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DELAWARE FROM FREEWAYS TO E-WAYS

A unique deep dive into an often overlooked state.

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Tabler’s collection of facts, anecdotes, and photos explores Delaware’s rich history from the early 20th century to the year 2000.

This third installment in Tabler’s Delaware History Overview series is rife with engaging trivia, such as the fact that Delaware has more incorporated businesses than people, and it covers topics ranging from the state’s storied history of thriving agricultural fairs to its impressive digital advances in the health care field. The table of contents is handily sorted by subject matter and by year, and each topic is presented in bite-size portions in the text, rarely extending beyond one page. Various visual elements, consisting largely of archival photos and occasional artwork,are found on almost every page, alongside accompanying information. The narrative tone is a bit dry, though, with Tabler presenting copious amounts of information in relatively brief snippets. The only time readers get a more vivid version of events is in the extensive “Notes on Photographs” section at the book’s conclusion. For example, that’s where Tabler sets the scene for the social status implied by Delaware’s popular low-number license plates: “Animated auctioneers, the unique cadence of their theatrics echoing a rhythmic patois, fetch six-figure sums from the highest bidders. Gifted hawkers, their tongues spinning like helicopter blades, expertly push prices to impressive heights. Buyers, recognizing the deep-rooted status these plates confer, willingly engage in fierce bidding wars.” The balanced blend of straightforward facts and historical images—as well as the more florid details found in the Notes on Photographs—all result in what could be considered a classic coffee-table book.

Tabler has a knack for picking out odds and ends from history that together create a broadly engaging look at a topic that most readers might not ordinarily consider. But despite the abundance of details, the book never gets weighed down by them; instead, just as a topic risks becoming tiresome, the book zips right along to the next one. One drawback, though, is the odd organization of the information itself. The “Notes on Photographs” section is quite long, and it forces readers to flip back and forth between the photos and their in-depth explanations. These are not simply captions, either—they’re often multi-paragraph side stories, which can make for an occasionally frustrating reading experience. Still, Tabler’s investigation into Delaware’s history is impressive in its scope, and he has clearly done some rigorous research. Although the bulk of the book does indeed focus on the 20th century, Tabler includes plenty of references to pre-1900 events to provide context for certain achievements. While some readers may never have wondered (for example) how many bushels of oysters were harvested in Delaware between September 1866 and April 1867 (answer: 10 million), such trivia tidbits show the author’s unquestionable attention to detail. The resulting work will likely attract anyone with a penchant for Delaware history, or for trivia in general.

A unique deep dive into an often overlooked state.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2024

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

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NIGHT

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

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