By Adam Goodheart

I’ve never been a Civil War buff.  My eyes just blur over when I see the lists of battles and dates and the numbers killed in each battle.

But last year I got hooked on the “Disunion” blog in the New York Times, which follows the Civil War as it unfolded 150 years ago.  Goodheart was one of the contributors and his piece on Major Anderson’s Christmas night move from Ft Moultrie to Ft Sumter in Charleston Harbor captured my imagination.  That piece is included in this book, along with further developments in Charleston Harbor, up to the firing on Ft Sumter.

This is a history told from the Northern perspective.  It’s a story about how the mood of the country swung from complacency and conciliation to a mood where recruiting offices were besieged with a million men ready to enlist.

Along the way we meet some interesting characters. Goodheart doesn’t write much about the usual characters but explores some of the more obscure figures, some of whom loomed large at the time but have since faded away.

This is a fascinating book.  It is a social history rather than a book about warfare, and it ends just as the war itself starts. I can attest to the fact that you will find it interesting even if you don’t ordinarily have any interest in the Civil War.

Read more about the book, including an excerpt, in this NPR story. 

This is a suspense thriller which also happens to be a true story.   In 1968 the escaped convict and assassin James Earl Ray managed to elude the FBI for over two months as he fled across numerous states and four countries. It was called the most extensive manhunt in the history of the FBI. In addition the man managed to escape not just once, but twice, from maximum security prisons.

If you enjoy reading crime thrillers you are bound to enjoy this.  In addition it provides an insightful look at the civil rights movement and America in the late 60′s.

Paul Dowlearn gave a presentation on Native Plants to about 25 library patrons Sunday at the Gordon Community Center. Paul is the owner of Wichita Valley Nursery and host of the Saturday morning radio show “The Hometown Gardener.”

Paul is a landscaping professional and owner of Wichita Valley Nursery in Wichita Falls.  He also hosts a Saturday morning radio show on 94.9 FM called “Hometown Gardener.”   He is a former president of the Red River Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas.  His website has pictures of some of his landscaping work in this area, including the grounds of the Wildcatter Restaurant near Possum Kingdom Lake.

Native plants are not just “well-adapted” – they are completely adapted to our soil and weather conditions.  That means they use less water and require less maintenance than most “exotic” plants.  It also means that they evolved along with the wildlife in the area. So if you are aiming to create a refuge for butterflies and birds in your backyard, there is nothing better than local natives to provide the environment they need.

Come on out and here what Paul has to say about using natives in your home landscape.  Free and open to the public.  2pm Sunday July 10 at the library.

When Patti Smith got off the bus in New York City almost the first person she met was a beautiful boy with a mass of curls.  Not long afterward she was on a date with an older man and trying to find a way to escape.   She spied the boy with the curls walking toward her and she ran up to him and asked him if he would pretend to be her boyfriend.

He said yes, and thus began the relationship of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe.  They were not quite starving artists but they slept in unheated lofts and had to share a hot dog at Coney Island  because they didn’t have the money to buy two.

They had talent, but more than that they had ambition and focus.  They also had each other.  They were each other’s best friend who believed in and supported each other at a time when they had no other friends and no one one else believed in them.

Soon however they did have friends.  They began to make their way in the art world, and the world of rock and roll.   They found  other artists and supporters who were kindred spirits.  The best part of the  book are the many tales of the denizens of the Chelsea Hotel, Max’s Kansas City and the East Village scene of the 70′s.  Some of them are household names and others are lost to history but Patti writes about all of them in the same breathless admiring style.

Eventually Patti and Robert went their own ways and achieved their own successes but they remained friends and supporters until Robert’s death in 1989.

This book also has many interesting photos, some taken by Robert Mapplethorpe.

Time is the goon squad and the central theme is what time does to our youthful hopes and fears.  Through all the stories runs a desperate need for belonging.  They jump back and forth in time, covering a period of at least forty years and winding up in the future.   There is a variety of styles, including one chapter done entirely as a power-point presentation. (I would be wary of getting an e-book edition).

This is the season for reflecting on time, and this book will certainly get you thinking.  It would also make for some good book club discussions.

Now available at Gordon Community Library.

If you want to give a gift to an Angel come in and pick one off the tree and bring your wrapped gift back to the library and give it to one of our volunteer staffers.   Gifts will be stored in our back room until the time come for them to be picked up.

The Woman Who Wrote the Bible is a first novel by Mary Burns which imagines a rich and captivating life for the woman scholar J who lived in the Solomonic Courts. In this novel J becomes the fictional character Hokhma Janaia, the eldest daughter of King David, a woman who defies stereotypes and experiences intense visions of both present and future events.

Triumph of Deborah is a novel which tells tells the story of Deborah, Asherah, and Nogah, three women who must find their true path despite the difficulties that fate has dealt them.

The Gospel of the Beloved Companion: The Gospel of Mary Magdalene by Jehann de Quillan is the first English translation of a previously unpublished first-century gospel of the same name. Originally written in Alexandrian Greek, and brought from Egypt during the early to middle part of the first century, this exceptional manuscript has been preserved within the author’s spiritual community since that time. This extraordinary book brings us a luminously poetic yet starkly objective insight into the man called Yeshua and the philosophy that he taught, that is starkly different from the religion we today call Christianity.

Christianity: The First 3000 Years is an admirably well narrated story about the development of Christianity in which the author traces its roots in Greece and Rome 1000 years before the Common Era.  Where does Christianity begin? In Athens, Jerusalem, or Rome? How did the early creeds of the church develop and differentiate? What was the impact of the Reformation and the Catholic Counterreformation? How have vital Christian communities emerged in Asia, Africa, and India since the 18th century? Award-winning historian Diarmaid MacCulloch  attempts to answer these questions and many more in this well written history.

• Just Kids by Patti Smith – the National Book Award winner  by the 60′s rocker.
• Revolutionary Road by  Richard Yates – the classic novel of a marriage built on dreams.
• True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey – a story about the outlaw Ned Kelly in 1880′s Australia.
• Welcome to Utopia by Karen Valby – Utopia, Texas that is.
• So Much For That by Lionel Shriver – a novel about our health care system.
• Great House by Nicole House – a series of stories featuring an antique desk.

This is a true story of a tragic love affair which took place just a few miles from us in the small town of Cross Plains in the 1930′s.

Robert Howard was a successful author of the popular Conan the  Barbarian stories who attracted the attention of a young wannabe writer who moved to Cross Plains to teach at the local school.

But Robert Howard was not an ordinary man.  He led a solitary existence and had trouble negotiating the simple aspects of day to day life.  But there was something else too.  Something that would eventually doom his relationship with the young woman.

She spent a career teaching high school English and did not publish her story until she retired. It’s not great writing but is well worth reading.

There is also a movie made from this book  called “The Whole Wide World” with Renee Zellweger and Vincent D’Onofrio.