I am nearly 40 years old but this story pops up in my memories every now and then when I see my son. .... It is a timeless story about a young boy at the verge of manhood and the sometimes painful experiences that boys go through during that period. The characters are wonderful. I still remember Boy Sword and his grandfather and the hogleg pistol that Boy used, and his dad building a hive for the swarming bees. Absolutely fantastic writing! I am going to order a copy just so that I can read it to my eight-year old son.

This is a loving and warm story of a Mississippi family during the depression. As a Mississippian, I have never read a book that so clearly gives the reader the sense of being in the Mississippi farm culture during this time. The characters are based on Deal's real life experiences and each of them is a living, breathing person you will come to care deeply about. I hope you take the time to read it

I'm buying copies of this book as the perfect gift for college-bound H.S. students, recent H.S. grads, and students already in college. Freebies are listed, as well as places where you can get sizable discounts on just about anything. I always knew that discounts were available with a student I.D. card, but had no idea how many places accepted it. This book tells you about all of them. The format is easy to follow, and the author's tone is friendly and conversational. She really knows her stuff!

I gave this to my daughter before she left to start sophomore year at college; I earmarked pages where she can book her plane tickets back home for Thanksgiving at a student rate, where she can get cheap textbooks and so on. This is a great guide for her, but even better for ME since I am paying her tuition costs which are getting higher, and am always looking for ways to trim the fat.

Bluegrass portrays the racing world and it's trials, tribulations, and rewards beautifully, better than any other book about racing that i've read(and i have read many, many books on thouroughbred racing by many different authors). This is an awesome book and i think anyone who is even the least bit interested in racing should read it.This is the only book on thouroughbred racing that i've read that talks so intensively about the bloodlines(which are true bloodlines, not made up) of each and every horse in the story. It was an absolutely wonderful book and if you have never read it, i very highly recomend it!

I attended Enterprise School with Borden Deal in the thirties, he was known as "Little Red" and was constantly reading from the severly limited book collection.
For anyone interested in life in the deep south during the depression there could be no better source than "The Other Room", although it is classed as fiction most of it is taken from real life. Borden used the real name of many of his chacters and where he changed the name most are easily recognized. I can identify most of the characters and am related to many. This book is a "must read"
Carroll Hale

I really enjoyed this book! I finished it in only 2 hours but I am still thinking about it days later! It is about a 13 year old boy in depression-era Mississippi who may or may not be crazy. He meets the enigmatic Charles who is his exact opposite. The main character has the same name as the author but I really hope this isnt autobigraphical. I highly suggest this book to anyone who is looking for someting out of the ordianry.

The Winner is the third book in a trilogy by Borden Deal about Mississippi politics. A review of this book would be best if it followed reviews of the first two books, The Loser and The Advocate. To me, The Loser was a better primer on southern politics that Robert Penn Warren's novel on Louisiana politics, All The King's Men. Deal establishes a Tupelo, Mississippi lawyer as the protagonist in these novels and they are the vehicles for chronicling his career. The Loser is the strongest of the three books. The Advocate represents a regrouping of the lawyer's life after losing a hard-fought battle in a three-way race for governor. He was put in the race as a loser, but almost won. In The Winner, he does win the governor's race, but that is all for naught as there is a collision with a parallel figure from the first book. The trappings of political kingmakers culminate in this tragedy of the manipulation of people's lives for one's or a group's own misdirected gains. This book can be a stand-alone read, but is much better if read in the sequence of the trilogy.