No comments about Lee's Noble Soldier.

1 comments about John Ross, Cherokee Chief (Brown Thrasher Books).

1. Throughout times of turmoil for his people, Chief John Ross made the best of many a bad situation. From the removal of the Cherokee to Oklahoma to the fracturing of the nation during the Civil War, Ross struggled against internal and external enemies to carve out a bright future for the Cherokee people. Moulton has done a fantastic job with this biography, weaving together a compelling tale of this often misunderstood leader who faced repeated insults from political leaders in Washington and opportunistic members of his own tribe.

5 comments about From May to September.

1. Jim Lynch doesn't just TELL you--he TAKES you to the Eastover Resort of five decades ago. He recreates the experience of that time and place and we work along with Jim and his pals. We enter the resort, we become involved with the waiters, the kitchen help, the hostesses. I loved every minute of 'being there.'



2. This is a well written book about a time when people worked and played hard and had fun. Reminiscent of "Dirty Dancing" and of the feelings of each of us who grew up (and sometimes matured) during the 50's.



3. I preordered this book thinking that I was buying the next book written by Jim Lynch, author of "The Highest Tide" (I highly recommend this book). "May to September" is a memoir, which reads like a amateur writer reflecting on the glory days of their youth. I tried to persevere and read it anyway, but the author was unable to pull me into the story.
   Sometimes authors can reach readers through common history or shared interest, but since that isn't the case for me, the writing left me flat. I suspect that readers connected to the story or the author, will find it worthwhile, but since I'm neither, I was disappointed.



4. An amusing history of a young man's summer employment in the Berkshire mountains. A wonderful return to a time when people could laugh, cry and love without concern for political correctness.
   
   Well done, Jim.



5. If you are of a certain age and feel the pull of place and the people who formed you, then you will find From May to September will evoke memories of your college years and the people you knew. Eastover was a wonderful place in our collective history and the author's love for that place and those people is palpable. The book is fun and funny and bittersweet because the time is past. Most importantly it is well written or it would not be such and enjoyable read.

5 comments about Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy.

1. this book did its best to introduce doubt about her involvement in the plot against lincoln, but the facts are simply too compelling against her.i thought her background was well researched, but when it came to the matter of her guilt and trial, it was all sentimentality, supposition and pity. the old woman was up to her neck in it.



2. The author did a great job in researching this book. Also presented the facts well. It does look like maybe Mary Surratt was not involved in the planning or discussions about Lincoln's assassination. Very sad.



3. This is an excellent book. Anyone who is interested in the Civil War era and Abraham Lincoln, will really enjoy this book. Also anyone who studies the law will also find this book fascinating. This book touches on our constitutional rights and how they can be overlooked when a horrible crime has been committed and the government and the people want someone to pay for the crime. Anybody. This is just an excellent book!!!



4. This book has some great strengths and a few weaknesses. The research is very thorough and it shows. It also makes it a fine reference sourse for scholars of the subject. However some of the stuff included should have been edited out.
   
   I find fault the writing style, though this is a personal thing. While loaded with gems of information, the writing is a bit repetitive, even turgid in places as if the writer had an agenda of her own. This is a pity because she did all the hard work. The writing style should have made more of it. Other readers may like the writing style.
   
   The other fault I find is that two key pieces in information presented have no reference sourse. If prosecution witnesses were paid money to perjure themselves we should know what is the sourse of this information. This would have added so much more to the storyline and to the case.
   
   For all of that the book is persuasive in making the case that Mary Surratt did not recieve a fair trial. The fact that her son walked free after his trial before a civilian jury makes the case stronger. A good read with a solid information that might have been a really great read.
   
   L. Power, Ireland.



5. Having grown up in the town whre all of this occured, I am glad that there are those that still hold an interest in this part of history, however sad it may be. I look forward to reading this book again.

5 comments about Shadow Child: An Apprenticeship in Love and Loss.

1. A friend of mine told me to read this book, and I couldn't thank her enough. This book touched me deeply in so many ways, and I feel it was an act of courage to finally express the unthinkable loss of a child. I especially liked the way the author captured the sense of being shocked at the loss of control that accompanies birth (and motherhood). I recommend this book to any woman who has considered moving past loss into a second or third chance at the greatest experience: motherhood: with all of its terrors and confusions and poignant heart splitting moments of unbearable love and vunerability. As someone who has considered having a child, Shadow Child has opened some harsh realities about the trauma and pain of losing one's child. Kudos to this author for transformming what could have been a destructive and bitter experience into hope and a kind of triumph...



