This book admittedly covers a small area, but it contains a wonderful collection of photos you will enjoy reviewing at length, and it isn't like there are a plethora of books out there on this subject.

This coffee-table-size paperback offers about 100 historic black and white photos of the steamboat era: the boats, the people and the towns. A steamboat lover's dream at a good price.

When a guitar player hears Mississippi John Hurt's playing athey are generally struck by the simple beauty of it. To master the Hurt style is quite complex, but this book with its combined CD's (which feature MJH himself!) offer a good roadmap for unlocking the style of this master. Definitely not for the beginner, but one great feature is the way the tablature is presented. It is large and easy to read. To me, this makes a world of difference when attempting to learn a new piece using tablature.

I've had this book for three years or so. Lately, I've switched from playing mostly acoustic fingerstyle to electric blues, but I still like to get out the acoustic and this book from time to time. It has a bunch of Hurt's best songs, and the skill range is from fairly easy to quite difficult.

Keep in mind that you won't find complete tabs for all of the songs. Sometimes, you get just the 12-bar pattern for the song. Learning the breaks and extras will be up to you. But if you're a fingerstyle player with at least a little experience under your belt, Hurt's songs are a great way to build up your chops.

Not to mention that the book includes two CD's full of Hurt performing his music. If you like his music, then the purchase price is a good deal just for the CDs! The book also has an essay by the author who found Hurt living in poverty and obscurity, and brought him to New York for the early 60s folk-blues revival. And there are some great pictures in the book.

Please keep in mind that if you're a raw beginner at fingerstyle guitar when you get this book (as I was), even the easiest of the songs will seem impossibly difficult at first. The book simply contains tab. It has zero information on how to play the songs; just the tabs. If you're a raw beginner, and you're determined to learn to play Hurt's music, I suggest getting the book, and bringing it to a good teacher. That's what I should have done!

John Faulkner succeeded capturing the South better than any author I have read. I grew up near his location and in a family with the same moral and cultural values of his. His family could have been mine. If you want to travel to the South that used to be, that our families helped build after the Civil War and before Korea this is the best way I know to do it. His frugal use of words and his short sentences only add to the authenticity of his descriptions. For those of us from there he brings to life,as none other, what used to be and is to never be again.

A wonderful stylist, John tells the intimate story of the Faulkner family that no biographer or academic could. You simply don't know Faulkner until you've read this book.

Nearly forty years have passed since this book was first published, and it is still the best synthesis of this complex subject. Robert Bruce Flanders' 1965 classic study of Nauvoo, incomplete as it is because of its intentional disregard of social and religious issues, opened an avenue of discussion that most others have been unwilling to follow since that time. Flanders said that he wrote of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, not as a religious leader but as a "man of affairs--planner, promoter, architect, entrepreneur, executive, politician, filibusterer--matters of which he was sometimes less sure than he was those of the spirit." He also wrote of Mormon Nauvoo as a western boom town and not as a religious "city on a hill." There is little of the reverence in Flanders' study that most other Mormon scholars have displayed in handling the subject; the sacred history approach has created a romanticized and superficial image of Nauvoo and the events that took place there.

As interpreted by Flanders, Nauvoo is largely a story of tragedy, both personally for Joseph Smith and collectively for the Mormons. For Flanders, the lofty visions that had led to the founding of the Latter Day Saint church descended into a secular quagmire of economics and politics because of internal flaws and external pressures on the banks of the Mississippi. Ultimately, the city failed and the church fractured.

Very balanced book on the Mormons in Nauvoo. Gives a more complete view of the persecution, and reasons thereof, that members of the LDS faith went through in Nauvoo. From their political involvement to land speculation to polygamy to everything in between. Covers everything without an overly rosy or cynical view. The best book on the period that I've read, whether written by a member of the LDS church or not.

Growing up in this section of New Orleans, I was pleasantly surprised to see several homes of my childhood friends. No other city in the U.S. has such distinct and diverse neighborhood architecture. Another great volume in a GREAT series.

