Average customer rating:
- A Story Like the Wind
- a story like the slug
- One of my favorites...
- No...
- The book i go back to on rainy days
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A Story Like the Wind
Laurens van der Post
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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A Far Off Place
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The Lost World of the Kalahari
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The Heart of the Hunter: Customs and Myths of the African Bushman
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A Mantis Carol
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ASIN: 0156852616 |
Book Description
Van der Post’s incomparable knowledge of Africa illuminates this epic novel, set near the Kalahari Desert, about a boy on the verge of manhood, his experiences with the wonder and mystery of a still-primitive land, and his secret friendship with the Bushman whose life he saves. The narrative of A Story like the Wind continues in A Far-Off Place.
Customer Reviews:
A Story Like the Wind.......2006-02-27
This is one of my favorite novels of all-time, together with its sequel A Far-Off Place. It's a moving story, beautifully written, and full of the wisdom that I do not myself possess -- but wish I did. I loved it when I first read it in my youth, and I love it still as my years advance. It's a great book.
a story like the slug.......2005-08-29
this story is nothing like the wind. this book could be good if he cut out more of the details and and wrote more about what is actually happening he has to detail it so much teach chapter could be 12-16 pages long.
One of my favorites..........2004-06-10
This beautiful book succeeds on many different levels. Set in Africa in the early 20th century, the lyrical prose, splendid descriptions and fully-fleshed characters allow the book to transcend a relatively thin plot line. It is the coming-of-age story of both the young male central character, and of the continent of Africa herself. Savor and re-read it--its pensive beauty and spirituality captures me every time.
No..........2004-03-20
unless you count the author's long-windedness, this story is nothing like the wind.
If you're interested in the Bushmen, or if you're simply looking for a good read, you'd be far better served by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's _The_Harmless_People_ -- her account of actually living with Bushmen in the Kalahari in the early 1950s. (And the later editions include an epilogue, written in the 1980s, in which she has telling things to say about the film "The Gods Must Be Crazy" and other popular depictions of Bushmen culture.)
The book i go back to on rainy days.......2003-12-05
A Story Like the Wind is an amazing snapshot of africa told through the eyes of francois, a young boy whose world revolves around his dog and the bush. It joins a long line of stories of white men in Africa but is particularly notable for the quality of the writing. The story can occasionally move slowly, weighed down by the beauty of Van Der Posts descriptions, but in general, this is one of those books that you become so deeply immersed in, you never want it to end. A Story Like the Wind is better than A Far Off Place (The sequel, also the title of an aweful movie based on the books), but read both of them if you like the first one. If you're interested in nonfiction, you may also want to investigate Van der Post's other work.
Customer Reviews:
Not the whole book.......2004-07-21
This paperback issue is of volume one only. Volume two (Expansion and Commerce) is available below.
Great cultural history.......2000-07-07
A book assigned in many graduate courses on Southeast Asian history, "The land below the winds", gives the student an interesting look at day to day life in Southeast Asia from the arrival of the Western Europeans(1450-1680). Painstakingly researched, the book enjoys pointing out that in many ways the SE Asians had much more modern cultural practices than the "smelly" Europeans. Reid explores in each chapter seperate cultural criteria such as: physical well-bieng, material culture, social organization and lastly festivals and amusements. A myriad of topics are covered from sexual ambiguity and practices to military combat and diplomacy. Interesting tid bits abound and the book makes good reading for both the student and general reader. This is the best of the current offerings in the field and I highly recommend it.
Book Description
John Henry Holliday steps off the train at Atlanta's Union Station, fresh out of the Pennsylvania Dental College, and into Mattie's arms. But the storybook romance between the young dentist and his cousin is cut short by disease and family strife. Some close relatives are grousing at the couple to break off their relationship, but they are unwilling to bow to family pressures. However his financial reverses and physical health conspire to make that happen. John Henry is diagnosed with tuberculosis and doctors suggest a dryer climate in the West. Mattie pleads to go with him but John Henry says no and travels to Dallas alone. The dry climate stabilizes his condition, but he is unable to make a living from his dental practice. Dispirited and alone he is eventually attracted to saloon life where he takes a new name and calling -- Doc Holliday -- frontier gambler. Kate Elder, a spunky little saloon girl, sets her sights on Doc. And when trouble comes at Ft. Griffin and a noose is about to be tied around Doc's neck Kate executes a daring escape plan and the two ride north, through Indian territory, to Dodge City, Kansas. Doc sets up a dental practice in the cattle town and becomes acquainted with the likes of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Luke Short and Eddie Foy. When a wild bunch of drunken cowboy's corner Wyatt Earp Doc hurries to his rescue with a 38 in one hand and a 44 in the other. That moment was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Wyatt Earp would never forget that day at Dodge City when Doc Holliday using courage and grit saved his life. Doc's tenuous relationship with Kate dragged along simply because he was beholden to her for saving him from the hangman's noose at Ft. Griffin. Their tumultuous relationship continued though as they follow the migration of the Dodge City crowd south to Tombstone, Arizona. A corrupt political ring backs the cowboy-outlaw faction with the complicity of the Cochise County Sheriff. Doc has friends in both camps, but joins Wyatt and his brothers on the side of law and order, where his courage and loyalty are once again tested, when he stands with the Earps, in the shootout, at the Ok Corral. Doc survives the gunfight, but death from tuberculosis is never far away. Mattie, desperate in her loneliness, writes that she had become a nun, and with those vows has taken a new name -- Sister Mary Melanie. Doc is stung by the news, but he is quick to realize that it was his own neglect that had placed Mattie in the nunnery. He is fully aware that his days are numbered, but he never wavers in his love for the girl back home. Following Doc's death Wyatt Earp spoke of his friend and said, 'Doc was the most skillful gambler and the speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew.'
