West Virginia Books

We're all familiar with novels that use poetic devices. This is a collection of poetry that uses novel-writing techniques to hold it together. Whether reading the poems in order or out, the reader is guided through a carefully woven story--a story fraught with grief and guilt, but also with humor and healing. This one is well worth the read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end. The imagery throughout the book evokes innocent and nostalgic memories from my own childhood. Each poem tells it's own story. They are full of emotion and a thoughtfulness to details that makes the reader feel it is their experience too. No matter if you are young or old; there is something for everybody found in this literary treasure. I would recommend Meador's work to all those who love to read, laugh, and think.

Jennifer Kruger, TX

Steve Meador's book "Throwing Percy from the Cherry Tree" rings true on many levels. His poetry reflects the innocence of a boy growing up in the 1960's and 70's, a time I can easily relate to. I know him only marginally from the Academy of American Poets, Poetry Forum, as our paths rarely crossed. Until this book, I had never read any of his work. I wrote the following to Steve on June 30, 2008 in private correspondence:

"I believe we walked similar paths in our youth. So many of your "stories", and yes they are stories written as poetry, transported me back to those years. A few of the poems leave me questioning, because I believe there are messages within the words that I have yet to realize.

I can't help but wonder though if you have yet to realize your potential and true calling. With all humility, you are a novelist, down to your core. I would urge you to explore this and ask yourself whether you have a story to write. I believe you do, strongly."

The gritty realism of these poems serves as a strong backbone to the narrative that runs throughout the entire book, using imagery and memory to underline the subtle humanity of the characters. Here are poems that can teach us to remember while leaving us wishing for more because the pain and joy of life is woven throughout the book, amongst the clear detail in poems like "Sign Language," "In Living Color," and "The Trestle."

However, one need only read poems like "New Message" and "Missile Crisis" to realize that Meador's work encompasses much more than childhood; rather, the poems expand upon further reading, showing the reader that it is only through the personal that one becomes aware of man's role in the greater narrative of the world itself. It is in these poems that the reader understands how politics and tragedy entwine with the self, teaching us once again how we all contribute to the greater society of humanity, even if that contribution is as small as a child's memory of his grandfather's wartime scars.

This is a catalog of pieces produced by the Viking Glass Company of West Virginia from 1944-1970. As such, it consists mainly of pictures and listing of item numbers. The pictures consist of photographs that I presume were shot for this book, as well as small reproductions of pages from the company's catalogs and advertisements. The book begins with a brief history, and includes a bibliography, a list of Viking workers, and a somewhat erratic index.

My review is biased by the fact that I was primarily interest in their overlay glass, which this books covers rather poorly. The pictures are not terribly good (you could do better looking online) and there are no entries in the index. The cut, etched and engraved glass is best viewed in the small reproductions of the original catalog. Unfortunately, the photographer did not use their technique of presenting these against a dark background and one can barely see the designs. I am surprised: Schiffer usually does much better than this.

The other glass is fairly well presented, with examples of various colors and styles.

As a person very attracted to the colors & shapes of Viking Glass, I have enjoyed this book immensley! I have been able to identify most all pieces in my collection from this book and learned about new patterns, colors, shapes to look for in the future! I'm also looking forward to seeing a new book that covers 70's & beyond! Hope he's working on one! Thank you Dean Six!

As a glass collecting enthusiast I have read my share of collecting books through the years, and I have to say that this is the most visually appealing and informative books I have ever read. Viking made beatiful and colorful pieces of glass, and Dean Six's book captures the beauty of the glass while putting the pieces in a logical and historical context.

I highly recommend this book not only for the serious Viking collector, but for anyone who collect glass, is interested in history or enjoys a beautiful decorative arts book.

Beautifully compiled by Dean Six, the Schiffer edition of Viking Glass 1944-1970 is a superbly organized and presented collector's price guide enhanced with more 520 color photographs of the exceptional, painstakingly handmade glassware produced by the Viking Glass Company of New Martinsville, West Virginia from 1944 to 1970. Glorious color and design mark virtually every page of this beautiful display volume which will prove an invaluable reference for professional dealers and dedicated collectors.

