experiences that they had a good chance of capturing something on film. Instead, there are many very muscular drawings that, while demonstrating the author's talent, are not really adequate when there was photo op after photo op.

I have seen some of his drawings before on the internet, having read Jan Thompson's terrifying accounts before. Her presence in the book was definitely a point in its favor.

P.S. If you, like me, were wary of ordering another Whitechapel Press book because of the countless typos and non-existent editing that make so many of its books a pain to read, rest assured that this book does not have nearly as many of those types of flaws, though that might be thanks to the author.

4-star quality writing. However the dialect (which is integral to the story)... as in "chillern" and "tobaccer" is a little tiresome. So although it is well-written and insightful, I suppose it's a matter of individual taste regarding the novel's rural and stick-poor roots.

This is an interesting story of the early notoriety and heartbreak that surrounded the family of North America's first live birth quins, and an equally interesting study of how everyday people can be drawn into the excitement and tragedy of such an event. Descriptions of the times and early media interest are well done, but as the book progresses and the family sinks into tragedy, I feel the story loses some of its impact, and I struggled to finish the story.

This is not to say that the characters are unsympathetic, or that the reader cannot identify with their plight, but more that as they struggle to deal with their lives, interest in their lives begins to wane.

Sheri Holman's "The Mammoth Cheese" deals with a similar topic in modern times, but is by far the better book in my opinion.

What a dumb book. So slow you could skip pages and pages and still not get anywhere. A total waste of time.

When quintuplets are born at the beginning of the 20th Century in rural Kentucky, the parents are taken unaware. Misdiagnosed, Christie is amazed when she gives birth to five tiny infants. This is such a bizarre event, five babies at once, that people begin to arrive in droves to see the infants. Reporters, photographers, well-meaning neighbors, family: they see, they touch, they talk, touch some more. Long before medicine has achieved the sophistication to ensure the protection necessary to sustain the babies, many mistakes are made in their care and handling. One by one, the tiny babies die. It is a devastating loss, followed by a crop failure that dilutes the family's already fragile economic resources. With three small children to provide for, Christie and James, burdened by grief and financial hardship, allow themselves to be drawn into a tour with the quints, who are now encased in glass. At each stop in the tour, as the carnival atmosphere reaches a deafening roar, the bereaved parents finally cannot continue. They donate the five infants in their tiny glass coffins to a scientific institution. The story moves as slowly as the times, with enough historical detail to create a vivid portrait. It is a strange and sad tale that portrays the overwhelmed young parents as the saddest of all.

This novel will capture your heart; the dialogue, the characters and the setting take you back to the early 20th century in rural America. Christie Wheeler, mother of three, is pregnant again and believes she will birth a monster as punishment for having impure thoughts of another man. Instead, she has quintuplets, each with their own little personality and appearance. Tragedy strikes, though, and Christie and her husband, James, must learn to deal with the loss of their babies. Bobbie Ann Mason does a fantastic job of depicting family life, industry and the media in the early 1900s. I would also recommend Weeds by Edith Summers Kelley. -- Melissa Galyon

The title on this book is a bit of a misnomer--there are no dinosaur bones in the book, though there is a mention of some minor fossils seen in a coal vein. There is also an allusion to something that is dinosaur-like. So much for the dino connection...

Nevertheless, I liked the book. I got interested in the characters and the relationships. The plot was interesting. I found the philosophical aspects of the book to be banal, with the typical zen emptiness infatuation, but it was tolerable and not overly annoying. I guess it fit, somewhat, but it seemed shallow and sophomoric. Of course, I may be overstating it...it's just my opinion and others may not have the same reaction.

Though I suspect it was unintentional, it is humorously ironic that the web of relationships in the small town elicited a sense of being inbred and incestuous. I guess that may be an almost inevitable consequence of tiny-town life. As Stephen Stills said, love the one you're with.

I hoped to see more happen with the Ten Fifteen character. His presence was almost like he was the requisite friendly freak, but it never progressed as I would have liked. He was kind of like a post-it note--there but not really within. I wanted his character to develop, not just observe. He really only experiences one major change in the story, and though funny, it was ultimately minor.

I did end up caring about the characters, and the minor short-comings didn't detract from the enjoyable read this story provided. I suspect most folks won't even notice the things I mentioned, they will just appreciate the characterizations and plotting. The book kind of took a stab at a theme I could appreciate, but I found that the story overwhelmed it. I almost wish the philosophical aspect had been more deeply fleshed out, and that the big tension-building subplot had been excised. In my opinion it squelched the potential the novel had to be seminal and timeless, not to mention important. Still, I want to emphasize that the story was quite enjoyable.

*** SPOILER ALERT !!!: IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE THE WHOLE PLOT PLOPPED ON YOUR PLATE LIKE A SPOONFUL OF MASHED POTATOES, DON'T READ TOM LARSON'S REVIEW BELOW. Larson is one of those self-congatulatory dolts who relish their own comments about a book more than the book itself. Unfortunately, his type are rife on the Amazon site. A bit of advice to such plot ploppers: take a class at the local junior college if you want to wax eloquent on the details of book plot. Just because you like the sound of your own voice doesn't mean that you ought to SPOIL the book for those looking for advice on whether to buy or read a book.

