Digital Books

Light-hearted, indeed, but I found myself hoping the Mitty-like husband would turn his dreams into reality. A wonderful read, and a nudge for those of us who have never fulfulled our own dreams. I'm going out and buying a Harley. And maybe a boat.

Is there such a thing as good-natured writing? This is it. Delightful and fun to read. There are some laugh out loud lines. You'll have a good time finding them!

"The Good Stuff" is absolute visual hilarity. It's a story about Mark, who longs for fine wine, travel, a Harley, a yacht, and a Frenchwoman with a fringe that just touches her eyebrows. The only thing blocking his dream is his condescending sock-mending wife with an unsettling habit of settling for less. Until one day, Mark takes a stand against brussel sprouts.

It's no wonder Louis E. Catron has a theatrical background. His characters speak and move with such clarity, and the prose flows so easily that I felt more like I was watching rather than reading

Louis Catron shows readers all too much of what many would call an all too familiar, forgettable life. However. He raises the bar on typical short fiction and sprinkles it with mystique, warmth and hope. He challenges complacency through the dreams of his character, and I found myself crossing fingers and toes that the story would finish in first place. It does.

The Good Stuff will not disappoint those who long for a satisfying, UNforgettable ending.

This is the kind of sweet, whimsical fantasyland that is truly irresistable. Who doesn't want to root for the little man struggling to find the light? This character is the essence of struggle and determination while stuck in a quagmire of boring ordinariness. It's hilarious and delicious to watch him Vroom his way to a happy ending. I loved it.

Having perused many books on animation, illustration, etc. and having purchased a few I thought this was pretty cool. The coloring style may not be for everyone, but the book is helpful in many areas. I thought the quality of the work was not as good as GURU's book, and I would recommend that book over this one. That being said, you may be able to pick up different points from each, as I did.

There are a lot of books dedicated to Photoshop, for improving photos. Which is understandable since that's what Photoshop is mainly for. There are few books that go deep into the art possibilities. (and I have quite a few Photoshop books).

This book is heavy into comic related art, mainly, how to color comics and really make them pop. But don't let that stop you if you are not into comics. This book helps with taking simple line art and making into a good pieces of art or graphic quality. It covers scanning, stitching, layout, and it full of coloring tips from end to end.

Forget 2-dimensional line art. This book takes a basic line art and shows you how to make it fantastic visually. There are so many ideas here, it will keep you busy for quite sometime. Highly recommended.

I use this book as a teaching tool. Fantastic. If you are need to know digital color and the all the means (printing, and so on) you need this book. The best book of it's kind. Very well done.

I've just started coloring a comic, and I wish I had purchased this book before I started! It contains SO MUCH information, from scanning, to prepping your drawings for coloring, to flatting and finally to coloring itself. Sure, some of this may be in the Internet here and there, but never in one place and never, ever explained so well.

In addition to the valuable information on coloring, he also includes some invaluable scripts from Hi-Fi, which removes the tedious process of setting up your channels, etc., as well as a script for color holds and finishing up the page.

All I can say is this is the best resource I've found on computer coloring for comics. In fact, it was so good, I ordered copies for two friends.

This book is an excellent resource. The authors are talented colorists, but more importantly for the reader, they're people with real experience teaching others how to color comics professionally.

There are a hundred ways to do ANYTHING in photoshop -- what I love about _Hi-Fi Color for Comics_ is it stops to explain WHY they do it the way they're showing. I've colored a lot of comic pages and other illustrations over the years, and have my own way of doing things. I'm changing a lot of my approaches for the better because of this book.

The book covers Hi-Fi's "house style" of coloring, but the meat of the book is valuable for all styles of colorists. You've got to flat well, you've got to produce good backed-up blacks, all the rest. No matter what coloring style you're shooting for, my bet is you're going to pick up some valuable tips from this book.

And finally we have the included cd -- it's not just some sample files for practice and a couple custom brushes, it has a number of complicated photoshop actions that are serious high-quality time-savers for colorists. Any one of the actions would be worth the cover price alone.