Nice pics - not quite what I was searching for - great book for those pieces in that era!

I very much enjoy having this book. I live near West Virginia and wanted to know more about the many glass factories that were located in the area. This book covers most of them in great detail, and provides examples of their glassware. It is a good, informative resource book, and beautiful to look at.

I have waited for somebody to show us what Central Glass put out in the 1930's! This book has it! All the unidentified depression glass we could not find previously - well, some of it is in this book! Well worth what I had to spend!

It's often difficult to decide which of the many reference book offerings are worthy of a home library. Here's one subject area you won't worry about seeing repeated by many authors. Six has compiled information about some "orphan" manufacturers of vintage glass, along with placing the more well-known makers (Fenton, Fostoria) in historical, and geographical, context. We were reading this at a depression glass show and caused most of the passing dealers to stop to ask how to buy one. The photography is beautiful and will be a big help in identifying odd pieces not chronicled in the usual DG and Elegant books. However, the editing is a bit haphazard and following the narrative time lines can be difficult. My uncles worked in these factories and this is a welcome bit of confirmation to the oral history I grew up with. This book nicely balances the stories of the companies with the collector info needed by dealers and hobbyists.

Benedict shares some dark, chilling, and exciting tales with us. He is extremely talented, and the reader is able to feel the fear, anxiety, and sweat that cover the characters. Particularly compelling stories are Washman and Odom.

Pinckney Benedict, The Wrecking Yard (Doubleday, 1992)

Pinckney Benedict writes testosterone-fueled stories that seem, given the publication date of this book, almost to be a rebuttal to the Robert Blys and Sam Keens of the world. I'm certainly glad someone was doing it.

The ten stories here (actually, nine stories and one radio play) have an eighties-fiction feel about them; they are simple slices of life that don't seem to be about much of anything. However, sometime in the late eighties, writers began to take the eighties-fiction tenets and play with them, creating stories with the same mediocre presentation and writing really, really good stuff within the frame. Barry Hannah and Ethan Canin are obvious examples; Pinckney Benedict can be put on the same shelf. Where Hannah pokes his nose into the life of the American south, Benedict reins his vision in a little tighter, sticking with rural West Virginia, and the myriad strangenesses to be found there. For example, "Horton's Ape" deals with two travelers who find themselves at a roadside bar that has a small zoo out back; "Washman" deals with a mountain man who exacts a horrible revenge on a man who tries to kill his mule, and Washman's own punishment for his acts.

It's possible that the best story in the collection is "Rescuing Moon," about a man who goes to save a friend of his from life in a surreal nursing home. However, every reader will likely find a favorite in here, and it could be any of the ten pieces presented. All are written with the confidence of a guy who writes fine short stories, and knows it. Benedict is one of America's lesser-known literary lights, and that's a shame; his books are a lot of fun, in the same way Barry Hannah's are (and with, especially in this case in "Washman," the same genial mean-spiritedness that is likely to disturb more than a few readers). This is stuff worth reading. ****

Benedict is hit-or-miss in this, his second collection of short stories...if a rule could be ascribed to the collection, he generally has more succeess with the commonplace than with the absurd. Thus, gems like the funny, pathetic "Horton's Ape" and the vivid, moving "Odom" appear right alongside curious little failures like "Washman" and "The Electric Girl". He is also more at home with the self-pitying losers of "Getting Over Arnette" than the Americans abroad in "At the Alhambra". Occasionally, as well, his metaphors are made to bear more descriptive weight than they can really handle. But all in all, a recommended read, and an author to watch.

