Robert Vaughn Books

This book is the result of Sills' consuming photographic affair with a rural family in Georgia. After thousands of photographs we see this basic American Southern family grow and develop before our eyes. Sills' eyes and camera allow us to discover beauty where others may see ... trash and dirt. Tina Toole develops into a Frida Kahloesque sort of chameleon-like woman, often pretty, sometimes tough, but always mesmerizing. This is one of those books that every photographic aficionado should buy.

This book won the 2000 Southern Books Competition Award of Excellence in Book Design from the Southeastern Library Association. This award is given in recognition of the book's aesthetic appeal and design and for fine craftsmanship in its printing and binding. Congratulations to author Vaughn Sills, designer Kyong Choe, printer C & C Offset, and the University of Georgia Press.

Vaughn Sills' One Family has done something, but done it very sublty; by focusing for twenty years on photographing the Toole family from Georgia, Sills has managed to photograph many families, represented by this proud and tenacious family whose corner of world happens to be the American South. You could easily call this a book "a photgraphy book looking at the rural south"; and it is, the dialogue and writings in the book sometimes show that Southern vernacular; the scenery sometimes seems typically "Southern"; but to stop there at "Southern" as a despricition is missing the larger picture. To stop there would be to miss the wonderful, wide, world of people in every day life, engaged in just simply living. The writing included in the book is revealing, personal and touching, Some of it is dialogue with family members and some is poetry by Tina Toole Truelove. These words and feelings are what help tie the book to the world at large because we see that, even in the South, people feel a certain way, have certain experiences. Yes, this book would be a great source for a vew on a part of the American South,but don't stop there on your journey with this beautifully photographed book. I treasure mine and treasure the truths I see in their faces.

This book was originally written by my Great-grandfather, Robert Vaughn, who came to this country from Wales. He wrote the book for his daughter, Arvonia Elizabeth Vaughn Sprague. The original book is extremely interesting, as it gives a very graphic view of what life was like in Montana during the latter part of the 1800s. I am intentionally spelling Vaughn this way because it was altered when he was getting a title for some land that he purchased. In Robert Vaughn's original book, the spelling of his name is the same throughout the book. I have not read Walter's reprint of Robert Vaughn's book, but the incorrect spelling of Vaughn's name and the fact that none of the descendents of Robert Vaughn were ever consulted about this book raises concerns about the accuracy of this book. My rating reflects the quality of the original book.

This book was originally written by my great-grandfather Robert Vaughn who came to this country from Wales. He wrote the book for his daughter, Arvonia Elizabeth Vaughn Sprague. The original book is extremely interesting, as it gives a very graphic view of what life was like in Montana during the latter part of the 1800s. I am intentionally spelling Vaughn this way because it was altered when he was getting a title for some land that he purchased. In Robert Vaughn's original book, the spelling of his name is the same throughout the book. I have not read Walter's reprint of Robert Vaughn's book, but the incorrect spelling of Vaughn's name and the fact that none of the descendents of Robert Vaughn were ever consulted about this book raises concerns about the accuracy of this book. My rating reflects the quality of the original book.

THIS WAS A WONDERFUL BOOK, KEPT ME INTERESTED RIGHT UP TO THE END, I;D LOVE TO SEE A SEQUEL TO THIS BOOK. AS WITH ALL ROBERT DEAN VAUGHN BOOKS, ITS FULL OF EVERYTHING, HUMOR, SADDNESS, SUSPENSE AND MUCH MORE, HE HAS AHOLD OF THE READER RIGHT FROM THE START OF THE BOOK, IF YOU HAVEN;T READ HIS BOOKS, YOUR MISSING ALOT!

I enjoyed this book, and bought it for some of my friends, Its Humors, Sad, suspense, this book has it all, I highly recommend this book, Vicki

I feel privileged to call Bonnie Roberts one of my greatest teachers! In To Hide in the Light, She takes down the "mask" that many hide behind allowing the reader to see her soul. Her poetry embraces the simple and important things in life--all human emotion, memory, movement, and the idea that love does not need words. As expressed through her writing, Bonnie's honesty and love for living encourages readers to live unafraid to be themselves. Poetry runs through her veins like rivers.

....they had been dry cleaned."

It is the height of the Korean War when Raymond Shaw and 10 other men on an Intelligence and Reconaissance patrol are captured by Communist Chinese forces. The men are systematically brainwashed, with the survivors released, believing Shaw saved the unit in heroic fashion.

Shaw is awarded the Medal of Honor for his perceived bravery, but he carries a secret deep in his subconscious; he is a sleeper-assassin for Soviet-Chinese handlers and is manipulated into a mission to change the course of history...a blueprint dealt through a queen of diamonds.

