John Winston Books

The Book Is in excellent Shape for a Collectible. I am not into Bridge Game, however my grandmother is. She Find The Book extremely interesting, also its antiquity adds its charm and carry the reader to a different era!

This extensive read is a broad brush stroke for the reader who is looking for a landscape portrait about the man as if it were written by him personally. The book begins coverage tracing his pre-history origin shedding light on the beginnings of his psycological make up then on thru his living influences leaving the reader with a good understanding of Winston and his personality as Winston lived it. Suffering thee, as he puts it "The Black Dog" for most of his life it becomes clear to the reader that he did live his role in life beyond just satisfying his personal ego (unlike most politicians), though his ego was not anything small it did gain it's personal satisfactions and it's blows.

Much like his life the book is long and never boring.

Ruskin in his youth saw things with a clarity of perception which was almost unprecedented. In addition he was a poet: he had the gift of transmitting what he saw - in art, architecture, society, and nature - with a spontaneous eloquence which enslaved, alike, writers from Wordsworth to Proust and reformers from Tolstoy to Bernard Shaw.

Today Ruskin is practically unknown. His tendency to preach, his bouts of mental chaos, and the very fluency of his rhetoric have killed his appeal. Few writers have ever suffered such a reversal.

Sir Kenneth Clark's new anthology of 'the best of Ruskin', by modern standards, is perfectly designed to reintroduce this fascinating and complex figure. Extracts from his writings are grouped by subjects with separate introductions, and Ruskin's own shrewd comments on himself are preceded by a note on his life and the pathetic story of his infantile relations with women.
--- from book's back cover

I got this book a while back. I started it immediately and read it in two days. I'm only ten and I had seen great reviews for some of his other books. This is one of the greatest books I've ever read. I got this book at Half Price Bookstores for six bucks. Whenever you see this review go out and by the book.

My sister Ruth bought me this book just last week and it is so appropriate that it brought Ben back to me during Lent. Anyone who was fortunate to have Ben in their lives should read this book and remember the man who brought great joy simply by just being. It also made me realize just how much I miss him.

This was Ben Bova's first book. It was published as part of the famous Winston Sci-Fi Series and was the best book of the series. I've read most of Mr. Bova's works over the years, and while this was his first, it is still about the best thing he ever wrote. In later years, he tended to develop the tendency to pad his writing.

Star Conquerors, on the other hand, was a great action adventure than spanned the galaxy. When the Terran Empire is invaded by "the Masters", it appears that all is lost. But one man leads a fleet of ships against incredible odds and by genius, luck, new inventions, and indomitable character, overcomes the hordes of invaders and eventually reaches the center of the Galaxy to confront the Masters. There are enough twists and turns to keep you enthralled and the surprise ending is first class.

In recent years many of Bova's fans have pleaded for a reprint of the book (printed in 1959 - believed to be less than 10000 copies in existence), but even though he promised to deliver, he has been delaying now for over 5 years since the original promise. Supposedly he had a copy OCRed and it merely needed to be proofed before release (but keep in mind this happened several years ago).

Needless to say, many of Mr. Bova's fans are less than thrilled at being treated like second-class citizens.

If you are one of the lucky few that read the book during the 60's (published in 1959), then you recall it fondly and would dearly like to read it again.

Here's hoping that Mr. Bova will do the right thing in regard to his many fans!

LATEST UPDATE: Mr. Bova as released a free pdf copy of Star Conqueors. It is on his website which is is full name with no space between first and last name and then a period and then the com extension. Then scroll to the bottom of the page where it says "Interested in Ben's first book". To the right is a Click Here link to download the pdf.

Later Update: For some unknown reason Mr. Bova has now removed the download of the Star Conquerors PDF. Once again his many fans are being disappointed. I still believe this was the best thing he ever wrote. Unlike his more modern novels, this one was fast paced and did not suffer from the padding that seems all too common in current novels.

Ely Culbertson was a great entrepreneur, building publishing and teaching empires in contract bridge, was probably the world's greatest bridge player, was a great showman, was extremely lucky, even given his extreme virtues, to have one of history's great women (and bridge players) as a wife, and was very strange in the way he created his own, internal board of independent governors: Ely the Roue, Ely the Husband, Ely the this and that, each acting autonomously. Silva Mind Control and Napoleon Hill fans will find that Board quite familiar, but both came well after Ely. And Ely wrote a darn good book about it all.

This is a classic in Science and Religion by a president of the Religion and Science Forum. Habgood is an Oxbridge-type scholar. His writing is high quality and easy to read. In fact it might seem too easy, but in reality it's extremely sophisticated. Not only a pleasure to read, but also a profitable experience to have gone through.

How can I be the first person reviewing this item? When I was nine, I loved this old book. I read it all the time at my grandparents' house, where an aged copy resided. This should be a classic and instead looks like it's forgotten. Major-mega injustice. Valiant from the book's title is a wise, brave shepherd dog who lives and works on a Wyoming ranch with his boy and the boy's dad, who are ranchers in the late 1800's, during the time of a deadly range war between sheep and cattle ranchers. This novel is a cross between lovely pulp fiction luridness and dignified children's literature of the sort not known today, and it brings kidnapping, the wild west in all its excitement, and the love between a boy and his faithful dog, into its plotline. This is a seventy-year-old novel and I wish it would be re-printed by someone because I know children and adults today would like it every bit as much as I did almost twenty years ago and its original audience did generations back.

Excellent book. Great Illustrations of this pretty old town. Not only are the illustrations excellent the Hisorical Content is outstanding and straight forward. A must have for all lovers of Old Salem.