This volume in the N.O. Architecture series by the Friends of the Cabildo is, in my opinion, the best of the entire series. Perhaps it is because this is the section of the city in which I spend most of my time, a place to which I've become rather attached. Anyone who enjoys architecture will probably like this book, not just New Orleanians.

This book, like the three previous books in the series, has a solid, logical plot, entertaining action sequences, and interesting characters. Set along the Mississippi in the latter days of the riverboat era, NO REMORSE is well-researched and gives a realistic feel for the time it is portraying. The only flaw in the series is that the bad guys ALWAYS reveal their plots while holding one or more of the protaganists at gunpoint. This has happened in every book of the series. It's a minor annoyance, since the detectives have usually figured most of it out by this point anyway, but it does come across as a bit of a "duex ex machina." But this is a minor complaint that is more than made up for by the many strengths in the series--strong plots, interesting setting and good character development.

In 1873, Luke Williamson, Masey Baldridge, and Salina Tyner form an unlikely partnership when they established the Big River Detective Agency. Luke is a riverboat captain with two ships. Masey is a drunken gambler. Salina is a retired hooker. However, Luke realizes that he needs a new venture (ergo: he jointly opens the detective agency) because the age of the steamboat seems to be nearly over as the railroads have taken a lot of his business away. So far, the new venture has been a drain on Luke's assets.

The trio soon have their first major case when one of Luke's riverboat competitors, Hudson Van Geer, is killed. The victim's wife hires the trio to find out what really happened to her spouse because she does not believe that her son Stewart, who confessed to the police that he killed his dad, is the culprit. The agency has one week to prove otherwise or Stewart will be hung for murder and suspects are everywhere with plenty of motives.

Readers will feel NO REMORSE if they peruse this interesting Reconstruction Era mystery. The who-done-it is very easy to solve, but that does not diminish the fact that this is a well written and interesting tale. The lead characters are charming because their flaws seem so real and the support cast adds a feeling of authenticity to the period. James D. Brewer clearly knows his way around the first decade following the Civil War and warmly provides a rich description so that his audience will know the time frame also.

Harriet Klausner

I concur with the previous reviewer. Mr. Nossiter has produced a well-researched and fascinating chronicle of the case of Medgar Evers, including a detailed and chilling portrait of his assassin. Nossiter also effectively re-creates the eerie atmosphere of early 1960's Mississippi, where the Klan, the White Citizens' Council, and the Sovereignty Commission flourished, and where a man like Beckwith would become a sort of folk hero to his fellow racists. However, it is also a story of dogged determination and the quest for justice, as exemplified by Myrlie Evers and Bobby DeLaughter, whose efforts culminated in the long-overdue conviction of Beckwith. It is a story of tragedy and triumph, skillfully crafted by a talented and deeply insightful writer. Well done, Mr. Nossiter!

Forget the Movie. This is the book to read about the assisination of Medgar Evers and the subsequent retrial some 30 years later of the killer.

The author provides a moving and engrossing story as well as sharp analysis of the social conditions and personalities involved.

An exceptional in-depth study of the Oregon/California Emigrant Trail. Each chapter is thoroughly researched and written very well, with excerpts from the overlanders' journals and diaries, along with references from various newspapers throughout the country. The reader is first introduced to the political and social ramifications from the news media of the pros and cons of overland travel to Oregon and California. Next, Unruh unravels the "whys" as to the emigrants' desire to pursue such an endeavor, risking loss of everything, including possibly life itself. We also get a feel for how the overlanders got along with each other; their relations with Indians; the battles of overcoming hunger, thirst, cold, etc. There is also mention of private entrepreneurs along the trail who were trading and selling goods at exorbitant prices; the "white Indians" who were white men masqueraded as Indians taking advantage of the emigrants; the Mormon influence throughout the Salt Lake area, along with the "Winter Mormons" who were average non-Mormon emigrants wishing to overwinter in Salt Lake but subjected to cruel and unjust treatments. Then the federal goverment comes into the picture by improving roads, establishing forts along the way and implementing troops to guide and protect the overlanders to safety. We read detailed descriptions of how west coast assistance was a major factor in helping settlers make that final push into either Oregon or California. The book is totally amazing! A definite page turner. Even if one is not into Western U.S. history, this book will make one look at the hardships, perils and sacrifices these people overcame to establish a new life for themselves, families, friends and relatives.

