Have you read "Back to the Homeplace"??

Have you read "Back to the Homeplace"??

Here is the third interview in Oak Springs - 25 years or so ago... right before the beginning of the novel, "Back to the Homeplace." As if we were there, looking in our Bevins family... ;-)


http://thehomeplaceseries.blogspot.com/2012/07/penny-nixons-my-hometown-bart-bevins.html


Happy Reading ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Founding Gardeners

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Founding Gardeners


Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation, by Andrea Wulf


This is the thirty-seventh entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]


Book Description on Amazon:

From the author of the acclaimed The Brother Gardeners, a fascinating look at the founding fathers from the unique and intimate perspective of their lives as gardeners, plantsmen, and farmers.
For the founding fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating. Andrea Wulf reveals for the first time this aspect of the revolutionary generation. She describes how, even as British ships gathered off Staten Island, George Washington wrote his estate manager about the garden at Mount Vernon; how a tour of English gardens renewed Thomas Jefferson’s and John Adams’s faith in their fledgling nation; how a trip to the great botanist John Bartram’s garden helped the delegates of the Constitutional Congress break their deadlock; and why James Madison is the forgotten father of American environmentalism. These and other stories reveal a guiding but previously overlooked ideology of the American Revolution.
Founding Gardeners adds depth and nuance to our understanding of the American experiment and provides us with a portrait of the founding fathers as they’ve never before been seen.





Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? The Social Conquest of Earth

It's Monday, What are You Reading?

The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson


This is the thirty-sixth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]


Book Description on Amazon:

#13 on NPR's Bestseller List (24 Jun 2012)



From the most celebrated heir to Darwin comes a groundbreaking book on evolution, the summa work of Edward O. Wilson's legendary career.

Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going? In a generational work of clarity and passion, one of our greatest living scientists directly addresses these three fundamental questions of religion, philosophy, and science while “overturning the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover magazine). Refashioning the story of human evolution in a work that is certain to generate headlines, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to show that group selection, not kin selection, is the primary driving force of human evolution. He proves that history makes no sense without prehistory, and prehistory makes no sense without biology. Demonstrating that the sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts are fundamentally biological in nature, Wilson presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth’s biosphere. 90 illustrations

Click on the photo to go to Amazon.com page for the book




Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

Amazon and book-publishing - An update from The Nation

Amazon and book-publishing - An update from The Nation

Just read this long, authoritative article:
http://www.thenation.com/article/168125/amazon-effect#

Posting here for anyone interested and for my own reference. Enjoy. Comments welcomed.

Happy Reading!  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? First Friend by Kathleen Reid

It's Monday, What are You Reading? First Friend: Thomas Jefferson: The Original Social Networker (a young adult novel)
by Kathleen Reid


This is the thirty-fifth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

This book finally arrived - it was from the January LibraryThing Early Reviewer list.

Book Description on Amazon:

Thomas Jefferson developed the first social network 200 years before the founders of MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn were born. He wrote more than 20,000 letters to thousands of friends during his lifetime. His network was the foundation of a lifelong commitment to learning that left a legacy we all benefit from today. First Friend brings Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, author of the Declaration of Independence, author of the Statutes of Virginia for Religious Freedom and founder of the University of Virginia to just cite a few of his prodigious accomplishments to life for a new generation. Based on scholarly research but written to appeal to readers overwhelmed by minutiae, First Friend allows readers to see Thomas Jefferson through a familiar lens, and see Thomas Jefferson as a friend, a connection in their social network. His life, his accomplishments, his travail and triumph are experienced as he would blog, tweet and text them to his social network. First Friend is Vol. 1 of the Wakestone Legacy Series. The Wakestone Legacy Series is about approachable history. Stories of the people who shaped our nation and culture and upon whose shoulders we all stand. Written for young adults (of all ages) these books bring alive the men and women we know we are supposed to know. We are the beneficiaries of the experiences of those who came before, but their stories have too often been lost amongst the press of scholarship, buried under the need for the new and controversial. The Wakestone Legacy Series biographies bring their stories into a modern context and allow us to see them through a new, brighter lens.




Click on the photo to go to Amazon.com page for the book

Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? The Forgotten Founding Father

It's Monday, What are You Reading? The Forgotten Founding Father


The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture - by Joshua Kendall

This is the thirty-fifth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

Book Description on Amazon:

Noah Webster's name is now synonymous with the dictionary he created, but his story is not nearly so ubiquitous. Now acclaimed author of The Man Who Made Lists, Joshua Kendall sheds new light on Webster's life, and his far-reaching influence in establishing the American nation.
Webster hobnobbed with various Founding Fathers and was a young confidant of George Washington and Ben Franklin. He started New York's first daily newspaper, predating Alexander Hamilton's New York Post. His "blue-backed speller" for schoolchildren sold millions of copies and influenced early copyright law. But perhaps most important, Webster was an ardent supporter of a unified, definitively American culture, distinct from the British, at a time when the United States of America were anything but unified-and his dictionary of American English is a testament to that.





Click on the photo to go to Amazon.com page for the book

Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 
Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer


This is the thirty-fourth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]


My wife got this book for me on Kindle, special sale, not realizing it was Pulitzer Prize winner!

Book Description on Amazon - Series: Pivotal Moments in American History (Oxford) Feb 1, 2006

Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution was all but lost. A powerful British force had routed the Americans at New York, occupied three colonies, and advanced within sight of Philadelphia.

Yet, as David Hackett Fischer recounts in this riveting history, George Washington--and many other Americans--refused to let the Revolution die. On Christmas night, as a howling nor'easter struck the Delaware Valley, he led his men across the river and attacked the exhausted Hessian garrison at Trenton, killing or capturing nearly a thousand men. A second battle of Trenton followed within days. The Americans held off a counterattack by Lord Cornwallis's best troops, then were almost trapped by the British force. Under cover of night, Washington's men stole behind the enemy and struck them again, defeating a brigade at Princeton. The British were badly shaken. In twelve weeks of winter fighting, their army suffered severe damage, their hold on New Jersey was broken, and their strategy was ruined.

Fischer's richly textured narrative reveals the crucial role of contingency in these events. We see how the campaign unfolded in a sequence of difficult choices by many actors, from generals to civilians, on both sides. While British and German forces remained rigid and hierarchical, Americans evolved an open and flexible system that was fundamental to their success. The startling success of Washington and his compatriots not only saved the faltering American Revolution, but helped to give it new meaning.




Click on the photo to go to Amazon.com page for the book

Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)