The Sands of Time: A History of Hilton Head Island

The Sands of Time: A History of Hilton Head Island by Margaret Greer

Margaret Greer, who lived on Hilton Head Island, wrote this 11 chapter illustrated popular history of the island from its geological formations to the mid-1980s. In 70 pages she covers the island's history and still finds room for both color and black and white pictures on at least every other page.
Chapter I, The Land Made Ready, is a one page geological history of the formation of the island. Chapter II, The Indians, covers in three pages the native American Yemasee tribe's presence on the island and the legacy of names left by them. In Chapter III, The First Europeans, the 16th century Spanish landings and attempts at settlements are discussed in three pages. The French landing in 1562 gets four pages in Chapter IV. This is followed by the three pages of Chapter V on the Spanish return to the area in the late 16th century. Chapter VI, The English Come to Stay, devotes seven pages to the 1663 explorations of Captain William Hilton, who gave the island its present name, and the English settlements that followed.
Chapter VII, The Planters, in four pages talks about the first plantations established on the island. Chapter VIII, The Golden Age, spends nine pages talking about the period from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War and the ante-bellum plantation system that developed then. Chapter IX, The Civil War, is the actual heart of the book with 18 pages devoted to the battle for Hilton Head and the Union presence on the island after their victory.
The 100 years between the Civil War and the post World War II developments into a resort, when the islands were home to "native islanders," descendants of freed slaves known as the Gullah (or Geechee), are covered in the eight pages of Chapter X, Sleeping Beauty, half of which are devoted to photos. The concluding Chapter XI, The Modern Age, covers in eight pages the development of the resort community from 1950 to 1988.
Painted in broad strokes, The Sands of Time is a brief and general historic introduction to Hilton Head Island. well-illustrated and short, it serves this purpose well. A Sources page listing eight items is a good place to start looking for more information.

Nymphs of the Valley

Nymphs of the Valley by Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran is an early 20th Century Lebanese writer who is best known for his 1923 book The Prophet. The dust jacket flap says this small volume of three Arabic stories were found amongst his papers by his translator and made available in English in 1948. The original 1906 Arabic version was published in New York by Al-Mohajer with the title Ara'is al-Muruj. Wikipedia lists it as his 2nd published book. PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive's Classic Poetry Series 2008 article on Kahlil Gibran describes these stories as expressive of Gibran's "anti-feudal and anti-clerical convictions." The dust jacket to the British edition describes them as follows.
"The setting of all three is the Lebanon. The first [Martha] tells the story of a poor and innocent village girl who is seduced and stranded in the city. On her deathbed she is consoled by a youth from her native village. The second [Dust of the Ages and The Eternal Fire] is a story of reincarnation; two lovers parted by death in ancient Baal are joined together in life two thousand years afterwards. The third [Yuhanna the Mad] is the portrait of a true Christian in rebellion against the vested interests of the monasteries. And he who has real wisdom is said by the world to be mad."
All three describe a Lebanon that is part of the crumbling Turkish Empire where the powerful and the poor are widely separated. Gibran, like Tolstoy, sees the corrupt church in league with the government and the rich, robbing the poor of what little they have, to maintain their status and wealth. His heart is with the poor villagers and these stories tell a timeless message of love and humanity struggling against wealth and privilege.

Modesty Blaise

Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell

Modesty Blaise started out as a comic strip character created by Peter O'Donnell in 1963. The comics were produced until 2001, and O'Donnell wrote a 13 book series of novels and collections of short stories that started with this book in 1965 and ended in 1996. There have even been two or three movies made featuring her character. I became intrigued with the series when I saw the 2004 movie My Name Is Modesty starring Alexandra Staden.
In this first novel, we meet Modesty after she has retired with a fortune from a life in the underworld. Her loyal sidekick Willie Garvin has gotten himself into trouble, and a couple of British agents let her know his situation hoping that in return she will help them with a situation that can use her particular talents. After saving Willie, she agrees to help the agents with a payoff to a Middle Eastern sheik of 10 million British Pounds worth of diamonds being transferred from South Africa. When two of their agents are killed, they fear that the jewels are being targeted for a heist along the way.
The story was written 50 years ago, and it may not appeal to a younger audience. O'Donnell pays great attention to detail, creates a strong female lead character, and has a skill at developing interesting secondary characters throughout the story. Similar in appeal to the early James Bond novels.

