James Gregory Books

Deals with the RT (soft) issues of Java. Garbage collection and more.

Includes what you need to know about soft RT constraints when using Java. The garbage collection issue and more.

Hi all. This is a serious book on real time, even if you are not a java programmer. (by the way this is not a book on java for those who came here by mistake.)

I have used this book to help me build a project I am working on at my UNI and it's was very helpful. it is first of all Specification book so it main use for my opinion is a reference after the first reading an as such the book is very good. A real time programming background is essensial for really benefit from this book , but if you are one of the RTP so it's a book for you !

I gave it 4 stars because it's a spec and not my kind of books but it's a defenetly great spec. - Enjoy

Assume that you've been given a mandate to turn an existing, popular language built on write-once run-anywhere (WORA) principles into a basis for implementing correct performance-critical applications on a wide variety of platforms. Thats exactly what the team who wrote this book were tasked to do - without changing the core Java language specification. Bearing these restrictions in mind, its a good effort. The specification addresses all the basic concerns of the real-time developer - concurrency, asynchronous event handling and transfer of control issues, timing, scheduling, memory and so on, though the introduction of a single package: javax.realtime.

In general the rich set of classes provided seem to be fairly straightforward, and will probably be easy to use when a reference implementation becomes available. Key concepts are illustrated with short examples - and here's my biggest criticism - they are often of appalling quality - typically they confuse rather than clarify matters. I appreciate that this is a specification rather than a tutorial but anyone who has to implement or use this standard needs all the help they can get! There a few other typos, especially in the method signatures but these are easily parseable nonetheless.

The biggest changes are going to be in the real-time virtual machines that will be built to support this standard. Comprehensive support for such features as configurable scheduling algorithms, dynamic schedulability (where schedulable objects are dynamically added to the schedule and feasibility is determined at runtime), asynchronous transfer of control on executing threads and so on - are going to require heavy-duty support at the virtual machine level. The specification doesn't state how these and other services will be implemented but gives a would-be real-time JVM implementor lots of hints on how to do, and how NOT to do a good job in this area - which is a welcome addition.

So, my recommendation. I'd give it 4 1/2 stars if I could - but lets be generous and give it 5. The only detraction is that a good dose of proofreading could have improved on the current release. That said, I have high hopes that this will eventually emerge as a real-time development standard in the same way that Ada 95 promised to, but never delivered on.

p.s. for distributed real-time transactions - you'll have to wait for an additional standard to address this issue : watch this space.

The programming language Java is widely used for web applications, servers, compilers. The concurrency aspect is also known to all of us. But for real time systems development in Java was awaited. I being a teacher of RTS course was looking for the language to introduce the real time system concepts. This book is correct solution. It starts with real time threading. Scheduling, Synchronization, timing issues of Real time systems are explained with implementaion and verification aspects. The book is correct choice for learning, developing, real time systems with complete programming language Java.

John Gregory Brown starts with an interesting notion. John James Audubon is a tutor on a Louisiana plantation when a visiting physician's wife suddenly dies. The mistress of the plantation asks Audubon to sit with the doctor that night to keep watch over the body. What should be a simple task is not, for Audubon is somehow connected to this man, even though he has never met him.

1820's New Orleans and Louisiana provide a facinating and colorful backdrop to this novel. Brown has a great historical figure to work with in Audubon and he has created very interesting characters and events to build a story around. Brown's words bring Audubon alive and paint facinating characters in Dr. Gautreaux, his wife and even minor characters such as Percy the servant and Dr. Gautreaux's former protege.

Brown is obviously a gifted writer, but he falls short of writing a great novel for several reasons. The story is told by both Audubon and Gautreaux, and he has them as old men retelling the events. The storyline goes back and forth between the men, and shifts back and forth from present time to their pasts. This is not a bad idea, but it is done so much that I had difficulty following the story and remembering who was speaking. It is also complicated by the fact that Audubon is telling the story on his deathbed and speaking to his 2 daughters, who died as infants. Are his memories real or the hallucinations a mind long gone? Each of Brown's characters has a story worth telling, but none of them are told entirely, including the story of Audubon and Gautreaux. Brown alludes to a dark mystery which will be solved once Gautreaux and Audubon meet again. But Brown never delivers, and the end is very disppointing.

