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Books: Travel: Birmingham
The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 (Yearling Newbery)by Christopher Paul Curtis Available from Amazon $6.50 On 7-21-2006 
See Item's Page Product Review The year is 1963, and self-important Byron Watson is the bane of his younger brother Kenny's existence. Constantly in trouble for one thing or another, from straightening his hair into a "conk" to lighting fires to freezing his lips to the mirror of the new family car, Byron finally pushes his family too far. Before this "official juvenile delinquent" can cut school or steal change one more time, Momma and Dad finally make good on their threat to send him to the deep south to spend the summer with his tiny, strict grandmother. Soon the whole family is packed up, ready to make the drive from Flint, Michigan, straight into one of the most chilling moments in America's history: the burning of the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church with four little girls inside. Christopher Paul Curtis's alternately hilarious and deeply moving novel, winner of the Newbery Honor and the Coretta Scott King Honor, blends the fictional account of an African American family with the factual events of the violent summer of 1963. Fourth grader Kenny is an innocent and sincere narrator; his ingenuousness lends authenticity to the story and invites readers of all ages into his world, even as it changes before his eyes. Curtis is also the acclaimed author of Bud, Not Buddy, winner of the Newbery Medal. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter
--This text refers to the
Mass Market Paperback
edition.
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The Travel Bookby Roz Hopkins List Price: $50.00 Available from Amazon $31.50 On 7-21-2006 
See Item's Page From Booklist *Starred Review* Even the most avid readers of travel guides and travel literature will not have encountered a book quite like this one. It is huge and heavy but reasonably priced, and it is vastly informative, which is its calling card. All the writers who contribute to the Lonely Planet travel guide series have put heads, knowledge, and experience together and come up with an A-Z series of capsule profiles of every country in the world, 230 in number. Each country gets a two-page spread, on which are placed, like luscious dishes set before one at a feast, illustrations that are typical of Lonely Planet's unique, non-picture-postcard brand of shots. The accompanying text presents a cogent rundown of the best experiences for gaining the essence of the place; books to read beforehand; music to listen to before you go; food and drink to consume once you are there; and a few brief but pungent closing comments on the trademark things to do and buy and see and what, ultimately, is the best surprise awaiting the tourist. For borrowers in the travel section to sit down, look at, and make notes from, without taking off the premises. Brad Hooper Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Book Description The world is a breathtakingly big place, and in this big book we have undertaken the big task of detailing as much of it as we can - every single country, many of the larger dependencies and other, smaller destinations. With the traveler's experience at its heart, this book shows a slice of life in every corner of the globe, and all points in between, engaging the reader's senses in an adventure which conjures up the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and feel of our amazing world. |
Greek Islands (Eyewitness Travel Guides)by Kate Poole List Price: $25.00 Available from Amazon $16.50 On 7-21-2006
See Item's Page Book Description Eyewitness travel guides are the original illustrated travel guidebooks-and they're still the best. Since 1993, the Eyewitness brand has established itself as one of the industry leaders, with sales of more than 6.5 million copies in the U.S. alone. Featuring more than 70 worldwide destinations, new titles are being added to the best-selling Eyewitness travel guides series each year. In 2003, to mark the 10th anniversary of the publication of Eyewitness Travel Guides, DK is re-launching the entire series, fully updated, and with a brand-new look. |
Final Impact (Birmingham, John, Axis of Time Trilogy, Bk. 3.)by John Birmingham List Price: $14.95 Available from Amazon $9.72 On 7-21-2006 
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The Same Sweet Girlsby Cassandra King List Price: $23.95 Available from Amazon $15.57 On 7-21-2006
