Synopses & Reviews
In this very frank and compelling autobiography, Walter E. Williams sets the record straight on his very public life, and in the process discusses some of the past in general— contrasting growing up black and poor in the 1940s and 1950s to the same today. As Williams says early on in his story, “just because you know where a person ended up in life doesn’t necessarily provide you with any certainties as to where he might have begun.” In Up From the Projects, he recounts many achievements that would have been unfathomable by his ancestors, underscoring his belief that, unlike so many other societies around the world, in America one needn’t start out at, or anywhere near, the top in order to eventually reach it.
Williams describes his humble beginnings growing up in a lower middle class, mixed neighborhood in West Philadelphia in the 1940s, raised by a strong and demanding mother who held high academic aspirations for her children. He recalls the teachers in middle school and later in high school who influenced him the most—teachers who always gave him an honest assessment of his learning and accepted no excuses. In describing his army experience, Williams recounts incidents of racial discrimination but stresses that his time in the army was a valuable part of his maturation process. He tells of his time “getting established” in Los Angeles—struggling happily through the first years of his marriage, getting his B.A. at Cal State LA and then his graduate degree at UCLA. As he describes his academic career, moving from teaching one class a week at Los Angeles City College to his eventual department chair at George Mason University, we find him overcoming one obstacle after another, accepting help when it is offered but never asking for special treatment, and ultimately illustrating that in America everything is indeed possible.
He leaves the reader with a key bit of advice, passed on by his stepfather and reflected throughout his own life: a lot of life is luck and chance and you never know when the opportunity train is going to come along. Be packed and ready to hop on board.
Review
"When I finished reading Up from the Projects, I wished it had been a longer book. But it got the job done—and its insights are much needed today."
--Thomas Sowell, the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution
Review
"Aand#160;moving look back at a lost way of life."and#8212;Leigh Newman, New York Times Sunday Book Review
Review
andquot;Funda ranges over subjects as diverse as seed hybridization, ex-urbanites, early-20th-century Idaho, storytelling, postwar exile and mutable family mythologies. The resounding theme is her search for home.andquot;andmdash;Kirkus
Review
"I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed Weeds. Such a truthful book. Your book made me admire Evelyn Funda, yearn to become a farmer, wish to live out West, and love the real America all at once! "and#8212;Alexander Theroux
Review
"Funda has crafted an intensely American story. . . . [Weeds] is a penetrating look at family, land, and the power of knowing one's past, stretching back from the American frontier to other lands.and#8212;Colleen Mondor, Booklist
Review
andquot;Part cultural history, part memoir, and part elegy, Weeds reminds us that in losing our attachment to the land we also lose some of our humanity and something at the very heart of our identity as a nation.andquot;andmdash;Tom Williams, Utah Public Radio
Review
and#8220;Weeds is a loving, poignant, and insightful story. Iand#8217;m placing my copy of it on the same shelf in my home library as the western memoirs of William Kittredge, Linda Hasselstrom, Ivan Doig, and Terry Tempest Williams.and#8221;and#8212;Lisa Knopp, author of What the River Carries
Review
"Honyocker Dreams is full of humor, sharp details, clear prose, and reflections on what it means to be a Westerner, past and present."and#8212;Jenny Shank, New West
Review
"I grew up in South Texas, about as far south as one can get from the Hi-Line and still be in the United States. But the book continually brought back memories I didn't even know Iand#160;had about what it was like to be a kid growing up in a small town, where one learns to rely on one's own resources. In Mr. Mogen's fine book, we learn as much about ourselves as we do about him."and#8212;David Crisp, Billings Outpost
Review
"Honyocker Dreams implicitly encourages us to comprehend our origins, to become mindful of the often complex influences of place and people who have shaped us."and#8212;Brian Dillon, Billings Gazette
Review
"David Mogen,and#160;CSU English professor, has penned a realistic memoir that will trigger memories in all, even if you don't know what in the world a honyocker is."and#8212;Nancy Hansford, Coloradoan
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"Mogen deftly revisits the geographies of his past, resulting in an eloquent testimony to the grit and aspirations of his parents and his own talent as a lyrical chronicler."and#8212;O. Alan Weltzien, Western American Literature
Review
"David Mogen offers critical acumen in thrilling anecdotes."and#8212;Nick Bascom, Great Plains Quarterly