I loved this book. I thought I was going to be reading a simple story about. Instead, Ms. Witt provided me with a love story, stalking, grave robbing, murder and a fight against the big bad coal company.

I enjoyed the author's style of having several things going on at once. It became a real page turner.

I do feel that the excitement of the book was over about 25 pages from the true end of the book. It's as if Ms. Witt wanted to end the drama and try up any loose ends -- although the ending is certainly not unimportant. I did enjoy every bit of this book.

I loved the plot, the characters, the setting, and the way the story was told. Gilman Lee is definitely an unforgettable man. I'm really pleased that I happened upon this book in the library one day. I found I needed to have it in my own library, so I tracked it down and ordered a copy at my local bookstore. (Didn't have access to Amazon at the time!) I'm presently, a couple of years later, reading it a second time, and enjoying it even more! This is a wonderful, quirky little story, and I'd highly recommend it.

A friend recommended this book to me and I could not put it down! I loved the characters and the in-depth description of the town. I can't wait to read more from this author. A very enjoyable story.

The title grabbed me when I was browsing the bookstore for a good summer read -- what a great surprise this book turned out to be! It's hard to believe this is Lana Witt's first book. "Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones" reminds me of the early novels of Larry McMurtry, Clyde Edgerton and Rita Mae Brown.

If you are interested in Smedley Butler, don't miss the book The Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer.

Author takes a fascinating story and dries it out into a less-than-stimulating biography. General Butler deserves better than this

If you like this book, you'll love The Plot to Seize the White House, which just came out from Skyhorse Publishing. General Smedley Butler is an amazing character.

anyone who questions the validity of going to war needs to read this book.

Smedley Butler was a great American, a two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, a General in the Marine Corps, and, in retirement, an articulate and famous pacifist, who could not be dismissed as effeminate or ignorant. His life is worth examining, particularly by anyone in the military.

Butler was also a skein of contradictions: a Marine from a Quaker family, a general who joined the Marines as a private, a critic of politics in the military whose congressman father just happened to oversee the department of the Navy, a soldier who spent most of his days maintaining order in America's colonies, official and otherwise, who then went to vehemently condemn the deployment of American troops overseas, and perhaps most importantly, a soldier who inspired fierce loyalty. This list could go on and on.

Unfortunately this biography reads like a police report and not like a measured and analytical examination of a truly fascinating American. Butler was a great man who deserves a much better biography. (Un)fortunately court historians who write popular political hagiographies seem to eschew the lives of quixotic Marines, however impressive, interesting, and instructive their lives may have been.

As there are not that many biographies of Butler extant, this one may well be worth reading for the facts, but do not expect greatness from this book.

Karen Harper agains gets your attention and keeps it until the last page.

I greatly enjoyed this book by Harper. I have read several books by Harper and this was right up there with the best. It had the right amount of suspense and realism concerning the black market for babies to make for a great read. It will definitely be a reread on my shelves.

This book has a great plot and some wonderful twists. Having the heroine be a midwife and the hero be a doctor was a wonderful idea.

I would have rated it higher if there weren't so many plot coincidences. Also, a couple of scenes, though exciting, didn't ring true because they seemed a bit contrived.

Also, I would like to know why the front cover blurb gives away a major secret!

I gave this one a B- a All About Romance.

The story in this book was interesting, but I found the style of telling it to be choppy and hard to follow. The description of a difficult childbirth was mesmerizing and really well-done, but the romance was too sparse. Mostly I objected to ends not being tied up....we never found out what happened to several of the secondary characters, people we had either come to like or wanted to be sure they got what they deserved!

I have read almost all of Karen Harper's books. I think she is a great writer. She really pulls you into the story. Like all of her other stories, she has a gift for making you feel like you are the heroine/hero. You feel like you are actually living in Apalachia (sp?).

I liked the character of Emma - the midwife/heroine of the book. Griff was interesting too. I wish Karen Harper would include more romance in her books. I always feel like she is holding back in the romance dept. There were so many opportunities in this book. I do highly recommend this book. Romance or not the story was suspenseful and the secondary characters were first rate!

Although I've only seen two of her movies "Les Girls" and "The Reluctant Debutante" I've known about Kay Kendall mainly because of reading about her love and marriage with the actor Rex Harrison who's a favorite actor of mine for several years. I remember reading about her death back in the late fifies and then I read about her marriage with Rex Harrison and how he'd kept her terminal cancer a secret from her. Well it was just so tragic and yet romantic at the same time. I've always heard about her but knew very little about her and thank God for this precious little book. Now I'm going to try my best to find more of her early movies. This girl was a wonderful comedienne just from seeing her in the two movies I've mentioned above. She was bright, quick minded and very funny, kind of like the young Katherine Hepburn in my favorite movie of hers that I like called "Bring Up Baby" I mean this girl had a bubbly sense of humour that to me was very endearing and so much fun. It's too bad such fun screw ball type comediennes are long gone.

