3 comments about The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd.

1. Author Jeffery King has provided us with an interesting account of the short and violent life of Charles Arthur Floyd. Floyd was one of many depression-era desperadoes who focused on bank-robbing as a way of life. One of the things that struck me was the relative ease of breaking out of jail or prison during this time. Another was the putting on display of the dead bodies of gangsters during this time period for the curious public. Floyd was defended by his mother who claimed he didn't do as many things as he was accused of. He apparently agreed to surrender to authorities if he could be assured of life in prison and not get the death penalty. When no such deal was forthcoming, Floyd realized that his time was short and he would be shot to death. Also of interest in this story is the jealously of F.B.I. Director John Edgar Hoover towards officer Melvin Purvis. Hoover had Purvis leave the scene of the shooting of Floyd immediately to minimize the credit given to him. Maybe Hoover should have been focusing on big time mobsters instead of small time hoodlums like Floyd. There also is controversy regarding the death of Floyd and if it was, indeed, necessary to kill him after he had been wounded in an Ohio field. The author has done an excellent job researching this book, and it is worth your time to read it if you are interested in depression era gangsters.



2. At last an author has examined the documentary evidence of Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd's extensive criminal career, rather than simply relating family and "good ole boy" fables of Floyd's Robin Hood qualities. Or relying on the fantasies of "Blackie" Audett, a minor bank burglar and later Justice Department stool pigeon at Alcatraz who invented tall tales of having known or worked with Pretty Boy, Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, the Barker-Karpis gang and just about every other major criminal of the '30's. Audett claimed to have witnessed the crowning achievement of Floyd's career, the Kansas City Union Station massacre--except that by his account Floyd wasn't there and someone else did the shooting. Various other authors--Lou Louderback, Michael Wallis, and Jay Robert Nash (who also bought Audett's tale of having helped Dillinger make a permanent escape by having a double slain in his place!)--have accepted Audett's story of Floyd's innocence. Many of us who have researched the massacre with more care have long been skeptical of Audett's claim but only Jeffery King has bothered to ascertain just where Audett was at the time of the massacre. He was in Leavenworth until July 1933, a whole month after the Union Station killings! King makes a good case for the complicity of Floyd in the massacre and does an equally admirable job of tracking down the elusive details of Floyd's early career in crime, including the fabled Akins post office burglary, which did not involve the theft of $350 in pennies, the probable true origin of the famous nickname, and the many bank robberies. He also nails down the often-doubted but very probable (and brief) association of Floyd with Dillinger and "Baby Face" Nelson and gets us as close as we'll probably ever be to the real story of Pretty Boy's death at the hands of the FBI. This is investigative journalism at its finest and also displays an objectivity sadly lacking in the thicker sweeping bio offered earlier by Michael Wallis.



3. Jeffrey King has produced a well-researched biography of Pretty Boy Floyd, one of the most infamous bank robbers of the 1930s. Although filled with documentation, this book reads like a novel. I appreciated King's historical analysis of the evidence regarding Floyd's life and death and I had a hard time putting the book down. I found the book to be especially gripping in the section dealing with the final hunt for Floyd by the FBI and Floyd's demise in a rural area of Ohio. The book is reminiscent of John Toland's "The Dillinger Days," which is another fine volume about famous bank robbers of the Depression Era. My only criticism of the book is that King failed to emphasize sufficiently the self-centered, sociopathic character of Floyd. For example, on the last page of the text of the book, King stated that Floyd "had many virtues, such as courage, loyalty to his family and friends, and compassion for those who struggled to survive during the bleak days of the Depression" (p. 210). On the contrary, Floyd cheated on his wife (he often lived with another lover, Beulah Baird, and was known to frequent brothels), and stole from, expoited, threatened, harassed, kidnapped, or killed many innocent victims, including many poor and middle class people. Today, Floyd would be diagnosed as an antisocial personality disorder and he was a sinister man whose criminal deeds, including numourous murders, reaped havoc on dozens, if not hundreds of people. This shortcoming does not overshadow the rest of King's fine work, however. In conclusion, I commend King on completing an excellent book and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a compelling read.

