Martin Lawrence Books

Lawrence Scanlan approaches the life & times of Secretariat and covers a wealth of angles in an industry that has yet to live up to the legendary accomplishments of this iconic champion.

From the shooting-star fame of Big Red's groom, Eddie Sweat, the final minutes in the life of the champion - who apparently was treated like a pauper and not comforted like a king - to the destruction through neglect of the farm that was Secretariat's home and the plight of the runners who never perform at the highest levels of the sport, Scanlan covers much turf, but does it with style and class.

There are more straight-forward biographies of Secretariat, but none roar down the stretch to bring the legend to life - and uncover the missed potential in "The Sport of Kings" - the way Scanlan's poignant reporting and timely tackling of current issues ultimately accomplishes through several strong surges to the wire, many lengths in front of the pack.

I am so happy I did not read the reviews of this book before buying it. Some say they never could understand the premise of the book, but to me the lovely story of the strong bond between Secretariat and Eddie Sweat was captivating. The greatness of this wonderful horse has long been celebrated, but how often do we get to view that greatness through the eyes and experiences of those who were closest to him? It was a joy for me to celebrate the strong bond of love that can develop between a man and a horse. I salute the artist Ed Bogucki for capturing that mysterious closeness in his magnificent bronze statue at Kentucky Horse Park which includes Secretariat, his jockey Ron Turcotte, and his long unheralded groom Eddie Sweat. I think Mr. Bogucki would understand the point of this book. I HIGHLY recommend this book to any animal lover.

Mr. Scanlon's book was one of the best books written about the Thorougbred racing industry and it's key players, the horses and the people behind the scenes. It was so touching to hear stories I have never heard of about Secretariat ( and I have read every book written on him) and the heart wrenching love his beloved groom, Eddie Sweat had for him. I could not put the book down and was sad when it ended. There is so much lore to the racing world and the grooms that put their charges first before themselves will touch your heart!

AMAZING Book!!!! I would recommend it to anyone that wants to read about Secretariat! The bond between Eddie and Secretariat is so touching and real! So far best book I have read about a famous horses life, very real!!!

I had high hopes for this book, but was ultimately disapointed. Like other reviewers, I do not know where the author was trying to go with this. There are a few nice stories about Big Red and his accomplishments, but most of it is about his handlers, etc. That was great for a page or two, but it quickly became tedious and then proceeded to ridiculous. It reminded me of a grad student who has fifteen pages of work, but needs to fill in the gaps with anything that comes to mind to get to the assigned fifty pages. Don't bother with this one.

I like the book as it goes into areas that I might not think of and creates ideas to use, it was required for my critical thinking class but I do have to caution that as good as the book is, you still need a good teacher to show you what the book can't and as English teachers tend to have conflicts of opinion as to how to write an essay, if they don't accept what the last teacher taught, it's useless.

Great source of info, will keep as ref. book. The book has examples and info for every thing that you may write.

This book came to me in pretty good shape. I was impressed with how quickly it arrived to my house. The book was slightly used but it was at a good price and it served it's purpose.

My teacher didnot really use it, but it did help me a lot on the essays i had to do. I would recommed this book especially to students wanting to get that A.

I am a teacher of writing at middle school. I use this text book myself to pull-out parts of the included essays as models for my students. The organization and information about how writers think and go through the writing proccess is very helpful to students who think they cannot write ot hate writing. (There is not ONE WAY to go through the writing process, despite what most of our teacher trainings will tell us.) The many quotes about the writing process spark good discussions and free up students to realize that even published authors re-work and revise constantly. This is not a technical book, but is recommended for a more holistic approach to thinking about how to write and how to improve your written communication. Also this book helps teachers who have read and use the methods of "In The Middle" with many authentic pieces of writing, beyond what is in that book.

Yet another book giving bats a bad rap. A horror tale in the vein of large numbers of flying things run amok, if not stopped by plucky locals and the odd person with a modicum of knowledge. Think more along the lines of The Birds. Much better than the bad movie, being quite competently handled by Cruz Smith. A sheriff and a woman have to stop some very nasty chiroptera before they cause a lot of problems.

