As a native of industrialized Pennsylvania I'm perplexed by how little is known of the tragedy of Centralia. I was unfamiliar myself until some years ago when I innocently passed through the area on route 61. I found a ghost town with an orderly street grid, with city blocks completely devoid of all but one or two lonely buildings, and vast abandoned fields covering what could have been orderly neighborhoods. I thought, what in the world is this? I also witnessed what I thought was a natural hot spring emitting steam from a hillside. Only over time did I learn that the hot spring was really smoke from the underground mine fire that wiped out what was once a normal small town.

DeKok's book is probably the most extensive investigation of the Centralia tragedy, especially with his coverage of the political ineptitude over decades that made a minor problem into a major disaster. Dekok reveals that the town started the fire itself in 1962 by burning trash in a landfill that had an unknown connection to an old mine shaft, which ignited the slow-burning coal in the mines beneath the town. For 19 years the slow fire affected more and more people with toxic fumes, until by 1981 tragedy struck when a gentleman had to be hospitalized and a boy fell through a flaming cave-in behind his house. DeKok covers the years and years of political and bureaucratic ineptitude that merely led to "studies" of the fire rather than action, as the people of Centralia were pawns in a game between apathetic agencies with overlapping jurisdictions, plus buck-passing between the state and the Feds. Even the citizens were torn apart by divisiveness caused by stress and anger. Eventually most of the residents chose to be relocated to other towns by the government, and DeKok's most moving coverage concerns the social agony caused by this final abandonment of the town.

As an update since this book, the fire is still slowly burning beneath much of the area. For their own strange reasons, a few residents are still hanging on in their lonely houses and still dealing with fumes and cave-ins. St. Ignatius church was demolished recently and route 61 has been permanently re-routed around the section that kept collapsing. This is the legacy of uncaring politicians and bureaucrats.

This is a fascinating book, and a very easy read for one that delves into the mires of local and state government officials dropping the ball. DeKok's attention to detail paints a picture comparable to a Stephen Soderburg film. And despite the clarity he brings to a tragic situation, he never strays far from the real story: Real everyday folks caught in a quagmire of safety issues, home ownership, health and politics.

I really liked this book. Action..it doesn't have..and forget mystery. It is the story of real people..in a real time..in a real situation. If you want a taste of yesteryear, a time when the man had the say and the woman followed blindly, then this is the book for you. I enjoyed the extras, the gardens, the flowers, and the cooking. I am still hungry for biscuits from having read this book. It has a satisfying ending and is a good story. I am glad I bought it and read it.

The mining of anthracite (hard) coal was the foundation and framework of the industrial base of this nation. It would come as no surprise to find it was the financial, banking, and business base as well. Author Freeman does a masterful job of showing how this process developed from the founding of the colonies up to the present day. There is much of value here for the scholar and researcher of coal region, or business history. The book is easy to read, the story moves right along. While a reference work, there is nothing dry and dusty about this one. Many large corporate names grew from coal money. Freeman documents the origin and development of some of the best known of these. A fascinating read, highly recommended. Eric McKeever

I have found this book very enlightening. Not only does the auther combine statistical fact, but she show various sides of the socioeconomic aspects of miners in this time period. A definitive work. This book should be in everyone's library, especially families who worked the mines mentioned. A very indepth analysis replete with fact and figures of an era gone.

Stimulating, reminds me of stories from my German grandfather coming to America, very real and personal.

An oral history of life in a company town. Interviews with pictures and maps of the early Coal Mining Town of Black Diamond. Very well done. Originally published for the Washington Centennial in 1989. Many pictures and interviews of the "old ti mers" . Relates stories about the early Pacific Coast Coal Company, the Pacific Coast Company; moving the company town from Contra Costa County, California to King County Washington in 1885; Coal Field and Mine Operations; Mine Strikes and Mi ne Disasters.

No book in shorter space, with fewer words, will explain the story of the Springhill, Nova Scotia mining disasters. Its author Roger David Brown tells the story with the miners' own words. This book is haunting and bone-chilling to imagine being trapped underground. The book has several black and white photographs. For Anne Murray fans, there's a picture of her and her Anne Murray Centre as well. Which makes perfect sense since Anne is from Springhill.

Blood on the Coal is blood-curling suspense, yet historical, and extremely well written. I highly recommend this book and have rated it excellent.

I picked this book up used in Ithaca, NY, in 1992 or so, with the intention of giving it as a gift, but fell in love with it, not just for all the great information on how to run a wood stove efficiently, but for the charming digressions, the stories, the line and ink illustrations, the New Englandy feel of it all, and for the warm brotherly tone of the writing. The tragedy is that in the 10 years between buying it and installing my first wood stove, I lost the book. The redemption is that I've found a used copy here for under $5!

Any one of the digressions alone is enough to justify purchase of this book: there are discussion on how to get timber out of the forest, when to buy firewood, what a wood fired zamboni is like, etc. etc. etc.

Buy a copy of this book while it's still available, even if you don't have a wood stove. By the time you're done reading it, you'll want one!

These are first-rate narratives, told by a beautiful poet. Their settings -- the anthracite coal region of the speaker's youth, or the PA countryside of his adulthood -- provide perfect backdrops for him to ruminate on the meaning of family life. Humes is a skillful poet, and these sometimes dark, but always tender narratives prove to be some of his best work to date. After reading them, one gets anxious to read his next collection, The Butterfly Effect, which is due out from Milkweed Editions as part of the National Poetry Series next year.

We need more scientists like Cusumano who know how to write for the lay person, on such esoteric but fascinating topics.