Customer Reviews:
Well researched and entrancing tale........2007-07-06
Tom Barnes truly captures the real-life story behind this historical legend. Follow Doc Holliday from his childhood, to his eventual and unlikely friendship with Wyatt Earp, and of course the famous gunfight at the OK corral. This book is rich with descriptive detail of Griffin, Georgia, his place of birth, his close relationship with his mother and the attitudes that fueled his hot temper and led him to a life of practiced dentistry, gambling, gun fights and saloon altercations. Definitely a must read for old west buffs. Mixed Nuts
Doc Holliday's Downward Spiral.......2007-06-28
Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone
By Tom Barnes
Who would have thought the legend of Doc Holliday could be connected in any way to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind.
When Doc Holliday went west after he discovered he had tuberculosis, which caused the death of his mother, he left behind a sweetheart who thought he would return after his cure in the warm, dry climate of the west. During his incredible research for the life of Doc Holliday the author, Tom Barnes discovered that this sweetheart, besides being a cousin of Doc Holliday was a distant cousin of Margaret( Peggy) Mitchell. This beautiful, girl, Mattie Holliday, wrote letters to Doc for several years and then after his death became a nun in the order of Sisters of Mercy. Margaret Mitchell used to visit her in the decade before Gone With The Wind was published. If you read the letters which appear in Doc Holliday's Road To Tombstone, you will know almost immediately which of the main characters of GWTW was inspired by Mattie Holliday.
John Henry Holliday was born in Griffin, Georgia and as a young boy moved with his family to Valdosta, Georgia just before the end of the Civil War. In 1872, John Henry was graduated with honors from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. Thus when he went west he became known as "Doc" Holliday. Starting his career as a dentist in Texas, Doc soon learned he could make a better living as a gambler.
The author, Tom Barnes, uses his talent and skill in scriptwriting to portray the downward spiral of John Henry Holliday, He brings to life Doc Holliday's escapades which involved outlaws as well as famous law officers like Wyatt Earp. Those interested in the O K Corral may be more fascinated by the trial which took place afterwards. This book is a great reference for that whole period of the Old West.
Lenora Smalley
California Writers Club
Director at Large
Good story, but reads more like a script instead of a novel..........2006-05-09
Ever since I saw the movie Tombstone I have taken a fancy to the legendary gambler Doc Holliday. I was very pleased to find that Tom Barnes based his stroy more around the historical facts instead of the western myth that surrounds this interesting character. I enjoyed this book, but found the writing style to be that of a television or motion picture script. The narrative focused mostly on the verbage of the characters or the action they took part in. The times when the author took us into the characters mind and thoughts were few and not very deep when they did occur. I kept wondering when I was reading the book if the author wrote this book with hopes of later seeing it turned into a show or movie. This book also suffered from some editing errors with a few typos that should have been caught before publishing (see page 20 & 178). While this is a bit of a critical review, I would recomend this book to anyone wants to enjoy a good story and learn a little more about Mr. Holliday. This was a good story I was just hoping for something a little more...
Excellent!.......2006-02-03
Author Tom Barnes has meticulously written this factual account of the life of Doc Holliday in such a way that you feel as though you are actually right there, experiencing all the excitement and ambience of the era in which Doc's life unfolded. Furthermore, the author provides surprising aspects which only make the story that much more interesting. A great read.
Terrific.......2006-02-01
Doc Holliday's Road To Tombstone is a page turner from beginning to end. From growing up in Griffin, becomming a Dentist his romance with Matti and his affair with the Firey Kate to the very interesting courtroom scene after the shooting.
Terrific book you will want to read it more then once.
Amazon.com
The American South, it has been said, is the most European of the nation's sections in manner and outlook, distinct enough that it may be reckoned to have its own--slippery term--culture. Its literature, language, climate, economy, cuisine, and history are recognizably different from those of New England and the Midwest, and even today Southerners remember that their homeland was once an independent nation crushed by a foreign military power. These may be justifications enough to warrant this massive regional encyclopedia, although a few questions go a-begging. (What, for instance, would an encyclopedia of American culture writ large contain? Do the mountaineers of Tennessee share a culture with the Gullah-speaking farmers of the South Carolina coast? Just what does culture mean, anyway?) In any case, the editors have assembled a fine roster of contributors who write on sweeping topics--African American life, agriculture, literature, the "mythic South," and the like--elaborated on by short essays on narrower subjects. The book was rightly voted Best Reference Book of 1989 by the American Library Association.
