Here are 100 books that Elmira fans have personally recommended if you like
Elmira.
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The Civil War has been a passion of mine since I was seven years old. This was inflamed by a professor I met at SUNY CortlandâEllis Johnson, who first told me of the POW camp at Elmira, New York. Even though I grew up just thirty miles from Elmira I was astounded at this revelation. Later I learned that I had a third great-grandfatherâWilliam B. Reeseâwho served in the Veterans Reserve Corps after being wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and was assigned to the garrison in Elmira, where he may have stood guard over the very prison his great grandson would write about.
This intriguing collection of essays explores the dark reaches of Civil War prison scholarship from a variety of viewpoints and professionsâincluding historians, anthropologists and public historians. The eclectic mix of topics includes environment, race, material culture, memory, and more. One of the more interesting aspects explored here is the phenomenon of prison camps which became tourist attractionsâsuch as Johnsonâs Island off Sandusky, Ohioâwhere steamboats would ply the waters around the island so guests might be able to spot an actual Rebel officer.
The "deadlines" were boundaries prisoners had to stay within or risk being shot. Just as a prisoner would take the daring challenge in "crossing the deadline" to attempt escape, Crossing the Deadlines crosses those boundaries of old scholarship by taking on bold initiatives with new methodologies, filling a void in the current scholarship of Civil War prison historiography, which usually does not go beyond discussing policy, prison history and environmental and social themes. Due to its eclectic mix of contributors-from academic and public historians to anthropologists currently excavating at specific stockade sites-the collection appeals to a variety of scholarly andâŚ
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to runâŚ
The Civil War has been a passion of mine since I was seven years old. This was inflamed by a professor I met at SUNY CortlandâEllis Johnson, who first told me of the POW camp at Elmira, New York. Even though I grew up just thirty miles from Elmira I was astounded at this revelation. Later I learned that I had a third great-grandfatherâWilliam B. Reeseâwho served in the Veterans Reserve Corps after being wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and was assigned to the garrison in Elmira, where he may have stood guard over the very prison his great grandson would write about.
This authoritative book is the first comprehensive study of all major Civil War prisonsâNorth and South. Speer traces the development of the POW facilities the various types used throughout the war from barren ground affairs to the infamous barren stockadesâlike Andersonville. We learn about the system of prisoner exchange created in the crisis and how it broke down, including how the taking of African-American prisoners ultimately spelled doom for the cartel. Speer traces the development of the POW facilities and the various types used throughout the war, from barren ground affairs to the infamous barren stockadesâlike Andersonville. This essential tool helps us categorize prisons by type, years they existed, capacity, escapes, and number of deaths.
The holding of prisoners of war has always been both a political and a military enterprise, yet the military prisons of the Civil War, which held more than four hundred thousand soldiers and caused the deaths of fifty-six thousand men, have been nearly forgotten. Now Lonnie R. Speer has brought to life the least-known men in the great struggle between the Union and the Confederacy, using their own words and observations as they endured a true "hell on earth." Drawing on scores of previously unpublished firsthand accounts, Portals to Hell presents the prisoners' experiences in great detail and from anâŚ
The Civil War has been a passion of mine since I was seven years old. This was inflamed by a professor I met at SUNY CortlandâEllis Johnson, who first told me of the POW camp at Elmira, New York. Even though I grew up just thirty miles from Elmira I was astounded at this revelation. Later I learned that I had a third great-grandfatherâWilliam B. Reeseâwho served in the Veterans Reserve Corps after being wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and was assigned to the garrison in Elmira, where he may have stood guard over the very prison his great grandson would write about.
One of the hottest fields of scholarship in the last generation is memory and how it shapes historiography. Cloydâs contribution to the field is the first to focus exclusively on Civil War prisons. This thought-provoking book demonstrates how the passions of the post-war fight over treatment of prisoners have complicated the process of reconciliation. In the present, as the Lost Cause mythology has stubbornly held on, how we want to remember the war extends to the need for both side to cast blame on the other when it comes to prisoners of war.
During the Civil War, approximately 56,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died in enemy military prison camps. Even in the midst of the war's shocking violence, the intensity of the prisoners' suffering and the brutal manner of their deaths provoked outrage, and both the Lincoln and Davis administrations manipulated the prison controversy to serve the exigencies of war. As both sides distributed propaganda designed to convince citizens of each section of the relative virtue of their own prison system, in contrast to the cruel inhumanity of the opponent, they etched hardened and divisive memories of the prison controversy into the AmericanâŚ
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother hadâŚ
The Civil War has been a passion of mine since I was seven years old. This was inflamed by a professor I met at SUNY CortlandâEllis Johnson, who first told me of the POW camp at Elmira, New York. Even though I grew up just thirty miles from Elmira I was astounded at this revelation. Later I learned that I had a third great-grandfatherâWilliam B. Reeseâwho served in the Veterans Reserve Corps after being wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and was assigned to the garrison in Elmira, where he may have stood guard over the very prison his great grandson would write about.
