bookpagedev

Technology

Review

Review by bookpagedev

E’s a mystery Picture yourself hanging ten in the famed surf of Hawaii, enjoying a day of better-than-average waves, just having a totally tubular time. Now, imagine that the reason for the high surf is an incoming tropical storm and you missed the forecast this morning.

If that scenario seems gnawingly familiar, you’re probably one of millions of people all over this Web-woven world trying to make sense of the Internet’s impact on how we do business. For many, using the World Wide Web is not about carefree surfing any more. It’s about survival in an increasingly merciless electronic commerce (or e-commerce ) marketplace.

Our featured new books this month deal with the anxiety that corporate managers, employees, and entrepreneurs are all feeling as they come to terms with the necessity of mastering e-commerce and other online competencies. At enterprises of all sizes in all industries, hallways are abuzz with nervous conversations about the huge opportunities waiting to be exploited on the Web and about the harsh blows that competition will deal to those who fail to exploit it properly.

It’s inevitable that books about Web business would abound while it’s a hot topic. But one new title stands out as the most lucidly argued of any I have seen, with the broadest relevance to a wide range of business situations: Dead Ahead: The Web Dilemma and the New Rules of Business (Allworth Press, $24.95, 1581150334), by Laurie Windham with Jon Samsel.

This is a book about real life, at a time when businesses are being forced into making high-stakes commitments to an evolving paradigm. I know from firsthand experience how baffling, frustrating, and even frightening it can be to decide how and where a company will make its early Web investments. It’s easy to tell that the rules of business are indeed new, but it can be vexing to figure out how they apply in one’s own case.

Windham, a San Francisco consultant, cuts to the core issues that business strategists need to focus on after they get past the initial acceptance of the Web as an inevitable part of their future. Windham guides the reader toward an understanding of how the Web reshapes nearly every aspect of business, from management structure to the most basic marketing premises to the new ways companies must approach their capital needs in the wired world and beyond. Dead Ahead is a first-rate prop to bolster the confidence of reluctant cybernauts.

Jonathan Ezor takes on many of the same issues in Clicking Through: A Survival Guide for Bringing Your Company Online (Bloomberg Press, $19.95, 1576600734). Offering an attorney’s perspective but also an entrepreneur’s mind-set, lawyer and columnist Ezor sets out a primer to help small businesses cope with the dangers inherent in Web-based business.

Those risks, as he makes clear, are both legal and tactical. It’s as easy to infringe someone else’s copyright inadvertently online as it is for someone else to poach your own. There’s a world’s worth of law and regulation that even a well-meaning Web site can transgress. Questions can arise about just who owns the material your company pays Web developers to create. The devil lurks in the details of contracts with technology vendors such as Web hosts, and the other party to the contract may be the only one with a full knowledge of those details. Ezor provides sound counsel on what questions to ask and what points really matter in negotiating with all the parties involved in weaving a Web presence.

Clicking Through is about opportunity as well as risk. But its warnings and suggestions concerning the things that can go wrong in e-business are sobering words of wisdom for companies about to fly enthusiastically into the enticing Web. This book will empower businesses to manage their online risks intelligently so that they can pursue online opportunities without fear of the unknown.

In The E-Commerce Book: Building the E-Empire, authors Steffano Korper and Juanita Ellis convey a deep understanding of Internet applications in business. That’s hardly a surprise, since these information technology experts and educators have been working at the cutting edge of online business since the very Stone Age of the World Wide Web way back in 1994.

Would-be e-emperors will find this guide to empire-building as comprehensive as they could possibly hope for and will find plenty of inspiration as well. Lest anyone doubt the vigor of the Web marketplace, the authors sketch out its potential in terms that will convert all doubters. Maybe the figure of $2.2 trillion in worldwide e-commerce activity by 2003 is just too large to digest, so let’s look at some smaller numbers from the book. Number of years it took for use of the automobile to spread to one quarter of the population: 55. For the telephone: 35 years. For the Internet: 7 years. Message delivered: This new medium is catching on at lightning speed, and if your company doesn’t reach its customers through the Web, your competitors will.

Korper and Ellis approach e-commerce from a technologist’s point of view though, as the books mentioned above make clear, online business makes techies of everyone in the office, stripping the old high priests from the MIS department of much of their mystical power, but also leaving behind anyone who fails to master the basics of Internet technologies. It’s fortunate that these writers have a gift for gently acquainting the intimidated novice with the rapidly evolving tech phenomena that may well shape his or her future, from XML language to EDI connectivity to asymmetric key encryption.

Despite its attention to high-tech topics, The E-Commerce Book is a big-picture view of the Web’s brave new world. For any business leader trying to get e-commerce right the first time, this title will be an indispensable resource.

Our fourth book doesn’t present itself as another work about the Internet, but the very fact that Web applications are so central to its strategic vision makes it an important volume for business people coming to grips with the new online economy. Steven Wheeler and Evan Hirsch, authors of Channel Champions: How Leading Companies Build New Strategies to Serve Customers (Jossey-Bass, $35, 0787950343), are consultants with Booz-Allen and Hamilton, who cast a laser focus on one of the ultimate goals of all business efforts, online and otherwise: building a connection with the people who buy a company’s products and services.

Channel Champions is the book to pick up in the quiet moments of the morning before you boot up and begin your hectic online business day. Its core premise is refreshingly simple: Good businesses build good channels and tend them with loving care. A channel is simply a means of reaching the customer. Channels, Wheeler and Hirsch argue, have always been with us; a 5-and-10 store is (or was) one form of channel, a big-box superstore is another, and a virtual store that exists only online is another.

Obviously, channels are changing these days. Unintended consequences can result. Channels that worked for the decade preceding last Thursday may not work come Tuesday. The Web channel can fail to reach key customers, and it can eat into traditional sales channels. The authors guide the reader through these shoals by showing how the world’s best companies have channeled successfully how Wilsonart built a distributor network that delivers on its promise to deliver kitchen counters within ten days to anywhere in the U.S., how Saturn sells a transportation service to beat out rivals who just sell cars, how Dell dominates personal computer sales by selling directly to customers.

Briefly noted: Michael Lewis, of Liar’s Poker fame, has written the most engaging and dramatic business book of the year: The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story (W.

W. Norton, $25.95, 0393048136; Nova Audio Books, $17.95, 1567408567). Lewis plays Boswell to one of the wild sages of our era, Netscape founder Jim Clark, intrepidly riding along as the entrepreneur tries to launch a health care technology company and the world’s most computerized yacht simultaneously.

U.C.L.A. Professor Richard Rosecrance surveys the increasingly integrated global economy in The Rise of the Virtual State: Wealth and Power in the Coming Century (Basic Books, $26, 0465071414). Rosecrance draws analogies from the experiences of great and lesser national powers, going back hundreds of years to buttress his argument that we are literally on the verge of entering a new world: a universe where traditional measures of national might have no meaning and where a country’s most valuable resources are often the least tangible ones.