Review
andquot;From the first evocative, disturbing scene of receiving an unexpectedly painful lower-back tattoo of a andquot;dual city skylineandquot; of her childhood home Chicago and her adopted home Minneapolis, Borich . . . enlists the reader in a gritty, poetic tour of her personal geography.andquot;andmdash;Publishers Weekly
Review
"[Body Geographic is] aand#160;stunningly original memoir that explores a woman's connection to the real and imagined Midwestern landscapes that have defined her life."and#8212;Kirkus starred review
Review
andquot;Borich's memoir creates a Midwest where her body and the landscape intersectandmdash;a unique literary cartography that traces the lives of her immigrant great-grandparents and more recent relatives while exploring her own personal journey.andquot;andmdash;Whitney Scott, Booklist Online
Review
andquot;Borich does not consider herself an outsider looking in. Body Geographic is an American story, complete with the sights and sounds of our country, capturing the complex relationship between identity, place, and growth for most people living in the fifty states.andquot;andmdash;Rachel Wexelbaum, Lambda Literary
Review
"Thanks to Borich's unconventional approach, Body Geographic isand#160;both a thoughtful meditation on the world and a telling recount of the author's journey through life."and#8212;Meganne Fabrega, StarTribune
Review
"Borich sets out to map not only the city of Chicago and the other places she and her family have lived, but also to discover the hidden geographies in her own skinand#8212;the personal and collective histories, the experiences and desires, that make her who she is. The result is a book that's insightful, lyrically beautiful, and uncompromising in its search for a self as rich as the cities in which she lives."and#8212;Eric Lemay, New Books in Literature and#160;
Review
"Grove's book is both an inspiration and a template for those who want to kick history out of the attic and put it back where it belongs: in the national living room, slightly to the left of the television."and#8212;James Norton, Washington Post
Review
andquot;Though he's not fond of battlefield re-enactments, Grove thoroughly enjoys re-creating the past with appropriate objects. Essentially about the author's career in educating with artifacts, his account makes snippets of American history accessible to casual readers, who may learn of the utility of mules, the history of airmail and such miscellanea.andquot;andmdash;Kirkus
Review
"This semiautobiographical journey of a versatile, peregrinating public historian is instructive and inspirational for museum docents; informative for history buffs, especially those interested in the background of educational institutions outside the academy; and helpful for administrators of public programs. All readers will appreciate the author's learning techniques for eliciting questions, sparking the imagination, and promoting transcultural understanding, as well as his acknowledgement of cultural sensitivity, multiple perspectives, and changing interpretations."and#8212;Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Library Journal
Review
andquot;An engaging, entertaining and educational read.andquot;andmdash;Bill Schwab, eMissourian
Review
and#8220;Tim Grove has combined a thought-provoking and entertaining memoir with an insiderand#8217;s guide to behind-the-scenes history.and#8221;and#8212;Libby H. Oand#8217;Connell, chief historian, History Channel
Review
and#8220;I guarantee that whether you are a history buff, a history scholar, or an and#8216;I hate historyand#8217; Scrooge, you will love this book.and#8221;and#8212;Robert K. Sutton, chief historian, National Park Service
Review
"Welsch's natural warmth and skill as a storyteller, and his obvious respect for the individuals he encounters, come through clearly in his writing, and it's easy to see why so many people, from so many backgrounds, might be honored to call him "friend.""—Publishers Weekly
Review
"Though an anthropology scholar, Welsch is never pedantic or preachy. Instead, this is a heartfelt and very personal story, rich in wry and self-deprecating humor."—Deborah Donovan, Booklist
Review
"Welsch's gratitude toward the Omahas and Pawnees is real, his outrage at their painful history is justified, and his story is proof that Native American culture is still alive and complex."—Kirkus
Review
"Welsch manifests himself as a listener who has spent fifty-five years involved in Native culture where he has made uncountable friends. His ability to write honest prose, both informative and erudite, captivates from the beginning."—Wynne Summers, Great Plains Quarterly
Review
“If it can be said of anyone who is not an Indian (Native American, American Indian) that he or she has the ‘soul of an Indian, it has to be said of Roger Welsch. He offers the one thing that diverse groups of people, indeed the world, need to get along: understanding.”—Joseph Marshall III, author of
The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Learning Review
