I found Small Towns, Black Lives to be visually stunning, historically intriguing and extremely thought evoking. This book invites the reader to discover, vicariously through an artist's personal journey and experience, black communities in Southern New Jersey. The beautifully captivating black and white photographs of people, buildings and meaningful landscapes are juxtaposed with thoughtful and informative text, which discreetly reveals these small communities to the reader. The photographs also appear to hint at volumes of dormant historical facts and information that has been unearthed and gathered by Wendel A. White. Both photographs and text provide a glimpse into the lives of a community that otherwise may have been overlooked. The essays in the book provide unique points of view from highly regarded educators, writers and artists as well as "food-for-thought" for the reader. The essays also provide supplementary resources of history and understanding in conjunction with what Wendel A. White has revealed of Small Towns, Black Lives.

I highly recommend Small Towns, Black Lives and urge that it be placed in classrooms, on coffee tables, and anyplace else where people can sit back and enjoy what unfolds from page to page.

Wendel White's _Small Towns, Black Lives_ is a significant and beautiful
book.

It is significant because White has revealed a little-known fact of
American life: that African-Americans occupied private places not easily
found on maps and, further, he has exposed the success of those lives in
those places. The work is filled with incredible photographs of black
schoolteachers, barbers, funeral directors and farmers who built their
own homes, gardened their land, sold their produce, raised their
families and taught their children. They did all of this in small towns
generally unnoticed by the larger society. A metaphoric example is
telling. On page 97, White has photographed a tiny cemetery headstone
covered with brush, fence posts and the flotsam of an uncaring society.
On the next page, after the abandoned cemetery has been cleared, White
again photographs the tiny headstone only, this time, it stands
surviving and dignified. White has uncovered black lives which, seen
through his eyes, stand revealed as surviving and incredibly dignified
in their simplicities.

The work is beautiful because of the stark power of his vision of how a
photograph and text can be united in reflecting the lives of those he
portrays. Struggling to express both the present state and the historic
subtext of these places and these lives, Wendel White fuses text and
picture into a whole thing. White, whose career as a photographer is
long and varied, has found that digital art has opened new
possibilities. Each print of this text has been carefully and thoroughly
shaped in digital media so that subtlety of black and white tones
underpin the subjects of the picture itself. For me, the photographs of
the old, segregated schools and abandoned black churches speak volumes
of the textures of the lives that learned and worshipped in those
places. They reveal the beauty of what survives and the sadness of what
we have all lost in their passing.

As I said, this is a significant and beautiful work; it touches all of
us and, in doing that, preserves what was almost lost.

kt

This book was one of the best that I have read in a long time. I love the realness that the book gives of the DC area. I read it on a airplane trip from NY to LA. I could not put it down. I really like the way that he finally puts the Republican party in a good light! You should read this book. It was thrilling!

I could not put it down. I found that every detail was authentic to what a real campaign is like. If you like politics, you will like this book.

Charles Santore's illustrations were beautiful. He portrayed the moods and feelings of the subjects very well indeed. We appreciated that he gave human faces to the subjects rather than the animated cartoons of Disney. I never could understand from the Disney pictures why the stepmother was so beautiful or how Snow White was deceived by such an evil looking hag. Santore's illustrations make the story believable on this score. Santore also "aged" Snow White in each consecutive picture of when she was "dead" for "many years" - thus making it credible that she was a young woman when she awoke. We also preferred the simplicity of the original story over the Disney version. We enjoyed this book and our 2.5 year old really likes it too.

The illustrations in this book are breathtaking. The story is familiar, but with little twists and turns away from the Disney version, but it's the amazing artistry of the illustrations that makes this a wonderful book to own.

When I went to New Orleans, I only had time for a quick driving tour. This book allowed me to see what I missed, and learn more about the architecuaral styles that surround the area. The book has great info on the styles, and tells how they came to be and why. The iron work in the area is to be experienced! The charm of the homes in the Garden District are brilliantly displayed in this book.

this republishing of the late 1980's version is a delicious remake made better by the new color photographs. Brantley and Brantley have out done themselves with this edition.

I grew up with Martha White. It was the brand of flour and cornmeal always in my mother's pantry and we always heard about Martha White on the grand ole opry broadcast. This book has all the kinds of recipes that my mother used to make and it really brings back great tasting memories. I especially love the cornbread chapter. If you've never had good southern cornbread baked in a hot iron skillet, you're really missing something. This is a cookbook that I enjoy reading and using--a lot. Can't wait to start my holiday baking.

great recipes. Made me go out and buy a good iron skillet

This is the last Sector General story in which Peter Conway is the central figure. After this volume, White never again used him as the viewpoint character, and instead began experimenting with telling stories from other perspectives (just as good, let me hasten to add). At this point in his career, Conway's been a rising star among the staff of the massive interstellar hospital for years, and has had a long and successful tenure as the chief physician of the medical team of the ambulance ship Rhabwar, working with his wife (pathologist Murchison), the caterpillar-like Naydrad (whose people have no concept of deceit since their body language makes it impossible among their own kind), and the fragile Cinrusskin empath Prilicla (whose species considers deceit a survival tool in ensuring a pleasant emotional atmosphere).