Just starting out? This book will tell you what you need to know.
Experienced colorist? Boost your productivity, get this book.

What we have here is something worth reading. Right from the start there's the sense that you're going to get very carefully but very firmly taught in this weave of words. The pacing and speed is exactly at the tempo needed to wiggle the bait, hook you and wheel you in. Fish never had it so good.

Damn, I'm disappointed. But it's the good kind of disappointment. The kind that cries out "Is that all there is? I want MORE!"

A very strong first chapter which is intriguing and hallucinatory, a whirl through a hedonistic party where pianos are filled with chocolate moose and even the coffee is suspect... and through it all Calvin is struggling with sobriety, and thinking of the enigmatically absent Jarvis. Populated with strange characters, this sounds like my kind of party, and the suggestion of darker threads emerging in the narrative make this my kind of book. The writing is exquisite, alternately fey and sinister, exactly the right blend of reality and fantasy.

So damn it, I am hugely disappointed... but only because this is such a tantalizing morsel of a first chapter. More! I want more!

A brilliant and fresh piece of writing which quickly sucks you into Calvin's world and leaves you wanting to know more.

The writer creates an excellent sense of place and time, with well defined and credible characters.

I definitely want to read the rest of this story.

I was impressed by this story--good writing and a very catchy storyline. Very descriptive. After reading this excerpt, I very much want to read the rest!

Reading this made me want more... Who is Jarvis, and why is the lovely pseudo-dancer doomed? And what, pray tell, is the hapless Calvin going to do about it?

A lovely wit, and a deft touch with characterization makes this something to look forward to... more please!

The intriguing title does not seem to have a connection with the excerpt. Other than this, this excerpt promises an interesting tale told by an expert storyteller.

Some samples of the beautiful prose that shows the protagonist Wendy's troubled relationship with her mother.

"Childhood was supposed to be a carefree time, but I did not find it so--any more than the characters in novels did. No tooth fairy visited our apartment, and Santa Claus, Jasmine told me when I was four, had been killed in a sledding accident"
"There was so much about my origins that I did not understand, but did any child understand where she had come from--any more than where she was going?"

And this, about her relationship with her father, who is unable to acknowledge her as he is a priest, but neverthless loves her and spends the weekends reading with her.

"When we finally said good-bye standing in front of St. Laurence's Cathedral, he would sometimes reach out a hand to touch me, but it never quite landed. He always walked away quickly, but although he was walking fast, his steps were small, as though he were trying hard not to reach the giant red door of the church, which would open like a clam shell, then snap back shut, leaving me standing on the flagstones alone."

Vivid writing with shades of magic realism. I would love to read the rest of the book.

Hitler's Vegetarian Cookbook by V. Hurley hooks the reader with the strange notion that Wendy O'Hegarty has been in-utero for two years. Conceived of an affair between her mother, Jasmine a by-your-own-bootstraps beautician, and father, Father McCrory, Wendy's life feels like anything but normal.

In the front area of the Mane Attraction beauty parlor, Wendy passes much of her time out of school. Listening to the gossip of the women's lives, she realizes that the salon is more than a place where one comes to get a perm, it's a place where women can feel free with their emotions. For as much as Wendy too would like to be free to exchange feelings with Jasmine, her mother's standard response of "Buck up, girl" all but leaves Wendy convinced of her mother's lack of interest or affections.

Wendy's father, however, has a strange half-relationship with Wendy as he reads with her every Saturday. They go from ice cream sodas and walk together as any father and daughter would, but all this comes at the price of neither of them being able to acknowledge their real relationship.

The presentation of Wendy's story is definitely quirky, while at the same time endearing and engaging. It certainly isn't your standard approach to a memoir style novel, but despite the humor of it all, it still feels like your reading about a real someone's life. A very enjoyable read.

