Entertainment Books

Michelle Morgan did an outstanding job writing this book...it is very informative....and true.She did a lot of work on this and needs to be complimented on how she presented it. I recommend this book for all Marilyn Monroe fans...it's one of the best!!

The author seems focused on being fair and as close to the facts as she could possibly get, without applying the generalizations/assumptions common to mainstream gossip. I noticed no negative/disgraceful comments about Marilyn. The lack thereof is what made reading this book a joy. This is a great book! It covers her life from her childhood to her death and has some great photos you don't see printed everywhere.

Lately I have been on a Marilyn Monroe kick. I have been watching her movies and reading about her life. She was an interesting lady, the first of the modern sex symbols, she posed nude in Playboy and was also an accomplished actress (I still think she deserved an Osar for her performance in The misfits!), she also married and had relationships with many famous and powerful men from DiMaggio to President Kennedy. This book is a well written account of her Marilyn"s life I can Highly recommend. And while it s pitched as an unauthorized biography, I think the author does a great job of presenting Marilyn in a fair and sympathetic manner. Marilyn fans also might want to check out Misfits Country for a fictional look behind the scene of her last movie The Misfits

The book easily flies to the top of the list of books about Marilyn Monroe as one of the finest, most thoughtful, comprehensive, well-written and understanding books written. The photos (many never before published) are an outstanding addition to the book, but it is the detailed, sensitive biography which takes the reader steadily through Marilyn's life which is makes it truly priceless.

Obviously this was a labor of love; Michelle Morgan has done a superb job of capturing an enormous amount of detail into one book. Interviews with folks who knew Marilyn (but who are not 'famous' or have an ulterior motive) distinctly add to the in-depth depiction of this extremely talented woman of so many facets.

Ms. Morgan also does a fine job of stating the basic, well-known facts around Marilyn's untimely depth without forcing any theory upon the reader. It's truly wonderful to read a biography which is just that--the story of a person's life--and not a book which relies on sensationalism to 'sell' it. This book gives a sense of Marilyn as woman, actress, wife, friend and sensitive human being. It brings depth into understanding of her relationships with her three husbands, giving the reader a sense of each of Miss Monroe's marriages.

I highly recommend this book to any long-time or brand-new fan of Marilyn's. You won't be disappointed.

Years of research went into this biography, and it shows. Michelle has written an outstanding book, featuring interviews with many people who've never spoken publicly about Marilyn before. It's a very well balanced view of the woman who became a legend: it depicts her as neither angel nor devil, but a combination of both, depending on who's being quoted. The last page gave me chills. It's a beautiful book and well worth reading.

Lots of good pictures and stories behind the filming of the show. If you are a fan of Andy Griffith, you can't go wrong with this book.

I've never seen such a great Mayberry book before!! It has many wonderful pictures, and tons of great history. I read this straight for around 3-4 hours, and it has great memories or the actors reminiscing... Ah, well, it's worth buying for the price, this book is worth it!! Very high quality.

I recently bought this book for my grandparents. It was such a joy to sit and watch them remember back on all the episodes they had watched. If you were a fan of the Andy Grifith show this is a must buy for you

This a very unique book on a unique show. It is not the usual Ken Beck and Jim Clark quote book with quotes taken directly from the show or text describing the characters or episodes. The text briefly describes each season and the rest of the book is filled with photos and quotes from the actors (many bit players), writers, producers, etc. The quotes range from talking about certain actors or scenes to behind-the-scenes tidbits and general feelings about The Andy Griffith Show. It reads like a scrapbook. Many of the photos I have not seen in any other TAGS book. There are a lot of behind-the-scenes photos. Some of my favorites show the cameramen, lights, and equipment as scenes were being filmed. There is also a cool aerial shot of the set of the Forty Acres lot in Culver City that was used for downtown Mayberry (p. 44). I also like the photos of TAGS memorabilia (TV Guide and comic book covers). The photos start with early publicity and scene shots from the pilot episode on The Danny Thomas Show and go on through all 8 seasons of TAGS, ending with photos and quotes on the spin-offs Gomer Pyle USMC, Mayberry RFD, and the 1986 reunion Return to Mayberry. Many people are quoted, but some of them include producer Sheldon Leonard, assistant producer Ronald Jacobs, music director Earl Hagen, Rance Howard, writer Jack Elinson, producer Aaron Ruben, Elinor Donahue, Margaret Kerry-Wilcox (played Bess Muggins and Helen Scobey), Joy Ellison (played Mary Wiggins, Opie's choice for Miss Mayberry), members of The Country Boys, Kit McNear (Howard McNear's son), James Best, Renee Aubry (choir member), Don Knotts, Julie Adams and Sue Ane Langdon (both nurse Mary Simpson), writer Harvey Bullock, Keith Thibodeaux (Johnny Paul), Jim Nabors, Jack Prince (Rafe Hollister), members of The Dillards (The Darlings) Mitch Jayne, Dean Webb, Rodney Dillard, Doug Dillard, their on-screen sister Maggie Peterson (Charlene), Bernard Fox (Malcolm Merriweather), Howard Morris (director as well as Ernest T Bass), director Earl Bellamy, Ron Howard, Clint Howard (Leon), Mary Grace Canfield (Mary Grace Gossage), George Lindsey, Betty Lynn, Hal Smith (on riding a cow), George Spence who was Frank the boyfriend in "Guest in the House" (there is an entire page on his memories of the show), Dennis Rush (played one of Opies pals, Howie Pruitt/Williams), Ruta Lee, Jack Dodson, Ken Berry, Paul Hartman's grandson Bill (one of my favorite quotes. He talks about how fans sent his grandfather Emmett radios and toasters to fix), Jack Dodson's widow Mary, associate producer Richard O. Linke, Arlene Gonlonka (Millie). Not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea. The quotes are all very positive. No bitterness in Mayberry.

My only qualm about the book is the lack of coverage of one of my favorite, and greatly unappreciated, characters Warren Ferguson. No Jack Burns quotes, I guess that is understandable. But beneath one of only three photos of him is the sarcastic caption: "Andy hires Floyd's nephew Warren Ferguson as Mayberry's new deputy, `know what I mean, huh-huh-huh?' (Please don't get him or us started)." Not keeping with the Mayberry spirit, in my opinion. Oh well, you can't have it all, I guess. The book ends with a very useful episode guide that includes a synopsis of each episode (some even include some extra tidbits or trivia) and guest characters with cast credits. It is an excellent addition to any TAGS fan's collection.

