The Coalwood Way

Amazon.com

In this follow-up to his bestselling autobiography Rocket Boys, Homer Hickam chronicles the eventful autumn of 1959 in his hometown, the West Virginia mining town of Coalwood. Sixteen-year-old Homer and his pals in the Big Creek Missile Agency are high school seniors, still building homemade rockets and hoping that science will provide them with a ticket into the wider world of college and white-collar jobs. Such dreams make them suspect in a conservative small town where "getting above yourself" is the ultimate sin and where Homer's father, superintendent of the Coalwood mines, is stingy with praise and dubious about his son's ambitions. Homer's mother remains supportive, but bluntly reminds him, "You can't expect everything to go your way. Sometimes life just has another plan." Indeed, Hickam's unvarnished portrait of Coalwood covers class warfare (union miners battling with his authoritarian father), provincial narrow-mindedness (the local ladies scorn a young woman living outside wedlock with a man who abuses her), and endless gossiping along the picket "fence line." These sharp details make the unabashed sentiment of the book's closing chapters feel earned rather than easy. Hickam can spin a gripping yarn and keep multiple underlying themes and metaphors going at the same time. His tender but gritty memoir will touch readers' hearts and minds. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

From the #1 bestselling author of October Sky comes this rich, unforgettable tale. With the same dazzling storytelling that distinguished his first memoir, Homer Hickam takes us deeper into the soul of his West Virginia hometown at a moment when its unique way of life is buffeted by forces of time and change.

It is fall 1959. Homer “Sonny” Hickam and his fellow Rocket Boys are in their senior year at Big Creek High, and the town of Coalwood finds itself at a painful crossroads.

The strains can be felt within the Hickam home, where Homer Sr. struggles to save the mine, and his wife, Elsie, is feeling increasingly isolated from both her family and the townspeople. Sonny, despite a blossoming relationship with a local girl, finds his own mood darkened by an unexplainable sadness.

Then, with the holidays approaching, trouble at the mine and the arrival of a beautiful young outsider bring unexpected changes in both the Hickam family and the town of Coalwood ... as this luminous memoir moves toward its poignant conclusion.

Customer Reviews:

A Christmas to Remember.......2007-05-15

Dr. Werner von Braun once said, "Matters of faith are not really accessible to our rational thinking. I find it best not to ask any questions, but to just believe..." These words are truly conveyed throughout the second of Homer Hickam Jr.'s memoirs, The Coalwood Way, originally published in 2000. Although following his acclaimed, Rocket Boys, this compelling story does not continue where the last left off. Portions of the memoir take place during the same time period as the last, however, this tome portrays the life of Homer "Sonny" Hickam in a different light. This particular memoir focuses on Sonny's senior year in high school and the hardships he must go through when growing up. In addition to working diligently on creating improved rockets, Sonny must focus on achieving A's in school. Most importantly, he must focus on his family. In 1959 Coalwood, West Virginia is a ticking bomb and as it becomes more and more difficult to keep the mines running, the bomb seems to always be the verge of exploding leaving the people out of jobs, homes and, even worse, their town. Sonny must now try to keep his family together while the town falls apart and yet keep alive the dream of leaving in order to join his role model, Dr. Werner von Braun, at Cape Canaveral.
Sonny Hickam is on his way to fulfilling his dreams as the book begins. However there a few obstacles on the way. Troubles in his family prevent Sonny from leading an easy, carefree life. His mother, Elsie, is growing increasingly impatient with Sonny's father. Sonny's father, Homer, is the mine superintendent and with the opening of a dangerous new mine, 11 East; ultimately, he is home even less often than usual. The strain on the marriage becomes too much for Sonny's mother and she insists on leaving Coalwood to escape to Myrtle Beach in order to sell real estate. In addition to his domestic hardships, Sonny is having troubles with himself. Every so often, although only lasting a few minutes, Sonny will find himself engulfed in an unexplainable grief. This mystery baffles Sonny day after day. As he searches for the origin of this mystery grief, he learns more than he ever imagined. Sonny's emotions and adventures are vividly depicted through a truly sentimental story, splashed with humor in all the right places. The writing style of Homer Hickam in this memoir is once again captivating and absolutely unforgettable.
Although one may think memoirs aren't written well due to the lack of an experienced writer, The Coalwood Way reads like an old time fable. It is written in such a way that you are taken from your own world and thrown into the small town in West Virginia. Hickam depicts Coalwood in such a way that the image of every part of the quaint town is etched into your mind. His method of writing will bring you to tears when tragedy strikes and laughter when Sonny finds himself in a humorous predicament.
This memoir is all about finding yourself and realizing that whenever life trips you up, someone will always be there to catch you when you fall. Throughout this lucid story, Sonny tries to find himself, and while looking down on his beloved town, he finally realizes the answer to what he's being puzzling all along. He understands his feelings, thinking: "My parents, and all the people of Coalwood, had given me the only true gifts they could ever give, that of their wisdom, and of their dreams, and of their love. All fear, sadness, and anger inside me had vanished. I knew who I was and where I came from and who my people were. I was ready to leave because I could never leave." Once Sonny realizes he can let go of the past, he is able to finally leave his hometown with the closure he needs to succeed.