"Nightwing" didn't particularly spark my interest when I picked it up a few months ago at a book sale. But after reading "Vespers" by Jeff Rovin, I wanted to continue reading anything scary about bats. Finally, I decided to give it a try after seeing Stephen King's review on the front cover: "I consider it to be one of the best horror novels in the last twenty years."

From the beginning, "Nightwing" doesn't appear like a horror book. We meet Youngman Duran, a Tewa Pueblo deputy, conversing with an old Hopi priest, his uncle, who predicts death and a new beginning for the Hopi people. Youngman doesn't pay much attention to the datura-addicted elder; he finds his prophecies almost comical.

Next Youngman is called to a ranch where three horses have been skinned and left to suffer and die. Nobody knows how it happened. Then the same thing later happens to Youngman's Hopi uncle previously mentioned, Abner Tasupi.

While Youngman is preparing the old man's body for burial, a stranger (Hayden Paine) intrudes and attempts to perform an autopsy on Abner. Paine is a bat specialist and has come up from Mexico to conduct a medical survey. Although Paine and Youngman don't get along at first, they later team up with Youngman's lover, Anne Dillon, to destroy the disease-spreading vampire bats.

The bats, however, play a very small part in this book. I wouldn't even consider it a horror book since the rough Southwest Indian lifestyle overshadows the bats. Furthermore, I'm not sure why the synopsis on the back cover focuses on a deadly mass of bloodthirsty bats when they only dominate a few scenes. I suppose it was the only way to lure anyone into reading this book.

There are some gruesome parts in Nightwing, but the worst ones I can remember are done by humans to animals. For example, a dog is suffocated in a bag instead of quarantined for the plague; a rabbit is slowly drained of blood for a sacrifice. The bat attacks didn't bother me (I expected them), but I was disgusted by the gratuitous animal torture.

The only reason why I gave this book three stars instead of two or one (which it deserved) is because it was written pretty well and there were a few times when it got exciting. Still, it was a waste of my time and I wouldn't recommend this book. It seemed pretty long too for a 210-paged book. That was probably because the chapters were on average 20 pages and paragraphs could run up to a page or more in length.

However, someone must have loved "Nightwing" because it was made into a movie in 1979. I never saw it and I doubt I will.

I do regret reading this book for the sake of bat horror. If you're looking for a good scare, read "Vespers" by Jeff Rovin, which is by far a better horror book than "Nightwing".

Without a doubt, the worst movie I ever had the displeasure of paying to see, Nightwing turns out to be a fine thriller. It's Stephen King by way of Tony Hillerman as plague ridden vampire bats descend on a Hopi reservation.

Replete with a lone hero tribal policeman, corrupt Indian politicians, a mad scientist, bigoted evangelists & a vengeful shaman, this early effort from Martin Cruz Smith does not measure up to the Arkady Renko series, but it's fun.

GRADE: C+

I felt compelled to write this review after seeing the negative nature of the other posts. Why are there only four reviews anyway? It is not hard to be critical of "Nightwing" when you consider it next to Smith's other works. It isn't a particurly complex plot and the protagonist (though you get several different first person accounts) is somewhat flawed. And not in the traditional "likable tragic hero" sense, he is more just passive and melancholy. Once into the book, though, you do begin to develop a connection.

In the story vampire bats come across the Mexican border into American Indian country, and various bedlam ensues for our characters. Smith actually presents a supringly plausible plot for a novel involving migratory, ravenous bats.

It should be noted that the novel is not exclusively a bat adventure. The stoic Indian protagonist battle against the bats forces him to make hard choices about his identity and the future of his culture. I really did enjoy reading this book. In the last twenty pages I came to realize I had developed more empathy for the characters than I thought. Might not be Smith's best, but the bredth of what he attempts on the subject of personal identity is commendably ambitious.

Written 25 years ago, Nightwing has only one of the talents we have come to admire in Martin Cruz Smith. Great research. Apart from that, the hero is not Renko and the story is basically a big yawn. Unless you 're really into that indian thing, move ahead to Gorky Park.

