Citizen Washington is not your typical historical novel. While it is held together by a single voice, it is broken up into many short perspectives that lend the story of George Washington a varied examination. At first I found this inconvenient, but once I got to know the people speaking, I welcomed them again and again as they returned to add their view of an event. The story is told without sentimentality or heroics. In fact, the battles fought (or retreated from) are described very simply and directly. It's been a long time since I studied American history, so it was refeshing to read how the Revolution was fought and won from a "novel" point of view. Citizen Washington is definitely worth a read. I found the Federalist vs. Republican debate especially helful, told, as it is, from characters near the debate.

This is an excellent historical novel about George Washington. The novel presents Washington through the eyes of many of the people who knew him, including his wife and his slaves as well as the other great men of the day. It is a good approach for describing a very complex man with many sides.

The book focuses primarily on Washington's life up until the time he became President. The book does cover his entire life, but his years as President are skimpy by comparison to the rest of his life. The author's interest is more on who Washington was as a man than on his public accomplishments. Focusing on his formative years provides more insight into his character.

Nevertheless, the novel demonstrates the truly great accomplishments Washington made to American history. Without Washington, we would not have won the Revolutionary War: he provided the military strategy, the determination, and the leadership needed to win. Without Washington, we would not have become a country: he provided the leadership the 13 colonies needed to come together as a union. Without Washington, we would not have become a democracy: he resisted efforts to anoint him king, and he voluntarily relinquished power--first as commanding general who won the War of Independence, and later as the nation's first President.

Washington was an admirable person, and deserves the adulation the nation gave him then and since. But of course he had his flaws, and Citizen Washington conveys them, particularly via the characters in the novel who did not idolize him. Such was Washington's force of personality, though, that even his detractors were in awe of him.

This novel is particularly valuable as an adjunct to a nonfiction account of Washington's life, the best of which is James Thomas Flexner's Washington: The Indispensable Man.

This novel was one of the most informative books I have ever read. Not only did we get a run-down on the usual suspects of the era, Jefferson, Adams, and Washington, but the insight gained on the characters which history misses sometimes, like Alexander Hamilton, Henry Knox and Martha Washington made the book very hard to put down. The way Martin intermingles fictional and non-fictional characters is a work of genius. This novel is a fast-paced, fast-reading tale which NEVER bogs the reader down with an endless string of statistics and facts. The story is always the most important part of the book, and Martin hit a home run spinning this tale. I would recommend this novel, obviously to any Martin fans, but also to anyone who has wondered what historical fiction is like. I can not wait for his next novel!!!!

This is a keeper book! I keep going back to it month after month. It has home styles as they came thru history grouped by style. It has pictures of house features that help identify what style a home is. It has lots of pictures. The only weakness I can think of is it does not have a lot of information on Home-styles being built right now. AntBiscuit@cs.com

Of the several dozen books I own of American house styles, this is the only book that systematically breaks down every American house style from the Native American tipi to Modern architecture. For every style, it gives the two critcal elements of architecture, the form/shape of the houses and their details. As a land developer, I use this book as a pattern book for the design criteria of homes built in my neighborhoods - every homeowner gets a copy! This is truly the bible of American house styles.

I worked for a few years as an architectural historian doing historic building surveys and wore out at least 2 or 3 copies of this wonderful book. There are lots of "pocket guides" to architectural styles which will tell you that yup, that thing with a turret is a Victorian. But this book is a priceless resource for anyone with more than a casual interest in American domestic architecture. The McAlesters focus on ordinary houses (rather than rare architectural landmarks) and cover everything from dog-run log cabins to Greek Revival cottages to 1950s ranch houes. The writing is clear, the level of detail is just right, and the book has hundreds of black and white photos and illustrations.

I learned about domestic architecture to make a living, but even 20 years later still enjoy it as a hobby. If you're a professional in the field, this book is essential. But I would strongly recommend it to amateur enthusiasts as well. Once you learn to recognize housing types, every drive becomes a history lesson.

I looked long and hard (and asked many a scholar) for the "perfect" Shakespeare publication that I might purchase to study "King Henry V" (for a experiential education requirement, I had undertaken the translation of Henry V into American Sign Language). The Arden Shakespeare came highly recommended by everyone, and has lived up entirely to all its rave reviews.

I will never buy Shakespeare from another publisher. While these books may be slightly more expensive than a "mass market" edition, I believe that if you are going to take the time to read and understand Shakespeare, it is well worth the extra dollar or two. The Introduction, the images, and plethora of footnotes are irreplaceable and nearly neccessary for a full understanding of the play (for those of us who are not scholars already). The photocopy of the original Quatro text in the appendix is also very interesting.

