No comments about Town House: Architecture and Material Life in the Early American City, 1780-1830.

1 comments about The Revolt of "Mother" and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions).

1. Even though I have read many books and short stories by great authors and is dazed, and full of admiration of their work, it happens once in a while, that a book or a story, that one has never heard mentioned goes right in to your heart and won't let go. That is what Mary Wilkins Freeman's stories did to me. I felt as if I had found a friend. There is such a pleasure to be found in her stories, the fluent and smooth style, easily understood by all, as well as a lesson in living your life at your own pace. She is so unaffected and natural in her storytelling, that these stories, which easily could have taken place, are sweet, tender, bitter and then full of resistence. Her character do not always behave. The stories are mostly about New England country women, for whom Freeman has obviouly a great sympathy for and she writes about them with respect and affection

2 comments about The Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook, 2nd: Authentic Early American Recipes for the Modern Kitchen.

1. In the years that I've been collecting historic cookbooks and cookbooks adapting historic recipes, this is the best cookbook that I've ever run across. Historic cookbooks tends to fall into one of three categories: 1) Reprints of originals with no modern measuring equivalents or other information that enables a modern cook to reproduce the recipes. 2) Adaptations of historic recipes with modern ingredients and techniques but no indication of what the original recipe involved. 3) Dutch-oven cookbooks that may recreate some historic recipes, but again with little or no information about the original recipe. "Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook" is unusual in that it provides the text of 19th century cookbook author Lydia Child's original recipe, the modern adaptation, and the hearth-cooking technique. By comparing the old with the new, a cook should be able to use this cookbook to adapt recipes from other historic cookbooks that do not provide a modern version.

   The editor has selected recipes that can be created with easily available ingredients--and has omitted recipes for things that few modern Americans would ever want to eat--such as a calf's head that is build with the windpipe hanging out of the pot to drain off cooking juices.

   In addition to recipes for soups, main dishes, vegetables, breads and desserts, the cookbook provides information about early 19th century meals. One of the best features is a section on the various fire-building techniques that are necessary depending on the type of cooking--for instance, how to build a quick-cooking fire for frying versus a fire that will produce coals for slow-cooking techniques.

   The recipes that I've tried so far turned out quite well. Raspberry Shrub, a refreshing beverage made with a sweetened rasperry vinegar, was a hit with our children. The Cider Cake, which I baked for my birthday, turned out more bread-like than cake-like, but was a hit with the party guests nonetheless. I'm definitely looking forward to experimenting with this cookbook.




2. Old Sturbridge Village sits in Central Massachusetts, just off the Mass Pike near the exit for I-84. It and Plimoth Plantation are probably the two best-known historical reconstruction museums in Massachusetts, with Plimoth Plantation showing the lives of the Pilgrims after they settled in Plymouth, and OSV showing a typical New England town of about 200 years later. Naturally they have a fair amount of information on the subject of what life was like, what clothing was fashionable, the structure of society in those days... and of course, what they ate, and more importantly for this review, how they cooked it.
   
   Historical cookbooks actually aren't all that hard to come by; in fact, some of the sources for this book, including Amelia Simmons' American Cookery and Lydia Maria Child's The Frugal Housewife, are available as ebooks from Gutenberg as well as in hard copy reprints. But one of the things that makes the OSV Cookbook different is that where its source books gave only the recipes and assumed that the cook knew her/his way around the kitchen, this book tries to reconstruct many of the techniques for use in both historical (i.e. hearth-based) and modern kitchens. The modern recipes use standard kitchen equipment; naturally, the hearth versions use such items as dutch ovens (the camp style, with three legs), hanging pots, and brick ovens and explains how they are to be used in each recipe. The food is largely traditional New England food, heavy on the cornmeal and molasses, with a great assortment of baked goods and a few surprises such as macaroni and cheese that are not generally associated with early American food (though Thomas Jefferson was quite fond of the stuff). The original recipes as written in the source books are quoted at the top of each updated recipe, giving a flavor for the way cookbooks were written in those days. There are even notes on how to work with and prepare ingredients that differ between then and now (including instructions on how to prepare fresh yeast for bread baking and how herbs were used in early 19th c. New England).
   