Hitler's Vegetarian Cook has a beautiful, stunning beginning excerpt available right here! This book is sure to go far; it is very well written and this excerpt held my attention every step of the way.

This is essentially a story about Wendy O'Hegarty, a misfit overweight child born out of wedlock to a Catholic priest and a hard drinking, somewhat crude beautician. Wendy chooses to start her story in utero--this very creative tactic by the author works so well.

We are soon introduced to Wendy's parents. Jasmine, Wendy's cold and distant mother who works as a beautician, isn't exactly the nurturing type. Jasmine expects Wendy to run errands for her at the tender age of eight; and Father McCrory, her biological father can't publicly admit to being her father because of the trouble it would cause him in the church. He could be reassigned and he doesn't want that. It also seems that Jasmine and Father McCrory are essentially content with their relationship even though it's not perfect. In addition, my heart went out to Wendy because Jasmine, her mother, is really rather cold toward her.

I also like the way Valerie Hurley writes about Wendy's insecurities. Wendy's lack of true moral support from her parents gives her troubles at school. This excerpt does a fine job of illustrating that.

I must agree with the reviewer who writes that I can't see the connection between the title and the excerpt available here; perhaps that becomes clear later on in the book.

I wish the author every bit of good luck and success with this effort. Valerie Hurley writes beautifully and she deserves recognition for this fine work.

Wendy's the child of 'illegitimate parents': Father McCrory, the parish priest, and Jasmine, hairdresser and owner of The Mane Attraction.

"Jasmine whispered her sins to Father McCrory in the confessional on Saturday afternoon, received the communion wafer from him on Sunday morning, and settled into a creaky bed with him each Wednesday afternoon."

The excerpt tells the tale of a child who doesn't fit in. Her mother sees her as an errand girl and her father won't even claim her. Because of her differences, the children make fun of her and the nuns who teach them use her as an example for showing kindness. ("when they're not hitting children with rulers and locking them in closets.")

There are just too many good lines and too much to remark about in "Hitler's Vegetarian Chef." This excerpt is beautifully written and sadly overlooked in this competition. The writing is of professional quality. I believe it should advance to the next phase of this competition. I wish much success to Valerie Hurley.

... Or maybe I should begin "A beautician walks into a confessional booth".

Whichever opening you choose, this is the story of Wendy O'Hegarty, a young girl who shares the tale of her improbable birth and her unlikely parents.

Jasmine, her mother, is a red-headed beautician with a drinking problem, and is described as "a connoisseur of delicatessen food--coleslaw, Oreos, and lukewarm French fries smothered with Cheese Whiz." Dad, on the other hand, is a Catholic priest who listens to Jasmine's sins on Saturday afternoons, blesses her communion wafer on Sunday mornings, and wears out the creaky bed springs with her on Wednesday afternoons.

You'll soon see that this is an excerpt with a difference, as the first part is told by Wendy in utero, having been in that particular location for more than two years. The rest of the excerpt deals with Wendy's relationships with her parents. Neglected by her mother except when required to run errands, and sharing quality time with a man she dare not acknowledge as her father, it's no wonder that Wendy is considered a weirdo at school -"a frizzy yellow-haired girl who was tall, plump, shy, and clumsy, wore thick eyeglasses, and was most unlikely to defend herself."

Although I'm still in the dark regarding the connection between the title and the excerpt, this one is very well written, with a catchy first paragraph and a wonderfully imaginative concept. Tell me more!

Rated: 4.5 stars

Note: This review is based on the excerpt submitted for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, and awarded a place in the semi-finals.


Amanda Richards, February 14, 2008

Had to consult the manual only once and found what I wanted. This manual is just about the only option should anyone need any help and prior to any calls to customer service.

No question this is the must have reference for mac products...bought the iPhoto and OSX Leopard manuals together...shipped fast too.