The Biology of Business: Decoding the Natural Laws of Enterprise (Jossey-Bass, $28.50, 078794324X) presents a radical new management theory, set out in essays by editor John H. Clippinger and nine other contributors. Borrowing principles from scientific thinking, the authors postulate a thought-provoking new approach to running organizations as complex adaptive systems. Journalist E. Thomas Wood is an editor with the Champs-Elysees.com family of European language-and-culture products.

E's a mystery Picture yourself hanging ten in the famed surf of Hawaii, enjoying a day of better-than-average waves, just having a totally tubular time. Now, imagine that the reason for the high surf is an incoming tropical storm and you missed the forecast this…

NonfictionEssays

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Hal Crowther writes prose the way Stevie Ray Vaughan played guitar: with inexplicable passion, punctuated by explosive bursts of finger picking laid down over an inviting carpet of swampy soul. There’s not much dancing around on stage. You either get it or you don’t.

Most of the 28 essays in this book were first published in The Oxford American, with others appearing in the Independent Weekly and the Spectator. They are, by necessity, economical and straight to the point. Magazine and newspaper editors evaluate prose by the inch, not by the depth of thought in the prose. Some of the best essays in this collection are based on actual events into which the writer has wandered without much expectation. “The Last Wolverine” is about his literary idol, James Dickey. In 1,500 words or less, he builds him up into a literary lion, then tears him down with an account of the poet’s visit to the office of Time magazine, where Crowther was employed as an editor. Dickey spoke to an audience of would-be poets and accentuated his lecture with an inappropriate comment of a sexual nature to one of the women present, then grabbed Crowther in a drunken headlock that very nearly turned out his lights.

In “From Auschiwitz to Alabama,” he bemoans the horrible medical experiments that were performed on unsuspecting black Alabamians by the federal government, but he resents that people outside the South would blame Alabama instead of the federal government. Writes Crowther: “The U.

S. Public Health Service was not controlled by Alabama racists, or in collaboration with them. These sweet doctors were most attracted, it appears, by a passive, impoverished rural population with no tradition of standing up for itself.” By the time you get through reading this collection of essays you realize that Crowther has a love-hate relationship with the South that is as complex (and bizarre) as that of any fictional character created by William Faulkner or Tennessee Williams. You’ll want to pat him on the back just as often as you’ll want to put a headlock on him with the intent of turning out his lights.

Hal Crowther writes prose the way Stevie Ray Vaughan played guitar: with inexplicable passion, punctuated by explosive bursts of finger picking laid down over an inviting carpet of swampy soul. There's not much dancing around on stage. You either get it or you don't.
…

Review

Review by bookpagedev

E’s a mystery Picture yourself hanging ten in the famed surf of Hawaii, enjoying a day of better-than-average waves, just having a totally tubular time. Now, imagine that the reason for the high surf is an incoming tropical storm and you missed the forecast this morning.

E's a mystery Picture yourself hanging ten in the famed surf of Hawaii, enjoying a day of better-than-average waves, just having a totally tubular time. Now, imagine that the reason for the high surf is an incoming tropical storm and you missed the forecast this…

Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

When you examine the life of a hero, you almost always find a story more complex than the one you anticipated. The most common perception of Gordon Cooper is that he was a wise-cracking fighter jock who became an astronaut. His new autobiography, Leap of Faith, tells a different story.

Cooper’s father was a military pilot and an attorney; his mother was a teacher who also loved to fly. He was raised in rural Oklahoma during the Depression, but due to his father’s military career, he had an amazing list of acquaintances. As a child he had a crush on Amelia Earhart and swapped stories with Wiley Post; he was flying when most kids his age were learning to ride bikes.

Leap of Faith is full of fascinating anecdotes about the early days of the space program (yes, it’s true that while waiting for his Faith 7 Mercury capsule to be launched, the cocky and relaxed fighter jock actually fell asleep in his seat). Cooper is opinionated, frank, and has a great story to tell. The only problem is that people are going to remember this book for another reason entirely: Gordon Cooper believes in the existence of UFOs, and he devotes almost a third of the book to this subject.

As a trained aerospace engineer, a pilot, and an astronaut, he makes a good circumstantial case for UFOs. Cooper claims to have seen, and even chased, flying saucers as a jet pilot stationed along the Iron Curtain in the early 1950s. He also relates tales passed on to him from the brotherhood of pilots, and tells an X-Files-like story of disappearing UFO pictures.

After his retirement from NASA he gets involved with esoteric research, first with Disney, then on his own, and becomes acquainted with people of dubious credibility in his search for new technologies. Note to Col. Cooper: As the Amazing Randi would tell you, bending spoons is a trick, and if anyone uses this as an introduction, you should take anything they say thereafter with a grain of salt. To his credit, while he’s willing to listen to incredible stories, he always maintains some skepticism.

As a child of the ’60s, I remember how much the astronauts meant to me; Gordon Cooper was one of my heroes. After reading Leap of Faith, he still is.

James Neal Webb writes from Nashville.

When you examine the life of a hero, you almost always find a story more complex than the one you anticipated. The most common perception of Gordon Cooper is that he was a wise-cracking fighter jock who became an astronaut. His new autobiography, Leap of…

Give ’til it hurts

Review by bookpagedev

You’ve made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the month of July. Sigh . . . Guess where you’ll be spending your summer vacation? You need a little pick-me-up gift for yourself, under the circumstances. What gift doesn’t require a security deposit, seven-day advance purchase, or a Saturday night stay? Why, books, of course! Photographer Jeffrey Kraft’s exquisite photographs of Parisian cubbyholes and artifacts are not intended to entice one to visit the city; rather, his Literary Paris (Watson-Guptill, $18.95, 0823028305) is meant for those who have already been. The images are meant to inspire a memory from a time that has passed; this is not a fancy collection of tourists’ snapshots. Kraft has arranged his remembrances alongside excerpts from literary works by authors who stayed in Paris for extended periods of time. Kraft has captured the glimpse, the detail, the moment, rather than structures and sites. He offers an idea of what remains in the mind and heart, even years after the visit itself has ended. A wonderful gift for the Francophile in your life.

