by Dave Tabler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2023
Striking images and amusing stories paint a colorful (if disorganized) portrait of 19th-century Delaware.
Tabler presents this eclectic collection of tales about the “First State” in the 19th century.
The second book in the author’s intended trilogy on Delaware history covers the 19th century, with a bit extra on either end. From early town planning through the Civil War, suffragists, and early automobiles, Tabler takes the reader through a series of vignettes about intriguing, amusing, or notable incidents in the history of Delaware, compiling a gallimaufry of colorful characters and political shifts. Ten sidebars highlight compelling aspects of local culture and customs, such as “Return Day” (a celebration of rival political parties working to resolve their issues),scrapple, and whipping posts—which, surprisingly, were still legal until 1972, making Delaware the last state to abolish them. Instead of aiming for a comprehensive account of the region, the author chooses an eclectic approach that makes the reader’s experience seem like spending an afternoon in a quaint local history museum with an enthusiastic docent. The contents are entertaining and varied, offering glimpses of little-known aspects of American history, from Colonial-era enmity between Whigs and Tories to inventions such as the Manby mortar, a cannon-like device used in rescuing people from sinking ships, to a bartending goose. Striking images (including full-color photographs and maps) and brief introductory remarks are grouped in the first 74 pages, with more detailed text following from page 75 on—this requires readers who want more than captions to keep flipping forward and back to read a full story. Presenting the material in chronological order often separates related incidents and themes, and Tabler doesn’t always connect the events being discussed. For example, violent incidents occurring during the elections of 1787 are mentioned in two adjacent entries that don’t reference each other—although they illustrate that hot tempers and contested votes are nothing new in American history.
Overall, the author’s selection of topics seems somewhat arbitrary, more a collection of random items than an organized sequence of major events. This approach yields sometimes odd juxtapositions, with the Underground Railroad and scrapple’s humble origins presented back-to-back and a pioneering astronomer profiled between accounts of Civil War hardships. In a few cases, Tabler includes information that is only tenuously tied to the state, as when relating the famous “cherry tree” story about George Washington, invented by Parson Weems, even though it appears that Weems’ only Delaware connection is that he once preached at St. Peter’s church in Lewes. Overall, however, the author achieves a nice balance of humorous and serious elements. Tabler’s straightforward writing style is appropriate for the material, but it is often marred by awkward phrasing and clunky sentences. The author is also overly fond of puns and sometimes falls back on clichés (“Combustible plant working conditions were accidents waiting to happen”). The 140 engaging, high-quality images are arranged to provide context for present-day photos of artifacts and locations. While all of the images have source references (the acknowledgments cite more than 40 organizations and individuals), no sources or notes are provided for the text. Striking images and amusing stories paint a colorful (if disorganized) portrait of 19th-century Delaware.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9798987000632
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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author-photographer Dave Tabler
by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
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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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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.
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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by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
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by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
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