The "perfect" next book............2007-03-27

"The Coalwood Way" is the part 2 contiuation of the "Rocket Boys", AKA:"October Sky". I just really like the way Mr. Hickam tells his story in his books. I find them to be "Americana" like- a success story from a humble start. I think the series could be a must read for middle and high school students as a way to see their potential in their own future and not just the here and now. A great book (and series) to read!

Very much different from Rocket Boys/October Sky.......2007-03-19

I'm not sure where the below reviewers are coming from. The Coalwood Way, although including the Rocket Boys, is very much different from the first memoir. And it is not a bunch of disconnected stories, not at all! The Coalwood Way opens with Sonny Hickam in a strange depression a year after the death of his grandfather who had lost his legs in the coal mine. It is a depression he struggles with throughout the book and is the core thread. How he determines what is causing that depression really fills out a part of the original memoir that was left out and provides us with insight as to how he ultimately succeeds. Hickam reveals how that last winter in Coalwood so much is happening to him and his friends. His rockets are starting to work, but nothing else does. He even lets Chipper, his mom's beloved squirrel, escape into the winter cold and snow. He also meets Dreama, a young woman also struggling, and wanting Sonny to be her friend. Dreama is considered something like white trash, and is living with one of the most detestable men in town. Sonny also falls for Ginger who dreams of being a professional singer and provides an interesting counterpoint to the coal miners' sons of Coalwood with their dreams of spaceflight. "Dad," or Homer, Sr. is also struggling, trying to open a part of the mine that has defeated previous mine superintendents but upon which the future of Coalwood depends. "Mom," or Elsie, struggles with her failure to win the annual Veteran's Day parade (Coalwood's float has always won before), as well as her continuing attempts to get Homer, Sr. to quit the mine before black lung kills him. Elsie also identifies very much with Dreama and wants to help her but is held back by the "Coalwood way". The story is told with Hickam's tradmark humor and there are as many laugh out loud moments as tears. The dramatic arc of these threads to the story all join in a night of murder and mayhem when Coalwood is also buried in a huge snowstorm and cut off from the rest of the world. This is followed by another night of hope and amazing redemption on Christmas Eve that will cause even the hardest heart to melt. In many ways, this is Hickam's Coalwood Christmas story and it's a great one. You will love it.

The same story..........2007-02-26

A story told first time can be fasicnating. As Rocket Boys was. The same story told second time is just boring. The first one had a backbone: boys trying to achieve the goal despite the circumstances. The second one - ranomly selected stories about this or that - I simply don't care. Meaningless and boring

nothing new, but still ok.......2006-09-11

i read Rocket Boys, which i loved, and then moved on to the Coalwood Way. i was rather disappointed when i started it. it wasn't that it was about a period of time covered in rocket boys - i knew that already. but what i loved about rocket boys was the portrayal of a small town, and the coalwood way basically repeats that subject, which i think was pretty well covered already in Rocket boys.

so this book isn't a must-read, like rocket boys. but it's still pretty good, as i discovered after getting throught the first couple introductory chapters (which mostly just repeated things said in rocket boys). there's still plenty of new plot material - there's dreama, a girl living with an abusive man out of wedlock, who just wants to be accepted by the town's women. then there's sonny's girl-related woes, mostly centered around a girl named ginger (there's very litttle dorothy plunk, for those of you sick of her from rocket boys). then there's sonny's relationship with both his parents, and with his brother. (sonny is homer, in case you don't know.)

this is sort of an alternative to rocket boys, telling some of the same messages from different angles. if you've already read rocket boys, read some of the other books on your list first.