An excellent book and well put together. You will find amazing photographs of all the characters in the cast...and then some. One of the most interesting photos, in this book, is one of an ariel view of the Mayberry Town near Culver City, California. An actual town within a town.

I have read other books and also found them interesting with regard to the Andy Griffith show, but it was great to see all the pictures and read the personal comments of the stars and the people behind the scenes.

I believe that anyone , like myself, who really loved the show will enjoy this a great deal. Well done. This was one of my all time favorites shows and this book shows a lot of the people who made it such a great series.

Who would have ever thought that the birth, evolution and eventual demise of comedy teams would present an insight into America's changing psyche? Author Lawrence Epstein did and we have him to thank for this interesting, insightful book on some of the most famous names in American entertainment including Weber & Fields, Burns & Allen, the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, Abbott & Costello and Martin & Lewis.

Epstein's book is sub-titled 'America's love affair with comedy teams,' an appropriate heading since the American audience embraced each of the various comedy teams in turn, loving them for what they brought to the public and then moving on to the next, new funnymen. Most people probably never bothered to rationalize WHY they enjoyed a particular comedy team; they just enjoyed the laughter of the moment. Luckily for us Epstein's probing insights help reveal much about why, for instance, Abbott and Costello was just what America needed during World War II. It's fascinating stuff but you also get to laugh along the way as Epstein includes some of the classic comedy lines and routines from the teams.

A good read!

Though the subtitle suggests that great comedy teams lasted at least into the 70s-80s and the cover's inclusion of a couple characters from Friends would suggest they lasted in the 90s-00s, the reality is that they were pretty much through by the end of the 50s, but what a run they had. Though the heyday of the teams came in vaudeville, Golden Age movies, and early television, those of us in the Baby Boom generation -- especially those of us born later on, who grew up with television -- were probably more thoroughly exposed than any other demographic group and seem most likely to love this book. We got to watch The Little Rascals, Three Stooges, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, and even Amos 'n Andy in syndication every afternoon when we got home from school. Abbot and Costello was a Sunday morning staple and Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and Hope and Crosby's Road movies made perfect cheap filler for non-network broadcast stations. There were enough variety shows still going that older teams and solo comedians would still show up from time to time. We may not have gotten all the jokes, but we spent an awful lot of time laughing at their varied antics. In Mixed Nuts Lawrence J. Epstein treats us not just to a history of these acts but a sociological dissertation on American humor. The anecdote and joke-filled history, though brisk and though it extends several decades too far, is informative and fun, but it's the context he adds that makes the book fascinating.



No one will agree with all his analyses, and sometimes he's obviously reaching in order to give comedy acts a significance they just don't warrant, but the text is so rich in ideas and so thought-provoking that the few misfires are easily forgiven. Consider, for example, this discussion of George Burns and Gracie Allen:
[C]omic timing was a crucial part of their professional craft. In comedy, the straight man's "timing" refers to his ability to wait to speak until the laughter has peaked, receded, and finally stopped so that audiences can hear the next line, but not wait for so long after it has stopped that audiences might get confused or bored. The comic's timing refers to the response after the straight man has finished a line. The term "beat" is used to measure the pause between lines, and it and the "pace," or speed of the delivery, had to be perfect. The comic in the team needed an appropriate appearance and funny lines. Both the straight man and the comic needed rhythm.



Burns and Allen were experts at all of this. They knew which words to emphasize. They learned to control their voices. The staccato rhythm of their delivery was perfect. Other performers would have spoken too slowly or too fast or fallen out of the rhythm, which had to be maintained with each line and each silence. They even used pauses well. Gracie would giggle, an infectious sound and a prompt for even further audience laughter. George's repetition of much of the material was also crucial to the pacing, allowing the audience to grasp the premise precisely and be set up by George for the line to follow. It was impossible for Burns to be a comedian in such a structure. Any joke he interjected would break the patented Burns and Allen patter.
Note how deftly he establishes the general concepts he'll need throughout the book, but illustrates with a specific team, describing what made them masters of the form.



Likewise, here he discusses an irony that I've always found especially delicious, that two of the most conservative men in Hollywood politically were also the great innovators of post-modernism, years before academics and intellectuals imagined they were inventing a new phenomena:
Beyond creating an alternative to classic teams, Hope and Crosby signaled the decline of the traditional comedy team in two ways. First, they helped erase the line between the two worlds created by classic comedy teams. They developed the fourth and final model of the relationship between reality and the comic world created by teams, which negated the three previous models developed by Burns and Allen, Laurel and Hardy, and Abbott and Costello. In this new model, there was no necessity for one member of a team to have a tenuous hold on reality while another character brought the team back to the real world, or for the team to create a fantasy world in which the team members banded together to overcome a strange, hostile reality represented by an outside straight man, or a team in which a straight man represented a tricky world seeking to con us.



Hope and Crosby developed a realistic humor that mocked the illusory world their movie producers had arranged for them. [...]



[I]f you didn't take the real world too seriously there was no great need to create a fantasy comic world. Such an approach required a lack of sentimentality, an ability to avoid so strong an attachment to any person or place that you couldn't face the inevitable disappointments inherent in those people and places.
The earlier portion of that is bang on, but by the end seems quite wrong. Rather it is precisely because we are realistic about the inevitability of being disappointed by people and places that we can find the disappointments comic when they come, rather than tragic. Therein lies the secret to the notion that all comedy is conservative.



Let's end with one more, a look at Ralph Kramden that let's us see The Honeymooners in an almost religious context:
The character goes through a transformation in each show -- but then returns to his old form for the next show, only to be transformed again. Audiences wanted to see that transformation -- that change from the angry loser, the guy with a thousand get-rich ideas that all fail, that yells at his wife and his neighbor, that never seems to get ahead -- to the Chaplin-like, sad and sympathetic soul who is touched by love and, in Gleason's view, by grace and somehow finds the means to express it. As an episode was about to close, he often gazed lovingly at his wife and said, "Alice, you're the greatest."



Audiences saw in Ralph's transformation hopes for redemption in their own marriages and lives.
That's good stuff. Even if you disagree you're forced to grapple with what you think is wrong about it, an edifying exercise in itself. I suspect though that as you read you'll find more you agree with than disagree, and while it would have been better to end the story before we get to the point of considering Rowan and Martin and Cheech and Chong to be peers of the greats, all of it worthwhile.

Mixed Nuts: America's Love Affair With Comedy Teams From Burns And Allen to Belushi and Aykroyd isn't the typical biography of a single comedy act but an all-embracing set of memoirs of America's love affair with comedy teams as a whole, from Belushi and Aykroyd to Burns and Allen. Analyses include portraits of rises and falls in popularity, departures from traditional comedy team norms, the changing world of comedy as it moved from stage to the big screen, and more. Author Lawrence Epstein is an English professor who frequently lectures on popular culture, with Mixed Nuts bringing a scholarly, yet accessible, atmosphere to a fine history of American comedy interests.

