Frady definately has the usual liberal anti-Wallace attitude, but he has a lively writing style and, at times, does give credit to some Wallace's populist accomplishments.

Even if you don't agree with the political message or the idiological slant of this character, you will be extremely glad that you read this character depiction. This takes you through each rise and fall along with his influence on many well-known Alabama political figures.

The book compiles the same old recycled jokes anyone living in the South has heard a thousand times throughout football season. As you can imagine you can substitute the name of any team you like for Alabama, as Finebaum does in every book in the series.

I received this book as a gag gift and read it anyway. Paul Finebaum has had few origional ideas of his own and makes a living from bashing people and misrepresenting the truth. The jokes are recycled and stale. You can plug in any schools name in place of Alabama. I would recommend this book for bird cage liner or wrapping fish.

I would have to say that this book hits the nail on the head a true masterpiece of intelligence and humor. It is to bad that most Alabama fans do not know how to read. I think they would truly enjoy this book.

This book is the result of the false premise that a concise history of Alabama can be accurately summarized in less than 200 pages. It simply cannot be done, and to even attempt such an endeavor does a disservice to pedestrian readers of Alabama history. It is inevitable that in producing what is essentially an abridged, Cliff Notes-style version of this state's history, the author possesses vast power. Much like an analytical chemist, Dr. Hamilton has crystallized Alabama history, utilizing only those elements she deems of paramount importance. Thus, the reader is presented with little more than a lengthy op-ed piece, rather than a scholarly, comprehensive study. While this reviewer fully realizes that this work was produced as part of a series of state histories, he nonetheless holds to the position that the absence of Alabama from such a series would have been of far more value than a book designed, much like an automobile, to precise specifications. Far more damaging, is the sad fact that portions of this "history" are often cited in other articles, thus satisfying the appetites of lazy writers and researchers who prefer their history in low-cal, microwavable form.

I loved this book and I can't let that one star review go by unchallenged. I came up through the Alabama public school system and graduated from the University of Alabama, so I took required Alabama history four times. Not all of it was fascinating. I thought this little book was riveting reading. Virginia Van Der Veer Hamilton wrote a concise history of our state. Any student of Alabama history will not stop with this book, but it is a good starting point. I recommend that serious students go on to read Dr. Wayne Flynt's excellent Alabama histories.

I was drawn to this book because the man who provided these anecdotes about Capote's early years to the author, Marianne Moates, is my first cousin, Jennings Faulk Carter. He is Capote's first cousin also. The stories told by Carter mostly came on summer visits to his Alabama home by young Truman Capote who was partly raised by divorced parents in New Orleans and New York and his eccentric aunts and uncles in Monroeville, Alabama. There are many accounts of the childhood experiencenes of the threesome-Jennings Carter, Truman Capote and Nell Harper Lee("To Kill a Mockingbird") Although some of the stories are hilarious, there is an underlying theme of brokenness, divorce, and alcohol abuse that shaped young Truman Capote into a talented but confused, effiminate, alcoholic homosexual. The book was more interesting to me for the simple fact that it deals with some of my relatives and some of my childhool memories. I am saddened, however, that many of Truman Capote's adult problems seem to have come from a childhood full of strife, mistrust, conflict, substance abuse and family instabiliy.

Essentially the recollections of Truman Capote's cousin, Jennings Faulk Carter, this book recounts the childhood years that Truman spent in Monroeville, Alabama growing up with Jennings and Nelle Harper Lee, author of "To Kill a Mockingbird." It contains descriptions of actual events that appear in Capote's later writings, and thus will be of interest to readers of his fiction, but the writing is pleasurable in its own right.

Fascinated by the number of good writers who have come out of such a small town (there are others), I drove two hours each way to visit Monroeville while on a business trip to Mobile several years ago. Even though it has grown substantially since Truman grew up there, it remains a lovely southern town, with wide verandas, shade trees and a courthouse that is not to be missed.

I recently carried this book along for a driving trip (carrying bicycles) that my daughter and I took down the Southern Atlantic coast (NC, SC, GA), veering to north central Florida before turning around for home. The book was ok, but only for pointing us in a general direction and then mapping out our own rides from there. The maps are relatively easy to follow and they do a good job categorizing the type of rides from Rambles up to Challenges, but I found myself wanting more 'challenge' on the Cruises and Rambles and less 'challenge' for the Classics and Challenges. Perhaps it's just a matter of personal preference.

Our first stop was Jekyll Island, GA. We were not too pleased to learn that the Jekyll Island Ramble, noted as "an excellent bike ride for the entire family", was in reality a highly dangerous path (~3 ft. wide) shared with other cyclists and pedestrians coming and going from both directions. Was appalled to read the island maps and literature strongly suggesting that cyclists stay off the real roads and on these hazardous paths. My daughter and I ignored that suggestion for the most part, but still had to navigate around a few cyclists riding on the left side of the road so to stay with their riding partners who had opted to stay on the path. I understand why some people might prefer or be attracted to bicycle paths. However, I think that ALL bicycle riders would do well to understand that the basic rules of cycling are pretty much the same as the rules of the road for drivers. IMO, if people would ride with this awareness, there would be very little need to sequester cyclists (or cyclists to sequester themselves) onto choked and dangerous little paths with pedestrians as is the case on Jekyll Island. The marsh and harbor side of the island was very quiet and sparsely traveled as compared to the ocean/beach side. We did follow the bike path for a bit because it veered away from the road and was very scenic.