2 comments about John Hunt Morgan and His Raiders.

1. Details details.. I wish this book had more of them. I was a bit disappointed in getting this hardcover to see that I could read it in a couple of days. The pages go by fast as they cover Morgan's daring raids throughout Kentucky and the north. I was hoping to get more information than the quick coverage of the events that Morgan and his raiders went through. I would have liked to get some insight from his companions in the field and also from his enemy. This book seems to summarize Morgan and probably isn't the best when it comes to dates and details. It is important to suggest this book for anyone looking to read about a different Confederate cavalry commander instead of Mosby or Stuart that doesn't want to get into serious details. Perhaps this book exemplifies Morgan himself. It was short and fast. Morgan started his command quickly and finished quickly.



2. GREAT BOOK! HARD TO PUT DOWN! Covers the "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy" John Hunt Morgan from Tompkinsville, KY to Greeneville, TN. This little book has more in it than a 800 page novel. If you are interested in Morgan's Raids or Civil War activity in the Kentucky - Tennessee area, this is a MUST READ!

1 comments about Finding Freedom:: The Untold Story of Joshua Glover, Runaway Slave.

1. The co-authors of Joshua Glover give a thorough explanation of the dangers of being a conductor on the underground railroad and the terror of a re-claimed slave. The unique situation of Joshua's rescue and his final escape to Canada made a good story, but the authors explored Joshua's life near Toronto, giving new details of a life in post Civil War Canada. The story read like an exciting novel, but better as it was a real life story. The scholarship was extensive but not obtrusive. I recommend it to all who like nineteenth century history.

5 comments about Amazing Dope Tales.

1. a wildly fun and entertaining romp through some of the more interesting corridors of mind. Well worth the trip!



2. I've got somebody I'd like you to meet. Reader, this is Stephen Gaskin; Stephen, this is Reader.

   Stephen Gaskin is, among other things, one of the founders of The Farm (which is about the only big hippie commune that turns out to have been built to last) and an activist for cannabis legalization. He's usually billed as a "hippie spiritual teacher," which means that listening to him has the power to knock your mind loose from your brain.

   And that should clue you in that this book -- originally published in 1980 and republished here with a new foreword by Stephen and a new introduction by Spider Robinson -- is _not_, despite its title, about dope. Stephen himself will tell you that dope is just one means among others and that all of this stuff can be approached in other ways. As for dope itself, Alan Watts and Baba Ram Dass used to say that when you've gotten the message, you should hang up the phone.

   If you're worried about the drugs, you should be aware that for the most part the only drugs involved here are cannabis and LSD (plus an occasional bit of peyote and one or two others). Moreover, the book includes lots of cautionary tales about bad trips. And it's not _at all_ about (what I regard as) the really dangerous drugs. (These distinctions are important, especially during today's indiscriminate "war on drugs." Being "anti-drug" is roughly equivalent to being "pro-food.")

   So what _is_ the book about? It's about consciousness and religion and getting telepathic, and it's about some things that happened during some of Stephen's trips that hipped him to all of that stuff. More prosaically, it's a transcription of some oral history about the late '60s as delivered in Stephen's unique voice.

   You'll like Stephen. And I wasn't kidding when I said he can knock your mind loose from your brain.

   The _way_ he tells his stories is as important as the stories themselves. You can read a couple of sample pages and see what I mean; the whole book is like that. He talks from inside the experiences he describes, and these transcriptions make them real for you too, just as if he were sitting there talking to you. He's also pretty self-critical in what he makes of these experiences; pay close attention to his opinions about how hallucinations work and in what sense(s) they may be "real."

   Anyway, when you read one of his amazing dope tales, you may find that you've picked up a contact high from Stephen and that you, too, can sometimes see the subconscious on people. If enough of us did this sort of vicarious tripping, it might help us to get telepathic even without taking dope ourselves. That would be a good thing, wouldn't it?