Folk Medicine

Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor's Guide to Good Health by D. C. Jarvis

Dr. Jarvis spent his medical career serving the rural state of Vermont and studying the folk medicine practices he found there. The results of his lifetime work in this area are published in this 1958 book aptly titled Folk Medicine. To read it today is to go back in a time machine to visit a rural doctor of the first half of the 20th century who is studying the folk medicines of his time. He speaks of people growing up close to the land, small farmers eating their locally grown crops and the products of their animals. He never mentions a veterinarian, and he cares for the farmer's animals as much as he cares for the farmers and their families.
The Vermont soil is low in potassium. He personally added granite dust from the stone cutters in Barre to his garden soil because granite has potassium in it. People were shorter in Vermont because they ate foods grown in this potassium-deficient soil.
One of the things he discovered in his research into the folk medicine practices of rural Vermont was the many ways that the people compensated for the low potassium in their diet. The major one was a reliance on a drink made of apple cider vinegar, often mixed with an equal quantity of honey and diluted with water. Much of the book is devoted to this simple drink and the many beneficial effects he ascribes to it. He claims the benefits come from vinegar's acidifying effects on the body, the healthful sugars present in the natural honey, and the many minerals, particularly potassium, contained in both ingredients.
Vermont farmers of Dr. Jarvis' time didn't go down to a local grocery and buy a bottle of apple cider vinegar and a jar of honey. They got a barrel of fresh-pressed apple cider, most likely from their own trees or a neighbors, and let it ferment in the barn, past the hard cider stage, until it turned to vinegar. They got their honey from local bees. Today you would have to look far and wide to find anyone with a vinegar barrel somewhere around their property; today vinegar is made in a factory in 2-3 days rather than the back yard in 6-12 months.
Dr. Jarvis was writing for a time and place that do not exist anymore, but our need for potassium still remains essential, and food is its primary source. The kind of vinegar the farmers brewed in their barns is made by a few health food companies, and fortunately almost everywhere in America you can find local sources of honey. The modern diet is built around supermarkets instead of gardens and livestock. Much of our food is manufactured, where efficiency and shelf life are industrial concerns. We take multivitamins and supplements, often added to our manufactured foods, to meet our nutritional needs. A vital connection is lost in all of this with the life of the soil and the plants grown in it. Could a drink made from raw, organic, unfiltered apple cider vinegar and honey make a difference to our lives? I would like to think so. Is this magical thinking? At this time you could it is, since I haven't found research to back it up, but as a librarian I know how to look for information.

Tomatoland

Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook

Tomatoland is an investigative report on the Florida agricultural businesses that supply winter tomatoes to the supermarkets. Most of the book focuses on a city most people don't know which is a drained swamp just 42 miles inland from Naples Florida called Immokalee.
The book looks at labor conditions and efforts that have been taken to improve them. It investigates the major growing firms and the agriculture techniques required to grow tomatoes in Florida, including the heavy use of fungicides, pesticides and herbicides, many of which are dangerous to humans.
The book also looks at an organic farmer in Florida who is proving that these methods can work there. A Pennsylvania farmer who grows Heirloom Tomatoes for New York City restaurants is also highlighted. The book begins and ends with a search for the tomato's earliest relatives in the dry mountainous soils of Mexico and South America.
If tomatoes are more than something red you add to your diet, if you love tomatoes for their taste and dread the winter products in the marketplace, if you care for social justice for farmworkers and their families, then this is a book to savor with a fresh garden tomato sandwich before the frosts of winter ends the season of local joy.

Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story

Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story by Alfred Hassler and Benton Resnik

Created by Alfred Hassler and Benton Resnik this short 16 pager comic book was first published in December 1957 by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Illustrating the Nonviolent Method using the case of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the comic very simple and elegantly tells how nonviolent action works.
I read Stanford University's digitized copy.

Naked

Naked by David Sedaris

Naked is a series of 17 essays written by David Sedaris and published in 1997. Sedaris includes a note to say that the events depicted are real but names and identifying characteristics have been changed except for those of his family. The author grew up in Raleigh, and I met him in 1979 when I moved to Raleigh and he worked as a waiter at the Breakfast House restaurant on Hillsborough Street.
The essays in Naked focus on David's life growing up in Raleigh, his college years, early work experiences, and his relationship with his family members. The 40 page title essay Naked relates his week-long first visit to a nudist club and his adjustment to a clothes-free environment and the nudists he met.
As a 1990s retrospective look back on the 19760s and 70s, this book may not be for everyone. I enjoyed it as a tribute to a Raleigh that was much smaller and in many ways than the city we know today, as the gifted writings of a gay man growing up in a intolerant world, and as a long-lost letter from a person I met many years ago who made me feel welcome in a strange city.