After waiting years for a bio about the magnificent Kay Kendall, Eve Golden's effort is little more than tin. The book is a laundry list of Kendall's personality quirks and defects (film stars documented as self-centered is a revelation?) and completely misses the mark. Kendall was so extraordinary and special as an actress, and this book, tragically, misses that which clearly made her so memorable. Several of Kendall's films are watchable only due to her presence and there is no mention of that here. Golden has chosen to focus on the personal details at the expense of Kendall's charm and uniqueness as a performer. It seems that cooperation of Kendall's sister, Kim, was necessary to provide documentation about their childhood and early careers, however, this doesn't seem to have helped the book much. Previous bios on Rex Harrison have better captured the essence of Kendall's star quality (i.e. Alexander Walker's). Noel Coward's diary entry for Kendall's London stage performance in THE BRIGHT ONE does more to illuminate this great actress than this book: "Went to see a dreadful play in which Kay Kendall was enchanting..." THAT was Kendall's gift. This book does nothing to endorse that consensus.

This is Eve Golden's best book yet, and that's saying a lot. While many Americans are unaware of Kay Kendall's short, but significant, career, Ms. Kendall's popularity over the pond remains unwavering. Her life story is told in a style true to Kendall's off-screen persona: funny, witty, sharp, and always interesting. As the subject matter could have ended up a cliched tearjerker with Kendall's death, Golden instead takes the high road. Highly recommended for any fan or Kendall's, Golden's, or movies in general.

Eve Golden is one of the best writers about Hollywood and about screen acting that we have. If I had my way, she would be declared a national treasure. I think of her as an American writer, but she has been able to get the gist of Anna Held's mysterious European origins and now she turns her gaze onto Kay Kendall, the epitome of postwar UK chic, and she comes up with another winner.

Kay Kendall's life, and especially her death, made her a legend in the late 1950s, and if she is pretty much forgotten nowadays it is not due to a lack of ardent fans who love her, like I do. Once more of her films are released on DVD perhaps we will have a revaluation of her work as an actress, sort of the way people started to appreciate Norma Shearer only within the last 20 years, based on the policy of going back to the films and seeing what worked, what didn't in them. Who among us for example has more than the vaguest of memories of ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, the Stanley Donen comedy which was Kendall's last picture. Poor thing she had to co-star with the film world's biggesr ham, Yul Brynner, while at home she was getting locked out of her hotel room by Rex Harrison, her husband, who was pretending to enjoy his tempestuous relationship with her while trying to keep the secret from her that she was dying of leukemia. Eve Golden and Kim Kendall try to give thhe devil his due, but by the end of the book you're thinking that meeting Rex Harrison was the worst mistake poor Kay ever made in her tragically abbreviated life.

Dirk Bogarde was a close friend to Kay, and Eve Golden apparently was able to interview him at great length in the years before his death. His contributions give the book a lot of depth, while the recollections of Princess Lilian are also important, historically. I also liked the memories of Kay's younger half-brother Cavan Kendall, who must have been around 20 when his sister died but who retains a lot of the crystal sharp memories of youth.

Yes, Kay Kendall had her faults, and chief among them was her inability to see that she was doing wrong when she wanted something (such as someone else's boyfriend or husband). In context, Golden lets us realize that some young women who grew up in London during the blitz had an amoral attitude towards grasping the brass ring. Because at any moment death might rain down from the sky, the feeling was, live for today, and damn the consequences.

Yes, Kendall had her faults but I do not see that it was the job of the biographer to gloss them over. She wouldn't have been hman if she was just the madcap clotheshorse she played in a handful of sophisticated flicks. She did sterling work for Muriel Box, Vincente Minnelli, George Cukor. For that I would forgive her many sins. And her death is still very sad. Hopefully Kay's sister, Kim, will live to see a day when the disease that carried Kay off will be eliminated from the face of the earth. "And there will be no more dying then . . . " as it says in Holy Writ.

This was a book I eagerly anticipated and I was not let down. Entertaining show biz author Eve Golden weaves a fun story around show business's most glamorous comedienne. From day one, Kay Kendall lived a fast-paced, fun-filled life, mixed with a semi-successful career filled with interesting and witty friends.
As the world knows, Kay Kendall's life was cut short following a losing battle with leukemia, a disease everyone swears she never knew she had. Her marriage to Rex Harrison is honestly told and the author manages to bring Kay's story to print in a slender volume that is filled with reminiscences from family and friends.
A fun read, a delightful tribute to the Divine Kay.

Good storyline, and you'll enjoy the characters. I always like her books. I enjoy fun and sexy romance ...