Ben Jonson said, He was not of an age, but for all time. He was, of course, speaking of his friend William Shakespeare. Children’s book author Aliki has written and illustrated William Shakespeare and the Globe (HarperCollins, $15.95, 006027820X), which describes not only Shakespeare’s life, work, and times, but even acknowledges visionary Sam Wannamaker, who spent years resurrecting the Globe. The book is designed much like a script, with acts and scenes and characters. An interesting add-on is the list of words and expressions, complete with illustrations, credited to Shakespeare; for example, sweets to the sweet and hush were apparently invented by the Bard himself. Seems we’ve been quoting Shakespeare without realizing it! Cities like Paris and London must make use of every tidbit of soil that can be found; as acreage diminishes in our growing world, green thumbs everywhere are striving to be more and more creative with their craft. Artisan has published Window Boxes: Indoors and Out ($27.50, 1579651240) with this in mind. Authors James Cramer and Dean Johnson offer fragrant, beautiful, and useful options for the, uh, land-challenged. Cramer and Johnson offer optional locations (who says a window-box is limited to being wooden, square, and outside?) and year-round planting options (a thriving garden in January?) With this book, the decision is no longer how to create a miniature garden, but rather how many miniature gardens you can create. Soil sold separately! Of course, if we’re talking land for land’s sake, Antarctica has land to spare. It’s been 85 years since Ernest Shackleton and the 27-member crew of the Endurance set out to cross the Antarctic on foot. Less than 100 miles from its destination, the Endurance was caught in an ice pack and was badly damaged. For over 20 months, the crew (along with 69 sled dogs) was marooned, but no lives were lost. Two books commemorate this remarkable true story of adventure and perseverance. First, there’s Knopf’s The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition, a sophisticated account of the expedition. There’s also Ice Story: Shackleton’s Lost Expedition (Clarion, $18, 0395915244), which may be better-suited to younger explorers. Both books feature expedition photographer Frank Hurley’s photographs and offer a chronological summary of this death-defying journey. Hurley started the expedition with professional equipment, but his final shots were taken with a pocket camera. Endurance author Caroline Alexander, in association with the American Museum of Natural History, carefully researched this volume, complete with some of Hurley’s photographs that had not been published previously. Ice Story author Elizabeth Cody Kimmel presents the journey in storybook format, but the information is accurate and anecdotal. Both books would make great gifts for anyone who has a taste for adventure and hopeful endings.

Agnes and Curtis decide that the grown-ups need to take the children to the waterpark which happens to be 50 miles away for the day. Fifty miles can seem like 500 without Fun on the Run: Travel Games and Songs (Morrow Junior Books, $17, 0688146600). Brimming with silly stories, limericks, brain teasers, and songs, this book helps to fill travel time without batteries or messy cleanup. Familiar songs and games such as The Ants Go Marching and Hangman are included, but Fun on the Run contains nearly 125 pages of other games and songs that can be a part of any trip. If you still confuse Darth Vader with Darth Maul, fear not; Dorling Kindersley has published two books that will help you keep the prequel and the original trilogy straight: Star Wars Episode I: the Visual Dictionary ($19.95, 0789447010) and Star Wars Episode I: Incredible Cross Sections ($19.95, 078943962X). Like their predecessors (or would it be their descendants?), these books are designed to keep facts, characters, and plots straight. Archaeologist David West Reynolds, an obvious choice for the author, approaches this much like he did his previous Star Wars works. One feels as if he is on an archaeological dig or scientific study of another world. May the source be with you!

You've made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the month of July. Sigh…

Technology

Review

Review by bookpagedev

E’s a mystery Picture yourself hanging ten in the famed surf of Hawaii, enjoying a day of better-than-average waves, just having a totally tubular time. Now, imagine that the reason for the high surf is an incoming tropical storm and you missed the forecast this morning.

If that scenario seems gnawingly familiar, you’re probably one of millions of people all over this Web-woven world trying to make sense of the Internet’s impact on how we do business. For many, using the World Wide Web is not about carefree surfing any more. It’s about survival in an increasingly merciless electronic commerce (or e-commerce ) marketplace.

Our featured new books this month deal with the anxiety that corporate managers, employees, and entrepreneurs are all feeling as they come to terms with the necessity of mastering e-commerce and other online competencies. At enterprises of all sizes in all industries, hallways are abuzz with nervous conversations about the huge opportunities waiting to be exploited on the Web and about the harsh blows that competition will deal to those who fail to exploit it properly.

It’s inevitable that books about Web business would abound while it’s a hot topic. But one new title stands out as the most lucidly argued of any I have seen, with the broadest relevance to a wide range of business situations: Dead Ahead: The Web Dilemma and the New Rules of Business (Allworth Press, $24.95, 1581150334), by Laurie Windham with Jon Samsel.

This is a book about real life, at a time when businesses are being forced into making high-stakes commitments to an evolving paradigm. I know from firsthand experience how baffling, frustrating, and even frightening it can be to decide how and where a company will make its early Web investments. It’s easy to tell that the rules of business are indeed new, but it can be vexing to figure out how they apply in one’s own case.

Windham, a San Francisco consultant, cuts to the core issues that business strategists need to focus on after they get past the initial acceptance of the Web as an inevitable part of their future. Windham guides the reader toward an understanding of how the Web reshapes nearly every aspect of business, from management structure to the most basic marketing premises to the new ways companies must approach their capital needs in the wired world and beyond. Dead Ahead is a first-rate prop to bolster the confidence of reluctant cybernauts.

Jonathan Ezor takes on many of the same issues in Clicking Through: A Survival Guide for Bringing Your Company Online (Bloomberg Press, $19.95, 1576600734). Offering an attorney’s perspective but also an entrepreneur’s mind-set, lawyer and columnist Ezor sets out a primer to help small businesses cope with the dangers inherent in Web-based business.

Those risks, as he makes clear, are both legal and tactical. It’s as easy to infringe someone else’s copyright inadvertently online as it is for someone else to poach your own. There’s a world’s worth of law and regulation that even a well-meaning Web site can transgress. Questions can arise about just who owns the material your company pays Web developers to create. The devil lurks in the details of contracts with technology vendors such as Web hosts, and the other party to the contract may be the only one with a full knowledge of those details. Ezor provides sound counsel on what questions to ask and what points really matter in negotiating with all the parties involved in weaving a Web presence.

Clicking Through is about opportunity as well as risk. But its warnings and suggestions concerning the things that can go wrong in e-business are sobering words of wisdom for companies about to fly enthusiastically into the enticing Web. This book will empower businesses to manage their online risks intelligently so that they can pursue online opportunities without fear of the unknown.

In The E-Commerce Book: Building the E-Empire (Academic Press, $39.95, 0124211607), authors Steffano Korper and Juanita Ellis convey a deep understanding of Internet applications in business. That’s hardly a surprise, since these information technology experts and educators have been working at the cutting edge of online business since the very Stone Age of the World Wide Web way back in 1994.

Would-be e-emperors will find this guide to empire-building as comprehensive as they could possibly hope for and will find plenty of inspiration as well. Lest anyone doubt the vigor of the Web marketplace, the authors sketch out its potential in terms that will convert all doubters. Maybe the figure of $2.2 trillion in worldwide e-commerce activity by 2003 is just too large to digest, so let’s look at some smaller numbers from the book. Number of years it took for use of the automobile to spread to one quarter of the population: 55. For the telephone: 35 years. For the Internet: 7 years. Message delivered: This new medium is catching on at lightning speed, and if your company doesn’t reach its customers through the Web, your competitors will.

