Michael O'Keefe Books

For those of you wondering... I read on a website about a year ago that Robert was coming out with a new novel... they even had a picture of the cover art. I don't remember the naem, but Robert said it was going to be a real departure from his work with more supernatural leanings. Hope it comes out soon!

Have you noticed the other five reviews here haven't reviewed this book at all, but just talk about McCammon retiring? This has got to be the strangest set of reviews.

Anyways, who here like Domino's Pizza better than Pizza Hut?

I was wondering why I've seen nothing new lately from this favorite author. A short search has revealed that he has officially retired from writing as of November,1999. Anyone have any idea why?

I just discovered McCammon a few weeks ago when I picked up a copy of Swan Song at a thrift store. He is an amazing story teller. I now have a new favorite author and am trying to locate a copy of all of his works. I understand he no longer writes - our loss.

he is one of my top 3 favorite writers , why has he stopped . King needes the competion,he is why I love bookes in the frist place I readed the wolf's hour when I was 14 and that is what got me in to reading

I own the CD version and it ranks with Lao Tzu and Sun Tzu in terms of wisdom. I listen to it over and over as most people would listen to music.

Timeless wisdom as applicable today as when it was at the time it was written. The lessons continually unfold each time I listen to one of the CDs. I spent a long time looking for an inspiring teaching on Leadership. None of the other books seemed to be what I was looking for...nothing seemed to grasp the full scope or "wholeness" of Leadership like these CDs.

Without doubt one of the best distillations of the practical wisdom of Chan Buddhism I've encountered. Better even than reading the excellent Shambala book editions of the same works. Oral transmission in the best Zen tradition. Use them as a meditation on long runs.

For anyone who used the AAOS's "Orange Book" for their EMT-B course, this book, under the Brady name, is a good book to have because you get a different perspective on the same things. Of course, the Brady series has always been solid anyway.

For anyone who used the AAOS's "Orange Book" for their EMT-B course, this book is an excellent choice because it gives you a different perspective on the same things. Of course, the Brady series is solid reference material anyway.

Let me start out by saying that I think Pat Conroy is one of the best authors out there. He can paint a picture so vividly with is words you truly feel like you are there. I first read Beach Music and it rocked my world. Each of the stories told in that book were amazing. So, even though I'd seen the movie Prince of Tides, I decided to read the book. I loved it also. Now having a hunger for more of his amazing writing, I picked up The Great Santini. I must say, I was disappointed. I loved the characters and the general concept of the story. A tough Marine, a true southern belle and two of the four children with depth that you admire throughout the entire story. I just felt that there was no storyline. I get what Conroy was trying to portray by creating the characters, and the relationships between the characters were great, but I just felt as if something was missing from this story. I also didn't feel like a whole lot happened until half way through the book.

There were also a couple of highly dramatic scenes(Sammy's girlfriend and Toomer and Red) that had you at the edge of your seat. However, once that chapter was over, no mention of it whatsoever. I would think these things happened for a reason (e.g. character growth, forming a bond between two characters)and would be explored through the eyes of the characters some more. This was a disappointment to me also.

All in all, the book had a lot of good in it, but just didn't measure up to Beach Music and The Prince of Tides. I plan on reading Conroy's other books in hopes to feel the magic of his writing again.

I discovered Pay Conroy as a young adult many years ago and in short order read everything he ever wrote. In my youthful, relatively uneducated mind, I couldn't help but think he was one of the greatest writers of all time. I distinctly remember the unmitigated joy of reading The Lords of Discipline for the first time, unable to tear myself away from the thing, staying up some nights until 4am with it. It was and maybe still is the most engrossing book I have ever read.

Well, many years have passed and many more books are under the belt and I guess I've come to the conclusion that maybe Pat Conroy isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread after all, but, all the melodrama notwithstanding, he still has to rank up there somewhere. This one, The Great Santini, is a fine example of Conroy in his prime.

We are introduced to the Great Santini--aka Bull Meacham, Marine fighter pilot--at a wild, drunken, hilarious going-away party in his honor in the first scene of the novel. We see immediately that he is a brash, loud, cocky and arrogant; traits that serve him more or less to good effect with his Marine subordinates, but traits that serve him far less effectively with his wife and four children.