I rate this book one star because norah hess seems to love to picture the male characters in her books as nothing but whoremongers.the male charachter in this book did not like nothing but ugly whores because of uncle's cheating wife who was beautiful.devlin the male character did nothing but sleep with prostitutes in this and treated d'lise like trash. The story line was interested expect the fact that devlin slept with a whore when he met d'lise and after she move in with him...he continued to sleep with indian whore...norah hess needs to stop making her male characters nothing but whoremongers..Trust I read 5 books of hers and all the male characters are nothing but whoremongers...the book ended with the delvin and d'lise getting back together after she moved out but the book was not that great

To the disenters - Have you ever been in Kentucky in 1781? grin!
One complaint - cover editor - hey, 1781, women didn't dress like that. Dumb!

Our big burly trapper, Kane Devlin is returning home from the wars [George Washington, remember?] He seemed to have survived with a fair decent attitude, despite the hardships he would have had to suffer. Along the way he picked up the mistreated dog "Hound", that should speak well of him. Now to stumble upon D'lise Alexander being attacked by her beastly uncle brought him to another rescue.

Now for a man's man being used to surviving in the wilderness and through a war, taking on a young girl was bound to bring complications. Being in a world where there were more men than good women his protective instincts were being kicked into high gear.

I found it hard to accept that they would be leaving 15 year old David and 10 year old Johnny behind to the mercy of that brute, Rufus. Picking up the woe-begotten Scrag brought about humorous results.

Yup! you're right, Raven was one nasty piece of work, but then she was jealous, afraid of losing an easy life of support and out for revenge.

Got a big kick out of Big Beaver and the way he wove in and out of Kane's life and proved to be a great friend of both Kane and D'lise. Was surprised as Kane when I found out he had remarried.

Loved the way the settlement ladies rallied around D'lise and chuckled at Kane's jealousy of Samual. Samuel was an educated man and ran the emporiam of ladies ware and had two small daughters.

Ah, but then David and Johnny showed up and Raven continued to cause mischief, claiming to be carrying Kane's child and then D'lise finds out that she is in the family way and walks out on Kane even though he has been wounded.

Ah, the vagaries of life. You must also meet the old gentleman, Tom who figures quite helpfully in D'lise's life.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED -- try it you will like it. Such a change from all the amoral heroines running around in the contemporary stories. [although too many b-witches thoughout the story but they probably did talk like that.]

You might enjoy this book if you've never read any of Hess's other books, but I have read several, in fact, I had just finished reading one of hers when I picked up this one. This book is exactly like several others of hers. It seems Ms. Hess simply changes the names and the storyline a bit but it is essentially the same book. The characters, the hero and heroine, the villains, they never change, they have no real depth to distinguish them as unique. They are exactly the same in every book. This is okay if you've only read one or two of her books, but it gets annoying after a while. They are all exactly the same in almost all her books. Another thing that bothered me is that one of the villains in this book is a woman named Raven, in another of Hess's books, her heroine is named Raven. It is not the same woman, but this still bothered me. Also, must she always name the horse Beauty? Can she not come up with something slightly more original? Also, in the book, she keeps emphasizing how the main villain, the heroine's uncle is fat. She keeps mentioning it and emphasizing it over and over again and I found it to be a bit excessive. Yeah, I heard you mention it the first time okay? I couldn't really like the hero or the heroine. The hero seemed to be selfish and have a tendency to jump to stupid conclusions as did the heroine. I enjoyed her other books better, I don't know if it is because I read them first or they were actually better, but I thought Raven and Wildfire were much better than this one.

Kane seemed to be a great guy-until he decided his crotch had more brains than him. Okay get this straight. He married her because he loved her-but didn't know if she loved him. It's not like they had don't anything to produce a baby-before the marriage. So why would this hardcore bachelor marry a woman who might never love him? And does this cause him to jump to stupid conclusions? I think it does. D'lise had a better reason. She had been beaten severly by her uncle and wary of all men-but didn't Kane prove himself time and again to be on her side. And the whole reason that things went to hell pretty fast-Kane made D'lise afraid of him after month's of marriage, went out got drunk, and went to their old house. Raven-ugly Indian woman-sneakes into his bed-she had been his "lady" and proceeded to make it look like he had been with her. D'lise gets made, doesn't ask for an explaination and leaves. Just dumb really really dumb. Jackass the lot of them. But there is a very good adventure to it read it. HEHEHE

Like so many other ships, the USS Portland was one of the unsung heroes of the War. Author William Thomas Generous Jr. did extensive research yet correctly focused on the men, both swabbies and officers, as the real story within the facts. Personal experiences are interwoven with the larger story of battles and the War and sometimes with more personal analysis and opinion than many may think warranted, especially given the forcefulness at times. However, the reader will undoubtedly become attached to ship and crew alike as they progress further and further into the book. By the end, you want more, always the mark of a good book.
Steven Bustin, Author: Humble Heroes, How The USS Nashville CL43 Fought WWII Humble Heroes: How the USS Nashville CL43 Fought WWII

My grandfather TK Erickson served as a five inch gun "talker" on the USS Portland in world war two. He died in New Mexico about 15 years ago, and I've missed hearing his stories. In remembrance of him, I built a working radio controlled model of the USS Portland, but was never able to find any books about the ship.