   The book does have some faults. Unfortunately, they're very strange ones, mostly organizational in nature. First, there are few equipment pictures in the place you'd expect to see them. They're there, but they're all over the book, and since the index covers only recipes, the reader is not necessarily going to know where to find the necessary picture in order to understand an instruction for an unusual piece of equipment (particularly the "tin kitchen", the traditional hearthside reflector oven that, described, sounds way more complicated than it really is). Second is the attribution issue. Recipes do recieve attribution (there is a two-page bibliography in the back of the book), but curiously, only in the index, where the peculiar entry structure chosen makes it somewhat confusing to tell whether the attribution is part of the name or the dish or not. It makes sense, after a while, but it's still needlessly cumbersome and too cryptic.
   
   Overall, if you're a fan of antiquarian cooking, especially that of the American colonies, you really should have this book. The content more than makes up for its organizational flaws, and to someone experimenting with hearth cooking in any form this book is beyond essential, given that there are really very few books that discuss the subject (well, there's the Dutch oven books, but they're only a very small subset of the whole discipline). It's also a good introduction to old New England cooking in general. Grab it, but you might want to drop a note to Globe Pequot that it's been about twelve years since their last edition and it might be due for a bit of a cleanup and update.

1 comments about 50 Hikes in Connecticut: From the Berkshires to the Coast.

1. Connecticut residents who love the outdoors should consider this guide. The Hardy family offers an impressive array of hikes for people of all skill levels.

   Each hike is thoroughly researched and includes detailed maps and photographs. I relied heavily on the maps and found them to be 100% accurate. The site descriptions are especially helpful. They include driving directions, parking instructions, and well-informed commentary about the trail itself. You will know precisely what vegetation or bird life to look for at specific points during your trip. Keep this book open during your hikes to fully appreciate the experience.

   Logical organization enables efficient selection of hikes by region or length. Readers should be assured that this truly is a Connecticut book. The authors do not discriminate in favor of the oft-traversed northwest region. Connecticut hikers would do well to have this guide in their backpack.

1 comments about Sarah's Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America.

1. Sarah's Long Walk is a very well-researched historical view of a fascinating time in Boston history. As a native of Boston, I quickly became aware of how much I DON'T know about this side of Boston history as I read the book. It was a rare treat to be educated by the history and entertained by the well-recounted stories. I highly recommend the book!

1 comments about Ethan Frome & Summer (Modern Library Classics).

1. In a way, Edith Wharton was at her best in her novellas -- her stories are lean, taut and emotionally deep. That's what "Summer" and "Ethan Frome" have in common, as they look at love, sex, marriage and the conventions of the 1800s. Put together, these novellas are utterly fascinating.
   
   "Ethan Frome" is the male half of a loveless marriage, with the fretful, fussy Zeena. Then Zeena's lovely cousin Mattie Silver comes to live with them, and she brings out a happier, more passionate side of Ethan. But when Mattie is sent away, Ethan must make a decision. He knows he can't stay in his horrible marriage, so will he run away with Mattie? Or will something worse happen?
   
   "Summer" shocked the 1917 public, with its frank-for-its-time look at a young woman's sexual awakening. It takes place in the New England village of North Dormer, where the young librarian Charity lives. But when Charity falls in love with an upper-class young rake named Lucius, she finds herself pregnant and unmarried -- a destructive combination in the 1900s.
   
   Edith Wharton gave unvarnished looks at social conventions throughout her career -- she doesn't judge, she just tells it how it was, whether she's talking about the Roaring 20s or the uptight Victorian era. Divorce was almost unthinkable, affairs scandalous if revealed, and women had the cards stacked against them in matters of love, marriage and sex.
   
   Both novellas also display Wharton's talent for writing characters who were totally unlike her, especially working-class heroes. Charity is an uneducated, naive, rough-mannered young woman, while Ethan is... well, male. Neither is much like Wharton, but she gets inside their heads and makes them entirely believable.
   
   Wharton's formal writing style is offset by the starkness of her stories -- if she took a hard look at Victorian social conventions, she didn't flinch from showing what happened to those that transgressed. (I'll give you a hint -- neither novella has a smooching-lovers-ride-off-into-the-sunset finale) It's realistic, but a bit depressing.
   