Thanks to my creative writing professor, who loaned me this book (signed by Benedict), I now know one of the best short fiction writers living today. These stories are such a welcome depature from the abstract sentimentality that so many young writers are putting out these days. Benedict avoids all abstractions, keeping his fiction rooted in cold, hard, wonderful reality. The unsettling (and believable) weirdness of Benedict's rural environment comes through fantastically in stories like "Bounty" and "Odom", and then there's "Washman", which is so surreal that it's almost beyond description. The opening story, "Getting Over Arnette", is especially funny (if you like dark comedy).

Any serious reader of short fiction ought to read Pinckney Benedict.

Autobiography of a Good Life by Roger L. Lee

Roger Lee led a varied and vigorous life on which he wrote an autobiography. He wrote the story of his life after he lost his daughter in a car accident and had a debilitating stroke. He wrote it as part of his self planned and determined recovery effort in the Canary Islands. He relearned his English, which was his mother tongue and touch-typing on a laptop computer using Microsoft Word.

He grew up on a West Virginia hill farm where most of his friends' grandest ambition was to get into the military service for the Korean War. They saw this as a way to get away from the farm and see some of the world.

When Roger was six years old he started his formal education in a one-room country school. The school was a two-mile walk one way. The highest grade in the school was the eighth. He didn't know that there were higher grades available when you got out of the hills.

His father died when he was eight years old. His mother raised him and his younger sister and brother with the aid of the hill farm. His uncle came and gave his mother a hand by moving into a small house on the farm and sharecropping the first three years after his father's death.

Roger Lee enlisted in the US Air Force when he was eligible at 18 years old and went to Texas for basic training. This was the beginning of his education. He went from basic training to radio school in Illinois. Then back to Texas and from there to Japan back to the US for a tour at Washington D. C. From there he went back to Japan again. He came back to Texas after two years. All this time he kept working on a correspondence course in radio and radar and received his First Class Radio License.

He received an honorable discharge from the US Air Force and went to work in the field he knew best, electronics. Later he was sent to Europe and saw a great deal of the western world while working on US contracts. He was always curious about the people he met in the countries where he worked, their food, the way they lived, how they earned a living and their language.

When Roger came back to the US he went to work as a technical writer in electronics and started college at the University of Maryland to improve his writing. He was soon bored by the US and went back to Canary Islands in Spain where he was employed at the Spacecraft Tracking Station.

He stayed at the Canaries Spacecraft Tracking Station until he became the Operations Manager and Armstrong Landed on the moon. Then a good friend took the job of managing the Spacecraft Tracking Station on Ascension Island and asked him to come down with him for a few months. Roger had a family by this time, but he left his wife and daughter, a new car, an apartment, and a yacht that he had acquired in the Canaries and went to Ascension for four months.

Back in the Canaries after four months he was `sort of at loose ends.' A telephone by another friend gave him something to do. The friend offered him a position at the Alaska Spacecraft Tracking Station. He thought about it, sold his car and yacht and took his wife and daughter to Alaska.

Roger spent a year and a half in Alaska and bought another house. He got itchy feet again, took wife and daughter and took off around the world. He was lucky there was plenty of electronics work and interesting people where he stopped in Hawaii and Australia. He dropped off his wife and daughter in the Canaries and continued on back to Alaska. This completed the trip around the world. He was scheduled for two months in Alaska this time and sold his house there.

Lasers were something he had never worked with so when he was offered a job in the NASA laser network he jumped at it. This meant that he took his wife and daughter back to Maryland and bought another house. From a year there he went on a contract with the Royal Saudi Navy in Saudi Arabia. From there he back to Texas to help write a proposal on the shuttle contract. Then he went back to Europe to work with the European Space Agency.

Later he lost his daughter in a car accident in Texas while he was still working for the European Space Agency, quite work, and went back to the Canaries where he had a stroke that resulted in this book. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

This box is about life, one life in particular, the author's life. It covers the time from the time he tries to give his three week old sister popcorn until his daughter is killed in a car accident; he retires in Europe, and has a stroke. It descries 21 days in a hospital. The hospital in on the Grand Canary Island. I believe you will be surprised by the hospital and the care he received.