I felt like I read the beginning of a great novel, which lost its way and was never finished. Rich characters and a great historical and cultural setting is just not enough to carry the story.

"Audubon's Watch", by John Gregory Brown is the first book of his work that I have read, and I intend to read his previous two books very soon. While reading this tale I often thought of the work of Wilkie Collins, one of the great writers of the late 19th century, and the man widely credited with the creation of the modern mystery genre. The Audubon of this novel is the famous artist who documented the birds of America, and while knowing some of the man's history is helpful it is not necessary.

A great mystery work maintains the suspense, the tension of the story to the very end. The tale itself sustains and lures the reader throughout the book without the need for blind alleys or misdirection. The facets that I mention can be great fun when used by many authors. Mr. Brown did not use them here, and I think the work is all that much better without the devices.

A young woman dies and Audubon is asked to sit watch with the husband the first night following her death. There is a second watch that has three owners, a watch that works or doesn't, a watch that appears to have a mind of its own. A common ritual in this instance has immense importance, for the husband is considered a notorious anatomist/resurrectionist, and Mr. Audubon has knowledge that drives his guilt for 30 years, when on his deathbed he summons the man he sat with that evening. But what is he guilty of, why does Emile, the deceased's husband, make a month long trek dealing with his own failing health to hear what Audubon wishes to say? And what could possibly be haunting Emile for these now past 30 years? The answers are all in the book, and they are not what appear to be obvious or even high probability predictions. The author is brilliant at manipulating what he shares and how he shares it, so that what you may take as a conversation among characters is something very different.

The author seems to play with the reader's need to know and the reader's willingness to make presumptions before the tale is complete. The effect he produces is really marvelous and entertaining. When he digresses from the specifics at hand to share the imagery of a roaring fire, a hurricane, and the flashing blades of the cutters of the cane as they work in his inferno is great reading.

John Gregory Brown is another writer that seems to have yet to be discovered by large numbers of readers. His work will now be on my reading list going forward.

I loved Brown's first two novels, "Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery" and "The Wrecked Blessed Body of Shelton Lafleur", but I think this new one is his best. As with the others, this is a terribly sad and rather disturbing story but the writing is glorious and the observations about John James Audubon completely fascinating. Brown takes us into the minds of Audubon and the anatomist Emile Gautreaux not just as artist and scientist but as men. He examines them the way they examine their subjects. The novel's real subject seems to be grief and passion and the way both can take hold of us. I think John Gregory Brown's books deserve to get much more attention than they do.

This book was required reading by a professor. His superior intellect decided this was a good book so I am compelled to agree... even if I didn't read it.

By now, several historians have looked at the experiences in the massive migrations of Negroes from the American South to its northern cities from 1900 to the post World War 2 era. But of course, many poor southern whites also voted with their feet and moved north. The unifying theme Gregory has chosen is to look at both migrations. And to compare and contrast the experiences of both groups.

For studying whites, he goes beyond looking at the so-called hillbilly ghettos that sprang up in various northern cities. In the popular (white northern) imagination of the times, these were considered well nigh akin to the often neighbouring black ghettos. Gregory points out that most southern whites had quite different experiences, though they were still invariably stereotyped by white northerners.

We see examples of blacks and whites struggling to improve themselves. Often politically. While there were indeed many common facets, what persistently emerges is that blacks had to work harder to overcome obstacles.

This was required reading for a graduate course in American history.

In his book The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America, author James N. Gregory proceeds thematically, rather than chronologically. His intent is to use a stereoscopic method (stereoscopes set two similar but different images next to each other, thus tricking the eyes and the brain into fusing the images in a way that makes them three dimensional) in order to achieve a third dimension (page 8): not only to examine the great internal movements of black and white peoples from the American South to the American North and West, but also to examine the social, cultural, economic, and political impact that this massive internal movement of peoples had on the history of America during the twentieth century.