The story, of course, is truly about them, and especially Ben, the oldest of the siblings. The relationship with his father is of the classic love/hate variety. He is proud of his father: his exaggerated toughness, his extraordinary discipline, his status in the world as a true warrior. But he loathes him as well: his bullying, brutal, unbending tactics are too often unnecessarily thoughtless and cruel.

There are so many fine scenes. One of the most famous is the one-on-one basketball game between the maturing seventeen-year old Ben and his insanely competitive father. Ben beats him, finally--a great moment in his life--but instead of getting the congratulations he deserves and has strived for since childhood, his father instead humiliates him, calling him a girl and systematically bouncing the basketball off of his head as he walks into the house.

But as brutish as Ben's father is, his mother in contrast is filled with Southern charm and grace, and loves her children unconditionally. There is a wonderful scene that I had forgotten about, in which the family is walking to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. The mother is suddenly so overcome with joy that she begins to dance on the way, a gentle, graceful waltz, thrilling the children with her loveliness. Even old Bull expresses a growl of appreciation.

The novel is loaded with scenes like this, both big and small. All of the characters are sharply defined and painfully human. And as with Conroy's other novels, there is a strong sense of the South, with its swamps and its backwoods, slow-paced charm. Conroy is also a very witty fellow, particularly the dialogue between his characters which is always hilariously dead-pan.

However, by the end you realize that he's tried just a little bit too hard. The novel encompasses a little less than a year in Ben's life, yet his friend's date is victimized by a brutal rapist, another friend is murdered, he is threatened by a deputy sheriff, and finally he must come to terms with the death of a significant character. It is a bit much.

But don't be dissuaded. It's nevertheless a fine novel, filled with wit, wisdom and painful honestly. As are all of his first four novels--The Water is Wide, this one, The Lords of Discipline, and The Prince of Tides--which are each and every one a terrific read.

While this is an excellent and well written story, the Blackstone Audio version is horribly read. It is painful to listen to. The reader is very "nasal" and the attempts at accents and characterizations are just simply horrific. Find another version, or read the book if you can. I can't, and had to endure this version of the audiobook. I listen to a LOT of audiobooks and this experience was a nightmare!

I began reading this book with trepidation, because I worried that a book about the Marines and basketball might be a little too masculine and juvenile even for someone who tends to enjoy books with that character, but I was pleasantly mistaken. This is a great book--not just good, but great--about a career Marine who has established himself as a hero in war, leader within the Corps and one of the most bombastic, foul mouthed and party-hearty personalities anywhere, but a man who has no idea how to alter his personality at home. His family, which dutifully follows him around the South, admires his professional abilities and follows his orders almost without question also live in terror of the man who rules with an iron fist and absues them emotionally and physically. Bull Meecham is truly one of the great characters and personalities from any fiction I've read.

The other members of the family, however, are also just as valuable and interesting in this book. Bull's son's attempts to be a man, his wife's attempts to rear her children with Southern charm and grace despite their father, the oldest daughter's attempts to be an independent woman despite both of her parents. The Great Santini goes further, however, and explores racism in the mid-century South, the power of sports in youth culture, the troubled existence of military families, etc.

Pat Conroy is a beautiful writer who creates lifelike characters, produces huge laughs and equally large tragedies, and never lets a dull moment slip into this book. This is one of my favorite books I've ever read and will highly recommend it to anyone I meet.

The Great Santini is Colonel Bull Meecham, husband to his lovely Southern enabling wife Lillian, father to Ben, Mary Anne, Matt, and Karen, Marine, fighter pilot, bully, creep, alcoholic, and all around jerk. Bull rules his family as he does the marines that serve under him. A bad drunk, Bull experiences violent mood swings, which send his family into chilling bouts of fear, hatred, and battles with the brute. Ben, most of all, the oldest, is most challenged by Bull, most humiliated, and most deeply touched, although his sister Mary Anne is a very close second. Ben is a very transparent stand-in for Conroy, although how much of this work is autobiographical is hard to know, but I suspect most of it is. Conroy could not write with such depth of feeling if he didn't experience this material firsthand. All I can say is that experiencing Bull Meecham is like experiencing brutality and hell in order to discover kindness, heaven, and love.
Clearly written, brilliant, scintillating, this work sharply etches an unhappy family and the inner life of a boy and his love/hate relationship with his father. It also presents life in the racist south of the early 1960s, its beauties, and its nightmares. I was deeply moved by this work in spite of the ugliness of Bull Meecham and the marines he loved. This is a genuine work, an American novel, and a major achievement.