andquot;This book stands among the best works in the genre, and it should attract the attention of those interested in narrative scholarship, agriculture, and theories of place.andquot;Tyler Nickl, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
Review
"While the haunting account of the day Katie died is especially riveting, it is the unfolding and cathartic grieving process that underpins and elevates this heartbreaking tale."—Margaret Flanagan, Booklist
Review
"An urgent, palpably emotional account of coping with extreme grief."—Kirkus
Review
"Though the tragedy of Evans's title is borne out, his memoir brims with maturity and authenticity, and it should find a ready readership with those who have lived through incredible loss. Young Widower is both a loving tribute to a cherished spouse and a testament to survival."—Michelle Anne Schingler, ForeWord
Review
"For those times when life is bitter and unreasonable, there are stories like John's—books that accept the ugliness of both death and survival and remind us to be grateful and angry and preciously alive."—Books J'Adore
Review
“A tragic story told with such grace and artistry that the complex exploration of grief is finally revealed as redemptive. The honesty of John Evanss writing is unfaltering and deeply impressive.”—Kevin Casey, author of
A State of Mind
Review
“This book brims with unforgettable images and moments, but Evanss greatest achievement is allowing readers to see his wife, Katie, as he did—not as a saint or as a martyr, but as a passionate and dynamic and flawed woman whom he deeply loved.”—Justin St. Germain, author of
Son of a Gun
Review
"From birth to adolescence to war and back again, Salisbury hones in on the quieter moments of life. Steering clear of melodrama, he depicts a world captured in sepia tones, in which understated prose and humble observations best reflect the world that passed him by. . . . Stylistically simple yet structurally complex, Salisbury's latest installment reads as a final chapter to a long, lauded literary life."—Kirkus
Review
"An important glimpse into 20th-century Midwestern life, this book will also be an important addition to the canon of Native American literature."—Library Journal
Review
"[Salisbury's] memoir is a remarkable mosaic of his childhood, his service in World War II and his career as an intellectual."—Katie Schneider, Oregonian
Review
"The end result of Salisbury's narrative is to intelligently press us into a recognition of the importance of lived experience and urge an active engagement with our collective past, present and as-yet-to-be-created future."—Elizabeth Wilkinson, Star Tribune
Review
"Don't miss out on the life of Mr. Ralph J. Salisbury. . . . This memoir will take you on a journey into American history."—Night Owl Reviews
Review
"A highly readable autobiography."—David Christensen,
Western American LiteratureSynopsis
A life of achievement and overcoming the odds
A lifetime of challenging conventional wisdom
A uniquely American story of achievement
From his lower middle class beginnings in a mixed but predominantly black neighborhood in West Philadelphia to his department chair at George Mason University, the life of Walter E. Williams is an “only in America” story of achievement. In Up From the Projects, this nationally syndicated columnist and prolific author recalls some of the highlights and turning points of his life.
Williams describes the influences of his early years—such as the teachers who demanded his best efforts and made no excuses for him—and tells how his two years in the army became an important part of his maturation process, in spite of the racism he encountered. He recounts his early time getting established in Los Angeles and beginning his teaching career. And he tells of his subsequent move to the Urban Institute in Washington—an eye-opening experience not without its share of controversy.
When he recalls ultimately accepting his professorship appointment at George Mason University, the author marvels that “I never thought I’d be working there twenty-five years later.” And throughout the book, Willams refers to the immeasurable contribution of his wife of 45 years, who shared his vision through hard work and love.
Synopsis
Nationally syndicated columnist and prolific author Walter E. Williams recalls some of the highlights and turning points of his life. From his lower middle class beginnings in a mixed but predominantly black neighborhood in West Philadelphia to his department chair at George Mason University, Williams tells an "only in America" story of a life of achievement.
Synopsis
In Thomas Jeffersonand#8217;s day, 90 percent of the population worked on family farms. Today, in a world dominated by agribusiness, less than 1 percent of Americans claim farm-related occupations. What was lost along the way is something that Evelyn I. Funda experienced firsthand when, in 2001, her parents sold the last parcel of the farm they had worked since they married in 1957. Against that landscape of loss, Funda explores her familyand#8217;s three-generation farming experience in southern Idaho, where her Czech immigrant family spent their lives turning a patch of sagebrush into crop land.
