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Mississippi Books and WritersMarch 1999Note: Prices listed below reflect the publisher's suggested list price. They are subject to change without notice.
D-Day, June 6, 1944: the Climactic Battle of World War II Large Print Edition Nonfiction by Stephen E. Ambrose G. K. Hall & Co. (Hardcover, $29.95, ISBN: 0783884699) Publication date: March 1999 Description from Kirkus Reviews (1 April 1994): A splendid, moving, and authoritative account of
the most decisive day of WWII by Ambrose (History/Univ. of New Orleans), whose
massive biographies of Eisenhower and Nixon have won widespread praise. Based
on “the most extensive first-person, I-was-there collection of memoirs
of a single battle in existence,” Ambrose moves easily between the strategy
of each side and the individual recollections of the battle. He conveys not
only the magnitude of the enterprise but its complexity. He also suggests some
significant changes to the conventional interpretation of the war, most notably
in the view hitherto taken about the respective quality of leadership and soldiers
on each side. He contradicts the belief in the superiority of the German soldiers
and says that the higher losses they inflicted against the Anglo-American armies
derived from the necessity for the latter to take the offensive. The German
army was, he writes, “inferior in all respects (except for weaponry, especially
the 88s and the machine guns) to its allied opponents.” He call Rommel’s
plan to stop the Allied invasion on the beach “one of the greatest blunders
in military history,” and he compares the strategy to that of the French
Maginot line. By contrast, he argues that Eisenhower’s judgment was generally
right and that he not only inspired his subordinates but also showed courage
in rejecting suggestions for an alternative strategy from Army Chief of Staff
George Marshall. But most memorable in the account are the tales of individual
heroism, from the 16-year-old French girl who, with a group of companions, paralyzed
the German Second Panzer Division by removing the axle grease from its transporters
and substituting an abrasive, to the Canadian soldier who threw himself down
on barbed wire to enable his companions to use his body as a ladder. A brilliant
account that blends perfectly the human and the strategic dimensions of this
great battle. —Copyright © 1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights
reserved. A Novel by Nevada Barr Putnam (Hardcover, $23.95, ISBN: 0399144595) Publication date: March 1999 Description from Kirkus Reviews (1 February 1999): What does National Park Service Ranger Anna Pigeon
do on her own time? She goes to New York, of course, bedding down on Liberty
Island, the speck of land the Statue of Liberty shares with thousands of tourists
each day and has pretty much to herself each night. Staying with fellow ranger
Patsy Silva in order to be close to her psychiatrist sister Molly, hospitalized
at Columbia Presbyterian with pneumonia, a kidney infection, and more, Anna
thinks her biggest headaches will be Molly’s grave illness and Anna’s
need to deal somehow with FBI agent Frederick Stanton, the ex-boyfriend who
deserted her for Molly. But darker trouble is already brewing. An unidentified
14-year-old girl who jumped to her death from the parapet around the statue’s
base has sent James Patchett, the guard who was pursuing her, into deep depression.
Why was the girl more willing to die than to have Patch, who thought she was
a pickpocket, catch her? Why has her backpack disappeared? And why hasn’t
anyone claimed her body? As Molly Pigeon shuttles in and out of Intensive Care,
pausing only long enough to encourage Anna’s romance with surgeon David
Madison, more casualties pile up on Liberty Island, including two who leave
behind cryptic messages that Anna’s convinced would tie half a dozen mysterious
portents togetherif only she were wise enough to decipher them. Though Barr
works her customary magic with the eerily deserted nightscapes of Liberty Island,
they’re just not as arresting as the Lechugilla caves (Blind Descent,
1998) or the wild scenes of any of earlier six adventures. Score a mere double
this time for the Park Service’s answer to Mark McGwire. —Copyright
© 1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Nonfiction by James A. Autry and Stephen Mitchell Riverhead Books (Paperback, $14.00, ISBN: 157322720X) Publication date: March 1999 Description: The Tao Te Ching is the world’s oldest leadership manual, written, according to legend, by the sage Lao-tzu in the sixth century B.C.E. In this book, premier business consultant James A. Autry and bestselling author and translator Stephen Mitchell present a modern-day guide to business leadership drawing on the age-old lessons of the Tao Te Ching. With simple, evocative essays, commenting on a selection from the Tao Te Ching, they show how its elegant wisdom can transform the workplace from a source of stress into a source of creativity and joy—and make work, at any level of the corporate ladder, more fulfilling than ever before.
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