I absolutely loved The Oxygen Man, so I was eager to pick up Visible Spirits, the the second novel by Steve Yarbrough. It is elegantly-written and impossible to put down. I would recommend it to everyone out there!

Set in the racially charged atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Mississippi, Steve Yarbrough's compelling and subtle "Visible Spirits" is a nuanced investigation of the tortured, conflicted relationship between two dissimilar brothers. Secrets, many of them swirling around sexual assault and compulsion, dominate the life of erstwhile Leighton Payne, the conscience-driven mayor and newspaper editor of Loring, a small town which steadfastly refuses to relinquish its past and defiantly adheres to racist principles. Leighton grapples with his family's past, his wife's elusive affections and the sudden reappearance of his reprobate brother, Tandy, whose inability to hold a job is equalled only by his appetite for gambling, deceit and sexual satisfaction. It is not an accident that Leighton uses a cockroach to "author" newspaper columns which admonish the community for its perverse commitments to ignorance, bigotry and hatred. Nor is it an accident that the malevolent Tandy seizes a racist political opportunity to advance his own interests.

The central focus of "Visible Spirits" on the seething antagonism between Leighton and Tandy matches the novelist's perceptive inclusion of a series of fully-realized African-American charactes. Loring's postmistress, Loda, proudly discharges her responsibilities, despite confronting the daily pressures of a culture determined to minimize her and the constant awareness of connection to the Payne family. Her husband, Seaborn Jackson, a diligent insurance salesman, symbolizes not only the development of an African-American bourgeoisie, but the inherent fragility of social mobility in the South for any Black who dared tamper with the social rules of Jim Crow. In turn, their lives quietly rotate around the quietly defiant Blueford, whose single act of rebellion ignites a firestorm of racist reprisal.

"Visible Spirit" gains its intellectual stature from the seemingly insoluble moral problems it dissects. To what degree does a son tolerate or repudiate his father's legacy? How strong are the bonds of brotherhood, and what consequences result from blood ties? What occurs to a man when he discovers he has never fully obtained his wife's affection? What is the cost of racism, both on the victim and the victimizer? What constitutes an act of heroism, an act of resistance, an act of love? Yarbrough is nothing less than brilliant as he steps back from his own writing and permits his characters to wrestle not only with their own lives, but the vexing moral dilemmas they constantly encounter.

This talented, spare novel contains exceptional dialogue, vivid atmosphere, deft description of physical environments and absolutely believable characterization. "Visible Spirit" is also subtle and multi-faceted. It is a novel whose pace gradually accelerates and whose conclusion leaves the reader chastened but thankful. Those concerned about the issues of racial justice and historical responsibility will welcome the addition of this novel to a national dialogue.

And I mean that. It is a shame. The fact is that Southern writers like S Yarbrough, L Brown, B Hannah, and southern-ish writers like J Lent and D Durham are the best, most important writers we have out there right now. I guess the NY lot has all the power and makes up the winners of the awards, but as far as I'm concerned it's the brave few outside of the city that are truly writing about our race, our history, our future.

Hale these great storytellers! Maybe time and the wisdom of distance will finally give them their due.

This book is fascinating! After spending an hour with this book I felt like I really knew what time has meant to Borinquen. Hearing family stories is one thing, but seeing pictures from when they were growing up is another. Anyone interested in Puerto Rican history should have this book.

I simply love this book. As a starving college student, I still haven't come up with the money to buy it, but...someday I will. I've leafed through it a million times and never get bored by it...as a native Puertorrican living abroad, this is simply my favorite photographic work on my homeland. Delano did an amazing job.

The pages of this pictorial opus expresses the legacy, struggle, beauty, misery, joy of Puerto Rico of days past. Second, third generation Puerto Ricans will reconnect with their roots page by page. This is surely an enlighting photo memoir of our People, the images speak louder then words. The power of photograph comes to light in these pages, and Delano did it so well. Delano saves the spirit of Puerto Rico's past, once thought to be lost with faded memories. This is a book to keep for oneself, it strenghtens one's soul.