I can't believe they made a huge thick expensive book that is only made by Paperback. They should create a Hard Cover because I always carry and drop my Emergency Care during training and Emergency that can ruin the book easily. In regards to the CD, the CD has lack of information. I am expecting that the CD composed of all chapters that is detailed so that students can learn in reading and listening from the CD.

The book has a lot of useful information. However, the CD has lack of informations and the durability of this book is weak.

This edition has everything you need for both review or initial EMT-B course, great info.

Even though I did not order the product for myself, I ordered it for my son in the Marine Corps, currently deployed. He received the book when Amazon.com indicated he would. Great job!

If you are an EMT you will need good bibliography to learn and understand the diferent skills in your daily job.
This book provides you a good source of information in a very easy way to understand. The diferent graphics and pictures are very usefull and help you in your trianing.
I have an older edition (5th I think) and when this edition cames out I bought it and I don't regret
I highly recomend it.

This book is very comprehensive. It is packed with so much practical information along with diagrams and real life photos. I highly recommend this book even for the non-student who wants to enrich their own knowledge of basic emergency care.

This is strictly an audio book -IT IS NOT A STUDY GUIDE LIKE IT SAYS.... The product basicly reads the chapters of the book to you. Not worth your $!

I just received my National Registry Cert for EMT-B and Plan on going for my EMT-I within the next year. Hope I can find a series like this again for the next step. You're in class for long periods of time, sometimes after a long day of work and the amount of information that your instructors are trying to feed you is just too much to take in one sitting. I found that listening to these lectures in the car helped keep my mind sharp and in the right mind set. They can't go into everything completely in depth but it's still a great tool to prepare you before class or to help emphasize something in class you may be struggling with.

The guys's voice can be a bit dronish and boring but they cover some really great topics and since this is not the published word, it's a little more human and brings life to whatever book you may be using.

Excellent lectures - covers all the different sections/modules in preparation for EMT-B National Registry. Good review material.

These tapes are an excellent way to review EMT subjects. I highly recommend them.

This text is easy to read and understand. The book makes difficult material manageable.

this book is one of the best books to help you to pass the national registry emergency medical technician exam. I self had lessons with the 8/e and that was good but when i saw this book,it is the best thats wy i wnat to buy this book with his work book.

thanks to let me share my review from this book

sencerly yours Steve Croes

This workbook is precisely what you think it is, a multiple choice review of the chapters in the book. I would imagine it would be very helpful for the students that do not read the book. I did not find it very helpful. I used it for about the first ten chapters and then realized it was a waste of time. Read the book and you will be fine without it.

Sharp and intelligent thriller "Michael Clayton" follows a titular character played by magnetic George Clooney, a lawyer (or a "fixer") at a major New York law firm. He is facing a crisis in life, reaching 45 and heavily in debt; he doesn't like his clients, he doesn't like his jobs, and he knows he hasn't achieved anything in his life. And he must choose what he should do before the film ends, but can he really do the right thing?

Directed by Tony Gilroy (his debut film) known as writer for the "Jason Bourne" trilogy, "Michael Clayton" builds up its story very slowly in the first half and you need to be patient at times as if to pick up and put together pieces of a puzzle. I said it is a thriller, but not in the way as three action-packed Bourne films. It also deals with a similar topic as "Erin Brockovich," but you can see the truths from the beginning.

The thrills of "Michael Clayton" come from the round characters and their moral conflicts - Clooney's Clayton, Tilda Swinton's chief counsel for a big company "U/North" and Tom Wilkinson's brilliant, but now mentally unstable lawyer whose long monologue in the opening sets the tone of the film. Their acting is all wonderful, worthy of Oscar nomination and winning.

