Mornings On Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio CD] Review

The two readers for this meticulously researched biography of Theodore Roosevelt add appeal, especially when reading the parts with the southern lady or Irish accents.Well done!

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FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF JOHN ADAMS
Winner of the 1982 National Book Award for Biography, Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it is the story of a remarkable little boy -- seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma -- and his struggle to manhood.
His father -- the first Theodore Roosevelt, "Greatheart," -- is a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. His mother -- Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt -- is a Southerner and celebrated beauty.
Mornings on Horseback spans seventeen years -- from 1869 when little "Teedie" is ten, to 1886 when he returns from the West a "real life cowboy" to pick up the pieces of a shattered life and begin anew, a grown man, whole in body and spirit.
This is a tale about family love and family loyalty...about courtship, childbirth and death, fathers and sons...about gutter politics and the tumultuous Republican Convention of 1884...about grizzly bears, grief and courage, and "blessed" mornings on horseback at Oyster Bay or beneath the limitless skies of the Badlands.

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A Morning for Flamingos (Mass Market Paperback) Review

I had just about given up on James Lee Burke.After being stunned with the genius of"Neon Rain," I found most contemporary Dave Robicheaux novels rather gloomy and over-described affairs.Went back to "Black Cherry Blues" his Edgar-winning novel and was disappointed.Now, I feel I've read another gem.I am doubly pleased because from reading and seeing interviews, I think James Lee Burke is one of the most charming authors around.
"A Morning for Flamingos" begins with the death of Dave's partner while transporting two prisoners, Te Beau, a New Iberia boy to whom Dave has certain obligations, and the menacing Jamie Lee Boggs.Dave is left critically wounded and remembers little of the actual escape.The story leads to underworld figures, voodoo, and the sordid, steamy underside of New Orleans.
The pace and brooding menace never let up, and Burke allows no loose ends to annoy the reader.The characterizations are sharp, descriptive, and unforgettable.The solution is elegant and exciting.I liked Dave all over again.

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All those mornings . . . at the Post The 20th Century in Sports from Famed Washington Post Columnist Shirley Povich (Paperback) Review

An interesting conversation took place the other day. I mentioned to my grandfather, now in his early 80s, that I had just bought the new book entitled "All those Mornings...at the Post." And he responded with, "I grew up reading Shirley Povich."

My response: "So did I, and I am 25." And so did my father. That's the amazing thing about Povich - he linked generations. He wrote about stars from Walter Johnson to Michael Jordan and everyone in between.

As a freelance sports writer, and former sports editor of my college newspaper, the Towerlight in Towson, Md., Povich was my biggest inspiration growing up and I would be willing to bet that most other sportswriters or aspiring sportswriters feel the same way.

I tried to put in perspective to my wife how influential he was. I said he is the Humphrey Bogart of sports writing. He is the epitome of what newspapermen should be and he was just as good in 1994 as he was in 1924.

The amazing thing is he never retired and wrote his final column the day before he died in 1998. This book brings his most important columns to life and for people of my generation we get to live events such as the Senators' only World Series title in 1924 for the first time.

This book is a treasure and is highly recommended to anyone who has ever read a sports column. Chances are the person who wrote the column did so because Shirley L. Povich inspired him.


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Wings Of Morning: The Story Of The Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany In World War II [Paperback] Review

Having heard all of Dr. Childer's excellent audio courses available from the Teaching Company, I had very high expectations for this book.I was not disappointed; Wings of Morning is an exceptional book that details the war time experiences of a B-24 bomber crew from their initial induction and training, to their deployment to England as part of the 8th Air Force, through their fateful final mission in the closing days of Word War II.A final mission, incidentally, that the reader can not help but conclude should have never been flown.
Based on hundreds of crewmember letters home, Wings of Morning provides insights that go far beyond the usual combat narrative.The combat experience is here to be sure, but so is the training, off-duty hours, weekend leaves, camaraderie, devotion to duty, exhilaration, boredom, bravery, fear, hope for the future, and the families back home.This book, more than any I've ever read, gave me an appreciation for the near constant tension that these men must have felt.I repeatedly found myself asking what I would have done in similar situations and realizing anew why those who fought World War II are rightly called the "Greatest Generation".
Wings of Morning does not end with the loss of a B-24 crew over Regensburg, Germany, in April of 1945 nor with the War Department notifications to the families waiting at home.Professor Childer's uncle was a crew member on that tragic flight and the final chapters of this extraordinary book detail his quest to reconstruct the final mission of a B-24 known as the Black Cat.
I've read and own many good books about World War II but none has had the impact of Wings of Morning.Thank you, Dr. Childers, for this insightful and thought provoking work...