Author Richard Condon utilizes an uneven text to take the reader on a wild ride with Shaw, his dysfunctional mother, who has a secret life, and former patrol members whose nightmares hint at the truth. Though ultimately a period piece - initially published in 1959 - it remains a solid psychological thriller.

Louis Menard points out his excellent introduction to The Manchurian Candidate that Richard Condon's novel is about control, conditioning, and manipulation. Raymond Shaw and his fellow G.I.s are captured in Korea, undergo "brainwashing", and are released believing that they, through the heroism of Sergeant Shaw, have been saved from a company of enemy infantry. The encounter never took place, of course, but that's the story that will win Raymond the Medal of Honor. However, Raymond has been conditioned to be the ulimate assassin. Meanwhile Major Marco, Raymond's commanding officer in Korea, has been having terrible nightmares in which he sees Raymond killing two members of their patrol in cold blood. He also sees himself and his patrol on a stage facing some high ranking Soviet and Chinese officals. The staggering nightmares cause Marco to start wondering if he, Raymond, and the others have been brainwashed. This leads him on a frantic investigation to discover the truth before something disastrous happens. Raymond can't recall any of what Marco has been dreaming about. He has been completely conditioned twice over -- once by the Pavlovian doctors and also by his mother, Mrs. Iselin, probably the most evil villainess in all of literature. She is the embodiment of Control and she savages anyone who gets in the way of her plans for domination. The Manchurian Candidate is very fine writing. Condon's style is eccentric but it is perfect for the bizarre, paranoid tale he is telling. His portrayal of Raymond as a damned soul is moving. Raymond, who is cursed with "crushing contemptuousness", is "impossible to like", but we can't help but be sympathetic to this young man who was never allowed to be himself, who was never allowed to feel. Mrs. Iselin is over-the-top, but who cares? She sends chills down your spine while providing some wicked humor. The Manchurian Candidate is a Freudian cocktail that will give you lots to chew on.

This is really a classic tale of America's underbelly. A portent of the political assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and more, right up to today's political quagmire in Irag, New Orleans and North Korea. (Note: I believe it was first published in 1959, before the nominating conventions of JFK and Richard Nixon.)

It also says a lot about how we're all duped and brainwashed by today's media, politicians and school teachers.

My fervent desire is that Oprah Winfrey make this one of her reading club's books, and that George Bush read it and appear on her show to discuss what it means to him. Just make sure that Cliff Notes doesn't publish a simplified version, with talking points, first.

Richard Condon's extraordinary novel about political upheavals, assassinations, and Communist meddling is probably one of the best politically based fiction books ever.

The story is about a man named Raymond and how, for political gain, he is mind washed into becoming a top political assassin.

That is mere formality, for this story is already well known. Now, this story is more known for the movie versions, original and re-make; however, as is often the case the book is even grander then the films.

I was enchanted by this story, as it still has at least some cultural relevance, (especially for those who lived during the assassinations of JFK and his brother RFK.)

In short, Condon directs us to look at more then just the crazy political system, but the whole wacky world. Thus, this is why the book is such a classic, and deserves and should be read by all.

As Louis Menand points out in his astute introduction, most people today are familiar with THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE through the John Frankenheimer film--which was a critical and box office failure when first released in 1962 and which only came into its own with a 1980s reevaluation. The Condon novel, however, was both a critical and commercial success from the first instant of its 1959 publication, and although it has been in and out of print over the years it has never been less than critically well-regarded and tremendously influential.

Readers who come to the novel in the wake of the 1962 film or the later remake are in for a mighty shock. The story is essentially the same--a study in cold war paranoia concerning a Korean War hero who has been secretly programmed by Communists to precipitate an American political coup. But both the characters and the tone of the novel are utterly unlike anything either the original or the more recent film version suggests.

The characters are sick, twisted, perverted beyond imagination, often sadistic, occasionally drug addicted, and in one very notable instance given to fits of incest; the tone is that of a 1950s pulp thriller filtered through the blackest sense of humor to hit the page since Nathaniel West penned the utterly poisonous MISS LONELYHEARTS and DAY OF THE LOCUST in the 1930s. Whatever virtue exists is comparative at best, and innocence does not exist at all.

Condon is not a great writer--his style is too derivative for that--but he is a remarkably clever one, juggling idioms and shifting tones as he moves from the faintly improbable to the ludicrously impossible, sweeping away whatever objections you may have to create a portrait of a society where the strong consume the weak as a matter of course and indeed, without significant personal malice. It one very big, very bitter pill, and when all is said and done you'll roll your eyes, shake your head... and then, with an unwilling laugh... admit that if the full truth was ever made known about American politics, this would probably be pretty close to it.

