2016 Kansas Notable Books, Part II

with the holiday season upon us how about a good book or two for the readers on your christmas list i'm kate mcintyre this week on kbr presents the two thousand sixteen kansas notable books prior to the best new books by kansas others or about kansas each year the state library of kansas lets fifteen books as kansas notable books it's my favorite show of the year a chance to read some good birds meet the authors and get some books the way just in time for the holidays if you missed last week at our present part one in this two part series it's now archived on our website a pr back at you that edu today we take up where we left off with more cancers noble offers starting with scott martelle is the author of the madman and the assassin there strange life of boston corbett the man who killed john wilkes booth it may surprise many kansans to learn that there's a connection between kansas and the man who killed the man who

killed abraham lincoln will get to that kansas connection in a minute but first let's find out about busting corbett it was an eccentric little man is born in england came here as a young kid with his father moved to new york i became an apprentice as an older apprentice so packed furniture on the use of mercury opposes mercury vapor paro the processing for the feld and he unveiled a whole bunch of an entry for the phrase matt narrative that's working for and see it's time new york city's ghost cities are working than trade and got married his wife died tragically young so some of that event of the bottle of whiskey barely get saved by some tea totaling evangelist in new york city they saw rocco was the way this makes corals at the kidnapping and sober now and proselytizing the same time inadvertently and the dealer the

process had become a deep deep believer and the zealous some would have described on its recruiting he did his day job to earn money to street preaching and save people like himself he'd go out and find a broken street bring him back to his rooms so room up job chemistry to come out and find another one and he was using all of zynga for that is a lot of borrowing money from friends for faithful to do this great recession is really living the life that he thought she was a christian and what happened with the advent of the civil war oh that is working for alice postseason that they don't want the national guard unit is supposed to be called up and then here you can buy your way out so he paid court to take his place and corporate bond here to honor council twelfth cavalry and he spent most of the civil war for different reasons for most of the civil war the union army and they included for months in andersonville prison notorious prison in georgia which was lots of prisoner stockade that held tens of thousands of them in any given point was a

patient of starvation on settlements and a broken record itself relieved maintain his sanity but his record in the dog into the reasons dave is hot and his stint in the army and kerry can to that fateful night when abraham lincoln was assassinated and he had been really so innocent will have been healed enough to come back to active duty james california the assassination happened everybody on the union side in washington trying to find it and you're putting a pine woods for a while and then one upholding the tobacco farm and just by pure happenstance courts unit was the one that went to the right for moderate found him hiding tobacco bar under a search engine and the fundamental the night and john wilkes booth but you have to read that passage sort of to have and have it cued up

so they're standing of the soldiers have surrounded the barn knowing that it was was and within a copy by damien duff david her old who had already left the bar knee and said judy is giving up it was a part of this you just want you know he was part of it but so at this point it's just i was in the barn and the government a couple of detectives were with them and started a fire the back of them aren't professional of our misses head is having like to recruit morning and earlier recorded had offered to go inland self and bring an act of bravado that rejected at the side of the bar and the sergeant would offer to take listener harold alone kept a steady gaze and injured actors to hand wide gap between two planks so it was a slender man about five feet four inches tall longer start her part of the metal and slick back at his years you're a scraggly beard a soft brown eyes conservative union army off and on since the storm or instead listens leaking sixty three he earned reputation for religious zealotry that i

want what landed him in the stockade recalling a superior officer who swore addressing us troops that the favored also help them survive for one's interest in central prison whether the sergeant himself knew exactly what was running through his mind that moment flame for calling up inside the back wall the bar and illuminating at lincoln's killer tortilla maker the two detectives are standing on the far side of the party have been burned or so displaced about ten yards from each other on the barn to ensure with conflict in the flickering light of a growing flames the second son who is raised as rival toward the open door and soldiers and taxes beyond you believe the killer's want to kill again so the right hander sergeant stated his gun owners opposite forum took careful aim to the gap of the shoulder and fired so two later credit or blame providence with the decision to shoot and compatibility and only had a few yards to travel beyond a bit from some tented more base of the skull chattering the fourth cervical vertebrae and seven the spinal cord with and then tore out on the other side whose collapse paralyzed mortally