All in all, well worth it! I recommend that you buy ALL of Shakespeare's work from Arden's critical editions.

On D-Day British officers read Henry's famous words to their men as they approached the beach. When Churchill needed material for his famous "Few" speech, his thoughts turned to the pages of Henry V. From "once more into the breach" to "we happy few, we band of brothers" this play resonates with Shakespeare's paen to England's warrior king. Oh, you'll be a bit confused at the start if you haven't read Henry IV parts 1 and 2, but this is primarily the story of Henry V's victory at Agincourt. Whether the play glorifies war or just Henry you will have to decide. There is much food for thought here for the perceptive reader. But then Shakespeare is always provocative.

Required to read Henry for my AP English Language class, I came into the play with a bias. I honestly felt that it would be a boring political play. I was utterly wrong! A huge fan of Shakespeare, I found Henry V to be a formidable match for the Bard's more critically acclaimed plays, such as Hamlet and Macbeth. Henry has it all! Shakespeare's attitude toward Henry the King is certainly one of admiration. By communicating the fact that an effective monarch must have a complete understanding of the common subjects (Pistol and Bardolph and Quickly), Shakespeare sets up Henry to be the ideal Christian king. The controlled language of Henry's speeches, particularly his response to the Dauphin's idiotic insult, also glorifies Henry. I certainly recommend this play to anyone, fan of Shakespeare or not.

As a bellydancer, I picked up this book out of curiosity, mostly just to see what the author had written about the dance and how accurate it was. I was surprised to find the book both well-written, compelling, and absolutely dead-on about the world of American bellydance. Even though I learned to dance some twenty years and 3,000 miles away from where Anna Soffee first took lessons and even though my personal life is nowhere as turbulent as hers, I found myself repeatedly nodding my head and saying "Sister, I have been there and done that." The first performance at the country fair, the sleazy come-ons from men that assume that because you're a belly dancer you are also stripper/hooker, the terrible audience that is ABSOLUTELY not interested in you, the lack of understanding from family and friends, the in-fighting between dancers and troupes--it was like the author was writing about my own life.
My advice? Even if you aren't interested in belly dance, buy this book and read it any way. The style is edgy, hip, and funny and the moral of the book--that you have to accept yourself the way you are before you can achieve any sort of personal fulfillment--is ultimately very uplifting. I came away with a lot of respect for Ms. Soffee as both a dancer, a writer and a survivor.

Being a beginning belly dancer it was fun (and almost a relief) to read that someone shared the same obsessions that I have in regards to the dance. How it completely took over her thoughts, her time and her outlook ~ I was sure that she was writing about me. We share the same insecurities when it comes to dancing and we share the same joys and freedoms that it offers.
On top of that, this is a wonderful story that deals with so much more! Even if I didn't dance, I would have still enjoyed this book and still have given it 5 stars.
Thank you Anne for sharing your very funny, very honest and very entertaining story.

I like the idea of finding a hobby to recover from a break-up, and I love the idea of the hobby being belly-dancing. But I can't claim that distinction; that is Anne Thomas Soffee's privilege, and the plot for her memoirs, Snake Hips: Belly Dancing and How I Found True Love. As much as this comparision is unfair to Ms. Soffee, it reads a little like a certain diary by a London singleton. However, in this case, "true love" contains four things: 1. belly dancing and 2. getting in touch with one's roots and 3. self-love and... But, time out. I'm a disbeliever in true self love, so it's rather like a compromise between Ms. Soffee and herself, some point of satisfaction where you can stop judging yourself by society's standards and say, "Okay, so these are the things that are 'wrong' with me, but I could live with that." And when she finds this third love, it's when the fourth, Mr. Possibly Right, steps into the scene. This book also throws some light into traditional belly-dancing and the small-but-growing modern American society of belly-dancers, and erases most of the images I have of a slim, half-naked and gauzily-veiled girl gyrating. But who deemed that to be the only sort of beauty, the only "belly-dancer" that there has to be?

To be American, it's more or less likely that you came from elsewhere. To be human, it's definite that you've had one failed relationship. And when autobiographies are done right, they're like this-- an ordinary storyline told with sincerity and humor (some of it wry) and the more elusive flow, most often described in reviews as a "good ear." Don't miss out.