I saw this book as a assigned book for a college course and even when this book came out it was already dated. Harvard University did a study back in '04 before the copyright on this book on the topic of charter schools and their performance relative to the local schools with similar demographics and came up with completely different results showing in most cases charters did better than the local school with similar racial makeup performed.

The authors of this book base their assertion that charter schools are unsuccessful relative to regular public schools based upon an AFT study, which only sampled ~3% of charter school students. Havard Professor Caroline Hoxby's study used data from schools that represented close to 99% of students enrolled in a charter school. Unless you can discredit the methodology of Hoxby's study, I tend to find AFT study the less accurate of the two. The only criticism I have found of Hoxby's study is from... the AFT. Surprise, surprise. Their criticism doesn't question the methodology at all, but dwells on a lot of tangential criticism of "charter school cheerleaders."

Unfortunately as far as I can see this book doesn't properly acknowledge conflicting viewpoints. Mainstream charter school supporters like Jeanne Allen of CER are called "charter school zealots." A good chunk of the book is spent on trying to discredit arguments in defense of charter schools. Having to defend charter schools must be predicated upon the questionable notion that they are doing significantly worse than competing public schools. Even then, some of their arguments seem questionable to say the least.

The book isn't completely worthless. It does make a few good criticisms about how few charter schools up to that point had closed for academic reasons for example, but the things that this book does well are far overshadowed by one sided coverage of this controversial topic and by some of mistakes in relying upon the AFT study, which considering the sponsor should have been taken with a grain of salt to anyone even without looking at other studies on the same topic.

I looked around for a volume that looks at charter schools that tells the good, the bad and the ugly, but this book isn't it. The authors of this book seem to be writing a book to sell to AFT members who want a validation of their beliefs, not to someone who wants to look at a large mix of evidence and see how the cards fall.

It is typical of our marginally educated educators in this country to bungle their research. Carnoy's book is an example. They make absolute comparisions of student proficiencies after controlling for the some of the demographic and socio-economic effects but in so doing they leave out the most important factor of all: How did the students compare with their regular public school cohorts when they entered charter schools? Perhaps lost to these ed-researchers is the fact that charter schools attract low performers compared to the public school alternatives. The real measure of a quality school is not children's absolute performance, but how much do they improve year over year. On that measure, charter schools are signficantly superior to their regular public school counterparts.

Copious, detailed statistics and related material represented in the book's many tables finds that despite the claims of charter schools' advocates and some success stories, there is no meaningful difference between charter schools and public schools. "[C]harter schools are not, and likely will not be, able to play a large role in reforming public education as a whole." The four authors are all academics in the overlapping areas of economics and education belonging to the Institute publishing this timely study that is associated with Teachers College, Columbia U. The Bush Administration's program "No Child Left Behind" is scrutinized in one chapter in light of the findings recorded here. Recommendations for more relevant standards for measuring and judging the performance of students and schools are put forth as well mostly in appendices. An up-to-date, sound, and with respect to some central education questions, definitive report for educators, administrators, and policy makers.

When The New York Times printed a front-page story in the summer of 2004 about the inferior performance on average of charter schools compared with regular public schools, it unleashed a controversy that has still not died down. The Times's reportage was based on data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress that the American Federation of Teachers had first published.

Against this backdrop, Martin Carnoy, Rebecca Jacobsen, Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein have written "The Charter School Dust-Up." The intent was to examine as comprehensively as possible all the available evidence. The result is the most penetrating study of the charter school movement to date.

What emerges is a model of how to keep one's cool when things get hot. The authors demonstrate a masterful ability to delve into the heated charges made by both sides of the issue and to maintain their objectivity at all times. Their provocative conclusions will provide fodder for many op-ed pieces on both sides of the subject and will form the starting point for further research.

This book is a must read for everyone concerned about the future course of public education in this country.

I found this book fascinating. It's a comprehensive insight into what being psychic means and dispells the myth that it's a God given gift to just a few. The author also explains how becoming psychic can bring a positive aspect to your life and the world! A must read for anyone wanting to know about unlocking their psychic potential.