The story of Fundaand#8217;s family unfolds within the larger context of our countryand#8217;s rich immigrant history, western culture, and farming as a science and an art. Situated at the crossroads of American farming, Weeds: A Farm Daughterand#8217;s Lament offers a clear view of the nature, the cost, and the transformation of the American West. Part cultural history, part memoir, and part elegy, the book reminds us that in losing our attachment to the land we also lose some of our humanity and something at the very heart of our identity as a nation.
Synopsis
Honyocker Dreams: Montana Memories dramatizes and#8220;recoveryand#8221; both as healing and as reconstruction of a past that haunts and enriches the present. David Mogenand#8217;s narrative begins with his dying fatherand#8217;s reminiscences as he surveys the Montana landscape, and then weaves through his own memories about the postfrontier world of Indian reservations and farming towns that endure on the Montana and#8220;Hi-Line,and#8221; that flat expanse of Big Sky country that lies hard against the Canadian border east of the Rockies.
Mogenand#8217;s journey of recovery includes heartfelt, often humorous stories defining his familyand#8217;s and#8220;honyockerand#8221; history, shaped by the dreams and disappointments of working-class farmers, cowboys, and miners. The narrative chronicles boom-and-bust tales about growing up in small-town Montana in the 1950s, about the culture shock associated with leaving the Hi-Line in the 1960s, about a healing gift from Blackfeet relatives, and about traveling to Ireland to reflect on family ties to Marcus Daly, Butte, Montanaand#8217;s and#8220;Copper King.and#8221;
and#160;Mogen suggests how the eras of his own childhood and the frontier world of his ancestors have shaped him and our American heritage as we move further into the twenty-first century.
and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
A memoir from the award-winning author of
My Lesbian Husband, Barrie Jean Borichand#8217;s
Body Geographic turns personal history into an inspired reflection on the points where place and person intersect, where running away meets running toward, and whereand#160;dislocation means finding oneself.and#160;
One coordinate of Borichand#8217;s story is Chicago, the prototypical Great Lakes port city built by immigrants like her great-grandfather Big Petar, and the other is her own port of immigration, Minneapolis, the combined skylines of these two cities tattooed on Borichand#8217;s own back. Between Chicago and Minneapolis Borich maps her own Midwest, a true heartland in which she measures the distance between the dreams and realities of her own life, her familyand#8217;s, and her fellow travelersand#8217; in the endless American migration. Covering rough terrainand#8212;from the hardships of her immigrant ancestors to the travails of her often-drunk young self, longing to be madly awake in the world, from the changing demographics of midwestern cities to the personal transformations of coming out and living as a lesbianand#8212;Body Geographic is cartography of high literary order, plotting routes, real and imagined, and putting an alternate landscape on the map.
Synopsis
For more than twenty years, Tim Grove has worked at the most popular history museums in the United States, helping millions of people get acquainted with the past. This book translates that experience into an insiderand#8217;s tour of some of the most interesting moments in American history. Groveand#8217;s stories are populated with well-known historical figures such as John Brown, Charles Lindbergh, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Sacagaweaand#8212;as well as the not-so-famous. Have you heard of Mary Pickersgill, seamstress of the Star-Spangled Banner flag? Grove also has something to say about a few of our cherished myths, for instance, the lore surrounding Betsy Ross and Eli Whitney.
Grove takes readers to historic sites such as Harpers Ferry, Fort McHenry, the Ulm Pishkun buffalo jump, and the Lemhi Pass on the Lewis and Clark Trail and traverses time and space from eighteenth-century Williamsburg to the twenty-first-century Kennedy Space Center. En route from Cape Canaveral on the Atlantic to Cape Disappointment on the Pacific, we learn about planting a cotton patch on the National Mall, riding a high wheel bicycle, flying the transcontinental airmail route, and harnessing a mule. Is history relevant? This book answers with a resounding yes and, in the most entertaining fashion, shows us why.