2. This is the biography of Beth Powning. Her first child, Tate, was stillborn at term in the 1970s. Beth struggled with her right to grieve for her son. When her third child Jacob arrived, her long silent grief flooded over her.



3. This is a beautifully written book. It weaves art and nature, marital love and familial connections, great losses and sweet celebrations. It chronicles childbearing--not just the physical but the emotional, from welcoming a child into the world to seeing a child off for the first day of school. It also beautifully describes the heartache of a first son who died at birth.



4. I too had a difficult birth, but one with a happy ending. My son had his umbilical cord wrapped twice around his neck and a prolapsed placenta ; it was an emergency C section and I will never forget it. This book touched me deeply in so many ways, and I feel it was an act of courage to finally express the unthinkable loss of a child. The woman next to me in ICU recovery had also lost her child, and I felt much the same as the author...wanting to comfort her but not knowing quite how to. I especially liked the way the author captured the sense of being shocked at the loss of control that accompanies birth (and motherhood). I recommend this book to any woman who has considered moving past loss into a second or third chance at the greatest experience : motherhood: with all of its terrors and confusions and poignant heart splitting moments of unbearable love and vunerability.....cheers to this author for transformming what could have been a destructive and bitter experience into hope and a kind of triumph......



5. This is a book that I am sure will be very important to many women. I admire the author for having the courage to tell her story of losing her first son, Tate, and how this affected her life and her mothering of her second son Jacob. I also admire her honesty in talking about parenting Jacob---especially talking about his schooling, and how she hoped that he would fit in and become part of the community partly to help her also feel more part of it, and how she came to see that homeschooling for a while was the best choice for him. This book, however, is written in a style that is not my personal favorite, although it is very well written. It is quite poetic and lyrical, and at times I found myself wishing very much that events were being told about in a more straighforward way, and that some areas were more clearly explained--more about whey they decided to move to Canada, how her husband's pottery business became so popular, etc. I am sure that not everyone would feel as I do, and in fact that many people would love this writing style---full of striking metaphors and nature descriptions. This book deserves wide reading.

2 comments about Lincoln in American Memory.

1. This fascinating volume considers how Lincoln has been viewed from the time of his death to the time this work came out. The account of the historical research related to Lincoln's genealogy and his early life is particularly intriguing. It discusses some of the Lincoln literature and indicates what is worth reading. For instance, he downgrades Otto Eisenschiml's sensational Why Was Lincoln Murdered?, which made such a splash when it came out in 1937, and recommends The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies, by William Hanchett as the best book on the assassination and its historiography. This was the best book I read in the year when I read it, a year in which I read 126 books.



2. Merrill D. Peterson, a renowned Jefferson scholar, enters the field of Lincoln studies with this book on how Lincoln has been remembered, memorialized and celebrated in the years since his death. Peterson examines an interesting variety of sources, including statues and prints made of Lincoln over the years in addition to the numerous biographies written. Among the images examined are the Emancipator, the martyr, and Savior of the Union. Peterson examines the origins of these images and how they have carried through the generations by historians and others.

3 comments about Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography).

1. Several years back I was watching a documentary on Harriet Tubman in which one of her relatives was interviewed. I suddenly realized I had never thought of Tubman as a real person, with actual living relatives! Her legend looms so much larger than life that she hovers somewhere in the realm of Paul Bunyan.

   This book begins with a traditional biography, presenting the bare bones of Tubman's life. The section called "Stories and Sayings" puts meat on those bones, breathing life into someone who has nearly been lost to us in legend. It's a fascinating concept, and I think it works.

   Equally amazing is the Documents section, reflecting 10 years of research and which will be required reading for any future Tubman scholars because, as Humez herself says, "...my retelling of her life story cannot be definitive." Highly recommended.