I recently had occasion to re-read James MacGregor Burns's marvelous Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox and was deeply impressed by how well its has withstood the test of time. The early paperback edition of this book, which was originally published in 1956 and covers the period from 1882 until 1940, characterized it as the "first political biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt," and it continues to be the authoritative study of Roosevelt's preparation for and then conduct of his first two terms as president, when domestic affairs demanded most of his attention. This remains a wonderful book about this country's greatest politician of the 20th century, and it also offers many penetrating insights into the American political system.

Burns's treatment of Roosevelt is comprehensive, "[treating] much of [Roosevelt's] personal as well as his public life, because a great politician's career remorselessly sucks everything into its vortex." Roosevelt was the only child of a member of the upstate New York landed gentry, and he could have led a life of leisure. Instead, he was sent to Groton School in Massachusetts, where the headmaster, according to Burns, "made much of his eagerness to educate his boys for political leadership." Roosevelt completed his formal education at Harvard College and Columbia University Law School. Burns writes that Roosevelt's first elective office, as a New York State Senator was a "political education," and he became a "Young Lion" in Albany. Roosevelt served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in Washington, D.C., during World War I and was the candidate for Vice President on the Democrat Party's unsuccessful ticket in 1920. In 1921, Roosevelt was stricken with polio, and the crippling disease would have ended the public career of a less ambitious and determined man. Instead, he continued to work hard at politics, was elected Governor of New York in 1928 and then President in 1932. This was just the beginning of a remarkable career in high office.

Burns makes clear that Roosevelt was a progressive in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson but was without strong ideas or a specific agenda. According to Burns: "The presidency, Roosevelt said shortly after his election, 'is preeminently a place of moral leadership.'" Retired Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes offered this cutting assessment: "A second -class intellect, but a first-class temperament." Action to combat the depression was necessary to restore public confidence in government, and the first Hundred Days of Roosevelt's first term was one of the great periods of legislative achievement in American history. Burns writes: "Roosevelt was following no master program." However, in Burns's view: "The classic test of greatness in the White House has been the chief executive's capacity to lead Congress." According to that test, Roosevelt was a great president. Burns writes that, "[i]n his first two years in office Roosevelt achieved to a remarkable degree the exalted position of being President of all the people." Burns explains: "A remarkable aspect of the New Deal was the sweep and variety of the groups it helped."

As early as 1934, however, organized conservative opposition to the New Deal was forming. (A newspaper cartoon reprinted here shows a figure identified as the Republican Party holding a sign stating: "Roosevelt is a Red!") Roosevelt was increasingly attacked as a traitor to his class, but a large measure of his genius was his ability to hold the more extreme elements of the New Deal in check. Roosevelt's political skills were tested in every way. For instance, Burns writes that Senator Robert Wagner's National Labor Relations Act, which proposed to"[vest] massive economic and political power in organized labor" "was the most radical legislation passed during the New Deal." According to Burns, Roosevelt's initial reaction to the bill was "invariably cool or evasive," and the president, with what Burns describes as "typical Rooseveltian agility," announced his support for the bill only after its passage was certain. Burns demonstrates that Roosevelt's support, both in Congress and among the public, gradually eroded in the late 1930s, but he was, of course, elected again in 1940 and 1944. Roosevelt's nomination in 1940 was especially skillful. Many in his own party favored maintaining the tradition of limiting presidents to two terms, and Democratic Party leaders lined up in the hope of succeeding Roosevelt. Roosevelt outfoxed all of them and was elected to his historic third term.