wounded within seconds doherty hundred some of the soldiers pull into a blazing building and move into the yard and there's a fire roared through places sasson on the house porch frequently for about three hours the setting for the film shows in boston court in the guiding hand of providence his troubled life became the stuff of legend infatuation and a mansion and eventually institutionalization for such a boston court was mad as a hatter that's the madman and the assassin the strains like a boston corbett the man who killed john wilkes booth i scott martelle scott let's jump forward a couple years to eighteen seventy eight when corbett moves to kansas what brought him here described his time in kansas he was broken skull was shot us auto industry had come for professional and felt that he couldn't make a living he had a church committee of money at that yourself

going oh i asked the government for employment is the postmaster in camden a response a friend of his and this is conjecture and then joseph whitehead moon in andersonville he had an eighty acre homestead in clark county and the homestead next to his have not been claimed and correspondent about episode whitehead's local about it so the court can help little property went back to camden made one last appeal to press they were filled packed up a few belongings reagan heading west and wound up they're and so the guy who had grown up in new york city and spent his life so hat maker was not only a former kansas and there's a reason why those eighty acre fund clients somewhat rocky terrain very close to lowell so that i would be a formal complaints immigrant farm that were doing this interview in the kansas state capitol and coincidentally enough for a short time boston corbett

worked as an assistant doorkeeper to the kansas house of representatives it was a short lived appointment first i did a reading of the book possible today in the very chamber that he had been assigned security procedures can from russia after a color and the union soldiers veterans or for leaks supported group and the figure though that it was i was going to keep going and so a fellow veteran agree to an elected to the house representatives and he for making the appointment as soon as the third working for something like that again in that era which a retrospective that idea was mentally ill for most was of the left were purposeful life another psychologist a psychiatrist or silica bipolar disorder depression idiot be relatively ok for a while and

then get very paranoid delusional people try to steal flanders money and stuff so i started as a doorkeeper isn't one of those better roads and in some of the celebrity roulette shake the hand of a man who eventually going on but then he went into a dark place we have the people laughing at him he's very slight and build prevent an appearance and on people's of a woman with something similar to be done and one morning before the session began at the armory in that time was helping deaf for janitors when the force with reporter for the basis of their friendship with some of these guys and news of this dark mood and heard them laughing and brother left at home and walked up on them with a revolver drama that started several hours' worth of showdowns which nobody has ever shot but people different approach and violent and waited amount they kind of contain him he's moving around to different places and waited for an unguarded moment once construct a way to jump into the

floor man did he get new reactors as year you're on a jolly bunch of fouls or something like that on took him to gillette stadium a senate hearing for probate judge all the guys were involved in essential michael dunn testified against and you just cross examination which is a nonsensical the conspiracy theories and the news i'm on a lot of other people getting suggestions the decision and sent to the mountains to do that because it possible there the sad and mysterious end of his life nobody really knows what happened last week when he was there for how the data for me for the part of your foul longer and in that year of the instrument on the grounds of maturity and son and these were mentally ill people aren't inmates of the head from a fringe around the corals are walking on the grounds of approval of other inmates that were in his unit was in jail and i saw

this kid right up only and coral of politics reporter named billy back in cobb county and such a radical opponent tied up and go up into the building to see you son of the administration's effort to have supported suddenly so it's just slow down and smell the roses compliance of the prairie of folks go by and when enough distance opened up be able to force on climate donovan took office a lesson learned to be ever saw boston court he wound up in positions on the school's reputation you know they say they're in one of their friends was there are foreigners man simple and sort of echoes house and spend a couple barbara today's there and it already deposited a bank draft a fifteen dollars in a bank in concordia i think that his friend allen so yesterday thousands of the mexico and he writes a bank draft to thatcher's brothers it was giving

fifty dollars in cash and got on a train and that's what i'm ready so those that scott martelle the author of the mad man and the assassin the strange life of boston corbett the man who killed john wilkes booth it's just one of the two thousand sixteen kansas notable books we're featuring on today's k pr presents we've got a copy of the madman and the assassin to give away find out how you can win this or another kansas notable book later this hour dana bowerman of limbs berg is the author of bottled of mom's guide to early recovery it's a raw account of one woman's journey from alcohol abuse to sobriety when i went into recovery i was writing at the time was writing freelance work doing freelance work but you know obviously when recovery happens or maybe not obviously to all the listeners the ipad takes over some of the most important thing in your life and i was really focused on him and