Our next stop was St. Augustine, FL. Car traffic along A1A was far too heavy and the streets way too narrow to even attempt the St. Augustine Ramble - my 12 year old is a good road rider, but easily overwhelmed. To sandwich her between all those cars would have been cruel and unthinkable. We did walk down St. Georges Street, but I can't imagine attempting to cycle through all that pedestrian traffic as the book suggests. I was tempted to snatch a few of the children on scooters and scold them for weaving in and out so closely among the walkers - what the heck were their parents thinking, or were they thinking??

On to North Central Florida, location of the Suwannee River Classic ride. No way was my short-legged 12 year old going to ride 98 miles, but to our good fortune, most of the country roads in that area were lightly trafficked by motor vehicles so that we were able to tailor our riding distances accordingly. Falling Creek Falls was a very lovely and scenic stop and not one that would normally be found by most tourists. I wished that the book had highlighted more of the gorgeous fresh water springs in that area and/or mapped some rides to them. The one listed, Ichetucknee Springs, was a pretty place, but not particularly bicycle friendly. People might do well to pick up the Bicycle Facilities Map for North Central Florida at any of the tourism offices - I thought it listed a better and more extensive range of rides and intend to return one day to explore them more thoroghly.

We wound up back on the NC coast to finish off our vacation. By then it was the weekend. I would NOT suggest doing the Cape Fear Challenge ride on a weekend day, even to my worst enemy. I'm not sure when would be the best time to do a ride like this. 421S on the front end of this trip is always car-packed. One must also watch out for hwy 133N on the backside. On Saturdays and Sundays, this is a 2 lane road with NO shoulders heavily trafficked by pickup trucks and SUVs towing big boats on trailers. An early morning weekday jaunt down 133N to Orton Plantation and the Brunswick Historic Site might be quite pleasant, however. Do remember your bug spray as the book suggests! The biting flies and 'no-see-umms' are already thick as of this posting - late April. We stayed in Southport and this area is close to 'home' territory to me. We didn't attempt the Cape Fear Challenge, tho I ran into two cylists who had tried unsuccessfully to cyle out 133N and back. I rode Bald Head Island (all golf-carts, no cars) with my daughter on Saturday and then took a lone early Sunday morning jaunt from Southport to Oak Island - very pleasant!

To sum it up, this is not the worst book of rides, but not the best either. I do appreciate that the book was helpful in providing a little direction for us to head towards, even though we tailored and altered most of the listed rides to suit our own riding style and abilities.

Rogers offers a look at the first capital of the Confederacy -albeit the capital for a mere handful of months. Rogers then expands focus on Montgomery for the remaining war years ('61-'65). Although Rogers presents the city of Montgomery as a "microcosm" of other Southern cities, I find Rogers offers little to defend his thesis. Except for its "15 minutes" as the capital, Montgomery, for the most part, largely escapes the ravages of other towns/cities/villages of the Deep South. I really found not much of a story to tell within these pages. Indeed there is only 156 pages of readable text!

I regard Janet Dailey's Americana series as modern-historical comic books. No insult intended. There are many of them (one for each state) in this series of somewhat short novels which reflect the good old non pc days --- interesting for a change, sometimes.

Here we meet glam, wealthy, spoiled LaRaine and the poorer, orphaned cousin Laurie. Overshadowed by LaRaine all her life and made to feel like a burden by her Aunt, Laurie's self esteem is pretty low. While she has plans to break free and become indpendent, she is always railroaded by guilt and ends up doing what LaRaine and her Aunt want.

LaRaine is engaged to handsome, wealthy, autocratic Rian Montgomery. Rian wants La Raine to visit his aunt before the wedding while he is out of the country but LaRaine wants to fulfill a lifelong dream and act in a movie. LaRaine makes weak-willed Laurie pretend to be her and visit the aunt while she films the movie. Laurie decides that this is the very last time she will do something crazy for LaRaine and her family and then she's going out on her own.

Naturally, Rian makes an unexpected appearance at his Aunt's and finds Laurie there. Laurie discovers that Rian and LaRaine's relationship is something of a business arrangement (rather than love) and now he is determined to teach LaRaine and Laurie a lesson by marrying Laurie instead.

Lots of glaring holes in the logic of the plot but with everyone grandly ignoring them, it's almost easy for us to ignore it too. An autocratic, heartless, brooding hero type and a mousy-but-trying-to-be-more-assertive heroine --- I guess it had a sort of, I don't know, Rebecca-duMarier sort of charm (characters, not plot) that kept my attention till the end.

Fans can compare lists and agree or disagree; casual readers can get a good idea of what it must be like to be a FANatic by reading FANtastic. I have been to several college games, but am not a die hard fan of a single school. Tony's FANtastic made me feel like I belong to the Crimson Tide. Humorouse, light, enjoyable. A must for every Tide fan.

The text is somewhat dated both in terms of law and clinical practices. Lawyes will find the text narrow in scope, but it can be useful as a guide as to where to begin looking and understanding the legal doctirnes. Clinicians will find the text lacking in detail. The text is only an overview, with not enough specific depth of coverage to act as a refernece for the clinician nor the lawyer. Useful for beginners just starting out in their clinical practices.

Robinson's book is truly a memoir, and I find this to be both a strength and a weakness. It gives the book strength because it is a complete personal account. Every piece of information is direct from not only a first hand observer, but moreover a participant. However it weakens the book because at points too much information was detailed. Especially information about already well documented events.