When Prilicla relays a summons from Chief Psychologist O'Mara, Conway realizes from his friend's agitation - and refusal to mention the details of the promotion it just received - that O'Mara has a surprise for him. Prilicla, it turns out, is replacing Conway as chief of the Rhabwar team - but Conway isn't being demoted. He's being offered promotion to Diagnostician status - the highest rank, and carrying the greatest risks, in the hospital. Not merely risks to life and limb, but to sanity; unlike physicians of lesser stature, Diagnosticians permanently carry multiple Educator tapes, those mental recordings that give them the total life experience - and assorted emotional baggage - of the alien physicians who provided them. (Rather like being possessed by several conflicting, and usually unpleasant, personalities at once, all of whom have their own ideas about everything from food to sexual partners. Diagnosticians usually can't stand to look at what they're eating because it distresses their alter egos, for example.) The job has a considerable dark side to it - especially for a happily married, reasonably content man.

Rather than being asked for an immediate decision, Conway is assigned to Goglesk to consider his future without interference but without wasting time. About half the book takes place away from Sector General, as Conway works with the Goglesk contact team. While White's Galactic Federation has a non-interference directive regarding species that haven't achieved starflight, the Monitor Corps tempers it with good sense for planets suffering severe distress.

Recurring characters introduced or revisited:
- Danalta the shapechanger makes its first appearance among a group of trainees listening to Conway's orientation lecture, which incidentally gives new readers a primer in the classification system used to identify species.
- Khone, the Gogleskan healer, reappears later in the series, as the Gogleskan problem does not have a quick and easy solution.
- The Protectors of the Unborn, first introduced in _Ambulance Ship_, take up a lot of this book, as Conway continues work on their problem.

Senior Physician Conway is happy as chief medical officer of the Ambulance Ship Rhabwar. His talented team inlcudes his beautiful wife, the second best Pathologist at Sector Twelve General Hospital; a bluntly outspoken Kelgian charge nurse, Naydrad; the frail, spiderlike empath Dr. Prilicla; and now a shape shifting alien mimic called Danalta. Then the Hospital Station's forbiding Chief Psychologist makes Conway an offer he finds difficult to refuse: A chance to join the elite that controls the Hospital. But Diagnostician status has it's drawbacks. Chief among them the necessity of sharing his mind with four or five alien entities. And of course, since this is Sector General, the crises keep coming hardly giving Conway a chance to catch his breath much less seriously address his own problems.

This is the best guidebook I've ever seen. No BS, just all the data you want in an easy to use format. I recently returned from a new england creeking trip, and the book was invaluable. But beware, it is definitely directed at the highly experienced creeker; when they say things like "the most difficult rapids aren't visible from the road", what they mean is "the multi-drop, Twitch-worthy class V+ eddyless gorge with no portage route is inaccessible from the road". If you're heading up that way, get it.

Greg and Sue have focused this book on providing serious steep creekers with the info they really need to know. How to figure out what is running and how to know how fast it will drop as well as how to get to the put in and take out. They don't waste time telling you the names of the rapids and the mamby-pamby lines down them. They figure if you can't pick your own lines down class V rapids and not get hammered then you don't belong on that creek anyways. I have only run a handful of the nearly 30 class V creeks in this book, but I hope to get a chance to run them all.

A must have for any steep creeker. This guidebook beats the pants off all the other ones I have ever seen including my personal hero William Nealy's.

Karl

The author has done an excellent job of introducing the reader to Jesus. By the end of the book the reader will not only have met Jesus, but Jesus will have become the reader's new best friend.

Though a small pamplet size book, it is packed with power and a wealth of information. Anyone who is really seeking should purchase this book. A great book to start with for the new millienium.

What a treat to read a book with so much great dialogue, complex relationships, and spanning 50 years. I love books that give me a fresh or altogether new perspective on something as mundane (and sad) as growing old. Leroy Upton is an unforgettable character - someone you want to know, because he is so genuine and normal, yet who faces incredible challenges with wit and insight. As an only child who takes care of his aging and infirm parents, while balancing marriage and 3 grown kids, Leroy Shows us that age-old lesson: make the most of everyday, be kind and generous to your loved ones as life is short.

I have read every book Mr.Haslam has written. This one, his first novel, is more than a good read; This is a deeply moving book. Anyone who grew up in the section of the Southern Central California Valley, especially on the 'other side of the bridge,' of which this story treats, is bound to connect, perhaps even in ways they had not yet identified. A must for Haslam fans.

This is a wonderful little retrospective, with some very creative and funny observations. If you are anywhere between 25 and 45, the memories will come flooding back (and if you're like me, some embarrassment, too). It is also peppered with some great cartoon illustrations, a seventies quiz ("The 70's SATs") and a music anthology. Well worth it!

This book really had my friends and me rolling on the floor with laughter! What a great collection of memories of this stupid decade-- the people, the fads, the TV shows and music. It's great for parties or just to have lying on your coffee table-- but watch out, your friends will try to steal it (unless they're really groovy). Highly recommended!!!