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Blood on the Tracks is a historical novel by Cecelia Holland

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Little Star Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 07:20 AM
Original message
Blood on the Tracks is a historical novel by Cecelia Holland
I just ordered this for my new Kindle. When I read the editorial reviews and the customer reviews I had to order it!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Twelve years after the Civil War ended, while the U.S. was deep in a depression, the owners of the four largest railroads met in New York and agreed to cut their workers’ salaries by 10 percent. Blood on the Tracks immerses readers in the physically and emotionally charged struggle that soon followed--the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Cecelia Holland, a prolific writer of historical novels, turns this forgotten chapter of history into an impossibly interesting study of gritty American life before big government, unions, or business regulation. Holland’s vivid descriptions bring to life the seething anger of the mobs and their battles to control the lines. She renders the chaos of the strike in individual vignettes of drunkards, angry workers, curious onlookers, sheriffs disabused of power, militiamen who put down their arms to join the resistance, and men cajoled by the railroad bosses to take up arms against the crowd. The piece ends with a witty yet stern rebuke of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, which used the story of a fictional rail line to champion a belief that profit is the best motivator (and Laissez-faire the best economic climate) for humanity. --Paul Diamond

Product Description
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 wrenched American history onto a new course. Focusing on events in Baltimore and Pittsburgh, this essay brings this dramatic and bloody confrontation to life, as ordinary people, driven to the wall by oppression, rose against their masters. This was the opening act in long years of savage struggle for the rights of labor that continue to this day.

Here is a link where you can peek inside the book and also read the customer reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Tracks-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B0056B0P8U/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312546034&sr=1-8#_


Maybe I'll find time to read it this winter! LOL
Let me know what you guys think of the reviews.
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midnight Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 07:32 AM
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1. This looks like a good read... I specially like the rebuke
of Ayn Rand.
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Little Star Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 07:59 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. I think that's the part that sold me! ha,ha,ha....
I also thought I might learn something, that never hurts!
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classof56 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 08:25 AM
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3. Thanks for posting!
How do you like your Kindle? I have a writer friend who says she's making more from her books on Kindle than the ones in print. As an aspiring writer, I had looked forward to book signings (I can dream, can't I!), but maybe I should go straight to Kindle.

Your post and the reviews of Blood on the Tracks have prompted me to read it. Better get a Kindle, huh? ;-)
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Little Star Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 10:34 AM
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6. I haven't read one thing on it yet! LOL But.....
I have 119 books on it!!!!! 90% of them were either free or 99cents, the rest I didn't pay more than $1.99 for. A kind DUer told me about this great web site: http://ereadernewstoday.com/ and that has helped me find my way around Amazon for more good deals.

I will never give up my paperback's though. I like to pick them up, hold and smell them too much to ever stop using paper copy. I also have so many collections of series that I read over and over again which I keep adding to with each new release. So Kindle for me is just another choice to use for some new authors I want to try.

About your dream do it!!! I am going to paste a link to a older post I made about this author who decided to publish his first book with Kindle publishing. Wait till you see what has happened to him and his dream.
Here is the link let me know what you think :):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=208x25706
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classof56 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 02:06 PM
Response to Reply #6
12. Hey, thank you for these links and for the encouraging words.
Hadn't heard of the John Locke novels, so really glad to learn about him and especially his amazing success with Kindle. Also the ereadernews link. I am just about to head out for my biweekly critique session, and have printed out your info to share with my fellow writers. This is exciting--I love it and a hundred thanks for passing these along. Gave my Muse a lift! :)

Cheers! :toast:
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fadedrose Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 08:27 AM
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4. R'd - but gonna pass on it
Stuff like that ends up making me mad and depressed, but it sounds great for the many here who love historical novels. Things now are so messed up that I'm reading mostly Sponge Bob kinda stuff for adults ;)

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Little Star Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 10:45 AM
Response to Reply #4
7. I hear ya! Things are really a mess. And I'm still..
sneaking a few minutes a day to enjoy a little Doss. I really like The Charlie Moon Series so far. I'm still on book #2. I had some gift certificates to Barnes & Noble so I bought all the ones that are out in paperback! I don't do hard cover, to hard for me to hold since I had my stroke. Besides paperback is more affordable. So anyway, I'm good to go on the I have them in my hand part. lol