Manon Lescaut

Manon Lescaut by Antoine François Prévost

Manon Lescaut is a story of a young man, the Chevalier des Grieux, and his lover, Manon Lescaut. Set in the year 1721 and first published in 1731, this story of uninhibited love and its dire consequences was both quickly banned and widely read. The novel begins when a narrator, spending the night in a small town, who sees the townspeople gathered around two large wagons loaded with women criminals who are being banished to the colony of New Orleans. Amongst this "frail sisterhood" sits Manon "whose whole air and figure seemed so ill-suited to her present condition, that under other circumstances I should not have hesitated to pronounce her a person of high birth. Her excessive grief, and even the wretchedness of her attire, detracted so little from her surpassing beauty... " Asking one of the guards about this rare beauty, the guard points to a man who has followed them from Paris, crying all the way and says that he knows her. Asked about Manon, the despondent stranger replies that he is completely in love with her and having failed at all attempts to free her, he plans to follow her to the ends of the Earth. Seeing that the stranger has no money and is in desperate need, the narrator gives him 4 gold louis-d'ors and 2 more to the lead guard, and goes on his way.
Two years later he again sees the young man, poorly dressed and walking the street of Calais, having just returned from America. Greeting him and learning he is still destitute, the narrator offers him a room for the night at the inn where he is staying. That night the stranger, who is the Chevalier des Grieux, tells the story of his tragic three year love affair with the beautiful and charming Manon Lescaut.
Manon is poor but beautiful and the 17 year old Chevalier's love for her is instantaneous and intense. He must have her, and runs off with her to Paris in spite of the disapproval of his father and brother. Losing his savings through various circumstances, he relies on the generosity of friends and his skill at gambling to support their existence. Manon, while she professes love for the Chevalier, uses her beauty and charm to attract the generosity of other men. Instead of her loose virtue turning him away, their mutual love keeps him faithful to her. Eventually they run into trouble with the law and he follows her into exile.
Told completely from his point of view, Manon's life and motives are at best poorly understood. We see her through the filter of 300 years, a translation into another language, and the eyes of a deeply infatuated young man. It is believed that the story is in part based upon an early love affair of the author Prevost.
Manon's story and the Chevalier's love for her has inspired several operas, and, 100 years later, the novel and play Camille by Alexandre Dumas. Both Manon and Camille have been made into movies again and again. I am glad that I have read the original version of this classic love story.

The Anansi Boys

The Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman takes the legend of Anansi the Spider and updates it. This is about Anansi's two sons Fat Charlie and Spider who grew up in south Florida only to be parted by an angry neighbor that sends Spider away. If you didn't grow up with Anansi tales or read them to your children, you should read about him.

This story is about separated brothers reunited in modern London. But is it also a giant Anansi story with Animal totems living in the cliffs at The Beginning of the World. It is a well crafted story that I couldn't put down and enjoyed to the end. It illustrates how Life is just the tale we tell, and a gifted storyteller can make that tale so much more meaningful. It also shows how the world of our mind is meshed so closely with the world of our perceptions, how Spirit and Flesh, Sacred and Profane dance together to the sound of Song.

The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc

The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc by Eugene Sue

The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc is the 15th book of Eugene Sue's 21 volume series The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Age. The series was created to depict the struggle between the ruling and the ruled classes in European history. One family, the descendants of a Gallic chief named Joel, represent the oppressed and the descendants of a Frankish chief Neroweg, typifies the oppressors. Down through the ages the successive struggles between oppressors and oppressed are depicted as each generation of Joel's family writes the story of their lives and adds it to the collective story gathered so far.

The Executioner's Knife is set in the early 15th Century and tells the famous story of Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. Written in the mid-19th Century and translated into English in 1910, the book portrays Joan as guided by inner voices and an ancient legend to save France. The author depicts her as an inspirational figure to the downtrodden French who are caught in the conflict between an invading British army and a divided France. She herself is drawn as a heroine of the people who is betrayed by the ruling classes.