   "Summer" and "Ethan Frome" are both tales of love doomed by social conventions, and also two of Wharton's best stories. Sad and beautiful, gripping and classic.

5 comments about Francis Parkman : France and England in North America : Vol. 1: Pioneers of France in the New World, The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, The Old Regime in Canada (Library of America).

1. Francis Parkman is one of those titans of history writing, with a stature equal to that of Gibbon, Carlyle, Prescott, Herodotus, Thucydides and Churchill. His tales of the first colonial wars thus assume a mythological status, and the main protagonists of this, the second part of the Library of America volume - Frontenac, Montcalm and Wolfe - are all larger than life.
   
   The story of Count Frontenac is set against the era of Louis XIV and his drawn-out continental wars against William of Orange and the English. Frontenac proves an adroit military commander, dealing sharply with the Iroquois, and even more decisively with the English colonists of North America. One cannot help but have goosebumps reading Parkman's matchless prose as Count Frontenac departs Canada after his first spell as governor: "When [Frontenac] sailed for France, it was a day of rejoicing to more than half the merchants of Canada . . . but he left behind him an impression, very general among the people, that, if danger threatened the colony, Count Frontenac was the man for the hour."
   
   The story of Wolfe and Montcalm, and the final collapse of New France in 1759, has assumed the same proportions as Hector and Achilles. This is largely, if not solely, due to Parkman's magisterial account of the fall of Quebec; indeed, so stark is his influence today that a modern biographer of Bouganville (Montcalm's deputy) simply - and, I think, very appropriately - related the Plains of Abraham saga by block-quoting Parkman.
   
   Whether read as history or historiography, Parkman remains a giant.



2. Parkman's (multi-volume) account the of the struggle of France and England for North American dominance remains the classic history. It is commodious in scope, majestic in vision, and equal with Thucydides in tragic magnitude. Parkman describes what North America once was (with invaluable discriptions of natives), and what still lies below the surface of what we've become.
   
   There are other valuable sources. Morison [The Northern Voyages 500-1600 (1971), The Southern Voyages 1492-1616 (1974), Samuel de Champlain (1972)]. Anderson (Crucible of War) and Eccles (The French in North America). None are as eloquent as Parkman, though Morison's Voyages are equally worthy.



3. Parkman is thorough and comprehensive, but the amount of information that this throws at you is almost overwhelming. Reading his books makes War and Peace seem like a quick read...lots and lots and lots of information.



4. Francis Parkman is one of the most talented writers of our country's history that one will read. He writes as if he is hovering about the situation and describes it so you feel as if you were there, not bogging you down with details. This is a must read for all history buffs.



5. Parkman's magisterial work on the role of France in the New World must surely rank as one of the high points of 19th century American literature. Certainly the editors of the highly-esteemed Library of America made that determination when they selected the complete set of Parkman's works to be included in the ongoing Library of America series. Only a partial read is required to understand why this multi-volume work, written over a thirty year time frame, is regularly compared to Gibbon's "Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire," for Parkman's mastery of narrative historical storytelling pours forth from the earliest pages in prose that is rarely seen in today's written works. This is truly a monumental work, and should likely be considered a critical component for anyone trying to truly understand the development of the New World from the European perspective.
   
   Parkman begins his saga with the founding and settlement of the area we now call "St Augustine" in Florida, arguably the oldest continuous settlement in the United States, and routinely billed as the "Oldest City in The United States." To visit St Augustine today is to make Parkman's narrative come to life, for there we visit and see Ribault's monument, the Castillo de San Marcos, Fort Mose, and the so-called "Fountain of Youth." To those who are more familiar with US colonial history in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and in greater New England, this is a story that greatly predates the Revolution, and unfolds the stormy rivalry between Spain and France's claims in the New World. It is often a brutal epic, but also contains the awe and wonder of Europeans who for the first time explored the unknowns found therein after the long trip across the Atlantic.
   