I don't know what the heck is happening with me this summer. I am either too dang busy to sit and read or I'm to stressed out to calm myself down enough and let go of the garbage in my head! This too will pass I hope and sooner rather than later.
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fadedrose Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 02:15 PM
Response to Reply #7
13. It's been hard to read..
especially when we wondered if our SS was going to come or not. How in the hell can I feed the birds without SS? Some less important things I need it for too....:)

How can people vote for these gangsters anyway...

Book 3 is serious, with wise wisecracks here and there.

It seems that he goes wilder the more he writes.

If only it would get cold so you could settle down and relax.

Sorry about hearing you had a stroke. You are so vibrant, vivacious and full of life. We gotta keep you happy. My troubles are different; I read laying on my tummy and just let the book lay on the bed with hardly any help from me. The pocketbooks won't stay closed. Whatever works...

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Little Star Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 02:43 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. Speaking of birds.... Did you watch Pheobe Allens Hummingbirds
5th clutch (she had two babies named Joplin & Heather)? I got to see both of them fledge!!! I'm not or at least wasn't a birder. But that month of watching them hatch, grow and fledge was some kinda exciting!

She should have her next clutch in October and the camera will go live. Here is a link if your interested. The web site has a lot of good information in the tabs at the top:
http://phoebeallens.com/

My MIL is a big time birder and she said it was the best thing she ever watched. The hosts put the camera at such a good angle you can see everything that goes on in the nest. It's a great live nature show.

Oh yeah, I'm in the fiction book forum! :silly:
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aquart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 08:49 AM
Response to Original message
5. Wasn't just the railroads in 1877.
This country was awash in labor unrest from sea to shining sea in 1877. There's a straight history book on it...one of the things I remember is that the stress didn't just kill the union men. The rich bastards fighting them were worn out, too. And that tons of pro-labor and protective legislation was the ultimate result of the horror.

Don't let up on the Kochs and the Murdochs and their ilk. Age them in dog years. Make them nervous. Make them overspend. Keep their terror levels high every damn day. Make their bodies destroy them.
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Little Star Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 10:47 AM
Response to Reply #5
8. I keep thinking that they will get theirs someday! Bastids!
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aquart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 01:52 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. I recommend this for its familiar trajectory.
http://www.amazon.com/1877-Americas-Year-Living-Violently/dp/1595584412#reader_1595584412

Panic of 1873?

Collapse of Jay Cooke & Co.?

We've been here before. And we only learn as long as someone is alive to remember.

The first chapter is online. Check it out. But my favorite is the last chapter.

"The collapse of Jay Cooke & Co. "was a financial thunderbolt" and "as unexpected as an earthquake.""
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Little Star Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 02:49 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. Do you want me to get smart?????? lol ...
That was only $9.99 for my Kindle. Great price! I ordered it.

Now I have to stop spending money or I'll be 1)divorced or 2) starved to death! lol

Thanks for the recommendation I just might learn something.
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 12:13 PM
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Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
Little Star Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-05-11 12:46 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. I ordered it. And Yes Go Red Sox!!! ....
But John I must say after reading the Product Description:
"The U.S. is ground-zero for a mysterious global pandemic. The disease is highly infectious and kills its victims within two weeks of exposure. It's neither bacteria nor a virus and all traditional treatment regimens have failed.

Serena Salus, a radical scientist, discovers the organism is an extraterrestrial dust mite brought to earth by a shuttle astronaut. The government contends it's a genetically-engineered organism created on earth by enemies of freedom.

Dr. Salus uncovers a vile plan for distributing her experimental vaccine and finds herself in a deadly confrontation with powerful forces that'll stop at nothing to control the distribution of her vaccine."



I THINK IT IS GOING TO SCARE THE CRAP OUTTA ME!!!! I can take true crime, even thrillers but your book sounds like really scary.

How much ya wanna bet I end up loving it? Hope you do well!
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