X Books

A story that has never been told. It is written by the man who lived it. His insight into the history of the U.S. intelligence division that handled the rescues in China is incredibly accurate and revealing. This is a story that needed to be told.

This is the type of book that should be in schools it show's the way life was not the way history showed it. This was written by a man that lived it.

This is the book I have been waiting for for seven years. If it sounds like high praise it's meant to be. I have been trying to sort out the intelligence and clandestine operations in the CBI Theatre for years. The outline has been clear for Burma but the situation in China was obscured not only by the necessity for secrecy but also by the overlapping and disputatious command setup and the rivalry between General Stillwell and his factions, and General Chennault and his.
Now we have a new work of organizational history "OSS In China" (c.f.) to add to the personal memoirs of the major participants and others. When the U.S. Army official "Green Books" were published so long ago, any mention of intelligence was very limited and most of the sources were then in the hands of the CIA---there were no official documentary sources.I have about 2000 pages from the archives and they still do not tell it all. And there were no official books on intelligence either.
Now we have a new GPO book on WW II Air Intelligence with many pages on the Far East and an Air University book on Air Force clandestine activities from WW II to the second Vietnam War to give us more leads into this story and its consequences.
But, back to the book at hand. Wichtrich was the commander of the MIS-X agency in Kunming, China, which was in charge of establishing "ratlines" and giving E & E training to U.S. personnel in China. In China most US personnel were Fourteenth Air Force personnel assigned to Gen. Chennault at Kunming. In China, if a downed airman was not immediately captured by the Japanese or their puppets, he would be immediately hidden away by the locals until U.S. personnel could come and get him. There were many safe havens between and behind the Japanese lines and it was sometimes possible to take a train, a plane, or a jeep, and not have to hoof it halfway across China to get back.
As an E & E agency, Wichtrich's outfit's cover name was Air Ground Aid Section (AGAS). AGAS was not involved in active sabotage or intelligence activities but if intelligence could be had it would be brought in. As to the relationships with other agencies in the area, the closest was with the "big brother"--the British MIS-9. There was little with the OSS which was in Chungking and which cooperated with the Koumintang Secret Police under Gen Dai Li, and much with the AGRFRTS, the 14th Air Force intelligence agency.
The AGAS also ran agents in Indochina, including Ho Chi Minh, in cooperation with the BDT group. (c.f. Ronald Spector's official U.S. Army history concerning the early advisory days in Vietnam.)
For the higher relationships of AGAS to its parent located at Fort Hunt, Va, see my review of Shoemaker's The Escape Factory on this site.

Despite being published in 1976, this remains to my mind, the most authoritative textbooks on the subject. The author was a good friend a scientific colleague until his passing a few years ago. A legacy to a great man. NASA remembers with distinction the contribution of John A O'Keefe to science and to petrology. Nigel Griffiths

This book is a prime example that some classic scientific works of great insight should remain in print as valuable references and sources of key knowledge! Much of current tektite literature is awash in highly fanciful and essentially flawed observations linking the stones to terrestrial impacts--the current state of affairs is but an example of Thomas Kuhn's ideas about mainstream science's stubborn resistance to "paradigm shifts" because it threatens personal research turf and the reigning orthodoxy. This classic study of tektites--written by former NASA astronomer J.A. O'Keefe, the 'Father of Space-Age Geodesy'--has been out of print since the 1970s but should be reissued. Also, O'Keefe's prediction of a coming revolution in planetary science seems to be a prophesy about to be fulfilled. And not surprisingly, O'Keefe's analysis of the origin of tektites remains as pertinent and timely as it was in 1976. O'Keefe's clear thinking about, and observations of, tektites and the Moon are brilliant examples of this man as a new Copernicus. Sadly, mountains of papers written by many of today's post-Apollo era researchers--who have only sampled a few tektites and look at them through the horse-blinders of the "one size fits all" impact theory--has obscured O'Keefe's magnificent work in this area. The fact that tektites come from the Moon--and that the Moon still experiences explosive pyroclastic eruptions which pose a threat to life on Earth--is clear now and should no longer be challenged. Tektites are formed as volcanic deposits on the lunar surface (either by massive volcanic "glass" eruptions or my impacts blasting off this volcanic material) and then are blasted off the moon's surface and fall to Earth in great showers--sometimes even forming Saturn-like rings around our planet. In addition, recent re-examination of the controversial Apollo 12 "granitic" lunar sample No. 12013 (actually a lunar KREEP rock which has a vein of tektitic material in it) now favors a lunar origin for these so-called "enigmatic stones." So, if you are a student of tektites and meteorites, track down as a used copy of this classic work and treasure it. It is a timeless reference work!