Synopsis
When he was out playing Indian, enacting Hollywood-inspired scenarios, it never occurred to the child Roger Welsch that the little girl sitting next to him in school was
Indian. A lifetime of learning later, Welschs enthusiasm is undimmed, if somewhat more enlightened. In
Embracing Fry Bread Welsch tells the story of his lifelong relationship with Native American culture, which, beginning in earnest with the study of linguistic practices of the Omaha tribe during a college anthropology course, resulted in his becoming an adopted member and kin of both the Omaha and the Pawnee tribes. With requisite humility and a healthy dose of humor, Welsch describes his long pilgrimage through Native life, from lessons in the vagaries of “Indian time” and the difficulties of reservation life, to the joy of being allowed to participate in special ceremonies and developing a deep and lasting love of fry bread. Navigating another culture is a complicated task, and Welsch shares his mistakes and successes with engaging candor. Through his serendipitous wanderings, he finds that the more he learns about Native culture the more he learns about himself—and about a way of life whose allure offers true insight into indigenous America.
Synopsis
John W. Evans was twenty-nine years old and his wife, Katie, was thirty. They had met in the Peace Corps in Bangladesh, taught in Chicago, studied in Miami, and were working for a year in Romania when they set off with friends to hike into the Carpathian Mountains. In an instant their life together was shattered. Katie became separated from the group. When Evans finally found her, he could only watch helplessly as she was mauled to death by a brown bear.
In such a love story, such a life story, how could a person ever move forward? That is the question Evans, traumatized and restless, confronts in this book as he learns the language of grief, the rhetoric of survival, and the contrary algorithms of holding fast and letting go. His memories of Katie and their time together, and the strangeness of his life with her family in the year after her death, create an unsentimental but deeply moving picture of loss, the brutality of nature, and the unfairness of needing to narrate a story that nothing can prepare a person to tell.
Told with unyielding witness, elegance, and care, Young Widower is a heartbreaking account of a senseless tragedy and the persistence of grief in a young persons life.
Synopsis
Bullet-shattered glass clatters onto his baby bed; he wakes and cries out into darkness. Does he remember this? Or remember being told? Regardless, he feels it, and will feel it again, bomb bay wind buffeting his eighteen-year-old body a mile above an old volcanos jagged debris, and yet again, staring at photos of Korean orphans, huddled homeless in a blizzard after a bombing in which, at twenty-five, hed refused an order to join. It is through such prisms of the past that Ralph Salisburys life unfolds, a life that, eighty years in the making, is also the life of the twentieth century. Winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize,
So Far, So Good is a sometimes strange, sometimes lyrical, and often humorous attempt by an inveterate storyteller to recount “just things as they were.”
The survivor of a lightning strike, car and plane mishaps, explosions, bullets, a heart attack, cancer, and other human afflictions, Salisbury wonders: “Why should anyone read this?” The book itself resoundingly answers this question not merely with its sheer eventfulness but also in the prodigious telling. Salisbury takes us from abject poverty in rural Iowa during the Great Depression, with a half Cherokee father and an Irish American mother, through war and peace and protest to the freedom and solace of university life; and it is in the end (so far) so good.
Synopsis
In
Quotidiana Patrick Madden illuminates common actions and seemingly commonplace moments, making connections that revise and reconfigure the overlooked and underappreciated. Madden muses on the origins of human language, the curative properties of laughter, and the joys and woes of fatherhood. Sparked by considerations of selling garlic, washing grapes, changing a diaper, or chipping a tooth, his essays are an antidote to the harried hullabaloo of talk-show and tabloid cultureand#8212;and a reminder that we are surrounded by wonders that whisper to the curious and attentive.
and#160;
Ingenuous and erudite, and with a beguiling wit, Madden examines the intricate tapestry of ordinary life in its extraordinary patterns. His book is a poetic and engaging exploration of the unexpectedly wide scope of our everyday existence.
and#160;and#160;
About the Author
Ralph Salisbury is the 2015 recipient of the C.E.S. Wood Retrospective Award (celebrating a distinguished career in Oregon letters), the Rockefeller Bellagio Award in fiction, and the Northwest Poetry Award. His most recent books are Blind Pumper at the Well, The Indian Who Bombed Berlin, and Light from a Bullet Hole. Salisburys thirteen books evoke his Cherokee-Shawnee-Irish-English-American heritage.
Table of Contents
PrefaceONE Starting OutTWO Rudderless and DriftingTHREE In the Army NowFOUR Heading West for OpportunityFIVE Heading East for OpportunitySIX Teaching and PreachingSEVEN AfterthoughtsIndex