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Table of Contents
Reviewers Recommend
The Male Gift Giving Survival Guide: The Rules and Taboos For Giving Gifts to Women
Tim Connor
Worldwide Press
Box 397, Davidson, NC 28036
704-895-1230 tim@timconnor.com
http://www.timconnor.com
ISBN: 1930376367 $19.95 141 p.
Bonnie Jo Davis
Reviewer
This extraordinary book was recommended to me by a colleague after he visited my new web site,
Gift Ideas For Women. The Male Gift Giving Survival Guide compliments my website perfectly,
untangling for men the web of gifts for women. It deciphers the components of the complex
female psyche to its most logical terms. And no, that's not a misprint...I just used the words
"female" and "logical" in the same sentence.
There is but one universal truth about those of the fairer sex: "Women Love Gifts". So, all women
love gifts... a guy doesn't have to be a genius to grasp that concept. Or does he? Ask your golf
buddy who gave his wife a garden rake for her birthday. "You just had to remind me" he mumbles
dropping his head. Make certain that you have lined up another friend for next week's game
though...your buddy is going to drop you like a rock. According to the author, women adore gifts
that reflect the love of the giver and his explicit understanding of her desires and tastes. As a
woman, I must salute this author. His book is the literal lifeboat of women's gift ideas, without
which no self-respecting man would ever set sail on the sea of relationships.
The author, Tim Connor, is a seasoned and well-traveled professional speaker who has authored
45 books. He wrote this book based upon the knowledge he gained in his personal mission to
discover the keys to female happiness. The result of his quest is this easy-to-read, spiral bound
book that men can refer to routinely. Not only does Tim's book disclose the keys to a woman's
happiness, it is the genuine tool for unlocking it with an ever-so-easy click.
The book begins with the quote:
"A man who knows what women want rules the world."
- Nick Marshall
This first quote of many accurately reflects the intention of this book. Continual studies concur
that the happiest relationships, right or wrong, are those in which the woman is happy and
fulfilled. There are some common guidelines in the book that apply to every woman regardless of
her individual preferences and needs.
Important chapters include "The 20 Biggest Gift-Giving Mistakes Men Make", "It's not about the
money or the number of gifts, or is it?" and two chapters detailing in-depth, women's stories
about the worst and best gifts they have ever received. Many of the best gifts, as pointed out in
the book, were not the most expensive or glittery. They were often romantic gifts that were well
thought out, affordable, considerate and timely.
Many of the collective complaints about gifts from men to women are that the men often don't
remember important dates, don't pay attention to the nuances of a woman's life and don't know
what she prefers most or cares for the least. The Male Gift Giving Survival Guide covers all three
bases. The book features an extensive diary prompting men to record important dates, what
makes her happy or feel loved, favorite colors, dress and jewelry sizes, travel destinations, food,
restaurants, activities, etc. Guys can fill out this diary as their relationship with a woman
progresses and consult it regularly for help choosing the perfect gift. Other diary sections are for
tracking any gift given to the woman, her reaction and also a gift log so that the same gift is not
given again and again.
Overall, I found this book to be an amusing and accurate portrayal of the importance of gifts in
the life of a woman. Every male over the age of twelve who reads and follows this book will
certainly reflect the female appreciation of his genius in the smile he wears on his face.
The Book of Ruth
Jane Hamilton
Doubleday
1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036
ISBN 0385265700, $12.00, 328 pp
Coletta Ollerer
Reviewer
Ruth is a girl separate from the main stream: strange looking, a poor student. In fact, her language
implies she has a borderline retardation. Her low self-esteem is reinforced by a mother who
prefers Ruth's brother, Matt, and is not shy about expressing her choice. Ruth's resentment and
indignation moves her to lash out at her brother and harbor animosity toward her mother. Her
mother, May, cannot shake her disdain for her daughter while smothering Matt with love.
Nonetheless, Matt hates his home life and leaves at the first opportunity.
Ruth marries a man her mother dislikes. This puts a lot of pressure on the marriage but economic
necessity forces them to live under her roof. Ruth's sad life is tempered by the kindness of a few
friends and her Aunt Sid. "For coffee she (Aunt Sid) suggested moving to the screened-in porch,
and when she brought out the mugs, she also had a box, containing all my letters, tied up by the
year in green ribbon. She had saved my letters because they were precious to her. I sat in my chair
long past dark, reading my life over by candlelight while Sid moved in and out, doing her chores,
washing the dishes and reading her paper."
This is a story of abuse, desperation and redemption and love. The reader comes to understand
and sympathize with Ruth and is pulling for her. The story is engaging and highly recommended
because of its content and especially because the author skillfully takes on the voice of a person
with a skimpy education, low IQ and deprived background and reveals her as worthwhile and very
heroic. Ruth's natural wisdom prevails as she comes to grips with the terrible calamity which
changes her life.
The Janson Directive
Robert Ludlum
St Martin's Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
ISBN#: 0312989385 $7.99 693 pages
Marty Duncan, Reviewer
www.omagadh.com
The protagonist is a male agent of the CIA; his adversary is a government program that is
imploding due to bureaucratic bungling. He has met with the President of the United States who
has asked him to sanction' the leader of the Mobius program, a former commander of Army
Special Forces who has turned renegade and stolen' the Mobius program from its original
controllers.
Does any of this sound familiar? Give Ludlum credit for inserting an attractive expert with a
sniper rifle who may just be a love interest. Credit him also for inserting dog who repeatedly
attacks a fence, allowing the protagonist to deftly slip over the fence while hoodwinking the
guards.
With all of Ludlum's novels (excepting The Road to Omaha) there is shooting, gunfire,
explosions, conspiracies, bad bureaucrats and a man who must overcome impossible odds to beat
the enemy.
If you like long novels, read Ludlum. I can say, without reservation, that Ludlum writes good
novels. So did Alistair Maclean and Ian Fleming. They make a notable triumvirate of authors.
Nuff said.
Spiritual Astrology: Your Path to Self-Fulfillment
Jan Spiller and Karen McCoy
Simon and Schuster
Rockerfeller Center, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.simonandschuster.com.au
ISBN: 0671660411 $A 24.95 452 pages
Rose Glavas
Reviewer
Having read Jan Spiller's "New Moon Astrology" in the past (and finding it very interesting), this
was another incentive to look closely at the information presented in this book.
Self-fulfillment means different things to individuals, so I am interested to see what Jan and Karen
have to offer - directions to self-fulfillment for all that read this book seems a bit of a large
undertaking!
Jan Spiller has a long history of involvement in the astrological field, including contributions as a
monthly columnist for Dell Horoscope, the astrology magazine with the largest circulation in the
world. She teaches astrology and appears regularly as a radio and television guest. Other books
Ms Spiller has authored include New Moon Astrology, How to be Safe in an Unsafe World and
Astrology for the Soul which have been translated into 10 languages to date.
Part One of Spiritual Astrology looks at the planets, signs and houses and was written by Ms
Spiller. Some of the information here can be found in many basic astrology books but the author
interprets the various symbolism in a spiritual context. The meaning of Moon and Saturn signs in
regards to past lives and karma are explored in this section too.
Prenatal eclipses in regards to life path and destiny are explored in Part Two. Karen McCoy
researched the work in this chapter for four years and used more than four thousand birth charts
during this time! Her research looked at the difference between the solar and lunar eclipse and
what they meant to the individual. She also discovered another aspect of eclipses that may interest
readers who have children. Jan Spiller contributed to this part of the book too.
The instructions include a section explaining how to use the information if you don't share others'
belief in reincarnation and explanations of the difference in meaning between solar and lunar
eclipses.
After reading the material that relates to my own birth data, I came to the conclusion that this
book has a lot to offer. The information covered much ground and gave me a lot to think about.
The meaning prenatal solar and lunar eclipses in the twelve zodiac signs were explored in detail,
as well as looking at the placement of eclipses in the various houses of the birth chart.
On top of all this the authors also examine the aspect patterns between the solar and lunar eclipses
and how the individual could experience them. The mathematical tables in Part Three cover the
positions of the Sun through to Pluto, and of course the solar and lunar eclipses. A full computer
service for calculating detailed eclipse and birth chart information is also offered.
In summary Spiritual Astrology has a lot to offer for the reader who is interested in understanding
their life (and past lives!) in a broad perspective. The information is easy to read and clear - I
would highly recommend this title to the reader who has a beginner's level of astrological
understanding and an interest in reincarnation and karma.
Print-On-Demand Book Publishing
Morris Rosenthal
Foner Books
Springfield, MA
FonerBooks.com
ISBN 0972380132 $14.95 173 pages
Peter Hupalo
Reviewer
Morris Rosenthal wrote Print-On-Demand Book Publishing to help authors and self-publishers
develop a new and more profitable business model of book publishing using Print-On-Demand
(POD) book publishing technology.
Rosenthal writes: "Print-On-Demand allows publishers to print commercially competitive books a
single copy at a time, a true revolution in the basic publishing model. ... This means there is more
opportunity than ever for new authors and publishers to break into the business."
The first section of Print-On-Demand Book Publishing discusses traditional trade book
publishing. Rosenthal gives readers a solid understanding of the economics of modern book
publishing and how it works against authors and small publishers.
Rosenthal characterizes trade book publishing by 1) Large, offset press runs of books, which tie
up thousands of dollars in inventory and run a substantial risk of leaving authors and publishers
with books that don't sell; 2) The need for publishers to give distributors large trade discounts
(typically 55% or more of the retail price of the book goes to the distributor) to receive adequate
distribution; and 3) the need to accept book returns.
Rosenthal tells us that conventional book publishing is based upon a business model that
developed during the great depression and it hasn't changed much since then. To allow bookstores
to afford inventory during the depression, publishing became a consignment business. Today,
because of POD technology, Rosenthal says authors and small publishers have a better
alternative.
"POD does not obey the economics of traditional offset publishing [,]" writes Rosenthal. Using
Ingram's Lightning Source (LS), Rosenthal develops a business model where authors and small
publishers can utilize POD printing and fulfillment capabilities to operate a publishing company
with little capital investment and essentially no inventory. The cost to get started is only a couple
of hundred dollars and full book distribution is achieved. All distribution and drop shipping can be
handled by LS in Rosenthal's model.
Because Lightning Source will distribute books on a short discount to Ingram, Amazon, and other
booksellers, Rosenthal shows us that the profit per book sold is much higher using his model than
if the books were sold through traditional trade publishing.
To demonstrate his model works in practice, Rosenthal discusses one of his own POD titles in
depth, showing how it earned $11,000 on 1,600 sales in 2003, even though the retail price of the
book was a modest $14.95.
Print-On-Demand Book Publishing provides all the information the reader needs to get started
using POD, including how to acquire ISBN numbers and copyrights, and how to create files to
submit to the POD printer.
A valuable section of the book discusses "Author Basics." In this chapter, Rosenthal shares his
experiences as an author working with trade publishers. Topics covered include book contracts,
royalties, querying publishers with new manuscripts, and the publication process. Of particular
value is Rosenthal's discussion of the book marketing practice which tends to create a limited
window of opportunity for a new book to succeed.
Because of the meager royalties authors typically receive from traditional publishers, Rosenthal
concludes that authors could often earn as much money going the POD route as getting a
traditional publisher to accept their books. In particular, Rosenthal asks: If you can earn ten times
as much per book doing it yourself with POD and if ten percent of the traditional sales typically
go through amazon.com, what do you need a trade publisher for anyway?
The marketing aspect of Rosenthal's model focuses on the Internet. About a third of
Print-On-Demand Book Publishing is devoted to Internet marketing, creating a website,
understanding how to market your book on Amazon, and other Internet-marketing-related
topics.
Rosenthal says that the Internet has revolutionized the publishing industry, giving authors and
publishers new opportunities to reach huge audiences and market their books.
Rosenthal writes: "The strength of authors and publishers is the written word, and the Internet is
the media most ideally adapted to the written word since the invention of the printing press."
As an author and a publisher with over five years of experience with both traditional offset
publishing and POD publishing, I can honestly say that for most new publishers or aspiring
authors wishing to sell their work that Rosenthal's Print-On-Demand Book Publishing Model is
the best method for getting started in the publishing industry today.
I highly recommend Print-On-Demand Book Publishing to all authors and publishers.
Soul Cages
Nicole Givens Kurtz
Crystal Dreams Publication
http://www.crystaldreamspub.com
ISBN: 1591460107 $15.00 332 pp.
(Ebook) Double Dragon Ebooks
http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com
ISBN: 1554040019 $5.99
Michael LaRocca
Reviewer
"Leaving his boots in the outer room, he strolled barefoot to his inner chamber. Valek's feet fell
silently on the stone floor due to the floor's covering of human hair."
Are you wondering where Valek got so much human hair? Oh, that's easy. When you take the
soul from a body, it leaves behind a pile of lifeless skin, hair and body. Most of the skin is thrown
into a garbage pit, except for what's used for making drums. Most of the body is thrown in the pit
as well, except for what henchman MaxMion eats.
This is not the first book I've reviewed by Nicole Givens Kurtz, and it's always a pleasure to see
her imagination at work. Valek isn't some cardboard cutout of a villain. He's an intelligent and
worthy adversary for the Minister Knights of Souls.
This story revolves around Sarah, whom the Ministers rescued from the soul cages. Her sister
Amana was left behind. Sarah escapes to another world, one filled with many fascinating
characters who have very high expectations of her.
To write in an established genre is a balancing act. One must follow the formula while being
original at the same time. Fail on either of these two counts, and the reader is disappointed. Nicole
Givens Kurtz does not disappoint. She builds people and she builds worlds, and she brings them
both to life with sparkling description that makes you feel you are in that place.
Daddy's Little Girl
Mary Higgins Clark
Simon & Schuster
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0739425641 $TBA 448 pp.
Lola Pierce
Reviewer
I selected Daddy's little Girl by Mary Higgins Clark because I have read and enjoyed other books
she had written. I am an avid reader and enjoy many genres of books.
Once again, Mary Higgins Clark came through with an exceptional reading experience. Her
characters are real and believable. Ms. Clark has a talent for drawing you into the character's lives
and walking with them through the twists and turns of the plot.
In Daddy's little Girl, Ellie seeks to keep the man, who was convicted of murdering her older
sister, from being paroled from prison. He has spent eighteen years in prison and has served his
sentence. All though Ellie couldn't stop the brutal murderer from being paroled, she starts an
investigation into his allegations that he was wrongly incarcerated.
When Rob gains his parole, He, with the support of his wealthy family, produces evidence that a
young man, with limited mental capabilities, committed the murder he served eighteen years in
prison for.
Ellie can't believe the evidence and investigates the murder that took her sister, eventually causes
her mother's death, and broke her family apart when she was just a child.
Ms. Clark takes us through many plot twists and dangerous situations with flair, wonderful
characters, and surprises around every corner.
The book is written in the first person, but in such a way, it isn't annoying or boring, as this
reviewer usually finds first person books. I was totally engrossed from the first page to the last. It
will appeal to all Mary Higgins Clark fans as well as anyone who enjoys a great murder/adventure
story.
Ms. Clark is a talented writer with many books to her credit, including, I'll Be Seeing You, On
The Street Where You Live, and A Cry In The Night. Of all her books I have read, she has never
disappointed me. Daddy's Little Girl is one of my favorites.
Stalking The Divine: Contemplating Faith With The Poor Clares
Kristin Ohlson
Hyperion Press
ISBN: 1401300251, $23.95, 256 pages
Lorna Collier
Reviewer
In this exquisitely written book, Kristin Ohlson explores a common condition many of us aging
Baby Boomers face: the sense that somewhere along the way, we missed the turn-off to Faith. We
thought we didn't need to stop there; religion, especially the organized variety, seems somehow
antiquated, illogical and just plain archaic to our modern educated selves. But as the years pass, as
the miles pile up, we realize a sense of loss. Something is missing. Something others have.
Ohlson is a skeptical searcher, trying out churches in Cleveland, where she lives, but never finding
the perfect fit. Until one Christmas day, she comes upon an older downtown church, home of a
Poor Clare sect of cloistered nuns. She is fascinated both by the nuns (what kind of women shut
themselves up for the rest of their lives in one building -- in a dying part of town, in a church with
a diminishing population, no less?). She also is fascinated by the church itself, by the priests and
the community who find comfort in their regular attendance.
Ohlson continues to visit the church under the guise of a journalist, researching the nuns for an
article and possible book. But her task becomes more personal as she slowly finds herself
becoming a member of the church and, in the end, making at least some contact with the elusive
Divine.
Highly recommended for any reader, but especially those who are skeptics when it comes to
religion, but also feel a lack in their spiritual lives.
The Wilderness Within
Barbara Spring
Publish America
www.publishamerica.com
http://www.geocities.com/barbaraspring/
ISBN: 1592867855 $16.95
Molly Martin, Reviewer
http://www.AuthorsDen.com/mjhollingshead
Gratifying Read Happy to Recommended 5 stars
Poems and travel stories ranging from Great Lakes, to Africa, Galapagos and Mexico dot one
hundred pages of this work produced by author, professor, featured writer and poet Spring. Bear
Woman, Celtic Mirror, Whale Songs, Persephone Emerges, Prairie Child, On Puget Sound,
Queen Asa's Viking Ship, He was a Farm Boy Once and Forget me Nots and Otters are some of
the titles to entice the reader. Grizzly dancing to tambourine, wild turkey leaving runic calligraphy
and a bedtime story and two halves of a speckled egg all beckon the reader. Bird migrations,
horses, whales, deer, and bats are sure to appeal to animal lovers as all receive notice by this poet.
Form dictates the subject, or does the subject dictate the form? Humingbirds, Sea Speak, My
Kites, In Darkness, Denali Springtime, Radial Lines are created in words and eye appealing form.
Viking Ships, islands, Wild Flowers, Foggy Dawn, Great Lakes leave their impression upon the
poet and upon we the readers. Snowy Owls silent as silk, A grandmother with forget me not blue
eyes, the fragrance of acacia trees, the dragon home - a labyrinth of coiled power offered in fluid
verse to bring treat to the senses. Mount St Helen's, Jonah, Dante's Limerick, little girls sewing
and granddaughters are all offered for the reader to enjoy.
On the pages of The Wilderness Within poet Spring take the reader on a expedition through the
landscape of her life. Affection for lastingness, location, season and family resonate in the opulent
diversity of her work. The stark magnificence of Snow or a Stormy May Morning, effervescent
delight and rich intensity of a Day Lily or My Strawberries, and the more delicate shades of Wild
Flowers and Unseen Opals reflect life in general for us all. From Spring's first offering, "Bear
Woman" right on to "The Gift of the Rabbit" the reader is transported to reflections and
reminiscences that cannot fail to touch the inner spirit.
There is something for everyone in The Wilderness Within. Writer/Poet Spring says they just
keep coming, these poems. Places, friends, family, animals, birds, fish, flowers, stones, lakes,
rivers, and the unseen world enter these poems in unexpected ways.' Poet Spring's love of nature
flows to the reader as these poems and essays are enjoyed. Accomplished, piercing, words to
enrapture, and thrill are offered as poet Spring draws upon adventures of life to give rise to an
opus of lovely work. Family life, life lessons, enlightenment communicate to the heart of the
reader in agreeable and measurable manner. Readers will be sure to be transformed in a very
tangible way while reading the words offered by this perceptive, straightforward woman whose
observable zeal is to share her life with others.
While I love the sea and humming birds, if I had to choose just one verse composition as my
favorite from the many offered by Poet Spring I would have to pick My Kites for my father." I
like both the sentiment and the visual form.
Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment
Jed McKenna
Wisefool Press
ISBN 0971435251 $21.95 305 pages
Shirley Roe
Reviewer
This is a difficult book to review because most people won't get it. Jed McKenna is a heterodox
individual. His approach to enlightenment and awakening are unorthodox. In his first book,
Spiritual Enlightenment-The Damnedest Thing he guides the reader through the maze of theories
and practices towards a desirable conclusion. His approach is simple, his words direct and uncut
and his methods are shameless. Oh, but how effective!
In Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment, he takes a classic piece of literature, Herman Melville's
"Moby Dick" and dissects it with the skill of a surgeon. His carefully placed quotes by Mark
Twain, U.G. Krishnamurti, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman move the reader
strategically from one chapter to the next. The conclusion he draws from the classic is astute,
logical and unsullied.
This is an unusual book by an unusual man and it requires an unusual review. After reading both
of Jed McKenna's books, this reviewer has come to the conclusion that spiritual enlightenment or
awakening is as easy as ABC. Let me explain using the theater as my vehicle.
A Audience- Most of the world's population fits into category "A" or the Audience. These people
are happy to buy their ticket, sit in their seats and watch the illusion play out on the stage. They
have no desire to become the actors or to direct the play.
B Balcony- Some people move from the audience into the Balcony; usually clutching their Bibles,
while expounding the virtues of religious spirituality. People in category "B" consider themselves
above those in "A" spiritually, but are content to sit and enjoy the illusion as long as they have
their ingrained Beliefs.
C Characters- After trying the balcony seats, people often move on in their search for the ever
illusive enlightenment, to the stage where they become Characters. Copying their new spiritual
Mentors, they wear the Costumes, hold the props and act out their own new illusion. These
people feel that they have achieved greater understanding through their Chakras, Chants and
Crystals. They think they are now Content.
D Disillusioned with the costumes and the play-acting, some seekers actually go backstage
looking to Discover a different set design, learn some new Dialogue and Dissimulate themselves.
However, these people often miss the Curtain Calls and return to the stage "C" driven not by
truth but Ego.
E Encore for the Ego or exit stage left, enter stage right, repeat as necessary. This is where many
get stuck changing costumes, learning new dialogue all in an effort to achieve Enlightenment-
Evolving turns into revolving, a never-ending search for Euphoria. A merry-go-round as the
author describes it. Jed McKenna's books are not for people in category "A", "B", "C", or "D".
Don't waste your money; you won't like it and you won't get it. However, people like Julie, the
student in the book who shares her Spiritual Autolysis while in category "E", may want to see the
Finale.
F Finale-In the Finale, those that jump or fall off of the revolving stage end up in the dressing
room. Facing Fears, Free of Falsehoods, Facing Facts- layer after layer of makeup is removed
only to find another layer beneath, until only the naked truth remains. The costume lies discarded
on the Floor, the script has Failed, the props didn't work and now you must Finally Face the
Truth.
G Go, going, gone. Running through the stage door, away from the illusion- gone is the mystery.
The seeker has awaken!
H Home. Author, Jed McKenna rose from his seat, tried the balcony, took his turn on stage,
closed the curtain, stripped off his makeup, threw away his costumes, ran for the stage door and is
safely spiritually at Home, where he enjoys the most Important letter-
I "I"
Simple really and what a coincidence that Jed's book takes us through Herman Melville's, Moby
Dick. The story of Ahab and Ishmael, (A-I) Coincidence? I think not!
Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment guides the reader to the realization that being enlightened is
reaching a point were you realize that there is no "self" to be enlightened!
If you are really ready to Awaken, pick up a copy of this book today. Way to go Jed, you did it
again! Bravo!
Living to Tell the Tale
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Translated by Edith Grossman
Alfred Knopf
1745 Broadway, New York, New York 10019
ISBN 1400041341 $26.95 484 pages
Mary Sarko
Reviewer
Gabriel Garcia Marquez has described in interviews how his life changed after he won the 1982
Nobel Prize. Instead of affectionately being addressed as "Gabo," people started calling him "Don
Premio," and whenever he went to perform his life-long profession as a journalist, other reporters
on the scene would stop covering the story at hand and try to interview him.
For more than two decades Marquez has been the literary equivalent of a super star. "One
Hundred Years of Solitude" has sold 30 million copies worldwide since its publication in 1967,
and Marquez's name and his so-called "magic realism" writing style are a constant presence in
promotional blurbs for books that transgress in any fashion the boundaries of realism. Like other
superstars, he travels with bodyguards, and on visits to his native Colombia, in an armored car.
Now with the prodigious international sales of "Living to Tell the Tale," the first volume in a
projected three-volume memoir, Marquez has again demonstrated his phenomenal
popularity.
In this first volume of his projected three-volume memoirs, Marquez does not disappoint his
readers. As in his novels, there is myth, humor, satire, history, economics, sex, romance, and
tragedy. Often times the descriptions of key historical events are written in journalistic style, but
for the most part, the narrative wanders through time and the world of Marquez's youth in
novelistic style. Although much will be familiar to those who have read his novels, what is new is
the characterization of the young writer himself.
The memoir begins with a description of Marquez as a twenty-two-year-old bohemian journalist
who is committed to the goal of becoming a writer of novels. His mother has asked him to take a
journey with her to sell his grandparent's home in Aracataca. As Marquez chain smokes and reads
"Light in August," he passes by boat through a channel carved through a swamp by slave labor in
colonial times and then by train through the small towns of Colombia's Caribbean region, until the
train stops at a station where there is no town.
Soon after leaving this station they reach "Macondo," the only banana plantation on the route
with its name written over its gate. Marquez reflects on how he liked the poetic resonance of the
word and on how the word may be the name of a tree that never existed, but in this volume there
is no direct description as to how Marquez created the Macondo of his novels. The journey to
Aracataca is still though pivotal. As Marquez puts it, "Neither my mother nor I, of course, could
even have imagined that this simple two-day trip would be so decisive that the longest and most
diligent of lives would not be enough for me to finish recounting it."
What he discovers on this journey is that the world of his childhood is full of myths and drama. A
predominate myth is that the banana company would return to Aracataca and bring another
economic boom. Marquez recalls how every stranger who came to Aracataca with a briefcase
"was the man from the United Fruit Company back to reestablish the past." Although the banana
company left economic ruin in its wake and was responsible for the massacre of untold numbers
of banana workers, nostalgia, Marquez realizes, had created not only an idealized vision of the
past but also social and intellectual stupor.
In Aracataca, Marquez also encounters Vita, who had worked in his grandparent's kitchen for
many years. When she passes by Marquez and his mother, she doesn't recognize them and seems
to be in a different world. Fifty years later, when Marquez writes about this encounter, he says,
"Even today I ask myself if Vita had not died long before that day."
In "One Hundred Years of Solitude," the ghosts that haunt the Buendia family are part of what
has condemned the family to their fatal solitude, but as Marquez acknowledges after his contact
with Vita, he is not completely divorced from a world in which the dead continue their existence
in the land of the living.
One of the common explanations for Marquez's popularity is his ability to both joyously embrace
the popular culture of his youth while at the same time offering penchant criticism of its insularity
and prejudices. On this journey to Aracataca then Marquez established much of the subject matter
and conceptual framework for his later fiction.
Marquez also makes it clear though that after his fateful journey back to Aracataca, he still had
much to learn about the craft of writing. Although this memoir gives detailed descriptions of his
formal education, he maintains that he learned his craft largely from by writing everyday as a
journalist and by reading voraciously.
Marquez's fascination with Faulkner's literary exploration of the stagnation of the American
South has been already documented, as has his interest in Joyce, Rabelais, and Virginia Woolf.
But it is from Kafka, Marquez reports, that he learned that it "was not necessary to demonstrate
facts: it was enough for the author to have written something for it to be true, with no proof other
than the power of his talent and the authority of his voice." Marquez ultimately of course went a
step farther than Kafka by revealing the artifice of fiction, but the notion that fiction could rest on
the author's voice rather than on the strictures of realism had a dramatic influence on Marquez's
writing.
Although this memoir is often times impressionistic, Marquez also attempts to give a faithful
description of not only the pivotal events in his life but also in Colombian history. He presents an
extended description of the 1948 assassination of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan in Bogota and the years of
political violence and repression that followed it. He also presents a genealogy of his family, and
he devotes much time to acknowledging his many life-long friends.
The memoir ends in 1955 as Marquez is flying to Geneva and waiting for a response to the
marriage proposal to Mercedes Barcha, who would become his wife two years later. Marquez at
this point is a well-known journalist in Colombia, but he has yet to produce any major works of
fiction and is about to begin a period of world travel. In this first volume though Marquez has
revealed the major premises of his fiction and has made a complex and extensive journey through
his youth.
Not surprisingly there has been much speculation as to why a man in his seventies who is suffering
from cancer would cloister himself in his home in Mexico City to write such an ambitious memoir.
Perhaps those looking for reasons why Marquez wrote this memoir can only get an answer from
the book's epigraph: "Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one
remembers it in order to recount it."
Alisa's Bookshelf
The Safety of Unknown Cities
Lucy Taylor
Overlook Connection Press
http://overlookconection.com
overlookcn@aol.com
ISBN: 189295012X $24.95 277 pp.
The Safety of Unknown Cities by Lucy Taylor demands a new categorization. While it certainly is
a horror novel, the graphic sex and thriller-suspense aspects make it a unique and fascinating book
to read. It is no wonder this book won the Bram Stoker award for best first novel in 1995.
Our heroine, Val, is most definitely damaged, but we certainly can relate to her. Her mother,
Lettie starts the novel off by gouging out her eyes with a spoon. This act sets the tone of the book
and foreshadows what is to come.
Val leads a very nomadic life. She travels from one city to another, from one bed to another, in
search of a new' thrill something that will fill the void inside of herself. From whispers and
gossip, Val learns of a place called the City,' a place that makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like
Little House of the Prairie. Val becomes obsessed with finding this place and sampling all it has to
offer.
Entering into this tangle of characters is Breen, a cross between Hannibal Lector and Jeffrey
Dahmar. Breen is one scary person and has set his sties on obtaining and killing Val. Nothing will
stand in his way and he will do anything to posses her.
The Safety of Unknown Cities is not just about graphic sex and violence. It is also about the loss
of childhood and innocence. Lettie damaged Val and as a result, Val seeks out the thrills that
dominate her life. Val is unable to truly love and to receive love in return. She recognizes a part of
herself that is capable of committing heinous acts in the pursuit of pleasure. Val is afraid
redemption will mean the loss of sexual fulfillment.
As the story progresses, the sex becomes more graphic and less appealing. In the beginning of
Val's journey the sex acts seem to be enjoyable and titillating to read. Further into the novel, they
clearly becoming more like a bodily function you wish no one would mention. In the City,'
everything and anything goes. Nothing is taboo. Lucy Taylor shows us glimpses of sexual
depravation that creates images in your mind you will wish you could forget.
I was very ambivalent writing this review as the subject matter will not be appropriate for a large
number of readers. This book was hard to read. The sexual acts become very disturbing and gave
me a few nightmares. This alone is testament to Lucy Taylor's wonderful skills as a writer. After
much thought, I decided the book has a great deal of value in our world today. In America, sexual
images are everywhere. This overload of sexuality is a key element in the Safety of Unknown
Cities. How do you find love and fulfillment in a world that promotes depravations and
promiscuity? At the conclusion of the book, we are left to ponder this and many other questions
about love.
Lucy Taylor is the author of numerous novels and short stories. Spree and Dancing With Demons,
a novel of erotic horror, are two of her more recent works. She has won a number of Bram
Stoker awards of the years.
Brilliance of the Moon
Lian Hearn
Riverhead Books
http://www.theotori.com/
http://www.penguin.com
ISBN: 1573222704 $24.95 328 pp.
With a mix of Japanese folklore and medieval courtly drama, Lian Hearn takes us on a journey
that started with Across the Nightingale Floor, was continued in Grass For His Pillow, and
Brilliance of the Moon is the wonderful conclusion to the Tales of Otori trilogy. I highly
recommend this series as both entertaining and thought provoking.
At the conclusion of Grass For His Pillow, Lord Otori Takeo and Lady Kaede Shirakawa have
married without permission. Takeo lives under a death threat from the Tribe, a ninja-like group of
assassins and spies. Kaede is trying desperately to retain her inheritance of Maruyama and heal
from her ordeals. Lord Arai has taken over the Tohan and is waging war on the tribe. As one of
Kaede's relatives, Lord Arai is outraged by her marriage to Otori Takeo without his
permission.
Takeo is troubled by many things. He feels he must avenge his adopted father, Lord Shigeru, who
was betrayed by Otori Lords. Takeo is further burdened by the tribe, Kikuta, who have claimed
him as their own. Takeo is the son of the Kikuta's most infamous assassin, who was murdered
after attempting to leave the family tradition and one of the Hidden. The Hidden are a Christian
like religious group who are persecuted. Lastly, Takeo is driven by his love for Kaede. He loves
her in every sense of the word carnally, emotionally, and spiritually.
In Grass For His Pillow, Takeo is gifted and burdened with the following prophecy:
Three bloods are mixed in you. You were born into the Hidden, but your life has been brought
into the open and is no longer your own. Earth will deliver what heaven desires. Your lands will
stretch from sea to sea, but peace comes at the price of bloodshed. Five battles will buy you
peace, four to win and one to loose. Many must die, but you yourself are safe from death, except
at the hands of your own son.
The prophecy weighs heavily on Takeo and he finds himself falling into despair at the bloodshed
his revenge is causing. It takes a very special man to inspire other to their deaths. Those who die
by Jato, his sword, and those he could not protect haunt him. Takeo must find a way to seek
revenge without the loss of his soul or his love, Kaede.
Tales of the Otori is a wonderfully written work of fantasy that is enjoyable on many levels. The
story itself is not simply a story of familial revenge. Takeo cannot just kill those who have killed
his family. Their deaths are a result of betrayals that run much deeper. That betrayal never ends
and is like a weed. You can cut the head off, but the roots run very deep. In the end, Takeo must
decide how ruthless he will be in order to seek the vengeance his soul cries out for. That
vengeance comes at a very high price in blood.
Lian Hearn is the author of the Tales of the Otori; Across the Nightingale Floor, Grass For His
Pillow, and Brilliance of the Moon. Hearn was born in England and currently lives in Australia. A
website with further information on the trilogy can be accessed with the following link:
http://www.theotori.com/
Alisa McCune
Reviewer
Ann's Bookshelf
Lemon Table
Julian Barnes
Jonathan Cape
ISBN: 022407198X A$45.95 213 pages
Tiddley-winks old man
Suck a lemon if you can
If you can't suck a lemon
Suck an old tin can.
Life, like this old rhyme, is a nonsense. "So much work, talent, courage, and then everything is
over", as Barnes's octogenarian composer puts it. And like all the characters in this book, we live
a little, love a little, learn a little, create a little music, and then comes silence. "Cheer up!" says
Barnes's famous composer. "Death is around the corner". And he goes to dine at the lemon table,
where it is "permissible - indeed, obligatory - to talk about death". He finds that "most
companionable".
Barnes's Lemon Table stories, however, are not so much about the moment of mortality but about
slow decline and the little deaths which occur all through life. Each of his characters, in these
eleven stories, confronts this inevitable process in different ways. And what comes through this
book most strongly is the persistence of individual character and the sheer, life-affirming
determination and energy which these habits of behaviour demonstrate, even when they are not
socially acceptable.
Few music lovers can fail to sympathize with the man in 'Vigilance' who objects to "coughers" at
orchestral concerts. Few, however, would do more than glare and grumble. Barnes's man does
more. After a lifetime of suffering such unwelcome interruptions, he has had enough. His sarcasm
is scathing and funny, as he tells us of the tactics he adopts. But his growing confidence in
confronting the culprits is entirely in character with his increasing need to vent his own personal
frustrations on others, even to the bitter (and bloody) end. Barnes is superb at creating characters
through their own voices, and his ventriloquism in this story never falters. Perhaps there is an
element of caricature involved, but the reader quickly recognizes the bitchy, slightly camp tones of
this self-appointed policeman of concert-hall behaviour, and the underlying tensions in his
conversations with "Andrew, my civilized friend, companion and ex-lover".
Sylvia Winstanley, in 'Knowing French', is also an entirely believable creation. And this time, a
likeable and humorous one. In her very first letter to "Dear Dr Barnes", she introduces herself as
"(Me, old woman, rising eighty-one)" and immediately launches into a sharp-witted, ironic
account of how the "Red Cross" choice of fiction in the "Old Folkery", where she now resides,
drove her to start reading all the fiction at the public library, "beginning with 'A'". Her comments
on the 'A' authors could well be read as Barnes's own joke against at least one of his best-known
fellow novelists. Sylvia Winstanley's eventual discovery of Flaubert's Parrot, and her own French
bi-lingual background, prompt her first letter to Dr Barnes, and clearly, although we only have her
half of the correspondence, "Mr Novelist Barnes" (as she liked to call him) responded. And what
author could fail to be charmed by a reader who tells you that "Barnes comes at chest level", and
goes on to proclaim King Lear, which she had just read for the first time,"total balderdash".
Topics in the letters range from literature, to the daily trials of life in the Old Folkery among "the
deafs and the mads", and include musings on death and the after life. The 'nonsense' of life is
described and demonstrated, and life itself is summed up as "just a coincidence". But, as Barnes
asks via Sylvia W., "what sort of coincidence?". Sadly, this is never resolved.
Each of Barnes's characters, like each of us, lives life differently. Some, like Major Jacko Jackson
(retired), in 'Hygiene', rely on routine - everything in order, everything checked off, everything
strategically planned. This routine, in Jacko's case, includes the annual, post regimental-dinner
adultery with "dear old Babs", for hygiene's sake, just to make sure "his machinery was still in
working order". Sadly, even routine cannot stave off time and change. Dear old Babs (who was
known to the other 'girls', anyway, as Nora) has died, and the new young girl just doesn't fit the
old pattern. So? Adjust the routine, change the pattern, keep "on the qui vive". Life goes on.
The people in The Lemon Table come from different countries and different eras, they are as
different from each other as is possible, but what they demonstrate most effectively is that human
nature doesn't change as we get older. We still want the same things - love, sex, food, happiness,
comfort - it's just that the world changes around us, our bodies let us down more frequently, and
some cope with the changes better than others.
Some, like Gregory Cartwright, in 'A Short History of Hairdressing', manage to get by. Others,
like Mat Israelson, in 'The Story of Mat Israelson', never quite manage to get the hang of it. Two
elderly women in 'The Things You Know', share a monthly breakfast date, but only share the
secrets each knows about the other's dead husband with the reader. They exchange news and
gossip, whilst silently criticizing each other and pondering the alternative version of each's marital
reminiscences. They are, as one wryly comes to recognize, not so much friends as allies - people
who share memories, help each other in small ways, and "see you through to the end".