If you're a Baby Boomer like I am you have been exposed to just about all of it. When we were growing up in the 1950's and 1960's the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy and of course The Three Stooges were all staples on TV. In the early 1970's, the antics of Groucho, Harpo and Chico enjoyed a remarkable revival and at colleges and universities all over America Marx Brothers film festivals were all the rage. We enjoyed the antics of Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance and lived through the controversary surrounding the Smothers Brothers. And we howled at the comic genius of John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd. That is why I was so excited when I came across "Mixed Nuts".
Lawrence Epstein has succeeded in chronicling the history of comedy teams in his exciting new book. I enjoyed it from cover to cover. Epstein tells the remarkable story of comedy teams from their earliest days in vaudeville. He introduces us to names we probably never heard of but who were nonethless influential in the history of team comedy. He cleverly intersperses bits of some of the classic routines into his narrative. And he attempts to explain the political, social and cultural reasons why certain acts were wildly popular while most others fell by the wayside. It is quite obvious that Epstein is a big fan of comedy teams. And in the end, he offers reasons why they have all but disappeared from the American scene. Whatever your age, you are sure to enjoy this informative and extremely well written book. Highly recommended.

The Smother Brothers were one of the most important influences on me in my formative years. By the time I was in the sixth grade I had all of their albums and the last television show I watched before we flew to Japan to live there for several years was "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." I went to school proudly wearing my "Mom always like you best" button and still have my autographed photographs of Tom and Dick. Not only did I learn all of their routines and to sing both parts of their arrangements, but from the Brothers Smothers I got my love of satire, parody, political humor, folk song, and two-part harmony. I even got to tell this to Tommy Smothers once upon a time when I ran into him in a Minneapolis hotel and was able to inform him of his personal responsibility in making me the person I am today.

Of all of the comedy teams discussed in "Mixed Nuts: America's Love Affair and Comedy Teams from Bruns and Allen to Belushi and Aykroyd," the Smothers Brothers are the only ones still performing. I saw them perform just this summer and their opening number is entitled "We're Still Here." In this book Lawrence J. Epstein looks at the great American comedy teams of the 20th century. Epstein started off his research for this book in order to explore why the classic comedy teams disappeared and ended up advancing the idea that the importance of these comedians was in how they helped American survive the trying times in which they lived. The author of "The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America," Epstein obviously takes comedy seriously.

The focus here is primarily on the great comedians of the movies, with chapters being devoted to Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Hope and Crosby, the Three Stooges, and Martin and Lewis. However, the volume begins with Burns and Allen playing the Palace for the first time and by the time television replaces the movies in the 1950s and 1960s, Burns and Allen are on television. In between a lot of things have changed, and there are chapters devoted to particular mediums (e.g., radio) and decades (e.g., 1930). With television forcing comedians to be funny every single week we have a move towards ensemble comedy. At the heart of "I Love Lucy" and "The Honeymooners" you will find Lucy & Ethel and Ralph & Norton, but Ball and Gleason do routines with other cast members and guest stars as well. Eventually we get to the ensemble casts of classic situation comedies from "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "All in the Family" to "M*A*S*H" and "Friends."

However, you need to be forewarned that just like the real things, "Mixed Nuts" is going to leave you wanting more. You cannot toss in "The Password" routine from "Horse Feathers" and not immediately thinking about other choice verbal duels between Groucho and Chico Marx. Fortunately Epstein includes the entire "Who's on First" routine as performed in "The Naughty Nineties" or I would have had to take the book and throw it against the wall. But while Epstein does revisit several of the best-loved comedy routines from the previous century, that is only part of his purpose here. He also wants to look at the personal stories on how these groups came together, and how each team was shaped and were shaped by their respective eras. So be prepared to be tantalized by those snippets of favorite routines and wish for there to be much, much more. For the Smothers Brothers we get their short little "Moron" routine, but nothing about their masterpieces, like the way they took "I Talk to the Trees" over the years to the point where they got laughs when Tommy did not come in or the way they they can milk Dick's glare for multiple laughs in "Cuando Caliente el Sol."

In the end the key thing is that Epstein makes the case for his thesis. Weaving in lesser known comedy teams, from Gallagher & Sheen and Amos & Andy to Nicholas & May and Rowan & Martin, is more important than providing a comprehensive look at any given team. Epstein wants to define the uniqueness of each group and establish their place in the era they helped to define. Besides, there are plenty of books out there about the Marx Brothers and the cast of "Saturday Night Live," and if Epstein wants to leave the door open for somebody else to write a definitive history about the lives and comedy of the Smothers Brothers, I am certainly not going to be complaining on that score. Epstein is justified in keeping "Mixed Nuts" lean, because that way his thesis is not lost in the laughter. Now, you have to excuse me because I suddenly need to watch "A Night at the Opera" again.

There was a point in the mid to late 1990s when author Mark C. Sumner was just hellishly prolific. Even though he'd written two fabulous adult fantasy westerns in Devil's Tower and Devil's Engine, he made his bones crafting some terrific, atmospheric teen novels. There's THE DARK and DEADLY STRANGER and his excellent vampire trilogy THE PRINCIPAL, THE SUBSTITUTE and THE COACH. And then there's EXTREME ZONE, Sumner's paranoid, rapid-fire sci-fi series.

It begins with NIGHT TERRORS.

Noah Templer was once a star athlete and student. But, of late, unrelenting dreams of having been abducted by aliens and a feeling of being watched have made a mess of his life. He's been kicked off the basketball team and, scholarly, he's been slipping. He's broken up with his girlfriend, who laughed in his face when he confided in her. Now Noah spends much of his time obsessing on UFOs. He thinks he might be going insane.

Kathleen "Harley" Davisidaro has just moved to the unassuming East Coast town of Stone Harbor, with her dad, a contract worker for the military, having just been reassigned to the nearby military base, the Tulley Hill Research Facility. From the start, Harley's had a disquieting feeling about that place, which is jointly ran by the military and a covert intelligence agency called Unit 17. What's more, as she begins attending Stone Harbor High School, Harley runs into a strange boy named Noah, who has a tendency to wig out and go into unsettling trances.

But when Harley's dad mysteriously vanishes, Noah might turn out to be the best person to help her, if she can only get over the sensation that Noah just may be crazy. Too, Harley and Noah must stave off the frightening assaults on their lives. One thing's for sure, there is some seriously eerie stuff going on.