The definitive work on the Elmira POW Camp, Michael Grayâs book is a captivating account of life inside the pen on the Chemung River. Especially valuable is Grayâs account of Elmiraâs management by the post commanders, commandants, Commissary General of Prisoners and its supervision by the War Department. It is a web of intrigue and even conspiracy. Another important aspect of this path-breaking book is the micro-economy that was created by the prisoners, who kept themselves busy by catching and selling rats, making jewelry, and other ornaments, and fostering a marketplace where tobacco was the primary medium of exchange.
One of the many controversial issues to emerge from the Civil War was the treatment of prisoners of war. At two stockades, the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia, and the Union prison at Elmira, New York, suffering was acute and mortality was high.
During its single year of existence, more money was expended on the Elmira prison than in any of the other Union Stockades. Even with this record spending, a more ignominious figure was attached to Elmira: of the more than 12,000 Confederates imprisoned there, nearly 3,000 die while in captivity - the highest rate among all the NorthernâŚ
I began writing speculative fiction because I was fascinated by its potential as a laboratory to imagine the world that could be. Itâs a narrative form that allows us to play with revolutionary changes in society without any real people getting hurt. And it compels the author to do the hard work of imagining how others experience life in the real world as well as the imaginary one. The best SF novels balance their speculations with a grounding in the observed world, entertaining us with propulsive wonder while filling our minds with new ideas and fresh perspectives that linger long after we put the book down.
One of the best and most underappreciated works of contemporary speculative fiction by one of its finest living stylists, this book dares to riff on The Diary of Anne Frank and manages to pull it off with a first-person narration by a 12-year-old girl in New York City recounting her everyday life as the nation is coming apart in civil conflict and unrest.
The rapidly maturing innocence of the point of view dials up the intensity of the storyâmaking it feel more realâwhile at the same time giving it a uniquely accessible charisma powered by emotional connection more than the cyberpunk eyeball kicks that charged Womackâs other amazing novels.
With his vivid, stylized prose, cyberpunk intensity, and seemingly limitless imagination, Jack Womack has been compared to both William Gibson and Kurt Vonnegut. Random Acts of Senseless Violence, Womack's fifth novel, is a thrilling, hysterical, and eerily disturbing piece of work.
Lola Hart is an ordinary twelve-year-old girl. She comes from a comfortable family, attends an exclusive private school, loves her friends Lori and Katherine, teases her sister Boob. But in the increasingly troubled city where she lives (a near-future Manhattan) she is a dying breed. Riots, fire, TB outbreaks, roaming gangs, and civil unrest threaten her way of life,âŚ
I am a historian, curator, and writer born and raised in New York City, a place whose history intrigued me from an early age. With a mother who moved from small-town New Jersey to Greenwich Village in the 1950s, and a father who had childhood memories of World War I in the Bronx, I think my interest was sort of preordained. I remain fascinated by cities as engines of change, as flashpoints for conflict, and as places that are simultaneously powerful and vulnerable.
In urban warfare, boulevards, parks, palaces, and prisons take on crucial meanings. This is the launch point for Rapportâs narrative of how the spatial layout of three citiesâcolonial New York, revolutionary Paris, and imperial Londonâinspired and channeled violent uprisings and reprisals. Rapport ranges from New Yorkâs Commons, a park contested by patriots and redcoats in 1770, to Parisâs Faubourg Saint-Antoine neighborhood, whose artisans stormed the Bastille in 1789, and on to the network of taverns created by London radicals as clandestine hubs of revolutionary activism during the 1790s. A treat for anyone interested in how eighteenth-century cities became battlegrounds for the eraâs insurgent movements for freedom and equality.
A lauded expert on European history paints a vivid picture of Paris, London, and New York during the Age of Revolutions, exploring how each city fostered or suppressed political uprisings within its boundaries
In The Unruly City, historian Mike Rapport offers a vivid history of three intertwined cities toward the end of the eighteenth century-Paris, London, and New York-all in the midst of political chaos and revolution. From the British occupation of New York during the Revolutionary War, to agitation for democracy in London and popular uprisings, and ultimately regicide in Paris, Rapport explores the relationship between city and revolution,âŚ
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man sheâŚ
Iâm not as old as some of the characters in the books Iâve mentioned, but Iâm getting there. With age, one learns to hold grief in one hand and gratitude in the other. The importance of friendship and community can hardly be overstated. I love reading books that represent older characters, especially women, as complex, life-embracing individuals without resorting to condescension. I strove to write such a book with Tobyâs Last Resort. Iâm not always writing about older characters, but in all my work, I want to dive below the surface, discover meaning in the ordinary, and treat my characters with respect.
Lillian is an 84-years old woman walking around New York City on New Yearâs Eve.
She loves the city, made her way there as a young woman in advertising in the 30s, became well-known as a poet of light verse. She alternately reminisces about her life and encounters people you would not expect.