There can be other, darker, secrets, too, as people get older. In 'The Fruit Cage', a man talks
about the break-up of his elderly parents' marriage, when his father leaves his mother for another
woman. There are hints of physical abuse within the marriage But the son, caught between the
conflicting stories told him by the three elderly people, has no way of determining who is telling
the truth or of knowing whether some mental instability due to age is a factor in all that
happens.
The final story in the book, 'The Silence', is told by the octogenarian musician who explains the
purpose of the lemon table. He is as individual a personality as any of Barnes's other characters
but his musings on music, literature and art could well be taken to be Barnes's own thoughts as he
contemplates his future. "How dreadful old age is for a composer!", laments the old man. "Things
don't go as quickly as they used to, and self-criticism grows to impossible proportions". And he
muses on Wagner's opinion that "if we enjoyed life fully we would have no need of art" but
concludes that this is "back to front". Nevertheless, he believes that "To be misunderstood and
forgotten, such is an artist's fate". "So", he insists, "misunderstand me correctly". It's a piece of
nonsense: like life. And the end, which this composer accepts and embraces, is what he believes
all music aspires to: silence. Let's hope that Mr Novelist Barnes is not yet ready for that.
House by the River
Sid Smith
Picador
ISBN: 033048124X A$22.00 262 pages
Sid Smiths style of writing is unusual. There is a dream-like quality to it which perfectly suits the
story he has to tell. And it has a smoothness which is soothing and beguiling, so that it carries you
along like the river which runs through this tale.
The story, too, is unusual - combining history, folk-lore, adventure, religion and magic, all in a
Chinese landscape and culture with which Smith clearly feels comfortably at home.
John and Grace are two people whose childhood has been shaped by China.
John's father, an American lay preacher, had "dreamt of a great harvest in the Orient", but he had
died on the way to China. John's mother, who had never wanted to go to China in the first place,
was denied Mission funds to return home. So she found another way to get back, but she left baby
John for the Mission women to rear. John's "substitute mother", Song Lan, was herself an orphan.
With no-one to ensure she would not become a hungry ghost when she died, she had become the
Mission amah, hoping that the Christian Father would look after her. Her gods remained Chinese
gods, however, and she taught John a similar pantheism. Her Cantonese language, too, became
John's mother tongue.
Growing up in the Holy Word Mission, John was taught to be a missionary. A marriage was
arranged for him, and he was sent to teach the Word of God to the fisher-folk upriver of the
Canton-Hong Kong estuary. It was to be the first inland mission from the Canton Mission
House.
Grace, who accompanied her new husband to this small fishing settlement, was half Chinese. Her
mother, the daughter of a London merchant, had fallen in love with the second son of a Chinese
trader and married him. Her misery as a Chinese daughter-in-law, cut off from her family by
distance and custom, was intense. "She ate two balls of opium with a glass of wine and died
without pain". Grace, at the wishes of her English grandfather, was sent to live in the American
Mission House, and was educated in its schoolrooms. She grew up to consider herself European,
her looks and her language, however, remained partly Chinese.
The story of John and Grace and their lives meanders like the river. And, like the river, it has
places of calm and places of turbulence and danger. It is the story, too, of the fisher-folk they live
with; of authority wielded by autocratic self-serving officials far from the centre of government; of
tribal and social conflicts; and of a shaman called Jivu Lanu.
Grace's intriguing interpretations of Chinese ideograms and her use of these to explain the Gospel
in her missionary work, is one thread woven through this story. John's growing attachment to the
Chinese spirits and his involvement with the spirit-haunted daughter of the village headman, is
another. Chance separates Grace and John, then brings them together again. But Smith handles
their story as if weaving it into an ancient map of the Chinese river by which they live.
The end of the book is as simply told as the rest of the story. In another book, one of different
character to this one, it might seem like an anticlimax. Here, it is just another small detail on
Smith's map of a river which changes slowly but which never ceases to flow.
A House by the River has a quiet charm which grows on you as you read it. It is a fine and most
original book.
Dr. Ann Skea, Reviewer
http://www.ann.skea.com/
Bethany's Bookshelf
Aisles
Paul Magrs
Allison & Busby Ltd.
c/o International Publishers Marketing
22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166
0749006560 $25.95 1-800-758-3756
Aisles is an extraordinary novel that unfolds a seemingly nondescript Norwich community.
Beginning in a steamy internet chatroom, it leaps and bounds into a love story of escalating
complexity. Burgeoning disasters wreak increasing havoc on local people, and secret
heart-to-heart chats reveal a broader pattern of emotion that parallels the chaotic world around
everyone, in this enthralling and fantastic emotional love story with modern-day twists.
The Road To El Dorado
Joan K. McAfee
Sunflower University Press
PO Box 1009, Manhattan, KS 66505-1009
0897452739 $12.95 1-800-258-1232 www.sunflower-univ-press.org
The Road To El Dorado is a novel of twentieth-century adventure. A husband just returned from
the Vietnam War and his wife venture to the inhospitable mountains of Colorado, in search of a
family treasure lost one hundred years ago when their ancestor buried his beloved wife and her
gold in a sealed cave. A fantastic tale of the siren song of gold, and the terrible toll it can wreck
upon loved ones and close relationships, The Road To El Dorado is as much a caution against
compromising true worth for the fleeting value of money as it is an engaging treasure hunt
story.
This Matter Is
Barbara Holland Criswell & Paul Ruffin, editors
Texas Reviewe Press
c/o Texas A&M University Press
Drawer C, College Station, TX 77843-4354
1881515605 $20.00 1-800-826-8911
Written by a veteran of World War II who taught English at Mississippi State University after his
service to his country, This Matter Is: The Selected Poetry And Prose Of Robert Holland collects
prose and poetry selections of a lifetime's worth of searching, sacrifice, and effort to share
understanding. The broad spectrum of works assembled reflect a desire to inspire, teach, and offer
insight to future generations. "Redemption": Rarer than a winter rose, / Rarer than a sun at night,
/ This moment is a perfect close / And chapter end to our delight. // All the years are centered
here / Like a single crystal star, / All the vast confusion clear, / And peace, the aftermath of
war.
No Lonesome Road
Don West, poet/author
Jeff Biggers & George Brosi, editors
University of Illinois Press
1325 South Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820-6975
0252071573 $25.00 1-800-545-4703 www.press.uillinois.edu
No Lonesome Road: Selected Prose And Poems collects the work of Appalachian poet and
activist Don West (1906-1992) well known as a labor organizer, organic farmer, preacher,
cofounder of the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, found of the Appalachian South Folklife
Center in West Virginia, and more. Crossing five decades in West's literary career, No Lonesome
Road offers poems from each of West's collections, key prose selections, and a newly recovered
chapbook. Co-edited by a long-time personal associate of Don West, No Lonesome Road offers
thoughtful, lively, and insightful vignettes of inspiration that call the reader to personal and
community action, and is highly recommended.
The Complete I Ching
Alfred Huang, translator
Inner Traditions International, Ltd.
One Park Street, Rochester, VT 05767
0892811455 $19.95 1-800-246-8648
Expertly translated by Alfred Huang, a third-generation master of Wu style Tai Chi Chuan, Chi
Kung, and Oriental meditation, The Complete I Ching is the ancient Eastern philosophical classic
and book of divination that has been used since ancient times to seek meaning. This English
version is exceptional in that it includes full translations Confucius' Ten Wings, his commentaries
and insights that are crucial to the wisdom the I Ching has to offer. An extensive introduction
teaches the reader about the subtleties of the translation as well as instructions for using the I
Ching in the manner it was meant to be used. Due to its exhaustive and meticulous accuracy, The
Complete I Ching is the version to have for English speakers interested in exploring the insights
and uses of this age-old resouce.
Jasmine In Her Hair
Huma Siddiqui
White Jasmine Press, Inc.
PO Box 2561, Madison, WI 53701-2561
0974837105 $29.95 www.whitejasmine.com
Jasmine In Her Hair: Culture And Cuisine From Pakistan blends enjoyable stories of culture and
passion, mouth-watering Pakistani recipes, and beautiful color photographs to delight avid chefs
seeking to create their own taste of Pakistan and cookbook collectors alike. Written by cooking
school instructor Huma Siddiqui in order to share and perpetuate Pakistani traditions, Jasmine In
Her Hair is a flourishing, joyous celebration, featuring such delectible dishes as Kofta (Beef
Meatballs), Cholay (Spicy Chickpeas), Rasgullah (Cheese Balls In Sugar Syrup), and more, all
heightened by the intriguing anecdotes of everyday life in Pakistan, from insights into the
philosophy of Ramadan fasting to traditional wedding dress and much more. Highly
recommended.
Crying Tiger
Supatra Johnson
Jasmine Market
14050 Pilot Knob Rd., Suite 140-111, Saint Paul, MN 55124
0974276804 $14.95 www.supatra.com
Written by a professional Thai cooking instructor and former owner of an Asian grocery, Crying
Tiger: Thai Recipes From The Heart is a Thai cuisine cookbook written especially for those who
may or may not be familiar with the basics, ingredients, and preparation techniques of Thai
cuisine. A wealth of black-and-white photographs illustrate the basic directions. An introductory
section features illustrations, descriptions, and recommendations of where to find ingredients
unusual to western cooking, from plantain bananas to dried silver bean thread noodles (and many
other types of noodles) to green papayas, thai eggplant, palm & coconut sugar, and much more. A
superb, user-friendly introduction to creating high-quality Thai food.
Queen Victoria
Walter L. Arnstein
Palgrave/St. Martin's Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
0333638069 $29.95 1-888-330-8477 www.palgrave.com
Written by a Professor Emeritus of History of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Queen Victoria is an engaging expose of both the private and public life of the princess who
inherited Britain's throne as a teenager and became the strong guiding figure and symbolic head of
the largest empire in the world. Drawing upon past studies and research as well as Victoria's own
writings to illuminate her not only as a ruler, but as a human being gripped by concerns ranging
from gender roles and religion to political machinations and the state of Ireland. An excellently
researched and presented portrayal of one of the strongest and most influential women of
history.
Susan Bethany
Reviewer
Betty's Bookshelf
There Will Be Dragons
John Ringo
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403, Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN 0743471644 $7.99 544 pp.
Like one of those webcams that begins out in space and ends up, by increments, on the beach in
Florida, Ringo starts his book with a prologue set in "otherness". There, apart from life on earth, a
computer AI named "Mother" by her human creators is busily running the earth: making a note of
each death, watching over likely spots for war to break out, running the weather. The godlike
AI's job is never done, and few if any humans ever think about Her at all. This is going to
change.
The first chapter introduces readers to members of the Terrestrial Council for Information
Strategy and Management, humans both humanoform and other, who run the Web and (through
their control of Mother) oversee the use of the technology that makes life so easy.
The weather is now completely under control. Food is easy to produce and can be grown in the
most remote areas of the planet, since it can be shipped anywhere in the blink of an eye. And with
the help of the nannite and replicator technology of modern medicine, humans can look like
anything they want to, be almost anything they want to be, and live anywhere they want to, from
the highest cloud to the deepest ocean to the middle of the hottest lava flow.
One thing technology hasn't given the human race is a sense of their own mortality and a
knowledge of their own history. Wealthy recluse Sir Edmund Talbot has both. He isn't on the
council and mistrusts the human race's dependence on technology, so he spends his days learning
to do things by hand and attending Renn Faires, where like-minded people come together to play
at living in long-ago times.
Not everyone finds his lifestyle enjoyable, though. Reenacting has driven away his gene-mate Dr.
Danae Ghorbani, whose work depends on the nannites. It's gotten between him and his teenaged
daughter, Rachel, who thinks his hobby is silly. And it separates him from many of his
acquaintances, who think he's wasting his time. Then the power goes down and people start
dying. Now, Talbot and his band of reenactors may be all that stands between the human race and
annihilation.
Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons
Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris
HarperTrophy, HarperCollins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022
ISBN 0064408485 $5.99 256 pp.
Hippolyta and her younger sisters are the daughters of Queen Otrere, the peace queen of the
Amazons. The Amazons, a mighty race of women, do not marry and allow no men to live among
them, and their very existence depends on their obedience to the words of an old prophecy: an
Amazon queen may only have one living son and he must be sent to his father before his first
birthday. Any other male children born to a queen with a living son must die. If not, the Amazon
race will cease to exist.
And so, Queen Otrere's first son, a brother Hippolyta never even knew about, was sent away.
This time, when the queen learns her newborn child is another son, she refuses to give him up for
sacrifice, and she is put in prison, where she will await the death of her son and her own exile to
the world of men.
But she will not give in. Instead, when Hippolyta visits her in secret, Otrere gives her a charge:
Take her baby brother to Troy, to his father, King Laomedon, who is already raising Otrere's first
son. Laomedon can raise this one, too, and protect him from the wrath of the other
Amazons.
Hippolyta is appalled. She doesn't want brothers, and she doesn't want her mother to die. She
will, though, if someone doesn't do something; the penalty for disobedience, even for a queen, is
death. And Hippolyta really doesn't want to take the baby into the world of men, a world she's
never seen. Besides, she knows nothing about babies. How will she manage to get baby Podarces
to his father? Her mother is adamant. Save your brother!
Now, Hippolyta is torn. Should she save her mother by disobeying her, or should she save her
brother by taking him to Troy? If she does, King Laomedon might be willing to come back and
rescue her mother. Or should she take the baby with her instead, as she tries to find the lost city of
Arimaspa, where the curse originated? Queen Otrere doesn't believe the gods would require the
death of an innocent child. Have the words of the prophecy been twisted all these years?
Hippolyta has no idea, but she's going to find out - when the time for the sacrifice arrives, she and
the baby will be headed for the biggest adventure any Amazon has ever faced.
The Lion of Ireland
Morgan Llywelyn
Tor Books
New York, NY
0765302578 $15.95 432 pages
Being born in New York City to Irish parents gives Morgan Llywelyn, Irish historian and
internationally best-selling author, dual citizenship. She spent half her childhood in Ireland and
now lives there, outside Dublin, as an Irish citizen. Her books, which cover the Celts and Ireland
from the earliest times to the present day, are critically acclaimed and have been translated into
many languages. One of them, The Lion of Ireland, was a sensation in the 1980's and was
re-released by Tor Books in March, 2002, to mark the millennial celebration of the 1000th
anniversary of Brian Boru's crowning as High King of Ireland and the establishment of the Irish
Clans.
The Lion of Ireland introduces readers to Brian Boru himself, the greatest king Ireland has ever
known. Brian, a legend both in his own time and for the history books, led his people into
Ireland's golden age, and in the pages of Llywelyn's book he lives again, in a story that sweeps
readers into the tumult and intrigue of tenth century Ireland and brings them face to face with a
man who was larger than life..
Readers first meet Brian as a scabby-kneed, scrawny boy, the youngest child of Cennedi, king of
the Dal Cais and prince of Thurmond, and his wife Bebinn. Young Brian is dazzled by his big
brother Mahon and he dreams of the coming day when Mahon will be king and Brian will fight by
his side. However, when the slaughter of most of Brian's family by Northmen ends his childhood
and causes him to lose hope in Mahon, he becomes a warrior with only one thing on his mind: to
find and kill those who took the lives of his family.
As Brian learns to wage war (and to make love, make friends, and make difficult decisions), his
vision for his life increases and eventually, he takes on the biggest job of all, uniting all of Ireland
under the kingship of one man, himself - Brian Boru. Brian Boru's life and times are
well-documented in history and Llywelyn uses real characters, real events, and realistic dialogue
to move the story along; only his Druid lover, Fiona, and his spear carrier, Padraic, were created
for the book. Even if you've never been interested in Irish history before, you may want to read
The Lion of Ireland, because in its pages, you will meet one of the most fascinating men in history
- Brian Boru.
True Valor
Dee Henderson
Multnomah Publishers Inc.
PO Box 1720, Sisters, Oregon, 97759
ISBN 1576738876 $11.99 338 p.
True Valor is the second book in Dee Henderson's "Uncommon Heroes" series and like all of her
books to date, it has strong, memorable characters and a story that pulls you along in its wake,
impatient to see where it'll go next. In the prologue, Henderson introduces the reader to Bruce, a
young boy growing up on an Air Force base, who longs (despite his fear of water) to become one
of his heroes, an Air Force Pararescue Jumper, and to Grace, who dreams of growing up and
flying Navy jets like her father, even though women aren't allowed to fly them - yet.
As the main story begins, Major Bruce "Striker" Stanton, an Air Force Pararescue Jumper who's
lived for years for his job and the PJ motto, "These things we do, that others may live", is looking
for more than the job that has consumed his life to date. He wants a dog, a house, a wife. He
wants to settle down, but the woman he has his eye on, Navy pilot Lieutenant Grace "Gracie"
Yeats, isn't sure she wants to get involved with him. He's military and she knows the trouble that
can be; she dated pilot Ben Grossel for years and put off marriage because of the pressures of
separation and the conflicts inherent in two military careers, until a car wreck during her second
deployment took her choices away and didn't even give her a chance to say good-bye.
Trying to recover from her grief over Ben's death, she's leery of Bruce, even as they exchange
letters and e-mails and she begins to fall in love. Can they make it work? She's still trying to
decide when her plane goes down behind enemy lines - with her in it, unable to eject. Badly
injured, the PJs are her only hope. Her life is in Bruce's hands. If she gets out alive, will she put
her future there, too?
Dee Henderson's books (the O'Malley series as well as "Uncommon Heroes") are filled with
believable characters who hold down interesting jobs and get involved in exciting situations, while
working out where they stand with each other and with the God that brought them together. In
True Valor, the reader gets more than one set of lovers; Henderson brings back "Bear" and Kelly
Baker (from her first "Uncommon Heroes" book, True Devotion) to give the reader a glimpse at
their continuing story, and she introduces a secondary romance between Bruce's civilian sister,
Jill, and Grace's cousin and lifelong best friend, Tom, a Navy SEAL better known as Wolf, to
help carry the storyline.
For readers who aren't familiar with military terms and aren't sure where things are in the Middle
East, Henderson also includes a glossary and a map, which make it easier to follow the battle
scenes. If you like romance and military excitement all rolled into one and you don't mind being
kept up past your bedtime with a story you can't put down, get a copy of True Valor. You won't
regret it!
Quilted Memories: Celebrations of Life. Mary Lou Weidman. C&T Publishing, Inc., PO Box
1456, Lafayette, CA, 94549. http://www.ctpub.com . ISBN# 1-5712-0166-1. 2001. $23.95. 96
p.
As the Baby Boomer generation begins to age, we've become aware of our mortality, and
scrapbooking and journaling have begun to be hot topics. Scrapbooking stores seem to be
springing up everywhere and every time I turn around, I see a new magazine or book about it or
about journaling: how to do it, why to do it, examples of what others have done... and on it
goes.
At first, it seemed self-indulgent to me. I mean, who really wants to read about someone else's
ordinary life? Now, though, I'm beginning to understand it. I became a grandmother in 2000 and
since I don't get to see my granddaughter, saving family memories has begun to take on a new
importance. My children know our stories, but Kendall doesn't. Recorded memories may be the
only way I ever get to share family history with her, not to mention other grandchildren and
great-grandchildren I may not live long enough to know about.
However, even if you're a writer, as I am, how many reams of memories can you write before
boring even yourself? And what about those who can't write a coherent sentence, but want to
leave something of themselves through which they can touch future generations?
That's where Spokane quilter and teacher Mary Lou Weidman's book, Quilted Memories:
Celebrations of Life, comes in. Its glorious quilt designs and ideas are meant to inspire you to "go
and do likewise". She says, "These quilts become journal pieces in fabric and become a legacy of
celebrations to be shared by those people who are privileged to view them."
But you can't sew or draw, you say? Weidman would say it doesn't matter. She cuts figures and
lettering freehand in folk art style and warns the loved ones she immortalizes in fabric that they
shouldn't expect to look pretty. As for sewing, she says, "If my stitches show, I don't sweat it.
...If my thread does not match, I can live with that, also. Do I worry if I am using black thread on
a pink project? No. It's ok. And do you know why it's ok? It's ok because the whole point of
these quilts is the story, the celebration, and not whether or not the thread matches. Do you think
the members of your family care what color thread you use to tell their story?"
The book is filled with fun examples of quilts that tell of birthdays, favorite recipes, summer
vacations, weddings, holidays, and other family stories, and there are patterns for many of the
elements in the back of the book. However, the point of the book is not to slavishly follow one of
Weidman's designs. Instead, you should allow her ideas to inspire a quilt story of your very
own.
To this end, one chapter is called "How to Increase Your Creativity Quotient", and it is filled with
tips like "Be thankful", "Surround yourself with positive people", and "Start more than one
project". (Starting more than one project is not something that most creative people need to be
told, unfortunately. For them, she may need to add, "Finish what you start!")
If you're at all interested in journaling, family history, or quilting, this book is one you won't want
to miss. If you've never thought about any of this before, maybe you should start. Time is passing
and there are generations of your family yet to come. Wouldn't you like to leave something for
them? Get started!
Betty Winslow
Reviewer
Brittingham's Bookshelf
Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto
Anneli Rufus
Marlowe & Company
161 William Street, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10038
ISBN 1569245134 $14.95 272 pages
One of the benefits of living in the current era is that anything and everything has become a focus
for discussion --- call it a coming out of the closet' but on a wider, non-sexual scale. Be it disease
(mental, physical, spiritual), religious orientation or personal proclivity, we are ready to face it
head on in a public forum. Whether or not this is the consummate benefit of the Information Age
is a worthy topic in itself.
At a time of nearly painful political correctness, it would seem that every minority has already
demanded its right to acknowledgment and respect. Anneli Rufus has found yet another deserving
group, those who choose to be outsiders by embracing solitude.
Society (note that this is a collective noun) has largely stigmatized the loner by asserting the
following: it is peculiar --- even borderline immoral --- to celebrate holidays alone, to find no
discomfort in dining alone, to engage in pastimes enjoyed alone (reading would certainly be one),
to dislike the intrusiveness of the telephone and the oftentimes lengthy chats that answering it may
incur, to be disinterested in games, and to avoid clubs or group activities. While the masses adore
pop icons that are also loners, characters like Batman, Spider-Man, Superman and the American
Cowboy, they grow squeamish about living next door to someone who "keeps to himself." Why,
surely there must be something wrong with him!
Ms. Rufus takes on this demon of generalization through a variety of approaches. Technology,
advertising, friendship, religion, the arts, all are scrutinized in terms of how they present the loner
and how loners have affected them. She reminds us of some world class loners: John Lennon,
Franz Kafka, Emily Dickinson, da Vinci, Cezanne, Michelangelo, Henry David Thoreau, J.D.
Salinger, H.P. Lovecraft, Eugene O'Neil, Anne Rice, Jack Kerouac, Nabokov.
Obviously, these are creative minds. Humanity has demonstrated a certain tolerance for
them, having recognized that writers, musicians, poets, painters, scientists, sculptors and the like,
need space if they are to amaze us with something new, beautiful, or progressive.
Heaven help the poor slob who simply enjoys quietude while lacking an aberrant artistic gene. He
or she is weird. Aloof. Crazy. And probably a serial killer.
As Rufus points out, most serial killers are alone because those they attempted to befriend
recognized that there was something amiss, and avoided them. One of the most famous murderers
of the last half-century was Charles Manson --- who surrounded himself with "The Family", a
group of miscreants and easily manipulated minds.
In dealing with this aspect of lonerism, the author manages a few well-aimed potshots at
profiling.' While racial profiling is to be assiduously guarded against, stating that a crime spree is
being perpetrated by a loner has become de rigueur. Charming, handsome extroverts do not
commit multiple atrocities. Unless, of course, they are the Ted Bundys of the world.
Whether you are yourself a loner, have a child or other relative who fits the bill, or work with
someone who seems detached from the company social circle, if you are merely curious about this
state of mind, then you have good reason to explore Anneli Rufus' book. The author shamelessly
(why not?) flaunts her lonerism and, while defining its parameters, manages to demonstrate
admirably that even quiet people can possess a healthy sense of humor.
Loners of the World, Unite! (But only in spirit.)
B. A. Brittingham
Reviewer
Buhle's Bookshelf
Final Fantasy XI Online Offical Strategy Guide Spring 2004 Version
Brady Games
Pearson Technology Group
201 West 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290-1097
0744003687 $19.99 1-800-428-5331
Now in an updated edition for Spring 2004, Final Fantasy XI Online Offical Strategy Guide is a
resource packed with full-color screenshots and in-depth strategy, and an absolute must for
anyone interested in the complex and enthralling massively multi-player online role playing game
that is Final Fantasy XI, currently available for both the personal computer and the Playstation 2
entertainment system. Final Fantasy XI is an extremely challenging game, that when first started
up may overwhelm the player with menus upon menus, and the seemingly towering challenge of
raising one's lowly level 1 character to fame and fortune. The Final Fantasy XI Online Official
Strategy Guide covers everything from basic statistics for all race and class combinations, to
general gameplay advice, a glossary of common acronyms and abbreviations used online, a long
list of monster battle tactics and weaknesses of monsters, a trade skill database, maps, a weapon
and item database, detailed quest walkthroughs, and much, much more. Highly recommended,
with notable upgrades to its information to reflect the ever-changing online world.
American Railroads In The Nineteenth Century
Augustus J. Veenedaal
Greenwood Publishing Group
88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
0313316880 $45.00 1-800-225-5800 www.greenwood.com
Part of the outstanding "Greenwood Guides To Historic Events, 1500-1990" series, American
Railroads In The Nineteenth Century is a detailed reference to the history of railroads in historic
America and how they changed the nation forever. Chapters cover the technology, financing,
regulation, economy, and much more concerning railroads, with a special look at their use and
impact in the Civil War. Meticulously researched, American Railroads is nonetheless written in
terms accessible to the lay person and is an engaing and welcome addition to railroad history and
reference shelves for casual and scholarly readers alike. An exceptionally interesting guided tour
of how a commonly accessible means of transportation changed the country as a whole.
Life In Laredo
Robert D. Wood, S.M.
The University Of North Texas Press
PO Box 311336, Denton, TX 76203-1336
157441173X $24.95 www.unt.edu/untpress
Written by the keepr of the archives at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, where there Laredo
Archives are housed, Life In Laredo: A Documentary History From The Laredo Archives is a
straightforward history drawing heavily from primary sources concerning a small Texas town that
existed under rulership of Spain, then Mexico, then the United States. Focusing heavily on how
changing politics affected small-town life, including the terrible threats of war and the
perseverance of ordinary people to survive, Life In Laredo is a fascinating micro-history,
thoroughly researched, that transports the reader to personally experience another era and place.
Despite its extensive documentation, Life In Laredo is thoroughly accessible to the lay reader and
a recommended supplement to Texas history shelves and reading lists.
The Confessions Of St. Augustine
James Marshall Campbell & Martin R.P. McGuire
Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers
1000 Brown Street, Unit 101, Wauconda, IL 60084
0865160589 $26.00 www.bolchazy.com
The Confessions Of St. Augustine: Books I-IX (Selections) is a Latin textbook and work of
literature. It is not a formal instructional book, but rather a reader that presents the biographical
writings of St. Augustine, which reflect his profound faith and insight into human motives, ideals,
and man's need for God, in the original Latin. Although a glossary, an extensive introduction, and
numerous translation footnotes aid the reader in understanding the Latin text, there is no English
translation per se of Augustine's words - the advanced Latin student is left to contemplate them
on his or her own. A core addition to college-level Latin students' reference shelves and reading
lists.
Willis M. Buhle
Reviewer
Burroughs' Bookshelf
Java Examples In A Nutshell
David Flanagan
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
1005 Gravenstein, Hwy N., Sebastopol, CA 95472-2811
0596006209 $39.95 1-800-998-9938
Now in a newly updated and expanded third edition, Java Examples In A Nutshell is a 720 page
instructional compendium by Java expert David Flanagan expertly covers Java 2 Version 1.4, and
the tutorial companion to "Java In A Nutshell." Featuring 193 complete examples with practical
applications, over 21,900 lines of thoroughly commented, professionally written code, new
chapters on the Java Sound API and New I/O API, and much more, Java Examples In A Nutshell
is a must-have for any beginning or experienced programmer seeking to learn by doing and hone
their skills for adapting to any given programming task. As a tutorial companion, "Java Examples
In A Nutshell" does not focus on excessive explanation but rather direct learning through
experience; both "Java Examples In A Nutshell" and the more pedantic "Java In A Nutshell" are
highly recommended.
Worlds Of Wonder
Jean-Francois Leroux & Camille La Bossiere, editors
University of Ottawa Press
c/o University of Toronto Press
10 St. Mary Street, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4Y 2W8
0776605704 $27.95 1-800-565-9523
Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by Jean-Francois Leroux (Associate Professor,
Department of English, College Universitaire de Saint-Boniface) and Camille La Bossiere
(Professor Emeritus, Department of English, University of Ottawa), Worlds Of Wonder: Readings
In Canadian Science Fiction And Fantasy Literature is an anthology of sixteen literary criticisms
and essays by a wide variety of learned individuals, especially focusing upon the genre of science
fiction and fantasy and specifically in the context of Canadian literature and culture. Examining
the works of Margaret Atwood, Charles de Lint, Guy Gavriet Kay, and many more, these writings
offer a unique perspective upon the context, identity, psychodrama, parallels to the modern day,
and more found in widely popular and enduring works of fantastic expression. A welcome
addition to science fiction and fantasy literary criticism shelves.
Satellite Imagery For The Masses
Harold Hough
Loompanics Unlimited
PO Box 1197, Port Townsend, WA 98368
1559502401 $20.00 www.loompanics.com
Satellite Imagery For The Masses: How To Use And Profit From The Satellite Revolution is a
handy guide to using the technology of satellite photo interpretation for business or personal use.
Chapters address how satellite imagery works and what it can do, means of making money off of
the ability to extract in-depth visual information from satellite images, acquiring satellite imagery,
picking the right system for one's needs, and much more. From uses as evidence in court, a
reliable locator of pollution, building video games that show what it's like to fly over the earth
with uncanny accuracy, choosing where best to plan private or public real estate development, and
much more, the profitable uses of satellite imagery abound an Satellite Imagery For The Masses
uses no-nonsense, easy-to-understand terms to explain just how anyone can take advantage.
Secret London
Andrew Duncan
Interlink Publishing Group
46 Crosby Street, Northampton, MA 01060-1804
1566565278 $17.95 www.interlinkbooks.com
One of the outstanding "Interlink Walking Guides" series, Secret London: Exploring The Hiddin
City: Exploring The Hidden City, With Original Walks And Unusual Places To Visit is a travel
guide especially for the walking tourist determined to explore the greatest sights of London,
including obscure treasures such as rivers long buried, ancient buildings, and sites where anyone
can enjoy free lectures. Full-color photographs, extensive descriptions, street maps clearly
illustrating the route of the walk, contact and opening time information, and much more fill this
handy travel guide for the visitor who wants to see it all. Also very highly recommended for the
London visitor is the Interlink Publishing "Walking Guides Series" edition of Christopher
Somerville's Walks In The Country Near London (1566565286, $17.95).
Improving Achievement In Low-Performing Schools
Randolph E. Ward (Mary Ann Burke, editor)
Corwin Press, Inc.
2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 1320-2218
0761931740 $24.95 1-800-818-7243
Ably edited by Mary Ann Burke, Improving Achievement In Low-Performing Schools: Key
Results For School Leaders by academician Randolph E. Ward is a practical and professional
guideline especially for teachers, and education professionals concerning innovative management
practices to improve low performance in multi-stressed schools. Chapters focus upon how to
improve student achievement in core subjects, creating safe, clean, and secure facilities, forging
stronger links with parents and the community, raising the level of management effectiveness and
accountability, and much more. Sample checklists illustrate the key principles outlined for
dynamically improving the conditions and results of an educational institution.
The Survival Of The Coolest
William Pryor
Clear Books
c/o International Publishers Marketing
22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166
1904555136 $14.95 1-800-758-3756 www.internationalpubmakret.com
The Survival Of The Coolest: An Addiction Memoir is the true story of one of the great-great
grandsons of Charles Darwin, his addiction to heroin, near-death experiences, and eventual
treatment and recovery. Arguing strenuously against the "war on drugs" mentality that pervades
today, The Survival Of The Coolest tells of a life where drugs were an effect, not the cause of the
author's severe problems. An invaluable, soul-baring personal testimony of descent and
redemption, offering a real-world viewpoint of the problem of drug addiction from one who has
been there firsthand.
Handy English Encoder Decoder
Harvey Bluedorn
Trivium Pursuit
PMB 168, 429 Lake Bark Blvd., Muscatine, IA 52761
0974361623 $9.00 www.triviumpursuit.com
Handy English Encoder Decoder is not a book about cryptography per se; rather, it is a
straightforward instruction manual to understanding the codes and rules for representing English
phonics and spelling. Comprising of more than 60 categorized spelling rules, over 200 phonics
rules, rules for dividing a word into syllables, commonly confusing word spellings and word pairs,
spelling and phonics games, and much more, Handy English Encoder Decoder is a concise,
quick-reference, easy-to-use supplement highly recommended for any writer or editor's reference
collection. Especially recommended for anyone working on their pronounciation skills or learning
English as a second language.
Ships Of Wood And Men Of Iron
GerardKenney
Canadian Plains Research Center
University Of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, S4S 0A2
0889771685 $14.95 1-306-337-2365 www.uregina.ca
Ships Of Wood And Men Of Iron: A Norwegian-Canadian Saga Of Exploraiton In The High
Arctic is the true story of Canadian and Norwegian exploration expeditions into the perilous and
bitterly cold arctic islands during the first half of the twentieth century. A meticulously researched
and engagingly presented saga of the remarkable men who endured the elements and more in
pursuit of science, fame, or commercial interests, Ships Of Wood And Men Of Iron is a riveting
look into history and pitting of man versus nature. Black-and-white photographs enhance this
superb documentary.
Fort Lowry And Raiders On The Rappahannock
Carroll M. Garnett
Vantage Press Inc.
516 West 34th Street, New York, NY 10001
0533137667 $24.95 1-212-736-1767
Fort Lowry And Raiders On The Rappahannock relates a landmark event in naval history which
occurred during the American Civil War. When General Lee commanded the creation of a "Water
Battery" (an 8-gun coastal installation) on the Rappahannock River in order to protect
Fredericksburg from Union forces, it cost an immense amount of resources and labor from slaves
and free Negroes alike to become a reality. In the end, it never fired upon the enemy because the
Federals never came up-river while it existed, but its creation set the stage for modern naval
history. Researched and written by teacher and historian Carroll Garnett, Fort Lowry And Raiders
On The Rappahannock draws heavily upon original documents as well as secondary sources to
provide the most accurate rendition possible of historical figures and events.
Meuse-Argonne Diary
William M. Wright, author; Robert H. Ferrell, editor
University of Missouri Press
2910 LeMone Boulevard, Columbia, MO 65201
0826215270 $29.95 1-800-828-1894
Meuse-Argonne Diary: A Division Commander In World War I is unique, for during the length of
America's participation in World War I, only one commander of a division - the author William
M. Wright - is known to have kept a diary. It chronicles General Wright's two months at St.
Mihiel and particularly the Meuse-Argonne, the largest and deadliest battle in American history.
Wright's division of 28,000 draftees from Missouri and Kansas was one of two American point
divisions when the U.S. First Army pressed the German defenders back to the Meuse River. A
remarkable and pinpoint-critical eyewitness account of a pivotal time in world history, that bravely
commisserates with those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country in desperate
times.
Operatives, Spies And Saboteurs
Patrick K. O'Donnell
The Free Press
Jane Wesman Public Relations (publicity)
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
074323572X $27.00 1-800-223-2336 www.simonandschuster.com
Drawn heavily from interviews, Operatives, Spies And Saboteurs: The Unknown Story Of The
Men And Women Of WWII's OSS is the fascinating true story of espionage, intrigue, and
sabotage that took place across the occupied territories of Europe. From disruption of supply
lines to the relaying of critical information, targeted killings, resistance organization and much
more, Operatives, Spies And Saboteurs covers a different dimension of warfare in depth and is a
most welcome addition to World War II military history and reference shelves. An inset selection
of black-and-white photograph illustrates this remarkable account of the OSS and its critical work
in the shadows, long overdue for its public acclaim for weakening Axis defenses.
M*L*B*U
Bob Ringma
General Store Publishing House
499 O'Brien Road, Box 415, Renfrew, ON, Canada, K7V 4A6
1894263855 $19.95 1-800-465-6072 www.gsph.com
M*L*B*U: Full Monty In Korea is the true story of the Mobile Laundry and Bath Unit and its
duties in the Korean War. Written by an officer in the army assigned to the MLBU, charged with
the responsibility of moving vans of equipment and personnel to locations near the Front to
provide exhausted troops with the niceties of a shower and clean clothing, M*L*B*U: Full Monty
In Korea perfectly captures and oft-overlooked side of war. Told in matter-of-fact prose and
sparsely illustrated with black-and-white photographs, M*L*B*U is a different kind of military
memoir and a recommended supplementary addition to Korean War history and reference
collections.
Ingrained Legacy
Judith Silverthorne
Spiral Communications Inc.
2033 Retallack Street, Regina, SK, Canada, S4T 2K3
097328790X $21.95 1-306-565-3290 spiral2@sasktel.net
Ingrained Legacy: Saskatchewan Pioneer Woodworkers 1870-1930 surveys the lives and
creations of over eighty dedicated pioneer woodworkers who made their home in Saskatchewan,
all of whom carved their creations by hand with locally available materials. Synposes of their lives,
backgrounds, and talents are accompanied by over 400 black-and-white photographs and insights
into the difficulty of survival in pioneer times. A "must-read" for anyone interested in the history
of woodworking or seeking inspiration from those who considered it their passion when breaking
ground in a new land.