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THE COALWOOD WAY

Manufacturer: Island Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GQ9RXE

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The Coalwood Way
Homer Hickam
Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
ASIN: B000MBZFF2

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The Coalwood Way

Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000H7KGJQ

The Coalwood Way [UNABRIDGED] (Audiobook)

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The Coalwood Way [UNABRIDGED] (Audiobook)
Homer Hickam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: 1419326902

Product Description

Homer Hickam is the #1 New York Times best-selling author whose life inspired the critically acclaimed film October Sky. In The Coalwood Way he returns to his childhood home of Coalwood, West Virginia for an inspiring memoir about growing up in a town thats slowly fading away. Homer and his close buddies, who call themselves the Rocket Boys, are high school seniors in 1959. Their rocket building experiments amaze the locals, thanks to top-quality moonshine for fuel, liberated materials, and Homers self-taught understanding of higher math. But no matter how brilliant their experiments are, they can do little to help preserve Coalwoods way of life. With the coal mine on its last legs, prospects for the town are unpredictable at best. For anyone whos ever dreamed of greatness or wondered what an uncertain future might bring, this book will seem warmly familiar. Frank Mullers affectionate narration captures both the spirit of ambition and the spectre of gloomy prospects.

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Coalwood Way, a memoir
Homer Hickman
Manufacturer: see notes for publisher info
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000R1WCYE

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The Coalwood Way

Manufacturer: Recorded Books, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: 1402504888

Product Description

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The Coalwood Way
Homer Hickman
Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NXKGWG

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The Coalwood Way : A Memoir
Homer H., Jr. Hickam
Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000WL47J2

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Coalwood Way a Memoir
Homer Hickam
Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000X69FY8

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Bloodsong - The South African dogs of war's story

A little disappointed

Bloodsong!: An Account of Executive Outcomes in Angola
James Hooper
Manufacturer: Harper UK
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Angola | Africa | History | Subjects | Books
General | Africa | History | Subjects | Books
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Customer Reviews:

Bloodsong - The South African dogs of war's story.......2003-04-11

The late lord Harold MacMillan's winds of change that started off as a relative gentle breeze in western Africa in the early sixties had built up to hurricane strength when it reached Southern Africa. In the middle eighties the major part of the region was ablaze: full-scale wars were waged in Angola and Mozambique, troops and police anti-terrorist units were deployed along the Angolan - South West African border to neutralize the liberation groups and in South Africa the black townships were virtual war zones. The South Africans were with their backs to the sea but managed to survive and to suppress wave after wave unleashed on them.

Having been the pariah of nations for decades they had to be totally self-reliant: a war machine unequalled in the history of the Dark Continent came into being. Equipment was designed and perfected. Thousands of men were conscripted, processed, trained and to a certain extent, programmed for warfare.

And then, in the late eighties and early nineties the unimaginable happened: peace broke out!

For many South Africans it was a low blow - all of a sudden they were both without a mission as well as a way to eke out a living.
For years armed conflict was all they knew and lived for and in the new political dispensation their skills were not required and instead, quite frankly, actually frowned upon.

Thus, with uncanny entepeneurial skill and leadership qualities Executive Outcomes (EO), South Africa's first mercenary army was conceived out of necessity and born in comradeship. Although the banners had changed the cause had remained the same.

Jim Hooper, an American author and journalist currently residing in England and a veteran of the armed conflicts in Southern Africa, was invited and allowed into the inner sanctum of EO. In "Bloodsong! A first hand account of a modern private army in action" the combatants themselves recount the exploits of EO graphically. The volte-face of EO by siding with an erstwhile enemy is discussed and so is the harassment of EO and members of their families by both old-guard South Africans and paranoid new politicians.

During their involvement in Angola EO was paid the ultimate compliment: they were approached by the Angolans to retrain their army.

Bloodsong! is well written and researched and Hooper reveals a compasionate insight in the driving force behind all those involved. The narrative is sober and according to an EO-leader
"as close to the truth as possible".

Although one would have preferred more accounts of the "grunts" themselves the book is reccommended to all thse with an interest in military operations.

A truly informative can't-put-down must read!