David Pogue has always been a favorite of mine. I have his earlier books on Apple OS-X 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5 and always found them to be very useful. The key to this type of book is in the index. You don't read a book of this nature, but instead you pull it off the shelf when you have a problem and for this the index is crucial. You need to find an immediate reference for your problem there in order to locate the solution and in this regard David Pogue has always been tops.

I can highly recommend this volume as well as the OS-X Missing Manuals by the same author.

Packed with great information, well organized and presented in a humorous fashion. I keep it right alongside my computer for reference.

iPhoto '08 is very useful for newcomers to iPhoto. One surprising, to me, plus is that the book actually begins with a couple of chapters that are photography tutorials that are helpful without being too technical. I think this 'missing manual' can help many get the most from their use of iPhoto '08.

This Amazon Short had GREAT potentual but somewhere along the storyline towards the end the author wrote as if he didn't know where to go once the park scene was written. Sad becuase this could have been a great story with a little more effort. And the "sexual" thoughts fo the main person in the story at the beginning were totally unnessassary and detracted FROM the story rather then added to it---confusing and predictable but still towards the end a good story.

ERO starts fast and grisly... No, I am not describing an amorous scene but it could well be. Mercy! There is a Deniz Washington, and a Lileth: who is not the author of a scientific textbook, or the female protagonist of 'Neatherland Omnibus' or 'Otherworldly Affair'. Lileth Barker has more cause for concern than a drive-by of the day, as fellow lawyer Washington recounts it. When there isn't enough mineral makeup to climb on, only liberal tension between Lileth and her colleague, our protagonist opts for a midnight walk through Lafayette Park. She is full of optimism that an exploration of nature, and the possible comeliness of dusk winds that surround it, may abet the erosion of her renegade thoughts. The dusk winds are not comely but they do erode the concerns of her rebel flesh. What they do not erode are Lileth's findings: that deprived citizens of lean-tos, members of the abyss of poverty and abandonment, can leave one profoundly changed, even if that abyss were simply Lafayette Park. Energized by dark winds, this Amazon Short does deliver what it promises: a lawyer in jeopardy. Authentic dialogue plants crucial clues that in concert reveal contemptible and odious characters (not always the hobos). Author E. Robert Orn builds a darkness and dilapidation that walks us into invasive psychosis that is worrisome because, in the dregs of neo-society, that neurosis may not be delusional.

The words listed above are rarely associated with short form literature, but in this case they all apply. Mr. Orn's ability to paint settings and characters with words is truly remarkable.

Ordinarily one might ask, how is it possible to tell a story and still develop character to the extent as what might be found in a full-length novel? He does so by making all that magnificent prose essential to the story and it takes the reader into the mind of the character so well that the chilling situation at the end almost seems personal. I don't think I will ever look at vagrants the same again.

The character of Lileth is so well portrayed that I think I would recognize her if I saw her on the street. Any potential writer who may wonder at how to develop a character or describe a scene should look at this story, because here it is done to perfection.

Though taking place at dark, the story is vibrant with impressive prose and the writing skill is evident throughout the story. Absolutely scintillating!

The Midnite Lunch Truck by E. Robert Orn is distinguished by the author's unique grotesque inventiveness in addition to his superb plot construction. Mr. Orn charges the reader as witness, and in doing so, entangles the mind to a confused, horrified, helpless state.
Great read, this E. Robert Orn.

Robert Meacham- Amazon Short contributor and poet.

Aren't all government-programs-run-amok rather disturbing? But wait, this is no government program - or isn't it? Either way, it works. It works very well. This story starts driving down a fairly straight road, then takes a sharp, left turn and ends up in the section of the city where we've always been warned against going. Unlike other stories with similar theme, there is no redemption to be found here, though, only horror. Very fitting to the Serlingesque genre of which E. Robert Orn references.

Orn builds wonderful elements of foreshadowing - giving little hints that something is askew - all the way from when the protagonist hears about G Dray Gon's fate to when she leaves her office for a midnight stroll through DC (the thought of such may be a bit of a premise stretch, but that is the only weakness I could find in the story, and it's easily overlooked) to the penultimate and oddly logical end.