I found this to be an excellent book. There is so much garbage spoken about what are psychic powers but this book gives an extremely accurate overview. It is obviously written by someone who has not only researched the field thoroughly, but is himself an excellent psychic. I highly recommend this as the best book I have read on psychic development. Personally, I think it is vitally important to present the psychic world with clarity - and Dr. Lawrence does that.

Dr. Richard offers a rudimentary introduction to the many different types of metaphysical phenomena, such as the chakras, ESP, clairvoyance, divination, etc. However, the book stops short at just brief description. The title is very misleading; those interested in techniques on how to manifest these types of abilites will be disappointed, for there are none to be found. The book serves well as an introduction and explanation of these abilities, but that is all.

THIS BOOK HAS A SHORT DISCRIPTION ON THINGS LIKE CHAKRAS,ESP,CLAIRAUDIENCE,ETC. BUT THATS IT. IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO TELL YOU HOW TO MANIFEST YOU PSYCHIC ABILITIES DON'T BUY THIS BOOK. THATS WHAT I BOUGHT IT FOR AND WAS VERY VERY DISAPPOINTED. SO ONLY BUY THIS BOOK IF YOU WANT SHORT DESCRIPTIONS ON THE SUBJECTS BUT DON'T BUY IT IF YOU WANT TO MANIFEST YOUR PSYCHIC ABILITES. IN FACT, DON'T BUY IT AT ALL. ALL OTHER PSYCHIC BOOKS TELL YOU ABOUT ALL THE SUBJECTS IN THIS BOOK AND GIVE A BETTER DESCRIPTION ON THEM. THEY ALSO TELL YOU HOW TO MANIFEST THEM. SO DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY. IF YOU WANT TO WASTE YOUR MONEY LIKE THAT JUST GIVE IT AWAY TO SOMEBODY(LIKE ME). :)

Lawrence Martin did an excellent job of portraying Chretien's life, including both positives and negatives. In addition to describing his drive and ambition, his fight for the 'little guy', and his years as Trudeau's firefighter, Martin also delivers Chretien's derelict youth, his occasional forays into questionable Quebec politics, and his sensitivity to criticism of his abilities.

This book ends just as Jean Chretien was poised to win the leadership of the federal Liberal party of Canada.

Whether you liked or disliked Jean Chretien as a politician, this book will provide an insightful look at the man behind the politician. Martin has provided the views and perspectives of friend and foe. It is easy to read, light yet intriguing.

-"A thorough, thought provoking, insight into a leader of great honor and prestige who has endured a lifetime of public scrutiny, all for the passion of politics"

Included in this book: INTRODUCTION/Lawrence Schimel: SONG OF THE CARDS/Jane Yolen (poetry); SYMBOLS ARE A PERCUSSION INSTRUMENT/Tanya Huff; THE COURT OF THE INVISIBLE/Billie Sue Mosiman; NEW BEGINNER'S LUCK/Mark A Garland; HOUSE OF CARDS/Don Webb; ARTICLES OF FAITH/Nina Kirki Hoffman; WILD HORSES/Charles de Lint; THE INTERSECTION OF ANASTASIA YEOMAN AND LIGHT/Rosemary Edghill; CHATTEL/Lucy Taylor; ELVIS LIVES/Nancy Springer; IN THE CARDS/Michelle Sagara West; SOLO IN THE SOPTLIGHT/George Alec Effinger; THE GATES OF JORIUN/Kate Elliott; TOWER OF BRASS/Teresa Edgerton; THE SIXTEENTH CARD/Susan Wade.

15 stories, 1 poetry and an intro. It was a struggle to finish this book. Five stories were OK. There was only one I really liked of those five. I don't know what I expected this collection to be, but it wasn't this strange assortment. See if you can get this used, or from the library.

the first several stories are much more traditionalistic and common, though they do have some originality to them.. that is, the ideas are wattered down, and the plots are a tad cliche.. soon though, very soon in it, some the third or fourth story, it delves into the delightful realm of mystic horror and nostalgic drama.. fairly recent as well, so you can expect that much of what we find in everyday culture is also present in the present-day tales.. a great deal of fun to read.. personal favorites: chattel, the intersection of anastaisia yeoman (sp) and light, and the tower.. seriously recommended