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly For 30 years, six Southern college friends—the Same Sweet Girls—have been gathering for a biannual reunion. As King's wry, touching novel begins, the girls are nearing 50 and coming to terms with the life decisions they've made. Corrine Cooper gains renown as a folk artist, but battles clinical depression with the help of a manipulative psychiatrist who later becomes her husband; Lanier Brewer is separated after a brief, ill-advised fling; exotic Astor Deveaux, a former Broadway dancer, flirts wildly with men but remains with her husband, a famous painter 33 years her senior; Julia Dupont is trapped in a passionless marriage and an overscheduled life as Alabama's first lady; Byrd and Rosanelle round out the group. When one of the SSGs becomes terminally ill, the remaining friends are spurred to resolve their own problems before she dies. Corinne, Julia and Lanier rotate as first-person narrators, but King (The Sunday Wife) does little to distinguish their voices, and the parade of characters and stories can be hard to follow at first. Once the names fall into place, however, the story's gentle Southern humor and warmth shine. It isn't all iced tea and tomato pie—King tackles some troubling issues—but the characters are true to life, and readers will sympathize with their struggles. Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From AudioFile Patricia Kalember masterfully narrates this story of college pals who remain lifelong friends. She portrays each of the women, who voice alternating chapters, with gentle Georgia and Alabama accents, and perfectly characterizes "Miss Cotton" with an exaggerated drawl. As they help each other through abusive marriages, divorces, and illnesses, Kalember portrays their sorrows with touching emotion. She easily transitions to a lighter tone as the group reenacts its delightfully silly queen contest. She gives special attention to the author's directives, applying appropriately condescending airs to a couple of "holier than thou" characters and actually yawning on cue. Listeners will enjoy Kalember's strong performance as they applaud the growth and strength of the Same Sweet Girls. J.J.B. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition. |
Eudora Welty: A Biographyby Suzanne Marrs List Price: $28.00 Available from Amazon $18.48 On 7-21-2006 
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. [Signature]Reviewed by Dorothy AllisonI was seduced by Eudora Welty. I had every reason to distrust her, as I had distrusted Faulkner—both of them products of the middle-class South I disdained in preference for what I called the real South—the queer and working-class writers I took as my own models. Part of my distrust came from all those photographs—those neat, well-put-together, backcover shots.You need a good biography to counter the myths perpetrated by those photos, a good biography that sends you back to the actual work, the novels and short stories and essays. Suzanne Marrs has written that biography of Eudora Welty—a book that debunks the myths and quotes enough of the writing to make you hunger for the novels and stories. Marrs takes pains to refute the image of Eudora as a perfect "Southern Lady," a "nearly petrified woman holding to the mores of the Southern past"—myths strengthened and reinforced by Ann Waldron's 1998 biography and the lengthy New Yorker article by Claudia Roth Pierpont. That Welty knew how she was imagined, and that she had the grace—a deep, resonant well of humor, insight and talent—is made plain.Here we have the necessary counterpoint: not Eudora the pitiful old maid nor Eudora the homely, the victim of her domineering mother, but the real deal: Eudora the writer who loved fiercely but never married, falling in love first with a man who, though he loved her, would always love men more, and then with a man who was not only married and faithful to his wife, but doomed by Alzheimer's and early death to recede from the genuine affection he felt for her. The story of Eudora Welty's long relationship with Kenneth Millar, who wrote detective fiction under the pen name Ross Macdonald, has the weight of genuine tragedy. Both of them believed in the magic of fate, their meeting at the Algonquin Hotel in 1971 and the years of twice-monthly correspondence that followed. One of the revelations of the biography is that Ken Millar and Eudora were in each other's company only about six weeks in total. Though Eudora tried, she was never able to complete any of the stories she began on the subject. For all the emphasis on Eudora's loneliness, her everyday life contained a rich and sustained circle of friends who were some of the great writers and public figures of the 20th century. Yes, she had her mother and cared for her deeply, but she had also friends who valued what she did and sustained her and it. Think of Katharine Anne Porter , Elizabeth Bowen, Reynolds Price, Robert Penn Warren, Stephen Spender and Anne Tyler. "You love Eudora as a friend," Ken Millar once said to Reynolds Price. "I love her as a woman." The rest of us get to love her as a writer, and with this biography—the whole of her extraordinary world. Dorothy Allison is the author of Bastard Out of Carolina, Cavedweller and the forthcoming She Who (Riverhead). Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Bookmarks Magazine The critics left us with decidedly mixed Reviews. On the one hand, they were thrilled to peek inside the life of a writer so beloved and enigmatic. Marrs, who teaches at Millsaps College in Jackson, provides a welcome book in part because it replaces Ann Waldron’s unauthorized biography, Eudora (1998). Yet too often Marrs loses the forest for the trees, recording the endless specifics of Welty’s social calendar but not uncovering the meaning of her friendships. Still, she provides new insight into Welty’s romances and adventurous nature. Another enterprising writer will no doubt undertake another biography in 2021, when Welty’s correspondence with her mother, now sealed, is opened. Perhaps that next biography will give more texture to Welty’s complex life. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
