Topic: Book review

Jim R. Moore’s New Book “The Tonganoxie Split Mystery” Is a Must Read

By Sue Freeman Culverhouse | May 21, 2012 |

Clarksville, TN – Picture this: Dr. Benjamin Storm is 52, a college professor just fired as head of the prestigious Sterling Weather Research Center by the Dean who believes research is a waste of time and money. Dr. Storm’s wife of 23 years has just left him for another woman. He’s depressed, can’t eat, and can’t sleep.

A brilliant scientist, Ben Storm is hanging on to his teaching job by a thread because of students like Henry Crow who does minimal work in Ben’s weather class but expects to get excellent grades and pass the class because his father is on the board of the university. «Read the rest of this article»

Put Time and the River on your Christmas list

By Sue Freeman Culverhouse | December 14, 2010 |

Michael Freeland, author of Blood River to Berlin, has recently published Time and the River: A Memoir with photographs by his wife, Ellen. In Time and the River (Periploi Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 2010), Freeland has managed to tell not only a story of love and war but to give an intimate look at what goes on in the mind of a person who has returned from war.

Mike Freeland, a young man who grew up in rural Kentucky (now an octogenarian), shows us what it’s like riding the rails in the Roaring Twenties with his brother Chet. Their dreams of making money and writing a novel turned out to be the illusions of young men who have yet to face the real world.

He also reveals what going home on furlough can become. «Read the rest of this article»

Don’t Fail to Read Blood River to Berlin

By Sue Freeman Culverhouse | September 20, 2010 |

As Veteran’s Day approaches, if you can read only one book this year, let it be Blood River to Berlin. No, you aren’t going to find it on the best seller list available from a New York publisher. This book is written by your neighbor, Michael Freeland, who lives at 1412 Shallow Lake Circle, Hopkinsville, KY 42240. You can e-mail him at freelandco@hotmail.com or call him at 270-886-0551 to order the book.

Published by Proctor’s Hall Press in Sewanee, Tennessee, Blood River to Berlin: The World War II Journal of an Army Medic is the story of someone who started to school in a one-room schoolhouse in a remote community called “Blood River” in Henry County, Tennessee. He dropped out of high school, went to Detroit to work, and was drafted into the United States Army. «Read the rest of this article»

A review of “The Rising of Black America with the Assistance of White America”

By Jimmie Garland, Sr. | March 26, 2010 |

Author James A. Hudson will be holding a book reading at Hastings Books on April 3rd from 1:00pm to 4:00pm. He will also be signing copies of his books for attendees.

Recently I had the opportunity to review a book, entitled, “The Rising of Black America with the Assistance of White America”, by James A Hudson.

My first opinion of the book was that it was to opinionated and lacked substance. My bias was due to how the author categorized the black community in the acknowledgment section of the book.

As I continued to read, my interest began to grow. My biases melted towards the writing style of the author and my views of his focus became more vivid.

To me, the book focus was fair and its suppositions are relevant to the content of the subject matter. Focusing on the struggles of the African American, the material presented was found to be close to the way I witnessed the treatment of blacks in the 1960s. «Read the rest of this article»

The Wacky World of Wildflowers Holds Some Interesting Information

By Sue Freeman Culverhouse | February 22, 2010 |

Wildflower Folklore by Laura C. Martin is a book I recently found at a library book sale. It has extensive information about many plants that Southerners have been familiar with for generations.

For instance, kudzu was first introduced to the United States through the Japanese Pavilion during the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. The Japanese used kudzu for food, medicine, and as a forage plant. Their intensive land-use practices kept it under control in their country, but we Southerners let it get out of control.

Kudzu was first thought to be a wonder cure for eroded areas here in the South because it would grow quickly even in our red clay. At first, it was grown commercially as a forage plant and was hailed as “King Kudzu.” When it began to “eat” telephone poles and trees, people became more than disenchanted with it and began calling it the “plant that ate the South.” Since it can grow 80 to 100 feet during one growing season, kudzu can be controlled by grazing goats but the highway department has yet to discover this fact.

Kudzu, the plant that ate the south.

