No comments about The Really, Really, Really Easy Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Your Family Tree Using Your Computer: For Absolute Beginners of All Ages (Really, Really, Really Easy Step-By-Step Guide To...).

No comments about Ship Passenger Lists: National and New England (1600-1825).

No comments about Prehistoric and Romano-British Settlement in the Solway Plain, Cumbria (Oxbow Monographs).

No comments about The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh.

No comments about Bath.

1 comments about A New England Girlhood: Outlined from Memory.

1. People in the following three categories will find this book interesting and useful : 1) feminists interested in 19th century women's lives and attitudes; 2) researchers into New England morals and values as expressed in exhortatory literature of the 19th century and 3) those who are studying lower middle class American education and intellectual interests as found in New England mill towns and the Mid-West in the mid-1800s. The author began life in the town of Beverly, Mass., which happens to be just across the water from my home town. Thus, I found a certain interest in her reminiscences about the town and countryside in the 1820s and `30s. Lowell, Mass., where the author worked for some years in the period 1835-1845, was at the time the site of a new industrial experiment, with Yankee farm girls brought in to provide a work force that was better educated and more disciplined than most. At the end of that period, the owners decided they could do better with less-educated immigrants who would not strike for their rights. America has changed so dramatically in the 111 years since this book was written that I doubt if most people would find A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD too engrossing. It is chock full of moralizing homilies about life, beauty, religion, and high-minded industry. The smallest unpleasant thing is totally avoided, there is not the tiniest complaint or hint of rebellion. Earnest Christian fundamentalist sentiment suffuses the pages along with didactic glances at everything. More than once I was reminded of Chinese Communist textbooks, so terribly sincere were her chapters. There is still a modicum of interest in all this if you read the book in the light of "Wow! What a change a century can make in a culture !" Can you imagine a modern woman writing chapters on hymnbooks or uplifting poetry in her autobiography ? Yet, given the times, this was not strange, however so it appears today. In short, I cannot say that this book will enthrall too many people---its concerns and style are just too remote from the early 21st century.

No comments about An Enduring Flame: Bronte Story in Poetry and Photographs.

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1 comments about Art of the State: Maine.

1. This discreet unpretentoius little book is a gem. It gets a great balance between facts and info and the spirit and art of the state. A great starting point for planning a trip to the state of Maine. I was keen to find out as much about the state before my planning was too advanced and this has been an enormous help in steering toward some (apparently, not been yet so not sure) very interesting places. It is not designed to sell the state or any particular element such as hotels or dining. It does cover what it says the Spirit and the Art. A really great little book that I will treasure and return to I will also be buying others in the series!!

1 comments about Tracing Your Ancestors in the National Archives: The Website and Beyond.

1. I purchased this book on the UK National Archives in preparation for a visit to London in which I will squeeze in a visit to the Archives for research. It was one of several purchased, and by far, the best.
   The book is very well organized and thorough. Sufficient examples, both in the narrative and by inserted examples of documents. It is also easy on the eyes--there are plenty of breaks in the verbiage, white space around the narrative, and a decent-sized font. Many books of this sort try to cram so much onto a page by reducing the font and narrowing the white space making reading difficult over the long run. I believe this is the best of the British research guides on the market.