This is an excellent book for learning the intricate details of the Oregon Trail crossings. Mr. Unruh has obviously done his research.

According to the reviews on the back cover, Alford's book "vividly re-creates a life as dramatic as a work of fiction...events...almost defy belief." I'd tend to agree. This remarkably detailed book narrates the life of Ibrahima, a Fulani prince captured at the age of 26 and enslaved in the USA for 40 years, during which he lost neither his Muslim faith nor his dignity- both of which finally led to his freedom. The details surrounding those events are incredible and sometimes even mystical. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this book was its contrast of the literate, cosmopolitan culture of Futa Jalon, Ibrahima's homeland, and the illiterate, racist, and often homicidal nature of the whites of Natchez.

Terry Alford is a very brilliant man for his insights and facts to uncover Abd Rahman Ibrahima's life. If written without strong and factual information an attempt to publish an account of his life would be useless. The author did Ibrahima great justice in taking note that it would be very important in making this man's place in history known. In the book the author overwhealms the reader with facts that cast away any doubts the reader may have about the authenticity of this book. Alford deserves highest regards for having the patience and faith to document the life of such an extraordinary person.

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

On November 19, 1863 from an excerpt of his famous address at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania then President Abraham Lincoln, spoke the following words: "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here". Further Lincoln gave this tribute, "...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Now nearly 140 years later, Rex Jackson continues fulfilling Lincoln's prophesy once again and takes the reader on a compassionate and tactile journey of "these honored dead" of the Civil War aboard the Sultana steamboat. Jackson comments, "And, even though the circumstances surrounding the loss of the Sultana and its many victims would, for some strange unsympathetic reason, cause it to become a mere footnote in American history, it would nevertheless continue to whisper its ghastly experience of this human drama" (p.38). Jackson remembers these almost forgotten heroes, having escaped the hells of the Civil War and the ravages of "putrid conditions" (p.18) of prison camps, survived only to face yet more tragedy.

As boilers exploded on the Sultana, unsuspecting passengers, including about 1800 weary war veterans, were violently shaken at 2:00 A.M. into an unwelcome battle for their lives. Jackson describes the scene: "By dawn's early morning light, the once grand side wheel steamer Sultana, now a fiery furnace of human cremation, slipped under the surface of the mighty Mississippi River just north of Mound City, Arkansas, and disappeared from sight". (p.44).

Fate was lurking. Just as that night in 1912 aboard the Titanic, no one could fathom the unthinkable events about to unfold on the Sultana. This book will captivate your attention and interest all the way. With a punch of comparison to the Titanic tragedy, I could experience the historic events developing, as Jackson graphically detailed this long overdue homage to those honored dead of "The Sultana Saga: The Titanic of the Mississippi."

Because of its historical value, I truly hope to see this book take its place with other honored Civil War memorabilia and also on the shelves of school, university, and public libraries. This book screams for an adaptation onto film.

This is a breathtaking and vivid account of the disaster that took more lives than even the Titanic but received far less attention. The author highlights this injustice to our nation's service men. For example, he notes that "people came from near and far to pay homage" to a passenger of the Titanic "while the Sultana's victims, who were veterans of war, were unheralded" (p. 51). The author's realism is unrelenting. The book is full of eye witness accounts of Civil War prison camps and the sinking of other ships and riverboats. After reading this book I came away with not just a better understanding of the incident itself (what it would have been like) but of the historical context in which it occurred. There is even a timeline that enables you to follow along with the historical events as they occurred, not to mention corrections to the historical account and pictures/illustrations. I highly recommend this book to historians and lay people a like.