«Read the rest of this article»

Naomi Wolf speaks on ‘The End of America’

June 13, 2008 |

Naomi Wolf, author of the groundbreaking book The Beauty Myth, has been on the speaker circuit promoting her latest book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. It is a different track that her prior emphasis on women’s rights and feminism. The End of America is “a harbinger of an age that may finally see the patriarchal realm of political discourse usurped.”

Wolf enters a male-dominated political commentary arena dominated by men to make a compelling argument for civil rights. Her analysis falls closer to the bones of political discourse as presented by Emma Goldman, and presents her case with an energetic urgency as she cautions Americans of a dangerous “fascist shift” brought about by the Bush administration.

Chapters outline the “Ten Steps to Fascism” citing historical corollaries (as well as the pigs in Orwell’s Animal Farm), with headings like “Invoke an External and Internal Threat,” “Establish Secret Prisons,” “Surveil Ordinary Citizens,” “Restrict the Press,” and “Target Key Individuals,” making a case for the existence of fascism outside of a dictatorship. «Read the rest of this article»

“A New Earth” challenges perceptions

By Rev. Charles Moreland | May 30, 2008 |

“Try it. You will like like it.” I heard this often as I was growing up in the Missouri Ozarks. In many unknown or uncertain situations, this advice motivated me; I found it to be positively true when I volunteered to serve as U.S. Army Chaplain, even though there were hardships and challenges in those 20 years.

I still find this advice helpful in my personal life and in my retirement. In this narrative, I have a recoomendation that you will or will not like.

I am recommending a book that may or may not be your “cup of tea,” a book you may not find agreeable. Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. It is currently a book of the month selection on Oprah Winfrey’s television show and may be purchased for the low price of $14 (plus tax). Before spending your hard -earned cash on it, remember I do not guarantee that ‘you will like it.” The very opposite is the expected outcome because of provocative insight into our personal lives and what makes us “tick” psychologically, physically and spiritually.

It contains modern interpretations of our dilemma as children of God. Though not exclusively a book on religion, it does provide epiphanies about spiritual experiences, challenges us to a mature faith and discovery of a serendipitous depth to our personal faith. «Read the rest of this article»

In the Name of God: Immersion in Eastern culture, Islam and suicide bombings

February 18, 2008 |

In the Name of God came across my desk by request from the author, Paula Jolin, who asked me to take a look at it. I did, in part because the setting and the emotion behind the story is something I wanted to know more about; fiction mirrors life, and I hoped this story would provide that for a difficult subject: suicide bombers.

In the Name of God delves into an Eastern world and a culture relatively alien to me, yet it is a culture with probing fingers touching and testing and tasting the culture of a freedom that is uniquely Western.

In this book, 17-year-old Nadia lives in Damascus, Syria, locked into a straight and narrow path of traditional Islam. She has enough exposure to Western ideas to tempt her and rouse her curiosity, and is also bitterly aware of the politics, economy and culture that envelops her own country and neighboring Iraq. «Read the rest of this article»

Borders brimming with Potter fans as HP7 is released

July 21, 2007 |

Hordes of anxious readers, many of them children up past their normal bedtimes and many more costumed as their favorite characters, gathered at Borders Bookstore at Governor’s Square Mall Thursday for the midnight release of the seventh and final Harry Potter epic, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Borders was one of several local bookstores hosting “Potter Parties” – the Borders event was billed as the Deathly Hallows Ball.

Author J. K. Rowling lived up to her promise to end the series at seven books and did just that in this 749 page whirlwind conculsion, which is not without its tragedies and triumphs. (see review)

“It’s great to see so many people this excited about buying a book,” said teacher Helen Smith, from her seat near the magazine section. Her daughter Rebecca was one of the hundreds eagerly waiting to buy the $34.99 book at the proffered 40% discount. Rochelle LaPlante, sporting a bona-fide sorting hat and bouncing in anticipation, stood watch with friends at the storeroom door, eyeing the cases of books about to be rolled out to the front counter and sold. LaPlante has been counting down the days to the book release for month, checking off a calendar day by day since February. «Read the rest of this article»

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