At a brisk 202 pages, NIGHT TERRORS is a quick and riveting read, and will keep you guessing. I appreciate the fact that the book doesn't tame itself down to cater to some kind of young adult sensibility. Indeed, NIGHT TERRORS packs quite a wallop and is fraught with moody tension. I guess it's not too out of line to describe this series as a teen version of the X-Files. Certainly, NIGHT TERRORS unveils its share of sinister conspiracies and shadowy organizations, such as Unit 17 and Legion. The weirdness factor and the science-fiction aspects are there, as well, from weird lights in the sky to the enigmatic man in black to several residents of Stone Harbor who seem to flaunt otherworldy traits. The chapters are alternately narrated from Noah and Harley's respective viewpoints, and Sumner does a very good job of developing their characters and building a connection with the reader.

The pace begins slowly but ominously as Sumner ably sets the stage and establishes the mood. The reader is made quickly aware that something is not quite right with the Tulley Hill Research Facility and with the reclusive, tiny town of Stone Harbor. As the plot thickens and the stakes are escalated, the pace builds to a frenetic clip, until the explosive finale, which takes place in the top secret recesses of Tulley Hill.

However, NIGHT TERRORS is only the first of the Extreme Zone series, which is comprised of eight novels (that I know of). So, it shouldn't be a surprise that the answers sought by Noah and Harley come few and far between. NIGHT TERRORS was first published in 1997, with, I believe, the rest of the novels coming out in '97 and '98. I haven't yet managed to check out the sequels (although, believe me, they're on order!), but if Mark C. Sumner was able to maintain the tension-wracked quality of NIGHT TERRORS in the successive entries, then the EXTREME ZONE series is gonna be one hell of a ride.

By the way, I'm still not quite sure what the term "Extreme Zone" refers to.

Here's a list of the existing, hard-to-find Extreme Zone novels:
- NIGHT TERRORS (EXTREME ZONE 1)
- Dark Lies the Extreme Zone 2
- UNSEEN POWERS EXTREME ZONE 3 (Extreme Zone)
- Deadly Secrets the Extreme Zone 4
- COMMON ENEMY EXTREME ZONE 5 (Extreme Zone)
- INHUMAN FURY EXTREME ZONE 6 (Extreme Zone)
- LOST SOUL EXTREME ZONE 7 (Extreme Zone)
- Dead End Extreme Zone 8

I was at our local Wal-mart when I came across this book. Picking it up and reading the back, I was intrigued by what the book was about so I decided to get it. Boy, am I glad that I did. This series is awesome. M.C. Sumner is a brilliant writer. These books are among my most favorites of all time. If you like your stories with plenty of plot, this is the series for you. I highly recommend 'The Extreme Zone' to all.

I'm generally not into books, but I picked up this one and couldn't put it down. The plot is unpredictable. Most stories are so predictable, the butler did it right? WRONG! You can never make an acurate guess. I guessed what the story would be like a million times, and none of them even came close.

So buy it and read it, and be ready to read for a long time.

(best to have a good stash of fritos and coca-cola)

Awesome book. I read it first when I was about 10. I just picked it up today and I still love it, at age 16.

In the first book of the Extreme Zone, two ordinary teenagers, Kathleen "Harley" Davisidaro and Noah Templer start a journey into the unknown, as they discover physcic powers, strange creatures, and rival secret organizations out to get the two of them. This was a cool novel that teenagers who like science fiction would probably enjoy.

If you carry around a list of books you must find, if you've ever hidden new (or used) books from someone who thought money could be better spent (!) on food or electricity, if you've ever fantasized about meeting your favorite authors .... you will have found a kindred spirit in Michael Dirda, book lover and essayist, who has collected 46 of his Washington Post Book World articles here for you.

Wide-ranging but never overextended, Dirda impresses me not only for his erudite commentary but because he manages to rattle off titles and lists and names without ever seeming patronizing; he discusses a multitude of literary concepts without ever being condescending; and he relates a remarkable and far-reaching knowledge without ever sounding arrogant.

Dirda is knowledgeable and funny, intelligent and affectionate, as he considers Wodehouse, maxims, criminally-bad retention, Chesterton, Irish and French novelists, children's books, vacation reading, comedic novels, Beerbohm, Oulipo, the Internet, death, genre reading, Benson's Lucia, private clubs, teachers, autobiographies and getting in shape. And he reveals some interesting information about pre-presidential Jimmy Carter!

If you love books, you will thoroughly enjoy these observations. But beware! When you are finished you will have drawn up a LONG list of books that you did not know existed but which you cannot now live without.

Stimulating. Thought-provoking. Fun. All learning should be so enjoyable!

I spent the afternoon reading, smiling and occasionally laughing out loud. I have always imagined I was the most addicted reader I knew -- but, Dirda gets the prize.

He tells us about pouncing on a find like a "rabid marmoset" and sneaking books into the house to hide them from the "Beloved Spouse."

His taste is catholic and he is a good writer. I think any reader will enjoy his essays.

This is a wonderful book of short essays by Michael Dirda, book reviewer for the Washington Post. Dirda appears to have read everything ever written, from literary fiction to science fiction to history to books that are just plain funny.

One of the things I particularly like about him is his enthusiasm for all kinds of books and his love for making truly eclectic lists (e.g., the "100 funniest books ever written", but with no more than one book per author; otherwise he said the list would be little but books by P. G. Wodehouse). He is also an aficionado of lost treasures (e.g., "The Autobiography of Augustus Carp, Esq.," at once one the most humorous books ever written and devastating account of true hypocrite--a man who would give Pecksniff a run for his money--or "Ashenden," Somerset Maugham's interconnected stories of a British secret agent in WWI--and the inspiration for other writers in the spy genre). He's also big on the Lucia series by E. F. Benson, which are hilarious representations of the battles for social supremacy in small town Britain--they are comedies of manners that compare well to Jane Austen's incomparable novels. No one is as good as Austen, but Benson is very, very good.

Dirda has also re-introduced me to science fiction (in particular Jack Vance).

This is an entertaining and highly varied set of essays with one central theme--the love of reading good books.

I'm a life-long book lover and reader. To my wife's chagrin, Dirda has reinforced all of my antisocial tendencies. He's given me the names of a pile of new treasures to read. I loved the book and I appreciate Dirda's infectious love for books. Read it.