it sort of consumed me but then after the fact when they had a couple of months of recovery and i got contacted by the publishers crp essential recovery process and they asked me to write for them right but for them and i just thought at the time kind of blissfully oh wonderful employees what to write about and i started in on it and boy was i surprised at how it was almost like i was going through recovery again the early stages all over or so but what in many ways was a good thing and it was it was grinding and difficult and it was amazingly healthy and helpful for me to swim and he pointed to the word robin it's a very raw account of what it's like to be in recovery but it's also incredibly funny asides find the funny part of it because i would say this is serious other topic to be funny about but i think that i'm like this funny and that you know shakespeare will tell you that china's economy go together

very well and to me here it takes is all dulles can have a level or it brings everybody down to the same page and it is really don't know you know how to speak in a way that's not going to access humor is it to me that's what we know kind of keeps the souls are going and i mentioned it i'd read about quite a bit in my but my brother who died from this disease of this whole area it's an ailing problem with that is he used his funny sometimes to cover up a lot of pain and i use my funny to uncover the pain and i think that that's helping me beyond recover hoping hopefully helping others to some human psychology write that there were two surprising things in this book one was how funny it was that the other was how many have lessons and ideas that in air quotes that incoming the lessons that you speak of are not just limited to people in recovery there things that i think

probably every young mom can attest to or can identify with it i had at the end of each chapter kind of tongue in cheek taught chemistry things i did that because i'm not opulence and there i was like a blur then i was like to use those so so some of them are a little bit sarcastic but they really do how the league's an alliance rob thomas i ended up looking back at them and thinking and this isn't all about you know to sobriety or not drinking i think there's only one chapter called them it's hard to be happy and it talks about how sometimes we end especially the mom says that you know in this ad is the contrast mom is all out there with her pretty pictures and her cute little how my daughter mason jars in her without stopping they use all the time the muslim and you know i just don't get it it's everything is so jarring she notes can even drink with a straw anymore

unless it's i get you to start with something i mean it starts getting out so we have these mines that have these expectations about what life in space to look way and we're not happy in our lives are miserable falling apart inside and so i have a lot of stuff in here that kind of pokes city that enjoys and rob baedeker sky makes fun and at last at it in an egg and you know when i go back a bit like hanssen and what they have done for our lives and things like that it is it is kind of crazy how the book covers a lot of it ground say let's talk about one of the things you talk about is the power of a changing just one thing that you know i just i just re read that chapter and i thought to myself boy you need to go back to that i had forgotten you know went when the perfectionist so get in our zone i

must fix the law and i kind of i'm a sub genius injured like cleaning house i could never do it and i'll find myself scrubbing the bottom of my refrigerator vegetable than when really it should just be throwing some laundry and you know i'm going to clean the entire household ceiling for you know for aig it can be very overwhelming and you know just that one thing if you find yourself and happier stalker interactive something i learned from a twelve step meetings just puts down on your to do list whether it's actually written or not but for me i love let's so let's chalk just one thing to do today not ten not the teen one thing and now one thing to change our and make sure something different that you haven't done before and so we'll see how that kind of you know masses with fewer or it or maybe recalibrate staff in and i can see it is a completely gone to the same doctor for twenty years and you saw the

same problem as you know trying a different doctor and see how that goes and it might not be perfect but this is the one thing you know just write one thing so i know that sometimes a letter that just one just one because it's so arrieta not what makes the world you know and your children and your house and your husband and all of that that's one thing did not get you to read an excerpt from the book her head of the section you actually that i found just now and it's from that chapter there referred to how to survive being happy and i am once you back tracking give you an explanation that i have just really been sober at this point in the book for a little bit not long maybe probably about two months so i was a tender little thing and i had just received in the mail i am a wedding invitation and the wedding invitation sent me into almost i want to say like emotional

exposure land urban area now explains i'm looking at the invitation and i'm thinking to myself how dare he invites the scene not know how hard this will be for me perhaps it's fortunate that ryan did not know that's a gentleman getting married one man ali acknowledge it was at the golf invite me to witness a marriage to his sweetheart i had no cycle that anger and talking to myself walking in a loop between a dining room in the kitchen muttering and holding the invitation like it was evidence from a crime scene i said i cant do weddings as they started the paper i can't do weddings and that's when i realized i cant do weddings this means i'm not normal this means that local beekeeper awkward and scary because weddings will be i'm sure are happening all over the place now our happy little frazzled start looking up everywhere like romantic rabbits and i will have to contend with all the sweating bullets and in that moment in my kitchen i hate everyone whoever pharma let us do that just means people will celebrate and then the strings and