   After this difficult early series of episodes, the story turns to LaSalle and the many other French explorers who explored and settled in the area of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the issues and battles that ensued as these early explorers met the indigenous peoples of the region. Any map of the United States will yield an abundance of French names through Illinois, Michigan, and all around the Great Lakes (the word "Illinois" itself is a great example, and "Detroit," actually "d'étroit," or "of the straights"), bearing witness to the history of French exploration and settlement in these early years.
   
   Parkman's narrative is superb, a example of historical writing at its best. His source documentation is so thorough that the work can serve as a primary resource for a seemingly endless series of derivative studies. But whether you are a historian or not, Parkman brings the story alive, and lets you be a virtual guest through the centuries. Make sure you get both volumes.

1 comments about Exploring Stone Walls: A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls.

1. The book, Exploring Stone Walls, A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls by Robert Thorson is split up into eleven detailed chapters. From there it is distributed into three separate sections. The first section is divided into four chapters. Thorson mainly talks about how there are many different types of life in and or around a stone wall. Many different types of organisms live here including the smallest life forms such as lichens and bacteria to large mammals such as dogs and cats. Although Thorson doesn't give much of an overview about this section, it is highly detailed fact-wise. I found this quite interesting because even if you are not an in-depth stonewall observer, than you can still have an enjoyable time watching them if you also have other interests such as ecology or if you're a naturalist. During the course of this book, there was one small segment about how he talked about artificial stone being very abundant throughout New England. I feel like this had little reference to the rest of the topics that Thorson was explaining. But there was an extremely well-developed chapter that I felt helped me overcome the very puzzling question of "How do you know whether to classify stone as a wall or a pile?" Very challenging question. Or is it? There is a simple answer to this problem. If the wall is anything less than four times long than it is wide it is a pile and vice-versa. In chapter eight of the book there is a well thought of segment about how to determine a certain wall's age. If you like to have history tied in with reading than you'll like this book. I didn't enjoy the chapter about the terrain because it was too detailed and it barely even talked about the walls. But his best chapter was chapter eleven, where he described some of his personal favorite stone walls to visit. This is even more interesting if you love to travel and explore. Overall, Thorson is a very good author and many people will benefit reading this book.

No comments about National Geographic Traveler: Boston and Environs (National Geographic Traveler).

3 comments about Murder in the Model City: The Black Panthers, Yale, And the Redemption of a Killer.

1. MURDER IN THE MODEL CITY: THE BLACK PANTHERS, YALE, AND THE REDEMPTION OF A KILLER begins in 1969 and follows four members of the Black Panther party who committed murder in Connecticut and fled. Nine Panthers would eventually be tried with crimes from that night - and activists of all denominations descended on a small New England city to protest. Paul Bass and Douglas Rae recreate events, politics, and social issues during the stormy period, bringing to life the sentiments of all sides. A 'must' for any who would understand 1960s black activism and its lasting legacy.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



2. I grew up in New Haven and was in my late teens when the events that Paul Bass and Douglas Rae describe so well occurred. As a college student living in Washington, D.C., at the time of the murder, I realized as I read the book that I had missed a lot of the important details of the terrible crime and its aftermath, including the trial and the organized protests by the Black Panthers, Yale students, and other assorted demonstrators. But the authors do a wonderful job at recreating exactly what was going on in New Haven. They unfold a very compelling story in a fair and balanced manner so that the reader will come away feeling sympathy for both the victim of the crime, Alex Rackley, and for the perpetrator, Warren Kimbro, a man who worked hard to redeem himself. For those of you who lived through the late sixties and early seventies, this book will remind you of what that time was like; and for those who did not, Murder in the Model City will give you a true sense of a turbulent era in our recent past.



3. Bass and Rae do a terrific job of capturing a moment in time when people were becoming "revolutionaries" as easily as they changed hair styles.
   
   What comes through most forcefully, for me, is the easy embrace of "radical chic" by so many who must, in hindsight, be somewhat embarrassed by their seventies selves. The book also serves as a vindication for Kingman Brewster, the Yale president, whose diplomatic handling of a potentially incendiary moment in his institution's history has been widely misunderstood and vilified.
   
   It is also sobering to realize that the crucible of poverty and disadvantage that forged the Panthers still exists in New Haven and in so many other American cities and that the long climb out of despair continues even for many of those, like the book's protagonist, who seem to have escaped the ghetto.