Rating: 
Summary: Author needs to do her research.
Review: As a native of Jackson, Mississippi (the Belhaven area was my home from birth until I moved to VA at the age of 23) I can honestly say that this book does not do justice to either the people involved or the event itself. I was born in 1973, several years after the infamous tornado, but am very familiar with the story and the places involved in the event. There are many errors regarding locations in south Jackson. The Green Derby (incorrectly listed in the book as the brown derby) was indeed located in south Jackson and was demolished in the late 80's... there is no possible way for the author to have seen it during her research as it simply was not there. The community of BYRAM is consistently referred to as Byrum (a simple glance at any map of the state would have rectified this error). Also, there are no live oaks in Jackson, they are located almost exclusively on the coast. There were very few eyewitness interviews in the book and very little on the impact the event had upon the community of south Jackson. If the author was unable to track down those involved the MS Dept. of Archives and History has a wonderful file filled with eyewitness accounts that is just waiting for a competent researcher. The author states that Candlestick was abandoned due to a lingering sense of doom brought forth by the tornado. In fact, the shopping center did very well for a number of years after the tornado and was only abandoned when the entire south side of Jackson became too dangerous for commerce. The shopping centers that line McDowell Road (mere blocks from Candlestick) are also in a state of disrepair and abandonment and were never subjected to a tornado's wrath. I did not care for Ms. Hemingway's style of writing in the least ...
Rating: 
Summary: A powerful and beautiful mix of reporting and memoir.
Review: First of all, I am shocked and disappointed to see the error-ridden and ill-thought review of this book from Mr. Rubendall. I wonder if it is even possible that he read the book, and if he did, how he did not "get it." Actually he is right on one count, which is that if you are hoping to read the cliche-filled, formulaic, "straightforward" examples of "disaster books" with which he is so enamored, this book is not for you. If, however, you are interested in a book that powerfully, lyrically, and with great compassion describes a tragedy that has been ongoing in the minds and lives of a group of small-town Americans for more than thirty years, A World Turned Over will not disappoint. It is in the same league as John Hersey's Hiroshima. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Account
Review: Hemingway has produced an incredible account of not only what it's like to be in the center of a horrific storm but also what life was like in south Jackson in the 1960s. She makes you feel as if you were there and knew all the principal characters who were living their regular lives when the weather changed everything. Her personal connection to the story is evident throughout her honest, unflinching look at that day in 1966. After reading the book, I have a new respect for and understanding of tornadoes and their effect on their victims. I look forward to reading it a second time to soak it all in again.
Rating: 
Summary: A piece of history for a fellow Jacksonian
Review: I discovered this book through a mention of it in the New York Times Book Review. It caught my eye because I grew up in Jackson, MS. I had heard about the Candlestick Tornado many times in childhood, but knew little about the details. I really enjoyed Ms. Hemingway's ability to evoke the Jackson environment. We also ran behind the fog machine as children, although I lived in North Jackson and there we called it "the mosquito man." Ms. Hemingway writes lyrically, and her descriptions of the people and families affected by the tornado are quite affecting. I had tears in my eyes several times. The only reason I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5 is because the book is a little repetitive, and because I wish she would have told us a little more about the aftermath, how the shopping center owner was able to afford to rebuild his building. A few facts and figures would have added to the book for me. Although I live in the North now, I can say that fellow Southerners will recognize immediately how well Ms. Hemingway describes Southern culture, both then and now. Northerners may learn a thing or two about Southerners by reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating!
Review: I found this book to be fascinating as well as compelling. As a survivor of a terrible tornado that hit Wichita Falls, Texas in 1979, I could relate with the author's quest to find out how the Jackson, Mississippi tornado had impacted the lives of the survivors there. Lorian Hemingway has done a terrific job of presenting a painful subject with grace and compassion.