In between the popcorn incident with his baby sister and his stroke 60 years later he covered a good part of the world and got an education at the same time. His father died when he was 8 and his mother raised him on a West Virginia hill farm until he was 18. His mother then managed the farm and made a good living for Roger and his sister and brother. He worked on the farm along with his sister and brother until the Korean War started when he enlisted in the US Air Force.

He stayed in the Air Force for 8 years, 4 of which he spent in Japan. When he was honorable discharged from the US Air Force he went to work for Bendix as a tech rep.

With Bendix he was working in communications, radar, lasers, and computers in hardware and software. His work took him from Europe, to Libya, and Saudi Arabia to Alaska by way of Australia. When he was working in Europe he spent time in Turkey and on the Azores Islands. During his stay he married a Spanish Lady he later to went to Maryland, right outside of Washington D. C. where his daughter was borne. In Maryland he was a tech writer. Several years (12) of his working life was with NASA (as a contractor). He was manning a console on the Manned Space Flight Station in Canary Island when Armstrong landed on the moon.

You will find Roger's life interesting. But the book is really about growing up, developing a philosophy of life and finally becoming a man.

It's in print! The life of Roger Lee. I meet Roger's daughter Monica while trying to learn Arabic in Saudia Arabia. I became great friends of the Lee's and ended up marrying Monica. Roger lead a very exciting life. He grew up as a dirt poor farmer in West Virginia during the depression. He got into the Electronics business early in life which opened the world up to him. He lived and worked all around the world from Alaska to Austrailia to Saudi Arabia. He spent many years helping the US Space program get started. After a long stay in the Cannary Islands working on the Apollo tracking station they decieded to maintain a home there while they continued there travels around the world. Roger speaks many laguages, English, German, Spanish, and Arabic to name a few. This is a true life adventure story! Can't wait to see the movie!

An entertaining book, fairly well written, no hypo-technical jargon for which archaeologists are well known...and for that I am thankful. Very adequate photographs of the artifacts, good descriptions. Includes short fictional accounts of what may have transpired in each saloon, based on the artifacts found. My only critical points on this book are these: one i would expect a hardbound books of some size, for the price of over 21 bucks and this is a softbound, very small and short book of 166 pages not counting the exhaustive notes, so there is not much bang for the buck. Secondly, the mishmash of the various saloons and excavations is confusing in the book, the author switches from one saloon excavation to another time after time, so that you are never sure exactly where you are. Not exactly the flowing words of Ivor Noel Hume, but still a nice book, thus my four star rating.

Boomtown Saloons puts a humane and inclusive face on Old West culture. It was refreshing to see that there was more to life in Virginia City than Hollywood's interpretations.

This well written, informative, and entertaining book which should be a must read for anyone interested in the Old West.

Written by anthropology professor and American West historical archaeology specialist Kelly J. Dixon, Boomtown Saloons is an exciting account of the excavation and analysis of four nineteenth-century Virginia City, Nevada saloon sites. Dixon personally participated the excavation projects, and offers a firsthand view of the evidence, and what its analysis tells us about the people and society of Virginia City well over a century ago. From the style of saloon architecture to reconstructed menu items, saloon serving ware, vices and amusements that saloons offered, and much more, Boomtown Saloons is a cutting-edge delve into the fine nuances of what archaeology can tell us about America's past.

THIS MANUAL IS A CLASSIC AND DOES NOT NEED TO BE REVISED.

Best book available But desperatly needs to be revise

Generally, this is an ideal field book for the identification of plants. The descriptions are very informative and complete. The book does have one drawback. The index contains many errors.

Thus far in this reviewer's experience, a mystery by Spinster Press tends to be well thought out, entertaining, and will probably include animals. A mystery writing instructor once commented that there are two types of mysteries: those which include cats and those which don't. Deadly Embrace is, obviously, the latter. Trudy Labovitz presents her second Zoe Kergulin mystery to us in lively fashion, as Zoe hones her private investigator skills after her first adventure in Ordinary Justice.