Book Description
The American South is a geographical entity, a historical fact, a place in the imagination, and the homeland of an array of Americans who consider themselves southerners. The region is often shrouded in romance and myth, but its realities are as intriguing, as intricate, as its legends.
The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture is "the first attempt ever" notes U.S. News & World Report, "to describe every aspect of a region's life and thought, the impact of its history and policies, its music and literature, its manners and myths, even the iced tea that washes down its catfish and cornbread."
There are many Souths, many southerners. The region's fundamental uniqueness, in fact, lies in its peculiar combination of cultural traits, a somewhat curious, often elusive blend created by blacks and whites who have lived together for more than 300 years. In telling their stories, the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture ranges from grand historical themes to the whimsical; from the arts and high culture (William Faulkner and Leontyne Price) to folk culture (quilts, banjos, and grits) to popular culture (Gilley's and Gone With the Wind).
The Encyclopedia's definition of the South is a cultural one: the South is found wherever southern culture is found. Although the focus is on the eleven states of the former Confederacy, this volume also encompasses southern outposts in midwestern and middle-Atlantic border states, even the southern pockets of Chicago, Detroit, and Bakersfield.
To foster a deeper understanding of the South's cultural patterns, the editors have organized this reference book around twenty-four thematic sections, including history, religion, folklore, language, art and architecture, recreation, politics, the mythic South, urbanization, literature, music, violence, law, and media. The life experiences of southerners are discussed in sections on black life, ethnic life, and women's life. Throughout, the broad goal is to identify the forces that have supported either the reality or the illusion of the southern way of life—people, places, ideas, institutions, events, symbols, rituals, and values.
The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture was developed by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Contributors to the volume include historians, literary critics, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, linguists, theologians, folklorists, architects, ecologists, lawyers, university presidents, newspaper reporters, magazine writers, and novelists.
Book Description
From pre-Columbian creation myths and the first European voyages of discovery and conquest to the Age of Reagan, here is "nothing less than a unified history of the Western Hemisphere . . . recounted in vivid prose."--The New Yorker . A unique and epic history, Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire trilogy is an outstanding Latin American eye view of the making of the New World. From its first English language publication in 1985 it has been recognized as a classic of political engagement, original research, and literary form.
Customer Reviews:
Galeano's narrative music laughs at death........2006-08-23
"Each day of life is an unrepeatable chord of a music that laughs at death." So Eduardo Galeano tells us in this, the final book of his "Memory of Fire" trilogy. The culmination of his experiment in history writing, this volume tells the history of the Western Hemisphere's 20th century in a series of vignettes that range from beautifully poetic to brain-burningly horrifying, from the torture chambers of Latin America's right-wing dictators (too often brought to you courtesy of the USA) to a little town in Central America called Yoro where, from time to time, it rains fish. You will end this book weeping with rage and joy. (And I mean that literally. This book is quite a ride.)
Now and Then a Great Book Happens.......2006-05-12
Eduardo Galeano is a thrilling writer! (And very quickly one must add that his translator Cedric Belfrage is also gifted!) CENTURY OF THE WIND is a kaleidoscopic history, very much appropriately influenced by the sociopolitical beliefs of the author, of the Americas - South and North, and in that order - from the turn of the century 1900 to the last entry in this book in 1986. Reading it is an experience in history, in the fantastical events that have sprouted everywhere in every venue in a century more filled with inventions and collisions and bright lights and devastations than any preceding it.
Galeano's style is journalistic (he began his rigorous and controversial career as a journalist and editor before turning to books), and in a most readable fashion he takes us through specific events in each of the years of the 1900s and reports and comments on such divers topics as Thomas Edison, Fidel Castro, the Panama Canal, vaccinations in Brazil, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, agrarian reform, wars, revolutions, Frida Kahlo, religion, Evita, Ernest Hemingway, dictators, the Beatles, fellow authors of South America - the list is endless.
Galeano can say more in a paragraph or two than most commentators or historians can in an entire book. This is tasty writing unearthing many concepts that have passed unknown to many of us. Reading this fascinating book raises more questions than a multitude of reading groups or college courses and it is a must for the libraries of those who love to be challenged while being entertained! Highly recommended. Grady Harp, May 06
A Remarkable Cultural History Tour.......2005-11-25
Eduardo Galeano's "Century of the Wind" (1988) stands on its own merits as one of the finest cultural histories ever written. From Pinochet to Presley, the author chronicles the dark undercurrents of South and North America in a compelling, cross-cutting narrative. An indispensible book that belongs in every library.