He develops a sense for his characters quite well, to the point where we can nod and say, "yeah, I know someone like that." That is very very important to the short story format as it creates credibility. The Midnight Lunch Truck is not a story for those who are squeamish and timid. But for those of us who grew up on the staples of The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery and Circle of Fear, it is supremely satisfying.

Wow! Let Lucy (this stories' protagonist) take you to where dreams live and die at the same time. Well worth the trip. Sue's stories always bring a sense of wonder to the darkness. Read this one. Read her others. She rocks!

I loved this story. Henderson has a soft touch. She is able to transform the main character, Lucy, in a short space, from innocent to experienced, without turning her into a victim. I could almost feel the first kiss!

I loved Wonder Years, but Motorhead is probably closer to what many of us experienced. Well written, romantic, intelligent, and a little disturbing for those of us who have allowed ourselves to sanitize what we went through as we turned into women.

A simple coming of age story, told simply, which made it such a pleasure to read. I wish Lucy had lived next door to me the one year I was in high school in the States; I wouldn't have known her music but we would have been great friends.

Sue Henderson shows a remarkable and rare ability to get to the heart of things. She remembers. She remembers the important details and she can remind us just how it was, how it felt. She writes beautifully.
I loved this story.

After reading and reviewing Fire Fell From Heaven by E. Don Harpe, I went back and re-read this great story. Redneck Riviera is absolutely as good, or maybe even a bit better, than any of the redneck humor you will find on the market today.

None of the famous comedians have anything in their acts any better than this story, and I'm surprised that at least a few of them haven't read this and commented on it.

Redneck Riviera is a very funny, very well written story, and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.

The idea of a redneck from Tennessee meeting an alien that may be even more of a redneck is something that is new and refreshing, and the twist at the end will have you nodding in agreement, while laughing at how ironic it truly is.

Hilarious and well-written is this clever short story by E. Don Harpe. What an incredible imagination and ingenious play on words that keeps readers looking for more and laughing along the way. I thoroughly enjoyed Redneck Riviera and can't wait to see what other adventures JorG and Billy Joe may go on in the future.

5/17/06

I grew up reading Stephen King and have quite an appetite for well written, keep you coming back to the book, fiction.

This is one of those reads that will not only interest you but keeps your interest.

Mr. Harpe's work on the Harpe Brothers is also amazing and a great true story of two of the most infamous brothers in our nation's history but a story not told.......................and there is a reason why it is still whispered.

Both pieces are deservedly worth the read.

Angela T. Taylor
Charlotte, NC

A sidesplitting Amazon Short well worth every read twice or thrice. Already a fan of E. Don Harpe's Stubian green and in love with the Southern drawl, I read Redneck Riviera after Talladega Twostep. What a laugh. JorG's experiences in NayesBul and subsequent DromBo episodes were enough to get me going. When lil' green fella crashes into Gurm12, commonly known as Earth, he surprises Billy Joe, who thinks the concussed alien bears ugliness close enough to brother-in-law Jack's. A story unfolds and, with it, an unlikely alliance. Characters are fleshed rather well here and I am tempted to re-read Talladega Twostep just for the heck of it.
Eugen M. Bacon
Author: The Hybrid/ The Firemaker: A Hybrid Story

REDNECK RIVIERA shot out of the literary sky with an easy, entertainingly simple style, capturing the reader through JorG's disgust with himself for taking a short-cut home, disgust with his spaceship for being a used rattletrap on its last jig.

After chuckling through the read of REDNECK RIVIERA, I would speculate that this series of 4 Amazon Shorts has earned the gorgeous graphics on the square gem covers, each owning its unique squiggly road/path heading up the right side of the design.