I believe it is fair to say that Burns admires Roosevelt, but this book is not a whitewash. Burns candidly writes about Roosevelt's "deviousness." And the author is appropriately critical of Roosevelt's attempt to "pack" the Supreme Court following his overwhelming re-election in 1936. However, in my opinion, these instances simply are proof of the truism that great men are not always good men. Burns took the subtitle of this book from the Italian Renaissance political philosopher Machiavelli's dictum that a political leader must be strong like a lion and shrewd like a fox. Franklin D. Roosevelt was both, and that made him a great president. This is a great political biography of that great president

FDR was perhaps the craftiest politician to occupy the White House since Lincoln. The Title, "...Lion and the Fox" is an allusion to Machiavelli's dictum that one must be stouthearted like a lion and crafty like a fox. FDR combined these qualities to achieve political mastery of his time.

This book focus on his life up to the start of WWII. It paints a thorough life portrait of the president and illustrates the events and experiences that shaped this master politician. Although enjoying congressional majorities like no other president (that certainly aided the implementation of his program), FDR had to over come the reluctance of both GOP and Democrat conservatives to rework the federal government into the active economic and social player it is today. McGreggor's book explains how FDR the man made the New Deal possible.

This is a well written book that gives evidence of being thoroughly researched. For anyone interested in presidential history, I'd recommend this book.

Gives a fantastic account of FDR from his privileged childhood and days at Groton, to his harsh induction into the world of politics; the skill at which he maneuvered the political currents to the New York Capital in Albany, and ultimately the White House. Once there Burns gives an account of passionate dedication to the American people, both during the Depression and WWII, that most likely was not seen since Lincoln. A must for anyone's Presidential Biographical collection.

I wrote a review for this book and submitted it on the 19th or so, and you have not posted it. Why is that?

Have you ever had a teacher who made a great contribution to your life? As you became older and wiser, did you realize more and more how much of a positive impact that person made to your life? If this is the case, this book is for you. For many of us, there is someone from our past that gave to us a "gift we know we never can repay". Did you, like most of us, take that person for granted at the time? What was that person really like in their life beyond being a teacher? In the book Living Every Minute, author Nancy Delano Moore gives a warm account of just such a person. You will, in all probability, find many parallels to that special someone from your own past who gave so much to you. For people who were fortunate enough to have such a person in their life during the developing years, this book is a must.

When a beloved family member has increasing dementia over a long period of time it is hard to understand what is happening emotionally as well as intellectually. To understand is a real blessing to loved ones. Nancy Delano Moore has shared in a compelling way in LIVING EVERY MINUTE her struggle to cope with her mother's lengthy decline. Having seen a great number of families in similar situations while working with Area Agencies on Aging for a period of twenty years, I am convinced that Nancy Moore's telling of her story will be a valuable gift for both older adults and for their families.

The best possible book for the beginning rider, this book doesn't stick simply to riding, but has chapters on taking lessons, the first horse (buy, lease or rent?), riding clothes, tack and equipment, horse psychology, mounting-dismounting and falls, riding position, riding aids for each gate and movement, cavalletti and jumping, care of the horse, and a diagnostic chapter on problems and emergencies.

Filled with clear line drawings and straight-to-the point text, this book does a thorough job of covering just about everything you could need to know to get started in riding. I use it in conjunction with Cherry Hill's Arena Exercises as the basis of riding lessons.

It is hard to top a book this good.By far the most comprehensive information needed to ride safely and well.Yet so clearly written a child could understand it. Small wonder that this book is endorsed by Olympic Gold Medalist and twice World Champion Bruce Davidson,and by the United States Equestrian Team.

This book goes over everything a beginning rider or just someone who wants to go over riding tecniques could ever want to go. If you want to learn a lot and have a good, well written horse book you should read this book. Once you are done reading this book you will find yourself a better and mone confident rider.

Fans of Patrick O'Brian will love Amasa Delano's Voyages. Delano's travels took him through the same uncharted waters and touched the same exotic lands as O'Brian's intrepid Captain Jack Aubrey and his ever-curious companion Stephen Maturin, but with a difference: O'Brian's heroes live in fiction; Delano was for real.

Seldom have I read a seafarer's account with so many varied and interesting observations about the world through which he traveled. Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin and other professional naturalists wrote a good deal about the flora and fauna they studied, of course, but Delano's curiosity takes him everywhere and informs the reader about an amazing range of contemporary details of life and human behavior.