Literary History.......2003-03-05
This book was completely mesmerizing and beautiful in its portrait of human nature and the history of two continents. Galeano unfolds the story of the Americas in the 20th century with his magnificent story telling which makes the book difficult to put down or to forget. Each snipet tells of the experiences of various Americans from poor Indigeneous folk to the heads of state. I would recommend this book to anyone, but especially to people in the U.S. who should develop a better understanding of their sister countries to the south. Galeano is neither pessimist, nor optimist but rather chooses to reveal the naked reality of human experience and conduct from the most avaricious calousness to the most magnanimous heroism.
Where Past Centuries Will Take Us.......2001-12-31
The literary world is indebted to Galeano for his
poetical honesty in articulately conveying the voice of suffering in the masses, in the few. In Century of the Wind, he speaks with fascinating brevity as he dances and intertwines the triumphs and failures of a resilient, albeit it haunted, century. Galeano's words become newspaper articles that come Alive, his charachters become colorful fragments of peace and war and love and politics, refusing to be silenced. He urges the reader to pay attention to the paradox of romancing a people whom have had chaos and horror thrust upon them. Cetury of the Wind is a pathway in which we can collectively examine the troublesome past of America and ask the next great question with some degree of vigor -- And where are we heading?
Average customer rating:
- Tamsen: How I love Her!
- A wonderful story of sisters that do anything to survive.
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Daughters of the South Wind
Aola Vandergriff
Manufacturer: Warner Books Inc (Mm)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Regency
| Romance
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| Books
ASIN: 0446305618 |
Customer Reviews:
Tamsen: How I love Her!.......2002-12-18
This is the book series I was named for. Tamsen, the brave and loveable yet hardheaded character and star of the Aola Vandergriff Daughters series. [...]
Tamsen is only one of the stars of the Daughters series. You get to know all the characters well. Her sisters: Emmeline and Arabella. Her lover: Daniel Tallant, adventurer and just too darn sexy for his own good! Her friends: Dusty, the affectionate tipsy Brit, Nell, the dirtymouthed cantina friend, and others along the way. I love this series simply for the character development. I've never felt more in love with Dan, more friendly with Nell, or more outraged at Arab's stupidity.
You follow the girls through history, which makes the novel all the more fascinating! Here, you start at the California Gold Rush, but end up in Hollywood during the movie age in the final book. You'll grow to love these characters, love their natures, and wholeheartedly enjoy this series. I recommend this novel with 5 stars-- and if you've never read it, start today and fall in love with Tamsen and Dan, and all their crazy adventures!
A wonderful story of sisters that do anything to survive........1998-11-20
Aola brings you right into the life of three women: Emmeline, Tamson and Arabella, following these women through their triumphs and failures. Tamson, the strong one, helps the other girls and does what she thinks will help them survive the move to the west. If you'd like a book that gets you involved then you'd love this book. And then you Daughters of the Wild Country. You get to follow their lives as they grow up. It's a great series.
Amazon.com
The American food writer M.F.K. Fisher struggled in her time and writing to establish a way of talking about food. The British food writer Elizabeth David, who overlapped Fisher at about the time World War II was winding down, struggled to bring an accurate sense of the foods of the Mediterranean to the table. Both ladies had their cranky sides. There are moments reading David when it feels as though she has just cracked the back of your knuckles with the handle of a wooden spoon. There are times, too, when she pulls you up close to the stove and fans the aroma of delicious food up toward your face, and enjoys the way your nostrils quiver. In both cases David is there to wake you up.
South Wind Through the Kitchen is a collection of the best of Elizabeth David's writings, selected by food writers and food professionals who dearly loved the woman and who were deeply affected by her brilliance. There's nothing quite like a David prose passage that sets place and time, personality and ingredients, and then as almost an afterthought delivers her notes on how a dish is assembled, like this one from Mediterranean Food:
Displayed in enormous round shallow pans, these tomatoes (stuffed tomatoes àl la Grecque), together with pimentos and small marrows cooked in the same way, are a feature of every Athenian taverna, where one goes into the kitchen and chooses one's meal from the pans arrayed on the stove.... Peering into every stewpan, trying a spoonful of this, a morsel of that, it is easy to lose one's head and order a dish of everything on the menu.
Cut off the tops of a dozen large tomatoes, scoop out the flesh and mix it with 2 cups of cooked rice. To this mixture add 2 tablespoons of chopped onion, 2 tablespoons of currants, some chopped garlic, pepper, and salt, and, if you have it, some leftover lamb or beef. Stuff the tomatoes with this mixture and bake them in a covered dish in the oven (350 degrees) with olive oil.
She was out there early, wandering around France and Italy, setting a stage and a tone for everyone who has followed. She traipsed through the Mediterranean countries, the Levant, North Africa, opening up a world of flavor, spice, and technique that must have seemed wildly exotic to a postwar Great Britain struggling with the remains of wartime food rationing. The clouds parted, and there was Elizabeth David, full and warm.