Jack Buroughs
Reviewer
Charisse's Bookshelf
Murals: Walls That Sing
George Ancona, author/photographer
Marshall Cavendish
99 White Plains Rd., Tarrytown, NY 10591-9001
http://www.marshallcavendish.com
0761451315, $17.95, 48 pages
"The most natural, purest and strongest form of painting is the mural," Jose Clemente Orozco,
renowned Mexican muralist, said of his work and the medium. "It is also the most generous, since
it cannot be turned into an object for personal profit; it cannot be hidden from the benefit of the
privileged few. It is for the people."
In Ancona's latest book, "Murals" celebrates an intricate art style once considered illegal graffiti.
Renowned for his photo-essay style, Ancona examines this urban art form not only
representative of past voices but also of the common man's present struggle with an eye for
personal stories that translate into universal themes, more often than not reflective of the diverse
cultures populating the neighboring streets where the murals can be found. His journey begins
with the infamous works of Mexican artists Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David
Alfaro Siqueiros, and includes a prehistoric wall painting from the Lascaux Cave of France.
Following these groundbreaking murals, Ancona travels across the United States in search of
today's community artists whose works, often commissioned, memorialize cultural stories and
social issues on retaining walls, railroad cars, apartment buildings, and a myriad of other suitable
outdoor canvases with spray paint, tiles, and mosaic materials. His findings range from the garage
door murals in San Francisco to a Philadelphian mural of jazz musician Grover Washington, Jr.;
from the images of Russian icon-styled saints painted on the exterior walls of a chapel in
Albuquerque by Russian Orthodox monks to a depiction of the Asian immigrant history on a
building in Boston's Chinatown once slated for destruction and saved by neighborhood activism.
With as many as three or four full-color photos per double-page spread, each appropriately
credited and titled, the book's design captures the inspired vision of each artist through a range of
panoramic camera shots to tighter zoom perspectives smaller vignettes as well as supportive
histories for each piece. The most dynamic mural in the collection is found in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, on a supermarket wall. "The Potluck," created by David Fichter, sings with
laughter, friendship, and fellowship as families assemble for a jubilant feast.
Ancona, inspired by Mexican artist Rufino Tamoyo, studied painting and sculpting at the
Brooklyn Museum of Art School and the Academia de San Carlos in his early years and returned
to New York to focus on his photojournalism career. Author of several award-winning children's
books including "Turtle Watch," an ALA Notable Book, Ancona pays homage to the phenomenal
murals of the world through his vibrant photographs. Whether adopted into the core of a social
studies program or read solely for its cultural content, "Murals" is an exceptional choice for
mid-grade students, ages 8-12.
Suki's Kimono
Chieri Uegaki, illus.
Kids Can Press
2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150
1553370848, $15.95, 32 pages
Armed with the same tenacity and unwavering determination as Henke's precious Lily (Lily's
Purple Plastic Purse), Suki takes center stage. The comparison stops there, however, as the
story's tone evokes more reverence than sass in the face of adversity.
When Suki's grandmother (obachan) visits for the summer, she brings a special gift from the
Japanese homeland a blue kimono. Memories of a delightful street festival come to life as Suki
recalls the first time she donned the beautiful garment the tasty cuisine, colorful paper lanterns,
and traditional dances. Understandably, the "fan-patterned blue kimono" is Suki's "favorite
thing." In honor of her grandmother and her rich heritage, Suki declares she will wear her
Japanese robe on the first day of school!
Uegaki, a graduate of the University of British Columbia's Creative Writing Department and a
finalist in The Writers' Union of Canada Writing for Children Competition, is a first-time
children's author. Her story, written for ages 4-8, rings true on so many levels. Her main
character, an independent first-grader, decides to openly embrace the traditions of her Japanese
ancestry. She wears her kimono, sash (obi), and wooden clogs (geta) to school, regardless of her
sisters' disapproval. Marked as the opening scene, the reader is appropriately prepared for the
reaction she will soon receive from her classmates. Suki's mother, who obviously appreciates her
daughter's individuality, does not challenge her decision. Throughout the day, Suki stands tall and
strong in her right to express herself as she sees fit, despite the teasing and ridicule. Only one child
dares to befriend her and ask the questions no one else has the courage to ask. The crowning
moment for Suki is when the teacher asks her to tell the classroom what she experienced during
the summer months. Suki moves to the head of the class and tells of her grandmother's visit. As
she describes the festival dancers, Suki loses herself in a graceful demonstration of a traditional
dance and hums the familiar music of Japan. Upon returning to her seat, her classmates, reluctant
at first, reach out to her in a thunderous round of applause. Suki's Kimono addresses the
challenges of diversity and intolerance, and realistically explores the role fear of the unknown
plays in the equation.
Jorisch's playful watercolors literally glide across the page as Suki retraces her grandmother's
dance patterns. She is the recipient of the Ruth Schwartz Award for her last Kids Can Press
picture book, Oma's Quilt, as well as two Governor General's Awards and many other artistic
honors during her career as an illustrator.
Goldfish and Chrysanthemums
Andrea Cheng
Michelle Chang, illus.
Lee & Low Books Inc.
95 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016
http://www.leeandlow.com
1584300574, $16.95, 32 pages
"'Brother says the city needs space for apartment building, so they tear down our father's old
house in Suzhou," Ni Ni said softly. She held the photos to the light from the window. "Ba Ba
had a fishpond in the middle," she said, pointing to the courtyard.'"
As Grandma Ni Ni slices carrot flowers and her granddaughter, Nancy, swirls and rinses the
dinner rice, grandson Greg bursts into the busy kitchen with a blue envelope mailed from China.
Grandma recognizes the return address as that of her brother. Two devastating photographs fall
to the countertop, and she quickly reads her brother's words.
Seeing Grandma Ni Ni heartbroken by the news of the destruction of her childhood home and the
precious goldfish pond, Nancy seizes the opportunity to restore the joy that once shone in her
grandmother's countenance. In the midst of her search for something to brighten Grandma Ni
Ni's day, Nancy wins a pair of goldfish at the summer fair. When she returns with the goldfish
bowl, Grandma Ni Ni reminisces about the pond in her past and the brilliant, yellow
chrysanthemums that lined the garden path. Her vivid memories launch a plan in Nancy's mind
that she quickly sets into action.
Cheng, director/instructor of an English as a Second Language program in Ohio, is the author of
Grandfather Counts (2000), chosen as one of "50 Multicultural Books Every Child Should
Know" by the Cooperative Children's Book Center. Her inspiration for Goldfish and
Chrysanthemums is attributed to the personal experiences of her mother-in-law who was reared in
China. Through the decisive actions of a child, Cheng shows how one person can make a
powerful difference in the world. The compassion demonstrated by Nancy's concern for her
grandmother carries the theme of selfless-giving throughout the book and strongly defines the ties
that bind generations together.
Chang, who has published in many award-winning magazines, debuts in children's fiction with
Goldfish and Chrysanthemums. Her luminescent oil paintings artfully capture the nostalgia of an
age gone by, essentially creating a scrapbook effect through a tinted lens. The color scheme is the
strength of Chang's work. Each full-page painting radiates in golden honey and amber.
Goldfish and Chrysanthemums is a choice picture book written for ages 4-8. For older readers,
educators could easily work this text into a family history unit or a classroom assignment that
delves into journals and memoirs.
Grow Grow Grow
Barbara Riley
Jaenet Guggenheim, illus.
Azro Press
1704 Llano St B, Santa Fe, NM 87505
http://www.azropress.com
1929115083, $19.95, 40 pages
"Little seed / sound asleep. / Wake up, calls the rain. / Wake up, calls the sky."
While a sunflower seed sleeps beneath the surface of the nutrient-rich soil, the sky above calls out
for life to begin. Long, thin earthworms move in and out and all around, aerating and fertilizing,
preparing the earth for the sunflower's growth. Rain moistens the earth, and a tender root pushes
its way downward in search of nourishment. "Who's calling me?" asks the seed. Firmly grounded,
a strong, green shoot bursts forth in search of the one who calls. "I'm listening," it shouts. "Are
you calling me?"
Riley, a poet who lives and works in the great Southwest, recounts the remarkable journey of a
single seed buried in the earth as it grows into a gigantic, Russian Mammoth sunflower, towering
high in the simmering sky. Through the birds-eye view of a burgeoning flower, this captivating
story-poem propels the reader through every enlightened step of the flourishing cycle of life. Each
clear, direct question grabs the listener's attention as the author demonstrates the flower's
unwavering determination to survive in the wild. An acutely-disciplined poet, Riley draws upon
the five senses through these same engaging questions and the accompanying lines of fearless,
self-confident pronouncements. By book's end, the poem comes full circle as the matured
sunflower drops its dormant seeds to the ground for yet another prosperous growing season.
Every page bursts with kaleidoscopic intensity as the artist playfully illustrates the marvels of
nature lurking beneath and beyond the poetic lines. Guggenheim, author and illustrator of
"Herman and Poppy Go Singing in the Hills," boldly illustrates from an assortment of exotic art
papers exquisitely designed by artists from across the globe. Out of gratitude for their matchless
talent, Guggenheim pledges to contribute half of her royalties to various children's charities in the
native countries of these paper designers via UNICEF.
"Grow Grow Grow" articulates the music of life. The paper-collage artwork features countless
details from the plant and animal kingdoms, as well as the indispensable world of insects, and
Riley's freestyle poetry inspires creativity, exploration, and even movement through stretches,
exercises, and free-spirited dance. "Grow Grow Grow" is ideal for the baby/preschool age group
and would significantly enhance a science program in the early elementary classroom.
The Ghost on the Hearth
Susan Milord
Lydia Dabcovich, illus.
Vermont Folklife Center
http://www.vermontfolklifecenter.org
0916718182, $15.95, 32 pages
"I'm afraid there's nothing more we can do for your Emily," the doctor told them. "She's in
God's hands now."
These words echo through a quaint farmhouse in rural Quebec as twelve-year-old Emily, victim of
a winter illness, nears the end of her life with her family at her side. She spent her days in the
service of a busy housewife on a nearby farm cleaning, cooking, and mending where work was
never lacking. Every evening before retiring to bed, she knelt before the fireplace on the rugged
stone hearth to scrape away the wax drippings from a well-used candle.
Soon after Emily's passing, the farmer's wife hires another young girl to work at her side. When
the wife rises one morning and finds hardened wax on the hearthstone, she chastises her servant
for her negligence. The servant vehemently denies the charges and meticulously recounts her daily
movements. Disarmed by the situation, the farmer's wife asks her husband to oversee the
servant's chores. Although he sees the young girl scrape the wax drippings, the household rises to
find hardened wax on the hearthstone. The next night he stands watch, but the hours grow long
and he drifts off to sleep. Once again, the wax appears. Frustrated by this unending mischief, the
farmer's wife vows to take the next watch, and the discovery she makes is a story still told in
homes today!
Milord, author of Tales of the Shimmering Sky, awarded the Benjamin Franklin Best Juvenile
Fiction Award, and Tales Alive!, winner of both the Parents' Choice Award and the Stepping
Stones Multicultural Honor Award, recounts an 1830s tale of the supernatural kept alive through
generations of traditional oral storytellers. She unfolds the story through a cautious progression of
page turns, steadily building the hair-prickling tension to an optimum dramatic level, and yet she
skillfully treats each ghostly event with an air of calm that keeps the fear factor pulsating at a low
pitch for younger ears.
Dabcovich, illustrator of the popular Annushka's Voyage, a classic immigrant tale, and
author-illustrator of The Polar Bear Son: An Inuit Tale, honored as a Notable Social Studies
Book for Young People, among other titles, paints the charm of rural life in historical detail with
scenes that move and speak and react far beyond the text.
The Ghost on the Hearth, for ages 4-8, lends itself well to both the young and the old. A
memorable classroom application might include a reader's theater, a guest storyteller, or a
retelling of treasured family stories in a structured story hour. The author includes straightforward
directions for creating a basic story-starter kit, along with adaptable suggestions for enhancing the
storytelling experience.
Small One's Adventure
Doris L. Mueller
Parker Fulton, illus.
All About Kids Publishing
6280 San Ignacio Ave., Ste. C, San Jose, CA 95119
http://www.aakp.com
0971027811, $16.95, 32 pages
As a thirsty elephant herd storms toward the river, stampeding faster and faster as they pick up
the smell of water, Small One moves safely amid the tall, gray legs of the adults. Protected by the
dynamics of the family circle, she gains more confidence than she can handle at her young age.
Caught up in a desperate struggle to gain independence and maturity, the young elephant creates a
dire situation for herself.
In the young calf's eagerness to show the herd her grown-up capabilities, Small One ignores the
perils of the river and goes too far. She openly declares her right to be in control of her own
playtime, ignoring the warning signals of a watchful mother. She thinks nothing of the impending
danger as she watches a pair of twins carefully navigate the slippery mud, their trunks firmly
wrapped around the tail of nearby "aunties." As she reluctantly obeys her mother's call, Small
One attempts to climb the muddy riverbank and discovers her steadfast resolve could be at the
cost of her very own life.
Mueller, a semi-retired college professor, writes Small One's Adventure from personal
observations made on an African adventure of her own. After noting a young elephant calf's
expressions and carefree patterns, Mueller weaves a tender yet suspenseful story of youthful
impatience and the inherent consequences of impetuous choices. She cautiously steps inside the
elephant's family unit to document the physical and emotional interactions characteristic of a
matriarchal society. Mueller's true-to-life portrayal of the excursion to the watering hole is quite
realistic. She magnifies every meaningful detail in the herd's behavioral makeup and carefully
identifies their communication style. They stomp, spray, swing, and moan a distinct significance
for every action. The book's title falls short on the surface, but Small One's story, written for ages
4-8, is a powerful one and well worth the read.
Fulton, a seasoned wildlife artist, opens up Small One's world in her outstanding double-page
spreads. The tension built into the story's climax is just as evident in her illustrations, complete
with a full range of emotions easily translatable into human terms. Every other spread, adorned
with a double band of colorful African motifs and designs, artistically amplifies the environmental
setting for Mueller's dramatic text, adding a believable dose of cultural flavor throughout.
It Rained All Day that Night: Autographs, Rhymes & Inscriptions
Lillian Morrison, compiler
Christy Hale, illus.
August House Publishers, Inc.
P.O. Box 3223, Little Rock, AR 72203-3223
http://www.augusthouse.com
0874837359 $16.95, 80 pages
"It was midnight on the ocean. / Not a streetcar was in sight. / The sun was shining brightly, / For
it rained all day that night."
Nonsense and playfulness prevail, as the title poem suggests, in this witty compilation of
autographs, rhymes, and inscriptions. Scattered across the pages in a unique layout style, these
classic verses will appeal to both the young and the young at heart.
Morrison, editor of the cherished "Yours Till Niagara Falls," is a verse enthusiast who has a
passion for collecting quirky sayings and memorable album verses. The energy behind her interest
moves beyond the surface wit to a level of historical relevance. After careful study, the author
acknowledges a shift through the years from a more literary form to a "style [that] tends to be
direct, down-to-earth, often mocking, humorous sometimes sweet, sometimes nonsensical." She
also points out that today's autograph collector falls into the pre-teen range, an activity once
popular among older teens.
The Table of Contents divides the book into themed sections. The text, arranged in various angle
placements, is reminiscent of the jottings familiar to school yearbooks and souvenir books, with
all commentary reserved for the author's Afterword. For the computer savvy, most sections
feature a block of verses with clever graphics and keyboard symbols. Some duplicate the
preschooler's rebus style or align words, numbers, and symbols in mathematical equations, while
others are printed backwards and upside down. In the Inspiration segment, the rhymes lean
toward the hopeful "May your life " and "May you be " The Friendship selections espouse the
virtues most noteworthy trustworthiness, loyalty, and allegiance while the verses in the Insults
category carry the sentiment of "Roses are red, / Violets are blue ." Since Morrison approaches
this compilation from a historical standpoint, some of her choices appear outdated and stale, with
much of the humor lost in the changing times, but the importance of each verse to the collection
as a whole is obvious and easily appreciated.
Hale is the illustrator of the critically acclaimed Elizabeti's Doll, named Best Book of 1998 by
School Library Journal, winner of the Charlotte Zolotow Award and the Ezra Jack Keats Award.
Her lighthearted illustrations move freely throughout the book's eye-catching design and directly
interact with each individual verse.
"It Rained All Day that Night," published for mid-graders, is a compilation of sincere and
not-so-sincere verses and notations for readers of all ages, including adults. The historic value
alone makes this work a one-of-a-kind collection.
Riding on a Range: Western Activities for Kids
G. Lawson Drinkard
Fran Lee, illus.
Gibbs Smith, Publisher
P.O. Box 667, Layton, Utah 84041
1586850369 $8.95, 63 pages
Filled with activities suitable for any season of the year, Riding on a Range is an entertaining
guide for everything relative to the cowboy culture. Drinkard provides an assortment of games
and projects that children of any age can enjoy.
Down-home recipes, reminiscent of the chuck wagon's outdoor kitchen, are outlined in simple
steps with basic ingredients and ample instructions. Cow-Pie Cookies made from peanut butter
and oatmeal top the list of favorites. Beans in a Bedroll layers refried beans, beef jerky, and
cheddar cheese atop a warmed flour tortilla, a fun visual image of a cowboy sacked out in a
canvas bedroll. In a refreshing twist, Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade rounds up the usual ingredients
and further provides handy instructions for juicing a lemon, a "cowgirl secret."
Plenty of cowboy games, histories, and how-to's are scattered throughout the pages a clever
sport of Bean Shootout, a round of old-fashioned horseshoes utilizing recycled shoes, and the
inside scoop on staging a cowboy play, complete with script and costuming ideas. Boot spurs and
roping skills are discussed at length, not to mention the modern-day cowboy wave from behind
the wheel of a pickup truck. To further flesh out the cowpoker personality, Drinkard adds a
section of western lingo and traditional rodeo terms in a glossary format. Combined with
authentic cattle brands and markings, any picnic, campout, or western-themed event spells a
recipe for success with specialty banners, invitations, and one-of-a-kind party favors.
Drinkard, author of Hiding in a Fort: Backyard Retreats for Kids and Fishing in a Brook: Angling
Activities for Kids, writes Riding on a Range in a similar easy-to-read style. Published as an
oversized paperback, this attractive resource book is designed in a well-organized, concise format
with helpful illustrations at every turn. Written for ages six and beyond, this unique, passionate
collection opens the door to the marvels of nature in a revolutionary attempt to reverse the
sedentary trend in the lives of today's children.
Lee is the illustrator of many of the Gibbs Smith activity books. Her latest work is My Vacation
Album (Richard Elton), a spiral-bound activity book for young amateur photographers.
A Snowflake Fell: Poems About Winter
Laura Whipple, compiler
Hatsuki Hori, illus.
Barefoot Books
2067 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140
1841480339, $16.99, 40 pages
In celebration of the seasonal joys of wintertime, Whipple, in A Snowflake Fell, has compiled a
simple yet profound collection of children's poetry. With an ear for the classical nuances of poetic
form, the author has diligently researched the best of the best and successfully pulled them
together into an exquisite, themed anthology, beautifully illustrated by Hori, an award-winning
illustrator of several books in the Japanese market.
In this selection of twenty-four poems, the compiler draws from the talented works of several
renowned poets, such as Gary Soto, Marilyn Singer, Jack Prelutsky, James Whitcomb Riley, and
Michael Spooner. Each poet brings a unique perspective to the attention of the reader and
explores a wide range of wintry experiences, from the universal to the most personal. In David
McCord's rhyme, "Joe," the reader witnesses firsthand the touch-and-go plight of hungry birds
patiently awaiting their turn as one gray squirrel eats his fill of birdseed. For a more contemplative
example in a freestyle form, poet Nancy Wood personifies nature in "Old Man Winter" as an
elderly man who rests upon the snowy mountaintops, stretching his icy fingers down into the
valleys, "stealing the leaves from the trees." Opting for first-person humor, Jack Prelutsky's "My
Mother's Got Me Bundled Up" examines the season through the eyes of a child wrapped in
enormous layers of warmth: scarves, socks, and sweaters. In an alliterative approach, Whipple
herself breathes life into the words she chooses to describe a skater's metal blades slicing through
the frozen ice: "Swish, slash, / my skates / crash on ice."
Written for ages 4-8, A Snowflake Fell depicts animals, objects, and activities familiar to even the
youngest frosty panes, snowmen, and various species of wildlife through a magical blend of
text and illustration. Hori, debuting in the English-speaking market, works in pastel and
watercolor to create soft, expressive illustrations, her signature style.
Whether the intent is one of playfulness or serious reflection, each poem flows effortlessly across
the page, drawing readers into a wintry world with lines of humor, contrasts of warmth and
blinding cold, and plenty of heartwarming imagery. Whipple is the author of the poetry collection
If the Shoe Fits: Voices From Cinderella (2002). Her latest collections include Celebrating
America: A Collection of Poems and Images of the American Spirit and Eric Carle's Dragons
Dragons.
Almost to Freedom
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
Colin Bootman, illus.
Carolrhoda Books, Inc.,
Div. of Lerner Publishing Group
241 First Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55401
http://www.lernerbooks.com
157505342X $15.95, 40 pages
Not since The Leaving (Stroud) has there been such an emotionally authentic accounting of the
Underground Railroad experience. Evident from the very beginning, Almost to Freedom, written
for ages 4-8, is a first-person story told from a unique perspective a young girl's homemade rag
doll.
By the light of day, Lindy's doll is neatly roped about her waist while she picks cotton with her
mother, always under the watchful eye of a cruel, relentless overseer. By night, the slaves huddle
around an inviting campfire and talk of freedom, a treasure only obtainable through a place called
"North." One night, Lindy's sleep is interrupted by the gentle nudges of her mother. The time has
come! Lindy grabs her precious doll and scrambles through the underbrush to the boatman's skiff
at the water's edge. Upon reaching the other side, her father leads his family to a white man's
home lit by the glow of a lantern. Hidden beneath the storeroom floor, Lindy's family takes
refuge.
Nelson, twice a member of the Newbery Award Committee, is the author of Mayfield Crossing,
winner of the Georgia Children's Book Award, and Beyond Mayfield, recipient of the Parents'
Choice Gold Award. A story of undeniable courage, Almost to Freedom urges the reader along a
dangerous trek as a slave family takes advantage of timing and circumstance to claim their
freedom. By choosing to tell the story through the eyes of a rag doll, the author invites her
audience to become eye-witnesses to the dramatic escape and active participants in the overall
movement. Nelson further demonstrates, through an unexpected plot twist, the role abounding
hope plays in even the most hopeless of times.
Bootman, a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York, is the illustrator of several books,
including The Music in Derrick's Heart (Battle-Lavert) and Don't Say Ain't (Smalls-Hector). His
realistic, large-as-life paintings complement the tone of Nelson's text with an incredible wash of
warmth and tenderness, though the story moves through the dark of night on a wave of mounting
tension.
Almost to Freedom, a heartfelt story that embraces the power of unshakable faith, hope, and
courage, exposes the very spirit of freedom during a remarkable period in American history. A
detailed Author's Note anchors the black rag dolls in a timeline and documents their existence in
various Underground Railroad sites. Almost to Freedom is a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor
Book.
David Gets His Drum
David "Panama" Francis/Bob Reiser
Eric Velasquez, illustrator
Marshall Cavendish
99 White Plains Rd., Tarrytown, NY 0591-9001
http://www.marshallcavendish.com
0761450882, $16.95, 32 pages
"In the islands they say everybody must find his own drum. When he finds one that sings for him,
he must play it for the world to hear." These words of wisdom from Brulla Roberts, lead drummer
of the St. Agnes Band, to the heart of six-year-old David ring as true as the enchanting rhythms of
the distant isle of Haiti, the homeland of his father.
Every Saturday night, the cadence of a regimented marching band fills the air with every turn of
the tabletop record player. When young David closes his eyes, he sees himself as the leader of the
band, boldly marching through the historical streets of old Miami. He was born to rhythm. He
feels it in his bones! Only one thing is holding David back. He has no drum!
Together, Francis and Reiser recount the passionate story of a young man who always knew he
was a drummer, and that drummer was David "Panama" Francis himself, so named for the
Panama hat he always wore. Francis was a jazz trumpeter whose career spanned seven successful
decades. He achieved his fame in the 1930s while playing with the Savoy Sultans at the Savoy
Ballroom in Harlem, known as the "home of the happy feet." He played his drums with the best in
the music industry Dinah Washington, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Buddy Holly, and many
others. Francis was one of the most popular studio drummers on the circuit until the time of his
death in 2001.
Velasquez, winner of the Coretta Scott King New Talent Award for his illustrations in "The Piano
Man," artfully captures the pulse of the South in each double-page spread. The oils are warm and
expressive, grounded in the realism of the era, and the brushstrokes, smooth and fluid. As David
resolves to achieve his dream, each dynamic illustration stands as a testament to his fearless
determination.
"David Gets His Drum" is a fictionalized account of a true event in a young boy's life. The gift of
a shiny metal drum sparks a remarkable career in swing jazz. While the longer text is more
suitable for the older reader, the timeless theme will satisfy readers and listeners of all ages.
Apple Doll
Kathleen Phillips Poulsen, author/illus.
The Overmountain Press
P.O. Box 1261, Johnson City, TN 37605
http://www.overmountainpress.com
1570722226, $9.95, 32 pages
"Outside, the wind grew cold and frosty. Inside, apple slices were baked into bubbly pies. The
warm, spicy air turned the apple head tan and spongy."
On the heels of Indian Summer, just before the killing frost of autumn, young Samantha spies a
plump, red apple in one of Gram's orchard trees. As the shiny, round apple dangles high above,
Sam's brother climbs the picker's ladder. He plucks the sun-ripe apple for his sister, a gift for
Gram.
In "Apple Doll," Poulsen, a retired teacher who spent her career in learning-disabled classrooms,
writes a story grounded in the heritage of Southern Appalachia. As the distant past moves into the
present, the apple serves as an inspirational tool for storytelling and tradition-sharing, draws
generations together in a wondrous seasonal activity, and enriches family relationships. Gram and
her grandchildren share in the fun of apple peeling by tossing each twisted spiral over their
shoulders to see what fancy letter will fall to the floor. Songs are sung and rhymes are recited as
Sam and her siblings patiently watch Gram carve a perfect doll's face into the apple's juicy surface.
While they wait for the apple to dehydrate on the fireplace mantel, everyone partakes in the
chores of autumn. Precious time is spent picking and shucking corn, pressing pungent cider, and
baking sweet, flavorful apple pies. When the apple head finally reaches its prime, Gram shares the
task of dressing the new doll with her granddaughter. This activity prompts a memorable
conversation about the traditions of her Indian grandmother and the art of making apple
dolls.
Poulsen's scratchboards bring the nostalgic past to life. The details in each colorful illustration are
skillfully refined, with the woolen hair strands, the doily headscarf, and the charming, puckered
face of Sam's apple doll so meticulously crafted. Each page is filled with items and concepts not
mentioned in the text that can readily spark new discussions. The book's most striking feature is
the inclusion of an apple doll pattern, complete with simple, easy-to-read instructions. "Apple
Doll" is a picture book written for children four to eight, but the doll pattern opens the age range
to any classroom or storytelling opportunity where active participation is desirable.
Charisse Floyd
Reviewer
Cindy Lynn's Bookshelf
Peter Robinson
Playing With Fire
William Morrow
006019877X $23.95
Banks felt a headache coming on. He glanced at the young girl's body again, nipped the bridge of
his nose above the mask between his thumb and index finger until his eyes prickled with tears,
then he looked away, into the fog, just in time to see Doctor Burns, the police surgeon, walking
towards the barges with his black bag.
Indeed, someone is playing with fire...a play that's turned deadly when two barges are set fire, and
a body is discovered on each. One is the body of an excentric artist, the other the body of a young
drug addict. The drug addict seems like the mostly likely victim, especially when her boyfriend is
caught fleeing the scene. A second arson...a caravan with another known recluse in it...changes
the dimensions of the case utterly. Now no longer is it a simple murder that spread to the other
barge, accidentally killing another person. Instead it's either a serial arsonist, which because of the
nature of the choices of target doesn't quite seem likely, or a cover up.
Robinson has a fine flair for police procedural. He takes us into the very center of it...autopsies,
detective work and examination of fire patterns are all very well detailed, giving us a truly in
depth look. I particularly enjoyed the different aspects of arson investigation. CSI fans will find
these aspects a real treat. Now, I kind of guessed the killer towards the middle end of the book,
and I think that a lot of people might...but it's written so well that it actually adds to it. The killer
is very clever and you keep reading, not only to figure out the whys of what he did, but you keep
waiting, wondering when Banks will figure it out and how he'll prove it. It's very intricately and
smartly done.
Another aspect I liked in this book are the relationships. Alan Banks and Annie Cabbott, who
work together as partners and were once something more, have an interesting relationship. She's
dating Phil Keane, an art appraiser, he's dating Michelle Hart, who is a cop with another area.
The long history these two have can be felt, and Bank's reactions to her new beau, and why he
can't help but investigate him as a suspect add some nifty undercurrents.
Robinson opens the book with a journal entry...he also closes it with one. I thought this was
extremely cool, because it asks another question that we keep reading to find the answer for. The
first journal entry is by an unknown man, about to commit suicide. Another man visits him, and
saves him... "And then he told me what he wanted me to do." It was a great beginning, and
finding out who and what he was meant to accomplish was a big motivation.
This British crime thriller is exciting and well done.
The History of Punishment
Lewis Lyons
The Lyons Press
ISBN: 1592280285 $19.95 192 pages
Punishment, in the historical and bureaucratic sense, is a dual edged sword. On one hand, it's
about finding justice and attempting to find ways to prevent things from happening again, on the
other, it is a power that has been abused, brutally and shamelessly. This book will explore both
sides of this sword.
The book begins with early history...and how systems of belief and ethics naturally gave birth to
the need for a way to uphold those beliefs. He discusses the earliest legal code, the Ur-Nammu,
which is considered the blue print of all Mesopotamian codes. It certainly was the basis for
Babylon's Hammurabi...though we know much more about this detailed code, which allows for
the builder of a house to be put to death if it falls and kills the people within.
He then studies two very important...and (ironically, in light of the conflicts between the two
peoples) intertwined laws of the Jewish and Arabic peoples. The next chapter discusses
"Democracy and Law: The European Legacy" which seems like huge jump from the previous
chapter, but isn't when you realize the Rome created a very strong foundation for the European
and later, American base of laws.
Then we explore the law systems of India and China, which, though they grew up untouched by
the Middle Eastern and European systems of laws, are the same in some fascinating ways.
Once we finish with the cultural history of punishment, we begin to concentrate on different
aspects of it, begining with corporal punishment. Flogging gets the most attention, though some
of the other punishments, such as the pillory (which, we read earlier, was similar to a form of
punishment in China) seems like a scary enough deterrent. Even today we have some surprising
forms of corporal punishment...in 2001 two men charged with throwing beer bottles at a woman's
car were given a choice, 60 days in jail or an hour walking down a busy street in women's
clothing. Guess which they choose?
(Want a hint? They even wore wigs.)
The choice the men didn't make, imprisonment, is the next chapter. Not only is the history of
different prisons (such as infamous Newgate) discussed, but how imprisonment impacted society
as a whole, especially as written of by French philosopher Foucault.
The least pleasant chapter, of course, is the one on torture...physical (including the terrible
sounding water torture) as well as mental are listed here, and are the stuff of nightmares.
Though some may argue that the next chapter, on the death penalty, is actually worse...especially
when you get to things like Oerilaus' Brazen Bull, which combines torture with death in a horrible
way.
Lyons' thoughtful conclusion does its job of winding up the book perfectly.
It's not a very long book, but it is a very strong one. Lyons' narrative never flags, and he is
careful not to go into gruesome detail, adding a lot of obscure little tidbits along with the main
history. It's also well illustrated, with pictures from the times on almost every page. The part I
liked the best were the tiny sidebars...quick facts and nifty quotes that add greatly to the
knowledge base.
This book will provide history and mystery writers with a solid background of research. An
excellent general text.
Van Helsing's Night Off
Nicolas Mahler
Top Shelf
PO Box 1282, Marietta, GA 30061-1282
1891830384 $12.95 106 pages
These are characters we all know...Van Helsing. the Wolf Man, Frankenstein, the Mummy...and
legends we are familiar with, such as the Vampire and the Masked Avenger. What we are even
more familiar with are the situations these creatures find themselves in, mundane things that we
encounter every day...friends being late, the phone ringing while we're in the bath, squirting jelly
from a donut staining our outfit. In this book, the genius of Mahler is how he puts these legendary
characters into such ordinary situations, creating comedy without penning one word.
The drawings are deceptively simple. The mummy, for instance, is almost like a long, upright
snake wrapped in bandages. All in black and white, these pen and ink drawings manage to convey
a great deal.
The stories are themselves, pretty short. He reminds me a bit of why I liked Gary Larson's Farside
cartoons so much...though he doesn't use the single panel layout that Larson used, rather, his are
sometimes as long as thirty panels, he has that way of combining the odd and the real into simple,
funny, statements about all of our lives. Anything can happen...the Wolf Man can cheat on
Frankenstein with his Bride, a vampire can go out and get drunk and not be able to remember
which grave is his, an invisible man can't get service at the bar. The humor is in the humanity, in
how we can make connection with those beings we usually consider monsters to fear.
Fans of L'Association, a Paris based press, might already be familiar with these marvelous works,
but for me this short collection was the perfect introduction.
Cindy Lynn Speer, Reviewer
http://www.apenandfire.com
Debra's Bookshelf
The War Against Grammar
David Mulroy
Boynton/Cook
ISBN: 0867095512 $20.00 128 pages
In pellucid prose, author David Mulroy, a classicist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
discusses the deleterious effect that a decades-long avoidance of formal instruction in grammar
has had on American students: SAT scores are down; reading comprehension has declined;
enrollment in most foreign languages has dropped; and students suffer in general from a "higher
illiteracy." While students can, that is--some of them, at least--express themselves adequately,
they are not proficient at explicating the literal meanings of grammatically complex texts. Asked
to paraphrase the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence, for example, one of the
author's students writes: "It doesn't matter where you came from. In the end we are all human
beings. Humans are at the top of the food chain, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't respect nature.
Because we have one earth, learn to preserve it."
The purpose of grammar, Mulroy explains, is twofold: "It preserves and perfects understanding of
the great literature of the past, and it contributes to eloquent self-expression." He argues
persuasively for a return to a concentration on formal grammatical instruction in schools, not out
of some school-marmish obsession with sentence-ending prepositions or the like, but because
grammar is a foundation for further understanding: "Intellectuals work with words. Questioning
the value of basic grammar is like asking whether farmers should know the names of their crops
and animals." He points out, too, what most of us probably take for granted, that the world
benefits enormously from the existence of a standard English, which grammatical instruction helps
maintain: speakers of English across the globe can communicate with one another easily, which
was not true of English speakers mere villages apart in the medieval period.
Mulroy hits on a number of topics in his short book, among them the ancient liberal arts
curriculum, the history of the classification of words into eight basic categories, educational
practices in the middle ages, and progressive education. Happily, he also includes a section on
sentence diagramming. This allowed me to pass a pleasant half hour diagramming sentences with
my eight-year-old: intrigued by the game at first, she came to think me unusual in my interests,
and facetiously suggested we try subtracting for pleasure next. She may mock, but then she's not
likely to wind up thinking the Declaration of Independence was an early-American plea for nature
preserves.
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Tracy Chevalier
Plume (Penguin Group)
ISBN: 0452282152 $13.00 233 pages
When her father is blinded in an accident and no longer able to support his family, 16-year-old
Griet is hired as a maid by the painter Vermeer and his jealous, egocentric, and frequently
pregnant wife. Griet's responsibilities in the house are legion, and her tasks rendered more difficult
by the unkindness of several of her new home's inhabitants. When Vermeer adopts her as an
assistant in his studio--and subsequently determines to paint her--interpersonal relations below
stairs are only worsened.
Tracy Chevalier has written a believable and moving account--or imagining--of the creation of
Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring," the painting which graces the cover of the paperback. The
genius of the book lies in Chevalier's investing the act of painting Griet with a dark significance
one would not imagine it to possess. There is in Griet's modeling for Vermeer the potential for
tragedy, and in the painter's final brushstrokes a form of abuse. Communicating this significance
to readers--and imagining this history of the painting in the first place--is quite an
accomplishment.
Last Puzzle & Testament
Parnell Hall
Bantam
ISBN: 0553581430 $6.50 370 pages
The second installment in Parnell Hall's Puzzle Lady series finds cruciverbalist Sherry Carter and
her bibulous Aunt Cora caught up in another crossword-related crime spree in the small town of
Bakerhaven, Connecticut. (Sherry writes a popular syndicated crossword puzzle column, but the
puzzles are attributed to her aunt, who is the public face of the "Puzzle Lady.") It turns out that
the recently deceased Emma Hurley has stipulated in her will that her prospective heirs undergo a
sort of trial-by-puzzle to determine which of the lot will wind up with the largest share of her
multi-million-dollar estate. Cora Felton, meanwhile, because of her reputed prowess as a puzzle
solver, is named judge of the contest, a highly lucrative if unlikely assignment. As the various
greedy and unpleasant heirs discover, Emma Hurley's millions seem to be riding on the successful
completion of a crossword. The puzzle is relatively straightforward--suspiciously so, considering
the sums involved--but the mystery surrounding the Hurley will is far more complex than any of
the principals--the innocent ones, at least--suppose. Before the puzzle ladies can solve the
mystery, two corpses, their murders somehow connected to the crossword contest, join Emma's
in the local cemetery.
Parnell Hall's mysteries are complex enough to keep readers guessing and written with sufficient
wit to keep them appreciative. ("Beasley's trip up the stairs was perilous at best. While he did not
actually crawl, he did not actually walk, either.") The relationship between Cora and her niece in
particular makes for pleasant reading. Hall might tone down Cora's self-destructive tendencies,
however: that the grandmaternal "Puzzle Lady" is in reality so unlike her public persona is the
principal joke of the series, but one worries about the effect of excessive smoking and drinking on
her health. These are not charming or inherently amusing habits. One may note that Colin Dexter's
Detective Morse likewise drinks to excess, but Morse's problems with alcohol are not, I think,
milked for humor. Perhaps rather for pathos.