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Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn (Paperback) Review

Evan Connell has written a powerful book.It is a balanced presentation of George Armstrong Custer, the post-Civil War Indian Wars, Plains Indians and the myth of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Facts abound.Istarted this book thinking it would primarily focus on Gen. Custer and thefight.While those topics are the framework of the book, Connell spendsquite a bit of time exploring various indian chiefs, indian practices,previous conflicts and the conditions that produced one of our country'smost celebrated battles.First person quotes are abundent and the authorusually produces two or more sides to every episode.These explorationsunderscore how difficult getting at a true history is, particulary whenpride and ego rest on a particular telling of an event.He has done verygood research.
This is a brutal book.American and indian savagry arelaid bare.Warfare and existence on the frontier were not pretty. The"rules" of war were abandoned by both sides with regard to thetaking of prisoners or the frequent butchering of women and children alongwith those unlucky enough to be in the path of maurading soldiers or indianbands.Connell's book leaves no doubt that American notions of racialsuperiority, mainfest destiny and economics created the situation in whichthe indians would fight in the extreme to protect their lands from whiteencroachment.However, the author also underscores that most of the indiantribes were brutal and ruthless when attacking other tribes, lone indiansand in their own rituals and customs.Had America respected it's indiantreaties, it can be argued that the indian lands still would have hadatrocities visited upon them as various tribes concentrated their full timeattentions on settling the wrongs each felt had been metted out by otherred men.His refusal to treat the indian as a politically correctmanifestation of mother nature is refreshing and allows for a very balancedtelling of the story.
The author has a unique writing style.He doesn'tcome to a fork in the road without taking it.These side tracks andtangents allow him to explore in full the charactors and milieu attendentto The Last Stand.However, they are presented in no particular order orchronology.The author paints a strong impression rather than presentingan ordered and structured telling of a compelling tale.This incohesion isso pronounced that the end of a chapter has no meaning other than to allowone to catch one's breath before plunging into the next twenty pages offree associations.
My opinion of this book changed several times duringmy reading.In the beginning, I found it hard to get into because of it'smeandering style. But the vignettes, characters, facts and writing are allcompelling.His style will require some adjustment to the frequent readerof history. But, by the end the reader will know that they have immersedthemselvs in a darn good story that fascinates.

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Waiting for the Morning Train: An American Boyhood (Great Lakes Books) (Paperback) Review

I never met Bruce Catton, but I corresponded briefly with him in the mid-1970's.The same qualities that marked him as a correspondent--courtesy, graciousness, and gentle humor--illuminate this lovely memoir of a great historian.
Catton grew up in Benzonia, Michigan, "a city upon a hill," as he correctly notes, very close to Lake Michigan, where the old certitudes held seemingly invincible sway over virtually every aspect of one's daily life.Catton's father was the superintendent of Benzonia Academy, whose main building is now Benzonia's library.
The memoir, which recalls the years between the author's birth and his graduation from high school, is a series of reflections on what it was like to be a boy just as Michigan's logging era was drawing to a close, when sleepy Benzonia, along with the rest of the nation, was about to drift into the maw of the violent twentieth century.Catton writes of boyhood ambitions and boyish pranks, of the rich history that made Michigan's Lower Peninsula what it was, and especially of the Civil War veterans whose stories would later prompt Catton to devote years of his life to recording the history of that great conflict in rich anecdotal detail.
Though unabashedly nostalgic, "Waiting for the Morning Train" is neither saccharine nor bitter.Catton was far too experienced a writer and historian to let his emotions get the better of him.This is, nonetheless, a rich and moving memoir of a time which, though it may seem virtually within reach, we will never see again.
I recommend this book highly as a gift for yourself and, perhaps, for that reflective friend who can appreciate personal history told with universal appeal.Bruce Catton was, quite simply, one of the greatest writers and historians this country has produced, and in many ways this deceptively modest little volume represents the zenith of his literary achievement.

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Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt (Paperback) Review

I read this book after reading the Pulitzer-Prize winning "The Riseof Theodore Roosevelt", another excellent biography of TR.When Istarted "Mornings On Horseback", I felt that I was armed withmore information about this President than I had going into"Rise"; however, once I completed "Mornings", Irealized that I was armed with an entirely different type of knowledge. David McCullough gets us into the Roosevelt house and makes the people inTR's life come alive."Nurture" is a vital componant of anyone'sdevelopment and in this book, one sees just how family shapes a greatpersonality such as his.To truly understand TR from a historicalperspective one must examine his roots.This book is a joy to read, veryinformative and well-paced.

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Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as "a masterpiece" (John A. Gable, Newsday), it is the winner of the Los Angeles Times 1981 Book Prize for Biography and the National Book Award for Biography. Written by David McCullough, the author of Truman, this is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and almost fatal asthma attacks, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household in which he was raised.
The father is the first Theodore Roosevelt, a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. The mother, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, is a Southerner and a celebrated beauty, but also considerably more, which the book makes clear as never before. There are sisters Anna and Corinne, brother Elliott (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt), and the lovely, tragic Alice Lee, TR's first love. All are brought to life to make "a beautifully told story, filled with fresh detail", wrote The New York Times Book Review.
A book to be read on many levels, it is at once an enthralling story, a brilliant social history and a work of important scholarship which does away with several old myths and breaks entirely new ground. It is a book about life intensely lived, about family love and loyalty, about grief and courage, about "blessed" mornings on horseback beneath the wide blue skies of the Badlands.

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