This book is a prime example that some classic scientific works of great insight should remain in print as valuable references and sources of key knowledge! Much of current tektite literature is awash in highly fanciful and essentially flawed observations linking the stones to terrestrial impacts--the current state of affairs is but an example of Thomas Kuhn's ideas about mainstream science's stubborn resistance to "paradigm shifts" because it threatens personal research turf and the reigning orthodoxy. This classic study of tektites--written by former NASA astronomer J.A. O'Keefe, the 'Father of Space-Age Geodesy'--has been out of print since the 1970s but should be reissued. Also, O'Keefe's prediction of a coming revolution in planetary science seems to be a prophesy about to be fulfilled. And not surprisingly, O'Keefe's analysis of the origin of tektites remains as pertinent and timely as it was in 1976. O'Keefe's clear thinking about, and observations of, tektites and the Moon are brilliant examples of this man as a new Copernicus. Sadly, mountains of papers written by many of today's post-Apollo era researchers--who have only sampled a few tektites and look at them through the horse-blinders of the "one size fits all" impact theory--has obscured O'Keefe's magnificent work in this area. The fact that tektites come from the Moon--and that the Moon still experiences explosive pyroclastic eruptions which pose a threat to life on Earth--is clear now and should no longer be challenged. Tektites are formed as volcanic deposits on the lunar surface (either by massive volcanic "glass" eruptions or my impacts blasting off this volcanic material) and then are blasted off the moon's surface and fall to Earth in great showers--sometimes even forming Saturn-like rings around our planet. In addition, recent re-examination of the controversial Apollo 12 "granitic" lunar sample No. 12013 (actually a lunar KREEP rock which has a vein of tektitic material in it) now favors a lunar origin for these so-called "enigmatic stones." So, if you are a student of tektites and meteorites, track down as a used copy of this classic work and treasure it. It is a timeless reference work!

To the members of Generation X, success doesn't necessarily mean accumulating power or calling every shot. So-called "Xers" tend to seek a sensible balance between their work and personal lives. Companies interested in 21st century competitiveness must provide that balance, according to a survey of 1,200 Gen Xers. Baby Boomer Charlotte Shelton and her Xer daughter Laura Shelton examine the attitudes of Gen X professional women as they look to the future. getAbstract recommends this as a heads-up for Boomer-age leaders and their Gen X colleagues. Now is the time to think about the work environment you must create to recruit and retain young talent. And if you are an up-and-coming Xer, now is the time to decide what you want to up-and-come to.

Charlotte and Laura Shelton's The Next Revolution: What Gen X Women Want At Work And How Their Boomer Bosses Can Help Them Get It tells of the latest group of young female workers and why they feel disillusioned with the workplace, caught between a 'go for it' ideal and the realities of the modern corporate establishment. The Sheltons surveyed over a thousand of these women and interviewed others about their work experiences: these interviews blend with insights about the differing views of two generations to show how it affects the workplace - and what can be done to prevent the migration of talent.

The NeXt Revolution is an awesome book for any woman in the workplace. As a Gen Xer it really helped but my work situation into perspective. It's very insightful, and not just a book exclusively for women. My husband really related to the workplace narratives in the book. I recommend the book for anyone new to the workplace or frustrated with their job.

This is only one among many collections of Loren Eisley's thoughtful works, and I would willingly recommend all those I have read. THE NIGHT COUNTRY, however, remains my favorite. Eisley's vision overlays the human and non-human worlds and examines both over the span of ages rather than years. He will show you tiny snippets of life in a parking lot, shadows on cave walls, deserts, pigeons and childhood memories that will linger in your thinking like dinosaur footprints impressed in mud and baked to permanence by hot volcanic ash. You may choose not to follow that trail again, but I assure you it will remain vivid. Consider the return of an old man to a boyhood home after more than a half century, eager to see the cottonwood tree he and his father planted together. It was the tree his father had promised would provide Eisley with shade in his old age, where he might sit and remember his Dad; a tree that had grown and blossomed and flourished year after year in Eisley's thoughts and dreams; a tree under whose branches Eisley figuratively lived his entire life. Gone. For, who knows, fifty years? And yet, what tree could have been more real, more alive? Like a field mouse displaced by developers, pigeons abandoned with an archaic train station, a bum dying in a depot, or a wasp fading into the chill of autumn, Eisley knows that the shadow he casts on a hotel wall will be that of another man tomorrow, and all shadows fade together into the night.

