Reading Recommendations: Southern Storm, Sherman's March to the Sea, Noah Andre Trudeau.

Award winning Civil War historian Noah Andre Trudeau has written a gripping, definite new account that will stand as the last word on General William Tecumseh Sherman's epic march, a targeted strategy aimed to break not only the confederate army but an entire society as well. With Lincoln's hard fought re-election victory in hand, Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union forces, allowed Sherman to lead the largest and riskiest operation of the war. In rich detail, Trudeau explains why General Sherman's name is still anathema below the Mason-Dixon Line, especially in Georgia, where he is remembered as "the one who marched to the sea with death and devastation in his wake."

Sherman's swath of destruction spawned more than sixty-miles in width and virtually cut the South in two , badly disabling the flow of supplies to the confederate army. He led more than 60,000 Union troops to blaze a path from Atlanta to Savannah, ordering his men to burn crops, kill livestock, and decimate everything that fed the Rebel war machine. Grant and Sherman's gamble worked, and the march managed to crush a critical part of the Confederacy and increased the pressure on General Lee, who was already under siege in Virginia.

Told through the intimate and engrossing diaries and letters of Sherman's soldiers and the civilians who suffered in their path, Southern Storm paints a vivid picture of an event that would forever change the course of America.

And, 101 Dog Tricks, Step by Step Activities to engage, challenge, and bond with your dog. Kyra Sundance and Chaley, Photography by Nick Saglimbeni.

Kyra Sundance and Chaley, her Weimaraner, are world class dog trick show performers and trainers, and are regulars at sporting events, fairs, and circuses. They've performed on TV and have trained on movie sets. The pair is nationally ranked in competitive dog sports. The book is fun and educational as well.

And, The 19th Wife, a novel, David Ebershoff.

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in theUnited States. A rich account of a family's polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.

Soon after Ann Eliza's story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds, a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father's death. And as Ann Eliza's narrative intertwines with that of Jordan's search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith.

"Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain."

See you at Rylander!