Korper and Ellis approach e-commerce from a technologist’s point of view though, as the books mentioned above make clear, online business makes techies of everyone in the office, stripping the old high priests from the MIS department of much of their mystical power, but also leaving behind anyone who fails to master the basics of Internet technologies. It’s fortunate that these writers have a gift for gently acquainting the intimidated novice with the rapidly evolving tech phenomena that may well shape his or her future, from XML language to EDI connectivity to asymmetric key encryption.

Despite its attention to high-tech topics, The E-Commerce Book is a big-picture view of the Web’s brave new world. For any business leader trying to get e-commerce right the first time, this title will be an indispensable resource.

Our fourth book doesn’t present itself as another work about the Internet, but the very fact that Web applications are so central to its strategic vision makes it an important volume for business people coming to grips with the new online economy. Steven Wheeler and Evan Hirsch, authors of Channel Champions: How Leading Companies Build New Strategies to Serve Customers (Jossey-Bass, $35, 0787950343), are consultants with Booz-Allen and Hamilton, who cast a laser focus on one of the ultimate goals of all business efforts, online and otherwise: building a connection with the people who buy a company’s products and services.

Channel Champions is the book to pick up in the quiet moments of the morning before you boot up and begin your hectic online business day. Its core premise is refreshingly simple: Good businesses build good channels and tend them with loving care. A channel is simply a means of reaching the customer. Channels, Wheeler and Hirsch argue, have always been with us; a 5-and-10 store is (or was) one form of channel, a big-box superstore is another, and a virtual store that exists only online is another.

Obviously, channels are changing these days. Unintended consequences can result. Channels that worked for the decade preceding last Thursday may not work come Tuesday. The Web channel can fail to reach key customers, and it can eat into traditional sales channels. The authors guide the reader through these shoals by showing how the world’s best companies have channeled successfully how Wilsonart built a distributor network that delivers on its promise to deliver kitchen counters within ten days to anywhere in the U.

S., how Saturn sells a transportation service to beat out rivals who just sell cars, how Dell dominates personal computer sales by selling directly to customers.

Briefly noted: Michael Lewis, of Liar’s Poker fame, has written the most engaging and dramatic business book of the year: The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story (Nova Audio Books, $17.95, 1567408567). Lewis plays Boswell to one of the wild sages of our era, Netscape founder Jim Clark, intrepidly riding along as the entrepreneur tries to launch a health care technology company and the world’s most computerized yacht simultaneously.

U.C.L.A. Professor Richard Rosecrance surveys the increasingly integrated global economy in The Rise of the Virtual State: Wealth and Power in the Coming Century (Basic Books, $26, 0465071414). Rosecrance draws analogies from the experiences of great and lesser national powers, going back hundreds of years to buttress his argument that we are literally on the verge of entering a new world: a universe where traditional measures of national might have no meaning and where a country’s most valuable resources are often the least tangible ones.

The Biology of Business: Decoding the Natural Laws of Enterprise (Jossey-Bass, $28.50, 078794324X) presents a radical new management theory, set out in essays by editor John H. Clippinger and nine other contributors. Borrowing principles from scientific thinking, the authors postulate a thought-provoking new approach to running organizations as complex adaptive systems. Journalist E. Thomas Wood is an editor with the Champs-Elysees.com family of European language-and-culture products.

E's a mystery Picture yourself hanging ten in the famed surf of Hawaii, enjoying a day of better-than-average waves, just having a totally tubular time. Now, imagine that the reason for the high surf is an incoming tropical storm and you missed the forecast this…

Biography

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Until his death in 1996, Bill Monroe was so formidable a presence that it was almost impossible to discuss him in human terms. He was too towering, too original to fit the normal templates of analysis. While he keeps Monroe’s musical genius at the forefront, biographer Richard D. Smith also reveals a man who was arrogant, petty, jealous, volatile, generous, solicitous, and a relentless womanizer. In other words, his real life measured up to his myth. A graceful writer and a dogged researcher, Smith begins with the assertion that Monroe was “the most broadly talented and broadly influential figure in the history of American popular music.” That’s saying a lot considering the immense cultural impact of such titans as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong. But Smith has a case. Elvis Presley’s first Sun Records single was a hopped-up version of Monroe’s already famous composition, “Blue Moon Of Kentucky.” Buddy Holly mimicked elements of Monroe’s style on the way to creating his own. Jerry Garcia trekked all the way across the country to audition for Monroe’s band, lost his nerve and went back to California, soon after to found the Grateful Dead. In addition, virtually all the architects of modern bluegrass music got their early training as members of Monroe’s famed Blue Grass Boys.

William Smith Monroe was born in 1911 in rural western Kentucky, far from the Appalachian Mountains with which bluegrass music is now most identified. He was not from a poor family, but he grew up with hard work and few amenities. The last of eight children, Monroe was afflicted by poor vision and a shyness made bearable by an early-blossoming talent for music.

The nucleus of Monroe’s distinctive sound, as it emerged over many years, was his high mournful tenor voice and precise, rapid-fire mandolin picking. Moreover, he was a prodigious songwriter who often idealized his bucolic upbringing in his lyrics. All these elements supported by the ensemble of acoustic guitar, fiddle, banjo, and bass came together to produce the music that would ultimately be called “bluegrass.” Besides illuminating Monroe’s art and character, Smith explains the place of bluegrass in the folk music movement, as well as how and why bluegrass festivals came into being. The mercurial Monroe never settled on an official biographer. In Smith, we have something better.

Edward Morris writes on music, politics, and book publishing from Nashville.

Until his death in 1996, Bill Monroe was so formidable a presence that it was almost impossible to discuss him in human terms. He was too towering, too original to fit the normal templates of analysis. While he keeps Monroe's musical genius at the forefront,…
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Peters returns to modern-day Egypt

Review by bookpagedev

It has been nearly 15 years since Vicky Bliss, Elizabeth Peters’ sharp and hungry contemporary protagonist, has had a new adventure. And while fans of Peters’ best-selling Amelia Peabody series have thrilled to each new volume in that saga, readers have also been champing at the bit for more about the spunky, six-foot-tall art historian. Their patience will be well rewarded with Laughter of Dead Kings, sixth in the series.

When Tutankhamen’s mummy goes missing from its sarcophagus in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, Vicky finds herself once again caught up in an irresistible adventure. John Tregarth, erstwhile art thief and Vicky’s paramour, is suspected at once, and the pair sets off to clear his name, careening through Europe to Egypt (stopping in Berlin to protest—with ulterior motives and while distributing sausages—Germany’s reluctance to return the famous bust of Nefertiti to its native country).

As always, Peters’ descriptions of Egypt are a delight, and she balances this richness with a well-told, tight story, full of suspense and intrigue. Vicky’s boss, Schmidt, from the National Museum in Munich, is embroiled as well, caught up in a romance that turns sour fast.
 