Dirda is a critic and editor at the Washington Post, notable for his erudition, his enthusiasm, and his wide-ranging reading--not just in respectable, "literary" fiction but in mystery and science fiction as well. It's common to make a distinction between "reviews" (ephemeral, plot-focused, intended to attract or warn off readers) and "criticism" (intellectual, in-depth, insightful, aimed at people already familiar with the works in question)--but Dirda's columns often blur this distinction in the most welcome way.

Readings collects these columns, including pastiches of Wodehouse and Pepys, appreciations of comic masterpieces, articles on soft-core porn, hard-boiled thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, forgotten classics and not-quite-classics, The Tale of Genji, the obsession of bookcollecting, and much more. Reading the book felt like making a new friend: Dirda offers a delightful mix of appreciations on books I know and books I always meant to try and books I'd never even heard of. Above all, he manages to convey the heady *pleasure* of reading--that we do this, really, heretically, hedonistically, not for our greater good but because it's just plain fun.

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael Dirda is one of the main reasons I read the Washington Post Book World every Sunday. In his book, "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments," Dirda assembles forty-six of his best essays (all of his Book World editorial columns are good) to delight the reader who, like him, is an incurable book aficionado.

Although the idea of reading a book about reading books may sound a bit redundant, Dirda's exciting, humorous, wide-ranging, and engaging narrative will not lose the reader's attention. He is a scholarly bibliophile in every sense of the term, minus any pretension. His love of books is infectious, and there is no escaping Dirda's charm and wit. The chapters "The Crime of His Life," "Listening to My Father," "Mr. Wright," "Commencement Advice," "Clubland," "Turning 50," and "Bookman's Saturday" are especially good.

For the reader who finds himself (or herself) swamped with reading wish-lists, tirelessly hunting for a first edition, obsessing over collecting all of a particular author's works, finding unparalleled solace in the library, and generally spending more time reading than doing anything else, this is the book for you. I have seen Mr. Dirda speak about this book on C-SPAN2's "Book TV" and on open university's "The Writing Life," and he is just as enthusiastic about reading in person as he is on paper. I highly recommend this book to everyone who loves to read.

It's a long title, to be sure, it is so terribly important that more people know who the great Hecky Krasnow is, and what he has made possible, that even those who read the title can get the idea.

He should be a household name, considering that, if not for him, we would never have heard the songs "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," Frosty the Snowman," "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" or one of my favorites, "Suzy Snowflake." He believed in these songs when others did not. He bucked the Columbia brass when they and every other label had no use for Johnny Marks' "Rudolph" song. Even Gene Autry was reluctant. The song made added millions to Autry's bank account, as well as those at Columbia who first rejected it. The only one who did not become rich was Krasnow, who was, like many of us, a corporate worker bee with a wife and children to support.

But as this book makes abundantly clear, Hecky Krasnow was rich in the ways that really count. In an exhaustively detailed account of growing up in a suburban household where Dad often took the kids to work, where the likes of Gene Kelly, Rosemary Clooney, Art Carney, Bob Keeshan, Paul Tripp or Jackie Robinson was doing a children's recording, Judy Gail Krasnow deftly shares her storytelling gifts by providing as many sensory details as possible. You really feel like you're having dinner at the Krasnow's, right down to the tasty roast beef with pan drippings.

The anecdotes run the gamut to the absurdly funny (a party at "Tubby the Tuba" composer George Kleinsinger's Manhattan penthouse, which is a living jungle of wild animals, bugs and shrubberies) to the frightening (personal accounts of racism and a kid's-eye-view of McCarthyism). Either Judy has one astonishing memory or she kept a very copious diary.

When rock & roll and the youth market began to change the face of mass entertainment, the "golden age" of children's records as Krasnow experienced it (with kid discs like "Little Red Monkey" hitting the charts and crossing over into mainstream pop) were fading. (And yes, the success of Disney's venture into recording also crowded out most of the competition -- what can I say?)

Fortunately, Judy Gail Krasnow has created this loving tribute to her father so we can all appreciate his contributions to our lives. It's also reassuring to learn that this man was such a kind and decent human being. It would have been so disillusioning to find out that the person behind these records really cared about what he was doing and who was listening.

His work may not have made him rich, but we are all the richer for it.

This book was a wonderfully written biography of a father, extremely talented, and a period of time - the 40's and 50's - and its music - how it came to be acknowledged and published. Hecky Krasnow, father, husband and friend was a remarkably talented man. I am so glad to have been able to share in his life and the music business at that time, through the excellent storytelling of his daughter Judy. It was a joy to read!!!

I have just finished reading "Rudolph, Frosty, and Captain Kangaroo", Judy Krasnow's loving memoir of her father, Hecky Krasnow. His career in the children's music recording industry of the 1940s and 50s as a writer, producer, and all-around cheer-leader is described in such colorful and interesting detail, that I came away from the book wishing that I could have been Judy's best friend, or even better, a brother or cousin, growing up with her and sharing all of the wonderful adventures that she had being involved with her Dad as a pre-teen in the recording sessions, parties, etc. This book brought to life the very large collection of vintage kiddie records which I own, including just about all of the records produced by Hecky. Prior to reading this superb book, the records on my shelves had an inanimate quality to them. That reality has been radically altered as a result of Judy's sharing of her personal account of the stories behind the records that Hecky produced for Columbia records. But the book goes way beyond just the discussions of the records themselves. It is a great look into an era of "innocence" in our nation's history as seen through the eyes of a kid growing up after World War II in the New York City area. It has been my distinct pleasure to know you, Judy. Thanks!

I met Judy Gail Krasnow as a fellow author in the South Florida Writer's Association. When she began to describe the book she was planning to write about her father, I knew the story would speak to me and I couldn't wait for her to complete the project. This book was worth waiting for. As others have noted, it brings back an era in vivid detail. I found that I was enjoying the book so much that I forestalled finishing it as long as I could because I didn't want it to end. The book gives us an inside peak at a very important time in children's music and it also permits us to appreciate the stories behind the stories of Hecky Krasnow's personal and public worlds and Judy's experiences being a part of it all. Judy is, of course, a master storyteller and she brings us into her story most magnificently. I told my seven year old grandson that I knew the daughter of the man who discovered Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. His eyes widened in awe and the two of us strode up Broadway singing the song. You will sing when you read this book. At times you will laugh out loud; at others you will cry. It is a terrific read. I bought it for everyone on my holiday list.

Here is a unique contribution to the bookshelf of behind-the-scenes memoirs
about the recording industry. Though millions of children grew up listening
to "kidisks" in the decade following World War II, Judy Krasnow is one of
the few kids who actually witnessed them being recorded, and the only one to
write about it. Her narrative is told with childlike enthusiasm, and her
memories are enhanced by several scrapbooks-worth of primary documents.