your hands practically forcing you to celebrate all that mission us right along with them i don't like celebrations i hate what i cry of that war and seeded i was the grinch of everything i walked out into our front porch and contemplated the most depressing thing about her i wouldn't be able to tell us my new year and halloween know the pictures of my readers they're either couldn't sit it seem like such a fool's errand all this dressing up thinking costumes were there was no alcohol to make people comfortable with the tail of the whiskers and lack of dignity because halloween that strangers come into order as an alcoholic ie opening doors answering phones signaling for packages talking being responsible oh basic interaction how was i supposed to do live it like included all these findings are names had to be garnished by one otherwise they were up on things and i would be so terribly aware that they shouldn't be found making me want to drink even more and i would now have to do all sorts of events over anniversaries without romantic champagne

anniversaries anniversaries are supposed to be romantic and fun also the superbowl housing and a deal at the border are cheering the horrible halftime shows also anything to do with christmas christmas that bailey's an economic hedging you really cares about the bird the baby jesus when you can strangle wine but fire while listening to josh brolin we don't have a fireplace and i never cared for more wind hot line added an unnecessary stop to drinking it thanks kenny thanksgiving man traveling which really strung out so that their martinis at my house cause he's an army and happy to oblige even at those few jobs that are like a meal on themselves suddenly needs to hear it in a martini or maybe to aq and what about mainly in the book deal how could i possibly not drink where that happens brace yourself for the irony i got a deal about not drinking and yes for about five seconds i bought the i'm so happy and to celebrate now why

and i probably smash the problem you crazy call your mother instead pose a picture of acadian sing on base the us snickers you don't drink anymore remember dana bowerman lansberry is the author of bottled oh mom's guide to early recovery if you're just joining us today on k pr presents its that two thousand sixteen kansas notable books part two the best new books by kansans or about kansas selected by the state library i'm j mcintyre you're listening to a pr prisons and kansas public radio if you missed last week's katie our prisons are one of our annual kansas notable books program it's now archived at our website k pr that k u dot edu while you're there you can sign up for a chance to win a two thousand sixteen kansas notable book based in many of the publishers we've got several to give away for a chance to win you look under extra and then available giveaways

while you're at our website consider making a gift a kansas public radio its listeners support that makes k pr percent possible without it we wouldn't be able to bring new locally produced programs you enjoy and depend on if you called an appliance drink a purist december many drive thank you you helped raise more than thirty thousand dollars in less than forty eight hours money that will help keep your continue our mission of providing news and programming in two thousand seventy and it's not too late to make a tax deductible pledged before the end of the year you can pledge that are secure website any time day or night that's k pr that k u die edu and from all that the kansas public radio thanks our next book is twenty five years among the indians and buffalo a friend's your memoir by william de st

edited by his great grandson warren street warren thank you so much for joining me to a pleasure the title for this book was going to read twenty five years among the indians and buffalo personal recollections of adventure on the plains as a teamster soldier militia man homesteader trapper buffalo hunter sky out guide and cowboy on the plains of kansas colorado and nebraska with pastor in the great southwest the wichita mounds of the indian territory oregon idaho wyoming and the black hills of the dakotas warren was there anything that your great grandfather didn't do it he he did everything for about two years and then he moved on and he had enjoyed all wildlife on the western plains of kansas mainly but colorado and nebraska as well so i've just given the very shorthand version of all the things he did over his career

tell us a little bit more how would you describe your great grandfather he was a true planes man he'd he grew up in a move to kansas when he was ten years old and he grew up in jefferson county and went to school there is just north of topeka and when he got to the age of sixteen planes call to him and the romance of being out and in the open was just very attractive to him he signed on to a framing company these folks took wagon trains of frayed out to the front here and that was the start of his life on the plains there were times when he lived in towns he was a storekeeper for a while and he did land location that was to help the settlers find a homestead location that was good for them but for the most part he was on the plane to the buffalo hunters a fur trapper of trapped

beaver and the poise and wolves for their hides and he served a tour with the general sheridan and custer in a famous winter campaign making sixty eight sixty nine he was a cowboy for a while but most of his life was out very independent living on the plains in eighteen seventy eight he was involved with some military events with a group of shy and indians moving through kansas on their way to return to their ancestral lands in montana and that kind of brought an end to this flag of on life that he had led his settle down and fell for just a newspaper in an oberlin kansas became a state legislator or farmer rancher he was speaker of the house i guess we're here in the capitol building and i noticed his photo on their