Gregory's The Southern Diaspora is divided into nine chapters: Chapter 1, "A Century of Migration," is an overview of the of the migration cycles and the changing economics and demography of these migrations over the course of the twentieth century, concluding that the Southern Diaspora was numerically larger than previous scholars have understood; Chapter 2, "Migration Stories," surveys the public meanings of the two sets of exoduses and highlights the unique role that media institutions and social scientists played in shaping the expectations and interactions of southerners on the move; Chapter 3, "Success and Failure," answers questions about the economic experience of black and white southerners, dismantling the maladjustment paradigm that had been so prominent in previous scholarship while also showing the critical differences in the opportunity structure facing black and white southern migrants; Chapter 4,
"The Black Metropolis," examines the communities that African Americans built in the major cities, resurrecting the label "Black Metropolis" and mapping the new and powerful cultural apparatus of those communities; Chapter 5, "Uptown and Beyond," examines the very different community formations of white southerners who spread out through suburbs and rural areas as well as big cities, struggled with confusing issues of social identity, and developed cultural institutions of historical import (e.g., diaspora country music and the white diaspora literary community would help to reshape understandings of both region and race); Chapter 6. "Gospel Highways," explores the diaspora's impact on American religion as both racial groups built Baptist and Pentecostal churches and helped to revitalize and spread evangelical Protestantism, with important political as well as religious implications for America; Chapter 7, "Leveraging Civil Rights," develops the issue of black political influence, demonstrating how important geography was to the initial phases of what ultimately became the civil rights movement;
Chapter 8, "Re-figuring Conservatism," brings the white migrants into the story of race, class, and regional transformations, exploring contributions to white working class conservatism on the one hand, and to new formulations of white liberalism on the other. Chapter 9, "Great
Migrations," brings te diaspora to a close in the 1970s and 1980s, and summarized some of Gregory's major findings (pages 8 and 9).

One important point made by Gregory is that for as long as there was something called the American South, southerners in significant numbers had been leaving; the South itself expanded through migration as white southerners in the early 1800s carved out new states for cotton and
slavery, while others moved to places north and west that today are understood to be regionally separate from the South. White out-migration was especially heavy in the two decades after the Civil War, with many leaving for farming opportunities and others settling in the North's big
cities-New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago-where the nation's commerce was concentrated. By the end of the nineteenth century, there were more than 1 million southern-born whites living outside their birth region. Census takers also counted more than 335,000 southern born African Americans living in the North and West in 1900 (page 12).

African Americans had left the South in the nineteenth century for different reasons and in different directions. Before the Civil War, some had been taken west by slaveholders who dared to move their human property into places like California and Kansas; others had escaped
northward, typically to Ohio, upstate New York, Massachusetts, and Canada. There was also something of an exodus of free black people from the South after 1830, with many of them settling in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. Emancipation increased out-migration among black southerners, much of it directed toward northern cities (New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago were key destinations for freed people from Virginia and Maryland after the Civil War), but rural destinations were also and equally important: black southern migration, frequently organized by "colonization" or "emigration" societies, moved north into Indiana and west into Kansas from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee in the 1870s and 1880s (pages 12 and 13).

The central thesis of Gregory's Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America, is threefold. First, the size of the black and white southern diaspora was much more substantial than previously reported: over the course of the
twentieth century, close to 8 million black southerners, nearly 20 million white southerners, and more than 1 million southern-born Latinos participated in the diaspora (page 14). Second, the twentieth century southern diaspora can be divided into two periods: the first phase of migration . starts during the initial decade of the century, grows in the second decade when at least 1.3 million southerners leave home, reaches a peak in the 1920s with 2 million new black and white southern migrants, then tapers off in the 1930s; a much bigger second wave begins with World
War II when more than 4 million southerners move north or west, grows even larger in the 1950s when at least 4.3 million leave the South, remains near that level through the 1960s and 1970s, and then declines in the 1980s and 1990s (pages 14 and 15). Third, white southern out-migrants
outnumbered black southern out-migrants during every decade of the twentieth century, and usually by a large margin. But the southern black exodus had the more important impact: blacks were leaving the South at much higher rates than whites, and many were going to geographic
regions that had known little racial diversity (pages 15 and 17). The largest number of black migrants lived in the Great Lakes states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin); they were also the key destination for white southerners. The Middle Atlantic states (New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey) were second as a destination for African Americans, but-with the exception of New York City-much less popular with whites. The Pacific states was the third important area of settlement for both groups, especially California: by 1970, more than 1.6
million white and 571,000 black southerners lived in that state. California was also the chief destination for Tejanos and other southern-born Latinos, 213,000 of whom had settled there by 1970; Hispanic southerners had also migrated to Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana (pages 18 and 19).