This time, it is Zoe's cousin, Sheriff Nathan McKenna, critically injured after an ambush that kills Deputy Rosalyn Fitzgerald. The trouble is, it looks as if Nathan and Rosalyn might have been having an affair. The positioning of the bodies places them in close contact, and they were ambushed in Nathan's car outside of Rosalyn's house:

"Listen, Zoe, it's not that I enjoy hurting a friend, but you've got to know this. All of Ethan's wounds are from behind. If he'd simply been sitting at the wheel, the entry wounds would have been from the front--or at least the side. From the position of Rosalyn Fitzgerald's wounds, Ethan's wounds, and the bullet holes in the car, the police know the shooter was standing just about where you figured--where you were just looking for evidence--about thirteen feet away from the passenger-side front fender and above the car. If the shooter had moved, going around the car to shoot the other after hitting the first, either Ethan or Rosalyn would have had a chance to draw a weapon, but neither had the opportunity. Both of them were shot at exactly the same time."

It is Zoe's job to not only find the killer, but to disprove the F.B.I.'s glib assumption that Rosalyn's husband shot them in a fit of jealousy. Pitting a private investigator against the resources of the government is always a good time for the reader. But Labovitz throws in a few curves that lead the reader on a merry goose chase.

We also get to know Zoe, an inveterate do-gooder who is vilified by almost everyone, and who, in the end...but that would be giving too much away. Suffice to say that Zoe is a lovable character and her house is control central for cats, members of her large, wonderful family.

Shelley Glodowski, Reviewer

Zoe Kergulin, private investigator extraordinaire, is still recovering from the death of a dear friend and her ouster from the Justice Department. She's living in a quaint Queen Anne house in West Virginia, surrounded by friends and family.

Zoe's cousin, Sheriff Ethan McKenna, and a female deputy are ambushed, leaving the deputy dead and Ethan hanging on to life. Rumors spread through Bickle County and they aren't pretty. Everywhere Zoe turns, there are whispers of an illicit affair. The deputy's husband is arrested for the crimes. Zoe knows there was no affair, but to openly tell the truth would ruin Ethan's career.

Ethan McKenna is gay.

Zoe must find the real criminals and save her cousin's reputation. During her investigation, Zoe stumbles upon a frustrated undercover narcotics agent, a trouble teen, and a mystery man who is scouring the county in his silver Jaguar. Zoe's tenaciousness is almost her undoing, but she is determined to find the killers, clear her cousin's name and bring some closure to a painful chapter in her family's history.

This is a pleasant night's entertainment. I wish the author would have given us more insight into Ethan and his personal life, but I suppose that will be another story.

Enjoy!

The shooting that killed Deputy Sheriff Rosalyn Fitzgerald and left Sheriff Ethan McKenna fighting for his life stunned the residents of Bickle County, West Virginia. Rumors spread by the outside media covering the case claim that the two law enforcement officials were having an affair under the nose of her spouse Kirk. Ethan's cousin private investigator Zoe Kergulin would have had a good laugh over the affair angle if the crimes were not so serious because Zoe knows her cousin is gay.

Zoe begins her own investigation to not only save Ethan's reputation for clean living and running a clean department, but to also bring a cold blooded killer to justice. The state police believe Kirk committed the shooting in a rage of passion for his wife cuckolding him with the sheriff. As she digs deeper, Zoe soon realizes that a very disturbed teenage girl has many of the answers to the tragedy. All Zoe needs to do is to persuade Ren to tell what she saw, but the girl is afraid that no one will believe her and the culprit will come after her next.

The second Kergulin West Virginia mystery is an exciting who-done-it that brings the Mountaineer State alive. The mystery is intriguing and as in her first appearance (see ORDINARY JUSTICE), Zoe remains a fresh character. The support cast, especially the interaction between the outsiders and the locals, augments the mistrust and innuendoes that grow on each page. Although more information on the victims' would have added an empathic element that the plot lacks, Trudy Labovitz writes an engaging tale.