   If (like me) you're also a Spider Robinson fan, you'll enjoy his short introduction, which deals with both the significance and the failures of hippie ideals. (Stephen has shown up, sometimes disguised, in several of Spider's books.) And vice versa: if you like this book, you'll probably enjoy Spider's fiction as well.




3. Amigo-I too/also think the "truth" can be agreed on. Give Thanks 4/that! And I have allways remembered that version of Monday PM class that had that "dose"--Initials taken OUT! I'm not 2/sure I wanna know anything about DMT-but I'm gettin vexed with all the food gettin dosed with canola oil. It's 2/close to mustard gas in your "lower". Kinda freightening the way square world stuffs your gut to weaken you-that just can't be defended. BRO.{OUT!}



4. I was wondering, did you read the title before buying the book?



5. First off, this book's not even by Spider. I'm not vertain why he lent his name to it, much less wrote the introduction. The book itself is a loosely connected series of ramblings of a proto-typical dope-fiend from the 60's San Francisco scene. It's a bit trippy, and even mildly insightful once is a while, but was certainly not worth picking up if you're expecting anything like the quality of writing and storytelling that Spider Robinson imparts to all of _his_ works.

2 comments about Jameses, The.

1. The Jameses is an impressive brick of a book with 586 pages of small type, many illustrations, and two appendices. I read in the New York Times review of the book that it took Lewis 10 years to write, and I absolutely believe that to be true. He is often clearly speaking to the James scholars, making detailed reference to earlier works and apparently contentious issues. (What was the nature of the mysterious injury? etc.) I often felt inadequate to the task of reading it, given that I am very far from being a James scholar. Although I enjoyed the book, it was sometimes a bit like a little kid being an eavesdropper on a grown-up conversation.
   
   This is not to say that I got nothing out of the book. I learned a lot about not only the family, but the time in which they lived and worked. I was actually a little bit surprised that I had not accumulated more knowledge about them before now. One of the few periods in literature that I have actually studied with consistency and application is the American Transcendentalists. The ties that James Sr. had to Emerson and Fuller (to name a few) should have brought him across my conscious radar a little bit sooner than this.
   
   I initially wasn't sure how I was going to like the fact that Lewis took on the whole family. I was, after all, really only interested in Henry. But after reading it, I am not sure how any of them could have been addressed separately. Part of the point that Lewis makes are the threads and patterns that run through the family history-- mysticism & spirituality, the relationship (love/hate) with Europe, the relationship to money, depression and frustration. Those patterns are much stronger seeing how they play out in the lives of all the children, rather than looking at them one at a time.
   
   This was a literary biography, and while I loved it, the minutae may be too much for a casual reader. It has certainly inspired me to circle back and see what books of the James' canon I have missed. I realize that while I have read all of the "major" works, I have read virtually nothing from his early period or of the novellas.
   
   Interesting, if you're interested. I would recommend it. It appears to be out of print at the moment, but rather widely available.



2. This wonderful book tells the story of where the James family and its money came from, how Henry Sr. almost lost his inheritance for the frivolity of buying too many books, then reclaimed it and used it to raise the most remarkable intellectual family yet in American history. The book is big, which gives it enough space to delve into the tragedy of the two younger James brothers, the maturation of William and Henry Jr., and the closeted life of Alice.

   I came away with a new respect for the somewhat eccentric Henry Sr., with his diverse interests in educational philosophy, Swedenborg, and Emerson. He is the under-sung hero of this narrative and its true author.

   Perhaps I enjoyed the book most of all because it allowed me to feel almost a part of the family, to live what to me is a fantasy. If you feel yourself a kindred spirit to William, Henry, Jr., or Sr., or Alice, I would heartily recommend this book.

2 comments about Alias Paine: Lewis Thornton Powell, the Mystery Man of the Lincoln Conspiracy.