Gregory challenges the image that southern migrants in the north and west were merely helpless and poor. While they faced many cultural, social, and economic challenges from within and without their culture, these migrants also had a substantial support system of family relations, organizations, and institutions that enabled them not just to survive, but even to thrive and succeed in differing environments despite tremendous odds. Financially, the majority of southern migrants did much better than their contemporaries who chose to remain in the South.

Whites and blacks left the South for related but somewhat different reasons, and found very different opportunities in the North and West. Those differences turned on the central issue of race, and from that flowed other significant differences derived from geography, class dynamics, and community formation patterns. Racial privilege granted southern white migrants significant economic and spatial advantages (i.e., the choice of where, how, and with whom they settled) over their black counterparts; that advantage was used to choose the best housing they could afford in the least dense neighborhoods, often in outlying, rather than central, urban areas. The fact that black and white southerners settled in different sorts of places, in different
concentrations would have implications not just on southern individual and group experiences, but on the North, the West, and the nation as a whole. Despite the fact that white migrants had greater numbers, black migrants gained capacities to influence cultural and political institutions that would ultimately dictate profound historical changes; The fact that whites chose dispersion over concentration, and opted for places that initially would not be centers of political and cultural power, worked against the construction of physically defined southern white communities. The loyalties and activities of elites and middle-class migrants became a key resource for African American communities, while white, middle class expatriates kept their distance from working class migrants, limiting the possibilities for group institution building and political influence. White southern migrants were influential in the promotion of evangelical churches, the development and spread of country music, and in the particular brand of racial conservatism and white working class politics that benefited from southern white symbolism.
African American influence was more comprehensive and consequential: the building of communities in the major cities in America during a period when those cities monopolized important forms of power, especially in media (publishing houses, newspapers, magazines, record companies, theatre, and film), inspired African American literature and artistic endeavors in a myriad of forms and in a slow, but steady and meaningful acknowledgement of its worth. Politically, the particular arrangement of parties, unions, and municipal and federal governments in northern metropolises, especially during the "long New Deal," gave black voters and activists opportunities to leverage governmental power. By working with allies that were available only in those places, by finding balance-of-power openings that appeared as urban regimes reorganized (and as the northern democratic Party tried to consolidate its hold on federal power)-while using tactics that were safe and effective only in those settings-the seams of power were loosened in a governmental system that previously had rarely responded to the demands of socially despised minorities (pages 325-327). Finally, regional reconstruction was the other
important legacy of the Southern Diaspora. Over time, black and white migrants southernized aspects of the regions they settled by introducing tastes, practices, and institutions-including food, music, religion, accents, and political styles-that moderated the differences between the
South and the rest of the United States (page 327).

In my opinion, Gregory has successfully presented a thematic history of the black and white disapora from the American South to points North and West. The only weakness, as I see it, is that this examination could not have been made in a more chronological, and less thematic fashion. Or given the daunting nature of his effort, if the had been more satisfied to provide a more intensive examination of only one or only several of his intended themes, the work would not give this reader a sense of being "all over the place." Nevertheless, Gregory has contributed a
necessary work of revisionist history of scholastic depth and eminent readability.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history.

The atonement, broadly speaking, refers to the saving work of Jesus Christ.

It was John Wesley who once said, "Nothing in the Christian system is of greater consequence than the doctrine of the atonement."

If Wesley is correct, then the atonement is a Christian belief that deserves to be discussed.

_The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views_ (IVP Academic, 2006) seeks to give the Christian doctrine of atonement its proper due by fostering dialogue between four scholars, who hold as many interpretations of the atonement.

The four understandings/theories of the atonement under examination are:

1. The Christus Victor model: the atonement is a divine conflict and victory in which Jesus fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world.

2. The Penal Substitution model: "the Father, because of his love for human beings, sent his Son...to satisfy God's justice, so that Christ took the place of sinners. The punishment and penalty we deserved was laid on Jesus Christ instead of us, so that in the cross both God's holiness and love are manifested." (p. 67)

3. The Healing model: the atonement is primiarly a healing/restoration from sin and its resultant sickness.

4. The Kaleidoscopic model: the atonement is understood in multiple ways and no one theory has priority over the others.

None of the participants in the book disagrees as to whether the different theories are viable explanations of the atonement. Where the difference of opinion lies is in which theory is primary or foundational. The first three models purport to be foundational while the fourth model, the Kaleidoscopic view, claims that there is no foundational model.

