Foote covers the battle from flank to flank for all three days and weaves in such related vignettes as Stuart's truancy and the cavalry action as well. It is helpful for the reader/listerner to have some general background knowledge of the battle, but Foote provides brief descriptions of the various players as the story rolls along.

These cassettes are out of print but well worth tracking down and even paying above-market money for. "Stars in Their Courses" is a perfect audiobook for a trip or long daily commute; you will find yourself looking forward to getting in the car to drive to work. A classic.

Foote is a master storyteller, and listening to the gripping account of the battle in his clear, conversational voice made the words come alive for me, reminding me why I liked Ken Burns' documentary so much. For many, like myself, who own and have read Foote's masterful trilogy, perhaps there is not much new here that cannot be found by picking up the appropriate portions of his second larger volume. However, by listening to the audio version of Stars in their Courses, you can re-immerse yourself in the Gettysburg campaign, and listen to this excellent account of the battle, as well as the events leading up to it, to and from work in the author's own voice.

There are a few odd details, like Foote's strange insertion of battle drums on a couple of occasions, which is startling after listening to hours of him speaking. Foote doesn't tell you when the side is over or when to change tapes, so you are always waiting for a minute or two to see whether the tape has indeed ended or a new subject begun. Also, since this is taken out of a larger work, occasionally we are introduced to characters that have been more presented, with biographical data, earlier in the Narrative History but not here. It helps to have a passing understanding of many of the key figures in the battle, but it is not essential to enjoying the work as a whole. Overall, these are trifling objections, and this audio book, at least in its unabridged format, is about as good as it gets.

25 1/2 hours of pure enjoyment. The highlights for me were the well-described battle of the Monitor and Merrimack ironclads, biographical profiles of Lincoln, Davis, Lee, Sherman, and Grant, and MacClellan, the conflicts between Washington D.C. and Richmond, and the conflicts in the Tennessee and Mississippi valleys.

I can't wait to begin part 2!

Mr. Foote describes in great passionate detail the individual participants, strategy and events leading up to, during and after this battle. Take a glimpse back in time at the beautiful and tranquil rolling hills of Pennsylvania farmland. Soon to erupt to the most massive cannonade attack of the war. The once peaceful farmland will be covered by rivers of blood. Strewn throughout the countryside mounds of the dead and dying both man and beast .

After listening to this gripping audio tape, you will have experience the tragedies and horror of this battle both physically and psychologically from both sides. This account by Mr. Foote is a keeper and is a constant reminder of the ultimate sacrifice.

Read it.

Like other reviewers, I especially liked the inclusion of Foote's fiction though more was read into it than probably should have. However, I think Chapman does a good job in bringing the hidden and private Foote to us. With all his foibles, Shelby Foote is destined to be remembered for generations.

If you're a fan of history then you need to read Shelby Foote: A Writer's Life.

To say that Foote has a way with words is an understatement. Here is a completely compelling story of a campaign that was a defining moment of the war. In the course of less than 300 pages, Foote provides a powerful tale told in such subtle strokes that you become part of history without being aware of being pulled into it.

There are lots of other works about Gettysburg. Most are longer, none are so well told.

I read most of this book while we were on a family outing to the Gettysburg battlefield last year. It put the battle in complete context. The combination of reading this brilliant account and seeing firsthand how geography shaped the battle was priceless.

In Chekhov's stories, marriage is hardly a bed of roses, usually resulting in discontentment, depression, and adultery; nowhere is this more perfectly executed than in "The Lady with the Dog," which ends with the two transgressors not contrite over their sins, but resolving to carry on their affair in the face of uncertainty. In "The Party," a young married couple's disharmony culminates in a tragedy that underscores their need to love each other. Chekhov's characters tend to marry for the wrong reasons, like societal pressure, false hopes of marital bliss ("The Helpmate," "Betrothed"), and convenience and mutual benefit ("Anna on the Neck"). His characters usually are people who mean well but do the wrong things: In "At a Country House," a cultural elitist has a habit of scaring off the very men he wants his daughters to marry.

Chekhov also touches on themes of pure, often unrequited, love. "The Beauties" is a plaintive tale of infatuation, of a boy's enthralling first discovery of intangible feminine beauty. His lonely characters, such as in "The Schoolmistress," "A Doctor's Visit," and "The Darling," are often prisoners of their own inhibitions, obsessions, and self-obligations.