Crossword lovers and cozy fans--and readers of the Nero Blanc series of crossword mysteries in
particular--will enjoy Hall's take on the amateur sleuth genre.
The Devil in the White City
Erik Larson
Vintage
ISBN: 0375725601 $14.95 464 pages
In the early years of the 1890s thousands of men labored feverishly, under an all-but-impossible
deadline, to erect an ephemeral masterpiece, the Chicago World's Fair, which would be open to
the public a scant six months, from May to October of 1893. Principal among those at work on
the exposition was chief architect Daniel Hudson Burnham, who did a yeoman's job in overseeing
the minutiae of the construction. Prominent also was the nitpicking landscape architect Frederick
Law Olmstead, who already had on his resume the design and construction of New York's Central
Park.
People flocked to Chicago while the Fair was being prepared: able-bodied men who were looking
for sure work in a period of economic depression; young women leaving home for the first time to
seek employment as secretaries or teachers. Chicago may have been a dangerous place--fires
alone took a dozen lives a day in the city--and it was aesthetically unappetizing, "a world of
clamor, smoke, and steam, refulgent with the scents of murdered cattle and pigs." But Chicago,
particularly during the period of the Fair's construction, offered opportunity.
One man, for example, the handsome and blue-eyed and oddly magnetic Mr. H.H. Holmes,
discovered that the influx of young naifs to Chicago provided him with a surfeit of prospective
"material." That is, with a great number of young women, newly uprooted from their families,
renting rooms in the hotel he had constructed near the Fair grounds, it became a simple matter for
Holmes to find women he could murder and either cremate in his home-made kiln or flay and have
turned into articulated skeletons. Late-19th-century Chicago was indeed a place where dreams
could come true.
In The Devil in the White City, author Erik Larson weaves together the story of the Fair's
construction and an account of Holmes's criminal career. (The man's villainy, though manifest
throughout, becomes a visceral thing only near the book's end.) Both halves of the tale are
fascinating. In addition to being (pleasantly?) repulsed by the grotesqueries detailed, readers will
come away from the book having learned an enormous amount about the Fair and its background.
(The mark the Fair left on American society is still in evidence: the Ferris Wheel and Shredded
Wheat both had their start at the exposition; readers may not know that we also owe to the Fair
that little ditty that's played as background music in movies with Middle Eastern
snake-charming-type scenes.) My only criticism is that Larson sometimes provides too much
detail. He thrice provides the menus of banquets attended by the principals, for example.
Otherwise, a rewarding read.
Ancient Democracy and Modern Ideology
P.J. Rhodes
Duckworth
ISBN: 0715632205 $16.95
In his essay Ancient Democracy and Modern Ideology P.J. Rhodes considers both modern and
ancient attitudes toward democracy, particularly the radical Athenian democracy of the fifth and
fourth centuries B.C. Rhodes discusses the various approaches classical scholars have adopted in
their study of democracy. Historians range from those who in their own eyes if not in their critics'
keep the effect of their ideology on their scholarship to a minimum, to those who are ideologically
committed and proud of it; from those who seek correct answers to factual questions, to those
who seek to penetrate the mentalite of the actors in the drama; from those whose notion of
relevance is that history makes us aware of problems and of possible responses to them, and helps
us to understand how we arrived where we are now, to those who seek in the past definite models
and lessons for the present; from those who believe that we cannot make of history whatever we
like, to those who think that we cannot do anything but make of history whatever we like." He
concludes that historians who are on "the objective and dispassionate end of the spectrum" are
"likely to do better history."
Rhodes' short book presupposes too much knowledge on the part of its audience--about the
ancient world and about classical scholarship--to be of interest to the general reader. But the
overview he provides of some 200 years of scholarship on ancient democracies and
"constitutional antiquities" would be a handy introduction to the subject for undergraduate and
graduate students.
The Halo Effect
M.J. Rose
MIRA Books
ISBN: 0778320804 $12.95 352 pages
Dr. Morgan Snow, the protagonist of this first installment in M.J. Rose's new series of Butterfield
Institute novels, is a perceptive therapist and a newly divorced mother, an expert in sexuality with,
at least in recent years, more theoretical knowledge of the subject than hands-on experience. She
is troubled still by an unusually sad childhood--details of which drip into the narrative of The Halo
Effect--from which she emerged scarred with abandonment issues. Morgan is a fully realized,
multi-dimensional, wholly likeable character. And she is an unlikely amateur sleuth, which is part
of the charm of Rose's new series: criminal suspense has not found a home before in the halls of a
sex therapy clinic.
Morgan, who has worked with the police in past cases, becomes involved again when a serial
killer begins murdering prostitutes and posing them, in death, in a series of religiously significant,
grotesque tableaux. Dr. Snow numbers many prostitutes--both incarcerated and not--among her
patients, so the crimes are of especial concern for her. But what is most alarming is the recent
disappearance of one of her favorites: call girl Cleo Thane has enjoyed an almost
Mayflower-Madamish level of success but may have put her career and person in jeopardy by
writing a tell-nearly-all book about her high-powered clients.
The Halo Effect is not your usual suspense novel. Not only is the occupation of its principal sleuth
unconventional, but Rose's writing is somehow similarly unexpected. She eschews hackneyed
expression while bathing her subjects in rich description. See, for example, her oblique description
of the (sub-)eponymous Butterfield Institute: "There is a small brass plaque on the outside of the
building, identifying it but giving little else away: The Butterfield Institute. The black cursive
letters are etched deeply into the metal plate. Run your fingers over them and you feel the edges
pushing into your flesh. Could you cut your skin on those edges and draw blood? Probably not,
but even if you did, none of us inside could offer more than a Band-Aid."
As must be obvious by now, I liked Rose's book very much. And I am eager to read the second
installment in the series, which will reportedly be released in April of 2005--farther off than I
should like.
Debra Hamel, Reviewer
http://www.tryingneaira.com
http://www.book-blog.blogspot.com
Diana's Bookshelf
The Dalek Factor
Simon Clark
Telos
www.telos.co.uk
ISBN# 1903889308 $17.95 140 pgs
I'd like to start this review with an admission. I am not a science fiction fan. I have never seen Dr.
Who and have no idea what a Dalek is. Why then would I even read, much less review, a Dr. Who
novella? Two reasons. One, I have absolutely adored everything I have ever read by Simon Clark.
Two, I wanted to see if it was written well, could I enjoy a genre I had previously though myself
incapable of reading. What did I find out? Simon Clark is a master no matter what he writes and I
just might have to give Dr. Who a chance.
The Dalek Factor is intense from page one. A Thal named Jomi is part of a team led by Captain
Vey. It is their mission to search for and destroy any Dalek, and up until now, all they have found
were empty husks. On an unnamed planet in the four-world Quadrille System, they have found a
signal. The mission seems as if it is going to be a basic in and out locate a few husks that are still
sending out signals and call it good. In fact it is only when the crew is back inside the shuttle that
they notice a child. A child standing alone.
This is where the story gets good. Did I say good? I mean great, fantastic. This child leads them
to an ambush of leeches! Pelt, another one of the crewmembers suffers greatly from the attack
of leeches. They get him back to the shuttle and thankfully get the leeches off, but the child is
back. And now they have a new target to check out. This time when they follow the child, they
are lead to an eccentric man who speaks in rhyme and can't remember his own name. But he
knows what the child is and slams it into the wall revealing it was a hive of insects. I think I have
exposed enough.
A rainy swampy planet, insects that mimic humans, a rhyming amnesiac alone on the planet and
the signal of a strong Dalek presence sets the stage for what is a start to finish thrill ride.
With each work I read by Simon I wonder how he is going to reach the standard set with his last
work, but not only does he reach it, he continues to raise the standard he set for himself. He is
truly a master of the art of storytelling. His characters come to life, the settings appear around
you, and the plots draw you in to the world he created. As with all of his work, The Dalek Factor
is the total reading experience.
Pick up your copy of The Dalek Factor today and take you reading experience to places never
before traveled.
Darkness Demands
Simon Clark
Leisure Books
www.dorchesterpub.com
ISBN# 0843948981 $5.99 395 pgs
I will be the first to admit that I have become a jaded reader. When you read as often and as many
books as I do in a given period, it almost has to happen. That is why when a book blows me away
I am so beyond impressed It takes a lot. The characterization must be perfect. The story must be
free of plot holes or inconsistencies. And the voice of the author must fade away as they tell a
seamless story bringing it as close to reality as possible.
Enter Darkness Demands a horror novel by Simon Clark.
John Newton's life is falling into place. He has a lovely home in the quaint village of Skelbrooke.
His writing career is successful. His family is the picture of the perfect modern family. Nothing
could taint this picturesque life. Certainly not a silly note he receives that reads like a prank of
sorts. The note demands him to leave an offering of a chocolate bar on a specific grieving stone in
the nearby cemetery, the Necropolis, if not he will be sorry. After ignoring the request, he is left
wondering if his daughter's minor bike accident was just a coincidence. After writing it off as a
prank, another note arrives this one demanding beer.
John, in looking for answers, finds the whole town seems to have a don't ask policy and despite
the fact that the local store is sold out of the particular type of beer demanded no one will
acknowledge his questions. Is there really something dark and evil in the cemetery? Something
with the ability to punish any who ignore the demands? What of the man that lived here before
him, did he really escape the demands? Those are John's questions as his quest for answers leads
him to conclusions that I never saw coming.
The feel of this read is dark, chilling and that feeling doesn't relent even after you have closed the
book. This is horror. Simon Clark has a powerful gift to take the unreal and horrible and make
them not only seem feasible but as close to you as the clothing you wear brushing you with
dread.
If you don't read Darkness Demands by Simon Clark you will never know how high the bar for
horror has been raised. If you are a true fan of horror you need this book on your shelf and you
can thank me later.
Nailed by the Heart
Simon Clark
Leisure
www.dorchesterpub.com
ISBN# 0843947136 $5.99 392 pgs
It is my belief that all good writers are born with a natural gift, one they nurture with each story
they write. It's easy to see the tell tale signs of a first novel, and adept reader can usually spot it
within the first few pages. It's not necessarily bad; it's just how things are. Then, as they progress
in their craft, you get to watch them become better and better, but not Simon Clark. No, Simon
hit it out of the park with his first novel Nailed by the Heart, showing from the beginning a
smooth voice and a mature style.
Chris Stainforth, his wife Ruth and his son David are about to embark on a frightening and
exciting phase in their lives. Chris is hoping to offer his family a chance to start over in a quiet
coastal town and has sunk their savings into the newly acquired sea-fort. Although the prospect of
being a successful entrepreneur is very exciting, he knows it will be all or nothing. It won't be
easy but with hard work it will be a flourishing tourist stop.
Bankruptcy isn't the only thing Chris and his family need to be worried about. This sea-fort isn't
built on just any land. It is built on what was once a great pagan ritual site and the Gods are
stirring. Something so nasty and evil that no one is prepared for it is being pulled from the sea
floor and invading this quite corner of the world.
Chris and Ruth open their doors to the twenty or so residents when they realize that something
beyond their grasp is going on, setting the stage for a great battle filled with bloodshed and
nightmares that no human should see. Things from the sea floor long dead, as well as a small force
of indestructible warriors, wait outside of the walls, all drawn to the force. Tuff decisions are
ahead as they struggle to find a way to harness the power emanating from this site before the
things' outside.
Nailed by the Heart is an extraordinary beginning to the smashing literary work created by, Simon
Clark, a truly gifted author. If you are not reading Clark, I implore to begin now; missing his work
from your horror collection makes it sadly incomplete.
Diana Bennett, Reviewer
DianaBennett.com
Duffy's Bookshelf
Paris 1919
Margaret MacMillan
Random House
New York, 2001
ISBN 0375508260 $35.00 570 pp.
This work was originally published in Great Britain, in slightly different form, as Peacemakers, by
John Murray Publishers Ltd. in 2001
The labyrinthine scope of problems facing the Paris peace talks of 1919, is clearly elaborated in
this account of events after World War I, and Margaret MacMillan has remained remarkably
objective. The book is well documented, without getting bogged down in minutiae that special
interest groups are likely to find wanting. There are numerous quotations, humorous and serious,
acerbic and judicious, cynical and inspiring, which keep the narrative lively and revealing.
Since the Versailles treaty was signed, pundits of all kinds have criticized the decisions, but those
who were actually there and faced the enormous complexity, were caught in a trap. If they took
aggressive national stands, they became heroes at home but aroused bitter opposition in other
countries; if they adopted passive or moderate positions, they become acceptable in foreign lands,
but were marked as failures, or even traitors, by their own countries. The demands from all sides,
justified or outrageously nationalistic and greedy, clashed in a conundrum of unbelievable
proportions, which leave any dispationate observer with the uncomfortable feeling that no
satisfactory solution was possible. One might, from the responsible historical account in the
present book, even suggest that statesmen can only modify the shape of existing and future
problems, but can do little to set them right. And so the patterns of international struggles
continue unabated since Paris 1919 into the present day. The United Nations differs from the
League of Nations, but it has some of the same fatal flaws. Enormous amounts of work are
accomplished in the United Nations for international cooperation in science and social purposes,
but for settling disputes between major powers, the veto power blocks critical enforcement.
Paris 1919 has the subtitle "Six Months that Changed the World." The truth that emerges, is that
human beings are able to reshape national boundaries, but they are not capable of forming
international structures for the effective maintenance of peace. One would hope that a full
realization and acceptance of this fact, might render future negotiators and their subjects more
tolerant of the needs of other peoples.
At Versailles, the Europeans viewed themselves as more practical than Wilson and his idealism,
and this led Europeans to rely heavily upon treaties, alliances, secret arrangements, and "the
balance of power." Thus Europeans believed that they would find more tangible solutions on the
other hand Wilson's idealism offered more hope for a truly international governance and peace. In
the last analysis, most approaches to permanent peace failed, and continue to fail. So the issue of
peace remains elusive.
Margaret MacMillan rejects the long accepted view that the treaty of Versailles was the cause of
the second world war, by virtue of its harshness to the enemy. This view is in opposition to a
generally accepted thesis proposed by Maynard Keynes and German historical literature. Margaret
MacMillan's rejection of the Maynard Keynes analysis of the causes that led to World War II is
important, because as a historian she presents more evidence for her point of view than the
frequently quoted blame upon the French and the allies. The size of the reparations imposed upon
Germany were never as large as the original figures quoted, and Germany did not even pay the
smaller figures presented.
It may be mentioned parenthetically that Germans in other occupations, such as literary figures,
sometimes had recognized long before this time, that it was not correct to place most of the blame
for World War II upon the Versailles treaty. For instance, Erich Maria Remarque in his book The
Black Obelisk, includes a German character who points to the excessive borrowing by Germany in
preparation for aggression, as the main cause of its post war poverty. And that character, also
declares that Germany would have been even harsher, if she had won the war. This was prophetic,
in view of the way Germany bled defeated nations of their natural resources, destroyed their
industry, took people home as slave labor, and of course carried out the holocaust in the second
world war.
None the less, a comparison of the era after World War I with the time after World War II, shows
that the extreme generosity to Germany after the second war, probably set the ground work for a
more lasting rehabilitation and peace. This does not deny that Germany was never as generous
toward nations she conquered, but it does suggest that compassion to defeated nations may have
more long-term benefits.
An outstanding value of Margaret MacMillan's book is to focus upon many of the "smaller"
nations, furnishing for most Westerners a perspective of the history of countries long-neglected by
our educational systems. Countries and regions, such as Thrace, Montenegro, Bessarabia,
Moravia, Galicia, Croacia, Macedonia, Armenia, and even Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Rumania, Bulgaria, and the middle eastern countries, are sorely neglected in history courses
presented in Western countries. And yet the small nations play a vital role in world conflicts. Even
the British and American statesmen at the 1919 peace conference were woefully ill-informed. So
this book is particularly interesting and enlightening in this regard.
There is also a reminder in this book, that disagreements surfaced even between nations which we
view as traditional allies. For example, there was concern between the British and the Americans
about which navy would dominate the high seas. And Australia and New Zealand vied with each
other over certain issues. France always appears to be a problem for both the British and the
Americans, but Margaret MacMillan makes it clear that this is partly because we have not
adequately felt the pain and suffering that they endured: "...A quarter of French men between
eighteen and thirty had died in the war, over 1.3 million altogether, out of a prewar population of
40 million... France lost a higher proportion of its population than any other belligerents, and the
coal mines on which the French economy depended for its energy were flooded; and the factories
themselves had been razed or carted away into Germany. Six thousand square miles of France
which before the war had produced 20 percent of its crops, 90 percent of its iron ore and 65
percent of its steel, were utterly ruined..." And when Clemenceau invited Wilson to visit the ruins,
he refused on the basis that he had to remain emotionally neutral, but he also remained
inadequately informed. Also Americans forget that the British and the French had fought for three
years to bring German advances to a halt before we even entered the war. French generals, such
as Foch, understood most clearly the danger that remained during and after the peace treaty, when
he predicted that Germany would attack again and come around any defenses by entering through
Belgium. General Foch also predicted correctly that guarantees of protective treaties with allies
would not protect France the next time, because the allies would come into the war too late, as
they did. It is precisely this kind of event that must have led DeGaulle to insist on developing
French nuclear weapons after World War II, a force the frappes, that might prevent French
susceptibility and dependence.
Margaret MacMillan remains objective in her comparisons of the French, British, American,
Italian, and other leaders, even though she is the great-granddaughter of David Lloyd George.
According to her account, David Lloyd George and Clemenceau had similarities and differences:
"The two men shared certain traits both had started out as radicals in politics, both were
ruthlessly efficient but there were equally significant differences. Clemenceau was an
intellectual, Lloyd George was not. Clemenceau was rational, Lloyd George intuitive..."
The writing style in the present book, which includes "off-hand" remarks by representatives at the
peace conference, could lead the reader to believe that a group of overly critical political
personalities made light of weighty matters, and that they were arbitrary and often mistaken in
their judgements, but the shrewd dedication of these men to their goals also comes through.
Several of the participants were even willing to abuse their states of health, in order to achieve
higher goals. In view of the scope of the massive global event described, it may be correct to
conclude that the degree of difficulty was so forbidding, that no matter who had been drawing up
the treaty, there would have been many failures.
Some participants in the peace talks were characterized in such a way that one might describe
them by short inclusive remarks. Thus, David Lloyd George can be viewed as a superior orator,
extremely "nimble" on his feet, but sometimes poorly informed; Clemenceau comes through as an
intellectual with cool and calculating disposition, but rendered somewhat more punitive by the
extreme repetitive and unnecessary suffering imposed on his nation; and Wilson is seen to have a
professorial investigative mind willing to hear all sides at first, but then reaching an immutable
conclusion. But of course, all such simplified characterizations are by definition incomplete.
None the less, there are other personal character traits that recur so consistently that it would be
difficult to deny them. Thus, Clemenceau, clearly had a sharp sense of humor, as in his comment
that Wilson insisted upon his fourteen points, while even God was satisfied with ten
[commandments]. Clemenceau did not want it said that he blocked the League of Nations, but he
doubted its ability to restrain aggression and he said this: "I like the League, but I do not believe
in it." Clemenceau appointed Leon Bourgeois to represent him at the League of Nations meetings,
but when Bourgeois attempted to have a League with "teeth" to settle disputes and prevent war,
the British and the Americans did not support it. Another personal trait in Clemenceau was
evident when he was shot by a French anarchist. The attacker failed to kill him, so he scoffed at
the man: "a Frenchman who misses his target six times out of seven at point-blank range." But
Clemenceau refused to have the man executed: "I can't see an old republican like me and also an
opponent of the death penalty having a man executed for the crime of lese-majeste." Another
aspect of Clemenceau's character is seen in his reaction to the French general Foch, who said that
stern peace terms must be added to the treaty, and getting the Germans to accept them must be by
war. Clemenceau agreed only reluctantly, saying "He (Foch) knew the German people well. They
become ferocious when any one retires before them." According to Margaret MacMillan,
Clemenceau was actually quite willing to compromise with Germany, as long as the security of
France was guaranteed. He emphasized the Rhineland (which had been ruled historically by
Germany at times, and by France under Louis IV and later under Napoleon) as a critical buffer
zone. But Wilson did not support that buffer, and he argued that France would be protected by
The League. World War II shows that Clemenceau's skepticism of British and American
protection was justified.
Wilson's fourteen points have been vilified as too idealistic for practical solutions; and yet they are
perfectly legitimate goals for mankind. They are impractical only because human greed and
self-interest, translated into nationalism, make it impossible to accept solutions that place the
common good of all mankind above the interest of one's own ethnic and national group. It is
difficult to make human beings appreciate and accept the depth of this deficiency, even when the
facts are placed before them.
Sometimes the overriding problems of mankind are best expressed by literature rather than by
historical documents. Thus, it is tempting at this point to make allusion to Jonathan Swift's
Gulliver's Travels. Jonathan Swift stated the problem through the words of the King of
Brobdingnag when he was told about events in the civilized world: "He was perfectly astonished
with the historical account I gave him of our affairs during the last century, protesting it was only
an heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst
effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust,
malice, or ambition could produce." This expresses precisely the persistent gulf between the
admirable idealism of Wilson, and what could actually be accomplished when all the nations were
brought together to create an instrument for permanent peace. And one comes off with a sobering
conclusion, that no matter what positions are taken in negotiations, and no matter who the
participating characters are, the ultimate result is dictated more by the observations of Jonathan
Swift than by practical politicians. If one is too idealistic, nothing concrete takes place; if one is
not idealistic enough, the world continues as it has from 1919 into the next century with similar
problems in the same geographic areas. And that is where we are today.
Resurrection
Leo Tolstoy
Penguin Books
New York, NY
$10.95 568 pp.
Translation first published 1966 Copyright Rosemary Edmonds, 1966
What makes great works of literature fully recognized, or casually ignored? Leo Tolstoy is known
by almost everyone for War and Peace and for Anna Karenina, but his later work called
Resurrection is relatively ignored. There are understandable, but probably inadequate reasons, for
this attitude. The first two books are more directly powerful, and they appeal to every reader's
sense of action, adventure, and momentous occasions, while the last book practices a style that
de-emphasizes entertainment, and includes much personal philosophy from the author. In current
concepts of proper writing style, the story and dialogue are expected to evolved without
philosophical intrusions from the author. But in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
philosophical digressions by the author were quite common and accepted. As a consequence of
this, Resurrection was quite popular at the time of its publication, and this may well have been a
better evaluation of the intrinsic value of this novel.
The power of Resurrection rests in depictions of poverty, serfdom, unjust imprisonment, and a life
of atonement for sin. The plot centers upon Prince Nekhlyudov who, very early in his privileged
life, falls in love and seduces a young girl employed by his family. Her name is Maslova, and he
attempts to compensate her with money. But her reputation is destroyed by Nekhlyudov's action,
and she is forced into prostitution.
Later in his life, Nekhlyudov is selected to serve on a jury for the trial of a woman accused of
poisoning a man, and Nekhlyudov recognizes the accused woman as Maslova. Time and maturity
have altered Nekhlyudov, and he now feels an enormous responsibility and guilt for ruining the
girl's life. Furthermore, during the trial there is a stupid oversight which fails to declare what is
obvious, that she had no intention of murder when she gave the man a powder which she had been
told would be for his benefit. The result of the oversight by the court, is that Maslova is convicted
and sent for penal servitude at hard labor in Siberia. Nekhlyudov perceives his own guilt: " I
cannot abandon a woman I have loved, and be satisfied with paying a lawyer to save her from
hard labour in Siberia which she does not even deserve I can't atone for my fault with money, in
the way I did years ago when I gave her money and thought I had done what was required of
me.'" Nekhlyudov tries to have the court's error corrected without success, and his new sense of
guilt is so strong that he determines to use his life for Maslova's benefit, by offering to marry her
and going with her to Siberia. The great irony of these events is that Maslova's basic morality
causes her to refuse him, because she recognizes that he is acting out of a need for expiation, not
out of true love for her.
Throughout these events, Tolstoy reveals the complexity of generosity, because the more
Nekhlyudov tries to help Maslova, the more complicated the relation becomes, and no simple
solution is possible. "Had he not tried to expiate, to atone for his guilt he would never have felt
the extent of his crime; moreover, neither would she have become conscious of just how much she
had been wronged." This does not mean that he originally lacked a certain youthful love for her,
mixed with lust, but after the trial his major motivation is to seek redemption for himself. It is
apparent to both of them that marriage of this type, will not give general happiness. The conflict
of the good and the bad character traits in Nekhlyudov, are what give strength to the story. And
the innocent victim, Maslova, is not perfect either. Her misery and pain in life, cause considerable
degeneration and hardening of her character. She uses alcohol and drugs, she practices
prostitution for money, and she does not hesitate to use men for her gain. Thus, when she meets
Simonson, a thinking person but shy, Maslova immediately perceives him as someone she can win
over for her advantage. Even though she responds to Simonson's love largely out of self interest,
there is considerable justification for her position, since he loves her for herself, whereas
Nekhlyudov had loved out of lust. And when Simonson appears on the scene as a suitor for
Maslova, it seems to give Nekhlyudov the rationale to release himself from the offer of marriage.
None the less, Maslova does eventually perceive the sincerity of Nekhlyudov's efforts for her, so
she accepts him, but only as a friend.
A major part of this novel deals with the attempts at redemption from sin by a man who matures
into full understanding and compassion, but is reluctant to accept the consequences of his new
ideas of good and evil. The term resurrection is not used in the literal sense, but rather in the
regeneration of a man's soul.
It is not just in relation to the seduction of a young woman that Nekhlyudov becomes renewed. A
much larger social sense has arisen within him. He rejects many of his social privileges, condemns
serfdom, and tries to make amends for the unfair practices of his social class. This concept is
explored fully throughout the story in several ways. It is this long exposition of the needs for
social reform that makes modern readers restless. But these expositions are precisely the most
important aspects of this novel, and should be discussed fully.
One reform which Nekhlyudov seeks, relates to the general inequity of wealth and power. Tolstoy
reveals this by a conversation between a prisoner named Kryltzoff, and a revolutionary named
Novodvoroff. Kryltzoff is not a true revolutionary. He had been arrested because he gave money
for a revolutionary cause without clearly understanding its purpose. The dialogue between them is
begun by Novodvoroff: "We should do all in our power for the masses, and expect nothing in
return. The masses can only be the object of our activity, but cannot be our fellow-workers as
long as they remain in the state of inertia they are in at present..." Kryltzoff answers with this
question: "We say that we are against arbitrary rule and despotism, and is this not the most awful
despotism?" "No despotism whatever," counters Novodvoroff, "I am only saying that I know the
path that the people must travel, and can show them that path." "But how can you be sure that the
path you show is the true path?" continues Kryltzoff. And then Kryltzoff goes on to say this: "Is
this not the same kind of despotism that lay at the bottom of the Inquisition, all persecutions, and
the great revolution? They, too, knew the one true way, by means of their science." Listening to
this argument are Nekhlyudov and Mary Pavlovna. Pavlovna is one of the political prisoners being
moved to Siberia, and she shows her good nature by literally carrying the daughter of one of the
convicts during the hard marches. Her response to the current argument between the two convicts
is simple: "They are always disputing." "And you yourself, what do you thing about it?"
Nekhlyudoff asks. "I think Kryltsoff is right when he says we should not force our views on the
people." Nekhlyudoff then turns to Maslova: "And you, Katusha [Maslova]? asked Nekhlyudoff
with a smile, waiting anxiously to hear her answer, fearing she would say something awkward. "I
think the common people are wronged," she said, and blushed scarlet. "I think they are dreadfully
wronged."
There is an implication in this whole interchange, that the people are wronged by both the rulers,
and the revolutionaries who want to take over the power. In this part of the novel, Tolstoy reveals
his great perceptions, by showing the oppression by the Tzar, but already anticipating the evils of
communism.
Another example of Tolstoy's aims at reform is dramatized in the descriptions of the abuse of
prisoners. The story recounts the arduous relocation of prisoners to Siberia, during a period of
extreme heat, and two of them die. Nekhlyudov refers to the death of a particular convict as
murder, because no care was used to protect his well being. And Tolstoy speculates about this
social crime, and outlines how it was not viewed as anyone's fault. The official who ordered the
transportation of convicts to Siberia, simply furnished the routine signature of approval, so he was
not held responsible. A doctor was also viewed as blameless, because he had examined the
prisoner conscientiously, and could not foresee the extreme heat into which the prisoners would
be taken out so late in the day in such crowded conditions. And the prison inspector was only
obeying orders, to convey a certain number of prisoners on a given day. Tolstoy writes this:
"Nobody is to blame, and yet the men are dead murdered by these very men who are not to
blame for their deaths..." All these officials were not guilty of murder "because they were thinking
not of human beings and their obligations towards them but of the duties and responsibilities of
their office..." Each one blames a superior, or someone else, or circumstances. This whole chain
of events is reminiscent of the mistreatment of prisoners in modern times such as the abuse of
prisoners in Iraq.
Another example of miscarriage of justice, is presented when Kryltzoff tells the story of two other
prisoners. One was a Pole named Lozinsky, and the other one was a seventeen year old Jew
named Rozovsky. Both were arrested because they were caught with Polish proclamations in their
pockets, but later they tried to escape, and this aggravated the seriousness of their offenses. It was
rumored that they were sentenced to death, but for a time neither of these young men could
believe that such a sentence would be possible in view of the relatively minor infractions that
produced their initial arrest. They could not believe that any state, however authoritarian it might
be, would be capable of ordering their execution simply because of their attempt to escape.
Tolstoy depicts, through Kryltzoff's account, the hours and days in prison while they await their
fate. Their final hours are described in almost perfunctory tone, but with vivid images of the awful
hanging in which Lozinsky does not struggle, but Rozovsky struggles desperately. Tolstoy's
commentary on the prison system is made by making the reader live through the events with the
prisoners. Like the two victims, readers live through a long period of disbelief, into the awful
reality.
Still another inequity dramatized in this novel pertains to ownership of land and property. It
begins in a speculation by Nekhlyudov: "How [could he] escape the contradiction between his
recognition that the private ownership of land was not right and his retention of the land inherited
from his mother?" Finally Nekhlyudov, like Tolstoy in real life, tries to give away his land, and he
calls the peasants together:
" I have called you here because I want you to have all the land, if you would like it,' Nekhlyudov
brought out.
The peasants were silent; either they did not understand him or they could not believe their
ears.
How do you mean - let us have the land?' asked a middle-aged peasant in a long-waisted
coat.
To let you have it to farm for yourselves, and charge you a very small rent."
...If only the rent won't be more than us can afford,' said another.
Why shouldn't we take the land?'
We know how to farm - we make our living off the land!'
All the better for him, it'll be,' several voices were heard saying. Nothing to do but sit and let
the money come in...' "
This conversation is an adroit and penetrating insight, in which Tolstoy shows how even a good
person full of zeal for reform, may run into the difficulties of social change. The peasants
themselves are resistant to reform, because of disbelief and suspicion that no one could be doing
this thing because of kindness alone.
Near the end of the novel Tolstoy is mostly concerned with religion. In his early life Tolstoy had
largely ignored or rejected organized religion, but at the end of life he sees the issue as more
complicated. In the last pages of Resurrection, a character named Selyenin is introduced who is
concerned throughout his life with the questions of finding and doing the right thing with his
existence. From this consideration the story moves back to Nekhlyudov who is reading from the
Bible and comments upon its meaning. He reads verses from Matthews and seems to be trying to
interpret them, and this leads to a summarizing statement: " What a pity it's all so incoherent,'
he thought, for one feels there is something right about it.'" This remark reflects the evolution of
Tolstoy's religious life, from his early disbelief, to his mature philosophy. He came to believe that
there are complexities, paradoxes, and platitudes in the Bible, but underneath it all, he seems to
suspect that it speaks a basic truth. One might say that, in old age, Tolstoy became a reluctant
believer.
After a later quotation from Matthews, the following is verbalized with interplay from
Nekhlyudov: after reading verses 21 to 33, where Peter asks " Lord how oft shall my brother sin
against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? And Jesus answers: "Until seventy times seven."
Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened to a certain king who was about to sell his servant, his
wife, and children and all that he had because he could not pay what he owed to the king. When
the servant falls to the ground and worships the king, and asks for patience until he will pay all
that he owes, the lord of that servant has compassion and releases him and forgives the debt. But
the servant goes out and finds a fellow servant, who owes him money, and he threatens him and
finally has him thrown into prison when he cannot pay. After that, when the lord is informed about
all the events, he tells the original servant that he is a wicked man, and proclaims in a question to
the servant: "Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had
pity on thee?"
After reading these Bible verses, Nekhlyudov suddenly exclaimed aloud: " And can that be the
whole answer?'" And the inner voice of his whole being said, " Yes, that is all.'"
Tolstoy goes on with this comment: "And it happened to Nekhlyudov as it often happens to
people living a spiritual life. The thought that at first had appeared so strange, so paradoxical,
laughable even, ever more frequently finding confirmation in life, suddenly appeared to him as the
simplest, incontrovertible truth..."
One senses that Tolstoy, having searched for answers to life in his youth by use of logic,
pragmatic approaches, and perhaps social science, now reaches back to some of the teachings of
his youth perhaps still not fully accepting them, but understanding their basic validity.
Resurrection is a great novel. It balances a story of human hardships with much philosophy of life,
and a reader who is capable of absorbing it all, retrieves the vast and distinguished perspective of
a master of literature during his old age.
Philip Edward Duffy
Reviewer
Emanuel's Bookshelf
Careful!
Richard Madelin
IG Publishing
ISBN 0970312563 $14.95 300 pp.
After a tragic childhood accident, Lenny has become mentally disabled and emotionally dependent
on others. This includes his frustrated mother Alice, who believes her son's condition can be
cured if he "sees the light," Maude, the older and inquisitive neighbor down the street whom he
believes he will one day bed, and Jimmy, his best friend and co-worker who gives him bad advice
about women and dating, provides him with skin flicks, and even teaches him how to masturbate
to them properly.
When Alice hatches a plan for Lenny to kidnap her estranged son Jack, a policeman, the plot
thickens. Lenny has no idea he's kidnapping his own brother, not only because his sibling left
home over ten years prior but also because his mental capacity will not allow him to remember.
Lenny's only concern is pleasing his mother, who threatens him with a game of "Careful," which
usually involves some form of physical abuse or mental torture towards him. Alice's agenda is to
get Jack to admit why he left and to have him help Lenny see the light. That is, after she decides
to release him from being bound and gagged in the attic. Meanwhile, Jack has an astonishing
secret that must be revealed before the story ends.
"Careful!" is told with breakneck pacing and incredible fervor. First time author Richard Madelin,
who resides in England, weaves in and out of monologue with style and control. The protagonist
is a fascinating character, reminiscent of Steinbeck's main character in "Of Mice and Men." The
author's unique style of writing, mostly in inner-monologue, creates a fresh and original
experience for the reader. After reading it, you will not forget the name of this book. "Careful!" is
superb and easily makes my top ten list for the year. Highly recommended.
Leaving Cecil Street
Diane McKinney-Whetstone
William Morrow
ISBN 0688163858 $24.95 304 pp.
1969 was a tumultuous time for blacks in America. Black leaders such as Malcolm X and Martin
Luther King had been assassinated after leading the battle for civil rights. Hippies roamed the
streets preaching free love; and the "black is beautiful" movement was in full effect. And though
there were troubles and hard times, there were still neighborhoods where folks treated either other
decently, almost like family. Next-door neighbors spanked your kids for you when you were
away. Block parties brought people together. Even funerals brought out the love in others in the
form of repasts, where neighbors cooked all kinds of food in hopes of bringing your spirits
up.
"Leaving Cecil Street" captures all of the above and then some. The new novel from the author of
Tumbling, Tempest Rising, and Blues Dancing tells the story of the goings on of two families who
live next door to one another in West Philadelphia. This includes Joe, a horn-playing lover of both
jazz music and women who can't seem to keep his hands off the latter even though he is married.
Louise, his wife, is a wife and mother who refuses to see a dentist, even though half the teeth in
her mouth are rotten. Shay is their Afro-wearing teenage daughter whose best friend lives next
door. Bonita (Neet) is Shay's best friend for life. And Alberta is the church-going, mean-spirited
mother of Neet who has a secret past. Then there's Deucie, a strange and dying woman looking
for her lost daughter who takes up residency in Joe and Louise's basement during a block party
without their knowledge.
The story centers on what happens with both families before and after Neet's pregnancy and
subsequent, illegal abortion (described with shocking and incredible detail). After this tragedy is
revealed, it affects the entire neighborhood, especially the next-door neighbors and their
relationships with each other. Before the story ends, the past will be remembered, secrets will be
revealed and life-altering decisions will be made.
"Leaving Cecil Street" is a moving and enchanting work of art from Diane McKinney-Whetstone.
Not only is the author an expert in crafting a masterful plot but the fine-tuned writing shows a
clear love of the language, a skill lots of writers lack. The book invokes the spirit of works from
The Harlem Renaissance era. You can almost hear the likes of Langston and Zora kindly nudging
the author on. This book is a must read for everyone.
My Fine Lady
Yolanda Joe
Dutton
Penguin Group Inc.
ISBN 0525948082 $23.95 221 pp.
In the sixth book from Yale graduate and author Yolanda Joe, she introduces us to Imani, a
twenty-something young woman in love with hip-hop and her childhood friend, Taz. Taz had been
the poor neighborhood kid who gladly exchanged giving Imani piano lessons for an occasional
meal at the request of Imani's father Maceo, a failed jazz musician. Having lost her mother, a
wonderful singer in her own right, Imani is left with her memories of her and an unfinished song
she left behind. Maceo would love for Imani to follow in her mother's footsteps but Imani would
rather set her own course, rapping over tracks that her boyfriend has put together to cut a
CD.