I first was introduced to Loren Eisley by a roommate in graduate school who read aloud to me the final essay in this book. It is entitled, "The Brown Wasps," and if you've never read anything by Eisley, you might want to start there. Among many things, this particular essay is about memory, home, and the place of death in life - themes that run throughout the book whose essays are intimate narratives that intermingle meditations on science and personal history. Having now written these words I feel they miss the mark in recommending this book becuase the themes of Eisley's work seem more experiential than concrete to me, which is the case for many truths about life - truths that can be captured more by the feelings evoked by a time and a place than by mere words alone. And yet, his words do a remarkable job of evoking past times and places, locating them in your present life and providing a context for understanding their meaning. If you read this book, perhaps you'll want to share it with a friend, as my friend did with me, and I have with many good friends since. Eisley communicates the happy/sad, excited/melancholic, naive/wise tensions of nostalgia like no one else I've read.

Theodosius Dobzhansky described Eiseley as "...a Proust miraculously turned into an evolutionary anthropologist," and his works are greatly admired by Ray Bradbury. This was the second book I read of his after "The Immense Journey" and it was no let down at all! It too is haunting, beautiful, disturbing, hopeful, fearful, and immensely imaginative.

Here's a taste, from the chapter The Places Below: "If you cannot bear the silence and the darkness, do not go there; if you dislike black night and yawning chasms, never make them your profession. If you fear the sound of water hurrying through crevices toward unknown and mysterious destinations, do not consider it. Seek out the sunshine. It is a simpler prescription. Avoid the darkness."

This book is a lot of fun to read, but the scary thing is that the stories are real! This book backs up the spooky and incredible experiences of the X-Investigations team with the facts of their findings. I highly recomend this, it will open your eyes to an entire world around you that you might never have noticed!

Great, fast read...and spooky! I love that these are REAL case studies. Especially that story about the demon-posessed woman. I want more! I highly recommend it.

Occult Investigator is a thrilling look at a modern-day paranormal research outfit headed by author Bob Johnson.
From werewolves in Van Nuys, California to Satanists living next door, the X-Investigations team are at the top of their game in this book.
The stories are chilling and remind us that it's nice to have someone on your side when things go bump in the night!

This is a 100 percent excellent book! Out to Get Jack is a book about Jack Lack, who has something called high-functioning autism. Jack Lack is in a classroom for behaviorally challenged children and he is not in the gentler autistic classroom down the hallway. He is suspended from school for 1 month when he has some family gathering. His Aunt Eva is remarrying also. I think that this book is awesome and I would recommend it to anyone I know.

This is the best book that I have ever read!!! This is a MUST READ book!!!! It is about 8-year-old Jack Lack, an autistic boy who is forced to deal with his unbelieveable parents, and the evil, nasty kids in his classroom at school. The story starts where Jack is forced to go on a month long vacation to visit his relatives because his Aunt Eva (I call her Aunt Evil) is getting married. As the marrige comes closer, strange incidents keep happening (for eg. the power shutting off in the zoo) and no matter what the context is, or no matter how ubsurd the accusation is, Jack is always blamed for being the culprit. Are these incidents happening without warning? Or is someone,
OUT TO GET JACK
It my favorite book in the world, and the author is now my personal favorite! You are the coolest in the world, James Williams!!! I hope that you will write lots more books, or you will expect me to write you a letter! The info says that it's for Middle School aged students, but it really is good for all ages, and even adults. It's funny, mysterious, cute, and lovable. My favorite part is where the preist gets sick right before the wedding, and so they are forced to use MICROSOFT (R) WEDDING (makers of Microsoft(r) divorce)!! Isn't that a riot? But what I like best about that scene is that at the end of them programming how they want their wedding to be, is says, "Thank you for using Microsoft Wedding. Would you like another wedding?" It's so hilarious.