   Curator, AfroAmericanHeritage dot com




2. Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories, by Jean M. Humez

   This book is a treasure. Eminently readable, impossible to put down, totally absorbing, this book will satisfy meticulous scholars and the general public. What a great way to learn U.S. history! Great quotes, critical appraisal of the work of earlier historians, new documentation, wonderfully illuminating photographs. A feast for the curious mind and eye.
   I have always wanted to know more about Harriet Tubman and as soon as I heard this book was out I dived into it. Harriet Tubman's life has been the subject of several biographers in the past, but in this work Humez convincingly argues that Harriet Tubman, who could not read or write, was able to produce a "self-authored life story" by carefully choosing the writers she collaborated with and exercising control about what stories to tell and how to tell them. This results in a fascinating and kaleidoscopic interpretation of Harriet Tubman's life, as seen through different authors and through Harriet Tubman herself.
   In the first section, "The Life," I learned about the salient facts of Harriet Tubman's life: her years as a slave in Maryland, seeing two of her sisters sold and carried away in a chain-gang, her successful escape from slavery in 1849, when she was probably 29 years old, her contacts with the anti-slavery movement in the North, the mutual admiration of Harriet Tubman and John Brown who referred to her using the masculine pronoum ("Harriet Tubman hooked on his whole team at once. He is the most of a man, naturally, that I ever met with"). It is also about the clandestine trips she made to Maryland to rescue her extended family and others, her military and nursing work during the civil war and her settling in Auburn, New York, in poverty, taking care of old and sick people of color and children-- the John Brown Hall project, as she called it.
   Interesting quotes from her dictated letters reveal details that throw light on her views on other issues, such as women's rights. For instance, in telling about the successful Combahee River raid in South Carolina, in which she worked with Col. James Montgomery and a band of 300 black soldiers, she states after her dress was shred that "...I made up my mind then I would never wear a long dress on another expedition of the kind, but would have a bloomer as soon as I could get it..."
   It is in the second part, "The Life Stories," that Humez makes the case that Harriet Tubman's gifts as a story-teller, singer, and performer and her reputation as an African-American celebrity ensured that her experiences as a slave and her deep spirituality would be preserved. Here, through a discussion on the politics of research, the dynamics between a researcher and her/his subject, and the cultural and social context that influences much of those dynamics, I felt Harriet Tubman's presence and resourcefulness vividly, towering above those who tried to capture her complex story and interpret her life according to their values and the racial views of their culture.
   The third part, "Stories and Sayings," offers a hypothetical version of Tubman's "autobiography" culled from every individual life history story Humez was able to locate from the earlier works. While all the stories and sayings are revealing and offer significant insights my favorite part was the "Stories of Clever Exploits and Tricks," probably because I always wondered how she actually carried out her rescue missions. In this section the intelligence, courage, and humor of Harriet Tubman shines through, like in the story "Avoiding Capture by Pretending to Read." It says: " At another time when she heard men talking about her, she pretended to read a book which she carried. One man remarked. `This can't be the woman. The one we want can't read or write.' Harriet devoutly hoped this book was right side up" (Tatlock, 1939a).
   The final section, "Documents" is a gift of primary source materials for future researchers and anybody interested in pursuing an in-depth study of Harriet Tubman's life.
   Read this book. See for yourself how illuminating the past and looking at history with a fresh eye can instill hope. This book is yes, about Harriet Tubman, but more fundamentally, it is a book about courage, dignity, persistence, and solidarity in incredibly harsh circumstances. What a gift for us all in these troubled times.




3. Harriet Tubman: The Life And The Life Stories by Jean M. Humez is an exhaustive biography of this celebrated and heroic woman. Grounded in exhaustive research as well as the complete texts of stories Harriet Tubman told about her life. Harriet Tubman: The Life And The Life Stories follows Tubman, who was born a slave in the American South, as she escaped to freedom in the North, and vowed to liberate her entire family. Her work to guide dozens of slaves to freedom, as well as her service as a spy and a scout for the Union Army, are also described in historical detail. After the Civil War Tubman settled in New York and founded a home for the indigent aged. an absolutely essential addition to academic library Black History and African-American Biography reading lists, Harriet Tubman's memory and legacy are cherished in this profound and all-encompassing chronicle.

1 comments about Henry James: A Life in Letters.

1. Now that the University of Nebraska Press has undertaken to publish the complete James correspondence, these one-volume samplers can be relieved of the artificial responsibility to do the impossible - that is, tell the whole story in 600 pages or less.

   Horne's effort suffers in comparison to Edel's by its self-imposed mandate to favor previously unpublished letters. (Personally, I found these almost invariably of lesser interest. It looks like Edel skimmed the cream.) But his cannily selected interstitial material makes it a far more rewarding reading experience. I would say this now stands as the best introduction to the subject.

   And for what it's worth: the Penguin Classics paperback edition is a very nice piece of manufacture - comfortably sized in dimension and font.

5 comments about The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days (Bison Book).

