Cunningham Reviews

This is a history of the Night Rider movement - an outgrowth of the Black Patch Tobacco Wars in Western Kentucky from 1905 to 1912 ot so. It's a fascinating piece of American History - the tobacco farmer versus the American Tobacco Company, which is becoming a monopoly in the world of tobacco. Well researched with details of the principals, and the major raids. I also read Marshall's Violence in the Black Patch of Kentucky and Tennessee. The Cunningham book is FAR AND AWAY the better book.

Open City consistently publishes great stories, poems, essays, and artwork. I look forward to each issue, because each one is so different, and because this magazine continues to be vital and relevant, esp. because many literary magazines are so staid and dull....

I can't tell you how much this book has changed my life. I've been a therapist for years and a friend of mine has begged me to read this book. I despised psychobabble-fluff. After this book I know why! It's a bit difficult to understand particularly if you're not familiar with the Orthodox Church but don't let that scare you off! It's well worth the struggle!

I have a hunch that it would take some doing to get these same contributors -- towering literary figures all -- together between any two other book covers. Their essays provide thoughtful insight into O'Brian's writing. They allow me to better understand why I instinctively liked it from the start.

In his opening paragraph of the introduction to this book William Waldegrave says, and so aptly, "Few events in the continuing history of literature are as satisfying as those moments when a writer, leaving behind the dissonance of experiment and imitation, finds his own authentic voice and settles into a lifetime of creativity in a style which he makes his own."

Patrick O'Brian's superb style is his alone, a voice like no other, and when we go back to his earlier works -- having exhausted the Aubrey/Maturin series over and over -- we find that he had settled into his style long ago.

The final contribution sheds some light on why O'Brian was so slow to take off in the U.S., which was not until after he was translated into Japanese. Stuart Bennett's essay is titled Four Decades of Reviews. "Though rarely out of print in Great Britain," he says, "the first five of the Aubrey novels received a somewhat muted reception in the U.S. After 'Desolation Island' in 1979, no attempt was made to present Aubrey to an American readership until Norton's 1990 reissues. Reasons for this long American dry spell can be found in some of the reviews of the early Aubrey novels." Some examples:

"Publisher's Weekly" said of "Post Captain" in 1972: "Overwritten for so little plot, which consists mainly of adventures at sea and the friends's feuding over their rather tedious women."

"New York Times Book Review" on "H.M.S. Surprise" in 1973: "Mr. O'Brian is constantly becalmed in his own diction, which can take a disturbingly giddy turn. Men-of-war with names like 'Belle Poulle' and 'Caca Fuego' just don't inspire confidence." Mr. Bennett responds, "The French quite certainly possessed a ship called the 'Belle Poulle' ... Furthermore the Spaniards often named their men-of-war 'Cacafuego'; one formed part of the Invincible Armada."

I discovered "Master and Commander" and "Post Captain" wholly by chance in 1990, before I or anyone I knew had ever heard of Patrick O'Brian. The reviewers this second time around had not awakened. I was hooked from the start and like a literary Johnny Appleseed began introducing others to this fine "new" writer. And so it has been a wonderfully satisfying experience for me to see the appreciation of O'Brian's craftsmanship blossom, then swell to such heights as it has during the years following. Happily, the reviewers liked Aubrey and Maturin this time around.

I believe this collection of essays was the first of the string of books that now accompany O'Brian's books. In it we learn some things about Patrick O'Brian from himself. Among them: he wrote his first tale of the sea, "The Golden Ocean", "in little more than a month, laughing most of the time." He describes that the story, published in 1956, made no great impression, but led an American publisher to ask for an "adult" sea story. "Master and Commander" was the result. It was published in the late sixties, but would not be successful in the U.S. for another twenty-five years, this time at the hands of another publisher: W.W. Norton. Many American readers are very happy that Norton breathed new life into Aubrey and Maturin, and consequently into Patrick O'Brian's whole works.

This is a must read for people in their 20s and 30s, especially those who are married and have children. Most people think Social Security and the company 401K will take care of their retirement. A great many of those people believe if they start saving in their mid-30s they will accumulate enough wealth to retire comfortably. This book reinforces the need to begin saving for retirement as soon as you begin working full-time because of the power of compounding and all of the various circumstances like Bar Mitzah's, weddings and other financially draining events. It made me examine my own portfolio and strategy for future financial events. It is a very easy to read and understand book and can be read in a day

WoW - A great resource ! You're stuck for something to do with your children and this volume fills the bill with ideas, maps, suggesstions. Also nice that hours of operation and prices are shown. The autors claim that they have personnally visited each and every attraction, so they speak in the first person. This is a great deal

this is an excellent guide for anyone thats new to divination and no its not going to be the only book you have to buy but its covers alot of aspects that many other books dont. it has many techniques in there which i have tried out and have been very pleased.

If you like Southern fiction, then this is the book for you. What a treasure. Ms. Devoto writes as if she herself has lived this life. The charaters are strong and full of suprises. It is a clasic and should be read and re-read.

This book is a great mystery book with just the right helping of romance. Miss Danforth first mystery to solve is that of the missing punjat ruby that was supposed to be given to the prince of whales. Miss danforth first suspects Max and Fergus, her courtier Fredricks friends, then realizes that it is was...who took it. Well read it for your self and see who did it!

Other reading text books are full of philosophies. The authors of this text, instead, provides you with tested procedures that allow you to step right into a classroom and see for yourself how it works. It is written with such description and detail that you can immediately implement the ideas into your classroom as well. A must read for beginning teachers and vetren teachers as well.