Strong stuff for readers with imagination, but even the most hardened should brace themselves for the ride. Recommended!

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Do the events in this case and the history prior to it have anything to with the Whitey Bulger case?
In 1994 a man who worked for Grace appeared in a local newspaper story about his search for his unknown father and all the obstacles in his path. Not 6 months later Whitey vanishes and Harr's book comes out. The man had also written an autobiographical account in which early years in Woburn is mentioned prior to this book. As things heated up over the Bulger case AND in the movie adaptation of Harr's book, the man became mired in the resulting confusion and old 'friends' began exhibiting strange behavior.
Some of these friends appeared as possible plants to keep an eye on the boy(now a man) and to report back info to various parties for review and countermeasures, as of the boy was collateral against key players in the Bulger case with a link to the Woburn cancer tragedy discussed here.
Is it possible a child involved in the Woburn tragedy has been monitored and reported on by individuals directly or indirectly linked to one or more agencies with an interest in the Bulger case? If so, has such a child been targeted and to thwart any attention to such a possibility-- discreet,planned documentary evidence been fabricated to suggest otherwise, such as conversations steered to counter such charges then recorded without the man's knowledge or permission under a cloak of ComSec or other security provisions?
Far-fetched? Consider that many of the key players in the Bulger case hail from the areas affected by the Woburn case. It is alleged the man was also targeted for surveillance by an older man in his 50s(estimate) with TN license plates who claimed to work 'construction' around the time Barry Mawn was moved to the Boston FBI office AND is a Woburn native!

I have used this book very successfully to introduce business students to the realities of law. It's a particularly useful supplement for business law texts which tend to treat law as a set of rules to be memorized.

Pay attention to the descriptions above so that you'll know what you're getting. This book is intended for law students or other legal-minded professionals, or only the most die-hard and detail-oriented of laypeople. The word "documentary" in the title will disappoint you if the documentaries that usually interest you are on the History Channel. This book is primarily a compilation of actual court pleadings... you know, those long, verbose, lawyer-written legal-brief-type arguments that have the party names at the top and usually begin with "comes now, Anne Andersen, Plaintiff, who alleges and would show this Court the following..." yadda yadda. Granted, you would never get to see this stuff if the author had not painstakingly gone through the court's casefiles and selected the best documents, but what you're reading is exactly that: the highlights of the court file. If you've never had the desire to show up at the federal courthouse, ask to see the casefile for Anderson v. Cryovac (assuming they'd let you), wait for them to haul the boxes in from the warehouse (remember the forklift at the end of the movie?) and then page through the documents one by one for days on end, then this book will probably not intrigue you. If the thought of paging through the history of these proceedings does interest you, then by all means, get this book. If nothing else, it will show the lawyer how much worse his/her life could be, it will show the law student how complex a case like this can be, and it will give the layperson an appreciation for just how much work can and does go into a lawsuit like this.

A strong, detailed account of the Hollywood Blacklist. I first read this book for a Jurisprudence class in '72 and recently re-read it and still could not put it down. Vaughn makes a thorough and insightful case for why we should never forget.

Robert Francis Vaughn wrote a fine account of Hollywood blacklisting actors and actresses who were considered to be Communists back in the Fifties. He wrote it with a good head on his shoulders, right after his tenure with a fad TV series, his staunch anti-Vietnam views and support of RFK before the ex-Attorney General was killed.

Robert Vaughn's "Only Victims" is a necessary book with a necessary goal -- stressing the importance of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and citing the dangers of what happens when its cherished tradition is jeopardized. In the name of combatting Communism liberties were jettisoned while the art of stool pigeon information dissemination reached a feverish pitch during Hollywood's blacklist period beginning shortly after World War Two with the advent of the Cold War.

The title of the book, which was the famous actor and author's doctoral dissertation at the University of Southern California, was taken from a statement by Dalton Trumbo that the blacklist period produced "only victims." Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten. The Danbury, Connecticut prison facility to which he was sent for failing to name names of alleged "subversives" he encountered had another notable prisoner at the same time Trumbo was incarcerated, former Congressman Parnell Thomas, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, before which the screenwriter appeared.

In addition to ruining careers of many film industry people, the widespread crackdown on writers threatened an industry brain drain which led to some crafty countermeasures. Pierre Boule, who did not understand a word of English, received a Best Screenplay Oscar for adapting his novel, "Bridge on the River Kwai," to the screen. Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, both blacklistees, actually wrote the screenplay. Trumbo wrote the screenplay for "The Brave One" as Robert Rich. It was a 1956 release and the Oscar won by "Rich" sat on an Academy of Arts and Sciences shelf until Trumbo claimed it almost twenty years later in 1975.