Judy relates many anecdotes of growing up in the recording studio alongside
her father Hecky Krasnow, a Juilliard-trained musician who headed the
children's record division of Columbia Records from 1949 to 1956, and whose
biggest claim to fame is having produced Gene Autry's megahit recording of
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." He was also the music man behind Captain
Kangaroo, and dozens of popular children's records in between.

There is something in these pages to satisfy almost anyone with an interest
in American popular culture. In addition to the great singing cowboy, we get
a few famous crooners, a very important baseball player, the haunting
specter of McCarthyism, a psychologist and his healing machine, a gig on a
really really big TV variety show, bookburning, payola, Chef Ed Norton, a
totally bizarre party at a composer's penthouse atop the Chelsea Hotel, a
guitar lesson from a Frosty folksinger, and quite a lot more.

We come away with a loving portrait of a very decent, talented man, who,
unlike many of his peers in the record biz, didn't get filthy rich. He did
better than that.

Biographies of entertainers are usually pretty shallow, just part of the marketing effort. This one is a little unusual because it was written by a scholar who put a lot of effort into making it both as complete and interesting as possible. The author, Dr. Charles Townsend, also became, to a small extent, part of the story. On Bob Wills final recording with his Texas Playboys, For the Last Time, Dr. Townsend kicks off the music as the announcer, saying "The Texas Playboys Are on the Air!"

My Dad loved this book! It was a great gift for him

I was a little dubious at first because the book seemed kind of thick and was written by a professor. However, the more I got into it the more I loved it. Thick with detail, yes, but the story constantly moves along and we get a rich, complete picture of the man and his music, his triuimphs and his foibles. I could just picture being in a ballroom back in the day listening to Bob Wills and his Playboys as I read through. Truly a labor of love, this book. I picked it up because I'd just recently purchased a four-CD boxed set of Wills' music -- far more than I thought I wanted to hear, but I was wrong, and after reading this book I just want to hear more and more. Truly an American musical hero, and this is one of the best musical biogs I've ever read.

Charles Townsend has captured the real Bob Wills. A fine job, a detailed account on the life and music of the one of the greatest Texas stars to have evolved on the American western scene. Well written and exhaustively researched. Worth buying and reading.

OK. I'm a little biased. My grandfather J.W. Shafer, otherwise known as "Bub Shafer" (don't ask me why...nobody knows why), was a second cousin to Bob Wills. In this book, there's a photo of Bob standing in a cotton field near Turkey, Texas and he's got his arm around a young boy that looks about 13-years-old at the oldest. The young boy was my grandfather, and the caption beneath the photo states that Bob is posing with a relative in the cotton fields near Turkey, TX.

I didn't read this book until a few years ago, and I read it cover-to-cover. It details EVERYTHING, including a consistent barrage of extensive notes and details about the writing and progression of almost every song from concept-to-recording, and all the events surrounding anything that Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys must have done. In fact, you almost feel as though you are reading a virtual daily journal as if the author walked side-by-side and recorded the details as time progressed over many decades of Bob Wills' life. It's all documented perfectly, as most of the documentation came from bandmembers or friends or relatives...and 99% of each person's accounts were cross-checked against other sources for authenticity. Mr. Townsend definitely wanted to get the real Bob Wills rather than a comic book version pieced together by wild tales and drifting imaginations.

My favorite parts of the book deal with the intertwined perfection and imperfection of Bob and his life. Here's a guy who was born into poverty, ran away from home as a young teenager to escape poverty, almost became a preacher when he was found by a Godly family after running away, went back home to help out the family on the farm, almost got thrown into prison had it not been that for the local policeman recognizing who he was and letting him go after a failed robbery of a tire at a closed gas station, and then you've got repeated failures in almost every line of work you can imagine. And all along the way, through all of the misery and the rejection, he always had his fiddle (known as a "violin" for people north of the Mason-Dixon line) that bailed him out of trouble.

Bob didn't WANT to use his fiddle for gain, but it always saved his rear when he was in a real pickle. He finally travels to the Dallas-Fort Worth area during the depression, which wasn't a good place to be, to tell you the truth. He gathered up a couple of guys to audition for a spot on the Light Crust Flour radio spot--Back in those days, companies hired musicians and various entertainers to perform on the radio and at live concerts. Usually, the name of the band was surprisingly enough the name of the product being pitched. In this case, whomever played for the Light Crust Flour company was named "The Light Crust Doughboys." Funny-sounding, yes, but back in the day it was a sure-fire way to make a connection with the blue-collar families that listened to the music on the radio while also being spoon-fed a healthy dose of advertising.

To make along story short, Bob and his boys were a hit. Contract disputes; however, with the head honcho of the Light Crust organization led Bob to lure his bandmates away to Tulsa, OK, where they set up shop and were known as "The Texas Playboys." Huge fame came to Bob and his band. He had the largest band in the world, and had many people laughing at the sight of anywhere from 20-30 bandmembers lining up on stage at one time on any given night. His band rivaled, and probably even surpassed, Benny Goodman and any other mainstream Big Band-style band. Almost like our nation's standing army, if you were approved by Bob Wills to be good enough to be in his band, you were "on call" and could travel and make good money whenever the opportunities presented themselves. Bob was driven, and was a definite Type-A personality who had everything done his way. I can't remember the real number, but he made sure his entire band knew BY MEMORY hundreds of songs, if not thousands. He wanted to be able to play a dance anywhere in Texas, or any other state for that matter, and he wanted to strike up his band in an instant if a spectator from the crowd hollared at Bob to play a certain song.

This brand of customer service made Bob Wills a legend. Every band member knew his role. Every band member knew he'd be cut from the team like a washed up NFL player if he didn't measure up. They practiced all day long, almost every day of the week. They would sometimes travel way out of the way on the way back home from a tour to go and play a funeral for someone, and then REFUSE to be paid for the performance and even for expenses of traveling out of the way. Bob would slip a down-and-out person a few bucks so they could buy their child some food or some shoes...and he'd make sure it stayed a secret as long as it could. In the book, there are countless witnesses who say they knew Bob was so generous because he knew what it was like to go days without a meal and have nothing but what he had on his body at the time. Bob was never consistently financially wealthy because he gave most of it away over the years.