wall by chambers of the house and he's the only speaker who has a p for his party affiliation he was a populist during the heyday of the populist movement in kansas but the book that he published a book that he wrote ten hours available unpublished form just covers the his age is between about seventeen and twenty seven when he was a very much of a ranger out on on the buffalo rage what an amazing things about his story is that he kept a journal during that time and he really documented what he was doing out on the plains tell me how the journal came into your possession and the story of how it came to be published a hundred and fifty years later how he did keep this journal and i'm i'm sorry to say that i think that actually journalist it is not in my possession he based the manuscript that i do have on his

journal or they kept i think it's an unusual thing for a person on the planes to sit down at the end of a day of trapping are hunting and write down something about the day's events but he did he was a reader while he was out on the plains and he talks every now and then about having of a magazine or something like that a book in his pack that he can read the journal help to inform his later writings we think about age fifty or so he felt an urge to write down the details of his young life he consulted this journal and then i think talk to friends who have been out on the buffalo arrange with them tried to put together things from public records that helped remind him of more stories and it was a five hundred page manuscript built on those sources that i inherited from my great uncle who is

a who was the youngest child bill street don't believe the street my my great grandfather and then make it fell into your possession and i was given the manuscript about fifty years ago but their life happened why i had a career and this manuscript just got moved from one place to another and it was always there and i'll always felt an obligation bag because i knew the family's commitment having it published so i retired i tried to do what i could to at least publish a copy of the faithful call before every descendant now now living and it wasn't until i had that ready to go to the publisher or party ready to self publish as someone suggested i sent it to a real publisher as they put it and that was the university press of kansas and they have been just very generous with their help in in making it a a published product that

bill's tree would have been very proud of i feel like i had a mission and i feel very good about completing it as you might expect for somebody whose career was spent out on the plains this book is just full of one story after another after another one story that really stuck with me is something that didn't happen to your great grandfather but to a friend of his jules van meter who got stuck inside of beaver lived soon can you tell me that story sure the bill and you are hunting partners for the early part of his time on the plains one who will spell of three or four days you will was by himself in camp the others have taken the heights to a rail head and he got curious about what was in the relaunch so one afternoon when he holed out his trusty knife and this is in the dead of winter the bigger problems like

frozen over and he starts hacking away at the side of a beaver large cutting its way into the beaver large finally makes a hole big enough for him to discount re into he looks around him satisfy his curiosity but then he goes to back out and by cutting into the bigger large he actually ended up like if you think about how this would happen he ended up making sharp and ends of these before a large sticks all pointing inward laden areas inside and each goes back out and it's of course it's just not going to work for and so he was there for twenty four hours wondering where you know if the walls were going to come and he has even halfway up from the front legs up or what and he finally did figure out a clever way of getting out of this vehicle but that was very close call for joel made a great

story later on the light like many close calls it's a great store is a great story are there any other stories that happen to your great grandfather that that really stuck with you like it's that there are there are dozens and dozens of things that happened to him and force of his life out on the plains is there a story you'd like to share with us well you know one of the one of the stories that that i like because of their graphic description is when he and his writing partners come on a small herd of buffalo and if you'd like i can read from the book he says the survey went out looking bait they start this small herd of buffalo they shot one of them the buffalo and went down and the rest of the herd starts running to the west and then he says the rest ran off in westerly direction they've gone but a short distance from the scene changed from a peaceful quiet landscape with only a small herd of buffalo running away from a lonely hunter as if by magic

came indians why the scores they appeared in groups from every direction around or fleeing heard it was inconceivable to we who'd been on a constant lookout for game without a fun of indians that the prairie expanse before us could contain so many concealed living being it's whether they've observed us or not an all reason they had they were apparently not quite ready for the attack on the herd but the running buffalo were met in the west by a strong force of hundreds who turned them to the north and then to meet another line of indian hunters determined to the east where they were met by other indians to circle them off to the southwest and then others to drive them to the west where the scattering remnants of the hurt were apparently wiped out in the stage setting for the first and only surround buffalo hunt by indians it was my great fortune to see we occupied a position on a little rise of land near the front of the