Delaplace, Barbara: "In the Cards", George Wilson has found a purpose sadly lacking in his day job (a lab technician running tests of impressive appearance and little value for a pointy-haired boss) and family (a brother perpetually plunging into get-rich-quick schemes). George's real talent for guidance lets him help serious clients: a teacher concerned about a child's problems, a stressed-out CEO. But when George's brother makes a colossal blunder, George must choose between violating his card-reading principles and abandoning his brother to loan sharks.

de Lint, Charles: "Wild Horses" opens in Newford with the viewpoint of Dan, dreaming of horses running free while enmeshed in the chains of heroin addiction. The rest of the story (in 3rd person) follows Cassie, a card reader in the open-air market of the Pier, beginning on the day Dan's sister Laura asked Cassie to help find him. Cassie has two decks of cards: a Tarot deck, and a beat-up deck of more unusual cards with a strange history. In her view, "magic" is a word with two meanings: one for those who don't want to think, and one for those who seek tools to deeper understanding. The story is non-linear, one thread tracing Cassie's search for Dan, another her own past - how she came to read cards through her own search for a missing friend. Excellent story of overlapping worlds, and not just the spirit world and the material world. Perception, after all, is the heart of magic.

Edgerton, Teresa: The "Tower of Brass" contains only two living things: the magician Magnus and his daughter, brought with him long ago upon fleeing persecution (or criminal charges, as the case may be). Rosamund longs for a companion other than the clockwork servants, but has no experience of consideration for living things. Then a magical accident - is it? - brings Nick to the otherwise lifeless island, with a nagging memory of having heard of these inhabitants before...(Apparently not set in the Goblin universe.)

Edghill, Rosemary: "The Intersection of Anastasia Yeoman and Light", like that of light and a prism, makes visible that which wasn't visible without those things. The narrator's reading for Anastasia at a party turns up two 5 of Cups, marking her *own* life's turning point: writing or editing? (Ironically, this story is itself poorly edited.) She thinks of conventions as a kind of Elf Hill, visited frequently, in which she sees the last author she ever expected: herself.

Effinger, George Alec: "Solo in the Spotlight" Sick, sick, sick. :) For his first official reading, the President's psychic adviser must use the First Daughter's Tarot cards - a Barbie Tarot deck. (Told from the President's viewpoint, whose significator is the King of Shoes - err, Swords...)

Elliott, Kate: "The Gates of Joriun" One of the strongest stories herein, though like the Hanged Man, it embodies in a state of suspension. The narrator, sister of the rightful heir, has always been her brother's great strength, and the usurper swore to hang her - and has found a way to fulfil his oath without making her a martyr.

Garland, Mark A.: "New Beginner's Luck" starts with a Tarot deck missing 3 minor Arcana cards, and a woman starting over after her husband's death. Of course, *bad* luck is luck too...

Hoffman, Nina Kiriki: "Articles of Faith" Brooke's family is falling apart: her sister drifting away into drugs, her parents drifting apart. But her mother holds a legacy from *her* mother: the box of cards Grandma used to use to make rather than tell fortunes.

Huff, Tanya: Cynthia, hauled away from the office for R&R by her partner, finds that "Symbols Are a Percussion Instrument". Until she acknowledges deeper meanings to things, Tarot creatures will keep appearing in her life. (The funny side of Delaplace's Tarot twist.)

Mosiman, Billie Sue: The narrator, obsessed with interpreting "The Court of the Invisible", lets her companion and caregiver go without a goodbye, so obsessed is she: why does every spread yield the Wheel of Fortune?

Springer, Nancy: "Elvis Lives" The narrator, having just left an abusive husband, is rescued by an Elvis impersonator, who carries a good luck charm: a Tarot deck in which. Gladys sees legends of rock'n'roll. But why is her friend so desperate to find Elvis? (Gladys is particularly well characterized.)

Taylor, Lucy: "Chattel" spent the war as Thorne's slave, at last seeking sanctuary among a witch's tarot cards, but she deliberately leaves him a path to follow. (Somewhat reminiscent of Bradley's NIGHT'S DAUGHTER or MacDonald's THE WISE WOMAN, but without a sound rationale for either Thorne's second chance or the tests he fails to pass.)