The humor popped percolation with:

>> JorG didn't really like the music, but he'd learned to live with it, especially after he had a few glasses of DromBo. To be honest, the naked part wasn't so bad either. That is, after one had grown accustomed to seeing the NayesBul's rather ugly blimp shaped bodies hopping wildly about in all their eight-legged splendor. <<

JorG's unique perspective of Earth caught my interest:

>> JorG had heard that the people of Gurm 12, or Earth, were an ugly and violent race of huge beings, with hairy skin of a great many colors and great white fangs in their mouths. He might overlook those things, he thought, but he'd also heard that the inhabitants had the irrational idea that they were the only intelligent life in the universe. <<

More low-key, dry humor which I lapped up (Burp!):

>> It was anybody's guess as to whether she was talking (on her cell phone) to her insurance company, her attorney, or just someone she had met on line. Trouble was, she was still sitting in her car, apparently not hurt, but unaware that the car was on fire. <<

A little longer than the other 4 Amazon Shorts (by other authors, see my Listmania) I've reviewed so far, this one began to settle in at the point above, magnetizing my interest with the feel of a real story with a solid plot, a "tall tale" setting out beyond a crisp situational quip in a bare story snip.

(Please do not take the above comment as an implication of lack in Shorts of other styles. As I've attempted to describe in my reviews, each Short has a unique, "clear-and-present" appeal. Be sure to take note of the variety of styles in The Amazon Shorts Collection, which include fiction, nonfiction, serials in sequence of longer works, and more.)

More sudden guffaws continued... These weren't just cucumber laughs; they were cut-up-chuckles and go-along-giggles:

>> At that moment Billy Joe's hand slipped off the wire and he went flying through the air, landing some ten feet away from the ship. He slammed into a tree and his Braves' ball cap turned half way round on his head. <<

More crisp colloquialism fun:

>> "...BillyJoeWhitecomeoverhereandtellmewhatthe...isgoinon." Cindy was very close to being hysterical, and the words came out loud, fast, and angry, like bullets from a machine gun on an old late night gangster movie. <<

Enough samples. Click on REDNECK RIVIERA, # 1 in this series. Get a run of 25 pages of the above type of fun.

Me?

I'm headed to click the 49 cent button on TALLADEGA TWOSTEP, # 2 in the series. Gotta see where these guys go (and do) next!

The flashes of sunshine reflecting from JorG's "tin can" space ship are welcome on my face,

Linda G. Shelnutt

One of the best and most usefull books I have ever seen. It gives an excellent, intuitive concept of transmission line theory and develops a good understanding of the subject along with formulas, & important rule of thumb design rules. It is a great book for someone who wants to understand the signal integrity issues and the physicall design factors that affect it.

It's an excellent book, written beautifully, crafting complex concepts from the very basics of electrical engineering. An excellent resource to get you started in the world if Signal Integrity.

Too bad I couldn't give this book TEN stars (i.e., "FIVE Stars" is the highest available rating by Amazon.com).



I received the book "Signal Integrity" last week and took a glimpse of it and fell deeply in love with the author's writing style and organization (progression of thought). His thought progression reminds me somewhat of Sedra and Smith's Microelectronic Circuits, another wonderfully written textbook for undergraduates.



I wish this book as well as some others would have been around twenty years ago...Oh well, better late than never I suppose.



I applaud the author IMMENSELY for his ability to collate many design ideas and tips in this outstanding title.



May God bless him for his effort, and continue to do so. : )

I have read Black Magic by Johnson and believe that Bogatin's book is superior. I bought this book as a beginner hardware engineer and this book does a wonderful job of explaining and integrating different concepts I learned as an undergrad. Universities don't stress SI enough (even at my school, electromagnetics was optional), and Bogatin's book does an great job of integrating and enhancing what one is taught at the unversity level.
The reason I prefer this book over Black Magic is that it puts more effort into explaining the fundamentals of Signal Integrity (what causes it, how to fix, etc) rather than going in depth into the mathematical theory and calculations behind the phenomena. As engineers, we have computer programs that do much of this calculating for us and we need to understand "rules of thumb" that will help us design/test better in the future.
I believe this book is an excellent addition into any hardware engineer's library, as well as for students intersted in hardware design/test as a career.

