Category: books
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Forbidden Words
I fear the following words could not be printed in a modern history book about an American town without some debate: “The pioneers of ’59 placed our house on a foundation already prepared of Dutch thrift, industry and religious faith. Their children and children’s children, in like manner, added to the story, strong and beautiful,…
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Books I’ve Known And Loved
“One surviving letter suggests that the men engaged in seizing black civilians may have had no uniform attitude toward the kidnapping.” And here lies a great truth: people are complex. As much as we would like to think otherwise there are no super heroes–and villains while evil may only be slightly more blind to their…
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OH, TO BE SUCH A HUMAN!
“And what did Henry White, who was neither witty nor a brilliant talker, nor even, to tell the truth, a man of very deep cultivation, contribute to this gang (British select society)? ‘I really think it was his GOODNESS,’ Lord Robert Cecil suggested. ‘He never said an ill-natured or bitter thing in his life. He…
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Moral Ambivalence and Quiet People
Watch out for the quiet ones. They often take you places you didn’t think you’d go. After Buck Crenshaw and his twin threw William Weldon from a hayloft and broke his arm in THE HOUSE ON TENAFLY ROAD I thought I’d never see Buck again. But there was Buck in his quietly scheming yet tentative…
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Books I’ve Known And Loved
Many heard the city’s siren call: freedom, freedom, freedom. In the wake of crumbling farm communities and great and small depressions, many American-born young women (and men) moved to the burgeoning city of New York for work and a fresh start, freed from a “patriarchal”, rural society in the second quarter of the 1800’s. The…
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Sex in a Debtors’ Prison
Once upon a time (in 1748) a man named John Cleland sat in a lonely debtors’ prison in England. Day after dreary day he sat thinking of sex. He couldn’t help himself. Debtors’ prison was god-awfully dull. We don’t know for sure if John ever pleasured himself, but according to Dr. William Acton anyone who…
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Search For Meaning In A Random Universe (Fiction)
I don’t believe in randomness. Without a plan, I’m a basket case. I tried living the free life of self-indulgence and ended up drunkenly climbing an eight foot, chain-link fence to retrieve my shoe, leaving much of my wrist caught in a bloody mess at the top when I jumped. I told my family that…
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Top Ten Books about Army Life 1860’s-80’s
Men, women sex, coffee, war, horses and courts-martials…..fantastically fun reading! 10. On the Border with Crook by John G. Bourke–admittedly obscure–who cares about General Crook nowadays? But I loved Bourke’s breezy, intellectual style. The ultimate in dashing officer material and sometimes funny. This book brings the Apache wars to life and showcases the ambiguities felt…
Author Adrienne Morris 