1. "Log of a Cowboy" is as advertised, a simply written narrative of a trail drive, as straight-forward as its cowboy hero. While not great literature (or is it?), it has a freshness that makes it fun to read. The sheer labor of the trail drives made them heroic! The image of hundreds of trail herds making their way north is awesome.
   Many modernizations of Andy Adams' original novel have been made. This one is easily readable and very enjoyable. Jack Hannah's song based on it, "Trail Drive", is true to this story that tells of trail boss Flood and the trail hands' adventures in Dodge City, as they "trail 'em slow" to Montana.
   If you yearn for a simpler time, love adventure, remember "Wagon Train" and "Rawhide" fondly, or just want to be transported to another life, this book will do it.



2. I was expecting a little more excitement in this book than what I read. I was a little disappointed, to the point that I almost didn't bother to finish it. I wouldn't buy this book again if I had the chance.



3. I'd give The Log of a Cowboy 5 stars as an excellent story of life on the cattle drive trails. It's a great read...
   But, the quality of this particular edition is very poor.
   Blurry print, ink blotches, and even some unreadable sections, makes this edition a poor choice. It looks as though someone just ran the text through a poor quality copier.
   Given a price of $38.00, I would certainly expect better.
   Try any of the paperback editions, and avoid this one.



4. I have completely lost track of the number of editions and printings I have seen of this book, over the years, and a quick search with Google will produce a number of different free e-texts available on-line. However, almost every edition known to me is missing an introduction; there is therefore (1) no information about the author, and (2) no information as to whether what we have is a novel written in documentary style, or an actual nonfiction account of a typical trail drive in the early 1880s.
   
   Well, folks, it's a novel, as the largely symbolic names for the characters might indicate: Priest, Flood, Officer, Strayhorn, Forrest, Blades, Wheat, Straw, etc., etc. I finally got around to reading it, and enjoyed it. Nothing spectacular or overdrawn--- it would not be surprising to discover that every incident is based on something that directly happened to the author or one of his cowboy sidekicks during his trail-herding days. All the classic situations are here, including visits to Dodge City and Oglalla, fiendishly difficult river crossings, stampedes, rustlers, con-men and segundos, chuck wagons and remudas, saloon gunfights and card-sharping. The number of 20th Century western authors who turned to this 1903 novel to obtain some authentic details to insert into their own trail-drive sequences is probably also close to uncountable.



5. "The Log of a Cowboy" was published in 1903 and tells the story of a five month long trail drive that took the circle-dot long horns from just a little south of Brownsville up into the Indian territory of the Blackfoot Agency - a 'pasear' of nearly 3000 miles.
   
   When I came to this book, I didn't exactly know what to expect. The only other western I had read since childhood was "The Virginian", a book that seemed very fictional (although I enjoyed it greatly). "Log of a Cowboy" is entirely different. It reads more like an autobiography -- which some historians have suggested it is. Certainly there is an authentic feel to the book that is unmistakable. Rather than being over the top, the stampedes and gun battles are underplayed, although they certainly maintain their own levels of excitement.
   
   My own response to the book: I found it hard to put it down. The story was full of adventure and cow and cowboy trivia and it was just plain fun. I ended my read with a great deal more respect for the cowboy and his craft. Who knew that cattle liked to bed down on higher terrain?!?
   
   Five Stars. Despite being fiction, "Log of a Cowboy" remains a wonderful historical resource. Persons interested in the Old West should find it a satisfying read, although they should not expect a overly polished presentation. And for those who are considering this book for younger readers it should be noted that there are some very non-PC(politically correct) speech and actions. This book was, afterall, written over one hundred years ago.
   
   ~reviewed by Pam T.~

5 comments about Murdering Mr. Lincoln: A New Detection of the 19th Century's Most Famous Crime.

1. A well written book with a flair for the extreme. The author has taken numerous facts about the assassination and it's particpants and stretched them with assumptions that are conceivable but not proven. A wonderful story, but a disclaimer should be attached allowing readers to understand that some facts have been stretched to offer the story of a dynamic conspiracy, a thrilling hunt and final solution. A great read and it would certainly make a great movie, ala Otto Eisenschiml.



2. The editorial review says it all:
   
   Conspiracy theorists and Civil War buffs may want to take a gander, but overall this book adds little to our understanding of the assassination.



3. Those interested in the politics behind the war will find Higham's work at times fascinating and horrific. The book really brings home what happened apart from the battlefront. As revered as President Lincoln is today, he made some decisions that would make 21st century citizens of a democracy cringe. Alternatively, Lincoln's detractors and political opponents did the same. It seems unfathomable to me now that Lincoln could have been hated by so many, and this book really pierces the veil of the myth surrounding his presidency and the unity of all those in the Union.