stage the stage is a beautiful piece of curry about three or four miles an extent there were the wild running buffalo in a compact mass very much resembling a great big black ball rolling over the prairie surrounded by the half naked indian hunters mounted on their hunting ponies there were a few ravines on the plain language the buffalo an indians plunged disappearing for an instant while the scenes reel shifted with their reappearing into new shapes and shades finally fading away in the distance toward the southwest it was a sight that no mortal i will ever be told again on the surface or that's warren street reading from twenty five years among the indians and buffalo affront to your memoir by his great grandfather william street it's just one of the fifteen books at the state library of kansas selected as the two thousand sixteen kansas notable books

we featured many of the kansas notable books on last week's k pr presents if you missed the program or would like to hear it again it's now archived at our website k pr that k u die edu this week we're hearing from six more kansas notable authors i met up with them at the kansas book festival held september tenth two thousand and sixteen at the capitol in topeka including cynthia minds of wichita she is the author of for the sake of art the story of a kansas renaissance for the sake of our tells the story of the friendship between limbs bird artist bridger same thing and carl smalley of mcpherson and how that friendship turned the town of mcpherson into a cultural and artistic hub in the early part of the nineteen hundreds across mali was born in canada kansas the tiny town and had a love of art

growing up on he would cut pictures of the magazine's me wanted to be an artist but he knew he didn't have the talent for it he worked in his father's feed and seed store in mcpherson and had wanted to go to college but i had to stay home and work until his very disappointed he wasn't going to be able to go to college but this summer he graduated from high school he went to the nineteen oh four st louis world's fair what's changed his life and pretty much the artistic history of a lot of mcpherson i am he learned about etchings and lithographs and visited the palace of fine arts that had artwork from twenty seven nations there was a tone that had a thousand electric lights on at the mcpherson didn't have much electricity yet mainstream wasn't paved yet so it opened up this whole world to him he bought a consignment of prince brought them back to mcpherson and convinced his father to let them put a few etchings about to see bands and you can imagine with the farmer's mcpherson thought that in the scene starting

yes yes in the seed warehouse little corner where there were chinks in summer with pottery and first edition books and then he had to be on good fortune to meet bridgers and saying who had emigrated to lynn's burke to teach at berklee college in at ninety four and say insane had studied in paris and stockholm and had seen a lot of the world he also went to the st louis world's fair but it probably didn't make quite as huge impact on him because he had seen the world a little bit and then in nineteen ten the superintendent m mcpherson schools and build a new school and there's no work in the school so he came up with the idea of a new exhibitions that people would pay admission a nickel or a dime to go to and he knew across mali have some prints so they exhibit at those the first year and then he enlisted sands ames help him as two men over the next twenty five years organize these amazing exhibitions abroad in some of europe's top artists

whistler and rembrandts he and george bellows and robert henri and manet hand half of the population and that person at the time was five thousand people twenty five hundred people would get out in the winter in their wagons or horses go over the dirt roads to these art exhibition it's insane saying would always give a lecture and there would be a whole room devoted to say in saint new work and people talked about it early area to make the front page of the local newspaper's it was picked up intensity new york city often wrote about it and a journal in paris said the mcpherson county had the highest per capita part ownership of anywhere in the world and that this girl smiling must be the world's greatest art dealer so it was a very very unlikely time and place ended just had all the right ingredients to form sort of a kansas renaissance at what point did this girlfriend just how little corner in there

the seeds door to a real presence in the mcpherson communities on small his father died in nineteen eighteen and left the seed store in doubt it was a really big c operation carl's sold the seed store and finally was able to open his own art book and gift shop which some people said was the finest set shot between chicago and the west coast and that flourished in mcpherson from nineteen eighteen and tell he had to close in nineteen thirty four because of the depression isn't about dust bowl farmers who had been great clients and the school kids would save up their money because they were excited about art and it just sort of dried up after that so he sold the shop and move to the west coast where he was a book representative for publishers said they hadn't you become interested in their story i was taking a lie went through the meat for some schools and i mean there a sense in painting it's on the walls but i had no idea about the incredible history that

schoolchildren had actually saved money and raised money to buy all of the artwork intel i was in mayo kansas history class of mcpherson college and had to come up with a research topic so the more i found out about it and especially the school kids had been a race this money and then there were some missing etchings that were interesting they'd been written about intensity started i couldn't find them and then to find out the story of the year dr work in the seed store was pretty fascinating and then you throw in bridger say and saying it was internationally known artist in mcpherson county at the time and it was just really fascinating story and so i started to research when people were still alive who remembered somalis are sharp so fortunately he was able to interview a lot of them so had that research started come from back in the late seventies with that they remember then there was the meeting place for