While freestyle rhyming at the local black university, Imani meets Professor Hopson, an uptight
but brilliant twenty-five year old professor of music. The meeting sparks a bet between Hopson
and his boss, Chairman Perkins. Perkins wants Hopson to change Imani from a raw, hip-hop
street girl to a classy, jazz vocalist. If Hopson wins, the chairman will enter Hopson's paper for
the local grant competition. If he loses, his rival's paper will be entered.
Not only does Hopson school Imani in song but he also teaches her diction, ballroom dancing, and
other forms of etiquette. As Hopson and Imani work closer and closer together, it is inevitable
that they begin to fall for one another. After this occurs, Imani must choose between Hopson and
Taz, hip-hop and jazz.
"My Fine Lady" is a good read. While the plot of this Cinderella tale is not that original and the
story is somewhat predictable, it is not difficult to fall head over heels with the author's style of
writing. Nearly every chapter is introduced with exquisitely written, thought-provoking prose
giving the book a unique and inviting style of its own. ("Envy the sun that has horizons to
brighten. Envy the bird that has wings to soar. Envy the lion that has the power to roar. But envy
most the person who has the courage to seek change.") If you like romance sprinkled with a bit of
urban flavor, then this book is definitely one not to miss.
Play or Be Played
Tariq "K-Flex" Nasheed
Fireside (Simon & Schuster)
ISBN 0743244923 $12.00 205 pp.
What you get if you combined the DNA of Dr. John Gray with Bishop Don Juan? You'd probably
get Tariq "K-Flex" Nasheed, the author of "The Art of Mackin'." In his latest book, written for
"women who are tired of being played by men and who want to be players themselves," Nasheed
gives his wisdom from the streets to the women who are willing to hear his opinions on the dating
scene. "Play or Be Played" is not your average advice book from a psychologist, relationship
expert, or even talk-show host. Instead it is from a man who doesn't claim to be an intellectual
and admits that he has no credentials other than being a former player himself.
Written primarily for African-American women, the book begins by explaining what the author
believes what both men and women want most-an orgasm for him, attention for her. He also
explains how men and women differ, men being the natural leaders of the world and women being
the natural nurturers of the earth. He later lists what he believes are the various personality types
of both women and men, which includes players, hoochies, drama queens, and scrubs.
"Play or Be Played" is best when sharing the secrets of games and lies men use with women. In
fact, some players will probably get upset when they discover Nasheed is divulging the secrets
from the Boys Room. It is especially entertaining when the author uses humor to make a point.
Written with tons of street slang, i.e. "hit that ass" for sex, "Captain Save a Ho" for a man who
may save a woman from poverty, and "chickenhead" for a woman living poverty with no game.
You don't know what a chickenhead is? Don't worry. Nasheed provides a twenty question survey
to help a woman determine if she is one or not.
While the book gets check marks for its raw, streetwise vernacular and its sense of humor, it will
make some people cringe for its sweeping generalizations of genders and their roles (i.e. women
need to let their men be kings and serve as their queens), stereotypical ideals (i.e. women whose
names end in esha must be from the ghetto), and conflicting statements. For example, one minute
the author says all men are macks. A few minutes later he says a player did not bring his game to
mack status. But how is that so if all men are macks?
It's surprising that a book which is supposedly written for women can be so offensive towards
them. Even Oprah is fair game. I predict feminists will tear this book apart for its misogynist and
chauvinist opinions, then set their sites on the author. However, it wouldn't surprise me if some
women will love it because of the author's straight talk and street knowledge. Love it or hate it,
the book will undoubtedly spark discussion and controversy between and within the sexes. And
let's face it, controversy sells.
Vanishing Point
David Markson
Shoemaker Hoard
ISBN 1593760108 $15.00 191 pp.
There's something exciting about delving into a book without necessarily knowing what it is
about. Sometimes a book description can absolutely ruin the element of surprise or even hype up
a book that eventually disappoints in between the covers. My experiment with the unknown
occurred when I started reading "Vanishing Point" by David Markson (Wittgenstein's Mistress).
Although I had read a brief but positive review (that I couldn't remember) of the book prior to
receiving it, I had no idea what I was getting into it. And that's a good thing.
To be brief, "Vanishing Point" is a book of succinct little-known facts and quotes about famous
artistic types from Voltaire, van Gogh, Shakespeare, and many more. ("Zora Neale Hurston's
jesting claim that she once avoided a pedestrian traffic ticket by the telling police officer that since
she always saw white people cross on green, she naturally therefore assumed the red was for
her.") The facts are incredibly interesting, making the book hard to put down. But the author
doesn't stop there. He writes the book in a unique form of syntax, slightly resembling poetry.
("Heidelberg, Fritz Wunderlich died in.")
As if that wasn't enough, the main character tries unsuccessfully to keep his own thoughts and
opinions out of the book. Slowly but surely we learn that the writer, known only as Author, is a
man with questions of his own, including questions about aging and why he has become so tired
lately. This element of the book is reminiscent of the main character in the film "Adaptation." It is
equally amusing.
I have to admit that from the beginning I wondered where this book of merely quotes and facts
was going with no chapter headings and its strange syntax. (I even sneaked a peek at the
description on the back cover after reading a few pages.) I soon began to realize that "Vanishing
Point" is a brave and original endeavor in experimental fiction. It's a thinking person's book that
readers will want to read over and over again, all the way to its shocking ending. Lovers of
fiction, poetry, art, and history should all find something in this book to enjoy.
Emanuel Carpenter
Reviewer
Gary's Bookshelf
Fraud the Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and Why the Media Didn't Tell You
Paul Waldman
Source Books Inc
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
www.sourcebooks.com
ISBN 1402202520 $24.95 630-961-2168
I love books like this that expose politicians for what they are. I am also pleased that this book is
out now, instead of after George W. Bush is out of office. This is different from when Ronald
Regan was in office. At that time the mainstream press waited until after he was out of office
before they revealed things about his presidency. In this case Waldman has done a very fine job of
showing that the president does not tell the truth on just about anything. More appalling is the fact
that the press of this country knows his lies but does nothing to show the truth. One reason is this
administration revokes press privileges to the White House and the Pentagon to any media person
who has written something they do not like. Or this presidency works to discredit anyone who
disagrees with it. The lies of the president begin with him being an average guy from Texas. His
family is wealthy. His statement in the debates of 2000 "that we are not in the nation building
business". If that is so, why is the United States rebuilding Iraq? He served in the National Guard
all six years. He was not there for drills, and finished his tour a year before it was time. These are
just a few of the untruths this President has made throughout the last four years. Waldman is a
credible journalist who has dug deep into the world of George W. Bush and shows that this is the
worst president the country has ever seen, who should be impeached for the treasonous things he
has done. Waldman has written a very detailed account that should educate voters on President
George W. Bush, who is running for a second term
Best Enemies
Jane Heller
St. Martins Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
ISBN 0312288492 $24.95 www.stmartins.com
For me any time there is a new Jane Heller, it's time to take a break and enjoy the laugh out loud
experience the author presents in each of her novels. This one is no exception. Heller has done
something a little different by having two characters tell the same situations but in their own
words. It is also a very revealing story of how the publishing world really works. The characters
are believable, while the conflict and situations get funnier and funnier until the satisfying ending.
Heller should be at the top of anyone's reading list.
The Controllers Secret Rulers of the World
Edward A. Whitney
Rivercross Publishing Inc.
6214 Wynfield Court, Orlando, Fl 328191-800-451-4522
ISBN 1581410883 $19.95
With great interest I started to read Mr. Whitney's book about what I thought would be the inner
workings or our government for the last 130 years. Sadly, that is not what the author has
presented. Instead he has taken many of the presidents of this country and told a day-by-day
account of some of the things that happened. The title is very deceiving. I am sure the author has
done tons of research, but he could have done much better by making his many points in a
different form. I also failed to see where the title fits in with what the writer has presented. There
is one bright spot though when he writes his summary and conclusions that go into a lot more
detail about his premise. I just wish he had written the rest of the book the way he did at the end.
Readers may want to begin at the end and see if they want to continue with the rest of the
book.
Our United States Presidents
William R. Garlington
Legacy Publishing
602 N. Wymore Road, Winter Park, Florida 32789
www.legacypublishingservices.com
ISBN 0970839553 $24.95
Wow, what a great idea. This is the way to learn about history. Garlington has compiled 500
questions and answers of little know facts on all of our presidents. The questions are interesting
and fun, informative reading for all ages to learn more about the individuals who have held the
office since it began. Take the plunge and see if you do as well as I did.
Scent of a Killer
Christiane Heggan
Mira
225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills Ontario Canada M3B 3K9
ISBN 0778320057 $6.50 www.mirabooks.com
Photographer Jenna Meyerson's life is forever changed when her ex-husband shows up at one her
exhibits to ask her a favor. A short time later he is found dead in a park. From this point on,
Meyerson's life is never the same. She begins to find that there is a connection to the Russian
Mafia and that someone is trying to kill her. Heggan weaves her tale and draws the reader into her
web of suspense until the very end.
First Ladies Women Who Called the White House Home
Beatrice Gormley
Scholastic Inc
557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
www.scholastic.com
ISBN 0606113320 $7.99 212-343-6100
Behind every president there is his first lady and this is an account of all of them, from the first
one to the present. The author tells all about each of the women who have served the country as
the first lady. We get to know a bit more about what each of the women stood for when they
served and much more, in a book that adds a new dimension to who lives in the White House. I
found this is an easy informative book to read for all ages.
Air Force One
Kenneth T. Walsh
Hyperion
77 West 66th Street, New York, New York
www.HyperionBooks.com
ISBN 0786888199 $14.95 212-456-0133
Walsh shows how each president from Franklin Roosevelt to the present has flown in the official
aircraft for him and his family and administration. The author shows the many name changes to
the plane, its many different types, but the most interesting things are about each of the men who
have been president. Here are some of the things I found interesting. Two of them had problems
falling asleep and they both only liked to fly for short durations, one bought bibles to give away to
anyone who flew on one of the trips while another conducted prayer vigils, another had the
nickname of "Bull Nuts" and two, who had been opponents, flew as past presidents and became
very good friends. The book is filled with keen insights on each administration that makes this a
very fascinating expose of another facet of the life of the President of the United States.
Capital Crimes
Stuart Woods
Signet
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
www.penguin.com
ISBN 0451211561 $7.99
Someone is killing conservatives throughout the nation. From congressmen to radio talk show
hosts, all have one factor in common: they all believe in the conservative agenda. The president
who is a liberal and the law enforcement agencies of the country must stop the assassin from
completing his lone mission to assassinate all on his list of targets. This is another story in the Will
Lee series and, like all of the others, the characters are well defined and the book is a very well
written thriller that continues to show why Woods is one of the best in the field.
505 Unbelievaly Stupid Web Pages
Dan Crowley
Source Books Inc
P.O. Box 4410
Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
www.sourcebooks.com
ISBN 1402201427 $9.95 630-961-2168
So much of the time I've heard about so many good websites, but very rarely have I encountered
or been told about dumb or stupid ones. I know they are out there and author Crowley has listed
505 of them that are taking up space on the Internet. From McDonald's fried apple pie to Star
Trek trivia on stalking William Shatner, the list shows just how ridiculous some of the sites are.
The author has provided address, details of what kind of information is available and some
comments. This is a much-needed resource of places to stay away from on the Internet.
Lost
Joy Fielding
Atria Books
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.simonsaya.com
ISBN 0743446291 $25.00 1-800-456-6798
I've always liked reading a book by this author because she usually delivers a very thrilling easy to
read book. "Lost" is a very good suspenseful read that puts this author back on the top of my "to
read" list. Her last few novels did not pack the punch this one does, especially with its twist of an
ending. There is something very different with this fine novel. It is the first to take place in
Canada. Her other novels have all taken place somewhere in the United States. The story is of a
mother's worst nightmare a woman's daughter disappears without a trace and no clues of what
happened. The mother is shaken and stirred to act to find her daughter. What she begins to find is
that not everything is, as it seems. The writing is tight and the suspense comes in waves until the
final climatic ending.
Darker Places
Richard Matheson
Gauntlet Press
5307 Arroyo St., Colorado Springs CO 80922
www.gauntletpress.com
ISBN 1887368612 $55.00
The author who gave us the "The Incredible Shrinking Man" "Duel" and other great SF and
Horror now takes us back to his very early days of short story writing with this fine collection. He
also has included a never filmed script for the John Saul novel "Creature." The author also
comments on the process that almost brought this fine screenplay to the screen. This is one of
Matheson's earliest works back in print for the first time. I, as a fan of this writer am glad that
these stories are once again out to please those of us who already know this author but also to a
legion of new readers. The collection is a very revealing body of work from one of the best in the
field.
The Second Time Around
Mary Higgins Clark
Pocket Books
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.simonsaya.com/mhclark
0743412621 $7.99 1-800-456-6798
For a long time I was a big fan of this author until a few years ago when I got very bored with her
books because they seemed tedious.. I am very happy to say that this one was like one of her
older novels, because from the first page I was hooked until the very end. I don't want to say very
much about this novel because it would give away too much of the plot. Rest assured that this is
the Clark I have read and enjoyed before. She is back to telling a suspenseful tale with many
interesting characters and plot twists. Nicolas Spencer the head of a company that has developed
an anti cancer vaccine disappears without a trace. Marcia "Carley" DeCarlo, a journalist,delves
into the disappearance and finds something that just might get her killed. Though this is a novel, it
sheds light on how the major drug manufacturer does business.
The Legend of Banzai Maguire
Susan Grant
Love Spell
Dorchester Publishing Co. Inc
200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
www.smoochya.com
ISBN 0505525429 $6.99
This novel was different from your average romance novel. In fact it is the first in the 2176 series
of novels. Bree "Banzai" Maguire, a combat pilot in the present, is transported to the year 2176
where she is told she must bring back democracy. The novel is considered a romance tale, but is
more a blend of science fiction and romance. The author spins her tale and keeps the reader glued
to the end.
Summer Camp Race of Horror
Michael Kaye
iUniverse
5220 S.16th ST Suite 200, Lincoln, NE 68512
www.iuniverse.com
ISBN 0595237266 $9.95 877-288-4737
Strange things are going on in Camp Pioneer, a summer camp for boys and girls. The characters
are very well fleshed out as the author unfolds his tale of something bizarre taking place at the
summer camp.
Dark Universe
William F. Nolan
Dorchester Publishing Co. Inc
200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
www.smoochya.com
ISBN 0843951907 $6.99
The author of the classic science fiction novel "Logan's Run" has compiled 19 of his best short
stories into a single collection. They are some of his finest works over a period of 50 years. Some
are dark and sinister, while others are biting horror. All are from a master of many genres that
should have fans asking for more.
Gary Roen
Reviewer
Gorden's Bookshelf
Trial by Ice and Fire
Clinton McKinzie
Bantam Dell
A division of Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
ISBN: 0440237270 $6.99 368 pages
McKinzie writes a fast paced action/thriller with realistic legal and mountaineering sequences. It is
a well crafted story with a grammatically correct but slightly awkward writing style.
Antonio Burns is a unique character, a tough cop whose passion is climbing mountains. Cali
Marrow is daughter of a movie star and prosecutor in Wyoming's Jackson Hole. Cali is being
threatened by a dangerous stalker and Burns is assigned to protect her. The dangers of both man
and nature combine to test Burn's strength to the breaking point.
'Trial by Ice and Fire' has everything an action/thriller needs, a great location, unusual characters,
and a non-stop story. A good storyteller brings the reader into the reality of the location and
McKinzie brings you and the characters into the peaks surrounding Jackson Hole without a
chance to breathe. 'Trial by Ice and Fire' is easy to recommend.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century # 1 Armageddon 2419 A.D.
Philip Francis Nowlan
Renaissance E Books
P.O. Box 1432, Northampton, MA 01060
www.renebooks.com
ISBN: 1588732010 $4.00 electronic download 79 pages
Disclosure: I have 3 novels published through Renaissance
August 1928 was a watershed date in science fiction. E.E. Doc Smith's first 'Skylark' story and
Nowlan's 'Buck Rodgers' were both printed in 'Amazing Stories.' They changed the genre forever.
You might have heard of another author in the magazine, H.G. Wells. It was a very good issue.
Nowlan soon shifted his storytelling to comics and screenplays but his original story was a
powerful action/adventure filled with scientific and technical insights. Reading 'Buck Rodgers'
today, you will think the story's technology a little quaint but in 1928 the ideas were original with
many predictions amazingly accurate.
Buck Rodgers is examining radioactive gases in an abandoned coal mine when a cave-in traps him
hundreds of feet underground. Somehow the radiation puts him in a state of suspended animation
and he wakes 492 years in the future when another seismic shock opens the mine providing access
to the surface. He awakes to an America conquered by the East. The Mongols rule America from
powerful floating city fortresses. The scattered survivors of America have struggled over the
years to holdout against their conquerors. They are now ready to fight for freedom and win back
their country.
Buck Rodgers plays a pivotal role in the struggle. A soldier in the First World War, he is the only
American who has seen and participated in combat with organized forces struggling to win back
territory. It is knowledge the American survivors desperately need.
'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century # 1 Armageddon 2419 A.D.' has little resemblance to the TV
and movie shows we see today. It is a powerful action science fiction story with accurate
technological predictions. Anyone who is interested in classic SF has to read this original. It is
storytelling at its best.
S. A. Gorden, Reviewer
www.paulbunyan.net/users/gsirvio/content.html
Harold's Bookshelf
Creating and Planting Garden Troughs
Joyce Fingerut, Rex Murfitt
B. B. Mackey Books
PO Box 475, Wayne, PA 19087
ISBN: 1893443000 $21.00 142 pp.
Stone agricultural troughs, either as a theme or an accent, can add a special look to a garden. Of
course you don't have to use a real stone these days as cement can be used to create the troughs.
But, whether stone or cement it still ends up extremely heavy. One way to get around this is to
mix peat moss with the cement. This produces a much lighter weight, porous trough that looks
like stone. That is the focus of this particular gardening book - how to make these "hypertufa"
troughs, what plants do well in them, and some basic plan layouts for using them in a garden
design. Pictures of the troughs created by these techniques show troughs and stones that appear
very old with lichens and mosses growing on the sides. They remind me very much of pictures of
ancient Mayan or Indonesian stone ruins. For anyone who wants to add this type of accent or
wants to create a garden that has the appearance of ancient stone structures this is a book you will
want to have.
Essential PHP Tools
David Sklar
Apress
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219, Berkeley, CA 94710
ISBN: 1590592808 $34.99 330 pp.
If you are using PHP with your web applications you will want a copy of "Essential PHP Tools".
Author David Sklar has gathered together tools to resolve some of the most common problems of
PHP. If you want to do authentication you don't have to hand write the code, a free tool is
available. Unfortunately many of the best free tools for PHP also have minimal documentation.
David Sklar resolves this problem by providing excellent documentation for each of the tools
mentioned in the book. Some of these include tools for accessing databases (using both the DB
and ADODB methods), generating and processing forms, templating, XML parsing, sending mail,
authentication, working with users and passwords, debugging, caching, and optimizing. The tools
are easy to find and useful, the documentation excellent, and the writing style easy to follow. All
this makes "Essential PHP Tools" a highly recommended book for anyone using PHP on their
webserver.
How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics
Doug Thorburn
Galt Publishing
PO Box 7777, Northbridge, CA 91327-7777
ISBN: 0967578868 $14.95 140 pp.
Author Doug Thorburn is not a medical doctor, nor does he have any psychological background
that would make him an expert on alcoholics. However, after becoming involved with one he
dedicated himself to studying the problem and with the help of several addiction experts has
produced this fascinating book. One of the problems with alcoholism is that it has a tendency to
not be diagnosed until it is too late and the person has ruined their health and their life. Doug
takes the view that by recognizing the behavioral clues we can find the hidden alcoholic while
there is still time to prevent tragedy. The book is divided into three distinct parts. First is a section
that redefines alcoholism so that earlier diagnosis and prevention is possible. The second section
is a detailed examination of the various clues that point to early-stage alcoholism. The last section
discusses middle-stage clues and clues of multiple drug use. Many of the behavior items listed and
detailed are indicative of addictive behavior in general and not necessarily just alcoholism. The
primary value in this book is that it is the first one I have seen that is designed for the general
public and focuses on the early signs of alcoholism. In fact, many of the professional level books
do not deal with recognizing alcoholism at this early stage. "How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics"
should be required reading for everyone and especially so for those who deal with counseling
others whether in a professional, volunteer, or pastoral capacity.
Perl in a Nutshell
Nathan Patwardhan, Ellen Siever, Stephen Spainhour
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472
ISBN: 0596002416 $39.95 699 pp.
Exactly as advertised, "Perl in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference" is a great reference book
if you already have a basic understanding of Perl. Although it does have a section that it refers to
as an "Introduction to Perl" it is actually a pretty cursory introduction and there are better books
for learning the basics of Perl. The book does have an excellent section on installing Perl
including installation on both the Unix and Windows platforms. I've worked with both platforms
and the installation process is well documented including how to install modules. This brings us
to the large chapter on getting and installing Perl modules. I have spent hours sometimes trying
to find an appropriate module for a special situation. This chapter lists all the most common
modules and includes descriptions of what they do. This alone makes it a valuable resource for
anyone involved in Perl. The authors also include a lot of technical information including
command line options and environment variables as well as a section on program structure, data
types, special variables, operators, expressions, subroutines, filehandles, and just about anything
else that you might need a quick refresher on. Functions are listed both by category and by
alphabetical order with descriptions and syntax information. I had a couple of problems on a large
project recently and it took three days to get an answer through the forums on the Internet. The
answers to all of them are right here and I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had had
this book then. A lot of other information is available in the book including CGI programming,
Webserver programming, database programming, SOAP, Network modules including Net, Mail,
NNTP, FTP, and LDAP, Perl/Tk, Win32 Modules and Extensions, OLE Automation, and ODBC
Extensions. This book will be the one I keep close at hand when working with Perl and deserves
its location on my desktop instead of in the library. "Perl in a Nutshell" is highly recommended
for Perl programmers from basic to advanced level.
Beginning SQL Server 2000 DBA: From Novice to Professional
Tony Bain
Apress
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219, Berkeley, CA 94710
ISBN: 159059293X $49.99 651 pp.
Packed with practical, real-world information for anyone involved with SQL Server
Administration, "Beginning SQL Server 2000 DBA: From Novice to Professional" is one of the
most complete administration books available. It is not without its problems but they are generally
pretty minor and in fact somewhat humorous at times. For example, page 84 has a section titled
"Upgrading to SQL Server 6.5" and page 90 a section titled "Upgrading to Earlier Versions of
SQL Server". Obviously you don't upgrade to an earlier version nor do you upgrade from 2000 to
6.5. So, while there are errors, they are so obvious as to not be a big problem. When it comes to
the technical details where accuracy is critical, I didn't find any obvious errors. So what does the
book cover? It starts with the different types of DBAs, the different versions of SQL Server 2000
available, installation methods and resolving installation problems. After getting everything
installed and working correctly it moves on to working with the database with things like creating
a database, basic considerations for databases (such as raid levels), and everyday administrative
activities like making the database read-only, removing databases, adding databases, changing the
path, creating and deleting tables. One of the things I liked about this section (and most of the
sections of the book) was that it explained how to do each task by using the database manager
and by using the Transact-SQL language. Each of the sections follows logically from the prior
one. With all the database management section completed the next part covers doing queries,
joins, creating indexes, and similar tasks, basic backing up and restoring databases, generating a
database script, creating and adding jobs, working with security and authentication, user
permissions, roles, application security, ODBC, ADO, performance monitoring, and other tasks.
Although it was mentioned in brief in an earlier chapter, chapter eight provides a thorough
treatment of backup and recovery. This is a very important chapter, I have run across many, many
SQL installations where people did not understand the correct backup and restore procedures for
SQL and made a complete mess of their system using copy and paste techniques. The author does
an excellent job here and it will keep you out of trouble if you follow his advice. The remaining
portion of the book covers replication (a particularly well-done chapter), writing Transact-SQL
code, creating views, error handling, writing triggers, data warehousing, data analysis, and
creating a data transformation package using the data transformation package editor. Due to the
breadth of coverage "Beginning SQL Server 2000 DBA: From Novice to Professional" is exactly
as advertised and useful to both the complete novice and the experienced professional. Note that
although it covers some of the more common uses of T-SQL for administrative purposes it is not
a book on programming, it is a book on administration and within that defined area it is excellent.
"Beginning SQL Server 2000 DBA" is a highly recommended read.
Remember Who You Are
Daisy Wademan
Harvard Business School Publishing
60 Harvard Way, Boston, MA 02163
ISBN: 1591392845 $19.95 184 pp.
At Harvard Business School one of the traditions has been to spend some time on the last day of
classes delivering a talk to your students about how to create a good life as a leader. Often these
speeches leave the students encouraged and with a deeper understanding of their role in business
and in life. Author Daisy Wademan, a graduate of Harvard Business School, has collected some
of these talks into her new book "Remember Who You Are". It is a collection of fifteen of what
she considers the most influential speeches from her professors. For each one there is a short
vignette about the professor followed by the actual speech. Each speech is only a few pages long
and takes only a couple of minutes to read but could influence your leadership skills for years.
"Remember Who You Are" is a recommended read for anyone in a leadership position or who
hopes to be there.
Splitting Heirs
Ron Blue
Northfield Publishing
215 West Locust Street, Chicago, IL 60610
ISBN: 1881273059 $19.99 205 pp.
"Splitting Heirs" is an appropriate title for this book and the problems it deals with. So often
people fail to plan for their eventual death and everything they have spent years accumulating ends
up in the hands of the court system, lawyers, and others. Even when they do plan it often ends up
in the hands of their children who may or may not be mature enough to handle the windfall. The
parable of the prodigal son often comes to mind as children squander their inheritance.
What can you do to make sure that your interests and your desires are foremost when it comes to
passing on your inheritance? That is the subject of this book. How do you provide for children
and grandchildren while still teaching them the value of money and the responsibility that comes
with it? How do you deal with the expectations of in-laws, stepchildren, and grandchildren,
provide for church and ministries, avoid family conflict and avoid sibling jealousy?
Author Ron Blue delineates a clear process for dealing with these issues. The process is basically
to first determine why you should want to transfer your wealth, then to whom you want to
transfer it, how much you want to transfer, when you want to do it, what you want to transfer,
how you can do it, and communicating all the above to the appropriate people. The advice is
sound and he makes several good points that any financial planner would also advise you to do.
The only real problem with the book is that parts of it appear to be inconsistent with each other.
For example, on page 45 and again on page 154 under the heading of Tools and Techniques he
notes the "Trust Principle" which he states is "Never use a trust because of a lack of trust".
However, he never really defines what he means by that comment. If it is "never use a trust
because you really can't trust the trustee to do what you want" then that is not consistent with his
suggestions on pages 167 through 174 where he suggests the use of a marital trust, an insurance
trust, and possibly charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, etc. On the other hand if he
means that you should not use a trust as a vehicle to control a child's access to money because
you don't trust the child then that is different but still not necessarily consistent with the basics of
the rest of the book. If the child is not mature enough to handle money then having it in a trust
with someone who can is responsible stewardship. Items like this make parts of the book
questionable simply because the reader can't really tell what Mr. Blue is trying to say much less
determine if it is sound advice.
Another problem with the book is some of the people he holds out as examples. On page 50 he
mentions Andrew Carnegie as an example of a person determined to give. While this is factual and
he did give away most of his fortune and supported many charities, he amassed his fortune
through ruthless business practices that can hardly be considered as respectful of others. To be
fair to Mr. Carnegie most of his practices were not inconsistent with others of his day and it is
unfair to compare his work ethics with those of a more worker sensitive environment of today.
I'm sure that Mr. Blue would not want people to draw the conclusion that it is okay to abuse
others if the resulting income is given away to charities. There are just better examples, some of
which he does include (such as S. Truett Cathy).
Along a similar vein, it would have been better if the quotes used on the inside and dust cover
were not from people who stood to benefit from increased contributions to charities and churches
(a position highly promoted throughout the book). Of the 13 people quoted only three of them are
not directly connected with an organization that would benefit directly if more people contributed
to charitable organizations or churches in their wills. This does not make the advice any less
sound; it just establishes a credibility gap. The people quoted are all from Christian organizations
and so one would hope that they can rely on an honest assessment of the book, but it still raises
questions of independence. The book is good enough that there should be ample positive reviews
from people who are not officers or founders of charities or churches.
Although I obviously have some problems with this book, taken as a whole it is one of the best
basic guides to Christian oriented planning and wealth transfer. The advice includes all the basic
guidance you would receive from most competent financial planners - give it to your heirs while
you are alive, use marital trusts if appropriate, use life insurance trusts, plan to use your wealth in
ways that are consistent with your beliefs and goals in life. He also does a good job of pointing
out that the tools and techniques should be near the end of the process instead of at the beginning
of the planning process. It just makes more sense to first determine your goals and then to use the
tools and techniques that get you there. While I believe it could be better with better writing and
more carefully chosen examples, the basic tenets of the book are financially solid and Biblically
sound. "Splitting Heirs" is one of the best books available to understand the problems of wealth
transfer from a Christian perspective.
Sacred Places North America: 108 Destinations
Brad Olsen
Consortium of Collective Consciousness
1560 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
ISBN: 1888729090 $17.95 290 pp.
Divided into 10 geographical sections (Southwest, West Coast, Alaska and Hawai'i, Western
Canada, Rocky Mountains, Central Plains, Great Lakes Region, Eastern Canada, New England,
and The South), "Sacred Places North America" is the ultimate travel guide for anyone seeking
out places of great historical or religious significance. The guide is thorough, covering things as
diverse as Anastasi dwellings, Area 51, medicine wheels, Indian mounds, petroglyphs, Walden
Pond, and even Graceland. Each entry has a basic history of the place plus a description of how to
get there. A true travel guide for those interested in these places it is a real treasure trove of
information. If you are planning to travel this summer, pick up a copy and make sure to visit some
of the most interesting places in North America. "Sacred Places North America" is a highly
recommended purchase.
Chi Kung for Beginners
Scott Shaw, Ph.D.
Llewellyn Publications
PO Box 64383, Dept., St. Paul, MN 55164-0383
ISBN: 0738704199 $12.95 146 pp.
Chi energy, the universal energy that permeates the universe, can be accessed for health, physical
energy, and spiritual energy by anyone willing to regularly perform a few simple exercises. This is
the basis for the book "Chi Kung for Beginners". Chi Kung is the Chinese science of how to
access and use this energy. Instead of lacking physical and mental energy you will learn to access
boundless energy almost effortlessly. Besides the details of several specific techniques, the book
also has an appendix that covers the most important figures in the history of Chi Kung as well as
various theoretical foundations. For the beginner to Chi Kung this provides a sound basic
understanding without a lot of fluff or diversions to other unrelated topics that is common in so
many books of this type. "Chi Kung for Beginners" is a recommended read.
What Now Lord? Now that I am a Christ Follower
David S. Massey
Xulon Press
210 Crown Oak Centre Dr., Longwood, FL 32750
ISBN: 1594672229 $10.99 109 pp.
A small book with a powerful message, "What Now Lord?" is a Biblically sound guidebook to
what you should expect after becoming a Christian. This is a real-world examination of how God
works in the life of a Christian instead of the all too common theoretical description of what
"should" be happening. Besides the expected guidance of Bible reading and establishing a prayer
life he also tackles some of the common misconceptions of both new Christians and well-meaning
older Christians. For example, the second chapter is about hearing God's word. Are you called to
a specific purpose? Is someone telling you that your personality or your education makes you a
great potential missionary and that is an obvious direction God is calling you? David Massey
provides clear direction for determining whether you are being called by God for a particular
purpose or are just being directed there by your inner desires and/or well-meaning friends. How
do you know you are being called? This is a very important chapter. Other chapters deal with
things like drifting away - it happens. He provides an excellent and detailed interpretation of the
parable of the prodigal son.
Following that section he starts with the discipline needed to grow in the Christian life. This area
covers things like how to measure your progress, accountability and the use of small groups, the
twelve steps for Christian living (a particularly good chapter) and evangelism.
While many churches hand out booklets on doctrine and similar items to the new convert, this is
much more valuable and practical information for them to have. "What Now Lord?" is a
recommended read for new Christians and older Christians who don't feel they have grown in
their Christian life since their conversion.
How to Be Cherished: A Guide to Having the Love You Desire
Marilyn Graman, Maureen Walsh
Life Works Books
55 Fifth Avenue - Penthouse, New York, NY 10003
ISBN: 0971854866 $22.95 273 pp.
Over time long-term relationships often cool and have their problems. This is never truer than a
romantic relationship between a man and a woman. The purpose of "How to Be Cherished" is to
help women figure out not only why your relationship might not be all you want it to be but also
what you can do to make it the relationship you want. By following the advice of the authors you
can make yourself irresistible while also avoiding relationship pitfalls and before you know it you
will realize you have the relationship you want. Even if your relationship is already good, you can
make it even better. That's a pretty big promise to make but after reading the book I think they
rise to the challenge.
If you are angry, if you are disappointed, even if you feel powerless in your relationship, you are
powerful and can change it. The first couple of chapters look at how strongly you affect the man
in your life by your actions, comments, moods, and attitude. As a man I have to say that the
authors hit the nail right on the head here. The woman generally sets the emotional tone in a
relationship. Men tend to be pretty much in emotional neutral most of the time until the woman
sets the tone. You are a lot more powerful than you think!
I found chapters three and four particularly interesting. Chapter three deals with the fact that we
all have a past. To understand why people do what they do it is often important to understand
their past and how it affects them now. You have a past that you bring into the relationship, and
he has a past that he brings into the relationship. Understanding this helps you to understand each
other. The fourth chapter builds on this by looking at the fact that when you become hysterical
and over react to something minor then what you are reacting to is something in your history.
Hence the chapter title, "When You're Hysterical, It's Historical". The authors point out that it can
be your history, his history or both of your histories, but either way it is your past controlling the
situation. A healing process needs to start here to allow you to move forward in a positive
relationship.
The next chapter starts the section on the actual keys to becoming cherished. There is some really
powerful stuff here. Some of the real gems include empowering things like "stop feeling like your
relationship is happening to you"; you are a part of it and can affect what happens. Other great
sections include learning forgiveness, how to stop pushing love away, and a great section on
different aspects of love and becoming the object of his affection.
Another really good chapter is "Thirteen Facts About Men". The title caught my attention right
away as I wondered whether these two women really understood men or not. Well, they got this
one totally accurate again. If women really understood these things their relationship would be
different. While I may not agree with some of their explanations for why a particular trait is true
they do get all thirteen of these totally accurate (even if some men wouldn't admit it). The book is
worth the price just for this chapter alone.
Of course there is a lot more to the book than just the portions I mentioned above. I have to admit
that my first reaction on receiving the book was that it was just another relationship book like the
many others on the market. I could not have been more wrong. This is an exceptional book that is
in a class of its own when it comes to relationship books. "How To Be Cherished" is a highly
recommended read for women everywhere.
I Believe There Is No Death
Joseph D. Ross Jr., M.D.
Noble House
8019 Belair Road, Suite 10, Baltimore, MD 21236
ISBN: 1561678449 $24.95 145 pp.
With twenty-five years of experience as an obstetrician and eighteen years as a medical examiner
Dr. Joseph Ross, Jr. has become convinced that what we call death is just a transition to a
different state of being. He bases this belief on his personal investigation of multiple cases of
after-death communication (ADC) and near-death experiences (NDE). No only has he
investigated many cases reported by others, but has also experienced them personally. His book "I
Believe There Is No Death" is a collection of some of those experiences, and how they influenced
the lives of himself and others.
Red Hat Certified Engineer Linux Study Guide, 4th Edition
Michael Jang
McGraw-Hill/Osborne
2100 Powell Street, 10th Street, Emeryville, CA 94608
ISBN: 0072253657 $59.99 713 pp.
The Red Hat Certified Engineer is one of the most respected of the Linux certifications. Part of
the reason is because of the difficulty of the exam. "Red Hat Certified Engineer Linux Study
Guide, 4th Edition" covers all the points of the exam very well and includes the information you
need to work with Red Hat in the real world. In addition to all the information you need to pass
the exam, the book contains over 50 lab exercises and two complete RHCE exams and the entire
book on CD. If you plan on taking the exam do the labs, don't just read over them.
Michael Jang has consistently produced high quality books and this is one of his best. The book is
strongly slanted toward passing the exam, which is okay since that is exactly what it purports to
be. Throughout the book there are short comments marked off from the rest of the test which
points to tips for real world items (called "on the job") and tips for the exam (called "exam
watch"). Each chapter ends with a short summary, a "two-minute drill", self-test questions, and
lab questions. The "two-minute drill" is great for exam preparation the day of the exam since it is
pretty much the type of thing that you would put on note cards for a quick review anyway.
This is real-life advice and is full or tips and troubleshooting problems. In the installation section it
covers disk partitioning, swap space, bios limits, multiple controllers, and RAID. Some good solid
advice and information about things like problems with a computer with both a SCSI drive
controller and IDE drive controller in the same system. The installation troubleshooting section
includes boot loaders, RAID, logical volumes, kickstart automated installation and pretty much
everything you might run across. It even includes how to boot up into single user mode, a very
important ability for some administrative tasks and gaining root level access (full access to
everything) to the system. For some reason, although this is used in real-life for a lot of reasons, it
seems to be left out of most books. They will tell you to switch to single user mode to fix a
problem or gain root access, but don't tell you how to do it. This book tells you everything you
need to know. It includes not only the graphical and utility methods to do things but also includes
the information for how it changes the configuration. The information is so detailed that you can
hand add the lines and/or configuration files and do it all by hand if you would prefer. This way
you understand exactly what each item does and it is much easier to troubleshoot problems.