Berkshire House Publishers and Eleanor Seagraves have performed a service of great value in resurrecting this account of sea voyages that played a critical role in establishing America's place in the field of maritime commerce and exploration. Truth can be stranger than fiction. Delano's extradordinary exploits are every bit as fascinating as the tales told by Patrick O'Brian and will appeal to the same readership. Handsomely illustrated.

FDR died in 1945. Immediately thereafter, his medical records disappeared from the Navy files, never to surface again. Admiral Ross T. McIntire, FDR's personal physician for twelve years continuously denied FDR's health problems and, in fact, wrote a book in 1945 assuring the public that the President never had any serious heart condition. He clearly withheld information about FDR's health and, thereby, misled the American people. The truth came out in 1970. The evidence of secrecy and cover-up is there for all to see. FDR was a sick man for years, and, particularly, in 1944, when he attended the Teheran Conference. He did not fully consult with Churchill and did not stand up to Stalin's demands. Fifty-eight years after the fact we learn how the irresponsibility of one man, Admiral McIntire, likely influenced the aftermath of World War II. Mr. Wills leaves us to speculate how many lives would be different today and what ways these lives could be different. Could a cover-up of this magnitude happen again?
Mr. Wills has written an engaging history full of drama building to an inescapable conclusion that in 1944-1945 FDR was a very sick man who was not able to reprsent the ideals of the American people to the best of his ability. It is authoritative and well documented. A DIMIMISHED PRESIDENT, FDR IN 1944 is highly recommended.

Matthew Wills' book "A Diminished President - FDR In 1944" is outstanding. It is well researched and documented and brings to light little-known facts that clearly demonstrate that President Roosevelt was, in fact, a diminished President during the last months of his life. This may have led to some fateful decisions and actions that impact our Country even today. While the book presents many historical facts, Will's style is crisp and reads like a mystery novel. Once I started, I couldn't put it down. All who are interested in this period of our history must read this book; and, those who have not had any earlier interest could be highly enlightened and entertained. I heartily recommend the book.

Professional historians might slight Jim Bishop's work -- "The Day Christ Died;" "The Day Lincoln Was Shot" -- as "popularizations." So they are. Not much new in either of these: just good writing and empathy. There is a role for these qualities, one would think, even in the footnoted world of the professional.

"FDR's Last Year" lacks footnotes too. Its biblography is barely up to undergraduate term paper standards. It is, without doubt, beautifully written. So far, so good. But, it is more than just a facile rehash of research done by others. It is a moving account of a great human and historical tragedy -- the physical and mental deterioration of the god-like FDR at what should have been his moment of historic triumph.

By the spring of '44, when the book opens, President Roosevelt was already on borrowed time. There was a world of difference between the buoyant and vigorous champion of 1933 (or, even, 1943) and the increasingly depressed, distracted, and enervated Chief Executive of the late war years. Bishop does not dance around any of this -- but he does not succomb, either, to the harsher portraiture that has been drawn of a senile and naive FDR about to be taken to the cleaners by the Russians.

Some of what the tired president did during his waning months defies rational analysis. What was the purpose of his quixotic meetings with three middle eastern kings on his way back from Yalta? What made him think they would be interested in his hare-brained schemes to "make the desert bloom?" Was his meglomania simply in control here?

Yet, Bishop keeps his focus on the main event: FDR's self-destroying mission to create a postwar world that would not self-destruct into war as had the post-Versailles world. For this, his inspiration was his own political mentor -- Woodrow Wilson. While Churchill and Stalin reveled in their own species of cynicism, the tired and dispirited FDR, well-aware he was dying, held to a vision of a world organization that might offer humanity something better than realpolitik.

Roosevelt sacrificed himself to this vision. Burned himself out in pursuit of it. Churchill was interested only in British imperialism and FDR saw him for what he was -- a hopeless reactionary brought to power by a temporary crisis. Stalin was -- well, Stalin was the one man who had as much blood on his hands as Hitler. Of the "Big Three," only FDR tried to rise above chauvinism toward a broader, more humane future.