Any reader familiar with Peters knows that picking up her latest book is like sitting down with old friends. Her sharp wit and smart prose are unequaled, and she deserves every available accolade. But Laughter of Dead Kings provides more than another fantastic story. It also answers a question debated over and over by Peters’ fans: how is John related to the characters from the Amelia Peabody series?
 
The answer is a good one, but even better is the bit that comes before it, when readers at long last meet the woman responsible for publishing Mrs. Emerson’s journals, bringing together at last the two series in a most satisfying fashion. This scene alone is worth the price of the book—but don’t look for details here. Rush and pick up a copy right away. You won’t want to miss a single page.
 
Tasha Alexander is the author of the Lady Emily Ashton mystery series.

 

It has been nearly 15 years since Vicky Bliss, Elizabeth Peters' sharp and hungry contemporary protagonist, has had a new adventure. And while fans of Peters' best-selling Amelia Peabody series have thrilled to each new volume in that saga, readers have also been champing at…

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Give ’til it hurts You’ve made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the month of July. Sigh . . . Guess where you’ll be spending your summer vacation? You need a little pick-me-up gift for yourself, under the circumstances. What gift doesn’t require a security deposit, seven-day advance purchase, or a Saturday night stay? Why, books, of course! Photographer Jeffrey Kraft’s exquisite photographs of Parisian cubbyholes and artifacts are not intended to entice one to visit the city; rather, his Literary Paris (Watson-Guptill, $18.95, 0823028305) is meant for those who have already been. The images are meant to inspire a memory from a time that has passed; this is not a fancy collection of tourists’ snapshots. Kraft has arranged his remembrances alongside excerpts from literary works by authors who stayed in Paris for extended periods of time. Kraft has captured the glimpse, the detail, the moment, rather than structures and sites. He offers an idea of what remains in the mind and heart, even years after the visit itself has ended. A wonderful gift for the Francophile in your life.

Ben Jonson said, He was not of an age, but for all time. He was, of course, speaking of his friend William Shakespeare. Children’s book author Aliki has written and illustrated William Shakespeare and the Globe (HarperCollins, $15.95, 006027820X), which describes not only Shakespeare’s life, work, and times, but even acknowledges visionary Sam Wannamaker, who spent years resurrecting the Globe. The book is designed much like a script, with acts and scenes and characters. An interesting add-on is the list of words and expressions, complete with illustrations, credited to Shakespeare; for example, sweets to the sweet and hush were apparently invented by the Bard himself. Seems we’ve been quoting Shakespeare without realizing it! Cities like Paris and London must make use of every tidbit of soil that can be found; as acreage diminishes in our growing world, green thumbs everywhere are striving to be more and more creative with their craft. Artisan has published Window Boxes: Indoors and Out ($27.50, 1579651240) with this in mind. Authors James Cramer and Dean Johnson offer fragrant, beautiful, and useful options for the, uh, land-challenged. Cramer and Johnson offer optional locations (who says a window-box is limited to being wooden, square, and outside?) and year-round planting options (a thriving garden in January?) With this book, the decision is no longer how to create a miniature garden, but rather how many miniature gardens you can create. Soil sold separately! Of course, if we’re talking land for land’s sake, Antarctica has land to spare. It’s been 85 years since Ernest Shackleton and the 27-member crew of the Endurance set out to cross the Antarctic on foot. Less than 100 miles from its destination, the Endurance was caught in an ice pack and was badly damaged. For over 20 months, the crew (along with 69 sled dogs) was marooned, but no lives were lost. Two books commemorate this remarkable true story of adventure and perseverance. First, there’s Knopf’s The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition ($29.95, 0375404031), a sophisticated account of the expedition. There’s also Ice Story: Shackleton’s Lost Expedition, which may be better-suited to younger explorers. Both books feature expedition photographer Frank Hurley’s photographs and offer a chronological summary of this death-defying journey. Hurley started the expedition with professional equipment, but his final shots were taken with a pocket camera. Endurance author Caroline Alexander, in association with the American Museum of Natural History, carefully researched this volume, complete with some of Hurley’s photographs that had not been published previously. Ice Story author Elizabeth Cody Kimmel presents the journey in storybook format, but the information is accurate and anecdotal. Both books would make great gifts for anyone who has a taste for adventure and hopeful endings.

Agnes and Curtis decide that the grown-ups need to take the children to the waterpark which happens to be 50 miles away for the day. Fifty miles can seem like 500 without Fun on the Run: Travel Games and Songs (Morrow Junior Books, $17, 0688146600). Brimming with silly stories, limericks, brain teasers, and songs, this book helps to fill travel time without batteries or messy cleanup. Familiar songs and games such as The Ants Go Marching and Hangman are included, but Fun on the Run contains nearly 125 pages of other games and songs that can be a part of any trip. If you still confuse Darth Vader with Darth Maul, fear not; Dorling Kindersley has published two books that will help you keep the prequel and the original trilogy straight: Star Wars Episode I: the Visual Dictionary ($19.95, 0789447010) and Star Wars Episode I: Incredible Cross Sections ($19.95, 078943962X). Like their predecessors (or would it be their descendants?), these books are designed to keep facts, characters, and plots straight. Archaeologist David West Reynolds, an obvious choice for the author, approaches this much like he did his previous Star Wars works. One feels as if he is on an archaeological dig or scientific study of another world. May the source be with you!

Give 'til it hurts You've made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the…
Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Cold weather creativity for kids With shorter, colder days in winter, the joy of indoor parenting can be elusive. With a bit of help, parents can avoid hearing the cries of boredom, and children may avoid hours of television. The books featured this month are for a range of ages and offer an equal range of activities. Whether your child is a rowdy preschooler or a quiet teen, the following selections are guaranteed to keep your child’s mind and hands from frostbite.

A trip to the local art museum is always a treat. For parents of older children and teenagers, there are three new Off the Wall Museum Guides for Kids which serve to prepare and educate kids before and during such a visit. Each book in this pocket-size series offers a general introduction to museums and art to maximize your museum visit. The section on museum etiquette includes art observation, art labels, and even advice on how to dress. The books also include general explanations of color, shape, line, and perspective. In addition to an index, each book contains games, scavenger hunts, art and writing activities, and recipes for the kids to enjoy.

The first addition to this entertaining series is Impressionist Art (Davis, $8.95, 0871923858) by Ruthie Knapp and Janice Lehmberg. Following the general introduction, the book concentrates on impressionist art. With clear headings, we learn the origin and categories of impressionism, and many of our questions have been anticipated and answered by the knowledgeable authors. Pictures accompany the text, and biographies of the artists are lively and full of fun facts. Another in this series is American Art ($8.95, 0871923866), also by Ruthie Knapp and Janice Lehmberg. The introduction of this book closely follows the first, except that photos of American art have been inserted. American Art is grouped according to 17th/18th and 19th/20th centuries. The same vivid format and chatty style is used to engage the reader. The creative activities section is also included. The third book by Ruthie Knapp and Janice Lehmberg is Egyptian Art ($8.95, 087192384X). After the museum and art introduction, the authors cover topics such as archaeology, mummies, pharaohs, tombs, and sculpture; other chapters include stories from and about Egyptian culture. These topics fascinate young people, and the style used in these guides makes them all the more engaging. Pictures are clear and plentiful and fill the pages. This guide, as with the others, is helpful and entertaining, even if you are unable to visit a museum.