And like the sun, she remained something of a unique presence unto her own. It's interesting that these two grand dames of food writing were both essentially loners. You will find in M.F.K. Fisher the language of food. You will find in this lovely collection of Elizabeth David's writing the language of food, and all the rest, too. --Schuyler Ingle
Book Description
An irresistible, charming, and inspired selection from the work of one of this century's great food writers.
Like M.F.K. Fisher and Julia Child, Elizabeth David changed the way we think about and prepare food. David's nine books, written with impeccable wit and considerable brilliance, helped educate the taste (and taste buds) of the postwar generation. Insisting on authentic recipes and fresh ingredients, she showed that food need not be complicated to be good.
A Book of Mediterranean Food, published in 1950, introduced the ingredients of a sunnier world (olive oil, garlic, eggplant, basil), celebrating their smell and taste and above all highlighting the concept that food reflects a way of life and should be a source of joy. Subsequent books on French and Italian cooking and a stream of provocative articles followed. Later, David's monumental English Bread and Yeast Cookery became the champion of the Real Bread movement. Her last book, Harvest of the Cold Months, is a fascinating historical account of food preservation, eating habits, and the astonishing worldwide food trade in snow and ice.
Many of the recipes and excerpts here were chosen by David's friends and by the chefs and writers she inspired (including Alice Waters and Barbara Kafka). This collection will enable some of us to discover and others to remember what made David one of our most influential and best-loved food writers.
Customer Reviews:
The majority of us who don't own her classic books will find the best of her works neatly under one cover, along with nearly 200.......2006-10-15
Elizabeth David died in 1992, but her books changed the world of food writing, celebrating fresh ingredients and elevating British postwar cooking. SOUTH WIND THROUGH THE KITCHEN gathers the best of her writings, so those who already have extensive David books might find little new here - but the majority of us who don't own her classic books will find the best of her works neatly under one cover, along with nearly 200 recipes.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
A Digest of Great Culinary Writing. Suggest you read originals.......2005-07-23
`South Wind Through the Kitchen' is a collection of sections from the books of premier English food writer, Elizabeth David by her literary executor, Jill Norman, with suggestions on what to include by a wide variety of Ms. David's colleagues and professional fans.
The problem with this book is that one must decide whether it is more appropriate to review Ms. David's work or the way in which pieces of it have been assembled in this volume. As I have already reviewed most of Elizabeth David's major works that are digested in this volume, I think it is clear to me that the thing to do is judge the way in which the pieces have been assembled.
In reviewing this book, some other Amazon.com reviewers have taken the alternate course and focused on the work of Ms. David herself. In doing so, I feel they have misjudged Elizabeth David's place in culinary writing. For starters, Ms. David was not the `English Julia Child'. Ms. David and Ms. Child had slightly different agendas, which should be clear when you examine the way they go about presenting a recipe. While Julia Child is the consummate teacher in `Mastering the Art of French Cooking' and her subsequent books and TV series, Elizabeth David is the scholar and analyst. Her recipes, especially in her major early works, `Mediterranean Food', `French Provincial Cooking', and `Italian Food' tend to be briefer, but with a whole lot more explanations on the backgrounds of dishes, where Ms. David first encountered the recipe, and why the recipe is done the way it is. While Julia Child has a great way about her writing that makes reading her recipes almost as much fun as watching her PBS shows, there is not much personal material. Julia Child is writing the great classic cookbook. Elizabeth David is recording her experiences with food. That does not mean that Elizabeth David is playing the epicure, giving us a record of her experiences and reactions to food, as you find in the writings of M.F.K. Fisher. She is giving us the scholar's diary of what she has learned about her subject. The best fit to this model of Ms. David's work is her first book in 1950, `A Book of Mediterranean Food' which was literally assembled from her culinary diary begun in 1939.
This same reviewer devalues Ms. David's work as being good but not great for emphasizing fresh local ingredients. The reviewer makes the mistake of saying that Elizabeth David anticipated this great mantra of modern culinary doctrine. This principle is, in fact much older than Elizabeth David's writing. She is simply reporting it. My favorite illustration of how old and well established this doctrine is comes from the practice of the great 19th century New York City restaurant, Delmonicos, which maintained its own truck farm in New Jersey from which it got almost all its greens and vegetables in season.
If any one thing is to set Elizabeth David's writing apart from most others, aside from the sheer quality of her composition, it is the fact that she downplays rules and conventions and speaks to us about the properties of ingredients, what people do with them, and what we may be encouraged to do with them. The finest example of this is her great little piece on omelet technique from `French Provincial Cooking' that is reprinted in this book. Before presenting what is the best ever description of the classic technique I have ever read she says that the right way to make an omelet is the way you want to make it! I see the same freedom from convention expressed in many of her other writings in this book.