The authors have included everything you need to know to install, troubleshoot, and administer a
real-world server - shell configuration, kernel information, automation, X Windows installation
and configuration, GNOME and KDE desktops, Apache server including security and virtual
hosts, Squid proxy server configuration, secure FTP server, mail services including SMTP,
sendmail, postfix, POP, and IMAP, Samba installation and configuration, printing services, DNS,
BIND, DHCP, LDAP client configuration, firewall policies, network address translation, and the
Linux rescue environment are examples of the breadth of coverage.
It even includes how to work with the automounter, another item that is left out of most other
books. The only error I found was on page 11, Table 1-2, where it has "First IDE drive =
/dev/had" when it should be "/dev/hda". For that to be the only problem I found in a book of this
size shows the care with which it was edited.
This is simply the best book I have seen if you want to become a general Linux "guru". Not only
does it have everything you need to pass the exam, it has everything you need to install and
administer a Linux network. There are better books available on specific areas of Linux, for
example a single chapter on Apache obviously cannot compete with a 600 page book on Apache
server. Then again, this the best book around if you want an understanding of Linux that is
general enough to provide a complete overview of how Linux works in the real world and is also
detailed enough to provide everything you need to get everything you want up and running. "Red
Hat Certified Engineer Linux Study Guide, 4th Edition" gets the highest recommendation I can
give.
Programming Microsoft Infopath: A Developer's Guide
Thom Robbins
Charles River Media, Inc.
10 Downer Avenue, Hingham, MA 02043
ISBN: 1584503122 $41.95 288 pp.
The first thing you need to know before purchasing this book is the software requirements in
order to work with the sample programs. For software you will need either Windows Server 2003
or Windows XP Professional and InfoPath 2003. To work with many web-enabled samples you
will also need an Internet Information Server. To compile and run many of the samples you will
also need Visual Studio.NET 2003 or the .NET Framework 1.1. It also require Microsoft Office
2003 and all associated products. The book also assumes a basic knowledge of program
development in a distributed environment (although the assumptions here are pretty minimal).
You will note that all the software required is totally Microsoft. If you are not willing to put on
your Microsoft blinders and believe that nothing exists in the computer world other than
Microsoft then you will not be particularly interested in Infopath nor this book. On the other
hand, if you are a totally Microsoft office, read on.
Infopath is Microsoft's collaborative environment for office automation and workflow control.
Using XML based forms a user can input information once and have it shared into Word, Excel,
SQL, or other applications simultaneously. Needless to say this can increase efficiency
tremendously for situations where data has to be rewritten or cut-and-paste into different
programs to keep it all up to date. For those already working with Infopath, or planning to make
that move, the book is an excellent guide to developing data sharing programs that take input with
validation, store, extract, and update that information through easy to use forms, provide a secure
solution, and integrate with Biztalk Server.
The approach of the author is to provide basic information and instruction interspersed with
actual coding examples so you can actually test your knowledge and see the results. This is one of
the best teaching methods and he does an excellent job. A quick view of the table of contents
shows the highly organized layout of the book. It starts with an examination of the Infopath
integrated development environment (IDE), then follows with generating XML Forms, web
service forms, and database forms, next is building workflow-enabled applications, integrating
with BizTalk server, building smart client applications, securing solutions, and finally deploying
your application.
For those developing applications in the InfoPath environment this is a top-notch guide that
provides everything you need to know to start creating a collaborative working environment. If
your company has made the commitment to InfoPath "Programming Microsoft Infopath: A
Developer's Guide" is a book you will want to have.
Open Source Web Development with LAMP
James Lee, Brent Ware
Addison-Wesley
75 Arlington Street, Suite 300, Boston, MA 02116
ISBN: 020177061X $44.99 432 pp.
If you want an interactive database-based web site without spending hours and hours wading
through dozens of books to figure out how to do it, then you will want "Open Source Web
Development with LAMP". The book starts with the very basics and proceeds step by step so you
can get your web site up as quickly as possible and with a minimum of problems. So what exactly
is LAMP? It stands for the four components of a LAMP server - Linux operating system, Apache
web server, MySQL database server, and the Perl programming language.
The book is divided into four distinct parts and organized in an unexpected way. Instead of giving
each part of LAMP its own section the four sections focus on structure (getting them all up and
working together), static web pages (creating and using them), dynamic web pages (getting the
pages to do something via Perl and MySQL), and embedded programs (to make the whole system
run quicker). Each section covers all the components of LAMP as applied to that section. For
example, the structural section examines installation, configuration, security, and basic usage of
Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl. For Perl it includes a discussion of variables, arrays, operators,
flow-control, regular expressions, functions, and file input/output. For MySQL it includes
working with tables, insert, select, update, and similar basic commands. This is a very well done
section and gives all the basic information necessary to get each of the components up and
working with each other. The section on static web pages mainly covers the use of Website
META Language (WML) to generate a consistent look and feel across all the web pages on the
server. The part on dynamic web pages covers CGI and mod-perl so you can process information
submitted by an html page or other CGI script. It also includes information on using Perl to access
the MySQL server and generate dynamic information. The final section examines embedded
programs such as Server Side Includes (SSI), embedded Perl, MASON, and PHP and how they
are used to make a faster dynamic web site.
I have to say that I really liked this structure. Once a system is set up it is rare to have to refer to
the installation information again. If it were organized by Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl then I
would have to flip to what I assume is the appropriate section turn past the installation portion
and try to locate what I am looking for. This way, since it is organized by the various stages of
getting the system up and running it is easier to find what I want.
The text includes lots of example coding so you can actually write and test it right away. This is a
great way to learn the basics. It is not a thorough course in any of the four components but it does
give you enough of a background to do most of what you might need to do. Of course, what
makes it really valuable is the fact that it covers how to get each of the components to work
together without problems. There are good books on each of these components but it is rare to
find one that focuses on the interrelationships between them. "Open Source Web Development
with LAMP" is highly recommended for anyone who wants to set up a LAMP server or needing
to work with one.
Novell NetWare 6.5 Administrator's Handbook
Jeffrey Harris
Novell Press
800 East 96th Street, Indianapolis, IN 46240
ISBN: 0789729849 $49.99 532 pp.
With over 500 pages and several detailed appendixes the "NetWare 6.5 Administrator's
Handbook" covers pretty much everything an administrator will need to know. Each chapter
starts with a section called "Instant Access" where you will find a short summary of the
information in the chapter. If you are familiar with the basics of the information but just can't quite
seem to remember the specific command or specific steps to do something you can quickly get up
to speed in this section without browsing through the whole chapter.
I was somewhat surprised to find that the section on upgrading still contains information on
upgrading from the old version 3 bindery system. These days it is pretty unusual to find a version
before 4.x but it is nice that he includes the version 3 upgrade information. I was also glad to see a
good discussion on planning the eDirectory. This is an area where most books on Novell
administration have fallen short. An eDirectory tree that is poorly planned is difficult to manage
well as users are added, new roles created, new departments or companies added, etc. Planning it
correctly up front based on good principles makes all the difference later. The section on the
eDirectory does a good job of putting the planner on the right track.
For Novell administrators with prior experience the coverage of all the new Internet based utilities
is excellent. ConsoleOne is covered in detail as well as some of the common snap-ins that make
management through the eDirectory easier. Also covered well are the Internet based printing
system iPrint, Internet and browser based storage via iSCSI, iFolder, NetStorage, and NetDrive,
and other parts of the OneNet initiative. These tools make one of the easiest to administer, most
secure, and stable networks available even easier to administer. (An opinion based on working
with Novell since version 2, Microsoft from 3.0, and various Linux and Unix versions for the last
six years. I've also taught all three of the server operating systems at the College level and
installed many networks based on each system and mixes of them.)
Finally, he covers the Apache web server for Novell including setup and configuration and the
Tomcat Servlet Engine. He even includes a short section on MySQL, OpenSSH, Perl and PHP
support in the Novell server environment. The book ends with several useful appendixes that
include detailed client properties information, login scripts, console commands, and detailed
information on the eDirectory (including errors and DSRepair information).
The "NetWare 6.5 Administrator's Handbook" is highly recommended for anyone working in this
environment and does an excellent job of not only providing the details you need to administer a
Novell 6.5 network but also the theoretical background to understand exactly what is (or should
be) happening.
Hip-Hop Poetry and the Classics for the Classroom
Alan Sitomer and Michael Cirelli
Milk Mug Publishing
9190 West Olympic Blvd., Suite 253, Beverly Hills, CA 90212
ISBN: 0972188223 $24.95 148 pp.
How do you get a student interested in poetry? How do you make it relevant to the student in
their lifestyle and cultural environment? Authors Alan Sitomer and Michael Cirelli answer these
questions with an excellent book that bridges the gap between classical poetry and modern
hip-hop lyrics. Different components of poetry (and literature in general) are explained, an
example from classic poetry analyzed, then an example from modern hip-hop analyzed. Examples
of the components examined include alliteration, allusion, hyperbole, imagery, irony, metaphors,
pattern, personification, and simile as well as many others. The examples culled from the classics
are exceptionally well chosen and relate directly to the subject being covered. The additional
resources section includes a tremendous variety of ideas on how to get the students involved with
the lessons in various ways.
The book is specifically designed for the classroom environment and comes complete with
questions to ask, suggested answers, suggested activities, and detailed analysis of the poem. For
the California educator each item also includes the specific California Language Arts Standards
that it is meant to meet.
"Hip-Hop Poetry and the Classics for the Classroom" is an insightful, tremendously valuable
resource and a highly recommended read for anyone teaching poetry or who just wants to
understand various literary devices in general.
Earl the Emu: God Promises a Rainbow
Pat Winston
Light Way Publications
P. O. Box 10123, Jackson, TN 38308
ISBN: 0970282141 $14.95 24 pp.
Although this is the fifth in the Earl the Emu series it is the first one that I have read for review.
"Earl the Emu: God Promises a Rainbow" is a wonderful children's story with an important
message for everyone - God delivers on His promises. It may not be the way that we expect but
be assured that He does keep His word. Join Earl the Emu and his animal friends as they help
Jason. Jason just wants to play baseball so he can hit a home run. But he is not a very fast runner
and so the other boys won't even let him play baseball with them. How can he hit a home run if he
is not even allowed to play? This is a real problem. Join Earl the Emu as he becomes aware of this
situation and helps Jason to make it happen. "Earl the Emu: God Promises a Rainbow" is a
recommended children's book for ages of about three to eight.
Survey of the Old Testament
Paul N. Benware
Moody Publishers
820 N. LaSalle Blvd, Chicago, IL 60610-3284
ISBN: 0802424821 $18.99 272 pp.
If you are a conservative Christian with strong fundamentalist leanings you will find this an
excellent survey of the Old Testament books. If you are not then you will probably find difficulty
with many portions of it. However, you may still find value in the large number of photographs,
charts, tables, and graphs.
The author does an excellent of distilling chapters of information into tables that clearly show the
relationships. For example, he has illustrations of the chronological relationship between the Old
Testament books (no the Bible does not have them in chronological order), God's covenants with
Israel, and a chronology of Israel's judges. Hardly a page goes by without a picture, illustration,
chart, or other visual aid to help the reader understand the author's comments. However, some of
the pictures belong more in a tourist pamphlet than a serious Bible survey book. (For example,
there are pictures of places "tradition" assigns as significant, like the "burial place" of Samuel.
There is no evidence of this being factual but even in the Middle Ages traders recognized the
value of having a religiously significant location within your city. So, many "traditional" sites
suddenly sprang up.) Fortunately these sorts of pictures are few in number when compared with
the large number that enhances the text.
While the mainstream or more liberal Christian may find something of value in the charts and
tables, "Survey of the Old Testament" is really recommended mainly for conservative Christian
readers who will find it a valuable resource strongly slanted toward that belief system.
Survey of the New Testament
Paul N. Benware
Moody Publishers
820 N. LaSalle Blvd, Chicago, IL 60610-3284
ISBN: 080242483X $14.99 288 pp.
If you are a conservative Christian you will find this an excellent survey of the New Testament
books. If you are not then you will probably find difficulty with many portions of the book.
One of the things that I really liked the way the author brings the reader up to speed about the
history of the area between the Old and New Testament time periods. He does an excellent job
covering the rise of the Greek Period, through the Hasmonean Period, and up to the Roman
Period, including the rule of the Ptolemies and Seleucids.
Throughout the book the author includes many photographs and illustrations to help the reader
understand the text. He also does a good job of recounting the various theories as to why the
synoptic gospels often share not only common themes but also at some points nearly the same
wording. On the other hand he does not even mention the fact that there are other places where
they disagree with each other. This one-sided treatment is consistent throughout the book.
In addition, some of the pictures belong more in a tourist pamphlet than a serious Bible survey
book. (For example, there are pictures of places where the caption reads "traditionally",
"probably", "supposed", or "believed" to be a particular site. For most of them there is no
evidence of this being the actual location but even in the Middle Ages traders recognized the
value of having a religiously significant location within your city. So, many "traditional" sites
suddenly sprang up.) Fortunately these sorts of pictures are few in number when compared with
the large number that enhances the text.
While mainstream or liberal readers will find little of any value in "Survey of the New Testament",
it is recommended for conservative Christian readers who will find it a valuable resource that
enhances that belief system.
Harold McFarland
Reviewer
Harwood's Bookshelf
Of Preachers and Pagans
David Davis
iUniverse, Inc.
2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100, Lincoln, NE 68512
ISBN 0595272266 $20.95 366 pp.
Of Preachers and Pagans is a novel set in an American subculture as crippled by unquestioning
godworshipthink as the Puritan Boston of The Scarlet Letter. Unfortunately, David Davis is no
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his protagonists are no Hester Prynne. This is a dull, dull book that
even a promising plot could not save. I cannot state with certainty that the writing did not
improve after page 153, as that was the point at which I could not force myself to continue
reading. As rare as it is to find a novel about the pitfalls nontheists have to confront in the
Country of the Brainwashed, where priests can bugger little boys and threaten them with hellfire if
they tell anyone what happened, and biblical literalists are convinced that their imaginary playmate
created the eternal flames to punish everyone who disagrees with them about anything, this is not
a book I can recommend. My best advice to this would-be author is: Don't give up your day
job.
The Impossibility of God
Michael Martin & Ricki Monier, eds
Prometheus
Amherst NY
ISBN 1591021200, $32.00 437 pp.
There are two ways of proving God's nonexistence. One involves showing that God does not
exist, by tracing all claims of a god revealing its existence to a bible containing 19,000 discernable
errors, including fourteen separate assertions that the earth is flat. That is the approach I used in
Mythology's Last Gods. The other involves showing that God cannot exist, by demonstrating that
the qualities of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence are mutually exclusive in a world
filled with observable evil, and a god that could prevent such evil but chooses not to do so is an
oxymoron, a morally retarded higher life form. All of the authors in The Impossibility of God take
that latter approach.
Part One, titled Definitional Disproofs, consists of five papers, dating from as far back as 1948,
that argue trivia I can only describe as semantic hairsplitting. If these authors could not convince
me, a biblical historian who has independently proven that religion is a product of the human
imagination, that they proved their point, they assuredly cannot hope to influence believers whose
reaction to the most definitive proof that their god cannot exist is, "Yes, but he does." And if I
might insert a quibble of my own: Since the 1948 author capitalized god-pronouns such as He and
Him, the 2003 editors had no option but to reproduce his paper exactly as he wrote it. But that
does not make the repetition of such an archaic practice any less grating or offensive.
Part Two, Deductive Evil Disproofs, is more comprehensible. As the editors explain (p. 59):
1 If God exists, then the attributes of God are consistent with the existence of evil.
2 The attributes of God are not consistent with the existence of evil.
3 Therefore, God does not and cannot exist.
As the author of one of the section's five chapters argues (p. 62), "In its simplest form the
problem is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be
some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true, the
third would be false. But at the same time all three are essential parts of most theological
positions; the theologian, it seems, at once must adhere and cannot consistently adhere to all
three."
Another chapter adds (p. 73), "It is true that there is no explicit contradiction between the
statement that there is an omnipotent and wholly good god and that there is evil. But if we add
the at least initially plausible premises that good is opposed to evil in such a way that a being who
is wholly good eliminates evil as far as it can, and that there are no limits to what an omnipotent
being can do, then we do have a contradiction." Of all the theological arguments offered for the
existence of evil, the most compelling is that God endowed his creations with freewill. The
authors of Part Two show that an omnipotent god could just as easily have given mortals a
stronger inclination to avoid evil. But "freewill" cannot explain natural disasters. An omnipotent
god need not and would not have inflicted the earthquakes, AIDS, influenza pandemics and other
atrocities that are an observable part of reality.
I found Part Two convincing but only because it is preaching to the choir. The inevitable
response of incurable believers is and will remain, "mysterious ways." Proof that God cannot exist
will never cure anybody. Every former believer of my acquaintance was cured by the proof of
historians that the God described in the Bible does not exist, as was I. Of course individuals have
undoubtedly cured themselves by observing the differences between a world produced and
directed by an omnipotent, benevolent Cecil B. DeMille in the sky, and the world that actually
exists. I hazard a guess that every single author of this book is presenting conclusions based on his
personal observations of reality, rather than on any argument previously published.
Part Three consists of Doctrinal Disproofs, defined by the editors as taking the form (p.
125):
1 If God exists, then the attributes of God are consistent with a particular religious doctrine, story
or teaching about God.
2 The attributes of God are not consistent with that particular religious doctrine, story or teaching
about God.
3 Therefore God does not and cannot exist.
The chapter, "The Paradox of Eden" (pp. 127-128) argues, "Adam and Eve either knew that
obeying God is good and disobeying God is evil, or they did not know this. If they knew it, then
Adam and Eve would have already possessed the knowledge of good and evil . On the other
hand, if Adam and Eve did not know that obeying God is good and disobeying God is evil, then
they could not have known that it was wrong or evil to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of
good and evil. So since God punished Adam and Eve for doing something that they could not
have known to be wrong or evil, God acted unjustly by punishing them."
The editors carry that argument to its logical conclusion. Since God's test of Adam and Eve was
either unfair or unjust, depending on whether they knew that disobeying was evil (p. 126), "In
either case God was unjust, and therefore a necessarily just God does not and cannot exist."
Part Four is titled Multiple Attributes Disproofs. The editors' summary of such arguments is (p.
181):
1 If God exists, then the attributes of God are consistent with one another.
2 Some attributes of God are not consistent with one another.
3 Therefore, God does not and cannot exist.
As an example, a specific chapter lists qualities almost universally attributed to God, including
that he is simultaneously perfect and the creator of the universe. He then argues:
1 If God exists, then he is perfect.
2 If God exists, then he is the creator of the universe.
3 If a being is perfect, then whatever he created must be perfect.
4 But the universe is not perfect.
5 Therefore, it is impossible for a perfect being to be the creator of the universe.
6 Hence, it is impossible for God to exist.
Part Five consists of Single Attribute Disproofs. The chapters in this section conform to the
editors' summary (p. 323):
1 If God exists, then every attribute of God is self-consistent.
2 A particular attribute of God is not self-consistent.
3 Therefore God does not and cannot exist.
The oldest argument against the existence of an omnipotent god centers on the question of
whether he can create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it. Whether the answer is yes or no, the
end result is that there is something God cannot do. Therefore God as an omnipotent being
cannot exist. And since God is omnipotent by definition, it follows that God cannot and does not
exist.
Every chapter is this book is logical, definitive, indisputable (except by unteachables), and
provides complete proof of its conclusions. It also adopts a line of reasoning that, despite its
validity, has never cured a single godworshipper of his delusion and never will. The only way to
disprove the gods of religion is by showing that the sacred writings attesting to their existence
contain the same proportion of fact and fiction as The Cat in the Hat. Philosophical or logical
arguments simply do not work.
Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins And The Pursuit Of Happiness In
America
Dan Savage
Dutton
375 Hudson St, NY 10014
ISBN 0525946756 $23.95 302 pp.
"Do you still beat your wife?" Anyone who would attempt to answer that question is clearly
incapable of grasping that it assumes facts not in evidence.
Dan Savage shows an identical purblindness when he rebuts persons he calls virtuecrats, while
simultaneously granting mindless acceptance to their Big Lie that the behavior they advocate is
virtue and the behavior they condemn is vice. He writes (p. 2), "However, the virtuous in America
aren't satisfied with merely lecturing us. They want to give us orders, and to that end they've
banded together in what appears to be a never-ending effort to shove their own virtues down all
our throats . Not content to persuade their fellow Americans to be virtuous which, again, is
their right they want to amend constitutions and pass laws . By successfully framing the debate
as virtue versus sin, and not the laws versus your freedom, the virtuecrats have succeeded in
silencing their political foes and the sinners who enjoy the happy pursuits virtuecrats seek to
ban."
Savage is saying in effect that individuals who think like the Buchanans, Robertsons and Borks, as
vicious a cesspool of hatemongering theofascists as America has ever produced, are virtuous. By
that definition, Osama bin Laden is virtuous since, like America's Theofascist Right, he defines
virtue as anything he does, and demands the right to "punish" anyone who disagrees with him.
And note Savage's silent concession that persons who practise the victimless pursuit of happiness
are sinners. I urge Savage to learn Robert Heinlein's definition of sin: "Sin means hurting
someone unnecessarily. All other sins' are invented nonsense. Hurting yourself is not sinful,
merely stupid."
For example, Savage writes that (p. 11), "the virtuous all conspire to force their virtues on us
sinners, which is not something sinners do. The existence of the virtuous is not regarded by
sinners as a personal threat, nor do sinners attempt to stamp out virtue wherever we find it."
Normally, when someone calls himself a sinner, I am inclined to take his word for it. But nowhere
in Savage's book is there anything to support the claim that he is a sinner, and his acceptance of
such a word merely demonstrates the extent of his brainwashing. He ignores the taboos of other
people's religion. That is not sin. It is sanity a quality the theofascists are totally lacking. And he
asks (p. 15), "How much longer can American sinners sit by and say nothing while the vices we
enjoy and know to be perfectly harmless are maligned?" Savage not only buys the Big Lie that
persons who have never harmed anyone are sinners just because religion addicts say so. He also
buys the Big Lie that "perfectly harmless" behavior can constitute vice.
Of Alan Keyes, one of the published advocates of state-enforced religion, Savage writes (p. 4),
"Keyes is obsessed with abortion and homosexuality, and he believes America wouldn't be in such
a dismal state' if only Americans would recognize that the Christian Bible trumps the United
States Constitution in matters of law and public policy." Of Pat Buchanan, he writes (p. 6),
"Buchanan paints a picture of the United States that reads like a translation of an Osama bin
Laden video. The United States is a moral sewer and a cultural wasteland that is not worth living
in and not worth fighting for,' according to Buchanan."
But while Savage is able to recognize theofascists as less than valid role models, his cultural
brainwashing is evidenced in such statements as (p. 9), "Some of the nicest, most virtuous,
morally uncollapsed people I know smoke pot and commit adultery (with their spouses'
permission)." He clearly has never questioned the comparatively recent belief that adultery is a
recreational taboo, analogous to a ban on smoking cannabis. But from the composition of the
Jewish Ten Commandments until late medieval times, adultery was correctly defined as the
fraudulent impregnation of another man's wife, thereby robbing him of his right to pass on his
inheritance to his biological heirs. Nonprocreational copulation with the spouse's permission
cannot constitute adultery, at least not by any sane definition. The only reason such recreation is
mindlessly equated with adultery is that godworshippers have long ceased expecting their
imaginary playmate's taboos to have any pragmatic purpose, such as protecting actual victims
from actual injuries, since they accept that right and wrong are whatever their sacred fiction says
they are. Apparently Savage is equally incapable of questioning that indefensible equation.
As for the Seven Deadly Sins that are the prime focus of Skipping Towards Gomorrah, Savage
traces the genesis of the "deadly sin" concept to its source, and correctly states that the modern
Big Seven were invented by Pope Gregory I. What he does not know is that the seven concepts
meant something very different to Gregory from what they mean to the mindless morons who
parrot them as if they were objectively real.
The chapter on the deadly sin of greed describes Savage's visits to Las Vegas and his
abandonment of a no-gambling policy. He makes a good case that, if greed means making bets
that one can afford to lose in the hope of hitting a jackpot, then greed is a good thing. He clearly
has no comprehension that, to Pope Gregory, greed meant wanting to own property at a time
when the Catholic Church wanted to be the world's only capitalist.
Of lust, Savage asserts (p. 66), "Lust is one of two natural' sins (gluttony is the other)." But he
traveled to Las Vegas to indulge in the sin of lust by "cheating" on his partner with the partner's
permission, as if an act that hurts nobody can "cheat" someone who is not even present. Again,
the difference between what Savage thinks of as lust and what Pope Gregory meant by lust is
profound. To the head of a Church that until the thirteenth century defined all sexual intercourse,
including marriage, as sinful, lust included tender lovemaking with one's monogamous partner.
And when Savage telephoned a "Jesus saves" hotline and was informed that he is a fornicator
destined to spend eternity in the Christian Hell, neither the pusher nor the object of his bigotry
showed any awareness that "fornication" is a translation of the Greek word porneia, that Paul of
Tarsus condemned in the strongest language because, in Paul's day, it meant sacramental
nun-tupping, copulating with a priestess of a fertility goddess as an act of worship to the wrong
deity. Fornicating in the present century is impossible, because there are no fertility goddesses left
to whom to fornicate.
To Pope Gregory, gluttony meant wanting to eat as well as the clergy. Today it is generally
understood to mean overeating, an act that Heinlein saw as "not sinful, merely stupid." And
among the most visible practitioners of gluttony, Savage cites the subject of Al Franken's book,
Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, along with Robert Bork and Jerry Falwell, who "don't just
resemble Limbaugh politically." (p. 139)
"Sloth is a sin that makes few demands on the sinner (do nothing and you've mastered it), and it
was my stated intention to indulge myself in each of the seven deadly sins. I'm tempted to end this
chapter right here, declare victory, and move on to my next sin." (p. 103) But he writes a whole
chapter about his attempt to practise sloth unaware that, to Pope Gregory, sloth meant being
willing to live and let live instead of snitching on family and friends to the vigilantes that
foreshadowed the Inquisition. And Savage assuredly does not endorse the kind of sloth that
enabled thirty-odd witnesses to watch the murder of Kitty Genovese and not lift a finger to
intervene.
In an attempt to indulge in envy, Savage visited the Ashram, a weight-loss spa outside Malibu.
The reason for his choice was that (p. 185), "it would also expose me to people who were in
better shape than I was and, really, aren't looks and money the two things Americans are most
envious of in other? Americans may heap praise on the virtuous, we may admire them, but very
few of us envy them." Since envy of the birds was the inspiration for the invention of flying
machines, Gregory's opposition could only have been intended to categorize as sinners the
oppressed masses who envied the Church's power and wealth. A more logical deadly sin would
have been the psychosis of jealousy. But since the Christian god's official biography describes it as
jealous, Gregory could hardly use that one. Envy has always been a positive quality, and still is.
Savage's chapter summary is (p. 205), "I had gone to the Ashram to envy the rich close up and
personal only to discover that the rich go to the Ashram to live like the poor."
To practice the sin of pride, Savage associated with gay pride activists. The chapter was
interesting, but said little relevant to the virtue or sinfulness of pride. To Pope Gregory, pride
meant self respect and a healthy appreciation of one's worth at a time when the Church's
income, then as now, depended on convincing the oppressed masses that they were dirty little
sinners who could only be "saved" by giving more than they could afford to the Church.
The chapter about anger is centered on the debate over gun control. In order to feel anger,
Savage went to a shooting range and fired at a portrait of Osama bin Laden. "It was anger (and
guns) that brought me to Texas, and what better way to blow off some steam than to blow off bin
Laden's paper head?" (p. 258) But while controlled anger is a virtue, since only anger at injustice
can lead to justice, to Pope Gregory anger at the Church's power and wealth was an annoyance
that had to be nipped in the bud by making anger a deadly sin.
Savage ends his book with the observation (pp. 299-300), "So like Bork, Bennett, and Buchanan,
I have hope. I hope that people who disagree with the scolds and the virtuecrats will go right on
ignoring them . I hope that the Borks, Bennetts, and Buchanans will one day recognize that their
right to pursue happiness as they define it is not threatened by the right of their fellow Americans
to pursue happiness as we define it." To that I can only comment: Don't hold your breath.
Dan Savage has no expertise in biblical or religious history. His understanding of the Bible's "ten
commandments" and Pope Gregory's "seven deadly sins" is minimal. And since he made the Big
Ten a subtitle of his book, I saw little option but to draw attention to the inevitable consequences
of his status as a well-meaning amateur. But the book makes no pretence to be informative.
Rather, it is a virtual travelogue with a decidedly Jack Kerouac On The Road quality, written in
an entertaining and light-hearted style. As purely recreational reading, it provides a pleasant way
to pass a few spare hours.
Great Freethinkers: Selected Quotations By Famous Skeptics & Nonconformists
James C. Sanford, ed.
Metacomet Books
PO Box 2479, Providence, RI 02906
ISBN 0974704229 $15.00 250 pp.
Other than a very short preface, Great Freethinkers contains no commentary whatsoever. It is, as
indicated in the subtitle, a collection of "Selected Quotations," and nothing more than that. Since I
criticized the author of Religion on Trial for padding 800 quotations with 600 pages of trivia, I
should see that as a good thing. Instead I find that some commentary would have been better than
no commentary. The most pungent collection of quotations is to be found in Great Quotations on
Religious Freedom. About the only thing Sanford has to offer is that many of his quotations have
not been widely anthologized, and for that reason this collection constitutes a useful source for
persons looking for observations by prominent freethinkers that are difficult or impossible to find
elsewhere.
That said, there is really nothing to add other than to reproduce some of the more noteworthy of
Sanford's more than 1,000 quotations:
Herbert Spencer: To the mass of people nothing is so costly as thought. The fact that, taking the
world over, ninety-nine people out of a hundred accept the creed to which they were born,
exemplifies their mental attitude toward such things.
Friedrich Nietzsche: Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Thomas Huxley: It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any
proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.
George Bernard Shaw: If you demand my authority for this and that, I must reply that only those
who have never hunted up the authorities as I have believe that there is any authority who is not
contradicted flatly by some other authority.
H. L. Mencken: The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few religious dogmas have ever faced it
and survived.
Albert Einstein: A man's ethical behavior should be based effectively on sympathy, education, and
social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had
to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Robert Ingersoll: Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship,
humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.
Paul Kurtz: The beginning of wisdom is the awareness that there is insufficient evidence that a
god or gods have created us and the recognition that we are responsible in part for our own
destiny.
Hsun Tzu: If people pray for rain and it rains, how is that? I would say: Nothing in particular. Just
as when people do not pray for rain, it also rains.
Benjamin Franklin: Many a long dispute among Divines may be thus abridg'd: It is so; It is not so;
It is so; It is not so.
H. L. Mencken: To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a
minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was
designed and set spinning to give him a ride.
David Hume: No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a
kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to
establish.
Thomas Huxley: My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try
to make facts harmonize with my aspirations.
Oliver Wendell Holmes: We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe.
Mark Twain: It was a schoolboy who said: "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
George Bernard Shaw: The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point
than the fact that a drunk man is happier than a sober one.
Wendy Kaminer: In its more authoritarian forms, religion punishes questioning and rewards
gullibility. Faith is not a function of stupidity, but a frequent cause of it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: In general believers fashion God after themselves; the good make him
good, the wicked make him wicked.
Charles Baudelaire: God is the sole being who, in order to rule, does not even need to exist.
Susan B. Anthony: I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because
I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
George Bernard Shaw: We are told that when Jehovah created the world he saw that it was good.
What would he say now?
Anatole France: The Christian God was once a Jew. Now he is an anti-Semite.
Richard Dawkins: We are all atheists about most of the gods humanity has ever believed
in some of us just go one god further.
Emma Goldman: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." What a preposterous
notion! What incentive to slavery, inactivity, and parasitism!
Arthur C. Clarke: The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of
morality by religion.
George Santayana: The fact of having been born is a very bad augury for immortality.
Oscar Wilde: Self-denial is simply a method by which man arrests his progress, and self-sacrifice a
survival of the mutilation of the savage, part of the old worship of pain which is so terrible a
factor in the history of the world.
Friedrich Nietzsche: Insanity in individuals is something rare but in groups, parties, nations, and
epochs it is the rule.
Herbert Spencer: Customs embody the rule of the dead over the living; as do also the laws into
which they harden.
Robert Ingersoll: There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments there are
consequences.
Linus Pauling: Science is the search for truth it is not a game in which one tries to beat his
opponent.
Thomas Huxley: Evolution is not an explanation of the cosmic processes, but merely a generalized
statement of the method and results of that process.
H. L. Mencken: Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove
that the other party is unfit to rule and both commonly succeed and are right.
John Stuart Mill: The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a
nuisance to other people.
Bertrand Russell: It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it
impossible to earn a living.
Joseph Heller: I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field
to private industry.
Guy de Maupassant: Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are
hatched.
George Bernard Shaw: The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves,
but how she's treated.
My assertion that the foregoing are the most notable entries in Sanford's book may be interpreted
as implying that the remainder are less notable. But another reviewer might have chosen a totally
different selection. Readers would be prudent to interpret the chosen quotations as typical. A
collection of 1,000 quotations from freethinkers is a useful addition to any reference library.
William Harwood
Reviewer
Jennifer's Bookshelf
Weather or Not: Winter
Lynda S. Burch with MarySue Roberts
Writers Exchange EPublishing
http://www.writers-exchange.com/epublishing
ISBN: 1920741801 $TBA
WEATHER OR NOT: WINTER is another wonderful musical illustrated picture book by author
Lynda S. Burch. Wintertime ahhh there is nothing quite like it! Children and adults alike enjoy
winter wonderland, however, children tend to wonder things like "Where do the icicles go when
they melt? and "Where do snowflakes come from?". In Burch's book, she answers these questions
with a story set to instrumental music. Her book should be on every bookshelf at schools,
libraries, and day cares and used as a learning tool of the seasons. It gives parents, and educators
time to play and learn on the computer with children.
WEATHER OR NOT: WINTER comes to live with real-time photography by award winning
photojournalist, MarySue Roberts. This book comes highly recommended by this reviewer.
And as I said about the first book, "WEATHER OR NOT: FALL", Lynda S. Burch has created
another splendid addition to the world of electronic books!
The Good, the Bad, and the Smelly: Book 1
Chris Rumble
Tricycle Press
http://www.tenspeed.com
ISBN: 1582461228 $5.95
Uncle Stinky is just that stinky! One whiff of Stinky and you'll run away! Told in the voice of a
little boy named Zack, THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SMELLY: BOOK 1, is a creative
story about an adventurous adventurer with a good heart and very little adventure. In the town of
Hootenholler, where there is always someone in the need of helping, Zack and his little brother,
Billy, search for adventures for their stinky uncle and his pickle sidekick. The hilarious text and
silly sidebars, Rumble's new book is a must-have. In Uncle Stinky's first adventure, he saves
Hootenholler from the Dreadful Plague of Embarrassment and wonders if he should trade his
pickle sidekick for someone who actually moves.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SMELLY: BOOK 1 features lyrics to "The Ballad of Uncle
Stinky" and a page where readers can enter the "We're All a Little Stinky, but We Can Make a
Difference" campaign at http://www.chrisrumble.com.
This book is an entertaining chapter-book style book for elementary-grade children. The black and
white illustrations, some in comic-book style, add fun and charm to the already enjoyable
wording. There is a lot to see in this 96-page book readers will have fun for hours!
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SMELLY: BOOK 1 by Chris Rumble comes highly
recommended by this reviewer.
Rain on My Wings
Evelyn Horan
PublishAmerica
http://www.publishamerica.com
$TBA
RAIN ON MY WINGS is an impressive and touching novel by talented author Evelyn Horan.
Described as a "problem story for teens," this book is a winner. After reviewing her "Jeannie, A
Texas Frontier Girl" series, I didn't think she could do it, but Horan has out done herself.
This book is set in a small rural town in Texas during the 1940s and '50s. The main
character Linda Hodges witnesses a family tragedy and uses her faith in God to handle the
grief and loss.
RAIN ON MY WINGS is captivating and inspirational. Horan's characters and the dialogue are
realistic and memorable. She keeps the readers interest with her refreshing style of writing. She
keeps the suspense going from chapter to chapter, leaving the reader wanting more. Horan's book
is intended for young adults, but it is enjoyable for all ages. This reviewer highly recommends
Evelyn Horan's RAIN ON MY WINGS.
Prancing Dancing Lily
Marsha Diane Arnold
Dial Books for Young Readers
www.penguin.com www.marshadianearnold.com
ISBN: 0803728239 $16.99
Lily wants to feel like one of the herd. She loves to dance and twirl around the pasture. But how
can she be Bell Cow and lead the line, when she can't dance in a straight line? Lily travels the
world searching for the perfect dance. She sashays to country, twirls to ballet in Russia, and flops
and hops on Broadway. When she finally finds the perfect dance, she heads for home to become
Bell Cow.
Award-winning author, Marsha Diane Arnold, has written a delightful children's picture book.
PRANCING DANCING LILY, with charming characters and lively text, makes for a great
read-aloud story. Arnold's book would work wonderfully in elementary grade classrooms. The
brightly-colored illustrations, by John Manders, add oomph and wonder to every page. Young
readers are sure to love PRANCING DANCING LILY by Marsha Diane Arnold.
This reviewer and her three children, ages 12, 7, and 6, highly recommends Arnold's enjoyable
children's book.
Murphy's Safety Songs
Tim Young
Murphy's Bone Publishing
http://www.myrphysbone.com
ISBN: 0974822604 $19.95
The first release of a series of three audio CD/book sets for children, MURPHY'S SAFETY
SONGS, teaches children the importance of pet responsibility by using fun, catchy songs.
Full-color illustrations, by Tom Price, adorn each page. Murphy, a Boston Terrier, is a dog who
thinks he knows everything! Inside this 32-page children's picture book, readers will find an audio
CD with 10 original safety songs that are narrated by Murphy himself. Additionally, they will find
the words to each of the songs, pet and vet fill-in pages, and pages for adults, grouped by song
title, to further teach children about pet and animal safety.