Expecting 100 of your closest friends for a Super Bowl party? Why not let the kids help? Learning to cook is a fine goal for winter days, and it’s an easier goal for older children if they have the right guide. Roz Denny and Fiona Watt have written the Usborne Cooking School series with this in mind.

Cooking for Beginners (Usborne, $7.95, 0746030363) opens with equipment and tools labeled in the first few pages. Proper placement of pans on the stove and other cautions are given. Two pages of cooking hints prepare the cook to follow the recipes better. Under each recipe, steps are clearly written and carefully illustrated for easy understanding. A photograph of the finished recipe accompanies each entry. The tasty recipes also make a nice presentation the entire family can enjoy.

Fiona Watt authors the two companion books, Cakes and Cookies for Beginners (Usborne, $7.95, 0746028105) and Pasta and Pizza for Beginners ($7.95, 0746028083). These are full of good recipes; beginners will find the ease, variety, and flavor of each recipe encouraging. Preschoolers can be relentless in their demand for attention. And if there are two or more children in your care, each day requires even more creativity. Varying activities to include simple games and crafts is ideal, and that is just what author Trish Kuffner presents in The Preschooler’s Busy Book: 365 Creative Games and Activities to Keep Your 3- to-6-Year-Old Busy (Meadowbrook, $9.95, 0881663514). The print is large for quick reference, yet the book is not oversized. Kuffner’s book has 365 games and activities which are easy to do and are aimed at 3- to 6-year-olds. In addition to the games and general indoor activities, there are specific chapters on kitchen play, outdoor fun, travel play, and holiday celebrations. Most activities require no elaborate supplies merely household items or things easily obtained. This reference book includes appendices with other books and resources for parents as well as book suggestions for children. Parents, preschool teachers, and caregivers would all find this book a ready resource for each day of the year.

Children can use their hands and imaginations with the Little Puppet Theater: Little Red Riding Hood (Council Oak, $19.95, 1571780750), a sturdy stage which unfolds five feet and includes four finger puppet characters for children’s play. The vividly colored stage is two-sided, allowing room for more players to interact. On one side of the stage, the story text is printed so one person may read while the other children dramatize the story (recording the tale for your preschooler would enhance their enjoyment). The story board folds into book size and easily stores in its own case with Velcro closure.

Even adults will be impressed with Make Your Own Superballs (Scholastic Trade, $7.95, 0590635859), a kit developed and written by Ray Miller. The kit has everything children need to produce a superball in less than five minutes. Each step is simple and clearly illustrated. It is a great choice for young kids, because only water is added to the materials and no heat is used. Included in the kit are five bold colors to design balls with stripe or swirl patterns. The booklet also suggests some activities to do with your five homemade superballs.

The second kit in this series yields fast, fun products as well. The difference with Soap Making for Kids is that grown-up assistance is needed since the materials are heated. The booklet, written by Vivian Fernandez, is simple and easy to understand. Six molds in an ocean motif are provided to create a variety of soap shapes. Three colors may be used to make solid or two-tone soaps. Even a length of rope is included to make soap on a rope.

Since kids don’t hibernate during the winter, it’s important that they stay occupied during these cold, indoor months. With the above suggestions, parents and their children shouldn’t suffer the winter blues, even when the weather isn’t cooperating.

Jana Benjamin is an indoor/outdoor mother to her two children. She lives in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

Cold weather creativity for kids With shorter, colder days in winter, the joy of indoor parenting can be elusive. With a bit of help, parents can avoid hearing the cries of boredom, and children may avoid hours of television. The books featured this month are…
ParentingFamily & Relationships

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Give ’til it hurts You’ve made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the month of July. Sigh . . . Guess where you’ll be spending your summer vacation? You need a little pick-me-up gift for yourself, under the circumstances. What gift doesn’t require a security deposit, seven-day advance purchase, or a Saturday night stay? Why, books, of course! Photographer Jeffrey Kraft’s exquisite photographs of Parisian cubbyholes and artifacts are not intended to entice one to visit the city; rather, his Literary Paris (Watson-Guptill, $18.95, 0823028305) is meant for those who have already been. The images are meant to inspire a memory from a time that has passed; this is not a fancy collection of tourists’ snapshots. Kraft has arranged his remembrances alongside excerpts from literary works by authors who stayed in Paris for extended periods of time. Kraft has captured the glimpse, the detail, the moment, rather than structures and sites. He offers an idea of what remains in the mind and heart, even years after the visit itself has ended. A wonderful gift for the Francophile in your life.

Ben Jonson said, He was not of an age, but for all time. He was, of course, speaking of his friend William Shakespeare. Children’s book author Aliki has written and illustrated William Shakespeare and the Globe (HarperCollins, $15.95, 006027820X), which describes not only Shakespeare’s life, work, and times, but even acknowledges visionary Sam Wannamaker, who spent years resurrecting the Globe. The book is designed much like a script, with acts and scenes and characters. An interesting add-on is the list of words and expressions, complete with illustrations, credited to Shakespeare; for example, sweets to the sweet and hush were apparently invented by the Bard himself. Seems we’ve been quoting Shakespeare without realizing it! Cities like Paris and London must make use of every tidbit of soil that can be found; as acreage diminishes in our growing world, green thumbs everywhere are striving to be more and more creative with their craft. Artisan has published Window Boxes: Indoors and Out ($27.50, 1579651240) with this in mind. Authors James Cramer and Dean Johnson offer fragrant, beautiful, and useful options for the, uh, land-challenged. Cramer and Johnson offer optional locations (who says a window-box is limited to being wooden, square, and outside?) and year-round planting options (a thriving garden in January?) With this book, the decision is no longer how to create a miniature garden, but rather how many miniature gardens you can create. Soil sold separately! Of course, if we’re talking land for land’s sake, Antarctica has land to spare. It’s been 85 years since Ernest Shackleton and the 27-member crew of the Endurance set out to cross the Antarctic on foot. Less than 100 miles from its destination, the Endurance was caught in an ice pack and was badly damaged. For over 20 months, the crew (along with 69 sled dogs) was marooned, but no lives were lost. Two books commemorate this remarkable true story of adventure and perseverance. First, there’s Knopf’s The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition ($29.95, 0375404031), a sophisticated account of the expedition. There’s also Ice Story: Shackleton’s Lost Expedition (Clarion, $18, 0395915244), which may be better-suited to younger explorers. Both books feature expedition photographer Frank Hurley’s photographs and offer a chronological summary of this death-defying journey. Hurley started the expedition with professional equipment, but his final shots were taken with a pocket camera. Endurance author Caroline Alexander, in association with the American Museum of Natural History, carefully researched this volume, complete with some of Hurley’s photographs that had not been published previously. Ice Story author Elizabeth Cody Kimmel presents the journey in storybook format, but the information is accurate and anecdotal. Both books would make great gifts for anyone who has a taste for adventure and hopeful endings.