You will find "Michael Clayton" has several things that can be seen in other legal thrillers, but they are not used in a clichéd way. After all the film's tense atmosphere comes from the inner conflicts of the characters, both "good" and "bad" ones, who must do what they really don't want to do. Being somber and serious, this is definitely not a film to everyone's taste, but I liked it for what it is.

I for one can sit threw boring movies but this one takes the cake. I feel asleap durning the first 20 minutes and wroke up at around 10 minutes before the movie ended. I was tired and all but when i see a interesting, good movie and about to fall asleap i turn it off and take a nap and see the movie later. I had no desire to do this with this movie.

I now never going to see a George Clooney movie ever again. Good night and good luck was boring it felt like a second rate tv movie. The movies he does with his buddy Soderbergh suck as well. The worst one is the Good German which features the worst miscast in movie history. Tobey Mcguire as a villian who beats his women is so bad it is laughable. His only good movie is Three Kings. His problem is that he only knows how to play himself and his movies are made for the older demographic.

This movie has a decent entertainment value.

The main problem is overall flair of mental retardation: the principal is an NYC lawyer, he is 45, he is working for a big law firm 12 years and and he does not have $75k to pay off a matter-of-life-and-death debt.

OK he has an issue with gambling, but he is apparently comfortable with what he is doing for living. However the law firm partners are retarded enough to use this not so bright guy as a "fixer" of very confident matters both for them and their clients.

Second, problem is G.Clooney - he is not doing a particularly good job playing this guy.

But beyond that, it is a semi-decent movie.

****1/2 2007. Written and directed by Tony Gilroy. Academy award earned by Tilda Swinton and 6 other nominations. A powerful law firm gets rid of a lawyer who's about to tell the truth about a multibillion case. MICHAEL CLAYTON reminds us of the time of Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View or Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor, a time when American producers weren't afraid to combine the hope for profit and smart screenplays. Highly recommended.

If there was ever any doubt that George Clooney (Good Night and Good Luck) is more than just a pretty face, MICHAEL CLAYTON should put them to rest. Although women across the world will probably still drool at his magnetism here in this film, he pulls this engrossing movie along and carries most -- if not all -- of its weight.

The story surrounds a pair of attorneys, Michael Clayton (Clooney) and Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) who are employed as "janitors" at a powerhouse law firm. The "janitor lawyers" clean up messes left by their clients. But when Arthur (Wilkinson) appears to have a mental break during a multimillion dollar negotiations with a pesticide company (shades of The Future of Food documentary and the Monsanto Corporation are easily seen), Michael is sent in to try and clean up the debacle. But big business, along with Arthur and Michael's firm, are concerned and have clean-up ideas of their own. Hit men, the burning of document warehouses, and even exploding cars are not beyond the realm of dangers facing Mr. Clayton.

Definitely in the vein of Erin Brockovich, but this film's focus is not on the ones represented by the attorney's firm and, instead, on the attorneys themselves. Morality and money are the two at-odds items, which is also nothing new to film. But what holds Michael Clayton together is the powerful performances by Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton (The Chronicles of Narnia), and, of course, Mr. Clooney. Wilkinson's disastrous decent into seeming madness holds a kernel of sympathy and understanding for the viewer. His life, decade upon decade, has been devoted to making and saving money for his firm, but at what moral cost? Coming to the end of his career, the weight of his decisions are heavy upon him and we can feel his dire wish to find a smidgin of good in his final days ("I am Shiva, the god of death.")

Tilda Swinton plays Karen Crowder, the firm's new lead attorney for the case abandoned by Arthur (Wilkinson). Her need to win the case overpowers commonsense and even legalities and, in the end, gets the better of her.

And then there's Michael Clayton (Clooney) who sees much of himself in Arthur, wondering if this is what awaits him at the end of his career. But there's also Michael's personal life that infringes upon the entire story loop. His son Henry (Austin Williams, The Good Shepherd) wants desperately to connect with his father but both have trouble finding common ground; Michael because of his forced amount of time on the job, and Henry because of a fantasy life (see role playing game) that he wants to include his father in. Michael's old gambling habit has also reemerged causing him many a financial woe and forcing another morality play that bites him in the bum when asking for an advance from his boss.

