Mark Homer Books

Perhaps it's a rite of passage. Mark O'Donnell's young protagonist seeks a meaningful relationship in New York City, and he seems always to fall for the wrong guy. His musing, his heartbreak and his courage evoke the reader's caring He may be gay, but his meanders through the users, the meaningless, the self-involved is familiar to all seekers of love.

After I first read this book, I couldn't believe Mark O'Donnell wasn't a more famous writer. He is truly gifted. The characters are hilariously real and the writing is just amazing--the similes and metaphors are to die for. This book was a laugh riot from beginning to end. It's theme is universal--LOVE hurts but you survive it, even though you're dead sure you won't.

I was captivated by this book for the first 100 pages -- until it began to fizzle. O'Donnell certainly has a scintillating sense of humor and writes trenchantly about gay life in New York. The book's one set piece on Fire Island is hilarious, and I found myself reading bits of it to friends. Alas, the narrative seems to wane and lag after Homer exits, and what follows feels all too familiar and predictable. Don't get me wrong. There are original insights all the way through, particularly about being a twin. Indeed, that subject matter in and of itself might make for fascinating next-novel material. The other comment I want to make is that although much of the dialogue is delicious and bitchy and pointed, you have to suspend disbelief a bit because you know that people can't really be that witty en passant. Obviously in writing one has to tred the dangerous ground between banal and clever, but when characters are two clever they run the risk of sounding too much like the author.

Getting Over Homer is a sparsely written novel about Blue Monohan, yet ANOTHER character from Cleveland (I've been to Cleveland and it isn't nearly this interesting in real life, Mark). Blue has one foot in the Buckeye state and one in the big city life of New York. Unlike another Cleveland-born character, Mary Ann Singleton, of Tales of the City fame, Blue's life remains somewhat centered in his Catholic white bread family life in Cleveland and embraces his move to the city only half-heartedly. This is unfortunate. Ninety-percent of the interesting characters in the book are Blue's family members! Oh, Mark...how I wish you'd let us get to know some of them better. This book could have been twice as long and still have held my interest. Even the main characters are underdeveloped. I found over and over again that I wanted to know some of the characters more. Mark writes hauntingly, however, and on more than one occassion provides beautiful insight into the "normal" everyday life of a gay man. That is why I chose to read this book, as I am also a middle aged man grappling with the fact that love sometimes leaves inexplicably. Finishing the book has made me want to read more of O'Donnell's offerings. I would recommend this book as light hearted reading, perfect for the train or bus as the chapters are small. Maybe we should all date someone like Mark O'Donnell...

Just what we need: yet another novel in which a youngish gay man searches wryly for true love in the Northeast. The streets that first-time novelist Mark O'Donnell treads are pretty well-worn, walked by Armistead Maupin, Stephen McCauley and a number of others. But O'Donnell brings remarkable freshness to his chronicle. He delivers a breathlessly funny novel that rewards the more careful reader, piling quip upon quip, precariously stacking clever puns and turns of phrase until they seem about to topple.

"I might as well tell you the whole arguably beautiful ordeal," his narrator sighs. "It's one of those coming-of-middle-age stories. A *bull-dung*-whatever. 'Lost Labors Loved.'" The narrator, Hans Christian Monahan (nicknamed Blue), was a child prodigy of sorts, writing a popular song (the sappy "Love Is the Answer") at age 11; since then he's slowly declined to become, in his 30s, a pianist and songwriter of less than great reknown, "a drowning, unaccompanied, pasty guy."

Still believing that love is indeed the answer ("I'm a beauty fool. A hope dope."), Blue searches New York for the perfect guy. What he finds is Homer, a dazzling party consultant of uncertain past and future, a man who turns out to be "ultimately more mirage than marriage." Blue describes his love life: "A few painful misfires, a few wonderful misfires, and then Homer. Homer, who cried with happiness when I carried him up to the roof of his own building he'd never even been on. Homer, who then left me alone with the ocean." He unsuccessfully seeks comfort from his 11 eccentric siblings, from friends, from television, from the Unhappy Hunting Grounds of gay bars. Listless and dispirited, "I was living in the world's dullest nightmare," he says.

And then he puts his plight into perspective: "One day I was watching this science-fiction movie on TV, waiting for the seasons to change, and the space victim was being lowered into boiling lava, and I said to myself, `Well, I'm heartbroken, but I'm not being lowered into boiling lav! a.' That's when I knew I was going to make it." Things begin looking up-"Love Is the Answer" is resurrected as a detergent jingle, and Blue turns his despondency into a new song ("Thank You from the Bottom of My Hurt") that's recorded and made a hit by a country singer. "I'd sued life for heartbreak and it settled out of court," Blue says.