The book only tangentially fits into the series as neither Joan nor her major accusers are related to Eugene Sue's fictional families. He has one of the series' family members present at Joan's execution to tell the story of her death. One drawback for me, a modern reader in the USA, is that the author tells his French readers who each of Joan's enemies were and what they said against her. I found myself wanting to skip over pages in the last section of the book that deals with her capture, trial and execution as each person in her trial is identified by name, position and home city and quoted. As a result this book has over 100 footnotes, most to the transcript of the trial or other historic documents. Each book in the English translation series has a Preface written by the translator Daniel De Leon.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. Whether one will be satisfied with nothing but a scientific diagnosis in psychology, or a less ponderous and infinitely more lyric presentation of certain mental phenomena will do for him; whether the student of history insist on strict chronology, or whether he prize at its true value the meat and coloring of history; whether a reader prefer in matters canonical the rigid presentation of dogma, or whether the tragic fruits of theocracy offer a more attractive starting point for his contemplation;—whichever the case might be, The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc will gratify his intellectual cravings on all the three heads. This, the fifteenth story of the series of Eugene Sue's matchless historic novels entitled The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages, presents the picture of the Fifteenth Century—a historic elevation climbed up to from the hills of the era sketched in the preceding story, The Iron Trevet; or Jocelyn the Champion, and from which, in turn, the outlines become vaguely visible of the critically historic era that forms the subject of the next story, The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer. As in all the stories of this stupendous series bestowed by the genius of Sue upon posterity, the leading characters are historic, the leading events are historic, and the coloring is true to history. How true to the facts are the historic revelations made by the author in this series, and how historically true are the conclusions he draws, as they rise in relief on the canvas of these novels, appears with peculiar conspicuousness in The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc, above all in this century, when the science of history has remodeled its theory, and, instead of, as in former days, basing man's acts upon impulse, has learned to plant impulse upon material facts. In the pages of this story the central figure is the charming one generally known to history as the Maid of Orleans. If ever there was in the annals of man a figure that superstitious mysticism combined with grovelling interests to annihilate, it was the figure of the pure-minded, self-sacrificing, intrepid shepherdess of Domremy. Even the genius of a Voltaire succumbed. In righteous revolt against man-degrading superstition, his satire "La Pucelle" in fact contributed, by the slur it placed upon Joan, to vindicate the very lay and prelatical interests he fought, and whose predecessors dragged her name through the ditch and had consigned her body to the flames. Harried by the political interests whom her integrity of purpose menaced and actually thwarted; insulted and put to death by the allies of these, ambushed behind religion; the successors of both elements perpetuating the wrong with false history; and even the enlightened contributing their sneers out of just repugnance for supernaturalism;—all this notwithstanding, the figure of Joan triumphed. Even the head of the prelatic political machine, which had presumed to speak in the name of the Deity with Anathema over Joan's head, has felt constrained to fall in line with the awakened popular knowledge. The Papal beatification of Joan of Arc in this century is a public retraction and apology to the heroine born from the lowly. Of the many works of art—poetic, dramatic, pictorial—that have contributed to this conspicuous "reversal of judgment" Sue's The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc has been the most powerful. The pathetic story cleanses Joan of the miraculous, uncovers the grovelling influences she had to contend against, exposes the sordid ambitions she had to overcome and that finally slaked their vengeance in her blood. The master's hand weaves together and draws, in the garb of fiction, a picture that is monumental—at once as a work of science, of history and of art. DANIEL DE LEON. Milford, Conn., October, 1909.

Utterly Gross Jokes Volume III

Utterly Gross Jokes Volume III by Julius Alvin

This book is one in a series of collections of off-color and ethnically offensive jokes written under the name Julius Alvin, "America's favorite gross-out king." It was marketed as "These jokes are so sick... they're UTTERLY GROSS!" As such it appeals to a certain audience who will not be offended, in fact, who want to read offensive material. For that select group these jokes will please.

The others books in the series are all also written by "Julius Alvin". Here is a list compiled from WorldCat and Amazon:

Gross Gifts (1983)
Gross Limericks (1983)
Gross Jokes (1983)
Totally Gross Jokes, Volume II (1983)
Gross Jokers Box set (1983)
Utterly Gross Jokes, Volume III (1984)
Extremely Gross Jokes, Volume IV (1985)
Gross Limericks, Volume II (1985)
Doubly Gross Jokes, Volume V (1986)
Awesomely Gross Joke, Volume VI (1988)
Extremely Gross Jokes (1989)
Fresh Gross Jokes, Volume VII (1989)
Painfully Gross Jokes, Volume VIII (1989)
Agonizingly Gross Jokes, Volume IX (1990)
Excruciatingly Gross Jokes, Volume X (1990)
Astonishingly Gross Jokes (1990)
Painfully Gross Jokes, Volume VIII 2d ed. (1991)
Rude Gross Jokes, Volume XI (1991)
Totally Gross Jokes (1991)
Extremely Gross Jokes Volume IV 2nd ed (1991)
Relentlessly Gross Jokes, Volume XII (1992)
Disgustingly Gross Jokes, Volume XIV (1993)
Incredibly Gross Jokes, Volume XV (1993)
Intensely Gross Jokes (1993)
Repulsively Gross Jokes, Volume XVI (1994)
Hopelessly Gross Jokes, Volume XVII (1994)
Infinitely Gross Jokes, Volume XVIII (1994)
Terribly Gross Jokes, Volume XIX (1995)
Unspeakably Gross Jokes, Volume XX (1995)
Savagely Gross Jokes, Volume XXI (1995)
Unbearably Gross Jokes, Volume XXII (1996)
Wildly Gross Jokes, Volume XXIII (1996)
The Best Of Gross Jokes, Volume I (1996)
The Big Book Of Gross Jokes (1997)
Best Of Gross Jokes, Volume II (1997)
Insanely Gross Jokes, Volume XXV (1997)
Outrageously Gross Jokes Volume XXVI (1997)
Brutally Gross Jokes, Volume XXVI (1998)
Unbelievably Gross Jokes, Volume XXVII (1998)
Obnoxiously Gross Jokes, Volume XXVIII (1998)
The Bigger Book Of Gross Jokes (1998)
Hilariously Gross Jokes, Volume XXIX (1999)
Frightfully Gross Jokes, Volume XXX (1999)
Grossest Jokes of the Century (1999)
Fiendishly Gross Jokes, Volume XXXI (2000)
Offensively Gross Jokes, Volume XXXII (2000)
The Even Bigger Book Of Gross Jokes (2000)
Gross Baseball Jokes (2001)
Gross Football Jokes (2001)
Grossly Gross Jokes, Volume XXXIII (2001)
Twistedly Gross Jokes, Volume XXXIV (2001)
Ruthlessly Gross Jokes, Volume XXXV (2002)
A Treasury Of Gross Jokes (2003)
The New Treasury Of Gross Jokes (2004)

Lest one think these are a just the quirky output of a self-publishing eccentric, the series was published by Kensington Publishers under their Zebra Books imprint. Kensington's current website describes Zebra Books as their "flagship imprint [that] publishes nationally bestselling women's fiction, romantic suspense and bestselling historical, paranormal and contemporary romances." While no longer in print, the publisher characterized the jokes in this series as politically incorrect, raunchy jokes about ethnic groups, homosexuals, women, animals, politicians, celebrities and other unwitting targets."

The author has painstakingly collected thousands of such jokes and preserved them in print. While out of print, most are available used from Amazon resellers as $0.01 books. A valuable resource if one is studying such humor. I put the author's name in quotes because I believe it is a nom de plume for the person who holds the copyright for these books. Julius Alvin only appears on the Internet as the author of these works with no further biographical information.

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

I first became interested and aware of Carol Shields' writing when I read and was enthralled with her last book Unless. Written while she was dying of breast cancer, Unless is a powerful novel that asks big questions and doesn't give easy answers. So I wanted to read Shields' earlier novel The Stone Diaries which was her most famous work, winning a Pulitzer Prize and numerous other honors.
I was not disappointed. This book is the life of a 20th century woman Daisy Goodwill Flett laid out chronologically in chapters named Birth 1905, Childhood 1916, Marriage 1927, Love 1936, Motherhood 1947, Work 1955-1964, Sorrow 1965, Ease 1977, Illness and Decline 1985, and Death. Shields brings each decade and location to life using a combination of Daisy's own perspective, that of those around her, bits of writing, and even photos. The characters are beautifully portrayed and complex, turning an ordinary life into rich reading.
I have become a fan and look forward to reading more from this talented author.

A Stricken Field by Martha Gellhorn

A Stricken Field by Martha Gellhorn

With the signing of the 1938 Munich Agreement, Nazi Germany annexed portions of Czechoslovakia inhabited by German speakers, an area that came to be known as the Sudetenland. A Stricken Field is a novel based on a week Martha Gellhorn spent in Prague in 1938. She had gone as a reporter on an assignment to interview President Benes, but got caught up in the plight of the refugees fleeing the German occupation. No longer citizens of Czechoslovakia, they were being forced to return to German controlled territory where they feared for their lives. While trying to write an objective piece on the effects of the Munich Agreement on the economy, she is confronted all around by the terrible problems of good citizens hiding and being forced to return to the brutal oppression of the Nazis.
She never wrote that news report. Instead she wrote this novel about two refugees Rita and Peter who, for a brief period of time, have found refuge in each other's love. Gellhorn is there too as Mary, an American reporter who observes a great injustice and is powerless to help.
Gellhorn admits she never read the published book until she had to write an Afterword to this 1985 edition. In that Afterword she concludes "I am proud of it. I am glad I wrote it. Novels can't 'accomplish' anything. Novels don't decide the course of history or change it but they can show what history is like for people who have no choice except to live through it or die from it. I remembered for them."
Today as Russia casts greedy eyes on eastern Ukraine and Russian-speaking Ukrainians seek to reunite with their homeland, this novel has a strangely modern relevance. Not that Putin is a new Hitler, but it points out the indifference and powerlessness of world governments to situations like these.