The downsides to the film are that it's pretty standard Hollywood fodder as far as movies go, and the ending was a bit too tidy and convenient. I never understood how Michael knew where to find Karen Crowder and when she'd be having a meeting with "the big client".

Even so, this is a good character story with enough good dialogue and great acting to keep most watchers entertained. And if you're a Clooney fan, you can drool a bit more.

I bought this movie because Clooney got a nomination for best actor for it. I haven't watched it yet, but a lot of people told me it was very boring.

dramatic actor. Michael Clayton is not so much a great movie as it is an award worthy performance by George Clooney & Tom Wilkerson. George Clooney plays an attorney (Clayton) known as a fixer. He is brought in late to clean up cases that have gone south. He was a fine litigator, but never got his chance. Tom Wilkerson is a top flight litigator who cracks up & changes sides. It is Clooney's job to clean up the mess. They both work for a morally bankrupt law firm hired to defend a corrupt chemical company. Key moments of the movie take place in Milwaukee & Wisconsin farm country. They both are turned by a crisis of conscience & somebody tries to kill them both in separate incidents. Not a particularly brillant plot. But the acting is. This movie should be seen because it is good & entertaining, but also for the transcendent acting.

I really enjoyed this film. I thought the performances were great and the plot was good. My other half was a little confused with the chronology of it to start with, but it soon became clear for her.

This is certainly a "Saturday Evening In" film.

I thought it was slow at the beginning, but then it started picking up and turned out to be exciting.
The plot is good, not straight-forward, but easy to follow and the actors' performances are great. you have a little bit of everything: a conscious attorney trying to make a difference, Clooney somewhere in between, trying to decide which side he is on, Tilda giving a very good performance as the big-shot evil attorney in charge who is fighting with her consience when she has to "remove" people.
Overall, a good thriller and a nice weekend movie.

I watched this movie because my daughter highly recommended it, and she rarely highly recommends anything. I expected to fully enjoy the movie.

I thought the acting was good, but am unable to write a synopsis as I still don't quite understand what was happening. I believe it has something to do with an unsafe product, the company that produces it, and a few lawyers of which I can't tell whose side they're on. Anyway, it appears that the good guy wins in the end, which is not obvious because you don't know who the good guy is until the end.

I liked George Clooney's performance, but found the movie quite confusing. My husband actually fell asleep because being confused really bores him. I stayed awake and was glad I did in the end, but it takes patience to get there.

Being a ColdFusion user group president, I give this book my seal of approval. This book is well written with easy to understand examples. It will help someone with no CF knowledge all the way to the experts. This book is well laid out and is enjoyable to read. I didn't know what to expect from Wrox on this. I have been a huge Ben Forta fan but this book is just as good as his (if not better)! If you want to learn CF, or just want to get better, buy this book. You will be very happy with it.

This is a very good book!
Vale a pena galera!

WROX books used to be the only ones I'd buy; after having a grand ol' time with the ASP and ASP Databases series. The Professional series has been a real disappointment (and waste of money!). The books tend to be more wordy than necessary and spend too much time on the obvious and too little on the abstract. Cold Fusion is a fairly straight-forward programming language. WROX has somehow managed to make it much more. Perhaps too many cooks in the kitchen; looks like they had 18 authors put this beast together.
Look elsewhere...

You only need this book if you wanna learn CF. I've found that even total begginers like me can read it. But it's written in a way that the authors are expecting the readers already another programming language. Like when they've talked about looping, they said that CF support For Next loop and didn't say anything other than that... Anywayz, it's a nice book.

This book was a great addition to my CF Web Application Construction Kit by Forta. I found that the book explained topics fairly well,but there was a lack of code examples. I'm the kind of person that needs to see the syntax.

Also, I looked for hours on how to perform a simple multiple update using checkboxes. This book barely acknowledged them and provided no examples on how to incorporate them into a form using CF. I realize, however, that my incident may be isolated.