BOOKS AND MEDIA: Briefly Noted

BOOKS

_The Ballad of Blind Tom: Slave Pianist, America's Lost Musical
Genius_. By Deirdre O'Connell. Hardcover. 288 pages. New York and
London: Overlook Duckworth, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-59020-143-5. $24.95.
O'Connell examines in detail the life of Blind Tom, an autistic savant,
as he rose from slavery to his career as a renowned entertainer in the
nineteenth century. O'Connell briefly addresses Mark Twain's lifelong
fascination with Blind Tom. (NONFICTION)

Amazon webpage for this book is:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590201434/twainwebmarktwaiA

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_F. Luis Mora: America's First Hispanic Master_. By Lynne Pauls Baron
and Peter Hastings Falk, ed. Hardcover. 344 pages. Falk Art Reference,
2008. ISBN: 978-093208762. $64.95. Baron briefly discusses Mark Twain's
connection with artist F. Luis Mora who contributed illustrations to
several of Twain's short stories as well as Mark Twain's autobiography
when it was serialized in the _Sunday Magazine_ edition of newspapers
nationwide between 1907 and 1908. (NONFICTION)

Amazon webpage for this book is:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0932087620/twainwebmarktwaiA