Harriet Klausner

"The Golden Apples" is one of the five best short story collections I've read. Welty's description of character, and its transformation throughout life (it's almost like an episodic novel) is subtle, humorous, and moving. Her style is poetic yet lucid, perfect for the emotionally complex situations she describes. The citizens of Morgana, Mississippi, with all their virtues, flaws and perversities, reminded me of Anderson's "Winesberg, Ohio." But Welty's eye seems defter, deeper, less given to easy pay-off and caricature. Similarly, she is superior to Flannary O'Connor because her tales deal with the nuances of everyday events rather than thunder-and-lightning epiphanies.

Dive into this swirling, invigorating pool and have your views of people and the world changed, as were mine.

In The Golden Apples, Welty offers a cycle of subtle, complex and often hilarious stories/myths from the fictional town of Morgana, Mississippi. Told from a variety of perspectives and voices, the cycle uses southern imagery, greek mythology (sometimes via the poetry of Yeats) and musings on art and music to narrate the history of a cast of characters either absorbed by or isolated from Morgana and the surrounding world. The reader, in assembling meaning from the flood of rich narrative becomes more than a casual observer, but a participant in the ongoing mythology of Morgana.

Like Winesberg or Yoknapatawpha or even Middle Earth, Welty creates a world so complete and convincing that we can't help but immerse ourselves. And what lies in the gaps between the stories and known chronology becomes just as captivating as the story we're given.

Golden Apples, in its complexity, can be a lot of work. But the payoff is huge.

Golden Apples is a novel by Eudora Welty that reads like a series of bizarre short stories with the same recurring characters set in a fictional town in Mississippi. Some readers may find it difficult because of its use of language (...). Others may find it difficult just for it's odd prose. The chapters are not linear nor are obvious segues ever used to cue the reader in that a jump in time has taken place. There are also lots of characters with similar names making it easy to lose track of who has done what, when. If I were more drawn into the book I'd want to reread it to get the pieces I missed or misunderstood but frankly I'm just not captivated enough to want to do that right now.

The Journal of Agnes Lee was written over a 5-year period while Agnes was between 12 and 17, and before the Civil War that would make her father such a legend. Don't expect breathtaking adventure here, but rather sit back and enjoy a view of this young girl coming of age in the 1850's. My strongest reaction to the book was, "How I would have loved to know Agnes!" She really does come alive here with exuberant spontaneity. Her writings provide many glimpses into the overall family life and way of thinking about her life. Agnes' love for her family is intense, and it can make the reader jealous of such closeness, rarely seen in today's society. I do recommend this book to those who want to know about General Lee's family life, and those who are interested in knowing more about this delightful girl, taken from the world by illness at age 32.

Eleanor Agnes Lee was the daughter of General Robert E. Lee, the famous Conferderate Commander in the War Between the States. This is the journal from her girlhood. I thoroughly enjoyed it. There are many books about Robert E. Lee, but there are very few about the rest of his family. This is one of the only sources on his third, beautiful daughter, Agnes, and lets us see better the life of the Lee family. It tells of her faith, her struggles, and her wonderful relationship with her family. I loved this book!

Miss Agnes Lee, as the daughter of the famous general, was in a unique position to record the inner workings of one of America's oldest families. She records a touchingly ordinary life of a typical 19th-century young woman; home life, going to school, her hopes and dreams. Truly interesting to historians should be her position as "teacher" for her grandfather's slaves, who were being prepared for their freedom. General Lee wanted them to be taught to read and write so they could make a living, and Miss Agnes and her beloved sister Annie (who died tragically of typhoid during the war) taught the classes. Agnes, like her sisters, never married although she had a hearbreaking love over with Orton Williams, whom the war turned into a hard-drinking man. She tearfully refused his proposal and never healed from her grief when he was hanged by Union troops. This is an invaluable resource for a young girl's life of the period. Highly recommend