Warning ! Before you start to read "Marching Through Culpeper" be very sure you have 48 hours with nothing else to do! You will not be able to leave the story and characters of this wonderful novel based in Civil War Culpeper, Virginia!
Virginia Morton has created a masterpiece of historical fiction. The story-line is well crafted, the fictional characters individually interesting and engaging, and best of all, the detailed history and real-life Civil War heros are portrayed to educate and entertain.
Those of us who are not Civil War buffs, read history only occasionally and may be from "Union territory", definitely do not have an adequate understanding of the impact of the Civil War. I learned more from "Marching Through Culpeper" than from all the history classes taken in my earlier years! This book brings you right into the heart of the conflict - up close and very personal.
I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone! It is a great novel for men, women and is quite suitable for teenagers. It will grab your heart, test your mind and will become a part of your life. You will remember this book and you will read it again! When is the MOVIE coming out???
I give it a FIVE-STAR rating!!

I just completed Virginia Morton's "Marching Through Culpeper." I found it a delightful book about a southern town in Virginia that endured the hardships of being caught between the two armies during the Civil War.

As a native Californian who taught American history to 5th graders, I now have a different perspective of the southern states and their part in the Civil War.

"Marching Through Culpeper" is about real people and some fictional characters too. It is a book based on well documented fact, and is also a wonderful love story. It compares favorablly with "Gone With the Wind" except the main character, Constance, is a much more admirable woman than Scarlett. It would make a great movie.

Marching Through Culpeper is as good as Gone with the Wind! I enjoyed it more because it was so factual. Virginia B. Morton has written a compelling tale about real people and true events woven together with a few fictional characters. The way Morton handled the time changes gave the book a sense of immediacy. She brought it all to life for me.

Once I got into this book, it grabbed me and tugged my heartstrings. I cried, I cheered-I couldn't put it down! The romance was exciting and tantalizing (not trashy), leaving the details to the reader's imagination. Don't worry parents, this book is appropriate for you teenage daughters. It was refreshing and inspiring to read about moral God-fearing people. Above all else, this is a touching love story with an ending I will not soon forget.

Frank Stringfellow was my favorite non-fictional character. His antics again prove that old adage that truth is more exciting than fiction. The interplay of jealousies among the Confederate generals was an eye opener for me. Wonderful Sadie and that handsome Aaron Ames were my favorite fictional characters. The book was incredibly well balanced. On one hand I watched Stringfellow's escapades and battle scenes. On the other were Contance's romances and the valor of the women. This timeless story will be loved by a universal audience-male and female-young and old. You don't have to be a Civil War buff to enjoy it. I'm amazed at the amount of history, romance and adventure Morton packed into 544 pages. Because of it's length this book is equivalent to two normal novels and well worth the price.

When I first saw the beautiful cover, I said, "If this book's is as good as the cover, it will be a jewel." It's better than the cover! Buy this treasure for your family. Marching Through Culpeper is destined to become a classic and some one's bound to make a fantastic movie of it!

I read the first book in this bloodhound series while travelling through the Okefenokee Swamp on vacation in 1996. I have eagerly anticipated each subsequent addition. Anyone with a love of animals, a love of mysteries, a love of gutsy women, or a love of southern colloquialisms will relish each book. I do encourage everyone to read them in order. In fact, due to an impending birth , I have been homebound, and just finished reading the first four books all over. I wait with bated breath for the fifth one to arrive. Jo Beth, Jasmine, Wayne, Hank, and all of the other fascinating cast of characters are captivating and unique. However, it's Bobby Lee, Melanie, Ashley, and all of the bloodhounds who make the books come to life.

I have read all of Virginia Laniers books and they are vivid and exciting. She brings the people into your life as if you are part of the story line. You ride in her truck and walk along side of Jo-Beth as she searches the swamps for victims and murderers. Her bloodhounds are real heart winners and Bobby Lee is wonderful to have living in the house with Jo-Beth along side of Rudy. Same charters from book to book so you never lose sight of the picture she is painting. Each book is another part of your life in Georgia in search and rescue along with solving mysteries of murder, kidnapping and theif. This book is an A+++ just like Laniers other books.

Once again Virginia Lanier's riveting story of bloodhound sleuthing was worth the wait. I read it in 11 non stop exciting hours. Virginia Lanier manages to tell several different stories all wrapped together in one book. She also captures the essence of small town southern living. I'm sure I will think about the story and the characters for several months while I patiently wait for her next Bloodhound book. These stories pull you in and make you feel like your part of the story, running through the woods with Jo Beth sidden and her trusty man trailers hot on someone's scent. I hope Virginia Lanier will continue to write books about Jo Beth Sidden and her wonderful and colorful bloodhounds.