So how about the quality of this book? My opinion, which may or may not suit your needs, is that virtually everyone who enjoys reading culinary writings would do better by acquiring copies of Ms. David's major complete works rather than spending money on this volume. I believe the quality of her writing was so consistently high that you will not find any rough or uninteresting patches as you read the three books I mentioned above. I will say that the book `English Bread and Yeast Cookery' may not be for everyone. It may not even be for everyone interested in bread baking. But the original article is superior to the short snippets from that book you get in this volume. And, this is in spite of the fact that one of those snippets has a really excellent technique for making Irish Soda Bread, one of my favorite quickbread preparations.
This book has one very good use. If you have no previous exposure to Ms. David's writing, this is a better sampler of her mainstream work than the collection of newspaper and magazine pieces, `An Omelette and a Glass of Wine'.
As the words are from the incomparable writer, Elizabeth David, I must give this at least four stars, but as I think you are better served by reading her original works, I do not give it five stars, especially as all of her major works are available in incredibly cheap Penguin editions.
Tasty, but a bit unfocused.......2004-06-01
Like many food writing and cookbook collections from the past 30-odd years, 'South Wind Through the Kitchen' aims ridiculously high: illustrating how its author was ahead of her time (emphasizing fresh ingredients, regional cuisines--especially of France and Italy--and "authentic" food), historically important ("the British Julia Child," if that's not oxymoronic) and relevant to modern cooks. A roughly organized collection of recipes followed by notes from esteemed cooks strain to hammer these points home.
I'll admit I'm tiring of these efforts. To be fair, 'South Wind' is hardly alone here, but I'd surely wish books of this sort decide on an angle and stick with it. Attempting to show the author's prescience, cooking knowledge (via well-worn or annotated recipes), writing wit, *and* recent gastronomy historical significance, the editors here clearly overreach. The result is far from a disaster, but I was certainly left occasionally frustrated if for no other reason than I was only shown a glimpse of David's brilliance.
And brilliance it is--at least at times. David's recipe format, for example, displays delightful informality; eschewing the traditional list of ingredients followed by turgid instructions, she simply writes freeform paragraphs and intersperses clever and reassuring comments ("a tablespoon of rum won't hurt," "don't be alarmed by ..."). The recipes seem solid, if occasionally dated and betraying an English slant . David's clear and confident writing comes through strongest, however, in her essays--of which this volume contains not nearly enough. The last three ('Ladies Halves,' 'Table Jewellery,' and 'Cathay to Caledonia') are simply brilliant, and compensated for me for an unfocused and shallow format.
An example of this unfortunate style is evidenced by the "chosen by" notes following many of the recipes and essays. Though surely intended to display David's influence on many of today's cooks, these accolades often just came across as intimate anecdotes. Reading how Ms. David was so re-assuring or insightful to someone at some point in the distant past is mildly interesting but often struck me like a speech at an awards show: only important to those being thanked. By only excerpting a sample, the editors here do not convince; more often than not an admonition to simply read the original book would have been far preferable to a watered-down quote.
As an accomplished writer and well-traveled gourmet Elizabeth David was, no doubt, quite an inspiration to the despairing and deprived cooks of a rationing and gray post-war England. I'll brook no arguments there, and this collection of essays and recipes may indeed be "the best of" her work. But if her gastronomy knighthood rests on this volume alone I'm far from convinced that she was a *great* food writer. A good one, and inspiring to boot, but I can't elevate her to the Child-Beard pantheon based on this evidence which I can only recommend--excepting historical interest--to hard-core foodies.
Elizabeth David is inspirational to say the least.......1999-12-04
South Wind Through The Kitchen, The Best Of Elizabeth David is a selection of Ms. David's work that was compiled by Jill Norman, who is Elizabeth David's literary trusty. Jill Norman, publisher and author, also completed Harvest Of The Cold Months, Elizabeth David's final book, which she was working on at the time of her death; it was completed using notes left by Ms. David. Many of the selections in this book were chosen by people that either knew Elizabeth David or were influenced by her-she influenced a legion of chefs and food writers, I count myself among those ranks.
Reading the writings of Elizabeth David is inspirational to say the least; she is often said to be the best food writer of her time. Her work in general is not merely a collection of recipes and essays on food; it is more akin to an autobiography telling of the people and food that she has known. While this is definitely a utilitarian book that is full of recipes, it can also easily be read cover to cover, like a novel-even the recipes read as a form of prose. A classic example of her poetic form of recipe writing is evident in her essay on Cornish Saffron Cake, which appears on pages 326-328 of this book; it originally appeared in English Bread And Yeast Cookery, which was published in 1977.
Over the years I have often found myself reading (and re-reading) the introduction in my well worn copy of A Book Of Mediterranean Cuisine for enjoyment and inspiration. A Book Of Mediterranean Cuisine was Ms. David's first book, which was published in 1950. Though it was published almost a half century ago it still rings true today. The first and last paragraphs are what I find most interesting; they are as follows (it appears in full on page 3 of South Wind Through The Kitchen):
"The cooking of the Mediterranean shores, endowed with all the natural resources, the colour and flavor of the south, is a blend of tradition and brilliant improvisation. The Latin genius flashes from the kitchen pans."