Other topics are covered, often exhibiting a world-weary cynicism. In the amusing fable "The Shoemaker and the Devil," the protagonist's conclusion is not the cliched lesson to be thankful for the few things he has in life, but rather that there is nothing in life worth selling his soul to the devil for. "Rothschild's Fiddle" is like a Marc Chagall painting set to prose, portraying the futility and bitterness of life offset by the beauty of art, while "Whitebrow" is a fuzzy parable. Chekhov also displays a talent for drawing comical characters, such as the talkative blowhard in "The Petchenyeg" and the prudish protagonist of "The Man in a Case." A mark of Chekhov's style is that these people often are oblivious to their own idiosyncrasies, a touch that injects as much comedy as tragedy into the stories.

These stories might leave one with the impression that Chekhov was pessimistic about love and marriage, and even life, but in my opinion they emphasize a fundamental truism about fiction -- much as in comedy, where failure is funnier than success, even though "good" love is what makes the world go around, "bad" love is more interesting to write about.

Chekhov is a master, but I almost wish he'd never existed. His prose is so deceptively simple that it will make everyone reading him, be they caterers, kids, or Senate whips, think "I can do that!" Needless to say, they can't.

This doesn't mean anyone will ever stop trying. Chekhov fans the flames of megalomania in what Sartre called the "Sunday writer", dilettantes like Mathieu in The Age of Reason. Almost every short story written now is in either the style of Raymond Carver or Chekhov, and Carver was just the first to graft Chekhov's style onto American subjects. What is that style? It's not as instantly recognizable as Kafka's or Joyce's -- two terminal figures who can't be imitated -- but if you want an example of it, grab any New Yorker that might be lying around the house and flip to the short story. Got one? Okay, now notice how it doesn't end with a swordfight or an orgy. Instead, it will most likely hinge on a simple misunderstanding, such as a man making an offhand comment that causes his wife to lose all respect for him, or else some kind of sudden revelation; like an interior monologue where, after seeing two schoolgirls share a bologna sandwich, a professional woman realizes her entire life is corrupt and shallow. Shocks of recognition, mundane realism, and a muted climax ( this last is especially crucial; the professional woman above wouldn't throw off her worldly chattels and move to India, but would simply go back to her office, maybe even with a little excitement to get to work on a new ad campaign ) -- these are the hallmarks of Chekhovian writing.

The bad news is that we can look forward to an eternity of these pale imitations. Because the times are always changing, Chekhov's journalistic style -- remember he started out as a newspaperman -- ALWAYS APPLIES. It's a nightmare. But that's no reason to keep you, as it kept me for so long, from the original. All of Chekhov's best stories are here, or in the other two volumes of the Modern Library series ( where the nitpicker below can find the other stories whose absence he laments, except "Gusev," which is in this one. )

Two facts about Foote's history. First, the focus is on the South. Foote spends more time on Jefferson Davis than he does on Abraham Lincoln. The Southern generals are more lovingly drawn than the northerners. Secondly, Foote gives more space than the typical historian to the war in the West, as befits his own ancestry as a Mississipian. Vicksburg gets almost equal time with Gettysburg and Foote avoids the Virginia-itis of so many Civil War historians.

The long chapter on Gettysburg is considered by many to be the centerpiece of the three volumes, but I keep returning to Foote's tale of the masterful Second Manassas campaign, pages 585-649, Volume I. The most regrettable omission of the book is the short shrift Foote gives to the assault by Negro troops on Fort Wagner, South Carolina (page 697-698, Volume 2). (See the movie "Glory.") Surely, this battle deserves more attention for its human interest quality, if not its military significance. The most fascinating character is the "Wizard of the Saddle," Nathan Bedford Forrest. The South didn't want to win badly enough to give Forrest, an evil genius, a major command until late in the war. One wonders what might have happened if he had been in command at Perryville or Vicksburg.

This is a book that will always occupy a prominent place on my bookshelf. My only regret is that it isn't longer. I usually complain about books being too long, but 3,000 pages isn't enough to tell the tale of the Civil War. More! More!