In my mind, the foundational or controlling theory of the atonement is the one that can explain why it was necessary for Jesus to become a man and die. Based on the presentations in this book, the last two models (Healing and Kaleidoscopic) are lacking at this juncture. The Christus Victor model is presented well, but I am still left scratching my head as to why Jesus had to die in order to conquer the powers of evil.

***

The format of the book is enjoyable to read. A theory of the atonement is presented for roughly 20-30 pages followed by brief responses/rebuttals from the participants representing the other three views.

The book isn't the easiest to read. It tends toward academic speak. A strong interest in the topic, however, will allow the lay reader to make it from cover to cover.

I think the most valuable purpose of the book is to remind Christians of the richness of the atonement. It is multi-faceted and Christians need to recognize it as such even if they disagree on which facet should have priority over the others. As one contributor notes, "the model of penal substitutionary atonement is so pervasive in American Christianity that many Christians may wonder whether the saving significance of Jesus' death can be understood in any other way." (p. 169)

Let us not impoverish ourselves by only thinking of the saving work of Jesus Christ from one perspective.

I found this to be an excellent comparitive study of different Christian views of Jesus' atonement. The authors are all strong scholars and come from diverse theological backgrounds. I found myself highlighting many sections of the text that helped make sense of Christian beliefs and interpretations on this issue. I highly recommend this book for people wanting to gain a better understanding of the different Christian views of what Jesus' death on the Cross accomplished and its purposes - you will come away enriched in your own understanding and more knowledgable of other Christian traditions' views.

I found this book to be extremely helpful when I started in retail in 1990. However, when I refer to it now it is very outdated. Retail has changed a great deal in 10 years. In my opinion, this book is overpriced.

I purchased this book in order to write a research paper describing the unique characteristics of retail accounting. The amount of information I got was amazing. The authors clearly identify all the sources of information a retailer would need to properly manage their ledgers and employees. Topics ranging from the Open to Buy to Push Money are explained in detail as well as how the different topics relate to each other. Retailing terminology is used throughout the book which made it easy for me to draw parallels between the book and the way my company does business. I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in working in the retail industry or starting their own retail company.

Like the previous books in the American Photography series, this one presents the winners in an open juried competition. The photos had to have been published or taken in 2002. Only those "selected" photos with a majority vote of the six-person panel were reproduced in the book; those "chosen" with two votes are only on a Web site.

I am not fond of several aspects of this book. First, the designers have apparently decreed that there shall be no unused space on any of the pages. Therefore, you see on the right side of some pages a duplicate of the left side of the photograph on the next page, and you see on the left side of some pages a duplicate of the right side of the photograph on the preceding page. I find this distracting rather than artful. Second, many of the photos are turned sideways. This causes you to have to frequently rotate the 6-pound, 9"x12"x1" book 90 degrees to no good purpose. Third, the placement of the (sideways) captions in a section after the plates requires you to flip back and rotate to discover the significance of some scenes. A good example is the set of Sicilian mummies by Paolo Ventura which is confusing without the caption. I would have preferred captions next to the images. Fourth, two jury members (Harris, Ryan) were editors for some of the photos in the book, and one jury member (Crewdson) shot some of the photos in the book. It's not clear that they recused themselves from voting on their own work. Finally, I do not like the inclusion of obvious digital photo illustrations or of video captures (as in "key frame[] from the video... of people reacting to Ground Zero World Trade Center site" on the book's cover). To me these are not really still photography.

Nevertheless, this book has a number of extraordinary photographs, all reproduced in a large format. Besides the 9/11-related pictures, among the most remarkable are the following. In photo 63 by Henrik Knudsen ("Pool") we see the back of a man standing in the water with a woman's hands around his back (it's ambiguous whether he is loving or killing her). Hans Neleman in photo 110 (from a "Body Transformed" project that apparently has yet to be published) shows a nude woman who has burns on her shoulder and some markings on her back and who is lying in a chair; it's reminiscent of an oil painting. Photo 147 of Fredrik Broden depicts two chairs in a "suggestive pose." Rodney Smith's photo 232 has a woman doing a painting on a canvas of her own back ("even the blind people can draw"). Beach volleyball has a completely new look in photo 238 by Claudio Edinger. The portrait of the really strong young boy with a samurai sword by Danielle Levitt (which Amazon has chosen for the graphic on this page) is found large and sideways as photo 311, but is not on the cover.