Nettie's Trip South by Ann Turner

Nettie's Trip South by Ann Turner

Nettie's Trip South is a large format children's book with pencil illustrations on every page by Ronald Himler. It is based on diary entries of the author's great-grandmother. The book tells the story of 10 year old Nettie (Henrietta) and her sister accompanying their older brother on a trip from Albany New York to Richmond Virginia in the year 1859. Nettie has never seen slavery before and relates her encounters with Virginia slaves in a letter to her friend when she returns. A simple yet profound condemnation of the South's Peculiar Institution.

Feiffer's Children by Jules Feiffer

Feiffer's Children by Jules Feiffer

Feiffer's Children was published in 1986, the year Jules Feiffer won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in The Village Voice. It is a collection of his one page cartoon strips on children and parenting. Each comic strip takes up one page of and includes 6-10 frameless panels of his line-drawn black and white characters. One reviewer wrote that Feiffer writes of "the postwar Age of Anxiety in the big city." Be prepared for page after page of hilarious looks at anxious urban children and parents.
Included is his classic anti-war short graphic story Munro which was made into a film that won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film in 1961. Wikipedia described Munro as "a rebellious little boy who is accidentally drafted into the United States Army. No matter which adult he tells "I'm only four", they all fail to notice his age."
The book ends with "Movie-Child: An Afterword" which is a three page autobiographical sketch on Feiffer's growing up in a poor Jewish family in the Bronx. He talks about how his only escape from the dark, dingy and dangerous world around him was the movie house three blocks from his home. His heroes were Shirley Temple, Douglas Fairbanks, Henry Fonda, James Cagney, John Garfield, and Mickey Rooney.

The Iron Trevet

The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion; A Tale of the Jacquerie by Eugene Sue

The Iron Trevet is the 13th book of Eugene Sue's 21 volume series The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Age. The series was created to be a European history that depicts the struggle between the ruling and the ruled classes. One family, the descendants of a Gallic chief named Joel, represent the oppressed and the descendants of a Frankish chief Neroweg, typifies the oppressors. Down through the ages the successive struggles between oppressors and oppressed are depicted as each generation of Joel's family writes the story of their lives and adds it to the collective story gathered so far.
This book is set in the year 1356, a time when feudalism is at its peak and the rights of the lords were never questioned, and their serfs had none. This period is known to us today as the Hundred Years' War, but Eugene Sue presents it from the point of view of the peasants of the countryside and the merchant class of Paris, both struggling for more rights during the unrest of the times. He tells of bravery, boldness and betrayal in a sweeping story that moves between The peasant revolt known as the Jacquerie and the intrigue in Paris between Etienne Marcel and Jean Maillart to create a limited monarchy.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
Etienne Marcel, John Maillart, William Caillet, Adam the Devil and Charles the Wicked, King of Navarre, are the five leading personages in this story. Their figures and actions, the virtues and foibles of the ones, the vices of the others, the errors of all, are drawn with strict historic accuracy, all the five being historic characters. Seeing the historic importance of the epoch in which they figured, and the types that these five men represent, the story of "The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn, the Champion" is more than an historic narrative, it is more than a treatise on the philosophy of history, it is a treatise on human nature, it is a compendium of lessons inestimable to whomsoever his or her good or evil genius throws into the clash of human currents, and to those who, though not themselves participants, still may wish to understand that which they are spectators of and which, some way or other, they are themselves affected by and, some way or other, are bound to either support or resist. In a way, "The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion" is the uniquest of the series of brilliant stories that the genius of Eugene Sue has enriched the world with under the collective title of "The Mysteries of the People" we can recall no other instance in which so much profound and practical instruction is so skillfully clad in the pleasing drapery of fiction, and one within so small a compass. To America whose youthful years deprive her of historic perspective, this little story, or rather work, can not but be of service. To that vast English-speaking world at large, now throbbing with the pulse of awakening aspirations, this translation discloses another treasure trove, long and deliberately held closed to it in the wrappage of the foreign tongue in which the original appeared. DANIEL DE LEON. New York, April 13, 1904.