When I ran across this book, I immediately had to purchase it. The book is a high quality, and it provides a true account of each battle star earned by the crew of the Sweet Pea. From the pre-war years when Portland escorted FDR on the USS Houston, to the final battles in the Pacific War, and finally the big Navy day celebration in Portland, Maine, this book lays it all out. My grandfather gave me a newspaper clipping from Navy day in Maine, and it was so cool to read more about that event, which obviously meant so much to the crew.

Like any other book about historical events, this one is not perfect, but regardless this book is a treasure as one of the few books about one of the most significant ships of the US Pacific Fleet in world war two.

A great book I cant say enough about it. When I came to the last page I was sorry the book ended.I wish there were more books like this.

"Sweet Pea at War" is seriously flawed. The author, William Generous, really knows very little about naval warfare of the period, with the result that his interpretations of events are misleadingly wrong. I'll give two examples:
1) Generous obviously has looked into the Portland's battle reports, but he does not have the knowledge level to interprete them correctly. In one, the commanding officer included a number of technical commentaries and complaints and suggestions from various crew members. Generous goes into a psychological rant about how this shows that the commanding officer was insecure, and how this reflected on his poor leadership style and why he was disliked by the crew, and on and on and on. Obviously he has not read other battle reports; if he had, he would have found that it was standard procedure for crew comments to be included in the reports, ver batim, when they were available. There are reports of AA actions that include the comments down to the seaman second firing 20mm guns. COs were instructed to sit their troops down and get written after-action reports from anyone with something to contribute - often not done because of circumstances, but still a required process. Thus Generous ends up trashing the reputation of an officer because he did not understand the procedures for naval after-action reports.
2) In one action Portland was off-axis from the line of approach of a Japanese air attack on a carrier. The Portland gunnery officer decided to put up a fixed barrage over the CV to deter / interfere with Japanese dive bombers. In the after-action report he claims that the barrage worked very well, and recommends that all CV escort ships follow the procedure. Generous then spends some ink telling the readers how this shows that the particular gunnery officer was so innovative and forward thinking and contributing to the advance of the art of AAA. This was, in fact, not the case. Barrage AA fire was an early technique borne of the lack of a good director. With the advent of the US mk 37, and good fuse setters, tracked fire was possible and more effective than barrage. The gunnery officer's "innovative thinking" was actually regressive. Generous does not know this; in addition, later in the history, when the Portland's gunnery officer again uses the barrage technique, and it fails, he is silent about this, ignoring the event, likely because it would undermine his previously-made case. Either we have a case where Generous picks out and highlights facts that support his positions and ignores those that do not, or Generous simply did not recognize that the later incident shattered his previously-made argument. In either case, we have a situation where the author really does not understand what he is commenting upon, something like reading a high-school paper on quantum theory.
There is lots of dross like that scattered throughout: Generous' analysis of Midway is sophomoric, and he continually makes editorial comments on things that just are not so, such as his statement that the .50 cal AA guns on the ship were replaced because they were "flimsy."
Given all that, you have to recognize what is available in this book. You are not buying Generous' expertice, obviously; you are buying the story of the ship, and the tales related by the crewmembers, **their** views and anecdotes and histories, along with the occasional direct quote from action reports, if one can assume that Generous quoted accurately, such as ammunition expenditure or AA aircraft kill claims.
From that approach, "Sweet Pea at War" is a worthwhile acquisition if you are savvy enough in naval warfare to separate the good from the bad, or if you are just looking for an interesting read on WW II in a cruiser mostly from the enlisted point of view. This book would be a worthwhile read for someone expert in naval warfare and the Pacific campaigns, but I would not recommend quoting the author on anything else, and I would not
recommend it as a casual read for anyone not an expert in the field.
Dr. Alan D. Zimm CDR USN (ret).