"With this selection (it does not claim to be more) of Mediterranean dishes, I hope to give some of the lovely cookery of those regions to people who do not already know them, and to stir the memories of those who have eaten this food on its native shores, and who would like sometimes to bring a flavour of those blessed lands of sun and sea and olive trees into their English kitchens."
Elizabeth David was a prolific writer who between 1950 and 1994 published nine books, most of which are considered classics amongst food professionals; portions of all of her books appear in this "best of" volume. As a cook she always strode to be as authentic as possible and often this meant writing about ingredients that were not yet known or at least not available in post-war England, and that is what I find really interesting about this book. Much of her work was published three, four, even five decades ago and is not only relevant today but is still used as reference by serious cooks around the globe.
In short, South Wind Through The Kitchen is a "must have" for any cook's library, whether a professional or a layperson. It is both an inspirational read and also an invaluable source of food information and recipes.
Reviewed by Chef Joe George of ChefTalk.Com
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Scarlett's Sisters: Young Women in the Old South
Anya Jabour
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
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Southern Sons: Becoming Men in the New Nation
ASIN: 0807831018 |
Book Description
Scarlett's Sisters explores the meaning of nineteenth-century southern womanhood from the vantage point of the celebrated fictional character's flesh-and-blood counterparts: young, elite, white women. Anya Jabour demonstrates that southern girls and young women faced a major turning point when the Civil War forced them to assume new roles and responsibilities as independent women. By tracing the lives of young white women in a society in flux, Jabour reveals how the South's old social order was maintained and a new one created as southern girls and young women learned, questioned, and ultimately changed what it meant to be a southern lady.
Book Description
"The south wind blows constantly during the spring and summer. Hardly less constantly in autumn. And in winter, often for weeks on end." Douglas' famed novel of Capri, loved and derided in equal measure for its plot or lack thereof, is back in a palatable edition. Bishop Heard returns from Africa, making a stopover on the island of Nepenthe (Capris.) While there, he encounters the delightful chatter of expats, seeks, vaguely, his cousin, and witnesses the dire actions of an insidious character.
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And even after Florence! Do you know why? Because mankind dominates in Tuscany. The land is encrusted with ephemeral human conceits. That is not altogether good for a youngster; it disarranges his mind and puts him out of harmony with what is permanent. Just listen a moment. Here, if you are wise, you will seek an antidote. Taken in over-doze, all these churches and pictures and books and other products of our species are toxins for a boy like you. They falsify your cosmic values. Try to be more of an animal. Try to extract pleasure from more obvious sources. Lie fallow for a while. Forget all these things. Go out into the midday glare. Sit among rocks and by the sea. Have a look at the sun and stars for a change; they are just as impressive as Donatello. Find yourself!
Customer Reviews:
Capri's Scirocco, 1917.......2007-08-23
Norman Douglas (1868-1952) spent a good part of his life abroad and Capri was the adoptive home of his last years. In 1911, he had already written a travel book on the Island and Sorrentine Peninsula (Siren Land), but in 1917 he issued his first novel "South Wind", that became one of the most popular reads during WWI (it is stated that many soldiers had it in their backpack).
It has been defined as a conversation-novel without a plot, and its characters actually do nothing else than exchange their ideas and opinions (on the flow of existence, moral, comparative theology, aesthetics, fanaticism, medicine, cooking) as typical of Rablesian prose or what could have taken place in a respectable London club. The voices mix and tangle, endlessly and obsessively interrogating themselves with humor and intellectual disenchantment. But "South Wind" is before all else the discovery of the South, the Mediterranean, the profane art of living, modelled on ancient Greece, that Italy and Capri in particular seemed then to embody.
An Anglican Bishop Mr Thomas Heard, on his way back from Africa (imaginary Bampopo) to England, visits for a short stay the Island of Nepenthe (Capri), where his cousin is staying. He will stay only a few days, but long enough to change his northern pruderie in a empathic attitude toward the worlds vices ("the frolicsome perversity"), starting from a crime he involuntarily peeps upon. The novel is full of characters: Denis, the caste poet worried by the possibility of sinning, the smiling completely pagan Italian priest Don Francesco, the "evil" Muhlen, the sceptic and artistic count Caloveglia, the "extravagant" Mr. Keith, "owner of one of the most beautiful villa's in Capri", the cousin Meadows, Miss Wilberforce an funny alcoholic that undresses in public, the rich van Koppen, the Russian mystic Bazhakulov, halfway between Rasputin and a bolschevic with his tribe of followers, Mrs. Steynlin a still appealing middle age matron that entertains a relation with a young Russian, Mr. Ernst Eames a commentator of the ancient history of Nepenthe written by a seventeenth century Italian historian. All these characters are actually inspired by people Douglas met in Capri during those roaring years as he states later on in his memory books. The Scirocco, the South Wind sweeps the Island, and everyone starts behaving strangely, or exactly like they feel like, which is the reason why the went to Nepenthe in the first place, and Bishop Heard is caught up in a spider web of distinguo and doubts until the wind strips away his moral imperatives in favour of Nepenthe's "pantheistic hedonism" and makes him "swim in the air".