I had the excellent book High-Speed Digital Design A Handbook of Black Magic by Johnson and Graham but went ahead and bought this book. I'm glad I did. The two books cover the same subject quite differently and I think they are complementary.
Signal Integrity Simplified has many great layout/note tidbits mentioned by other reviewers but the one thing I really liked is that below each formula is an explaination of each variable in the formula, even if you should already know what the variable is from previous formulas and text. This makes it a good reference that doesn't have to be read linearly. In addition, the author gives an example of when each esoteric formula applies and I found myself saying over and over, "Oh, I do have that case in my design." In other words, the examples were exactly what layout or frequency range I was dealing with.
"Everyone" knows there are 3 basic circuit elements: resistors, capacitors, and inductors. But this book refers to the fourth, the transmission line. Much of the book is dedicated to this element, as it should be for a signal integrity book.
This book focuses on 100 Mhz to 4 Ghz designs. Any modern digital signal has rising/falling edge frequency components in that range. If you are doing board design, don't let the price scare you away, you need this or one of the other signal integrity books.
Geez, I sound like one of those glowing fake reviews but I can assure you I've no interest in the sales of this book and have been doing real circuit design for 25 years.

[Note: My review also appears under the Editorial Reviews]

The title itself is a little off-putting (although it does serve to get your attention), but the writing is quite engaging indeed. From reading the book's description, this really didn't sound like a novel I would particularly enjoy reading; I certainly wasn't expecting to find the story populated by such engagingly quirky characters or written with such witty flair. The opening pages of this novel really are quite entertaining - and I got quite a kick out of the main characters' actions and dialogue.

Reconciling the book description with the writing sample, I assume this must be some variant of dark comedy with an urban, gritty edge. Since we really see nothing tangible in these opening pages about this personal search the protagonist reportedly comes to undertake, it's hard to judge the potential success of this novel, but there is certainly good reason to believe the journey will not be a boring one.

I like this author's writing style. He/she has what I would describe as a British sense of humor; i.e., it has a dry, intellectual bent to it. It also bears the slight hint of the curmudgeon, for the main character's nostalgia over the disappearing heart and soul of New York life is apparent. He's a walking anachronism in many ways, and his search for what has been lost will obviously be the driving force behind whatever personal journey he undertakes to find his place in his increasingly superficial world.

Still, even though I found this writing sample entertaining and would not turn down the chance to see how the story develops, I feel no compelling urge to learn how the main character fares in terms of identifying and understanding his personal place in the world. These early pages amused me, but they failed to truly capture my imagination.

Burstin's writing is on point in this journey through the new, suckier version of New York City. I know he's on point because I lived there, and many of those trust fund brats were in my 9 am writing class!

It makes me wish I would have gotten there earlier, so I could have taken a bite out of an Apple more raw and natural, with less pesticides and synthetic fertilizer!

This book is a winner, and I can't wait for the next one. Give em hell Peter!

Mr. Burstin did an excellent job writing this short story. He is a very intellectual individual and this comes through in his writing. From the minute you start reading it, you don't want to put it down. I think everyone can relate in some way to the story. Burstin did a wonderful job writing about a man's search for his past and his view on NYC, I think we can all relate to this story in one way or another. We all have our secrets, our journeys, our mischiefs in our past. I highly recommend this book! Great Job Peter.

Burstin's style is as fun as it is effective and engaging. The author's perspective of New York's suburbanization is clearly and visually projected into the reader's mind with very clever devices.

This is my first encounter with Burstin's work and he definately has me ready for more. "Will there be a part II?" I'll be on the lookout for the 'to be continued', but at least I can content myself with a copy of The J Affect in the mean time.

Peter Burstin's perspective on NYC is unique. In the story a night out turns into a brilliant prank, which leads to further mischief. Burstin's characters are described with ease and they are endearing. And yes, I laughed out loud.