Wade, Susan: 24 years ago "The Sixteenth Card" shattered Miranda's life as a sniper numbered her mother among his victims. Returning to Austin to research a book on paintings of the Tarot, Miranda begins seeing alternate versions of her childhood self in her old haunts; a "Randy" who apparently never lost her mother, her younger brother, or herself, continuing the life lost at the turning point of her mother's death. But can Miranda change her own past - and what will happen if she does? (A stronger story than "Anastasia Yeoman".)

Webb, Don: The narrator often delivered packages to kindly old Rosa's "House of Cards" (an occult shop) until ex-employee Juno began siphoning off the shop's lifeblood to start up a competing store. But just how far has Juno gone?

West, Michelle Sagara: Shelagh Brentwood's husband withdrew into catatonia when their child died in a car crash for which he was responsible. Now a "Turn of the Card" - a deck she made for him in happier times - offers the hope for his return, his only connection to the world. (Alternates between his viewpoint, hers, and a caregiver's.)

Yolen, Jane: "Song of the Cards" As for several Greenberg anthologies of this period, Yolen's contribution is a poem.

This isn't an easy book to work through. It doesn't artificially simplify the field, doesn't give us the One True Method for task analysis, doesn't adopt One True Strategy for Instructional Design.

Instead, the book surveys a wide range of alternative approaches, provideas many references to different segments of the literature, and plenty of interesting insights.

I'm a Professor of Software Engineering (who also has a Ph.D. in Psychology). I focus my research on the teaching of software testing -- as a field, we are still in the early stages of curriculum development. The equivalent of a full semester in testing will soon be an ACM/IEEE requirement for a B.Sc. in Software Engineering, and so we need curriculum development in testing NOW. I find this book useful in my work and as a thought-provoker that I lend to my graduate students. It doesn't tell them what to do. It gives them enough information (and pointers) to help them think about why they should prefer one alternative over another.

The information contained in this book is very practical. Also, in contrast to some other task analysis books it is very readable. It does have some minor errors as another reviewer has pointed out. But I feel that the information contained is very good and I highly recommend this book.

If you are put off by silly grammatical errors and absurd typos, then don't buy this book. It doesn't appear that anyone edited or proofed the material before it went to print. I bought the version that was copyrighted in 1999. I'm not sure what the authors were thinking, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't about their readers. I decided I could use it in my teaching, but probably not as the authors intended.

Although the collection represents a wide spectrum of sub-genres (cozy, hardboiled, etc.) it seems that only very typical specimens of each type were chosen. It does not seem the editors looked very far and wide for stories. There are some damn fine tales in this book, but the collection as a whole is neither ground-breaking nor especially interesting. Fans of business-as-usual mystery will love it. More demanding readers who like to see the genre push the envelope a bit more will be underwhelmed.

As usual the G and G (great goldies) team has put together a powerful anthology consisting of thirty-nine tales from 2001 that run the mystery-crime-thriller spectrum. Obviously all the inclusions have seen print elsewhere, but not under one tome before this compilation. The contributions for the most part are excellent depending on the reader's taste, but none are terrible regardless of palate. In addition three articles report on the general state of the genre during 2001 and four country specific reports (Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and Germany) furnish insight into the trends. THE WORLD'S FINEST MYSTERY AND CRIME STORIES, THIRD ANNUAL COLLECTION, VOL. 3 provides the audience with a delightful slice of some of the year's better short stories.

Harriet Klausner

I have recurring dreams where I'm on a rock or a raft or some sort of lifesaver in the middle of raging rapids and objects are floating by me. For some reason I feel duty bound in my dreams to grab each of the objects, like I'm a character in a video game or something. I think I'm grabbing everything, but it gradually hits me that I'm not. I usually wake up at the point where I've grabbed and missed for something I really, really need. My dream, of course, is a metaphor for books or authors I miss during the year.