You'll find a lot to like about the book. Buy it at Amazon.com!

BTW Number 1, here's a quick rundown of the previous four years of American Photography.

#18 (2002, cow saying "cheese" on the cover, but Amazon graphic is a painted portrait of a Taliban soldier with sunglasses): The best design of the bunch. Photos grouped into sections such as "sexxx," "2by2" (animals), and "911"; interesting juxtapositions of work by different photogs on facing pages. Don't have to rotate the book to read captions.

#17 (2001, ketchup packet on the cover, but Amazon graphic is a computer classroom): Notable for some photos whose meanings are quite obscure, sometimes due to inadequate captions (e.g., per a Web site #297 by Ron Haviv is a photo of a photo of a Muslim family that was methodically defaced presumably by Serbs, but this is not stated in the book). Captions are sideways.

#16 (2000, toy car on stove burner on the cover, but Amazon graphic is two children at a pool): Great photographs by Gilles Peress, Larry Sultan, and others, but I'm not sure why Ariko Inaoka got eight pages. Don't have to rotate the book to read captions.

#15 (1999, multi-colored vertical stripe on the cover, but Amazon graphic is a baseball player): Some attention-grabbing abstract, conceptual, and experimental shots. Captions are sideways.

BTW Number 2, some photogs get published in AP year after year. Here's my list of those who had "selected" photos in #17 of 2001, #18 of 2002, and #19 of 2003: Josef Astor, Nelson Bakerman, Chris Buck, Craig Cutler, Jim Erickson, Larry Fink, Katy Grannan, Lauren Greenfield, Kyoko Hamada, Mark Heithoff, Antonin Kratochvil, Hugh Kretschmer, Catherine Ledner, Robbie McClaran, Greg Miller, Frank W. Ockenfels 3, Platon, Martin Schoeller, Mark Seliger, Derek Shapton, Taryn Simon, Peggy Sirota, David Harry Stewart, David Strick, Michael Waring, and Dan Winters.

Dick Gregory writes vivid images of biblical principles in modern times. He relates the Exodus story to the history of slavery and civil rights in more modern times. The Garden of Eden becomes a recipe for healthy eating. Regardless of the reader's religion, Dick Gregory's stories provide relevant and insightful thinking.

This is not a study of Proverbs but a study of Christian fatherhood issues for men who have chosen or considering that worldview. In that case FFF would be a great tool for a young men's discipleship study or a father - son study. A hardback copy would be an excellent gift idea. The book is filled with fun, colorful illustrations that make reading easy. The author deals with the usual social ills of words, sex, temper, alcohol, money, work and friends. The strategy of the outline should not be overlooked: What is fatherhood? What are the issues? What will you do? As a father, leader and discipler of four (now seven) children and grandfather of five, this will certainly be a top shelf reference in my library. Men who understand and are in the game should strongly consider this book. If the cover picture doesn't hook you, don't buy it.

It is not often that a "nice" biography involving a world leader is written, but Goodbye Bafana is the exception to this rule and James Gregory only has praise for "his friend" Nelson Mandela.

Goodbye Bafana cronicals the life and experiences of James Gregory up, and until, he becomes Nelson Mandela's jailer in several South African prisions. Gregory writes a compelling and often blunt tale of how his hatred of blacks (he is an Afrikaner) and especially Nelson Mandela was turned around to a respectful and often sympathetic attitude by Mandela with whom he spent many close years as his personal jailer during Mandela's incarceration.

From this book one learns many things about South Africa's first black president and one thing that strikes the reader is his complete dedication to his cause (to end apartheid) and how much respect he has earned from both black and white people during his life. Onced finished one comes away feeling confident that there is not a man more deserving than Mandela running South Africa. I feel Goodbye Bafana is a masterpiece which shows how a friendship can florish despite political, racial and iron barriers.

This excellant account of the race for governor in California offers unique insight into the tactics and motivations of the canidates and their supporters with a wry but rarely bitter pen. Written by Sinclair almost imediately after the conclusion of the race, this journal of sorts sheds first hand light on the California of 1934. A California that disturbingly resembles the America of today. The connection I made with the author's deepest values allows me to accept Upton Sinclair as worthy of my emulation. Read this.