Finally over Homer, Blue finds Teddy, an uncomplicated twentysomething who seems devoted to him, and things seem on the right track. But "any man in Eden is trespassing," Blue says, and sure enough, Teddy too proves fickle and unpredictable, rejecting him cruelly and capriciously. "I can see," Blue laments, "why gay partnerships are so unstable-with no children or family support to bind them in others' eyes, they're like trying to produce a long-running TV series without sponsors or an audience."

The scenes of conflict and breakup should be far more moving than they are-sometimes O'Donnell's one-liners turn frantic, short-circuiting the story's pathos. When Teddy calmly tells a desperate Blue, "At this moment, I hate you," he blurts out, "You can't mean that! It's puppy hate! You'll outgrow it!" This is very funny, and clever, but it shortchanges the reader's need for catharsis. This complaint is a small one, though. Against odds, the language and one-liners keep up their furious pace all the way to the end, maintaining its bittersweet tone while delivering a steady stream of laughs born of desperation and frustration. At 193 pages, "Getting Over Homer" seems, if anything, too short. Blue sums up his story: "Boy finds love, Boy loses love, Boy finds seemingly far truer love, Boy loses that, too. At this point, Boy isn't a boy anymore.... You want life to be a fable, or a legend, but it's an epic shaggy dog story. And I'm just one more grizzling spear carrier in that overproduced and unfocused Grand Opera Earth.

The book itself is GREAT! Lots of great concepts and tips, etc. The only problem is the book ships with a CD that does not have all of the chapter examples! On page 29 it states they provide a file for each chapter, specifically for the work they have done in that chapter. None of the chapter by chapter examples are on the disk. You have to email the company to get them to send you the disk.

All wrox books ship without CDs. You are supposed to download the code from their website.

Shame on you who can't be bothered to visit their site even once!

I had to use this book for a class on "Database Programming". I took the class to (1) get credit for taking a class and (2) to get more help with Access and VBA for work. This book started out excellent, good explaintion very informative and after about chapter 6 it fizzles, with inconsistancies lack of all the information. Code wasn't included on the cd. They could have shown how to build a form that was needed for the chapter. Everyone in our class was given 100 pts for two modules because the book was incomplete. There were 12 modules in this class.
I felt cheated. I don't know who to blame the School or the book writer. I want to blame the school for not using a book that has complete code/explanations.
(I have been building databases with Lotus Notes for 7 years. Access is new to me, but programming isn't, so you know my perspective.)

I was looking for a book that had theory and enough exercises to improve my fluency in use of VBA. This book has the theory but, due to an obviously extremely flawed production process, fails to include the chapter by chapter sample files on its CD that the authors claim are included. This severely constrains its overall utility. Also, as another reviewer has indicated, the authors sometimes play fast and loose with some of their explanations. I could probably overlook this, if the sample files had been included on the CD or if the publishers respected their customers enough to provide them with a page to download the files. Instead, the publishers simply indicate that they will not help title purchasers.

If you want to expand your theoretical understanding of Access 2002 and can get this title at a good discounted rate, you may want to consider purchasing this title. However, if you want both theory and practice, this book has very little to offer.

It is not for beginners. It should be called "An Introduction to Access VBA", because it is very theoretical, and the authors seem not have the knowledge of the difficulties the beginners in programming are faced, when trying to run the code by simply copying it from the text.For example, in the ulterior version refering to Access 97, if you dont have the cursor on the name of the procedure or function you wont get it running when the run button or run menu is clicked. That is an information that a beginning book should teach to beginners. This version, refering to Access 2002, is enlarged by new interesting contributions, like to specify records that should be reported using a filter form.I like the way Wrox books are formated, but this book miss revision in text and code.As a beginner in VBA, I can bear errors in text, but when neither the code on the book or on the CD runs, I am disappointed and I would advise only skilled programmers willing to find out why the code didn't work to buy the book.Until a full revision be done, beginners dont buy it. I am longing for a Microsoft Team Access 2002 VBA Step by Step, or a Beginning Access 2002 VBA by John Connell.

I love all things Fiesta, but this book is terrible. My main complaint is the "quality" of the photographs. They are so grainy-- sort of clear but fuzzy at the same time. And the color is way off. I mistook several pictures of gray Fiestaware for lilac at first glance! So forget about his "comparison" of the greens because it will not help you. What gets me is that any crap digital camera would have done a better job but from the reflections in the dishes it looks like he had a professional shoot the pictures. By the way, I also completely ignored the text (even though it is in LARGE print), since the Huxfords' book and the HLCCA's book cover everything. The bottom line: don't waste your time or money.

First off Fiesta is beautiful, but the photographs in this book are terrible!!! Not one photograph shows an accurate depiction of the subject. Many photographs seem blurred or fuzzy.
Pass this by and get "Fiesta, Harlequin, and Kitchen Kraft Dinnerwares" by The Homer Laughlin China Collectors Association. You will not ne disappointed....unless you purchase Warman's book.