1. Lewis Paine was a dashing young man in the 19th Century. Why would Booth tempt Lewis Paine into kidnapping Mr. Lincoln? I liked Lewis Paine since I was little. Now that I'm 20 yrs old now, I still dream of him. I know he's dead already. (Don't think I'm insane for this guy.) If Lewis Paine was like he was in the 1860's today, I'll freak out. My husband's name is Lewis but not Powell. I have collected several pics of Powell since I was 12 to 13. I drove my mom & dad crazy about Lewis Paine when I was 9. Hope you like my thoughts about Lewis Paine.

   Love, Carmen




2. Without question this is the best researched study of one of John Wilkes Booth's main co-conspirators ever written.

5 comments about Touched With Fire: Five Presidents And The Civil War Battles That Made Them.

1. Most of this book is very interesting but there are a few slow areas. Even so it is worth the read. A wonderful glimpse into the military lives of our Civil War Veteran presidents, from the General to the private.



2. I am a big fan of Civil War histories. I have more than 75 fiction and non-fiction Civil War books on my bookshelf (mostly non-fiction) so I am hardly a newbie to this area. When I comment that this is a new angle, I an really saying something.
   
   It's not that James M. Perry has uncovered new documents or new information, but he has re-shuffled the "same old" information into a new pattern. In this case, he has focused on the five Presidents that fought in the Civil War. Perry includes a modest pre-war biography of each of the men and then goes into greater detail on their war experiences. The level of detail is neither skimpy nor excessive - he strikes a nice balance.
   
   As a group, they all had many things in common. To a man, they all became competent officers of brevet Major or higher, they all had extensive combat experience in the Western theater (although Hayes and his men were transferred to the Eastern theater) and they were all Republican (Perry does point out that the Democrats did run Civil War veterans, but none were successful).
   
   Mercifully, Perry does not cover the entire career of U.S. Grant since his Civil War biography would essentially be a re-telling of the war itself and his war biography would dwarf those of the other four combined. Instead, he begins with Grant at Forts Henry and Donelson and only chooses to include him again when he interacts in the lives of the other four. The other four are hardly a homogeneous group, despite all being Republicans. Their temperaments range from stoic and quiet to loud and openly scheming. Their ages range from 18 to 38 and previous military experience range from a West Point education to none at all.
   
   Perry includes a chapter at the end telling the post-war political history of each of the five men which is also a basic history of Gilded Age politics. Perry points out the powerful influence that Civil War veterans groups such as the Grand Army of the Republic had.
   
   Interesting. Easily accessible. Worth the read by Civil War buffs and devotees of the Presidency.



3. This is a book we Civil War fans needed. Grant,Hays,Garfield,Harrison and Mckinley. I think Chester Arthur also served but he wasn't in any battles. Being from Cumberland Maryland it's interesting to note that Mckinley and Hays were both in town the night Crook and Kelly were captured by McNeils rangers. Hays is probably the most combat experienced, himself being at South Mountain and The Shenandoah. Harrison was with Sherman in Georgia but was at the Battle of Resaca a pretty intense battle itself. Garfield saw some fighting in Kentucky and Chickamauga and Mckinely was at Antietam and Shenandoah. But you should read the story it's quite good and i guarantee adventure on every page.



4. James M. Perry's "Touched With Fire" is a highly readable popular history of the wartime service of the five U.S. Presidents who were veterans of the Civil War. The story of U.S. Grant is well-known, but Perry performs a real service for Civil War fans in illuminating the careers in uniform of Rutherford B. Hays, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley. With the exception of Grant, a West Point graduate with prior service in the regular Army during the Mexican War, each of the other four was caught up from civilian life by the outbreak of war, served in volunteer Midwest infantry regiments, and turned out to be brave and reasonably competent officers. McKinley initially enlisted but earned a battlefield commission. Each was noted for bravery and battlefield leadership. Of each it could be said that their wartime service was critical to their post-war political careers. Of the five, only McKinley was a successful President, although in fairness, Garfield served only a few months before being assassinated.
   