Sadly, Bob had severe faults that often outweighed his good deeds. He was a drunk, sometimes missing performances and thus placing a huge burden upon his band to let the crowd know that "Bob has the flu and can't come out of the tour bus to play." People must have prayed for Bob a lot, wondering how one man could contract the flu as often as Bob did. He had a knack for anger and foul language, and he could "let you have it" (as we say in Texas) at a moment's notice. He couldn't stay married for longer than a day or two, though a couple of marriages were longer than the other three dozen that had failed miserably, and it was mostly due to his overly possessive handling of his wives. His wives were made to stay in the home all the time, especially when Bob was away on a tour. He feared his wife going out and potentially striking up a relationship with another man while Bob was away. The same thing happened every time: The wife couldn't stand Bob's suspicious nature and lack of trust, and who could blame them? If a bandmember stepped out of line on the tour...he'd find himself with a one-way ticket home and he might not ever be asked to go on future tours ever again.

Lastly, the attack at Pearl Harbor paralyzed his career. Almost all of his bandmembers signed up to join the military in the days after the attack. The good 'ole days were over for good. He drifted away. And then as time went on, several country-western artists (Merle Haggard) paid tribute to Bob and recorded a reunion CD with some of Bob's surviving bandmates. At this time, Bob was crippled from a severe stroke and sat in a wheelchair in the recording studio. "Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys, For The Last Time" has Merle Haggard at the helm for many songs, and he does a great job. During one song, "When You Leave Amarillo, Turn Out The Lights..." Bob breaks his paralytical silence and moans audibly on the CD at different points throughout the song. It's a sad sound, and I think it's due to the fact that Bob's memory was not as plagued as the body was at the time...Amarillo held a special place in his heart because his one "true love" lived there when he was a young man. He had lost track of her, but found her in Amarillo and went to her house with flowers for what he knew would be a great reunion of two kindred spirits. The father greeted Bob and told him she was just engaged and the soon-to-be-groom was on his way at that very moment to see her! It crushed Bob something fierce, and he stayed until the young man got to her house. Bob stood right up in the man's face and let him know that he better treat her well. He assured Bob he would, and then Bob wallked out of the door and back into the cold Amarillo winter...crushed, heart-broken, and without anything to really live for. To me, this incident was the beginning of a dark and terrible time for Bob. He went a long time before clawing his way back to the top, and I seriously doubt he ever forgot that cold Amarillo evening. Listen to the song, and hear Bob's groaning when the lyrics say, "...when you leave Amarillo, turn out the lights..." There's something there that says Bob might as well have died in Amarillo than continue on with the thought that he missed marrying his true love by only a few days or months. I am married six years now, and thank the Lord I will never know what that feels like. It must be awful.

Bob represents all of us: We want to do good for other people, even when we have nothing to give or everything to lose. But we also do bad when we know we shouldn't. And through the good and the bad, what's really important is that we never give up trying to do what's right in the face of wanting to do what's easy and convenient for that part of us that desires to do bad. Bob was so eerily conflicted inside: "Do I use my fiddle like some bargaining chip, as a cheap trick to dodge the bullet? Or am I really playing the fiddle because I love it and I want to spread joy to people who love this music?" I think he loved his fiddle, and he loved the music he made--it shows in the quality and in the passion of his music. It was that hint of suspicion that he had of himself, the part of him that said, "Bob, you're using the fiddle as some sort of tool to get what you want, and it's wrong for you to betray the true nature of music to do so" that tore Bob apart all his life. I don't think he ever found peace with himself. He was his harshest critic, and that's a sad thing. When you see older folks from his era get all misty-eyed when they hear his music or when you ask them about Bob Wills and what he meant to them when they were younger in Bob's era...you know he was way too hard on himself. But he couldn't enjoy it to its fullest potential. Born a victim, died a victim. Born to physical poverty, died with emotional poverty. And it was Bob who robbed himself and made himself poor in the end.

The music? It lives on. In dance halls across Texas. On classic country radio stations. In the books. On the CDs. In the hearts of people who know a good fiddle lick when they hear it. As Waylon Jennings sang one time to the enormous cheering of some dance hall's patrons who were listening and dancing to Jennings' live performance, "...In Texas, Bob Wills is still the King." For that, Bob should be proud had he lived a little longer. He would have been a richer man for it.

You would do well to get this book, and read it. It'll teach you a lot of life lessons. Some day, when I have the money...I'm going to make a movie out of it. And what a masterpiece it will be. "The Texas Playboys are on the air!"

-- Pecos Shafer of Amarillo, TX.

This is one of my favorite Sabrina books! Sabrina, Salem, and Valerie go back to Ancient Egypt and the cat goddess Bast falls in love with Salem. They take away Sabrina's powers and she must find a mirror to get them back and save Salem. You should read it if you're a Sabrina fan.

I stopped reading the Sabrina series a while ago due to the last 5 or so books not been very good, but then I decided to give it one more chance and began my 25th Sabrina book "scarabian nights". I have to say that I was very impressed, I realy liked this one and was glad to see that Valarie was involved and its not about Sabrina and her family as that has got real old. I would go as far as saying this is one of the best Sabrina books, so read it! If you like it I also recomend "showdown at the mall", "Prizoner of cabin 13" and "sabrian goes to Rome". ENJOY!

After a magical vacation to the Egyptian pyramids, Aunt Vesta brings Sabrina a super souvenir. The ancient charm is suppose to help the teenage witch with her cat chores, but instead it transports Sabrina, Salem and Valerie back in time to ancient Egypt!

Salem is thrilled. After all, the Egyptians really knew how to treat their feline friends-they worshipped them as gods. But when the cat Goddess Bast falls hard for the fast-talking black cat, she puts him under a love spell & locks his traveling companions in the maze of the Great Pyramid. As Sabrina & Valerie wind their way through the life-sized puzzle, they enlist the help of some magical figures-and a handsome young pharoah on hiatus from his sarcophagus. But can they bring Salem to his senses before Bast morphs him into a mummy?

I think Scarabian Nights is a pretty good book. It's basically about Aunt Vesta's gift to Sabrina, an "Ushabti," a little doll kind of thing. Sabrina wishes she could go back in time with her friend Valerie since she's bored. But she really doesn't mean to wish that. But the Ushabti really takes her back in time with Valerie and Salem, her magical talking cat. Queen Bast, the ruler there, likes Salem, and says she wants to marry him. But then Sabrina finds out the chilling secret: She sees cats turned to stone on the walls of Queen Bast's kingdom. Queen Bast had turned all the cats she was about to marry into stone! What can she do to protect Salem and get out of Queen Bast's kingdom with Valerie and back home!? I'm not going to give away the ending, but I can tell you a series of adventures happen when Sabrina tries to save Salem and get them all back home!

This book sort of drags on in the middle of the book, but except for that, this book is so interesting I couldn't put it down!