young people in mcpherson he keep a coffee pot on late on saturday night and the unmarried people would go in there and they had art classes he had a rental library he had a little tea shop in there and he we import jury and handmade stationery from italy and i just have all of these wonderful art objects the noun main street in mcpherson kansas characterize the relationship between smalley and sensing with a friend's yes they were they were very close they were fourteen years difference when they met and sensing was thirty nine and smiley was about twenty five and they had a wonderful relationships insane needed someone to help promote his art he and smiley was very good at that you organized traveling exhibitions and exposed syncing to a much wider audience and he's even though and since they met was not interested in a surly in making prince and smalley nagged him for

so long and actually bought him the lithographic crayons there was a hundred years ago the sheer that he forced him to do his first lithograph and that's how a lot of his popularity sprouts of a nineteen sixteen he created the first of more than three hundred prince's insanely do during his career and i'm sensing star margaret gets cross mali the credit for forcing your father do that and they wrote hound there were some letters discovered just a few years ago two hundred letters written between the two men they talked about the depression the dust bowl and discounting paintings at how hard it was to collect from people and sam saints watercolors are going for like seventeen dollars at the time so you really got a look at the business of art and how difficult it was for him to make a living even though i was teaching at bethany do you have an excerpt you could read from your book the sake of our

challenge here this is sad and somalis are choppy in the nineteen twenties no matter how hot the kansas sun goddess is streamed through the front windows a smile is our sherpa to twenty one north mina mcpherson the proprietor would never consider going to work dressed in anything but a black suit and tie even the hottest of summer days could not dampen the enthusiasm across mali had felt for our since he was a young boy his intense brown eyes survey the satisfactions the paintings that hung on the walls the wrist burgess insane in a prominent position of course flanked by henry varnum poor oscar jacobson hauber crable gerald cassidy little pj o'rourke felt and management are these paintings represented more than art thou art was very dear every one of the artists was also a friend a small guest book by the front door was more like an autograph album in which areas had signed their names next to small sketches framed etchings lithographs hung on the walls but the stock was

so great surplus was neatly stacked in an overflowing portfolio the contents of the portfolio or the signatures of such mastery printmakers as rembrandt whistler and more a as well as his friends insane these were small a special favorites because they enabled him to offer original works at affordable prices he remembered with fondness the first consignment of prince he had ordered at the nineteen oh four world's fair when he was nineteen years old after some cajoling his father allowed him to display some of the prints about the dance of his wholesale and retail seed business that's for the sake of art the story of the kansas renaissance by cynthia minds of wichita thank you so much thank you our last book is the kansas trial died by kristen and jonathan cannard how did this book come to be it all started with john when

he had wanted to how about out there on kansas trail and can really find anything as updated and then reached out we said hey would you want to do this i said sure and then it actually i got picked up and suddenly or committed an hour no luck so pretty bitterly what is that you were looking for it they didn't exist where i really wanted to do was there is a lot of information that's available but there's nothing really pull it all together into one spot and then a lot of information that was there was simply calm your information about years the trailers along it is what we wanted to do was dig a little bit deeper and provide readers with some history on some natural history some background knowledge to that they can only high control to really appreciate how the area that was and then and some of the other things about it as well i have interviewed other peers other authors and co authors because you were the first brother and sister team that i have come

across what seemed like alice's question at each email server to prison when some like writing a book like this with your brother i guess if i thought twenty years ago if it would be able to do this with my brother probably not since we're both knee and high school in settling revelry and what have you but we can't we'd we split up we divide in concord and a hands we each sort of wrote our own portions of it and then compared notes in and at each other's work and it actually worked really smoothly there were really any problems and i can be really really support each other and work well together i would agree with workers in service of a much bigger project than a single person could take on and christians a very talented writer and so i was fortunate to go to work with her on the project and so there really wasn't experts were i think that we worked well together and were able to do some things that

you know among other government deal otherwise you know any of the map work i did not know i did the actual hiking in the making the maps along the way but to actually put it into a finished product that was autumn and so we balanced up strength to i think how many trails exactly in this book do you cover there's over at trials that are in there and the way that the book's set up is we have what we term future trials answer which are typically like the best trails within an area or a park and then will also give a brief description of two or three additional channels as well so it's a little are dependent an exact number but its are elements around at all together ok so let's just take one of those trails answer to walk me through what it was like writing about that trial i'm so i'll say b eisenhower state park iii trail at malvern lately the

