The Buffalo News (in Buffalo NY) recently ran a fantastic review of Searching for Tamsen Donner, by Gabrielle Burton.

Here’s an excerpt of what writer R.D. Pohl has to say:

The portions of the book that recount the Burton family trek across the Rockies and High Sierras are written with a deft comic touch and the plucky, feminist bravado that made “Heartbreak Hotel” such a crossover hit. What may surprise readers is the author’s intuitive gifts as a researcher and narrative historian. She succeeds where other historians and biographers have failed in uncovering and publishing here all 17 of Donner’s known letters from the journey.

Burton’s name is a familiar one to at least some Buffalo residents; Burton lived there for many years. The city was also the setting of the movie/Burton family project, Manna from Heaven. Burton wrote the screenplay, and her daughters produced the film, which Pohl notes was well-received in Buffalo.

In other news good news, Chief Bender’s Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star by Tom Swift, has received this year’s Seymour Medal. The Seymour Medal, awarded by SABR, honors the best book of baseball history or biography published during the preceding calendar year. Those of you who carefully read this blog might remember that another University of Nebraska Press title, Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees' First Dynasty by Dan Levitt, was also among the three finalists for this year’s award.

And one more tidbit of award news: Robert Camuto’s Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country, is up for the Georges Duboeuf Wine Book of the Year Award.

That's it for today!