Also, the artwork on the front is awesome! It portrays the whole mood of the book right away.

One more thing. I think that the most amazing part of all of this is that the author is only 15!!!! It just boggles the mind. Most adults can't write as good as that, and I thought he was like 40!

The books great, everything is clearly written, and I am going to recommend this to everyone that I know!!
And I will say it again, this IS A MUST READ BOOK!!!! You must buy this book! Trust me, you won't regret it.

My name is Will Rogers and I am 34 years old. James and I have been good friends on the Internet since James was nine. He and I hang out at conferences and occasionally talk on the phone. I just read "Out to Get Jack" and it's a great book. I'm autistic myself, so I know how Jack must have felt. I loved how Jack saved his family from the fire near the end of the story and that the result was that everyone was nicer to Jack and that he and his devoted cousin Bobby were allowed to interact again. Not many adults can write as well as James can. His letters to me are just as professional. "Out to Get Jack" is now a bestseller and James deserves it. I have a book out too, called 'The Stonking Steps".

This was one of my fav books as a child. It's still sitting on my bookshelf, 20+ yrs later. I think of this book every time I eat parsnips, which is quite often! I'm glad it's back in print because it's a very memorable book with its great storytelling devices, wonderful character descriptions, and excellent pacing. Good for fans of books like Lion Witch Wardrobe, Alice in Wonderland, Wiz of Oz.

I bought this book when I was in fifth grade and used to re-read it every summer until I loaned it out and never got it back. For anyone who likes magic and adventure stories, this is a great book! There are terrific lessons in this book for young and old and it's a wonderful story. A must read as far as I'm concerned.

Why is this fast-paced fantasy fun out of print? Kids about 4th grade will want to look for it in libraries. When unhappy orphans Tim and Verity Tibb fall into a parallel world called 'Other Earth,' they quickly rally an assortment of odd friends to defeat a criminal dictator and restore peace to the realm. Suspense and excitement combine with genuine humor in this gripping yarn. There is also a sequel, called "The Eagle As Wide As the World."

This book is just what I was looking for. A no fuss book with quality pictures showing recommended finger positions for common chords and their billions of variants! Well organised with a section for each chord note.
I can't fault it.

the pictures and notes are excellent just what I have been looking for,for years thumbs up I recommend it to everyone you can not loose all to gain knowledge you will use for life!

This book is just about perfect! After buying grimoires, chord charts and all other manner of paraphernalia, I finally found EXACTLY what I was looking for in this book. For the basic modern guitarist, this is all you need. What more can I say?

Oh, OK, fine, here are the details:

There is a six-page introduction to the book which describes how to use the book (um, you have to be an idiot not to understand how to use the book, but just in case!); it also discusses briefly how to choose the best voicings, how to "read" chords, what all the voodoo symbology in chords actually MEANS (like you'll find out that "C+" is not just a computer language!), how to assemble each chord type (ie. "minor" means "first-flatted third-fifth"), and what an "inversion" means. This introduction is very clear, well thought-out, and only provides essential and useful information. BUT, this is not the meat of the book.

The main part of the book consists of 264 pages of chords! Each very large page is divided vertically in half so that only two chords appear on each page. Each chord is given by its symbol at the top of the page in large type, below which is the English translation. Below that is the chord written out on a G-clef in standard music notation, with each note labeled and the root note labeled. Below this are five separate voicings for that chord. Each voicing is given in two separate ways: there is a large black and white photograph of a hand playing that chord; to the right of that is a six by six grid which sort of looks like you're looking down on the fretboard of a guitar. On this grid are black dots representing which frets and which strings you press down, along with the suggested fingering for that chord. Each note is labeled. The five voicings progress down the neck, allowing you to play that chord essentially anywhere you need to on the neck. These diagrams and pictures are BIG so you won't have to do a lot of squinting. Perfect size type, and all the information you will need.

There are 44 separate chords given, for each of the 12 keys, with five chords voicings given for each chord. (For those of you counting at home, that is 2640 separate chords!) These 44 chords range from the basic major and minor chords that every beginner learns, to the esoteric stuff that you'll probably never need unless you play jazz (like Cmaj7#11 and C13sus4.)