The roots of this novel can be traced to the concept of "Reverse Conversion" or the more modern "Going Native" that was popular in those times and is often used by D.H.Lawrence, James Hilton and others. (D.H.Lawrence used Norman Douglas as the model for his Aaron in "Aaron's Rod"). Part of the plot is borrowed from Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Marble Faun" as has been interestingly pointed out by Edmund Wilson. However, if we want to read it in the historical context it was written in and explain its lasting success to the 1930's, we must take into account that it was intended (Fussell) as "a rebuke to the winds of war that were gathering in the North of Europe", "a plea for youth and tolerance to the nations that were starting a suicidal war", but it is also a celebration of the ideas liberally generated and exposed. These ideas were those discussed in that period in the intellectual milieu and are still popular today among young people.
Even if this is an "antiquarian book", I enjoyed it very much. As I said of "Siren Land", best read on a terrace overlooking "The Piazzetta".
Some of the Best Descriptive Prose in English.......2007-05-04
This is not a book for the average reader, nor is this review aimed at such. Norman Douglas wrote about places he lived, and we are fortunate that his masterpiece, South Wind, shows off his unequalled flair for capturing in prose the Mediterranean vistas, hillsides and small villages of his favorite island, Capri. Thrown in for good measure is a delighful and wickedly urban - one might better say Catholic (or even Roman) in the best sense - view of the foibles of humankind. Douglas spent much of his adult life in exile for sexual behavior, perhaps peccadillos, perhaps worse: his novel certainly does nothing to assuage bourgeois respectability. In it's day, 1917, South Wind was deliberately risque. There is even a murder mystery, though Douglas pays only a very discreet nod to that genre.
But it's for the prose depictions of the Mediterranean landscapes, done in glorious and unforgetable language, that we read South Wind. The passages conveying the timelessness of the great grotto are simply magisterial. If you think Durrell captures the Mediterranean better than any other English writer you have not read Douglas. Do not lump Douglas, because of his subject matter in this book, with Firbank: South Wind is emphatically better than the verbal high-jinks of Firbank, whose over-indulgent books never convincingly connect with reality. Douglas, by contrast, can write as telling and visually acute a piece of descriptive prose as Mark Twain.
A dated book for most, an unforgettable book for the connoisseur. If you appreciate the prose of South Wind there are several other equally well-written examples of his work in the travel books, especially Siren Land, Fountains in the Sand, and Old Calabria.
Enjoyable.......2004-02-16
Returning from Africa, the Anglican Bishop of Bompopo detours to the little island of Nepenthe, where he finds some charming natives and an assortment of interesting and eccentric expatriates. As the Nepenthean year slides gently along, the expatriates go on about their lives, living in a dreamland, and maintaining illusions that keep them happy about themselves.
This 1917 book is the work of George Norman Douglas (1868-1952), Scottish author and diplomat, and is considered by some to be his masterpiece. The edition I possess is the 1924 Modern Library one, which includes a short introduction by the author, in which he defends his book against the charge that it does not possess a plot. Well, in truth, this book is not plot driven - it is a sort of theater of the absurd tale, in which people's hypocrisy, inanity and stupidity are laid bare. Quite a fun tale, I must admit that it's been a while since I have enjoyed a book quite so much!
Great Book, Poorly Proofread.......2002-12-09
As the previous reviewer notes, South Wind is an excellent work of fiction. It is Norman Douglas' most highly acclaimed work. This reprint edition however, suffers from abominably poor transcription and proofreading. Letters are missing from words and spaces are sometimes inserted where they don't belong. In some instances a return character or two is omitted in dialogues. I would guess that I have spotted over a hundred errors. They do not undermine the quality of the story, but do make it harder to read. This book is in the public domain and so is available on the web in HTML format, possibly with fewer errors. That said, I am glad to have a printed version of this book. Reading or printing it from the web would be a cumbersome enterprise.
Intoxicating Sirocco.......2000-06-24
I hope that this gem of a book is reprinted soon. For all those who cannot wait, wend to the Strand bookstore on Broadway and 12th in NYC, and check out the Modern Library section; a few copies may still linger. Like its title, the book sweeps over the reader in a sort of halcyon gale of language. Read once, the book must be re-read just so that one can retrace the plot. When not totally high on language I got glimpses of two of the most vivid characters in literature -- Mr. Keith and Count Calovaglia -- and that what it was - a glimpse. Like the South Wind of the title, the book leaves the reader terribly thirsty for more -- more of the island, more of the people, more of the flora, more of the rocks, for crying out loud. It has the sense and immediacy of an impressionist painting. In the 1924 Modern Library copy I possess, Douglas has an introduction in which he enumerates the islands that inspired the locale in the book. I am still considering an island hopping vacation to the Mediterranean.
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