horse trails there which spanned horse trails have their own unique charms and hazards so i had that so i was actually i am you'd say i declare with tom what was in terms of what was there in terms of that the state park information what their jihad and so then you figure out where you're gonna go you show up there and you never know if the trailers actually can be there's still there's overgrown i'm and that was why i was there i was relatively easy to find it was well mapped out are well i am well mars along the way and so that makes a really enjoyable time to be able to go along in and to be that and that was why and where it was a mix of through the woods to get a lot of financial aid if it's too warm and you come out on tuesdays rolling hills that overlooked awaken the wildflowers were in bloom and so that was kind of it an ideal an experience and richard allen and it was a really a nice one to

map and a nice when i can people said and visit i would say it was always an adventure to show up to a trump for the first concert or trails that she heard about or read a little bit about but she never knew what you're going to get until your standing at that two hundred and some in the trailers that i had anticipated going on or just nods no longer maintained no longer controls and there were some that i didn't expect a lot from but that turned out to be fantastic travels and so you when you get there just kind of that sense of what's the skin and they like and it's hard to say and we're actually out on the trails it's really time intensive because he couldn't just go on hike at like you normally would for each loop you have to map that with the gps and make sure that you're getting every way point mark each landmark know that along the way and chickens keeping a running log of

notes as you go trying to take some good pictures as you're out there as well and then once you've got the hiking done and then the real work started because he had to go back and researched the area thinking to the natural history of a cup articles related to kind of history the places work and so is really quite a process to cut ties everything together like that we just take this book it's designed with we began their intermediate or really seasoned hiker in mind i think that we tried to include trails for everyone and so we made a point to include some trails that were excessive force for families or grandchildren and our people who want it like shorter trail but still get to experience and really amazing natural areas but then we also put in central china over twenty miles long over fifty miles long trails that the serious hikers serious biker would really want to seek out so i think that there's really a range

of difficulty a range of lincoln there and we kind of tried to provide something for everyone in science jonathan you live here in kansas in sterling va christian you live in california or other plans to do eight california trail guides knew that would be a case i think california that's when the places are you think are people kind of know about the hiking and there's a lot of really specialized but like you could just get give somebody value hikes and then you're somebody high country x and it becomes this really i am specialized and it's great it's wonderful how these trails the sun's but i think it's a baptist kind of it's a saturated market and i think it's a man the kansas shelter it was an opportunity to getting back to an audience that i am i think people want it and knew they wanted a confined and there's some people who when they pick up the book didn't realize how much they would want something like this in their lives so i was really neat opportunity and then also i think gave us

a chance to really see the state in new ways that a new bigfoot there i die but for me on different parts of california can see what's there and kansas didn't have that i'm in quite the same way so i was in a record straight set to write a book for here say that i am again would be hiker that would love to take up hiking i'm saying is that really all that hypothetically doesn't really know where to start can you give me some pointers and some tips for getting out there and hitting the trails be prepared with a nice guy but i'm a i'm the kind of common sense media attention but you know bring water letterman or you wired there's no cell service but at the weather brings somewhere just never know and but then it means not to over think it you know starts small and see what's there and you realize how great it is out there and skin bill to

understand europe's hedge fund a place that you're excited about that you're interested in and just go for it and there's a lot of places out there for people to go and a lot of these are successful it will require a lot of specialized equipment or hear or training you know they're just here is that you can going hard for a song or so as you thought it would be my advice that's jonathan and kristin cannard the brother and sister team behind kansas trail guide their best hiking biking and riding in the sunflower state kansas trail guide for the sake of art bottled twenty five years among the indians in buffalo and a madman and the assassin just a few of the two thousand sixteen kansas notable book award winners the best new books by kansas others or about kansas selected by the state library of kansas if you missed last week's k pr presents part one of our annual cannes is notable book so you can listen to it any time on our

website k pr that kay you that ed you while you're there if you'd like a chance to win a copy of a campus notable book we've got several to give away good or website k pr that kay you that ed you look under extra and then available giveaways again that's k pr that kay you that ed you clicked on extra and then available giveaways while you're at our website consider making a gift to kansas public radio x listener support that makes katie our prisons possible without it we wouldn't be able to bring new locally produced programs like this one that you enjoy and pentagon listener support is our biggest source of funding and every dollar makes a difference and this year your financial support is more important than ever if you're already a member consider increasing your ged or becoming a sustaining member again you can pledge online at kbr

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