Robert Vaughn performed with gusto and sophistication as television's successful "Mister Uncle" series in the sixties. He performs with equal gusto and sophistication as an author, using his exhaustive research to write a thoughtful work about an important topic and period of American history.

I have read this book and it is a very readable book.I also know the author personally.i rate this book a 10.

A fascinating account of the science and history of smell and attraction. I found it very readible and varied, never dull, yet packed with scientific information. I highly recommend it for scientist and lay person alike.

this work provides valuable insight into the workings of the human experience. i would recommend it to the novice or the professional alike, and have yet to find its equal.

My dad and I are reading this book, and we think it's totally awesome! If you are 11 or 12, you may want to read this book with an adult, but you'll love the adventure and pirates, the treasure map and the Hispanola. I think I am going to start learning pirate lingo now, so I'll be ready if Long John shows up at my door! If you read this book you'll have to rate it a five star because of the adventure. Kids, hope you can get YOUR dad to read it with you!!

Cracking good pirate tale hits all the high points of treachery, adventure, narrow escapes, and treasure hunting, usually misfiled in the Juvenile section.

"Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"

See my review of the new novel Silver: My Own Tale As Written by Me with a Goodly Amount of Murder that tells more of the story behind Long John Silver.

The book has nice pen and ink illustrations throughout and includes the original Treasure Island map illustration from the original edition. The cover art is by a different artist who has clearly adapted the image from the very familiar publicity photo of Jim and Long John Silver from the Disney film--kind of humorous.

I missed this one as a boy though I had always loved adventure fiction. So years later, and no longer a boy, I picked it up and tried to read it. But I just couldn't get into it and so put it aside. More recently I picked it up again, this time determined to see it through.

Although it wasn't compelling at the start, with the appearance of an old pirate, Billy Bones, at the Admiral Benbow Inn run by young Jim Hawkins' father, it did start to pick up a head of steam as I pushed my way into it. I was pleasantly surprised to find it catching me up with the discovery of the map and the appearance of the pirates in hot pursuit of Billy Bones, and Jim's race to Dr. Livesy and Squire Trelawney to gain their protection. Intriguingly these upstanding English gentlemen, pillars of their community, decide to hunt the treasure for themselves though the squire, at least, lacks the good sense or discretion to keep the project secret. And so young Jim is swept along into the excursion, upon the death of his father, and soon finds himself aboard a suspect ship manned by an even more suspicious seeming crew on the way to a desert island in the Caribbean where old pirate Captain Flint's treasure is purportedly buried.

The most interesting character is, of course, the by now famous Long John Silver who has long since entered into the cultural zeitgeist. But Silver's not nearly as charming or charismatic in this book as he has come to seem in popular recollection. Young Jim Hawkins, for his part, is a mischievous fellow who manages to get himself into one scrape after another while always coming out alright, even when he is obliged to face down a treacherous mutineer or when he stumbles unthinkingly into the pirates' own nest.

In truth Treasure Island is not quite as exciting or as easy a read as one might expect for all its reputation. Still, it was nicely done and kept me reading to the end (though it did end with something of a letdown, leading me to think it somewhat overrated). It was a boy's book from the first, according to its author and I think it works well enough as that. Still, it's somewhat dated and lacks the excitement we've come to expect in our adventures today. Good but not among the best, in my view. I thought Stevenson's Master of Ballantrae much the better book.

SWM
author of The King of Vinland's Saga

I'm not a young boy, and yet I love this book that has been traditinally associted with kids every since it was written. In fact, it is one of my favorite books, and why not? Here is a book that first and foremost recognizes that a pirate adventure should be, well, an adventure, and makes sure to put the fun, danger, and excitement in the front with all the silly, pop-corn vibe action any kid could ask for.

It begins in England in seaside inn, told by the voice of hero Jim Hawkins. His parents own the inn, and one of the strangest guests is a man named Billy Bones, a guy who practically has split-personality in is treatment of young Jim. It turns out that the man is wanted for possessing a map to a legendary treasure. When pirates attack in an awesome pirate attack (how else can I describe it?) Jim finds himself aboard a ship on an adventure to find the treasure.

What follows is a classic, pulse-racing adventure of good and evil, pirates and good guys, and island fun, complete with all the necessary twists and turns and danger and betrayal.

It's not all fluff--Stevenson adds some surprisingly deep human emotions that actually serve to make the adventure that much more powerful. But never fear, it does not turn into a soap opera no matter how many subsequent movies want it to.

As I said before, it's an adventure story of piracy on the high seas, and that's what makes it so great.