Agnes and Curtis decide that the grown-ups need to take the children to the waterpark which happens to be 50 miles away for the day. Fifty miles can seem like 500 without Fun on the Run: Travel Games and Songs. Brimming with silly stories, limericks, brain teasers, and songs, this book helps to fill travel time without batteries or messy cleanup. Familiar songs and games such as The Ants Go Marching and Hangman are included, but Fun on the Run contains nearly 125 pages of other games and songs that can be a part of any trip. If you still confuse Darth Vader with Darth Maul, fear not; Dorling Kindersley has published two books that will help you keep the prequel and the original trilogy straight: Star Wars Episode I: the Visual Dictionary ($19.95, 0789447010) and Star Wars Episode I: Incredible Cross Sections ($19.95, 078943962X). Like their predecessors (or would it be their descendants?), these books are designed to keep facts, characters, and plots straight. Archaeologist David West Reynolds, an obvious choice for the author, approaches this much like he did his previous Star Wars works. One feels as if he is on an archaeological dig or scientific study of another world. May the source be with you!

Give 'til it hurts You've made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the…
History

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Chronicling the gruesome toll of the fighting at Cold Harbor Ulysses S. Grant’s offensive against Robert E. Lee’s entrenched Army of Northern Virginia at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864, summons powerful images. Northern assaults that day stand alongside Ambrose E. Burnside’s attacks at Fredericksburg and John Bell Hood’s at Franklin as examples of seemingly pointless slaughter of brave but doomed soldiers. Even casual students of the Civil War know that Grant admitted as much in his memoirs when he confessed that he “always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made.” Despite the well-known drama and gruesome butcher’s bill on June 3, historians have devoted relatively little attention to Cold Harbor. It served as the last major battle of the Overland campaign, greatly influenced morale behind the lines in the North, and set the stage for Grant’s brilliant crossing of the James River- all attributes that invite scrutiny. But historians have focused on the opening rather than the closing battles of the Overland campaign, writing several detailed studies of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania. Perhaps the apparent simplicity of the action at Cold Harbor on June 3, with unimaginative and costly frontal attacks that ended in predictable failure, has discouraged potential investigators. Ernest B. Furgurson’s Not War But Murder: Cold Harbor 1864 offers the first full-scale treatment of the subject. Furgurson brings to his task skills that produced successful earlier books on the Chancellorsville campaign and Richmond’s wartime experience -careful research in an array of published sources and unpublished manuscripts, an engaging and sometimes eloquent writing style, awareness of the many ties between the battlefield and the home front, and a deft touch with brief biographical sketches.

The book emphasizes that the celebrated fighting on June 3 represented just one element of a much larger set of maneuvers and clashes near Cold Harbor between May 28 and June 11 that produced more than 15,000 Union and between 3,000 and 5,000 Confederate casualties. A pair of chapters set the stage with an overview of events from the battle of the Wilderness on May 5-6 through action along the North Anna River three weeks later. Subsequent chapters highlight the cavalry engagements at Haw’s Shop on May 28 and at Matadequin Creek on May 30, the armies’ jockeying for position and skirmishing along Totopotomoy Creek on May 28-31, fighting at Bethesda Church on May 30, and aggressive Confederate movements and Union responses at Cold Harbor on June 1-2. Furgurson allocates less than 10 percent of his narrative to the combat on June 3, moving on to a consideration of the battle’s aftermath, its impact on northern politics and Union and Confederate civilian morale, and the reshuffling of units that preceded Grant’s march to the James River. Furgurson introduces a good deal of analysis into his chronological narrative. Much of it centers on Grant, George G. Meade, and the Union high command. He argues that Grant’s decision to accompany the Army of the Potomac while leaving Meade as its titular head fueled tensions and prevented efficient application of superior northern manpower and resources. “Grant did not know the Army of the Potomac intimately enough to give detailed orders as if he were the only general in charge,” observes Furgurson, while “Meade did not feel deep personal responsibility for managing operations that Grant had broadly planned.” Dangerous misconceptions about both the rebel army and his own force contributed to Grant’s decision to launch the attacks on June 3. He believed the Confederates suffered from low morale after being hammered at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania but thought Union soldiers retained high spirits despite heavy casualties in attacks against entrenchments during the first three weeks of May. On June 3, he hoped his men would win a decisive success against a weakened foe. But “Grant badly misunderstood the enemy, from Robert E. Lee down to the leanest Alabama rifleman,” argues Furgurson. “He also misunderstood his own army, from George G. Meade down to the weariest Massachusetts private. That helps explain why the assault failed so miserably.” Furgurson further criticizes Grant for failing to admit defeat after June 3. The Federal commander allowed wounded Federals to lie helpless between the lines rather than raise the white flag in order to have them removed. Sending a formal request to Lee under a white flag of truce, Furgurson notes, for Grant would have “meant conceding what every soldier in both armies could see but had not yet been absorbed in Washington and beyond: that he had been decisively beaten in the climactic battle of the bloody spring offensive, his first campaign as general-in-chief.” Although indicating that Lee bore part of the blame for unnecessary delay in getting relief to the wounded Federals, Furgurson judges Grant much more harshly.

Grant insisted that Cold Harbor gave Confederates only a momentary lift and had no long-term negative effect on Union soldiers. Furgurson notes persuasively that nearly the reverse was true. The bungled Union attacks against Petersburg in mid-June underscored the pernicious influence of a “Cold Harbor syndrome” that rendered northern troops less effective than in previous battles. Cold Harbor also sent tremors through the North, contributing to a period of growing doubt about the outcome of the War. As for Grant, he admitted failure in his effort to defeat Lee’s army north of Richmond but blamed that failure “not on his own strategy, but on the Confederates’ unwillingness to abandon their trenches and fight on his terms.” Although generally well written and soundly argued, Furgurson’s narrative sometimes claims too much or relies on questionable evidence. For example, Furgurson asserts that Cold Harbor marked a tactical “turning point of the Civil War,” after which “the war of maneuver became a war of siege; stand-up attack and defense gave way to digging and trench warfare.” Yet as the opening section of Not War But Murder makes clear, digging and trench warfare had become standard features of the confrontation between Grant and Lee before Cold Harbor. Earlier campaigns of maneuver also had given way to sieges at Vicksburg and elsewhere. Similarly, Furgurson’s statement that no other major battle of the War was “so shamefully one-sided as that in the first week of June 1864, at the country crossroads of Cold Harbor, Virginia” certainly would provoke lively disagreement.

