Booklist and Notes

Booklist and Notes George Brosi Baer, Elizabeth R. Shadows on My Heart: The Civil War Diary ofLucy Rebecca Buck. Athens: University ofGeorgia Press, 1997. 355 pages with an index, bibliography, notes, appendix, epilogue, and introduction. Illustrated . Hardback in dust jacket. $50.00. The authentic Civil War diary ofa Virginia woman, Lucy Buck, begun at the age ofeighteen in 1861. Her last entry is for April 15, 1865. It provides commentary from the point ofview ofthe daughter ofa prosperous Shenandoah Valley planter on virtually the entire course of the war. Entries reveal a passionate partisanship towards the Confederate cause, and they also provide a candid and unsentimental window into everyday life both before and after the family's eight slaves left the plantation. Bryant, Page. Starwalking: ShamanicPracticesfor Travelinginto the Night Sky. Santa Fe: Bear and Company, 1997. 319 pages, illustrated, with a bibliography. Trade paperback. $18.95. This book focuses on the wisdom that ancient traditional peoples, primarilyAmerican Indians, have gleaned from study ofthe stars. Page Bryant and herhusband operate the Mystic Mountains Teaching and Retreat Center nearWaynesville, North Carolina. She has been a professional psychic and intuitive counselor for twenty-five years. Currey, Richard. Lost Highway. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. 258 pages. Hardback in dust jacket. $22.00. "The new novel by the much-praised Currey is as eloquently piercing and deeply American as a classic folk ballad. In fact its first-person narrator , Sapper Reeve, is a West Virginian who learns to play the banjo as a boy and then finds that music is taking over his life—with often disastrous consequences . . . This is all told by Currey in haunting, limpid prose that allows the brooding sweetness of Sapper Reeves to emerge on the page like music itself." —Publishers Weekly. The novel begins right after World War II and ends with the return of Sapper's son, Bobby, from Vietnam, wounded physically and emotionally. Currey's previous books are Crossing Over: A Vietnam Journal (1980), Fatal Light, a war novel (1988), and The Wars ofHeaven, a short-story collection (1990). Garrett, Annie. Because I Wanted Tou. New York: St. Martin's, 1997. 226 pages, undersized. $18.95. 73 Kelli Pryor, a celebrity journalist, presents this, her second novel, using a pseudonym. Her first effort AngelFlying Too Close to the Ground (1996) has been optioned by Turner Pictures. This is a classic Kentucky-mountain -girl-strikes-it-rich-in-New-York tale complete with a stereotypical heroine's name—Ruby Blossom Bottom. Once Ruby achieves the celebrity life in the city, she begins to long for the life she lived in Kentucky. "Fans ofsweet and simple romances and those who long for all-is-forgiven endings will find what they want here." —Publishers Weekly. Houston, Peter. A Sketch oftheLife and CharacterofDanielBoone. Edited by Ted Franklin Belue, 1997. 81 pages with an index, bibliography, maps, and photographic plates. Hardback in dust jacket. $15.95. Through a series ofimprobable events, this "sketch," first prepared in 1842 by Peter Houston (1764-1855) finally finds its rightful place in print this year thanks to the efforts ofTed Franklin Belue, a historian at Murray State University whose introduction, appendix, and notes put it into context . This is avaluable addition to the story ofDaniel Boone (1734-1820), a frontiersman who figures prominently in the early history not only of Kentucky but also ofWest Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia . McCrumb, Sharyn. Foggy Mountain Breakdown. New York: Ballantine Books, 1997. 326 pages. Hardback in dust jacket. $22.50. After fifteen novels, Sharyn McCrumb here publishes hervery first short story collection! Her previous books have won her all five of the major awards in crime fiction. Puglisi, Michael J., editor. Diversity and Accommodation: Essays on the Cultural Composition ofthe Virginia Frontier. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997. 310 pages with an index and bibliography. Hardback in dust jacket. $45.00 This volume begins with an introduction which serves essentially as a narrative annotated bibliography of historical scholarship on the Appalachian frontier. Following are a dozen scholarly essays emphasizing ethnicity, race, community, and architecture. The overall impact ofthe volume is to reinforce current scholarly trends by employing them to illuminate an important topic. Speer, Allen Paul. Voicesfrom CemeteryHill: The...