I am grateful for Generous' contribution of the details of the USS Portland and all the officers and men who served onboard her from launching to decommissioning. He is deserves praise for the efforts made to insure that those stories would not be lost to history. If he had just concentrated on this great task, I would have had no problem with his work. But he was not content with this. He seems to have taken this opportunity to project himself as a great naval tactician and analyst. It was bad enough that he proved himself nothing more than an amateur, but he did this at the expense of some great naval figures of the war. I, personally, cannot tolerate those who attempt to promote themselves at the expense of others, especially when facts are not properly researched or left out to accomplish this goal. His treatment of Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan, the Officer in Tactical Command (OTC) of the task force that met the Japanese at the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ("Night Cruiser Action") is the most blatant example of this. Generous seems to have had a grudge against this fine officer, who lived and died in the best of United States Navy tradition. He states that Callaghan "never had a major sea command before" taking on this task. It just so happens that he commanded the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco (a more prestigious command than that of the Portland) for a year before being promoted to admiral and being taken by the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief South Pacific Area. Admiral Ghormley had his choice of many who were senior to Callaghan, but chose him because of his competence. I would choose an admiral's evaluation for ability and competence over any academic historian of the following century. If, as Generous maintains, Ghormley was also as much a failure as he was, he would have sought out as his chief of staff one who he felt made up for what he lacked. Generous proved completely ignorant of the tactical situation that enveloped the days before this battle. He praised Rear Admiral Scott (well deserved) for his ability to train the ships in his force prior to his victory at the Battle of Cape Esperance. Generous leaves out the fact that Scott had weeks to accomplish this. He neglects to inform his readers that Callaghan only knew of his task and the ships that would be at his disposal the day of the battle. Escorting the supply ships and providing protection for them left him with no time to train or even meet with the commanders of all of his ships to discuss the strategy that would be employed. This was typical of the situations that confronted our forces at that time. While Generous again comes down on Callaghan for the placement of his ships, real naval analysis has never been able to come to such a conclusive conclusion. Generous, is so intent on destroying Callaghan's reputation that he also leaves out that he was killed in that action as a result of his not staying in the battle-hardened command and control station. He, as many other brave officers felt that they could not maintain proper perspective of the battle within an area that so restricted their observation. He died because he put his supreme duty before his personal safety. Generous exhibits such contempt for Callaghan that he even uses his receiving the Medal of Honor as a means of getting in a final stab. This is hardly what makes a competent writer of military history. Only his treatment of the crew of the Portland keeps it out of my trash can.
At the very introduction of the book I became concerned for what might follow when Generous admits that he had never even heard of the USS Portland until two years before he wrote the introduction. I knew then that the writer would not be of the caliber that normally writes on naval history subjects. Anyone who had not heard of the Portland could not have known much of the war in the Pacific. The rest of the book only supported my fears. I began to feel that I was not reading well researched material but what had been gleaned from interviews from crewmembers. This really comes out when the ship did not get a battle star for its one-ship raid on Tarawa in October 1942. He makes a major point of this at the event and then ends the book with a reminder of this neglect on the part of the Navy. Add this to his repeated effort to convince his readers that the turning point of the war was when the Portland played its most important role (where he blasts Admiral Callaghan) instead of the Battle of Midway. Both of those seem to be supported mainly from the tactical viewpoint of most sailors. There is nothing wrong with a crew seeing things as they do and judging events and their treatment from the perspective of themselves. But when a historian takes the same view, he misleads his readers if they are looking for the facts. He seems to think that a war's turning point is a tactical rather than a strategic event. This extends to the incident at Tarawa where Admiral Tisdale forces a cease fire before the captain wanted to. It is right for a captain to want to continue an engagement. But an admiral has a bigger picture of what the goals of whole operation encompasses. For Generous to imply cowardliness on the part of Admiral Tisdale is, once again, irresponsible.
After reading the first hundred pages, I reverted to just reading sections that talked about the ship and crew. By that time Generous had lost all credibility with me. By doing so, I enjoyed much of the remainder. As I said at the beginning, Generous is to be commended for his treatment of the ship and crew.

William Donati's book, Ida Lupino, a biography, was very interesting and well written. Some of the data is in line with the A and E biography, but some is not. I have to agree with just one of the other reviewers in the fact that very little is said about Ms. Lupino's daughter, Bridget Duff as a grown woman. It came out very strongly that Ms.Lupino had a never ending concern about what her father thought. Ms. Lupino's roles on the screen were that of woman who, while flawed, were very interesting. One could not help to think about what would have happened if she was given better roles. Her constant feuds with Warner Bros. and many suspensions for not accepting lousy parts were outlined in the book. Another thing that the book does not go into is, why after 60 plus movies as an actress, 6 as a directors and 100+ as a TV director, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and sciences and the Emmy Awards has completely overlooked Lupino. Overall, I liked the book very much.

William Donati's book, Ida Lupino, a biography, was very interesting and well written. Some of the data is in line with the A and E biography, but some is not. I have to agree with just one of the other reviewers in the fact that very little is said about Ms. Lupino's daughter, Bridget Duff as a grown woman. It came out very strongly that Ms.Lupino had a never ending concern about what her father thought. Ms. Lupino's roles on the screen were that of woman who, while flawed, were very interesting. One could not help to think about what would have happened if she was given better roles. Her constant feuds with Warner Bros. and many suspensions for not accepting lousy parts were outlined in the book. Another thing that the book does not go into is, why after 60 plus movies as an actress, 6 as a directors and 100+ as a TV director, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and sciences and the Emmy Awards has completely overlooked Lupino. Overall, I liked the book very much.

This book provides a concise and in-depth investigation on what drove Ida Lupino, not only as an actress but to become Hollywood's first female director. Starting off with a background look at the Lupino family the author, William Donati, gives us at the foundation upon which Ida was driven to carry on in the family business, and would eventually lead her to Hollywood. Here we are given a real life look at what actors had to endure during the studios contract days, in which they controlled not only the lives of their stars, but their careers as well. We learn of the battles Ida had to put up with, both artistically and physically, and how the glamorous life of a star could be anything but. This treatment would eventually lead her to split from the studios and strike out on her own, as an independent. Here we learn of her first foray into directing, and the constant struggle to finance and put out quality films. This is paralleled with the conflict between her career and personal life, as we are given a clear glimpse at her failed marriages, and her battle with herself. The author gives us a real fans eye look at this great actress come director. Truly a must book for any fan of Hollywood's golden age.