   When one really ponders what Lincoln did - suspending the writ of habeas corpus, prosecuting publishers printing unfavorable information, trading with South, etc. - one realizes that Lincoln - just like everyone - is neither complete hero nor complete villain - but a convoluted mix of gray areas.

   But a reflection on Lincoln is not an intended objective of this book. Nor does it foster an argument that Lincoln deserved death. The focus here is the plot to de-throne Lincoln and make peace with the South, hatched by shadowy Confederate sympathizers, fringe Confederate spies, the European aristocracy, and some out-and-out crazies, like the chief villain George Sanders and assassian John Wilkes Booth. This objective is fulfilled in excruciating detail.

   Also deeply disturbing was the revelation of the "Young Americans" Hitler-youth-type organization, the assertion that Stephen Douglas planned for a military coup d'etat over Lincoln, and the whole affair between Confederate exiles conspiring with British/Canadians to incite war with England.

   A fascinating story is marred by the author's continuous barrage of trivial details. He throws so many names, places, and things at the reader that even the most astute Civil War scholar would be overwhelmed.

   The book reads like a novel and while that is good for easy reading, one has to wonder how the author dug up so much granular information 150 years later. The source notes - a paltry half-dozen pages at the end - do nothing to convince me that the author did in fact thoroughly validate the accuracy of his assertions. Personally, while I think the book does contain many facts, I have to consider it more a historical novel, like Gore Vidal's "Lincoln", than a history. "Dark Union", another recent and similar book on Lincoln during the war, is much better annotated.




4. Charles Higham has long seen conspiracy theories under his bed. For most of us, going to bed means counting sheep and drifting off into a restful sleep, but for Higham it must be an entirely different experience. Perhaps his sheep all wear swastika armbands on their legs, baaing in syncopation with goose-stepping spies on their way to conspire with their Hollywood friends. Now, after a long and fruitless career hacking out spy laden fiction about Hollywood's brightest stars, he turns his attention to Abraham Lincoln. The switch from Hollywood figures to political icons is consistent with Higham's long rumored belief that every celebrity was not only a Nazi spy, but a closet homosexual intent on destroying the pillars of democracy. No matter - Higham's book is without merit. This book is no more than a long supposition bracketed by historical gobbledygook and pounds of manure shoveled up from Higham's seemingly endless supply of self-created excrement. Surely, he needs some fiber in his diet, and a backbone to go with it. A soul would help, too. But we need to keep in mind a fundamental truth when considering Charles Higham's long and lucrative career - he has the right to publish what he wants. Freedom is everything, and we need to accept that, even if it means that any deranged fool raised in a leper colony by a homosexual Franciscan monk from Mars can bellow about the conspiracy that occupies his dreams. Yes, they shoot horses and diseased cattle, but not people, and so the diseased are allowed their bellowing. Such people have the strength of their beliefs, and no dialogue from the rest of us will convince them that they are wrong. We should pity them. In any event, it appears obvious that Higham has reached the end of his career. He will still publish, of course, but he is much reviled. His "lack of journalistic integrity" (as historian Tony Thomas so aptly stated) is well known. At best, we should all pray that one day such illnesses are defeated and that one day Charles Higham will finally rest in peace.



5. Charles Higham's research connects various Copperhead merchants to the Confederate Secret Service, but fails to convincingly tie any of them to John Wilkes Booth. The book is worth reading primarily for its exploration of a new angle to Lincoln's assassination: Copperhead commerce with the South, reluctantly approved by Lincoln as necessary to the Union to finance the war, provided a cloak for an assassination conspiracy.

   Mr. Higham almost certainly has several things wrong. He assumes the plot to kidnap Lincoln was always phony and a cover for murder. But why would Booth write in his diary, "...we sought to capture (and changed to murder at the end)"? Why would Arnold and Surratt, years after they were safe from the law, provide details of Booth's planned abduction? It's also a huge stretch to say Surratt traveled 24 hours from Elmira, N.Y. to Washington on April 13-14 and spent only 5 hours in the city, most of which was devoted to getting his hair cut and watching a transvestite show.

   Finally, as with every single historian to have written on the case since 1865, Mr. Higham is willing to assume that Booth entered Lincoln's box without having determined in advance that Parker, the guard, would be absent. This, despite his precise timing of the gunshot to coincide with a laugh line in "Our American Cousin" and with Paine's assault on Seward. Booth acted according to a presumption to which he was not entitled, i.e. Parker would not be guarding Lincoln. He had to have known this.