MURPHY'S SAFETY SONGS by Tim Young would make a fun, energetic learning tool for
elementary-aged children. This book comes highly recommended by this reviewer and her children
ages 12, 7, and 6.
Little Lemon: Activities for Developing Motivation and Memory Skills
Betsy B. Lee, Ed. S. in School Psychology
Learning Abilities Books
ISBN: 0965885321 $8.99
Little Lemon, a puppet, wants to help his friend, a discouraged child with a poor memory, but he
doesn't know how. Charlene, his friend, doesn't like school and is always tired. Disheartened,
Little Lemon flees to Lemon Land where he finds help from a few lemon friends. Little Lemon
invites Charlene to Lemon Land where they discuss how to "make lemonade" when things get
tough. 'When you have a problem but you make things better, it's like making lemonade from sour
lemon juice.' Read LITTLE LEMON by Betsy B. Lee to find out exactly how Little Lemon helps
his friend with a poor memory.
Included in this wonderful book are lesson plans, discussion questions, vocabulary improvement
activities, a song, and encouragement activities. The vibrantly-colored illustrations by Linda Lee
add a loving and inspiring touch to an already delightful story for children.
Koko and Friends: Friends??? Oh, Really!!!
C. Denise West Jones, Ph.D and Stephania Pierce Darby
D. W. Ink Publishing, Inc.
http://www.dwinkpublishing.com
ISBN: 1892313014 $TBA
KOKO AND FRIENDS: FRIENDS??? OH, REALLY!!! is book two in a series of six books
designed to provide adults with a way of helping children to make good choices.
Koko and his cousins, young roaches, are working hard to become professional basketball
players. However, they come across a group of hoodlums who try to get Koko and his cousins to
smoke, drink, and party.
Jones and Darby wrote, KOKO AND FRIENDS: FRIENDS??? OH, REALLY!!!, to help
children develop and expand their decision-making skills. As all parents know, children tend to
make their decisions based on their friends and their surroundings. The realistic situations in this
book are meant to help children realize that not all children can be their friends, and that not all
children are children they should "hang out" with.
This book uses life-like dialogue, convincing situations, and is a helpful book that would work
well in elementary-grade classrooms.
Boats and Ships: Your Field Guide
Robert Holtzman
Moon Mountain Publishing
www.moonmountainpub.com
ISBN: 1931659079 $7.95
Robert Holtzman's book BOATS AND SHIPS: YOUR FIELD GUIDE is a series of
nonfiction/activity books. Captain Bob reaches children about many different types of boats and
ships and nautical facts. The book is filled with hand-drawn illustrations, suitable for coloring in
with crayons, and real-life photographs. The easy-to-read text teaches children everything you can
think of about boats, tugs, ferries, tankers, kayaks, yachts, sailboats, cruise ships, and canoes.
BOATS AND SHIPS: YOUR FIELD GUIDE features over 16 vessels from around the
USA.
In the front of the book, readers will find a glossary where they can learn specific wording
associated in maritime. This book would work well in many gift shops, schools, and libraries.
This reviewer highly recommends BOATS AND SHIPS: YOUR FIELD GUIDE by Robert
Holtzman.
A Light in the Window
J. Elizabeth Harris
Xlibris Corporation
http://www.xlibris.com
ISBN: 1401087582 $20.99
Purchase URL: http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=17422
A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW portrays the difficulties of its main character Sarah Banks Keller
during the year 1972 following her return to her family's home after four years. The book begins
when Sarah returns to Savannah, Georgia from her home in NYC. Sarah's father lay in a coma
unaware of her presence. While she waits for him to waken, a visit from an ex-boyfriend named
Charles causes her to relieve some painful and eccentric memories. The book goes on to describe
the heart-felt tribulations of a young girl growing up around prejudices, drugs, sex, and yes, even
love. Sarah must forgive her past in order to move on with her future. Using contemporary
phrases and settings, this book reminded me of many wonderful books such as "Little Women,"
and "Anne of Green Gables."
This reviewer found the plot, dialogue, and character descriptions well written. It is a influential,
passionate, and inspiring novel for women. Harris's flows well, and keeps the readers attention.
Each character has a set personality that Harris continues throughout the book. A LIGHT IN
THE WINDOW is an incredibly touching story that details the relationships between a father and
daughters, and sisters. It comes highly recommended by It's Only Ink!
Living In A Glowing World
Trisha Howell
Howell Canyon Press
http://www.howellcanyonpress.com
ISBN: 193121008X $9.95
LIVING IN A GLOWING WORLD is a beautiful collection of inspirational poetry. Each poem
speaks of the beauty that derives from each season and life, as well as the passion and amazement
of today's world.
Trish Howell writes in a magical, powerful style that makes you hunger for more as her words stir
every emotion within you. Perfect for reading anytime of the day, anywhere, LIVING IN A
GLOWING WORLD is sure to awaken your appreciation and gratification senses.
This reviewer/author enjoyed reading Trisha Howell's book, LIVING IN A GLOWING WORLD,
and highly recommends it for poetry readers of all ages.
The Pekinese Who Saved Civilization
Sir Addison Silber Howell, Esq. as told by Trisha Adelena Howell
Howell Canyon Press
http://www.howellcanyonpress.com
ISBN: 1931210071 $11.95
Purchase URL: http://www.howellcanyonpress.com
THE PEKINESE WHO SAVED CIVILIZATION was described as telling the true history of the
world, but from a canine's point of view. The dog's name is Addison. First, he opens the book
with inspiring words of wisdom. His comments are surrial. He knows his stuff. Addison could
successfully organize a support group. Addison could run for Mayor of his town! Heck, Addison
could Addison could be our next President!
After wonderful words from such an adorable speaker, he then continues by taking on many roles
as he saves civilization.
Addison the Impersonator gives a comical impersonation of Albert Einstein and the Sphinx, while
Addison the Snowshoer shows style and sophistication while climbing a dangerous mountain.
Addison has it all.
Ger a copy of THE PEKINESE WHO SAVED CIVILIZATION, due out August 15, 2003, and
join Addison on his global adventures. You will enjoy learning of how he would solve planetary
dilemmas such as love troubles, drugs and alcohol addictions, food shortages, religion
controversies, and much more.
The Writer's Friend: Behind the Scenes with Editors
Linda Davis Kyle, Joseph Gregg, and Nancy McAlany
Blueberry Press
http://www.blueberrypress.com
ISBN: 0967365104 $14.95
Every freelance writer needs should own a copy of THE WRITER'S FRIEND. It is a soft cover
book packed full of tips, tricks and methods of how to grab an editor's attention.
Most writers spend numerous hours researching the information provided in this well-formatted
book. In THE WRITER'S FRIEND, you will find the proper way to format a query, writing warm
ups, new twists to writing, and an appendix of helpful questions to help find the topic you are
looking for. With this book, authors can learn secrets from editors and writers from around the
world on how to improve your writing skills, how to maximize your research, how to cooperate
with editors, and much more.
This handy and encouraging manual is a legitimate, straightforward guide written to help writers
improve their skill and get their work published. This reviewer (and author) highly recommends
it.
Jennifer LB Leese, Reviewer
http://www.geocities.com/ladyjiraff
Lori's Bookshelf
Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is
Abigail Garner
HarperCollins
10 East 53rd St, New York, NY 10022
www.harpercollins.com
ISBN: 0060527579 $24.95 272 pgs
After eight years of experience with community organizing on behalf of LGBT families, Abigail
Garner has written a book about kids with gay parents. FAMILIES LIKE MINE is full of heart
and hope but even more importantly, it's full of truths. Because of her own experience as a child
with two gay dads, she speaks from a well-qualified vantage point. She says she is "culturally
queer" but heterosexual, and with that perspective, she comes at the topic from a unique and
fascinating angle.
Using extensive research and interviews with some five dozen youths, Garner discusses many
topics including: adult parents coming out in the family; family changes, particularly divorces and
same-sex break-ups; how kids with LGBT parents handle school; the concept of "straight family
privilege"; the impact of HIV/AIDS; straight kids in queer culture; and kids of LGBT parents who
don't grow up to be straight. She doesn't shy away from tough questions, and she doesn't believe
that kids with gay parents grow up exactly like everyone else. But it is clear that she is
championing a little-heard truth: that kids with LGBT parents don't reach adulthood any more
wounded or messed up than other kids from straight homes. In fact, many such children grow up
more open-minded and tolerant than their peers, though they often have to face a great deal more
antagonism and prejudice than is fair.
Weaving into the book her own fears and experiences, Garner is able to clearly delineate many of
the problems that members of a non-traditional family encounter. For instance, once when her
biological father was out of town, Garner's other dad, Russ, fell ill and was rushed to the ER.
Most of us take for granted that as legal members of the immediate family, we'd get to visit our
parent in the hospital and would be entitled to medical information. Garner was lucky because no
one asked questions when she claimed to be Russ's daughter. But under the rules of most
hospitals, if she had been challenged, she could have been barred from his room. She is correct
when she writes, "What are labeled as special rights are not special at all; they are human rights
that are currently being denied to LGBT citizens" (p. 127). A right as simple as visiting a sick
member of the family ought not be denied, but it does happen.
I found this book to be tremendously readable and could not put it down. The contributions from
the interviewees and the author's personal story were fascinating. Garner's ability to synthesize
and explore this topic in such an accessible way is ground-breaking. By the end, when Garner
writes, "Children of LGBT parents, however, are thriving in this world of possibilities" (p. 228), I
found myself hoping that this would continue to be true and that our society would become more
accepting, more knowledgeable, and with many more resources for "alternative" families.
This is a book that belongs in all libraries and should be read by school administrators, teachers,
social workers, legislators, and parents (whether they are gay or not). If people would listen to
Garner's message, the world would be a better place for all kids, whether their parents are gay or
straight.
Dish It Up, Baby! A Novel
Kristie Helms
Firebrand Books
2232 S. Main St. #272, Ann Arbor, MI 48103
www.firebrandbooks.com
ISBN: 1563411342 $14.95 183 pgs
The unnamed narrator in this novel begins her tale with an escape from her abusive marriage. The
rage of her husband has gradually escalated over the years, and "four days after the fist and the
blood," she flees to Brooklyn. Fortunately she has a decent job which allows her to move into a
small place of her own, and she begins the process of trying to come to terms with her past, deal
with the issues of the present, and forge a future.
The early chapters of the book are gripping, and the descriptions of her separation, grief, and
adjustment are, at times, intense. For the first time in ages, she is alone, and the process of
reconciling herself to that will be familiar to anyone going through a breakup. She wants to know
if she can make it on her own. She needs to know why her husband did what he did to her. She
wonders if she is gay. "I had spent 27 years making sure everything fit into a nice little suburban
box. I was finding it hard that I didn't fit into the box so easily any more. I kept looking for a "for
sure" test. You know, spin around three times, clap your hands and if you start humming the
Indigo Girls, then proof positive. Hand that girl a rainbow sticker and tell her to get her hair cut
already" (p. 28).
The first signs of a sense of humor emerge early on. We follow the narrator along through random
days at work, her encounters with oddball people, and into episodic scenes where she reflects on
and attempts to make a new life for herself. At times, the story is a bit rambling and picaresque.
The occasional bit of humor keeps the narrative rolling. For instance, her cat, Maggie, is actually
male. "Friends told me I was the only person they knew with a Jewish transgender cat." Another
instance: she puts a personals ad in Match.com. "I had no idea what that meant or what it was I
thought I'd find there. I just generally believed in the power of the Internet to fix my life" (p. 70).
The sardonic wit is welcome, especially since it's often unexpected.
But in between the funny observations and the grief-struck memories, the structure of the novel
doesn't quite hold. The book reads a great deal more like an autobiography or memoir, so it's
curious that the author chose to specifically label it "A Novel," as though otherwise the reader
wouldn't know. As the unnamed narrator moves forward in her healing process and begins dating
women and exploring her sexual orientation, the narrative punch decreases. Some of that is
because we never really get to know anyone she encounters, and we never even know her name.
People come and go, but there's little solidity to hang on to still, we want good things for the
narrator. By the end of the book, she's had an interesting journey, sometimes rambling, sometimes
odd, but interesting all the same.
A Writer's Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively Muse for the Writing Life
Judy Reeves
New World Library
14 Pamaron Way, Novato, CA 94949
ISBN: 1577311000 $15.95 218 pgs
Whether you are a novice writer or an experienced author, a blocked writer or one whose words
are flowing, there is something in this book for you. The structure Reeves employs is useful: for
each day of the year there is a writing "prompt" to jump-start one's writing ("Write about
someone who sinned." "You are in a motel room " "This is what she said."). For each of the
twelve months, there is a series of essays about scores of topics, including tools for writing
practice, writing from the senses, dancing with your shadows, telling secrets, the writing life,
honoring yourself as a writer, imagination, and much, much more. And Reeves has packed the
book full of inspiring quotes from famous writers, unusual facts about authors, and tactics to use
to keep on writing and for improving one's craft.
Whether you use this book on a daily basis or as a periodic stepping-off point, there will be
something in it to inspire and motivate. I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to try new ideas
and to grow as a writer.
Lori L. Lake
Reviewer
Magdalena's Bookshelf
Blueback
Tim Winton
Andrew Davidson, illustrator
ISBN: 0330361627 A$22.00
Abel Jackson lives with his mother Dora by the sea at Longboat Bay where they live a hand to
mouth but idyllic life, where they dive for abalone. For Abel, every day is special, as he explores
the ever-changing sea, and the surrounding bush in which he lives. He feels lucky, and even
luckier when he meets and befriends a large, old groper fish that he names Blueback. But Abel
has to go away to school, and after Mad Macka, another friend of Blueback's, dies, a mean and
greedy fisherman named Costello, a "reef stripper", takes over and begins taking "everything he
sees." Abel and Dora do what they can to put a stop to Costello, but time moves forward and
things change.
Blueback is a story about love, loss, growing up, and above all, living with respect for our
beautiful and natural environment. Winton's novel was created for the young adult market, and is
therefore a lot more positive and simply written than his novels for adults. It is perfectly suitable
for a good readers as young as six (my six year old read it in one afternoon and loved it), but will
also appeal to teenagers and even adults. It is important that books for young adults present a
positive picture, and this does with its strong ecological message and clean, easy to understand
characterisations. It is also important that the story isn't too scary or riddled with things which
are disturbing, and I imagine that toeing the line between clarity and youth friendlness, while still
creating a complex and powerful story is a difficult undertaking. Winton does it easily though,
and Blueback is also a tender and lovely story which adults will enjoy reading quickly. The subtle
linking between the old and clever Blueback and Abel's lost/dead father adds a layer of depth to
the story, as does Abel's own search for meaning in his life as he grows up without his father or
other father figures, and as his perception of his mother and the world in which he grew up
changes.
Although the characters are simpler than, say, those of The Riders, or Dirt Music, they are still
realistic, and children and adults will warm to the good hearted Abel, and his aging but
independent and strong mother. Blueback is also a character to be noted, and Winton's writing is
always, beautiful and full of detail and the rich observations which makes his settings come to
life:
He felt like a speck, like a bubble on the sea left by a braking wave, here for a moment and then
gone. He pulled into tiny sheltered coves and swam with his mother in turquoise water beneath
streaky cliffs and trees loud with birds. Some days he sped close in to long sugary beaches. He
stayed just behind the breakers and was showered with their spray and saw the great, strange land
through the wobbly glass of the waves. He saw the sun melting like butter on white dunes.
Winton called this novel a contemporary fable, and there is certainly a clear and obvious moral
with a positive answer to the question of how can we live in the modern world with our morality
and respect for the environment intact. This is a lovely, and easy to read novel which will appeal
to children of all ages, as well as adults.
The Master
Colm Toibin
Picador
ISBN 0330364669 $A 30.00
It is January 1895, and Henry James is about to attend the performance of his play Guy Domville.
Although most of James' friends and colleagues are at the play and compliment it, James arrives
in time to present himself to boos and catcalls and feels the play to be a complete and very public
failure, contrasting sharply with the very successful opening night of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal
Husband, which James attended before returning to the final curtain of his own play. In Toibin's
novel, this is a pivotal moment for James - a moment when his focus on fiction is sharpened, and
when, perhaps, he begins a further shut down of his personal emotions.
Although the extensive research which Toibin has done on James' life is obvious, as is his own
deep knowledge of this era due in part to other books he has written on historical figures such as
Lady Gregory and Oscar Wilde, Toibin has created his own character - a fiction James with
fictional emotions. The play between fact and fiction is a fascinating one, especially for fans of
James' work, and yields a very subtle story. Each chapter is built around one of James' "real"
fictions, exploring the way he was inspired by his "real life" situations to create his work. The
fictional scenes are informed by bits taken from letters and journals of James' and his friends and
family as well as the finished work of James, so there is a very complex, Escher-like tension
between art and life which is very much the focus of The Master.
Toibin's James remains almost as enigmatic as the real one, but we do begin to understand some
of what drives him - his pain, his hesitation, his desire, and its impact on the finished work. This is
so much more than a biography that the comparison is hardly even relevant. Although readers of
The Master can't help comparing this fictional James against the figure who is so well known and
written about, the focus of the novel isn't James the real writer. Instead the reader moves between
life and longing and its realisation in fiction. James' the fictional character holds himself back time
and again, allowing himself the desire but not the consummation. He is drawn to his cousin
Minnie Temple's great inner intelligence, to the simpatico he finds in the lonely writer Constance
Fenimore Woolson, to the beauty and youthful energy of the sculptor Henrik Anderson, but in all
instances, Toibin pushes James back to his pen rather than forward towards life.
The eleven chapters of the novel move between 1895 and 1899, and pivot around James's major
works produced during that period, The Turn of the Screw and Wings of the Dove. The reader
experiences how James moves painfully in the real world of gossip and passion (where quite a few
famous names are dropped) and then turns his family and friends into art - "remembered and
captured and held." (359). Everything we learn about James, from his own unmet longings, to his
failure to really give love and support to his friends and family who call upon him, is turned into
the permanent beauty of his writings:
He had his reasons for choosing to remain alone; his imagination, however, had stretched merely
as far as his fears and not beyond. He had exerted control; what he had done made him shudder."
(256)
As James moves between his social set in Ireland, London, his country home in Rye, and Venice,
the settings and characters other than James are merely a backdrop for the fiction they are to
become, although there is quite a strong amount of setting from the US Civil War to Oscar
Wilde s imprisonment, albeit the cursory life which occurs without James personal involvement.
The five years are enriched by letters and memories of James' well known family, and above all,
of the guilt which he feels towards those he has failed to support, from his own faked illness
which kept him from war and away from his father's call to action, his brother, who demands that
the younger James concentrate his work on American characters and subjects rather than
European ones, to his dying sister, or suicidal friend. All become the charge behind his work,
converted in silent and satisfying sessions with a transcriber: "The feeling of power was new to
him. This raid on his own memories, this parading of an object so close to him, so deeply part of
his own personal store that no one might ever know where this moment in his story came from,
made him believe that he had done something daring and original." (195)
Readers who are fans of James will gain a new perspective of James' possible interior world, and
a greater understanding for why he felt he could not spend himself in living an active life, and the
relationship between interior and exterior is one of the richer themes of The Master. Toibin's
Henry James is a rich enough character however, to exist without the "original" James. He is as
believable as he is lonely in his "undisturbed life" where he "neither gave offence nor took it
easily." (249) When seen in the context of the artistic impact of James' work, we understand that
his sacrifices were small. This is a tightly written, beautifully characterised novel - an enjoyable
and thoughtful look at the artistic process of a master.
Magdalena Ball
http://www.compulsivereader.com/html
Nancy's Bookshelf
Re-entry of Evil
Richard Lee
SPX Publishing Group
ISBN 0958245010 $TBA 375 pages
When the blood spills, souls are taken. In fewer words than that, this book will hook you.
Brimming with a complex plotline, vivid imagery, and gut-wrenching suspense, Re-entry of Evil
will no doubt knock you for a loop. Deeming himself as a master of horror, Richard Lee proves
he knows how to twist both your insides and your mind.
This talented author has put together a delicious array of darkness, combining time travel, altars,
daggers made from blood, a book that may save or end your life and souls seeking revenge. Add
to that intriguing characters, demons, solid dialogue and sinister atmosphere, and you have a
fantastic novel that will get you blood pumping and your heart racing. While it is indeed a work of
horror, it's also a mix of gothic, sci-fi, and true macabre scenarios; unlike anything I've ever read
before.
I found myself lost in the mind of Peter Clement, owner of an antique shop left to him by his
father. There are secrets that lie in the shop, and once he learns of it, everything changes. Almost
overnight, the character is thrust into a mad, dark world, one that involves a dagger that sucks in
both people and blood like a portal. He finds a book, a kind of "devil's wish book", one created
by the devil himself with intent to prey on the greed of man, and Peter must learn how to use its
content wisely and still remain alive.
We ourselves enter new realms where we learn about places like Area City, Opera Sands, and
Earth 2, and meet figures such as the elusive Meph-Man, No Neck, and the tortured souls of
those Peter has killed and collected. When the devil wrote the book, he had hoped there would be
one who could decipher the real purpose of the book, someone to get in deep, and perhaps bring
him right into their world. Is Peter the one he can count on, or is there something else in store for
him?
It's a gripping book, truly an art of page-turning situations and an incredible use of imagination.
From the beginning you are cast along on a journey that sucks in your mind, body, and soul until
the climatic yet satisfying ending. Richard Lee can count himself as a writer with substance, style,
and a solid future in horror and the macabre. I look forward to reading any and all of his future
works, hoping to be terrified, surprised, and as thoroughly intrigued, as Re-entry of Evil was for
me.
Anathema
David E. Greske
Publish America
ISBN 1413703569 $19.95 215 pages
Anathema is sure to disturb you with its visual depictions and tight suspense. To say it bothered
me after I put it down would be putting it mildly. For a first time novel, this is some heavy-duty
material!
If you are looking to read something eerie, haunting, twisted and shocking, then I suggest picking
this book up. It takes a lot to bother me, but some of the images conjured up by this author did
just that. I will be interested to see what else he has lurking inside his imagination.
Jim Anderson is a devoted husband and father, desperately wanting to make things right in his
marriage and move somewhere new to start over. Enter the small town of Prairie Rest and a host
of strange characters, and you have the beginnings of a gripping story line. Years ago an
unexplained evil plagued folks in the town and a certain chosen few tried to wrong the rights.
However, the evil has returned in full force and set its sights on the unsuspecting family. The town
questions why the house was even up for sale to begin with and what inspired Jim to buy it
without learning more of its history. Regardless of the reasons, it is much too late and those who
reside in the home are already infected.
Sightings of children by the lake, voices, and a strange presence are felt and seen by the Anderson
family. Corpses walk, talk, and spread their scent of death to the ones who have experienced it
before, including the reverend. Within the trees, the walls, and their very minds the evil is growing
and only a few will actually make it out alive. Is the forest moving closer to the house, or is that
just an illusion?
Anathema gets pretty intense and will easily keep your attention. The characters are all quite
interesting and David E. Greske does a superb job at handling the transitions and direction
changes of the storyline, not always an easy job! He writes description well, allowing the reader to
get a true picture in their mind. His world of darkness is not quite where I'm sure all are
comfortable, but that is truly a compliment. There are elements of gothic, erotic horror, and down
right disturbing scenes. Dialogue works well and the main character Jim reacts in a realistic way,
his thoughts seem very in tune with how a person would normally respond to the odd goings on
and eerie surroundings.
As I've said, it will stay with you after you've finished. The book is a gritty insight at how a town
copes with something they don't know how to explain. I look forward to the next book by the
author, I think he has something here and has found a niche in this multi-level genre.
Only a Game
Sherry L. Gibson
Publish America
ISBN 1591298431 $19.95 196 pages
Only a Game is an emotionally charged ride through a dysfunctional family and the secrets they
possess. From the very first paragraph I was able to experience all the pain and torture the family
had been subjected to. It is quite clear there are demons and angels along for the ride, but who are
the pawns and who are the leaders? This is a must read and will really get deep into your
head!
Playing games, mind games, power trips, obsession, finding control, these are just some of the
themes and issues featured in this suspense-ridden novel. You are taken on a roller coaster ride of
what is real and what is not. Diane is a mother wracked with voices, memories, and a past that she
begs to forget. The pain she endures is something she endures alone. With every outburst and cry
for help, she is met with her family questioning her own sanity. Is she the one going crazy or are
there darker forces making her think she is? With her husband away at sea constantly, providing
their only means of financial support, she battles each day alone with a will that tests her faith and
mocks her progress.
Her son, Alan, a boy ready to become a man if his mother would just give him some space,
doesn't seem to be himself. Years of altered behaviors, changes in character, and events he barely
remembers, for him everything is a nightmare, or at least that is how it seems. Looking into the
mirror, the image reflected is not one he's sure he recognizes. Concerned for his mother's welfare
he tries to take charge of the situation, anything to take the focus away from the images he keeps
seeing.
What the author has done here is get deep into the headspace of characters that are on the edge,
threatening to delve into a state they fear and try to fight. The dialogue is raw, emotions are
powerful, and twists run plenty in each chapter. There is such a rush of real inner dialogue, it
sweeps you up and doesn't let go until you are at the conclusion. Sherry L. Gibson gives you an
in your face story with a plotline that moves at a speed of light pace. She challenges your own
ability to handle a situation and makes you question it every step of the way.
I was physically and mentally exhausted by the time I finished the book. This is a clear picture of
how dysfunction is handled in families, the way time passes yet nothing changes. These people
move along in their lives, consumed by their thoughts, always questioning other's behavior, yet
not taking responsibility for themselves. The characters will stay on your mind long after you've
finished, and perhaps makes you think about your own inner strengths, and the demons you may
battle inside. Only a Game is more than just a novel, it is an inside glimpse into a personal
hell.
That's Another Cup of Coffee
Sara Tenaci
Trafford Publishing
ISBN 1553958896 $21.93 352 pp.
If you are looking for a well written memoir book, something that is sure to make you feel
compassion, empathy, and give you the will to pick yourself up and try again, then That's Another
Cup of Coffee is a book for you.
Sara Tenaci is the author and this is her story, a story of one woman's inspirational journey of
courage and hope. We venture into her world, a place in constant swing between both light and
dark. Where there is an obstacle, she finds a way to go around it, sometimes the hard way, and
other times an easier path. Her story is one that takes an amazing amount of inner power and
strength as well as the gifted ability to see a positive side to an otherwise dismal situation. Time
and again she proves her worth, bravery, and determination.
While enchanting and thought provoking, it is also real and full of sentiment. We are invited along
with her to relive her experiences, many very painful, but some enough to make you laugh out
loud and applaud. In my opinion, a big reason she was able to be a survivor and never feel truly
alone, was the fact she was brought up in a loving family who taught her loyalty, trust, and
commitment. Following the days of meeting her husband, the wedding, giving birth to her
children, and family gatherings, it also touches on the more difficult battles she faces in her life.
We all make some sort of a plan for our lives, but often it takes us by the hand and leads us in a
different direction.
It's hard to not get caught up in her story and feel the anger, resentment, and depression; but we
also share in the warm and tender moments. Sara Tenaci speaks from a very deep place, a place
she knows all too well. Many of us would give up after being in even half of her situations, but
she comes out the victor, realizing she is worth every minute of her life, and does not allow others
to break her spirit. Within these pages you can celebrate, cry, and reminisce. It is apparent she
continues to strive for happiness for not only her family, but for herself as well.
I believe many readers will find a way to connect with the author, having been through a similar
situation or know of someone who has. These are honest depictions of one's life as seen through
her very own eyes. And what a story she has to tell.
Nancy Jackson, Reviewer
http://www.nancyajackson.com
Pogo's Bookshelf
Robert Shoop
Down to the Wire:The Lives of Triple Crown Champions
Russell Dean & Company
Everson, Washington 98247
http://www.rdandco.com
1891954355 $16.95 USD / $21.95 CAN 355 pp.
On May 7, 1977, Eddie Arcaro noted to the Great Mouth Champion, Howard Cossell, that the
horse looked like a wash-out as the bars of My Old Kentucky Home wafted over the lush green of
Churchill Downs. In the field, there were a string of illustrious jockeys coming to the post: Jorge
Velasquez on Sanhedrin; Willy Shoemaker on GettheAxe, Angel Cordero on FortheMoment and
Darrel McHarque on RunDustyRun. Jean Cruguet was amidst them on undefeated Seattle Slew,
the 17,500 dollar horse in the run for the roses, all 554 of them, mounted on a backing of green
satin with the Commonwealth Crown. Roses that represent the struggle and heart needed to
achieve the winners circle, so precious that after the race, owners have them freeze-dried to
preserve them, while others get them dipped in silver to accompany the prize cup-- the only solid
gold sports trophy.
History records Seattle Slew as a Triple Crown winner, undefeated through the Derby, Preakness
and Belmont. Yet, the world remembers Secretariat, the horse with the enormous heart.
Whether you watch the races to see the hat parade, or take a dive in the infield mud and enjoy a
weekend of partying; the Triple Crown begins with the Kentucky Derby, coined the "run for the
roses" by Bill Conin in 1925. The original roses cam in pink and white offered to Ben Brush in
1896; it wasn't until 1904, the red rose became official. Traditions accumulate layer on layer
through decades of runnings, but still unaltered is the necessity of taking this crown before
entering the Preakness, before moving onto the Belmont.
Down to the Wire is a handy synopsis of the eleven horses that survived the test by fire: Sir
Barton with John Loftus (1919); Gallant Fox with Earle Sande (1930); Omaha with William
Saunders (1935); War Admiral with Cas Kurtsinger (1937); Whirlaway with Eddie Arcaro
(1941); Count Fleet with John Longdon (1943); Assault with Warren Miehrtens (1946) ; Citation
with Eddie Arcaro (1948); Secretariat with Ron Turcotte (1973); Seattle Slew with Jean Curguet
(1977); Affirmed with Steve Cauthen (1978).
With two wins at the Crown, Eddie Arcaro knew the signs for a horse in trouble that year when
Seattle Slew took his place in history. It's not just the horses, but the jockeys and trainers behind
them that makes horse-racing so fascinating. In 2003, the world stood on its ear while Funny Cide
took the lead. A ramble to the rose, a prance through the Preakness, but a bump from the Triple
Crown as it lost at the Belmont. Fate is fickle and your bet is as good as mine when it comes
down to the wire.
Robert Shoop gives the scoop on the horses' profiles, tracking their records and annotating their
acheivements. For anyone interested in horse-racing, it is a desirable reference book, filled with
quotes, citations and statistics with added appendexes, bibliography and index. Down to the Wire
is not the local sports column, lacking the humor and quick wit often found on the track reports;
but a concise historical record of the races compiling the Triple Crown: Kentucky Derby,
Preakness and Belmont. The foreward is written by Ron Turcotte with an introduction by Jean
Cruguet commending the efforts of the author to compile a record of the eleven horses and their
jockeys. The text is heavily documented, reflecting careful research. A disappontment is that the
photos are in black and white, rather than color.
Divided into three sections, it introduces the background of the races and the origin of the Triple
Crown with the aristocratic roots traced back to the Derby at Epsom Downs whence Churchill
Downs takes its name and prestige. The main body of the book contains the eleven profiles of the
horses, rich in detail and anecdotes. We meet the owners, trainers and jockeys as they prepare
their mounts to race. We learn about the stiffness of the competition, the foibles of the horses and
their dispositions. Shoop follows the developments of the horse's career chronologically,
highlighting the opposition and giving insights to the physical conditions, training and track
conditions, helping the reader to appreciate the amazing stamina for achieving the trophies. A race
last barely minutes, but the training takes patient care and insight on a horse's temperament. When
a race goes by in a blick, it's difficult to think of all the variables that are involved. Sir Barton had
such soft hooves that a farrier had to layer piano felt between hoof and shoe. In one race he lost
all four and had a notorious reputation for being a distemperate horse. Cliff's Edge finished the
Derby in 2004 with two shoes gone, while Imperialism threw one before entering the gate at the
Preakness. Having the horse is one thing, but keeping the shoes on, is another.
Racing has its strange success stories: Ron Turcotte, a French Canadian from Quebec, worked as
a lumberjack with draft horses, but by eighteen he'd moved in with his brother, Camille in
Toronto. Just as Magaret Atwood has memories of her father collecting caterpillar specimens
during the War, Turcotte has his: collecting bait for fishermen by picking nightcrawlers off a golf
course to earn survival money. Unemployment drives folks to desperate occupations. In 1960,
Turcotte saw a running of the Kentucky Derby on his landlord's television. "During the race his
landlord suggested, "Why don't you become a jockey?" (p219)
and Turcotte replied "What's a jockey?"
When he met up with Secretariat, I suppose he found out what it meant to stay in the saddle and
go down to the wire. In the Garden State Stakes, he was atop of Secretariat with Impecunious on
the outside. When he got round to the quarter pole, he met up with Angle Light ridden by his
brother Rudy, whom he greeted casually and then just as casually departed, leaving him in the
dust.
Twenty-two lengths ahead the nearest lagging horse before the wire at Belmont, Turcotte
admonished Secretariat, "Just don't fall down now." Secretariat won the Belmont by thrity-one
lengths in 2:24, making both time and length record. Turcotte raced until July 13, 1978 when his
horse, Flag of Leyte Gulf went down. Turcotte was paralyzed from his waist down and is
wheelchair bound. We forget the heroes of the past while we look ahead to the next.
Shoop reminds us of the faces, names and voices we've heard since childhood, coming over the
radio or flickering across the television...all the greats, acknowledging Funny Cide who failed to
make the cut. But this year, cross the fingers, sit on them, because the whole world is waiting to
have one very walloping Smarty Party on a Philadelphia Flyer.
When it happens, well, I guess, Mr. Shoop will have to re-write an expanded, enlarged, second
edition with more personal anecdotes for the homely folks humming along to My Old Kentucky
Home-- because what in the heck do they sing over in Philadephia? The Get Smart theme
song?
Valerie C J McGee
Insight
iUniverse
Newford CT
http://www.iuniverse.com
0595308872 ppbk
059566217X cloth $15.95 226 pp.
Ever since her mother was killed in a car accident, Sam has nightmares not the type brushed
away when you confront yourself in the bathroom morning mirror. Different, surreal, like taking
part in an alternate world, mirroring another's life. So real, Sam sees them in technicolor, knows
the people's names and voices as well as her own neighbor's, except one thing Sam is blind.
Blind from the car accident, depriving her of her mother and isolating her with her only
confidente, her brother Tim.
Suffering nightmares so intensely, Sam falls into a coma and is hospitalized. Waking up is no easy
thing with IV's plugged in. A psychiatrist demands that she be interned, restrained as a violent,
delusional patient. Relating to reality can be tough, but how to communicate the dreams that
constantly flow within us? How to alert the proper authorities to the lurking dangers beneath the
surface. Convinced of a murder in her nightmare, Smanatha rebels against the hospital authorities
only to be subdued by drugs. Her father, a retired police investigator, encouraged by her brother,
removes her against the doctor's orders.
At home, confronting paternal skepticism regarding her out-of-body experiences, Samantha jumps
a plane to land in New York City for some amateur sleuthing. Her dog, Dexter, provides
companionship as she embarks on adventure.
Although Valerie McGee's writing is fluid and fast-paced, revision is desired. The plot, albeit
complex, becomes contrived as everything works out with simplified solutions. Samntha, a
stranger to New York, conveniently arrives on the doorstep of the apartment building where she
dreamt of her dream-mate's murder, tossed over the balcony by a man she can clearly identify
although blind. This is tough to do, even when a seeing person, gets attacked on the street. One
face in a line up melts into another, as cops know well; line-up identifications are not reliable. The
two women look so similar, their identities are mistaken, not by strangers, but by the
lover-turned-murderer. It begs for explanation and the reader, instantly inserts: identical
twins.
Although a mystery, there is none to leave the reader puzzled. The solution is transparent from
the beginning. Twins are known to have psychic communications or present baffling mirror
images to the world. Legend has that Siamese twins can not live without each other if one dies;
so does the other.
Were she only blind, having second sight as a twin, it would be acceptable-- familiar as old wives'
tales; but she navigates a major city, managing an escape from an experienced member of the mob
easily through the New York metro, stretches credibility. Even when disoriented, her
disorientation brings her into an advantageous position. The stage becomes cluttered with magic
hat acts as she eludes death while sleuthing a known mafioso. The book closes on a rooftop
where Aunt Alexandra morphs into Jujitsu Turtle knocking the socks off a hit man.
Other inconsistencies are jarring. Her mother, Adrienne, was an identical twin to her Aunt
Alexandra who never married. Beautiful, elegant and rich, she is the sole proprietor of a woman's
slick. She lives a life of the ultra-sophisticated as the owner and producer of a top-rack, better
than a Vogue or Ebony rag. Her relationship with Samantha was iced the day of Adrienne's
accident. Yet she is well-informed about the dreams that occurred before her sister's death. Twins
hold secrets which no one can guess. The details of Samantha's birth are mysterious. Her brother,
Tim, gets sent away just before she's born. Her father, presumably sleeping in the same bed as
Adrienne, never notices that she's maintaining a firm basketball under the nightgown.
Adrienne and Alexandra spend a weekend in Alexandra's boss's cottage. The intrigue gets
muddled as the author twists the plot to fit her plans. Alexandra gets raped, instead of Adrienne,
resulting in pregnancy. However, eight months is a very long time to dupe anyone, and nine
doubly so by two. There are few men in this world who are so blind not to note a basketball in
bed with them.
Inconsistencies include character relationships. Summer after summer, Brian gets shipped to
spend time with Tim at his "adopted" parents place. Samantha does not recognize his voice,
although he's constantly on the phone in consultation with her brother, Tim. Strange? As a kid, I
knew the houses where I dropped the morning newspapers. Old Lady Theyer was always hiding
behind her curtains, and the moment the paper landed with a plop, the porch-light switched on,
the door cracked open and she snatched it as I sauntered off. If it wasn't there at five, then she
called our house. My mother knew her voice instinctively. Who else could it be? We know people
not only by sight, but habit, voice and presence. The bizarre relationships jarr our intuition: it's
impossible for a baby sister not to know her brother's best friend, particularly if he was a regular
summer visitor.