When I quit my day job, and struck out on my own, this book was invaluable. In fact, I re-read it now and then, to help my piece of mind. Weinberg's book describes several key aspects of consulting, which a consultant needs to know for success. Trust of the client, pricing the consultant can live with, pitfalls to avoid are some topics. Though Weinberg describes general management consulting, his principles extend to other consulting fields. Best of all, I know when to say $100 an hour, and when to say $50, and to be happy with the result. Yet the reading is light and enjoyable. Recommended especially for the self-employed consultant, or the downsized or dilbertized, who want to be self-employed.

Although such tomes generally fall into one of two categories: simple "self-help" books or overly technical treatises, SECRETS straddles the line between the two, offering extremely useful and practical advice that is obviously mined from years of experience. Having heard the praise this book has earned for years, I recently purchased the book and read it over the course of a single day of travel - a day of personal epiphany.

Gerald Weinberg covers the key aspect of the consulting business: getting and giving advice. He vividly illustrates the sometimes difficult-to-understand fact that the business is about making money while problem solving, NOT about getting personal credit. His advice will aid in building confidence in yourself, and in your ability to hear and analyze the environments in which you problem-solve.

This book is a simple, quick read - a MUST read for anyone interested in improving their consulting skills.

This title by Weinberg is *THE* book to have if you fill any type of consulting role. Don't worry if you aren't a full time, dreaded consultant - you'll find plenty of good rules on giving and receiving advice in this work. I have personally purchased 5 copies of this over the years because my copies seem to "disapear" as soon as I tell anyone about it.

Every single person who picks up this book on my recommendation takes the time to let me know how much they liked it - and that says something about Jerry's work. Because Jerry gets his points across by telling stories, this book is the perfect read for a flight, a few minutes between meetings, or when you can't take another seventeen noun, passive voice sentence that most IT texts use.

A must buy for anyone who works in teams, gives advice, or ....well, it's for anyone.

I don't regret buying this book and will read the rest in the series, I'm sure. One intersting thing about this book was you really don't know what the main plot is until the very end, because there are so many of them. This annoyed me at first, but then I realized it made the book more unpredictable and therefore more interesting. It also read more like someone's real life would be instead of a story that follows a predetermined formula. The main character (Jo Beth) was a little over the top sometimes, but was also funny and strong, which I like. If you are thinking about buying this book, I would definitely say go for it.

Just finished Death in Bloodhound Red after discovering it in a bag of unread books inadvertently packed away in my basement. Thank goodness I was on vacation, since I read until 3:30 in the morning and then resumed over a late breakfast. What a great read, fresh and unusual, a welcome change from the tired plots where I've guessed the outcome 20 pages into the book. I love strong female protagaonists and Jo Beth fits the bill. She's smart, feisty, caring and wary, comfortable with who she is and how she came to be that way. I enjoyed the look into the world of bloodhound training and rescue searches, gritty details and all, and I appreciated Ms. Lanier's evocation of her southern setting. I've just ordered everything else (except a puppy) in the series, thank-you Amazon, and can't wait to get them. I may have to take another week of vacation to hang out with Jo Beth!

As an avid reader of mysteries,an avid breeder/exhibitor of show dogs,and a southern woman,I began reading this book with the idea that I would have to overlook dogs behaving in an un-doglike manner and the usual "magnolia" approach toward writing a southern female protagonist. Was I ever surprised,charmed,and spellbound by Ms. Lanier's DEATH IN BLOODHOUND RED! Her main character,Jo Beth Sidden,is a marvelous blend of toughness and vunerability. She is quirky,independent and,at times,walks a very thin line between law and lawlessness. I,also,particularly enjoyed the collection of friends,enemies,and townspeople..each character was a three-dimensional,well thought-out personality. Her dogs and her relationship with them was very well-done and will tug sympathetic strings in any reader who loves dogs. The suspense of the plot with it's unexpected twists kept me turning pages long into the night. An engrossing read for any lover of a good mystery.

In this somewhat puzzling novel the sun rises and it sets, six people grow together from infant children to old age, and the waves crash endlessly upon the shore. That is about as close as you will get to a plot in this book. Everything else that happens, school, marriage, even death, seem to be nothing more than passing intensities amid the overbearing silence that is the roar of existence.

I picked up this book after reading Mrs Dalloway. I loved Dalloway. It was the first Woolf book I had read and it blew me away. In comparison, reading The Waves was like taking a sandblaster to my eyeballs. She uses stream of consciousness as a medium to delve as deep as she possibly can into the intricacy of existence. Not much happens on a specific and literal level outside of the rising of the sun, but the endless poetry pouring forth from the perceptive cores (I'd say "minds" but I think it goes a bit beyond even that) of these six characters speaks volumes on the fearsome intensity of beauty, the vast complexity of sadness, and the endless endless isolation of the human soul.