It's impossible to keep up with everything that's going on in the world of literature. Even if you want to limit yourself to a particular genre, something good is going to get by you. Time is a problem, distribution is another and some time word of mouth doesn't reach its intended target. That's why those "Year's Best" anthologies are required reading, particularly in the mystery genre. There's no way to keep up with everything and, even if the market for short stories is shrinking, there are enough of them --- and they are hard enough to find --- to make it virtually impossible to keep up with all of them.

A particular favorite mystery favorite of mine is THE WORLD'S FINEST MYSTERY AND CRIME STORIES. It's only up to its third annual edition, but is already staking out a claim in the genre as being indispensable. Editorial chores are handled by Ed Gorman and Martin Greenberg, both of whom are legends in the anthology arena. Between the two of them they burrow into every cranny of the genre and come away with treasures.

THE WORLD'S FINEST is not merely a collection of short mystery and crime fiction, though it would be worth the price of admission on that basis alone. There are a number of essays included, dealing with The Year 2001 in Mystery and Crime fiction, a Yearbook, the state of the art in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Germany and Fandom. There's also a list of the ten best novels that is quite interesting, both for what is included (TOTAL RECALL by Sarah Petretsky) and what is not (what happened to THE JUDGEMENT by D.W. Buffa?). The list of course is, at least to some extent, subjective and part of the fun of it is finding one (or two or three) books you missed. And, when you're done having fun with all of that, there are the stories.

One of the joys of this anthology is finding names you know and love, while finding others you've never heard of. In the former category, there is Ed McBain with "Activity on the Flood Plain" which, on the surface, doesn't appear to belong in this collection at all. What begins as a story of a beleaguered artist dealing with a nattering nabob on a planning and zoning board takes a left turn near the conclusion. And, yeah, it definitely belongs in this volume. Jeffrey Deaver is included as well, with "Beautiful." This marks the first time I have ever been able to guess the conclusion of a Deaver work and it did not diminish my enjoyment of the story, which concerns a woman who finds an effective, if drastic way, of dealing with a stalker. Lawrence Block is represented by a thoughtful piece entitled "Speaking of Greed," a classic tale of a card game held among a very, very diverse group of gentlemen. There are also great, great stories by such well-known figures as Ruth Rendall, Max Allan Collins, Donald Westlake and Joyce Carol Oates, who is quietly demonstrating a versatility that has been under-appreciated as she demonstrates in "Tell Me You Forgive Me."

But what about the unknowns? Well, there are plenty to talk about, but I'll limit discussion to one who was a new face, at least to me. Dick Lochte is not an unknown, but I was totally unfamiliar with his work until encountering him with "In The City of Angels." Reprinted from FLESH AND BLOOD, an under-appreciated anthology of erotic mystery stories edited by Max Collins and Jeff Gelb, "In the City of Angels" combines equal parts of lust, greed and danger to create an atmospheric, contemporary Los Angeles, written the way Chandler would have if he'd have been born in the 1970s. It is the last story in THE WORLD'S FINEST and for good reason: it would have been a tough one for anyone to follow.

THE WORLD'S FINEST MYSTERY AND CRIME STORIES: Third Annual Collection is an absolute must for both the seasoned and casual reader of crime fiction. Leave plenty of time to revisit your favorite authors and to find some new ones. Very highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

A simple clear and enjoyable read, with particuar emphasis on asthma. Stephen Holgate and Martin Church have produced a book which puts across simply all what is needed to be known by any student interested in Asthma

This book has excellent pictures and tables, however it lacks in depth and substance. For example, in the atopic dermatitis section, there is no discussion on differential diagnosis/other clinical conditions to consider. The drug allergy chapter has a nice chart for drug desensitization, but the chapter lacks a good discussion on any of the most important drugs...IE the PCN drug section is skimpy at best. And for some reason, they don't even have devoted chapter on food allergy. Overall, I am disappointed with this book. This book is best applicable to medical students and residents. In my opinion, it will not fit the need of Allergy/Asthma/Immunology fellows or practicing staff. I highly recommend "Pediatric Allergy" (also from Mosby) which is an excellent resource for Pediatric Allergy. Patterson's Allergic diseases is also good reference.