She remembers her life in pieces, the way one does, so the reader puts together the mystery.
I found her to be a delightful and refreshing character. The book is a beautiful lacing of the past with the promise of unexpected things to come.Â
A love letter to city life in all its guts and grandeur, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic; the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.
âIn my reckless and undiscouraged youth,â Lillian Boxfish writes, âI worked in a walnut-paneled office thirteen floors above West Thirty-Fifth StreetâŚâ
She took 1930s New York by storm, working her way up writing copy for R.H. Macyâs to become the highest paidâŚ
As a reader and a writer, I am drawn to the darker side of human nature. Dysfunctional families, toxic relationships, liars, murderers, bring on the bad. An avid reader of horror and thrillers, I love a jaw-dropping twist. I aim for that feeling in my own novels, opening up reader questions and slowly delivering satisfying answers until the final big reveal. While inside my head is very dark and murdery, outside I live a very normal, law-abiding life, in Tampa with my husband, our four kids, and two dogs.
Revenge is sweet, or is it? Claire has a bone to pick with Hannah, who she blames for ruining her life. She infiltrates Hannahâs picture-perfect life by posing as a housekeeper. All that glitters isnât gold, and when Claire moves in with Hannah, her husband, and their newborn, she discovers sheâs not the only one with secrets. I can blame a few sleepless nights on this book, as I furiously flipped pages to get to the end.  Â
She's a liar. She's a stalker. She's in your house.
When Claire sees Hannah Wilson at an exclusive Manhattan hair salon, it's like a knife slicing through barely healed scars. It may have been ten years since Claire last saw Hannah, but she has thought of her every day, and not in a good way. So Claire does what anyone would do in her positionâshe stalks her.
Hannah is now Mrs. Carter, living the charmed life that should have been Claire's. It's the life Claire used to have, before Hannah came along and took it allâŚ
My father came from Ukraine, and every summer took the family to stay on a farm in an immigrant community in southern New Jersey, Carmel, a community begun by the Baron de Hirsch Foundation, which settled Jews from all over Europe. Italian immigrants also settled there. I lived in a family that spoke to their siblings in three languages, Yiddish, Russian, and Ukrainian. Hence, I was privy to the loves and losses of people who felt estranged from their language and often yearned to return to their country of origin.
Tough Jews is a short history of Jewish-American gangsters and their Italian colleagues with whom they made common cause. It is here for the first time that we understand why Arnold Rothstein was the most important gangster in America. Having introduced "organized" into organized crime, he promised underworld figures the help of the famous attorney William Fallon if they landed in trouble and agreed to look after their families if they got sent up the Hudson (to Sing Sing). I am struck by the fact that Cohen makes his history personal, by means of his own contacts with the people who know the inside story of how the Jewish gangsters thrivedâor didn't. He sits down with them; he eats with them; and he gets them to remember how it once was in the days of Dutch Schultz, Legs Diamond, and Arnold Rothstein.
Award-winning writer Rich Cohen excavates the real stories behind the legend of infamous criminal enforcers Murder, Inc. and contemplates the question: Where did the tough Jews go?
In 1930s Brooklyn, there lived a breed of men who now exist only in legend and in the memories of a few old-timers: Jewish gangsters, fearless thugs with nicknames like Kid Twist Reles and Pittsburgh Phil Strauss. Growing up in Brownsville, they made their way from street fights to underworld power, becoming the execution squad for a national crime syndicate. Murder Inc. did for organized crime what Henry Ford did for the automobile,âŚ
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the worldâs most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the bookâŚ
I first learned about Fannie Lou Hamer more than a decade ago, and I have been deeply inspired by her life story and her words. I didnât initially think I would write a book about her. But the uprisings of 2020 motivated me to do so. Like so many people, I struggled to make sense of everything that was unfolding, and I began to question whether change was possible. The more I read Hamerâs words, the more clarity I found. Her vision for the world and her commitment to improving conditions for all people gave me a renewed sense of hope and purpose.
Constance Baker Motleyâs role within the Civil Rights Movement had not received the recognition it deserved until Tomiko Brown-Naginâs Civil Rights Queen. Brown-Nagin reconstructs Motleyâs life and pushes readers to consider the activist and legal career of the first Black woman appointed as a federal judge. As a writer who is especially interested in studying Black working-class women, I appreciate the authorâs close attention to how Motleyâs life from a working-class background to her position as a judge of the Southern District of New York.
With the US Supreme Court confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, âit makes sense to revisit the life and work of another Black woman who profoundly shaped the law: Constance Baker Motleyâ (CNN). The first major biography of one of our most influential judgesâan activist lawyer who became the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciaryâthat provides an eye-opening account of the twin struggles for gender equality and civil rights in the 20th Century.
âA must-read for anyone who dares to believe that equal justice under the law is possible and is in search of a model for how toâŚ