A little disappointed.......2002-12-16

Bloodsong is a good book that gives us an insight into the mysterious world of the mercenary. These men have a glamorous persona that is shown not to be so. Many of these men have served in the finest Special Forces units in South Africa. War is what they know and it is how they make a living just like an electrician or a plumber. After reading Jim Hooper's first book Beneath the Visiting Moon I was a little disappointed in this book. Bloodsong did not have the same action packed scenes that Moon had. In Moon, Hooper gave us a connection to the characters and when something happened to them the reader felt it, not so in Bloodsong. Overall it is a good read about a group of men that many people know little about. I would recommend reading Nine Days of War of Beneath the Visiting Moon before reading this to gain some background knowledge of the situation in Angola.

Warrior Rebel (Bloodsong Saga, v.2) (Bloodsong Saga Ser. 2)

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This author ROCKS!
READ THIS!!!

Warrior Rebel (Bloodsong Saga, v.2) (Bloodsong Saga Ser. 2)
C. Dean Andersson
Manufacturer: Hawk Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Warrior Beast (Bloodsong Saga, v.3) (Bloodsong Saga Ser. 3)

ASIN: 1930709005

Book Description

Faithfully set in the mystical world of Scandinavian mythology, this is the first book in the exciting saga of the warrior woman Bloodsong, who fought her way up from slavery to lead millions to freedom. In this book, the forces of Hel have kidnapped Bloodsong's daughter in a desperate effort to reawaken the dark magic buried in her soul. Features a spectacular cover painting by Boris Vallejo.

Customer Reviews:

This author ROCKS!.......2003-03-15

The Queen of Death, Hel, instructed the Hel-Witch, Thokk, and the ghoulish Death Riders to kidnap Bloodsong's daughter, Guthrun. Guthrun was nearing puberty. Thokk was to awaken the Hel-magic that was sleeping deep within the teen and use her special blood to grant life to Lokith.

Lokith had once been Thorbjorn, Bloodsong's son, who had been tortured to death as a child. Thokk had helped his corpse mature. Hel had given him power beyond imagination. The only way Bloodsong could defeat Hel was to acquire the help of a God (Odin) and some shape-shifting Berserkers.

READ THIS!!!.......2001-03-09

Customer Reviews:

If you've ever loved the wrong man.......2001-10-14

This book is shattering and lyrical. It manages to conjure up such precise emotion that you get lost within it's language.
This book will grip you unlike any other and it's poetry will entrance you, so that you will re-read it till you know it by heart.This is a story that will haunt you,it will make you yearn to meet a man like Kim and yearn even more so to know what 'soul-lust' actually feels like. You should read this if you've ever walked the wrong path and known that it was the only way that could save you.

Lukewarm, with a vague ending and too many loose ends........1997-11-19

Excellent premise: In love with a murderer. Gradually, things grow tamer and more whimsical, until the story is muddled and meandering. The ending leaves too many things unresolved. I found that the first half of the book was intriguing. Kim was a murderer, and he draws Lynn in. This alone lends him a certain dark mystique. The rest of the book seems to be an attempt to justify his crime, when no justification is required. (or even desired!) The lyric richness of the novel is what saves it. Ms. Neimark's descriptions and style are like elegant poetry with the occasional stunning twist.

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Bloodsong
Melvin Burgess
Manufacturer: Simon Pulse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Being

ASIN: 1416936165

Book Description

PART II

Fifteen-year-old Sigurd, son of King Sigmund, is the last surviving member

of the Volson clan. His father's kingdom -- the former city of London --

is gone. And his father's knife, a gift from Odin himself, has been

shattered to dust.

Now, Odin's eye is upon him. Armed with a powerful sword forged from the

remnants of his father's knife, Sigurd will face death, fire, and torment.

He must travel through Hel and back...to unite his country once again.

Customer Reviews:

An unfinished story.......2006-08-05

The book wasn't at all hard to read. It is interesting enough, although it is uber cheesy in some area's and who ever edited it was on crack. On the bright side it is not one of those books where the relationship between the two main characters takes the entire book to develop, it develops quickly and gets on with the story, which was refreshing.
The story is about two young girls, Manilla and Ginny who are going to a prestigious college in bumfuk somewhere. First they must deal with the college's bigotry when they are "outed" and then one gets bitten and transforms and the other is trying to support this carnivorous lover and adjust to this new lifestyle. With the help of Manilla's advisor, it's possible that Ginny and Manilla might escape the clutches of Darson, the obsessive, powerful vampire, Darson, who wants to possess Ginny. But the problem is the book doesn't have an ending so poor Ginny and Manilla are in a perpetual limbo . . . I guess you can make up your own.