It is at times so deep and so personal that I felt more than a bit uncomfortable reading it. The effort is well worth it however. Woolf more than any other author I have read, struggles to communicate the hidden message contained in all stories and books... A message forever clouded in meanings and phrases... Lost in its own words.

Even if you've read other Virigina Woolf, you haven't come close to the experience of The Waves. Did you have to read To the Lighthouse for some class back in college? The Waves seems like a totally different author. Perhaps Jacob's Room comes closer, but still The Wave is unique:

The whole text is entirely soliloquys in the first person. No 3rd person description, no omniscient narrator, just the opening of quotation marks, one of the few characters begins to speak, then the ending of quotation marks... beginning once more with the opening quotation marks for the next speaker's soliloquy, and so on and on in waves of thought.

We follow each speaker from early childhood to old age, and we know them intimately by the book's end. Give the book a chance; at first I could only take three or four *pages* at a time, but also looked forward to these few pages every day. Later, I could easily read more and more, and truly the experience was like "waves" of life, lapping over my consciousness.

If you like unique "novels," e.g. Nabokov's Pale Fire (although different it's unique too), this is a must-have. There's nothing else like it, even in Virginia Woolf's body of work.

If you can't take the full load of first-person consciousness, but like her dreamy style, then go for her book of short stories. But I recommend keeping the book, and treating yourself, a few pages at a time... you too will feel at the end of a magnificent life's journey by time you follow each character's thoughts to the end.

You have never read a book like this. But don't let that intimidate. This is her most experimental work, but it is still much more accesible than many other modernists. Her sentences and paragraphs are intelligible; it's more the accumulation of pages that might begin to baffle some readers. Woolf obviously requires a good deal of concentration, but her best works are rewarding in a way that many difficult writers are not. (You won't need a professor nearby or a mess of annotations to guide you through dense thickets of allusion-filled, abstract prose.)

I consider this to be Woolf's greatest work. Mrs. Dalloway may be a more pleasurable read and more consistently a "masterpiece", but the Waves is often so intense and beautiful that it's devastating. In fact, there are times that one is a bit overwhelmed by the surfeit of emotion, poetic words, unremitting interiority.

My Woolf pix in order: 1. Waves 2. Dalloway 3. Jacob's Room 4. A Room of One's Own 5. Orlando

I personally feel that To the Lighthouse is more of a work to be appreciated than liked--it's simply too refined. And I couldn't make it through Between the Acts--too many upper class English people sitting around a table in the country sipping tea and performing their subtle, boring manners.

Wait, I can't end on a sour note: Woolf is a bloody delight!

Virginia Holman's Rescuing Patty Hearst pulled me in from the very first pages. I couldn't put it down. The kids had to fix their own dinner, put themselves to bed, and I stayed up until a little past midnight to finish it. Hers is a story that is fascinating, painful, funny, and educational. She writes with great clarity and deftness and an honesty that is astonishing. I'm encouraging everyone in my family to read this book, and I think it should be on everyone's reading list, especially those with mentally ill family members or who work in the mental health profession.

In the early 70s, Virginia Holman's mother kidnapped her to a shack on the Chesapeake Bay, painted the windows black, and recruited her to be a soldier in her hallucinated war to save the children. At times tender, often heartwrenching, and with lyric language, Holman's memoir uncovers the painful, secret lives of people who survive schizophrenia in the family. It is an extrarodinary story, told with astonishing honesty and beauty, and finally a sense of hope strong as forged steel.

Do not miss reading this book. It is stunning.

I found Virginia Holman's Rescuing Patty Hearst to be deeply moving. I too have a family member who suffers from mental illness and can relate to the isolation, the shame, and the struggle to find help from the community. Her depiction of a child raised by a schizophrenic mother is heartbreaking. Children often explore the boundary between fantasy and reality, and here, her mother's psychosis blurs those lines even further. Her mother's delusions become enmeshed into her everyday life. As the author grows into a young woman, she begins to sense the immensity of what is lost, and a different kind of struggle begins. How can her mother be helped when she denies needing it? How can her father, her sister and herself cope with the enormous loss and live fulfilling lives when their world is dominated by an illness that destroys the woman they love? Holman's brave memoir is a testament to the enduring human spirit and to the power of love. Through this book she offers a powerful gift to the world, giving valuable insight into the lives of families torn asunder by mental illness.