In terms of evidence, Furgurson falls into the trap of using postwar testimony to describe wartime events and attitudes. He suggests that on the evening of June 2 “every man in both armies knew the grand assault was next,” supporting this highly questionable assertion with an 1880s quotation from Confederate general Evander M. Law. Law claimed in retrospect, with the advantage of knowing what had transpired on June 3, that he was “as well satisfied that [the attack] would come at dawn the next morning as if I had seen General Meade’s order directing it.” Furgurson also accepts Joshua L. Chamberlain’s postwar avowal that for a time after Cold Harbor the Union army ceased to compile routine morning reports of unit strengths because “the country would not stand it, if they knew” about the heavy casualties. Elsewhere, Furgurson employs dramatic but questionable quotations, most notably the purported Union diary entry that read: “June 3, Cold Harbor. I was killed.” These weaknesses do little to diminish Furgurson’s accomplishment in writing a balanced, compelling study of an important part of the Overland campaign. After more than a century and a third, Cold Harbor finally has emerged from the shadows of Civil War literature.

Gary W. Gallagher is the John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia. His books include The Confederate War (1997) and Lee and His Generals in War and Memory (1998).

Chronicling the gruesome toll of the fighting at Cold Harbor Ulysses S. Grant's offensive against Robert E. Lee's entrenched Army of Northern Virginia at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864, summons powerful images. Northern assaults that day stand alongside Ambrose E. Burnside's attacks at Fredericksburg…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Cold weather creativity for kids With shorter, colder days in winter, the joy of indoor parenting can be elusive. With a bit of help, parents can avoid hearing the cries of boredom, and children may avoid hours of television. The books featured this month are for a range of ages and offer an equal range of activities. Whether your child is a rowdy preschooler or a quiet teen, the following selections are guaranteed to keep your child’s mind and hands from frostbite.

A trip to the local art museum is always a treat. For parents of older children and teenagers, there are three new Off the Wall Museum Guides for Kids which serve to prepare and educate kids before and during such a visit. Each book in this pocket-size series offers a general introduction to museums and art to maximize your museum visit. The section on museum etiquette includes art observation, art labels, and even advice on how to dress. The books also include general explanations of color, shape, line, and perspective. In addition to an index, each book contains games, scavenger hunts, art and writing activities, and recipes for the kids to enjoy.

The first addition to this entertaining series is Impressionist Art (Davis, $8.95, 0871923858) by Ruthie Knapp and Janice Lehmberg. Following the general introduction, the book concentrates on impressionist art. With clear headings, we learn the origin and categories of impressionism, and many of our questions have been anticipated and answered by the knowledgeable authors. Pictures accompany the text, and biographies of the artists are lively and full of fun facts. Another in this series is American Art ($8.95, 0871923866), also by Ruthie Knapp and Janice Lehmberg. The introduction of this book closely follows the first, except that photos of American art have been inserted. American Art is grouped according to 17th/18th and 19th/20th centuries. The same vivid format and chatty style is used to engage the reader. The creative activities section is also included. The third book by Ruthie Knapp and Janice Lehmberg is Egyptian Art ($8.95, 087192384X). After the museum and art introduction, the authors cover topics such as archaeology, mummies, pharaohs, tombs, and sculpture; other chapters include stories from and about Egyptian culture. These topics fascinate young people, and the style used in these guides makes them all the more engaging. Pictures are clear and plentiful and fill the pages. This guide, as with the others, is helpful and entertaining, even if you are unable to visit a museum.

Expecting 100 of your closest friends for a Super Bowl party? Why not let the kids help? Learning to cook is a fine goal for winter days, and it’s an easier goal for older children if they have the right guide. Roz Denny and Fiona Watt have written the Usborne Cooking School series with this in mind.

Cooking for Beginners (Usborne, $7.95, 0746030363) opens with equipment and tools labeled in the first few pages. Proper placement of pans on the stove and other cautions are given. Two pages of cooking hints prepare the cook to follow the recipes better. Under each recipe, steps are clearly written and carefully illustrated for easy understanding. A photograph of the finished recipe accompanies each entry. The tasty recipes also make a nice presentation the entire family can enjoy.

Fiona Watt authors the two companion books, Cakes and Cookies for Beginners (Usborne, $7.95, 0746028105) and Pasta and Pizza for Beginners ($7.95, 0746028083). These are full of good recipes; beginners will find the ease, variety, and flavor of each recipe encouraging. Preschoolers can be relentless in their demand for attention. And if there are two or more children in your care, each day requires even more creativity. Varying activities to include simple games and crafts is ideal, and that is just what author Trish Kuffner presents in The Preschooler’s Busy Book: 365 Creative Games and Activities to Keep Your 3- to-6-Year-Old Busy (Meadowbrook, $9.95, 0881663514). The print is large for quick reference, yet the book is not oversized. Kuffner’s book has 365 games and activities which are easy to do and are aimed at 3- to 6-year-olds. In addition to the games and general indoor activities, there are specific chapters on kitchen play, outdoor fun, travel play, and holiday celebrations. Most activities require no elaborate supplies merely household items or things easily obtained. This reference book includes appendices with other books and resources for parents as well as book suggestions for children. Parents, preschool teachers, and caregivers would all find this book a ready resource for each day of the year.

Children can use their hands and imaginations with the Little Puppet Theater: Little Red Riding Hood (Council Oak, $19.95, 1571780750), a sturdy stage which unfolds five feet and includes four finger puppet characters for children’s play. The vividly colored stage is two-sided, allowing room for more players to interact. On one side of the stage, the story text is printed so one person may read while the other children dramatize the story (recording the tale for your preschooler would enhance their enjoyment). The story board folds into book size and easily stores in its own case with Velcro closure.

Even adults will be impressed with Make Your Own Superballs, a kit developed and written by Ray Miller. The kit has everything children need to produce a superball in less than five minutes. Each step is simple and clearly illustrated. It is a great choice for young kids, because only water is added to the materials and no heat is used. Included in the kit are five bold colors to design balls with stripe or swirl patterns. The booklet also suggests some activities to do with your five homemade superballs.

The second kit in this series yields fast, fun products as well. The difference with Soap Making for Kids (Scholastic Trade, $7.95, 0590635050) is that grown-up assistance is needed since the materials are heated. The booklet, written by Vivian Fernandez, is simple and easy to understand. Six molds in an ocean motif are provided to create a variety of soap shapes. Three colors may be used to make solid or two-tone soaps. Even a length of rope is included to make soap on a rope.

Since kids don’t hibernate during the winter, it’s important that they stay occupied during these cold, indoor months. With the above suggestions, parents and their children shouldn’t suffer the winter blues, even when the weather isn’t cooperating.

Jana Benjamin is an indoor/outdoor mother to her two children. She lives in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

Cold weather creativity for kids With shorter, colder days in winter, the joy of indoor parenting can be elusive. With a bit of help, parents can avoid hearing the cries of boredom, and children may avoid hours of television. The books featured this month are…

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