This broad view of humanity is exemplified by FDR's contempt for imperialism and his determination not to allow the French back into Indo-China. It is a sobering thought that had he been spared, the Viet Nam War need never have been fought.

Bishop gives a compassionate account of FDR's covert romance with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. The dying man, and the aging widow, found inestimable comfort in one another's company. It was too late in the day for both of them. The time for happiness was past. But, they clung to one another as the darkness closed about them.

This is a story about a dying god. A self-immolation in pursuit of an ideal. The impossibly handsome and charming FDR, the most politcally astute chief executive in our history, fading away into nascent senility and physical decreptitude. One is reminded of the last scene of "All Quiet In the Western Front," where the soon-to-die soldier played by Lew Ayres reaches out for a beautiful butterfly in No Man's Land in a last attempt to seize beauty out of death.

This is a marvelous book. Parts of it, such as the embalming of FDR's body, are almost too painful to read. Bishop brings an empathy, pathos, and compassion to his subject that is altogether absent from nearly all "professional" works of history. It is a moving and deeply illuminating work.

As a former educator and one who has worked for the State Department in our nation's capitol, I found FDR'S LAST YEAR not only to be enjoyable reading but one of the most profoundly written books of history I have ever come across. It was so detailed and I saw FDR for the first time to be thoroughly human.The fact that I discovered this book to be out of print, surprised and disappointed me, to say the least.

After I finished, I felt that I had not only lived in the White House that last year, but worked closley with the former President. Love him or hate him, FDR'S LAST YEAR is a must read for all those interested in the history and politics of this country.

This book was awarded a well-deserved Parkman for the quality of its scholarship. This is the best book on the early years of FDR. It follows his childhood and explores the relationships with the key people in his life: the formidable Sara Delano Roosevelt, his marriage to Eleanor, and his political education from Louis Howe.

This book also has a great deal to say about polio and how FDR and each of these people responded. This is not "Sunrise at Campabello, although it is clear that polio did make Roosevelt into the person who was able to become the greatest president of the 20th century.

I can't wait to read the other books in this serial biography. Davis rarely overtells or undertells details of FDR's early years. The book moves quickly, and leaves an insatiable desire to read the next installation - if you can find it.

Some people claim that Arthur Schlesinger wrote the definative history of the New Deal and FDR back in the 1950s. These same people probably are unfamiliar with this wonderful book by Kenneth Davis.

This is not just a history of the period of 1933-37, but an extended mediatation on how we are a nation are going to respond to the changes brought about by industrialization.

Do not be put off by this last statement because Davis is an excellent writer, historian and philosopher. The best part of this book deals with how social security came to be shaped in the form that it finally was. How all manner of elements came together for the legislation to be written. It is just remarkable.

Davis is evenhanded in this book and in the series as a whole. He identifies FDR's triumphs but at the same time is willing to be critical when he feels the actions warrent it.

Davis and his series have been recognized repeatedly although I believe that they probably were not given the praise that this series deserved. They are simply the best thing to be written on FDR by a historian.

I bought this book on a flyer in 1987, read it once and put it on the shelf. During a televised Clinton address from the Oval Office, I noticed on the credenza behind him "FDR: The New Deal Years" in its distinctive silver and red jacket. Well, if its good enough for the White House...so I read it again, and now understand why it stood on the President's desk. It's an outstanding work of narrative history. Volume one was awarded the Francis Parkman Prize, but this is clearly the next best in Davis's monumental five volumes on FDR and his times. It is a lively depiction of the New Deal and its famous characters, including Louis Howe, Harry Hopkins, the Brain Trust, Eleanor and Sara Delano all orbiting around the Sun King FDR. It is also an excellent analysis of how outright revolution was avoided and our capitalist system preserved in the darkest hours. But most of all it is an enjoyably facinating portrait of the man who everyone wanted to be near but almost no one, not even Eleanor, really knew.