After a magical vacation to the Egyptian pyramids, Aunt Vesta brings Sabrina a super souvenir. The ancient charm is suppose to help the teenage witch with her cat chores, but instead it transports Sabrina, Salem and Valerie back in time to ancient Egypt!

Salem is thrilled. After all, the Egyptians really knew how to treat their feline friends-they worshipped them as gods. But when the cat Goddess Bast falls hard for the fast-talking black cat, she puts him under a love spell & locks his traveling companions in the maze of the Great Pyramid. As Sabrina & Valerie wind their way through the life-sized puzzle, they enlist the help of some magical figures-and a handsome young pharoah on hiatus from his sarcophagus. But can they bring Salem to his senses before Bast morphs him into a mummy?

I thought the spoken word cd along with the book was excellent I saw Tonya perform in Chicago in the Summer of 2001 at Romains Gallery in Oak Park, Il. She definitely writes from the heart. The poetry is so powerful and uplifting. I would recommend any one to purchase. My favorites are I will tell myself and shine. The whole cd is wonderful and its nice to be able to read the book as you listen to the cd. I think I have it memorized now. I have had people stop me and ask what are you listening to and where did you get it from. I tell them with a smile. If you are into poetry and would like to have a taste of some true talent I would suggest purchasing the shine deluxe edition.

Tonya Marie Evans' talent is a bright, steady light. Her Shine! Inspirational Poetry with Companion CD was my first introduction to the Spoken Word genre and I believe our "acquaintance" was meant to be. Not only did her expressive and melodic voice captivate me, but the messages in poems such as "I Will Tell Myself," "Angry Doesn't Live Here Anymore," and "Find Your Own Shine" inspired me to "begin again." The CD was so awesome that it got my creative juices flowing and I've returned to writing poetry. Tonya Marie Evans's words will affirm, encourage, and help you to turn your shine all the way on!

Shine provided me with the opportunity to reflect on my personal resilence. With pieces such as "I Will Tell Myself" and "Find Your Own Shine", I remembered a strength and determination that can only come from within. As I listened to Tonya Marie's words, both in the written form and on the accompanying CD, I was reminded that I am not alone in experiencing the trials and tribulations that Life can sometimes bring. I was also reminded that with each breathe and through careful reflection we can overcome these life experiences and "begin again" (taken from "A Villager Speaks"). I thoroughly enjoyed Shine and have found myself buying it for gifts, referring to it in the classroom, and using it as a teaching and therapeutic tool. I believe that Tonya Marie has a beautiful and powerful voice that soothes, heals, and inspires you to regain your life and be true to your real self. In other words, just as Tonya Marie as recommended, her work inspires and gives you the courage to "Shine".

This is not your ordinary spoken word material. Tonya Marie Evans along with her co-horts Stephanie Renee and Damon "Dizzy Fingers" Bennet brew up some seriously groovy tunes, with styles ranging from house to progressive soul to acid jazz. Tonya Marie's voice is smooth yet commanding and when coupled with Stephanie Renee's own phenomenal voice the result is truly wonderful. My favorite's are "I Will Tell Myself" the danceable, deep house track and "FYOS" a groovy acid jazz track worthy of recognition. This companion cd is truly worth a listen. Unlike most music today it is soulful, inspirational and enjoyable!!

Inspirational and Finding My Own Shine are not words I
associate with poetry. I thought poetry was rhymes
like, Roses are red, violet are blue, sugar is sweet
and so are you. I am truly grateful that the author
has given me another view of poetry.The poetry in
Shine encourages you to look inward.

Shine is a divine influence. After reading these 48
pages it is my ambition to be 100% of me. A favorite
of mine is titled I Will Tell Myself, I plan to read
this poem whenever others try to define who I am. The
fourth paragraph of I Will Tell Myself read: "I am not
confused - I am convinced that I have greatness within
and I am Superwoman able to leap TALL DECEPTION in a
single bound", wow is all I can say to that.

This author doesn't stop there, she has included the
spoken word as well. This CD is one you do not want to
be without, complementing her poetry is Neosoul and
funk. This blend of music fits perfectly with her
words. Angry Don't Live Here No More is "Da Bomb"I
would love to ride to Philly and be a part of the
audience where she "melts the mic" with her poetry.
Evans' multimedia book is for the whole family. I plan
to read from it at my Black Light Open Mic this month.

Reviewed by Missy

I have never seen a collection of Shirley photographs and memorabilia as extensive as this one.

The pages are chock full of photos I've never seen before, and I've been a devoted fan since the 50's! If you adore Shirley, this book is something you must have. I absolutely love it.

This book couldn't be better! The pictures of Shirley Temple are absolutely gorgeous and they are all throughout the book in both color and black and white from the time she was a baby until her later teen years. If you want pictures of the best child star ever, this is the book to have.

An EXCELLENT book about Shirley Temple full of FANTASTIC photos and history of the greatest child star! Kudos to Rita for a fantastic job!

This book is a must for anyone who is a Shirley Temple fan. Those not familiar with her work might find it interesting as well. Rita Dubas has done a wonderful job here. The layout is beautiful, showcasing many photos of Shirley (some of which I'd never seen before!) along with oodles of photos of Shirley Temple memorabilia from all over the world.

It's a fascinating glimpse into the world of yesteryear, when a sweet little girl was the most popular star in Hollywood.

Representing all the children of the world, Shirley Temple gave us the Silver Screen View of the Divine Child, the closest thing to Heaven. She spoke for us who became aware of her as children, felt our child like feelings and made us feel that no matter the circumstance, Love would conquer all. And we loved her for it. How could anything be wrong when you looked at that Angelic face, with her sparkling eyes and precious dimples. How can you not smile at all those bouncing joyous curls.

She was not just a face on the screen but our friend, our secret playmate. Besides that Shirley grew into a beautiful woman, skipping anything wild or rebellious, always full of grace. She opened her heart to the welfare and humanity of all peoples. Her whole entire life has been about enriching this wonderful world we live in. The ideal child became the ideal role model. However rare that is, her light still shines through, warming every heart, young or old, benefiting every new generation.

This book honors Shirley like no other. Adorable photo after photo, exquisitely designed and written. Rita Dubas treats us with her vast knowledge and love of this tiny star. Rita shares rare collections of past memorabilia, not usually seen in the typical collector books. She displays them, so that your eyes dance over them and you feel lost in a wonderland, not unsimular to the way Shirley makes you feel when watching her movies. All your troubles dissapear for the moments paging though this book . . . . . this tribute. Bravo Rita! Bravo Shirley!

Connie Marshall, Artist