Oh my goddess... it's so bad........2002-03-28

I really tried to like this book, and I just couldn't. Then I tried not to loathe it, and I didn't succeed with that one either. The plot, the writing, the characters--there's just nothing to like. It's painfully bad but not even so-bad-it's-funny. Oh dear.

Best Book ever.......1999-05-27

This is the best book ever all i can say is to read it right away

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Bloodsong
Melvin Burgess
Manufacturer: ANDERSEN (RAND)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Book Description

A gripping story based on the Siegfried and Brunnhilde tale from Nordic myth.

Sigurd has a fabulous but frightening future predicted. To start with, he must leave everything he knows to go and fight a dragon and from there descend into the Underworld. Sounds bad enough, but when you know that the dragon lives on a futuristic, industrially-ruined moonscape that was once Hampstead Heath, the scene is set for a brutal fight on an epic scale. Unhappily for Sigurd, he meets the love of his life in the underworld, and his efforts to rescue his lover will cause heartache and grief for both of them, and anyone who ever meets them.

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Bloodsong
Jill Neimark
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000J6G91Y

Bloodsong and Other Stories of South Africa

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Worthwhile, but Had Hoped All the Works Would Be as Good as the Title Story

Bloodsong and Other Stories of South Africa
Ernst Havemann
Manufacturer: Bookthrift Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0395432960

Customer Reviews:

Worthwhile, but Had Hoped All the Works Would Be as Good as the Title Story.......2007-08-20

The writer is a white speaker of Zulu and Afrikaans, who was born in 1918 and grew up in Zululand, Natal, South Africa. In adult life, he worked for the state railway and provincial government and later as a mining engineer. In the 1970s he retired, emigrated to Canada and began writing fiction. Most or all of the pieces in this collection appear to have been written within a decade of 1987, when his book was published.

The title story, "Bloodsong," was something I'd seen previously in an anthology, the Heinemann Book of Contemporary South African Short Stories. Set in Zululand and narrated by an adult describing an event from his boyhood, it tied together youth, a bit of history, the meeting of people from two cultures, Afrikaans and Zulu, respect for another's customs, and a bittersweet ending, in an engrossing way. I liked the story so much I ordered the present collection.

Expectations may have been too high, because I didn't find another story that struck me as much as "Bloodsong." The other pieces were sensitive to the relations between people from different backgrounds and moral choices they faced, and described incidents and interactions well. But for me no other story had the depth, resonance or such a satisfying development and ending.

In one story in this collection set in the nearer past, "A Farm at Raraba," the white narrator describes time spent as a soldier on special reconnaissance in Angola, where briefly he came to see his opposite, a black rebel, as human, not just an enemy. In "Death of the Nation," the white narrator describes his experience with his black servant from his boyhood, who became a friend but grew up, refused to accept society's restrictions and eventually escaped abroad.

A few other pieces, set entirely in the present, cover black/white relations in a slightly less intimate way, in the bush, in an office, outside a prison. One's about the pressure brought to bear by a special investigator against a white woman who helped her black friend flee abroad. In all of these, the social reality of apartheid is presented: police supervision, trials, riots, soldiers shooting demonstrators, relations between people threatened or destroyed. In a number of them, the narrator or protagonist is presented with the necessity of choosing to either help a black friend or stranger, or not, which effectively would mean betraying them.

Other stories focus mainly on relations in a small-town community, and are set in the past. Another piece, differing from the rest, takes the form of an ethnographic report on a legend narrated by an old black woman, a keeper of the tales of her tribe, which tells how fierce warriors became docile farmers. Maybe it sets up a contrast with the historic past to show how greatly the tribe's life has changed under white rule, and how little of the real past has been captured in scholarly accounts.

Taking the stories together, maybe one could say many of them convey the atmosphere in South Africa at a very difficult time. They were created by a writer who might in part be looking back over his own life, who saw moral choices forced on people who lived in his country, and who found some beautiful things from boyhood to describe.

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Bloodsong and Other Stories of South Africa
Ernst Havemann
Manufacturer: Hamish Hamilton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KK1LNK

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BLOODSONG.
Jill. Neimark
Manufacturer: Random House,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NYER34

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