The book is well thought-out, planned, and executed, the perfect size and shape, and with a wealth of information--- but not TOO much information--which is a problem I was having with some of the grimoires. (Now, don't get me wrong. The grimoires are ALSO essential once you've reached a certain level. However, for the day-to-day guitar player, they are too complicated overkill.)

In summary, until you start playing stuff like Wes Montgomery, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Frank Zappa or Robert Fripp, this book is all you will ever need!!!

This was a really good book. It shows the life Jillian lived from since she was a little girl and how God intervened in her life. Her book is really good. Must read it. I was really Teary eyed upon reading this book.

I thought the book was relly good and it kept me awake at night cause I was interested in the story she was telling. Books that talk about peoples lives who have been abused or been in foster homes interest me because I like to know that they have overcome their past!

In Please Somebody Love Me,you will read of the ultimate test of forgiveness. As a child Jillian suffered severe abuse,and neglect, which made her unsure when at eight she found that family who truly loved her, and wanted her,a family who she could call her own,and who loved her, they wanted her,but she wouldn't let herself get to close,because she was afraid of neglect, of rejection,and that fear led her down a dark path once gain. As she grew in to hher teenage and young adult years she made many poor deccissions, decissions that nearly made her take her own life, but her parents were there for her,and eventually she gave her life to the Lord,and after a while, she was able to give her life to the Lord, and forgive those who did those terrible things to her, because Jesus had died for her sins, she could forgive those wwhohurt her. This is a story I would definetly reccomend to anyone who suffered in anyway, because it is truly inspiring.

I read "Prague Winter" in one sitting. It is the true tale of a Czech teenager living in Prague just before and during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia during the Second World War. The book is riviting describing the gradual loss of freedom for the citizens and how the city slowly turns from a gay exciting european capital to a closed, silent and dismal island of fear and loathing. Martin chronicles the assination of the hated SS Leader Heydrich and the terrible reprisals against the Czechoslovakian people. The book culminates with Martin's attempt to escape the country, his capture and imprisonment where he almost dies. This book really deserves a wide readership because the lessons learned are so very important to freedom loving people.

This book made me recall things I had learned about the Nazis during World War II and had let slip into my mental dustbin of facts and memories I wish I'd never known. I had conveniently summarized in my consciousness all I thought I needed to recall about these things: The Nazis were a brutal, horrible blight on humanity and if there ever was a Hell on Earth, their world was it.

But this summary doesn't cut it, as I rediscovered reading Prague Winter. The horror and depravity of the concentration camps was bad enough, but what it did psychologically to the inmates was even worse. To survive, one had to become inured to it and learn how to play survival games that are unimaginable in today's world, and that must have left a permanent scar upon all who survived.

The way Martin has chosen to narrate his experiences makes it seem all the more like the Hell on Earth it really was. The utter chaos of the time; the knowledge that each decision one makes, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it might be, could literally mean death; the insanity of the oppression; the things that one was required to accept in order to survive; the attitude about death one must adopt--are all made plain through Martin's matter-of-fact way of describing his experiences.

I could hardly put the book down, but it was very painful to read. I'm reminded of Solzhenitsyn's books--all of which I've read. To realize the depths to which insane megalomaniacal leaders can plunge society is really sobering. We truly do not know how good our lives are here in the US and Canada.

This book should be read by all freedom loving people.

This is a terrific book. It's a gripping read; but it's also the type of book that stays
with you for months, enlightening your day-to-day life with moments of insight. Perhaps
its greatest strength lies in the character of the narrator, the young Nikolaus Martin.
Candid, likeable and exact in his recall, he tells his story so simply and without pretension
that we know we can trust him to tell us how things really were. All the events of his
story -- the irresponsible pleasures of his Bohemian youth, the much-feared occupation of
Czechoslovakia, daring escapes and long months in a prison camp -- we see with
devastating clarity through his eyes.
I learned a lot from Martin: about the events of a particularly poignant period in
European history, about the lifestyle of a hedonistic young man in pre-war Prague
(surprising to me, who thought sexual freedom began in the 1960s), about lice and loyalty
and prison survival. And I enjoyed myself throughout.
This is not a book, like so many I've read about the same place and time, to overwhelm
us with incomprehensible horrors --- the piles of bodies, the black smoke from tall
chimneys. Rather it is the experience of one man who, by turns mischievious,
compassionate and pedantic, manages to bring a dreadful event down to the level of
individual human experience.