Donati has written a respectful and seemingly accurate portrait of Ida Lupino as star, director and woman. A reader looking for basic biographical data on a deeper-than-encylopedia level will find what they are looking for with this book.

Donati, unfortunately, writes with a noticeable lack of flair and manages to nearly make Lupino boring. This is no mean feat, given how colorful and important she was. He does not place her films into a critical or historical context. Nor does he really explore her character on anything more than a surface psychological level. Furthermore, in his focus on her romantic life, he overlooks or skips over other important relationships that she had with other women. The most obvious omission is her adult relationship with her daughter.

Useful for class assignments, but other readers may want to wait for a better treatment.

The author is good at setting out the basic facts of Lupino's life. He writes clearly and is basically engaging. However, after having read the book, I don't feel I know Lupino well--personnally or as an artist.

As an artist--how did she view her acting roles? How was her personality expressed in the films she directed? Why did she make The Hitch Hiker, for example? Or, what was her sense of her contribution to film? In short--there is just about zero description of her work and no integration of film anaylsis and commentary into the biography.

About her personal life, we are told about her turbulanet relationships with no explantion as to why a powerful woman would put up with the seemingly abusive Howard Duff as a husband. There is one paragraph in the last chapter where the author speculates that Lupino had a borderline personality disorder. This perspective came through dimly as he worte, but I would have appreciated a more consistant and deeper exploration of her personality.

Unfortunately, I ended up having less respect for Lupino after reading the book than before, in large part, I believe, because the author refuses to place Lupino in an artisitc or psychological context.

Kaufman's book sets out to defend the "indefensible" and does a pretty good job of it. He answers some of the more common criticisms of the Bush Doctrine, all the while reminding us (as we are apt to forget) that the situation looked very different in 2002-2003 than it does now. He explores some of the alternatives to it, such as multilateralism, and reminds us with recourse to history (without any egregious examples of anecdotal cherry-picking) that most of them have serious drawbacks as well. Some of the book's strong points were also incident to its flaws; for instance in reminding us how the world looked in 2002-2003 he becomes wedded to an international and diplomatic snapshot that has since changed, namely our relationship with Germany and France after the succession of Merkel and Sarkozy, respectively. On the whole a solid and important book.

enough facts and analysis to give the reader a platform for understanding current events, and more important, an insight into the intillectual requirements for developing policy

I am most of the way through this book and have been impressed by its clear, readily understood prose and its straight-to-the-point sentences explaining the various foreign policies that the U.S. has embraced and the proofs of their failure or success with the reasons why. Naming and explaining one by one the foreign policy schools of thought and their proponents, as the author does in the first part of the book, was helpful in placing the current Bush doctrine in an historic context. The author then describes the Bush policy as, on the one hand, vigorous encouragement of the growth of stable, liberal democracies -- because stable, liberal democracies historically do not fight each other -- and, on the other hand, vigorous opposition to totalitarian regimes that deny freedom to their oppressed populations -- because oppressive regimes historically have defiantly ignored negotiated agreements of peace. Ironic that this book is available just as the tide of our miltary success in Iraq and public opinion at home and abroad is seen to be turning. Short and important, this book should be on everyone's coffee table.

I found the book helpful, though not without its short-comings. It offered better military and foreign policy explanations and historical context for its position than I have ever heard, and it offered plenty of pro-Bush rhetoric, too. About the comments on this site from those who didn't like it, I am still not entirely sure where I stand on the issue, so I am very interested in thoughtful arguments either way. However, simple disparagement and mindless nay saying do not qualify as "thoughtful" or "argument." It is simply a display inane bias and is helpful to no one who is wondering whether to purchase a certain work. So, try this: When writing a comment about a book, please, at least attempt to make an intelligent, cogent argument for your position, or shut the #%& up!!

The easiest way to review this is via ideology. People favorably inclined toward Bush will like it; those who oppose him will hate it. But since the author elected to publish it with a university press, I'm going to assess it as a work of scholarship and analysis. On that count, it comes up woefully short. It is well-written but panglossian defense of the Bush strategy. I am amazed that the University Press of Kentucky, which is an up and coming academic publisher, produced it. It is most certainly not an academic work but a ideological polemic masquerading as scholarship as per Noam Chomsky or Chalmers Johnson. There is no critical analysis of the Bush strategy, but simply a legal brief asserting that is it the best of all possible approaches. The author develops caricatures or strawmen of alternative strategies and then demolishes them. For instance, on p. 129 he write, "As the lessons of history attest, critics are wrong to object to the Bush Doctrine because it does not defer categorically to the UN Security Council or to multilateralism as any guise as an end in itself." This is Rush Limbaugh discourse--invent a position that no serious person actually holds (who, exactly, advocates categorical deference to the UN Security Council?) then ridicule it.