   What may be of topical interest for the present day reader is Perry's commentary on how deeply the prosecution of the war divided the North. A significant fraction of Northern politicians and their followers opposed the war effort, whether on grounds of sympathy with the Confederacy, partisan rivalry with the newly ascendant Republican Party, a distaste for the liberation of slaves, or exhaustion over the high cost in blood and treasure of combat. The desperate political infighting necessary to push to completion President Lincoln's agenda of reuniting the country and freeing the slaves translated into a post-war landscape in which the Republicans waved the "bloody shirt of rebellion" at the Democratic Party to win all but two Presidential elections between 1868 and 1908. Like any other era of politics, power tended to corrupt, and the "Gilded Age" of the late 1800's was renowned for its corrupt political practices.
   
   "Touched By Fire" is easily accessible to the general reader; Perry's narrative is entertaining and backed by solid if generally derivative scholarship.



5. In his latest book, Touched With Fire: Five Presidents and the Civil War Battles that made them, James M. Perry has given us a glimpse into the wartime efforts and heroics of five men who later occupied the Oval Office of the White House.

   Presidents Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison, and McKinley were all soldiers in the Civil War, and all had exposure to enemy fire at some point during the war (Hayes was wounded four separate times during the course of the war, though none of his injuries was life-threatening).

   In my opinion, Perry has given us a good reading of Civil War history, including an introduction to some battles that are not often heard of (such as Garfield's involvement at The Big Sandy Valley battle in Kentucky). However, Perry gives short shrift to U.S. Grant, who was the only professional military officer to become President, and to McKinley, who was but an 18 year old Private when he enlisted at the outbreak of the war.

   Perry's writing is lively, and gives the reader a nice vision of what was going on not only on the battlefield, but also in the minds of these five men. He closes the book by giving us a brief glance into the political careers (however short, bland or corrupt their administrations may have been) of these men as well.

   I enjoyed reading the recounts of the battles and the actions taken by these men immensely, and I would highly recommend the book to anyone that is looking for a good understanding of the military years of Garfield, Hayes, or Harrison. With the shortcomings given to Grant and McKinley, I think that a more exhaustive biography would better provide an adequate picture of their wartime activities.

No comments about Science, Race, and Religion in the American South: John Bachman and the Charleston Circle of Naturalists, 1815@-1895.

5 comments about Race with the Devil: Gene Vincent's Life in the Fast Lane.

1. I love this man's music and in reading "Race With the Devil" one finds that as the man behind it crumbled, his wonderful voice never wavered. His live shows continued to thrill audiences long after his chart success had waned to almost nothing.
   The author does a great job of showing Vincent as he truly was, a man with a magical voice and presence who was normally very gentle and agreeable, but also capable of frightful fits of anger.
   To me the defining moment of Gene Vincent's life in this book was the instant his lower leg was smashed between the front bumper of a Chrysler and the side of his motorcycle. Vincent and the Caps would soon kick off years of almost non-stop performing and the leg would never have the chance to heal. This, of course led to Gene's abuse of alcohol as he drank more and more to mask the pain from a leg that deteriorated so badly that it would bend at the shin when he walked! The book reveals how several times in his tortured life he actually pulled weapons on friends and family in fits of rage brought on by intense touring, marital and legal problems, pain and copius drinking.
   Be warned, to a fan this is shocking and could change the way you think of "the Screaming End". Upon reading this though, it's clear that very few people could have went down Vincent's "fast lane" without lashing out from time to time.
   The almost constant personnel changes in his various backing bands put an additional strain on Vincent. But by far the biggest blow was the death of his very true and unwavering friend, Eddie Cochran of "Summertime Blues" fame, who died from injuries suffered in a car crash in which Vincent was also riding.
   As I read on I was shocked to find that Vincent actually lived very nearby here in my town for a time and is buried in a place I've driven by countless times. How strange that when he lived in Simi Valley, his house was located on Cochran Street! This was years after the death of Eddie Cochran and probably was just coincidence, but still is pretty bizarre.
   I loved the book but although it is well written and a very enjoyable account of the life of one or rock's true pioneers the lack of source attribution and dating of the events is a noticeable drawback. Still this is the only gripe and is pretty minor considering this is the only Vincent biography out there.
   Vincent fans should read "Race With the Devil". Keep an open mind while doing so and it will greatly increase your understanding and appreciation of this wonderful artist.