Rating:
Summary: not a disaster book
Review: I just met the author of "a World turned Over: A killer tornado and the lives it changed forever". She gave a reading at the university of washington bookstore. the great thing about this book is it does not follow the disaster formula that so many books do when they tell the story of a tragedy. She focuses on the people that were impacted by this horrific event and has a legitimate reason for writing this story because she moved from the area just three weeks before the tornado struck.The book dosen't rush into the story of the tornado. It takes its time developing mataphors of war and the civil rights movement and than weaves them into the story of tornado. The author interviews people with such respect and compassion that I can understand why people wanted to speak with her. Above all she is a great writer.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: I would like to make two comments about this book. Most important, it is powerful, beautiful, and interesting, and is a great example of literary reporting, as well as memoir.
My second comment is to express my anger at the amazingly ill-informed and inaccurate comments made by "a reader from Arlington, Virginia," who saw fit to give the lowest rating possible to a book that, by all appearances, he or she has not even read. The comment that it is "poorly researched" could not be further from the truth, and his condescending suggestion that the author should have made use of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History makes him look like a fool, since that institution was cited as a source of information, as was the Eudora Welty Library. The reviewer is right that the town of "Byram" is not spelled correctly, though his argument is rather deflated in light of the fact that he cannot correctly spell the word "rectified" himself. There are many Jackson natives that would take issue with his assertion that there is not a single live oak tree in Jackson. One of the most amazingly ignorant "criticisms" is that "there were very few eyewitness interviews in the book"-----There were more than twenty. Even more outrageous is the claim that there is "very little on the impact the event had upon the community of South Jackson." (sic)
In reality, this impact is the subject of the ENTIRE BOOK.
It's unfortunate that this person's careless reading was translated into a review. Listen instead to The New York Times, which praised A World Turned Over and called it "lush" and "evocative."
Rating:
Summary: Gives a great recount of the day
Review: Lorian has done an excellent job of counting the events of the day and how they affected all involved. I was 5 years old and lived on the other side of Jackson when this happened, but I still can remember that day. She has done an excellent job of capturing what it was like in the Candlestick Park area before and after the storm. I know some storm survivors who told stories like she captured. A great story for someone who has an interest in tornadoes, history, or human nature.
Rating:
Summary: lushly written
Review: Lorian Hemingway's "A World Turned Over" is beautifully, lushly written. In a dreamer's evocative prose, she tells the story of the severe tornado that struck Jackson, Mississippi, in the spring of 1966, destroying the Candlestick Shopping Center. Hemingway, a girl of 10 at the time, had moved away shortly before the storm came. More than thirty years later, she returned to there to claim her own memories, and to record the recollections of people whose lives had been forever changed, some by the loss of a family member, some by witnessing sites that burned upon their souls. When they see the sky taking on that peculiar yellow tinge, when they hear the sirens, their bodies respond with pounding hearts, shallow breathing, goosebumps. They react not only to the sight and sounds, but to their own memories. Suffused with that sense of place which other southern writers also express so well, with the scents, sounds, sights of that region called "home", Hemingway's book will transport you to the Jackson she knew as a child, and to that March afternoon when the familiar world was turned upside down. This book deserves a wide readership! Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: lushly written
Review: Lorian Hemingway's "A World Turned Over" is beautifully, lushly written. In a dreamer's evocative prose, she tells the story of the severe tornado that struck Jackson, Mississippi, in the spring of 1966, destroying the Candlestick Shopping Center. Hemingway, a girl of 10 at the time, had moved away shortly before the storm came. More than thirty years later, she returned to there to claim her own memories, and to record the recollections of people whose lives had been forever changed, some by the loss of a family member, some by witnessing sites that burned upon their souls. When they see the sky taking on that peculiar yellow tinge, when they hear the sirens, their bodies respond with pounding hearts, shallow breathing, goosebumps. They react not only to the sight and sounds, but to their own memories. Suffused with that sense of place which other southern writers also express so well, with the scents, sounds, sights of that region called "home", Hemingway's book will transport you to the Jackson she knew as a child, and to that March afternoon when the familiar world was turned upside down. This book deserves a wide readership! Highly recommended!
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