Errors occur in the flow of narration, resulting in chuckles. Scenes and characters transfer places
quickly, resulting in problems with antecedents. Inadvertantly, Dexter, the dog, has sex with
Samantha as a result of sloppy editing. The spectator guffaws heartily and goes onto the next
page. Brian is offended by blatant sex, but the author happily provides pages of it that Brian
would recommend to skip. The scenes are repetitive, not adding much to character development
as Samantha's vagina twitches with desire. The writing is never boring, but lacks restraint.
Obviously, McGee writes easily with entertaining skill even when it isn't meant. Easily, pages
could have been cut, including the emotional dialogue regarding the ultimate sacrifice of virginity
on the smoothworn altar of sex. Distracting, it does little to force the novel to its end as the
characters become more animated as characters in a cartoon strip. Melodramatic dialogue mix
with scenes bordering on old Jackie Chan movies. Action, yes it moves quickly, twisitng and
turning; but like Hollywood celluloid, under heat, it melts, becoming warped. The author wants to
pull strings as the master of it all, leaning over the puppet stall.
Without a doubt, McGee can write, create vivid characters and drama; but she needs restraint to
make it more suspenseful and thrilling. For quick, enjoyable reading, this is a good book to carry
in the bag on the metro or keep by the bed.
Pogo
Reviewer
Riggs' Bookshelf
Identity Theory: A Review of Rebecca Pawel's Law of Return
Rebecca Pawel
Soho Press
ISBN 1569473439 $24.99
Rebecca Pawel's first novel, Death of A Nationalist, introduced us to a character that is surely one
of the most original literary personages to appear in the mystery novel in a long time. Ms. Pawel's
second novel, Law of Return, shows that this author is not only a shining star in the relatively
difficult genre of the historical mystery. She is one of the very rare writers who can work within
the narrow confines of genre expectations to produce a kind of art that is alliterative, ironic, and
constitutes the kind of political writing that transcends ideology.
Law of Return announces itself on the front cover as a "Carlos Tejada Alonso y Leon
Investigation set in Spain". Tejada, a member of the Guardia, is not above cruelty, is certainly no
Democrat, and is the precise opposite of the type of sympathetic, left leaning intellectual that
those of us raised on Orwell and Hemingway associate with Spain, the Franco period, or that
internal imago that continues to fascinate, the Resistance. Yet, we are won over by his
character-or rather, by the evolution of his character.
As the story unfolds, we begin to learn exactly how many architectural layers of meaning, plot,
and political intrigue are involved in a Tejada investigation. With winning, and hard won,
integrity, Tejada casually oppresses, makes exceptions to his own rules, and violates every one of
his ideals the important ones. The plot concerns murder, a case of mistaken identity, the Odyssey,
classical scholarship, and love-love both conventional and forbidden. Tejada head may be turned
to the right, but his heart belongs to a woman of the left. She, of course, is a mirror image, of this
curious right-left opposition.
There are no conversions here. Tejada is still Tejada at the end. The magic of Pawel's talent is that
she understands identity as well as her policeman. In Pawel's "investigations", the characters
evolve and emerge. As we experience them and as the author layers them with detail, with setting,
and with idiosyncrasies, these characters become, and in that becoming defy any quick labels the
reader might have applied to them. With each turn of the "Investigation", Tejada finds that the
price of full knowledge is complexity, a touch of hypocrisy and concealment, a trade of purity for
a slight taint.
Any good policeman knows that an investigation takes one deep into the heart and soul of what
might have appeared at first to be simple wrong doing, done by "bad" people. As Tejada delves
deeper into the "evidence", Pawel's gifts for scene, for characterization, and for silence allow us,
as readers, to experience the unfolding of a fascinating personality, a problematic and important
situation, and a complicated political history. On a completely different level, we are aware of
being in the presence of a unique narrative voice, and although unlike Charles Dickens in style,
Pawel inserts her narrator into our consciousness, just as effectively. Her brilliance is that the
reader can maintain a kind of double awareness of the narrator's approach to the world, and at the
same time be engrossed in the events of the story.
Finally, The Law of Return is a serious and subtle work. To call this book an "investigation" is not
a marketing ploy- I think what Pawel and /or her publisher have done, consciously or not, is to
name a new genre. When Graham Greene wanted to create a complex story of motive in the
context of a well-known form, he called the result an "entertainment." Pawel's "investigations"
may be destined to occupy a similar territory, a place that looks familiar, yet is as strange and
original as the deepest secrets of our minds and hearts. And this is the place all writers want to
be-the territory where the commonplace speaks for the universal.
Public librarians are inundated with mysteries, historical novels, and genre pieces. Almost none of
these last more than a season, and depend almost completely on their plots-no one ever reads
them twice. This little book is accessible, important, and has the capacity to be enduring. Tejada is
young, a sequel might be forthcoming-and his creator has mastered the mystery genius' great
talent of allowing, in each episode or work, another quality of identity to emerge. Tejada, a young
man in this book, has years ahead of him to acquire yet more subtlety and depth.
Michel Houellebecq, the controversial French author of Platform, notes that in every Sherlock
Holmes episode, a certain number of expected characteristics appear, along with something
unexpected. Conan Doyle's Holmes thus manages to be both the same and different-or to remain
fixed, yet develop. Tejada is not old enough to be revealed-but if the author chooses to write
another Tejada investigation, we can be sure that he will grow in surprising and delightful
ways.
As history, philosophy, mystery, politics, and story, this book is worthwhile for the librarian, for
the teacher, and an essential for anyone interested in the way art deals with politics. The final
mystery is that for all the political material in this novel, there is not one single hint of the author's
political point of view. Is this not an achievement in our time, when shouting too often replaces
debate, and war stands in for policy?
The Quiet American
Graham Greene
Penguin Books
ISBN# 0140017925 $3.95
The Most catholic of Catholics: The Quiet American in the Time of the Passion If the Pope
actually said, after viewing Mel Gibson's new movie, "It is as it was", then few critical comments
have been so prophetic and so trend setting. Nearly all of the critical comments, and there have
been nearly as many of these as there have been admission tickets sold, have been concerned with
arguing what was, and whether what "is" depicted in the movie conforms to the real "was". For a
certain segment of the faithful, the Pope is uniquely positioned to judge the matter, being in a
certain privileged relationship to reality. For the rest of us, however, there remains only the
persistent feeling that somehow, the debate has been misplaced, and a rich vocabulary of religious
theme and symbol reduced to a question of an endless debate on verisimilitude.
Literature has its origins in religion, much of its meaning in religious symbols of transformation,
and takes most of its stories from one sacred text or another, possibly because the first texts that
are taught to most people are religious ones. Teaching the Bible , or any other sacred text, as
literature, is to teach a set of stories that appear in other contexts, are said and sung in other
words, in many disguises and to many different purposes. Not all of these would be considered
holy, sanctified, or in any way consistent with any-and, I must emphasize any- given orthodoxy. In
Steinbeck, in Cormac McCarthy, in James Joyce, the influence of religion pervades even the
cadences of the individual sentences, and heresy is as often the outcome of a particular religious
theme as is piety. Meaning is not a blunt instrument, and the work appears not as the reality, but a
reality, a version, the story of a Son of Man , a misunderstood prostitute. Mr. Gibson's Passion,
rendered as cinematic work of art, might have been better marketed as a documentary. Such
questions as "Was it the Jews who killed Jesus, or was it the Romans, or perhaps a kind of 80/20
split?" matter if the work is intended and taken to be some sort of history and someone or some
body of knowledge can be consulted, like the Oracle at Delphi, for the answer.
This kind of thinking leads to poor theology, but it is the death to any real understanding or
appreciation of the ongoing relationship between literature and religion. Writers of fiction write
you guessed it- fiction, which is to say that they tell the truth but with slant, so that the familiar ,
the ritual , and the acceptable are challenged , second-guessed, undermined. The result may be a
new wave of religious feeling, or the result may be widespread heresy, or more likely, the result
will be that a few readers are enthralled. The result seldom is an accurate portrayal of history, and
in modern literature (literature since the Morality Play) is never scripture. The same sort of
fallacious thinking can be found in books of fiction that for some reason or another, seem to catch
the spirit of the times, and a writer who takes on both politics and religion risks becoming
trivialized from two directions. Graham Greene's The Quiet American is just such a work , and it
undermines and disavows two equally tempting kinds of fundamentalist thinking, by doing what
fiction does-making the world, rather than reporting or predicting it.
In 1955, as in other eras, fiction was justified on the grounds that somehow, authors routinely see
unfortunate outcomes of historical events, tendencies and struggles before other people- in other
words, fiction is somehow superior to other forms of discourse- is in fact, a kind of scripture of
history. Want to know the truth about war? Read Norman Mailer. Drugs? Hunter Thompson or
Tom Wolfe. The American future in Vietnam? Graham Greene- and so forth. The logical extreme
of this "worth by virtue of accuracy' school of critical evaluation is ultimately, nonfiction, or some
sort of higher fiction, similar to that of another school of literary theory popular in the fifties.
Socialist realism, the official aesthetic credo of the Soviet Union, called for adherence not to
history, but to the spirit of history in spite of the details. The Lenin Prize became a sure marker of
the ridiculous, awarded as often for the fatuous combination of virtuous disregard of the facts as
for more pedestrian accuracy. Spring on the Victory Collective Farm, for instance, is not much
read anymore.
Yet if, as Graham Greene does, a writer chooses to situate his work in a politically controversial
place and time, and to write characters who represent certain national tendencies , or are
purported to represent entire civilizations , typical "characters", or to comment on the morality of
policy- then that writer's work falls within the realm of the political, and not simply some universal
aesthetic doctrine. Fiction, as more than one scholar has noted, at least sets up certain rhetorical
agreements within its text, and in the context not only of its time, but also of the traditions it
draws from and to which it ultimately contributes.
Fowler, a journalist who has fallen in love with a Vietnamese taxi dancer, Phuong, is the first
person narrator of the novel, and as such determines how we are going to encounter the other
principle characters. Fowler is a journalist, and by implication a good one. From the beginning of
the story, we are to understand him as a man with a past, a history from the Old World, with all of
the jaded experience and entanglements that Europe connoted at the end of the French reign in
Indochina, at the moment just prior to America's invasion and all things considered, atrocious
attempt to do things better than they had been done before. Enter Alden Pyle, a young person of
idealism, who does not disclose his true work on behalf of a "Third Force" solution to the conflict
between colonized and colonizer. When Pyle falls in love with Phuong, he can offer marriage, the
ultimate prize to her and to her extended family. Fowler, with a wife at home whose religion will
not allow her a divorce and an employer who keeps trying to recall him, is firmly implanted in a
Fallen world. A domestic triangle , not exactly a new story, deepens in meaning and significance
as Pyle's misguided-and scriptural, based as it is literally on the work of a distant, father-like
college professor- plan for an American inspired "Third Force" turns bloody. The divorce is
granted too late for anything except irony. Fowler himself wants to stay in Vietnam, and like any
colonial, is threatened by the past and is afraid of the future. His desire to preserve things just as
they are, to continue to enjoy his position, his mistress, and his opium, is just as morally
reprehensible as Pyle's desire to impose a democratic miracle. Both ways ensure suffering, and
exhibit a greed that knows no reasonable boundaries. Phuong is caught in the middle-like Vietnam
itself, she is in some respects a marginalized backdrop of a character- as a survivor of invasion
must often be.
Without the religious themes, the novel as a whole and the characters would lack depth, and the
work would be of little interest today. There are no miraculous conversions, and every moral act
seems to have its treasonous double. The theme of three- the mystery of the Trinity-echoes
throughout, beginning with the narrator, Phuong, and Pyle. This obvious triad is only the
beginning, and a close reading of the novel will reveal many others, some of which are detectable
but never visible in the main action of the story, as in the narrator- narrator's wife-Phuong
triangle, where only two of the characters exist outside of letters sent from far away. The story
never deviates from its moral uncertainty. Pyle's actions may not result in good, but the narrator,
even at his most moral, never escapes the fallen state. The whole book integrates the confessional
into its very substance, and at the last the religious impulse results in a thoroughly Fowlerian
prayer:
"I thought of the first day, and Pyle sitting beside me at the Continental, with his eye on the
soda-fountain across the way. Everything had gone right with me since he died, but how I wished
there existed someone to whom I could say that I was sorry." Greene, page 188.
Has there ever been a more Catholic aspiration? Or a more catholic one?
Graham Greene's characters live their religion by its absence, and nothing is perfectible. Greene
s work exist somewhere between history and fantasy, between the sacred and the idealization of
human endeavors. It is profoundly spiritual, and illustrates how an artist-sly, sophisticated, well
read ,and jaded- makes a work of beauty out of heresy and horror. It is Art, despite its passions.
Gibson's Passion, by contrast, has neither Art nor passion- it is a cinematographic document,
requiring prescience beyond any artist-and the result is dogma. As a text for teachers of literature,
or of cinema, The Quiet American serves better to communicate the daily, worldly miracle of
religion in action and as art with much more reverence and humility than does Gibson's
extravaganza.
Michael Riggs
Reviewer
Roger's Bookshelf
Putting It On Paper: The Ground Rules for Creating Promotional Pieces that Sell Books
Dawn Josephson
Ground Rules Press
PO Box 8006, Hilton Head Island, SC 29938
ISBN 0974496618 $19.95 169 pages
Good Info for a Focused Audience
If you have written a book and published, you know that the writing and the publishing were the
easy parts. The most vital and most difficult task is promoting the book so that people will buy
it. Distributors are fond of saying to authors, "Our job is to get the book onto the shelf; your job
is to get it off."
In ten chapters, this author presents the how-to, step-by-step, of how to promote a book to
distributors, retailers, and consumers. She covers a lot of ground to help authors get the word
out. Plenty of examples to give authors guidance. Ground Rules In Action sections and Key
Points summaries at the end of the chapters added value
Josephson is founder and president of Cameo Publications, a firm that has published eight books,
including this one. Her experience includes writing over 1,000 articles. From my research on
amazon.com, this appears to be her first book. She uses herself heavily in her examples, to the
point that this reviewer felt the book was bordering on self-promotion. With her experience as a
publisher and a magazine editor, she has gained a body of knowledge that is valuable for authors.
The knowledge is conveyed effectively in this book. Authors would be well-advised to read and
heed the advice in these pages.
Preventing Identity Theft
Johnny May
Security Resources Unlimited, LLC
Post Office Box 7754, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302
ISBN 0972439501 $14.95 179 pages
Illuminating, Valuable Resource
Identity theft has gained an increasing amount of attention with the upsurge in incidents that cost
the victims thousands of dollars and untold hours to clean up the mess caused by the thieves. This
book, written by an independent security consultant specializing in identity theft, presents a wealth
of fascinating facts about the crime, its growth, how to prevent it, and what to do if you're a
victim.
One of the facts brought out in the book highlights the importance of prevention: the average
reporting time discovery of the crime is fourteen months after the damage has been done!
Consider this little book to be a wake-up call and heed the advice carefully.
The first 91 pages are devoted to an insightful and sometimes astonishing report of what
identity theft is all about. Readers will gain a broad education and learn about vulnerabilities
they'd never even dreamed of! With the problem clearly delineated, May spends the balance of the
book providing a comprehensive listing of resources, advice, and tools for prevention and
response.
This book should be read carefully by anyone with a credit card, social security number, driver's
license, checking account Get it? Everyone! Employers will benefit from the book, as well,
particularly if their employees or others (explained in the book) have access to personal
information about employees, customers, or even suppliers.
Highly recommended. Content and readability give this book a great return on your investment of
the purchase and reading time.
Manners That Sell: Adding the Polish that Builds Profits
Lydia Ramsey
Longfellow Press
PO Box 16545, Savannah, GA 31416
ISBN 096700120X $19.95 180 pages
Loaded with Valuable Advice, Highly Readable
For anyone working in a business environment where making the right impression is important,
this book is a worthwhile read. Sales professionals, managers and executives, and practically
anyone in contact with others in a "white collar" environment will benefit from this handbook. I
would particularly recommend this publication for graduates both college and high
school entering the job market. Following the advice in these pages will undoubtedly energize
your career advancement more quickly.
In twelve chapters, Ramsey, a 30-year business etiquette specialist with 30 years of speaking and
seminar experience, presents a wide range of essential topics. In spite of the fact that the author
has been in business for three decades, the material presented is current and relevant to today's
business environment.
Ramsey begins with a chapter on first impressions, then moves into how to introduce yourself and
others, engage in appropriate conversation, and dress properly in both professional and business
casual modes. The chapter on phone courtesy is comprehensive; I wish it could be read by
everyone I call or who calls me! The electronic etiquette section is fundamental now, but some
readers will pick up a couple of tips here.
Other chapters deal with business correspondence, office etiquette, gift-giving, dining, and doing
business internationally.
In each chapter, the topics are presented in bite-sized chunks that make for easy reading and
digestion of the volume of information provided. A blank page section at the conclusion of each
chapter gives the reader a convenient place to make notes about other learnings or things to
remember. While an index might have helped this book be even more useful, the table of contents
is arranged in a way that makes specific information easy to find. This is a book you'll keep for
future reference.
Roger E. Herman
Reviewer
Shaw's Bookshelf
Perdido Street Station
China Mieville MacMillan
25 Eccleston Place London England
ISBN 0333781732 $7.99 710 p.
I chose this book because I had heard from several sources that it was different and strange. I do
not normally read fantasy. Meiville's writing is deeply descriptive and his characters are bizarre
none more strange than the Remade. Some made monsters as punishment, some by choice. Here
he has created an entire new city of them that it totally unacceptable in its differences and, at the
same time, very believable.
"Then I see the huge scissoring mantis limb with which he greets me. Jack-Half-a-Prayer extends
his remade arm and beckons me."
This book is a must for lovers of Fantasy mixed with Horror but would appeal to all who like
Speculative Fiction. Meiville paints a picture of morphed humans some living in poverty but
others touched by artistic flair. New Crobuzon is a cosmopolitan city full of life ruled by its
authoritarian Parliament and brutal Militia for a long time. Meiville is an English writer who lives
and works in London. Anyone who enjoys Perdido should read the sequel The Scar'.
The Scar
China Mieville
MacMillan
25 Eccleston Place London
ISBN 0333781759 $18.95 600 p.
The Scar is China Meiville's follow-up to the popular Perdido Street Station. I liked Perdido so
much I began reading Scar as soon as I bought home. We now move from the vast city to the
oceans. Like its predecessor it is full of strange characters monsters, half human half machines
steam driven convicts and strange undersea societies. This is a story about pirates and a city on
the ocean made of captured ships.
"When Bellis looked out the window she saw the city of ships was moving. Hundreds of tug boats
milled around Armada like bees round a hive they had harnessed themselves to it and now their
chains were taut."
But nobody tells pirate tales like Meiville. I enjoy the fine, rich detail of his writing. It is like
eating smorgasbord; you eat too much of what you like and sometimes in greed to finish eat
something that tastes bad. It is hard not to sympathise with the characters who only want to get
on with their ordinary lives despite its hardships. Meiville is an English writer who lives and works
in London. Anyone who enjoys The Scar should read Perdido Street Station.
William Shaw
Reviewer
Sheila's Bookshelf
Writing Books for Kids and Teens
Marion Crook
Self-Counsel Press
1481 Charlotte Road, North Vancouver, BC V7J 1H1
www.self-counsel.com 1-800-663-3007
ISBN: 1551801914 $18.95 184 pp.
Although this is a book on writing for the younger set, the advice in this structured easy-to-read
writing guide applies across the genres. Marion covers the writer's attitude, basic ingredients of a
story (broken down into great detail to cover everything to do with character, setting and plot),
age groups, fiction and nonfiction.
As an editor, I often suggest that new writers of any genre read her section on the craft of writing
in which she covers narrator viewpoint, dialogue, transitions, establishing pace, style and writer's
block. These vital topics are discussed in a simple, instructional style with good examples,
allowing all writers to enjoy improved perspective and skills from Marion's advice.
Although Marion is a Canadian writer, the only sections not completely in sync with the US
writing scene are those on marketing and book promotion. They are still helpful as they cover
these issues from a new perspective and give some interesting ideas that your publisher might not
have considered.
On Writing
Stephen King
Hodder and Stoughton
338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH
ISBN: 0340769963 $17.00 238 pp.
It doesn't matter if you're a fan of Stephen King, or for that matter whether or not you like horror
writing. Although I happen to love the fact that King can twist everyday life around to give me a
good scare without much blood and gore, more than that I stand in awe of his ability to use words
and style to powerfully communicate with his readers. You don't just get a resume of King's
characters, you crawl inside their skins and feel what it is like to be them. You know their worst
fears, their yearnings, and yes, their nasty habits, too!
While most of On Writing discusses King's life, how he got to where he is and where he's going,
he also delves into the "how to" of writing in a straightforward way that I think will be really
helpful to writers exploring the craft. He gives excellent examples of rewording passages so that
they read in a more exciting, informative manner the old "show me, don't tell me" instructions
in a new light. His advice is more down to earth than you'll find anywhere else. And, after reading
On Writing, you might just decide to pick up a few King books to prove to yourself that he's
more than just the King of Horror.
The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch
Marsha Moyer
Random House
18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland
ISBN: 1863253440 $11.00 291 pp.
This modern-day love story offers incredibly good writing and a captivating storyline from a
first-time author.
First lines can make or break a novel, and Moyer created one sure to catch your attention: "I was
thirty-three years old when my husband walked out into the field one morning and never came
back and I went in one quick leap from wife to widow." How could you put down a novel with a
start like that?
It just gets better. Lucy Hatch was in a loveless, lifeless marriage with a foundation built on
halfhearted loyalty. When her husband dies suddenly, she is given a new lease on life. Content to
sidle back into the small town of her childhood after fourteen years as a farmer's wife and try to
fit in again, she finds that life grabs her with both hands and won't let go. Meeting a man she had
not seen since high school, she finds that her emotions had only been bottled up all those years
they certainly had not died with her husband. The townspeople all look askance at her as she
appears to be kicking her heels a bit high for a widow of five weeks, but reading this you would
have to agree that a man like Ash Farrell doesn't show up every day, and love waits for no
one.
This warm fuzzy story sets your heart pounding and your toe tapping as Lucy finds herself caught
up in a whirlwind love story that lets you know that good things do happen to good people. This
one should top your summer reading list.
Sheila Alexander
Reviewer
Sherry's Bookshelf
Living In A Glowing World, Poems For Every Season
Trisha Howell
Howell Canyon Press
5820 151st Avenue SE, Snohomish, WA 98290
www.howellcanyonpress.com 888-252-0411
ISBN 193121908X $9.95 66 pages
Living In A Glowing World offers forty three skillfully written poems rooted in the six seasons of
winter, thaw, spring, summer, harvest and autumn. Each distinctive original poem is chock-full of
the revealing splendor and elegance of perpetual metamorphosis. Ms. Howell cleverly weaves her
words with fascinating clarity to capture the wonder of how nature speaks to us.
The author reflects on the fetching mysteries of the seasons while gently but firmly connecting the
reader with the living and the breathing spirit. In one poem titled "What's Really Important", Ms.
Howell bears witness to her own inner soul. The reader will take pause for thought as to how to
become their own soul proprietor balancing all aspects of life. She continues to titillate the
imagination with offerings such as "Tanner Library" where she compares "wisdom like wax".
Living In A Glowing World will invigorate your mind, be a feast for your spirit, and will delight a
voracious appetite for creativity.
Beyond Trauma: Conversations on Traumatic Incident Reduction
Victor R. Volkman, editor
Loving Healing Press
5145 Pontiac Trail, Ann Arbor, MI 48105
www.lovinghealing.com 734-662-6864
ISBN 193269000X $21.95 286 pages
Beyond Trauma effectively provides proof that Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) works. The
straight shooting book provides conversations, interviews, and contributions from many
Metapsychology facilitators from around the world. They discuss TIR, how it works in relation to
life's darker moments, and clients share the stories of how TIR has changed lives.
The book is for professionals as well as all people who believe their future to be sealed by lurking
barricades at every turn. Beyond Trauma is also unique in how it can be read. Each chapter is
self-contained so you can determine what you would like to read first or next without needing
information from the previous chapter. There are twelve absorbing chapters covering trauma,
TIR, grief, crime, traumatology, terrorism, children, accidents, integrating therapies, phobias,
spirituality, and the philosophy of metapsychology.
TIR provides a way to look through the rear-view mirror of your life and to move forward with
healing acceptance so your future once again is within your own reach. Beyond Trauma outlines
the elements with clarity and insight as to how TIR will resolve wrestling with dilemmas,
understanding your demons, and climbing out of a whirlwind of emptiness. The book is up front
with the smack of a sledge hammer with the gritty realism that trauma invokes on all of us.
In Chapter 2, TIR and The Soldier's Experience, the use of language and violence isn't for
everyone but the glimpse behind the curtain is astounding and the outcome of the effects of TIR is
miraculous. Being in grief management for many years, I particularly found Chapter 7, Accident
Victims" impressive. The chapter deals with the death of a child due to an auto accident and the
loss of a spouse under very complex conditions. The results with TIR were more than
convincing.
If you are a professional and would like to find a "highly structured method for permanently
eliminating the negative effects of past traumas" then this is a must have book.
The Supreme Mystic: A Biographical Novel About the Early Years of Lord Krishna
Amal Bhakta
TurnKey Press
2525 West Anderson Lane, Suite 540, Austin, TX 78757
www.turnkeypress.com 512-407-8876
ISBN: 0974466816 $17.95 348 pages
The Supreme Mystic magically swooshes the reader up in tornado fashion as you experience and
discover the astonishing early years of Lord Krishna's life. This energetically paced easy to read
novel weaves you in and out of the Krishna's many miracles, battles, pranks, romances, and
inspirational feats as he tackles the terrains of the physical, mental and spiritual world. A few of
the book's intended audience includes readers interested in Indian and Eastern philosophy,
religious history, new age, and yoga. These readers will also find healthy doses of wonder,
fascination, humor, and inspiration.
The author's studious well-researched scriptural accounts of Lord Krishna's life are tightly
packaged in this suspenseful enlightening novel. It is evident that he has an impassioned
declaration for people to understand ancient India's Vedic scriptures. Many people are aware the
Krishna assumed the mantle of warrior but few people know of his playful dig in the ribs, loving
and romantic side. With analogies such as comparing an audience of young ladies as "captivated
cobras entranced by a snake charmer" keep the reader glued to the pages.
Amal Bhakta has upped the ante on how religious history can be related. He has provided a
spiritual booster shot with The Supreme Mystic.
Madman Chronicles: The Warrior
Thomas Paul Sternerhowe
Publish America
P.O. Box 151, Frederick, MD 21705
www.publishamerica.com (301) 695-1707
ISBN 1592867936 $27.95 703 pages
Immerse yourself in this voyeuristic world with a junket through a timeless labyrinth and an abyss
of imagination. The book is like an all day multi layered tasty jawbreaker very complex and
delightfully mystical down to the very last bit.
The story opens at the conclusion of the world conflict in the year 2010 with Wulf saying a
farewell to his loved and trusted friend, Hood. The farewell is an elaborate high ceremony at the
Stone Mountains behind the City of the Rock. Wulf is a descendant of the North American
Peoples and a member of Lord of the Dragon. He created a community known as the Cave of the
Dark Heart. With help from the ancient Book of the See, Wulf along with his staunch companion,
genus Cajun Angelo, boldly search for a secure haven for his people.
The reader will jump in and out of dreams into nightmares in a flash of a thundercrack. In one
mad dream Wulf experiences an intense vision of " a worm crawled out of her mouth, white and
fat, burrowing itself between her bleeding lips, feeding."
Meet the soul hopping Patron who is "fueled by hate and a burning lust for revenge". There is
nothing cookie cutter about this book. It has a distinct style all its own. It is written with an
elaborate herculean and provocative style. This book aggressively takes on in limitless futuristic
action the very human elements of mistrust, fears, abuse, sex, tenderness, love, and the dynamics
in all relationships.
This is not a book you can skim. The author vibrantly interweaves creativity, intensity and
exquisite detail. Mr. Sternerhowe also provides music that may be downloaded from his site that
correlates to the chapters in the book. A unique concept that should not be missed by the reader.
The Madman Chronicles: The Warrior offers an adult cerebral momentousness makings of a first
rate epic.
Sherry Russell
Reviewer
Taylor's Bookshelf
Humble Pie
Carol Bonomo
Morehouse Publishing
4775 Linglestown Road, Harrisburg, PA 17112
0819219606 $16.95 www.morehousegroup.com
Written by Carol Bonomo, a Benedictine oblate (a person vowed to live according to the
fourth-century Rule) and the award-winning author of "The Abbey Up The Hill," Humble Pie: St.
Benedict's Ladder Of Humility is a deeply faithful Christian memoir that critically examines
today's "me-first" society that embraces pride and rejects humility, arguably to a destructive
degree. Detailing the author's life and experiences in search of sacrifice, pentecost, and learning to
open one's heart to God, Humble Pie is an inspirational modern-day presentation of spiritual
principles well over a thousand years old. A moving and deeply reverent account and life
example.
Approaching God
Paul Enns
Kregel Publications
PO Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501
0825425328 $16.99 1-800-733-2607 www.kregel.com
Approaching God: Daily Reflections For Growing Christians is a Christian devotional text written
especially for lay people of the faith. Explaining biblical beliefs that Christains have held for
centuries, the relevance of which shines brightly even in the present day, Approaching God
examines critical questions such as "Who is God?" "What made Jesus unique?" "Do angels have
personalities?" and "What will happen to Satan and his demons?". 365 daily readings, each of
which is one page in length and meditates upon key Biblical passages, comprise this uplifting and
inspirational treasure.
God Knows You Worry
Gretchen Thompson
Sorin Books
PO Box 1006, Notre Dame, IN 46556-1006
1893732592 $11.95 1-800-282-5681 www.sorinbooks.com
God Knows You Worry: 10 Ways To Put It Behind You is a self-help book for reducing and
coping with worry. Stories, exercises, examples, useful strategies, insights and techniques to
proactively deal with one's personal sources of worry are all laid out in no-nonsense terms. The
means for dealing with worry include "Interrupt Yourself - Gently", "Put Your Worry To Work",
"Turn To Others", "Live In The Present", and more in this helpful guide for anyone beset with so
much negative emotion that it causes undue stress and harm. Although God Knows You Worry is
written from a Christian perspective, its practical techniques and advice are directly applicable to
readers of all faiths.
Apocryphal Gospels
Hans-Josef Klauk
The Continuum Publishing Group
370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017-6550
056708390X $29.95 1-800-561-7704
Also available in a hardcover edition (0567089185, $100.00), Apocryphal Gospels: An
Introduction by Hans-Josef Klauk (Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature,
University of Chicago), Apocryphal Gospels: An Introduction guides readers through the writings
about Jesus Christ that are not included within the Church's canon of scripture. Carefully
classifying apocryphal material in helpful ways, Apocryphal Gospels summarizes each gospel in a
manner immediately accessible to lay readers, and offers contemplations on the significance of
each a bibliography for those looking to learn more. A superb primer for anyone curious about the
texts deliberately left out of the New Testament.
Rightly Dividing The Book Of Revelation
J. E. Becker
WinePress Publishing
PO Box 428, Enumclaw, WA 98022
1579214975 $25.00 1-877-421-7323 www.winepresspub.com
Author J. E. Becker, who has earned a B.S. degree in Geology and who has studied prophetic
scripture for over forty years, presents the summit of his life's work in Rightly Dividing The Book
Of Revelation, an examination of the Biblical Book of Revelation's texts that offers a shocking
perspective upon their true meaning. Stressing that even the most horrific nuclear destruction that
man can inflict upon the Earth pales before the wrath that only God is capable of, Rightly
Dividing The Book Of Revelation links Old Testament prophesies to the words of Revelation and
strongly warns of the great natural catastrophes that will mark Judgement Day. A powerful,
zealously written close study, highly accessible to readers of all backgrounds.
Christianity In The Academy
Harry Lee Poe
Baker Book House
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
0801027233 $19.99 www.bakerbooks.com
Christianity In The Academy: Teaching At The Intersection Of Faith And Learning distills the
wisdom of author Harry Lee Poe (Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture, Union
University), who also serves as the program director for the C. S. Lewis Foundation's Summer
Institutes, a training resource on faith and scholarship issues especially for Christian Faculty.
Wrestling with serious issues confronting Christian educators in institutions of higher learning,
Christianity In The Academy touches upon the Christian worldview, interdisciplinary dialogue, the
religious spectrum that can be found in higher education, the repercussions of the postmodern
age, and much more. Tackling difficult dilemmas of faith and academics seemingly at odds,
Christianity In The Academy is an opinionated but thoughtful resource recommended for personal
contemplation among college educators of all levels who share a common bond through faith in
Jesus Christ.
Name Above All Names
Dan Hayden
Crossway
c/o Good News Publishers
1300 Crescent Street, Wheaton, IL 60187
1581345437 $11.99 www.crossway.com
Name Above All Names: Jesus Christ Our Savior And Lord is a soulful exploration of Isaiah 9:6
phrase by phrase: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon
his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace." A profound and joyful meditation upon Jesus Christ's purpose, mission, and
sacrifice to redeem humanity, and a repudiation of drifting modern tendency to perceive salvation
through Christ as only one option among many, Name Above All Names is a compelling,
reverent, and staunchly faithful testimony.
Growing Your Faith
Jerry Bridges
NavPress
Box 35001, Colorado Springs, CO 80935
1576834751 $12.99 1-800-955-3324
Jerry Bridges is one of the most articulate and audience engaging Bible teachers of our era. In
Growing Your Faith: How To Mature In Christ, Jerry showcases the essential elements of a
Christian life in his usual and wonderfully accessible style. Readers will learn how to deepen and
enhance their relationship with Jesus, acknowledge the role of the Holy Spirit in a Christian
pursuit of holiness and spirituality, -- and just exactly what it means in this present day to follow
Christ in a secular and all to often hostile world. Highly recommended reading!
King Saul's Asking
Barbara Green, editor
The Liturgical Press
St. John's Abbey, PO Box 7500, Collegeville, MN 56321-7500
0814651097 $14.95 1-800-858-5450
Knowledgeably compiled and edited by Barbara Breen, King Saul's Asking is a scholarly
pondering of that examins the Biblical figure of Saul, Israel's first king. Exploring both the lessons
of history and the deeper spiritual meaning behind the people's inquiries of leadership and the
apparent silence of God in responce to their quest for political and soul guidance. A close
dissection of Biblical texts, especially for advanced students of the Bible looking to better
understand hard questions and ready to explore the nuances of Scripture's timeless message.
People of God
Jose Comblin
Orbis Books
PO Box 308, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0308
1570755213 $25.00 www.orbisbooks.com
People Of God is a theological work concerning the church as "People of God", an image that
came from the Vatican II that brought about changes in Catholic self-understanding, and brought
the church to the role of the laity. Yet many sectors of the church shunned the term "People of
God", preferring the image of the church as "communion." Jose Camblin, who has lived in Latin
America for nearly his whole life, calls for the retrieval of the Vatican II's teaching that the Church
is the whole People of God in spite of "official" ecclesiology during the past 25 years that has
stressed the church's clerical and hierarchical character. A moving call for direction and
down-to-earth local roots in today's faith.
The Heart Of The Matter
Erick Sawatzky, editor
Cascadia Publishing House
126 Klingerman Road, Telford, PA 18969
1931038228 $22.95 www.cascadiapublishinghouse.com
Edited by Erick Sawatzky, who has served as pastor of congregations in Canada and the U.S., as
prison chaplain, and on the board of the Canadian Association for Pastoral Education, The Heart
Of The Matter: Pastoral Ministry In Anabaptist Perspective is a collection of essays by ministers
and theologians discussing the questions of what pastoral ministry truly looks like in the modern
day, the influence of a history of "dissident discipleship", and much more. Writings include "The
Pastor As Prophet", "Mennonite Ministry And Christian History", "The Pastor As Spiritual
Orienteer", "Pastoral Ministry As An Improvisational Art", and much more. A thought-provoking
exposition concerning how a pastor can best serve his flock and share the word of God, The
Heart Of The Matter is a crucial expose of ideas for the challenges of the modern day. Highly
recommended especially for Anabaptist ministers and churchgoers alike.
Son Of Satan
James A. Scudder
Victory In Grace
60 Quentin Road, Lake Zurich, IL 60047
0971926212 $12.95 www.victoryingrace.org
Written by a Bible Teacher and host of "Victory in Grace", and international radio and TV
broadcast featuring verse-by-verse exposition of the Scriptures, Son Of Satan: The Coming
Economic Prosperity is a chilling portrait of how the Antichrist may well manifest in the modern
day and age. A devout, fiery warning written with the unbridled passion of fundamentalist
Christian faith, Son Of Satan is vocal and stringent in its denounciation of viewing prosperity as
more important than God, or placing too much faith in too many different religions. Sharply
worded, conveying a real sense of fear and dire warning, Son Of Satan is a severe account that
reflects an underlying, all-encompassing feeling of a world that has far too much wickedness in it
and is in great need.
Wonderful Words Of Life
Richard J. Mouw & Mark A. Noll, editors
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
255 Jefferson Avenue, S.E., Grand Rapids, MI 49503
080282160X $18.00 1-800-253-7521 www.eerdmans.com
Wonderful Words Of Life: Hymns In American Protestant History And Theology is an assembly
of essays by an assortment of pastoral worship leaders, written to bring about worship renewal
and spiritual vitality on today's theological practices. Topics covered include the role of hymns in
early evangelicalism, how music played a part in English-Canadian Protestant Revivalism in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the mainstream American "discovery" of the Black
Gospel tradition, nautical rescue themes in evangelical hymnody, and much more. An eclectic
exploration of the enduring significance of music in worship, highly recommended for Protestant
history and theology reading lists as well as private reflection for those pondering the hymn as the
expression of faith and love.
John Taylor
Reviewer
James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
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