Reviews for Noodling for Flatheads: Moonshine, Monster Catfish and Other Southern Comforts

The average rating for Noodling for Flatheads: Moonshine, Monster Catfish and Other Southern Comforts based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-12-18 00:00:00 Jeremy Lenard This is divided into essays about different collective Southern USA "outside the box" traditional activities. They are all group disciplines, practiced to obsession with intense followings. Even to the publication of strange and obscure publications or broadsheets. It's an easy book to take up and put down- reading an essay or two at a time. Some I liked to 4 star level, and some to a 2. The writing is clear and easy read, but the sensibilities are at times, to me anyway, so "off" as to be distasteful. This is especially true in the cockfighting chapter- with all the international varieties and styles. Most more bloody specific than the next. It's truthful in detail and it's also interesting that there is such fervor yet for the marbles and other skill sets like the moonshine and hounds. In this tech age, it seems that not all youth are addicted to hand-held mobile armies of some order. Skills in actions and hobbies of exact, difficult achievement levels which hold century upon century of tradition with intense followings (coming from other continents in most cases) and which also appear within nature's patterns of personality and hunt- will never be outlawed into non- existence, IMHO. They often just go underground and grow larger of following in majority. This book includes the extended history in detail of each activity, that of location, plus the current methods and practicing scope in the present.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-12-21 00:00:00 James Panagoulias Burkhard Bilger likes the people he writes about and it shows. From cockfighters in the Louisiana bayou to Rolley Holers on the Tennessee-Kentucky border to moonshiners and the task force determined to shut them down, Bilger is one part anthropologist, one part folklorist and all parts masterful storyteller. The Southerner in me was prepared to bristle at some Yankee coming down to tell tall tales of quaint Southern past times, but rather than looking down or casting judgment, he embraced and empathized and rolled up his sleeves to catch catfish with nothing but his arm, before dining on squirrel brains, frog legs and soul food then washing it down with some clear, unlabeled eyelash curling liquid. Southern comforts and a fun read, indeed. My only wish is that someday there's a sequel that includes my own great Southern state.