Let me give just a couple of examples of Kaufman's selective use of history and double standards to sustain his partisan argument (there are many dozens more). On p. 120 he writes, "By the end of his administration, Ronald Reagan has shifted away from his initial inclinations to back America's right-wing allies unconditionally, as it became apparent in El Salvador, the Philippines, Korea, and Chile that liberal democracy was a plausible alternative to either authoritarianism or communism." In reality, it was the Democratically controlled Congress that forced Reagan to push for democracy in these places, not some personal epiphany.

Second, Kaufman excoriates Clinton for not preventing the genocide in Rwanda (although failing to mention that in 2000 candidate Bush explicitly said he would not have used the U.S. military in Rwanda had he been president). Alan Kuperman has demonstrated that even had Clinton moved immediately once he was aware genocide was underway, it would only have had a limited effect, so I have to assume that Kaufman's criticism is because Clinton did not act in advance to prevent the killing. But in anything other than a hagiography, if Clinton deserve blame for not being prescient in Rwanda--a place with very limited American attention or involvement--then Bush deserves even greater criticism for for not anticipating the emergence of armed resistance in Iraq and taking steps to limit or prevent it (such as an infusion of a large number of troops and implementation of an effective reconstruction program in 2003). Kaufman does suggest "we [sic] should have anticipated better" in Iraq when, in fact, those who did anticipate better were attacked by the administration. Even after this mousy criticism, Kaufman goes to great lengths to make the ridiculous argument that even though "we" didn't anticipate better, it wasn't a big deal anyway since more Americans died in the world wars and the Civil War than in Iraq! At that point, I could no longer take the book seriously. It was, from the start, a blend of propaganda and scholarship. Since I assume the author does actually understand that the criterion for judging strategy is not the aggregate lives lost, but whether the benefits justified the costs, I have to believe that along the way he elected to jettison the veneer of scholarship and shift purely into propaganda.

Perhaps the most pressing conceptual flaw in the work is its disregard for the role of culture. The author uses the spread of liberal democracy to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific rim as evidence of its universality and hence as support for the idea that it should be the cornerstone of American strategy. What that overlooks is the idea that liberal democracy can only develop stable roots in Western, Western-influenced, or Confucian cultures. Kaufman reiterates the Bush idea that Islamic violence is caused by the "insidious interaction of poverty, brutality, and oppression" rather than deep flaws in a culture which create unstable, uncompetitive states and then seeks external scapegoats for the ensuing failure. Unless the United States is willing to alter this culture--and nothing in the Bush strategy is designed to do that--the violence will persist.

Since Kaufman's book is a defense of the Bush strategy rather than an analysis of it, the author does not address the real criticisms of that strategy. For instance, rather than dealing with the question of whether liberal democracy is feasible in Islamic cultures, Kaufman simply demonstrates that it would be a good idea. To counter the criticism that Islamic culture is not fertile ground for liberal democracy, Kaufman, like Bush administration spokesmen, simply points to post World War II Germany and Japan. But, like the administration, he does not address the valid criticism that the Bush approach to Iraq and Afghanistan has not, in fact, followed the Germany-Japan model. Rather than a massive and protracted occupation while the foundation for democracy was built, the administration has sought democratization on the cheap. Kaufman cannot have it both ways--arguing that the post-war occupation of Germany and Japan validate the feasibility of a method while defending the Bush approach which did not replicate that method.

In most places, Kaufman simply re-asserts Bush administration talking points, taking them at face value. There are dozens of examples. In justifying the intervention in Iraq, he writes (p. 140)that "victory" there will "keep terrorists on the run by depriving them of the sanctuary of a rogue regime." While ideas like that are the standard stock of talk radio, Kaufman ignores the fact that Hussein was a very minor provider of sanctuary to transnational terrorists and whatever system emerges in Iraq--be it a fragile democracy, a fragmented state, a militia-dominated quasi-state, or some new authoritarian system--is much more likely to provide sanctuary to terrorists, either deliberately or by virture of its inability or unwillingness to fully control its own territory. Kaufman also lauds Libya's decision to abandon its nuclear program as validation of Bush's strategy of regime change and democratization without noting that Qaddafi's decision was a result of decades of sanctions, not anything Bush did. He attributes democratic reforms in Lebanon to Bush even though, in reality, democracy in that country is decades old (and floundered during the Reagan administration). He accepts without question the flawed assumption of the Bush strategy that democratization in the Islamic world will limit anti-American militancy. And, like the Bush administration itself, he does not grapple with the fact that Islamic violence in Spain and the U.K. refutes the connection between democracy and terrorism.

Ultimately readers looking for a balanced and rigorous analysis of the Bush strategy will be disappointed by the book. Bush supporters looking for intellectual ammunition to defend the administration will find it useful.