2. This book is good on the whole, it is generally enjoyable, alhough there are some incomplete parts to point out :
   1) There is not a useful description of the musical landscape in which Gene Vincent does is act, id est not a description of rock'n'roll in the 50s, the slipping towards the beat era in the 60s; in this way it is not possible to compare Vincent's music with his times and without this explanation the reader couldn't ( I say couldn't, in case he doesn't know it himself ) understand the declining fortunes of his carrier.
   2) Information about other rock'n'roll artists is almost wrong, in particular as regards Elvis Presley ; actually the author should distinguish among true facts and the false ones due probably to envy ( Vincent says that Elvis went to the Sullivan show after the impossibility to have Carl Perkins first and Gene Vincent himself second : in truth, when Elvis went to the show, he was number 1 - the 4th since the beginning of the 1956, with " Don't be cruel " - and was granted the highest pay till that moment by the Sullivan show production, so probably they had all the interest to have him )
   3) Apart from missing references about dates or years, the author fails to explain why Vincent could go on doing pretty successful tours around the world, while in the same time having an almost disastrours record on the charts : in the USA, he charted 5 times only, twice in the top 20, in GB, where he was more successful, he had 4 top 20 hits, never entering the top 10.
   So, having considered these points, I can say we have an interesting homage to the rocking singer.



3. There isn't a song that Gene put out that I didn't enjoy. The book does a good job giving a pretty in depth overview of his short and frantic life. What came out was his total love for rockabilly and rock music. He sacrificed his health and eventually his life for it. The book tends to "race" much like it's title and dates tend to be ignored and events, concerts etc. aren't fully explained. But the good far outweighs the bad. After reading the book I fully realized the (physical and mental) pain he went through to perform the music he loved so much. Money was secondary to performing for his audiences. Hard to believe that today isn't it? Gene's personal life was a shambles but he rocked on. He was one of a kind and they won't be making any more like him.



4. ...that this is the only in-print bio on Vincent, I have to say this is an excellent book. Despite the tone of the writer at times to try to seem "country," and her habit of not really pointing out too many specific dates (or years even!), I did enjoy this. The extensive after-notes, and interview list were quite impressive and obviously a lot of research went into it. I guess I just wish it seemed more in depth than it read. It will definitely do for now...



5. Gene Vincent was the prototype rock 'n' roller, and his contributions were formidable, influencing The Beatles, Van Morrison, Robert Plant, John Fogarty, Jeff Beck, Chris Issac and Jim Morrison to name some of the most vocal with their praises. This book widely explores Mr. Vincent's youth, establishing step-by-step how his Norfolk, Virginia roots helped mold "The Sound" he started in music. Before Mr. Vincent, popular music aimed to hit listeners between the ears or between the arms. "Be-Bop-A-Lula" clobbered listeners between their legs, and rock 'n' roll would never be the same. The author's obviously deep love and respect for Mr. Vincent and his music translates to an extremely intricate -- albeit highly readable -- study, I would say the best ever written on the subject. To her credit, Ms. VanHecke never lets her admiration overshadow reality. Mr. Vincent was no candidate for sainthood, either by destiny or by his own choice. And it's precisely this aspect of Mr. Vincent's personality that's so wonderful about the book. While it's quite easy to track the direct musical lineage created by Mr. Vincent, millions of rock music fans probably never recognized that the rebel personna also started with him. This book is a must-read for anyone who remotely appreciates rock 'n' roll.

1 comments about Civil War Hospital Sketches (Dover Evergreen Classics).

1. This book was short and gave some insight, but was a little disappointing since I had just finished reading Civil War Nurse: The Diary and Letters of Hannah Ropes. Both Louisa May Alcott and Hannah Ropes were assigned to the same hospital. Hannah Ropes' book is more in depth with the day-to-day details and her feelings than Hospital Sketches. Louisa May Alcott's book makes you think it was written specifically for a certain reading audience in mind and was found lacking in some respects.
   (signed LAS)