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The Gospel According To America: A Meditation On A God-Blessed, Christ-Haunted Ideaby David Dark List Price: $14.95 Available from Amazon $9.72 On 7-21-2006 
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly Readers of Dark's book Everyday Apocalypse know that this high school English teacher is a passionate, articulate, absurdly well-read interpreter of popular culture. But even the forewarned may be astonished by this latest effort. Dark's skill at probing the spiritual resonances of American culture - in forms high and low, from Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville to Bob Dylan and David Lynch - is matched by his uncanny ability to select telling moments from America's common story. Whether it's Elvis taking a shotgun to his television sets, Dylan confessing a sense of common humanity with Lee Harvey Oswald or George Washington treating British prisoners of war with unprecedented civility, Dark excavates a series of witnesses who speak prophetically to what he sees as our media-saturated overconfidence in our own righteousness. Moreover, he offers a convincing and unsettling account of the gospel itself - the "Jewish Christian" story of forgiveness and human dignity that, Dark argues, has animated America's ideals even as it has continually critiqued America's practices. Dark's Southern heritage is evident in his literary allusions (the subtitle echoes Flannery O'Connor) and in his affection for egalitarian conversation. Nearly every page has something to make readers pause, laugh, think or pray; perhaps most amazing is Dark's skill at burying layers of meaning for the reader to discover. It's hard to imagine a better tonic for our age than this unblinkingly honest exercise in faithful patriotism. (Mar.) Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Book Description Using icons from music, literature, film, and politics, David Dark hope to provide fodder for lively conversation about what it means to be Christian and American in this "weird moment" in which we live. The end result of this conversation, Dark hopes, will be a better understanding that "there is a reality more important, more lasting, and more infinite than the cultures to which we belong," the reality of the kingdom of God. |
Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Successby Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg List Price: $17.95 Available from Amazon $11.67 On 7-21-2006
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly Southwest airlines began operating in 1971 with four planes serving three cities and with revenues of $2 million. In 1995, the company had 224 planes serving 45 cities and revenues of almost $3 billion. Moreover, the company has made a profit every year since 1973, one of the few airlines that can make that claim. The authors, a husband and wife who are partners in a San Diego consulting firm, attribute much of Southwest's success to the willingness of its management, led by chairman Herb Kelleher, to be innovative. Southwest's primary operating philosophy is low fares and lots of flights. To make this formula work, Southwest management has created a culture where employees are treated as the company's number one asset. The Freibergs list a number of things the airline management does to benefit its employees, including such programs as profit-sharing and empowering employees to make decisions. Southwest also mixes in New Age management techniques, such as celebrating different milestones, and letting love play a part in running the airline (the company's stock ticker symbol is LUV). The Freibergs state up front that their work is not an expose and make no apologies for presenting a very positive and optimistic view. While the success the airline has achieved is worthy of study, some critical analysis would have made for a more worthwhile presentation. Photos. 150,000 first printing; $300,000 ad/promo. Copyright 1996 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Library Journal Business trainers and principals of their own consulting company, the Freibergs draw from personal interviews, surveys, and extensive research in telling the story of Southwest Airlines, which has been profitable for over 23 years at a time when the airline industry has been troubled with fare wars, layoffs, and soaring operating costs. The authors discuss Southwest's philosophy under the leadership of its dynamic and charismatic CEO, Herb Kelleher, who attributes the company's success to its outstanding customer service; low fares and maintenance (no meals are served, only nuts); short-haul, high-frequency, point-to-point service; and a belief that employees come first. "LUV," Southwest's New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol and past advertising theme, represents the caring character of the company, which the authors emphasize to the point of sounding corny. Several chapters conclude with brief summaries entitled "Success in a nutshell," which cover the eccentric elements of Southwest's corporate culture. Recommended for readers who like that style.?Bellinda Wise, Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, N.Y. Copyright 1996 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. |
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