Best Little Stories from Virginia

Best Little Stories From...

by C. Brian Kelly

When it comes to history, few states can rival Virginia, home of eight presidents and the cradle of the American Revolution. Best Little Stories from Virginia is a collection of more than 100 stories from the four centuries since Jamestown was founded in 1607. A journalistic history, it focuses on the "feature story" angle by approaching history through the eyes of the people who lived it. Virginia contained the first English colony in America as well as being the first place where slavery was introduced. It was both the leader of the Confederacy and a battleground of the civil rights struggles of the twentieth century. Its historic back-of-the-bus ruling in 1948 prohibited discriminatory practices on interstate buses long before the Rosa Parks case in Montgomery, Alabama, which involved city buses. Some of the stories included

456 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2003

About the author

C. BRIAN KELLY, a prize-winning journalist, is president and founder of Montpelier Publishing and a columnist and editor emeritus for Military History magazine. He also is a lecturer in newswriting at the University of Virginia. Kelly's articles have appeared in Reader's Digest, Friends, Yankee, Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, and other magazines, and he is the author of several books on American history.

Reviews

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't grow up in Virginia so I didn't absorb the history of the place simply by existing here. I also didn't take Virginia history in high school. The idea was that this book would give me an interesting introduction to Virginia history. It did that. Mr. Kelly is very good at selecting enjoyable tidbits from history.
Unfortunately, it is one of the worst written/edited books I have ever read. Seriously. I read passages aloud to people just to watch them cringe. I had to wait to read it until I was so sleepy that I didn't have the energy to take a red pen to the thing.
Don't read it. Don't do it.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a history geek, especially about Virginia, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book if you are interested in VA history. Definitely not an in-depth study, but interesting stories that span ~400 years.