Son of a Witch

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

In Wicked Gregory Maguire retells L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West. He restructures Oz into a complex society with limited technology and complex religious beliefs. One of the minor characters is the boy Liir who lives with her, but due to a large gap in her memory, no one knows if he is her son.
Written 10 years later, Son of a Witch picks up where Wicked leaves off and begins a series of three sequels to the original novel called The Wicked Years. I found it helpful to reread Wicked before starting this book.
The second book is a coming of age novel where Liir starts out as a child and grows to be a man, fulfilling his destiny in the strange world that Maguire created. However, with Dorothy and the Wizard gone and the witch sisters dead, it is an Oz that relies very little on Baum's writings for support. This is Maguire creating an Oz of his own.
I enjoyed this book very much and am looking forward to seeing if Maguire can continue creating compelling drama in A Lion Among Men and Out of Oz, the final two volumes of the series.

Cobalt Blue

Cobalt Blue by Peggy Payne

Peggy Payne's Cobalt Blue is about what happens to a down on her luck North Carolina artist when is struck one night with the grace of kundalini energy. While she struggles with the sexual and creative urges of her rising kundalini, she also has to negotiate her biggest commission ever, the official portrait of a right-wing US Senator from North Carolina whose political values are abhorrent to her. Filled with lots of local details, great North Carolina personalities, and a commanding knowledge of Kundalini Yoga, Cobalt Blue is a joyous and affirming book about our inner ability to grow and change.

Tall, Slim & Erect: Portraits of the Presidents

Tall, Slim & Erect: Portraits of the Presidents by Alex Forman

These brief biographies provide a few little known facts, normally about personal habits, love life, unusual beliefs or behaviors, hand shaking techniques, and last words. Rather than write biographic sketches, Alex Forman collected phrases from other books, and illustrated each presidential chapter with a black and white photo of that president's toy figurine from the Miniature Figures of U. S. Presidents collection of toys created by the Marx Toy Company.
This is an amusement that will be useful to someone like me who knows little about the presidents' lives.

Here are memorable lines from each brief bio:
"Nixon asked Pat Ryan to marry him the first night they went out."
"His secretary revealed that LBJ would wash and reuse Styrofoam cups."
"In 1963, JFK confided that he got a headache if he went too long without a woman."
"In 1959, Robert Woodruff, president of the CocaCola Company, scolded Eisenhower for appearing in a photograph sipping Coke from a bottle through a straw -- a sissy way to imbibe."
"Truman gave strong approval for a judicial process and said in support of the Nuremberg Trials: Never again can men say, I was following orders. And never again can men in power give such orders."
"In the fall of 1900, FDR entered Harvard and went all out to make the football team. He was turned down when he weighed in at a brittle 146 pounds. He became, instead, a cheerleader."
"Hoover's parents were poor, and he was orphaned at nine, but he amassed a fortune as a mine engineer and owner."
"A few days after Coolidge entered the White House, he wrote to Jim Lucey, a cobbler from his hometown, I want you to know, he said, that if it were not for you I should not be here and I want to tell you how much I love you." When Coolidge died in 1933 "Jim Lucey was heartbroken... He was the best friend I ever had, said the cobbler of the former president."
"Harding's wife Florence worried incessantly about Harding's grasp of events and had the cabinet report to her."
"All his life, Wilson insisted on his intensity and his strong passions. But at the age of twenty-eight he was almost certainly a virgin. His pleasures were all connected with the use of his mouth."
"Taft owned a Holstein cow, Pauline Wayne, which he let graze freely on the White House lawn. Pauline was the last cow to live at the White House."
"Roosevelt said, Our first duty, our most important work, is setting our own house in order. We must be true to ourselves, or else, in the long run, we shall be false to all others."
"McKinley had told Chicago newspaper publisher, H.H. Kohlstaat, that they were trying to force him into declaring war with Spain. As he said this, He broke down and wept as I have never seen anyone weep in my life. His whole body was shaken with convulsive sobs."
"Illness and depression caused his wife, Carrie, to imagine that Harrison was falling in love with her niece, the widow Mary Lord Dimmick. After his wife's death from tuberculosis, Harrison married his niece. He was healthy and vigorous and enjoyed again the pleasures of fatherhood."
"Charged with seduction and bastardy, Cleveland said, It is true. Tell the Truth! To the surprise and dismay of mentors and opponents alike, he remained incorruptible."
"Arthur did not like to dress himself but preferred to be dressed by boys. He kept eighty pairs of pants in his wardrobe and changed them several times a day."
"Garfield was one of the few scholarly men of the presidency. A lover of poetry and the classics, he wrote passable verse, could read and write in Latin and Greek, and used to entertain his friends by simultaneously writing Latin with one hand and Greek with the other."
"Hayes and his sister, Fanny, had affection for each other that spilled over the customary bounds of sibling devotion."
"Julia Dent Grant was by no means a beauty. As First Lady, she considered an operation to correct an eye defect, but the president liked her, he said, with her eyes crossed and would not have her different."
"Johnson did not master the basics of reading, grammar, or math until he met his wife, Eliza, at the age of seventeen. Determined that her husband should amount to something, Eliza hired a man to read to him as he worked, and she taught him writing and arithmetic at night."
"Lincoln was of Melungeon descent. Cartoonists nicknamed him, Abraham Africanus the First."
"Buchanan enjoyed a twenty-year intimate friendship with Senator William Rufus de Vane King. He referred to King as Aunt Nancy."
"In 1853, while in office, Pierce was arrested for running over an old woman with his horse. The case was dropped due to insufficient evidence."
"Fillmore was seventeen before he saw a dictionary. He was illiterate until adulthood. In 1826, he married Abigail Powers, a schoolteacher, who helped him with his education."
"Zachary Taylor had little schooling, no knowledge of law, government, or politics, and had never cast a vote in his life."
"Polk suffered from chronic diarrhea, succumbing to it three months out of office."
"Tyler is the only president to have three different First Ladies during his time in office."
"Harrison ate only cheese and milk products."
"Van Buren is the only president for whom English was not his first language. He grew up speaking Dutch."
"Jackson was called a Jackass. He liked the name and used it for a while; later it became the symbol of the Democratic Party."
"J.Q. Adams rose at five, read the bible, and took a nude swim in the Potomac." "In private,Monroe and his wife, Elizabeth, spoke only in French."
"James Madison was our smallest president, standing only 5 feet 4 inches and weighing about 100 pounds."
"Jefferson ate little animal meat. Vegetables were his principle diet."
"John Adams started smoking and chewing tobacco at age eight and continued throughout his life."
"Washington's 900-volume library was filled with all the get-rich-quick handbooks of the day."

