If you are interested in old buildings and/or the history of downtown Little Rock then this book is an interesting read. The book profiles the building from its early beginnings through current times. The old building has quite an impressive history.

Harington has once again captured the very essence of life in the South. This story is an entertaining romp that, like all good comic novels, has a very serious side to it. I have never read a better exploration of the human need to have a place to call home. Throughout the entire book, Harington keeps you entertained with murderous, lascivious, and affable adventures that will have you laughing hysterically and pondering the meaning of life at the same time

The book contains several stories about Burton and his twin brother growing up in Southern Arkansas during the depression. Despite this time frame, the book is a great read for all ages. It has warm wit and humor and very inspiring messages.

Anyone who has done research on the Civil War approaches veteran's memoirs with a degree of caution. Memoirs are always self serving to some extent and often take too much advantage of hindsight. This work is remarkably free of such justifications. Rather it is the honest work of a soldier coming to terms with his war experiences. Philip Stephenson was a mere boy from St. Louis, age 15, when he followed his brother, Hammett, to Memphis to join the Confederat army. Hammett enlisted in the 13th Ark. and the underage Philip tagged along. He served as something of a mascot to his brother's company until he enlisted in the 5th Co. Washington Artillery. Until then he seemed to be free to come and go. Stephenson was present at or near most of the actions of the Army of Tennessee. He relates what he observed in great detail particularly in the last year of the war. Through his memoirs we see what he saw on the march, on the field and in camp. His descriptions of various Arkansans from officers to enlisted men offer rare insights to the boys which can be found in no other place. His observations on the men of the 13th Ark. are somewhat condescending, but he says, "All of them made as fine fighting material as the world could produce." The first one-third of his text covers the years 61-63. The greatest part of his memoirs discuss affairs that took place from 64 to the end of the war. From the Atlanta campaign until the war ends, his writing seems much more personal, more expressive of his emotions at the time. This coincides with the period when he served in the 5th Co. of the Washington Artillery and marked the first period of the war that he was not under his older brother's wing. From the moment Sherman attacked the Rebs at Dalton in early May until the Battle of Jonesboro on Sept. 1st, the men were in constant danger. Stephenson notes the horrors of trench warfare and the stress that it put on the men. The pressure became too great for some and he describes some of those who cracked. One member of his battery horrified the other members by taking his bayonet and jabbing out the eys of a dead yankee. Another deliberately walked between the lines to relieve himself as everyone watched in disbelief and the man was killed by a sharpshooter. Clearly this campaign had pushed many of the men to the breaking point. Perhaps no other participant has been as effective and honest in telling this story. Stephenson's account of the Battle of Franklin is very moving. His unit had been guarding a bridge some 30 miles away from Franklin and by forced march had arrived on the field between 9 o'clock at night just as the battle was dying down. Stephenson's one thought was the welfare of his brother and friends in the 13th Ark and he went among the wounded crying out "Where's Govan's Brigade." He finds his 3 best friends badly wounded and there on the battlefield they break into tears to find each other still alive. If there had been any thought of winning the war, it ended there. After Franklin, surviving would replace winning as the ultimate goal. Stephenson's memoirs are very personal. Through them we see how one survivor deals with his memories of both the best times and the worst times of his life.

This excellent book gives the beginner and advanced rock hound all the info they need to get started finding and cleaning beautiful Arkansas quartz crystals for their collection. This book contains lots of useful information about where the mines are (including maps), how to collect, clean and trim crystals, as well as how to identify a surprisingly large number of varieties of quartz AND crystal types. Campsite and lodging information included. We had been crystal digging in Arkansas before, but found this book made our most recent trip immensely more enjoyable and successful!

Mr. Gifford writes an interesting & comprehensive history of Camark (I live in Arkansas, where Camark was produced). The book features many colorful pages with fair pricing of the items. I learned quite a bit from this book. I'm a new collector & found this book to be quite helpful to me. I have already recognized a piece of Camark I bought for $10 to be worth about $60! That's worth the price of the book!

This final installment in Douglas C. Jones' trilogy about empire-builder Roman Hasford puts a fine, if rather sad, cap on Hasford's life. Who would have thought that the boy who witnessed the pain and death of the Civil War in "Elkhorn Tavern," then learned the power of entrepreneurship in "Roman" (or "Roman Hasford," in paperback), should wind up such a bitter and battling old man? If not for Jones' excellent writing and extraordinary gift for capturing the details of a scene, Hasford's tale might have been too hard to take in its entirety. Jones ranks right up there with Larry McMurtry ("Lonesome Dove"), A.B. Guthrie ("The Big Sky"), and Ron Hansen ("The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford") in creating stories that appeal not only to lovers of western historical fiction, but to those who thrill to the crafting of an eccentric character, a deftly woven plot, and finely wrought sentences. This is not fiction for half-attentive Louis L'Amour fans; it's much, much better than that. Jones has a keen sense of drama, an easy-going style to his prose, and an obvious love for the heritage of Arkansas and the West that comes through on every page--sans pathos, without the need for comic interludes of bodice-busting romance, and without making latter-day judgments on the actions and thinking of his historical characters. Jones isn't just a terrific genre writer; he's a wonderful writer, period.

This book is full of history! The D&R railroad is the shortest of the shortlines at 5.1 miles in length and has been in constant operation since 1893. This book tells the story through financial reports, company memos,maintenance records, and traffic data. There are many pictures that show rural America railroading at it's best and through the heyday of railroading in the USA. This book is highly recommended as a research book. It does get a little dry if you are looking for a novel. Includes tables of locomotives, and freight traffic along the line.

Jo McDougall's poems are heart-stopping and heartbreaking'the embodiment of what Stanley Kunitz calls "an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world." I tried to portion them out to myself, a few each day, and found myself devouring the whole because I wanted to know how she did it-'how she painted these spare, lucid scenes of life in the South without melodrama or flashy metaphors. This is the perfect book for readers who wonder why so much contemporary poetry these days leaves them feeling unmoved. After reading McDougall's poems you'll sit there for a moment, wondering what just brushed by and raised the hairs on your arm.

The book Epperson vs. Arkansas: The Second Monkey Trial is a wonderfully insightful and factually correct book. But above that, Thorndike adds his own style, one above all else. I urge all to buy this book as it is concise, direct, research-oriented and poignant. Run, don't walk, to get this one!