[I have sometimes replaced a pronoun with the president's name for clarity.]

The Book of Dragons

The Book of Dragons by Edith Nesbit

The Book of Dragons contains eight short stories by Edith Nesbit that have a dragon or dragons as the main plot element. Originally published in 1900 for British children, modern American readers may find many of the references charming or confusing. However, Nesbit's imagination and writing skills are well represented in these children's stories. Being in the Public Domain, this and many other books by Nesbit are now freely available online through sites like Internet Archive, Amazon, Google Books, and others.
"The Book of Beasts" tells how young Lionel inherits a kingdom and find the in the palace library a magic Book of Beasts where the animals fly off the pages when viewed in daylight. All goes well until he gets to the page with a dragon.
In "Uncle James, or the Purple Stranger" Princess Mary Ann lives on a topsy turvy island and plans to marry Tom the gardener when she grows up. However when a dragon crash lands on the island, her evil Uncle James devises a plot to rid the island of the dragon and Mary Ann that Tom must find a way to stop.
"The Deliverers of Their Country" tells the story of two young siblings Effie and Harry who respond to an invasion of dragons by attempting to waken England's ancient hero St. George the Dragonslayer.
In "The Ice Dragon" George and his younger sister Jane go out in their backyard one cold wintery night to see the fireworks. In the northern sky they see something much more amazing, the Aurora Borealis, and decide to go get a closer look by going to the North Pole.
A mean-hearted king imprisons his daughter in the Lone Tower on "The Island of the Nine Whirlpools" which is guarded by a dragon, a griffin and dangerous whirlpools. Can she be saved by an observant young man with a talent for maths?
In "The Dragon Tamers" John the blacksmith is so poor that he lives with his family in the ruins of an old castle. One day he awakens the dragon that lives in the dungeon beneath the ruins.
When her parents die a young princess is imprisoned by her evil cousin so he can rule the land. Then "The Fiery Dragon" attacks the kingdom, and the princess with the help of a pig herder outsmart both the prince and the dragon to set things right.
"Kind Little Edmund" is a boy with an inquiring mind who wants to learn things no one else knows. His quest leads him deep into a dragon's lair where he must figure out how to trick the dragon to save his village.