Shadow Books

As an avid reader I was really impressed with this book. It moved along with adventure, mystery and unexpected circumstances in Jacobs surreal world. It is definately, action packed as Jacob experiences different circumstances at the controls of the biplane which take him back in time and adds to his confusion of where he is going. I would definately recommend this book.

I am extremely impressed with the imagery and style that Brattain uses. Jacob's surreal world is full of action and moves along quickly. Jacob's many adventures and strange twist will make you contemplate your own life. The use of flashbacks to tie together Jacob's life was interesting way to develope a plot. Great book would definitely recommend it.

Ann Turner Cook was one of the celebrated Gerber babies at the beginning of her life. She is presently a retired English teacher, living in Central Florida, where she researches for her mystery writing with her husband. She acted as an emissary for the Gerber Company and has made several guest appearances on national talk and news shows, including The Today Show; Good Morning, America; Entertainment Tonight; Sally Jesse Raphael; and the Rosie O'Donnell Show. She is just as cute now as she was as a Gerber baby.

Brandy O'Bannon is trying to save her job with the Tavares Beacon by writing an interesting feature article for her editor, Mr. Tyler. It concerns an old mansion that is decaying and about to be sold to a developer. Brookfield Able bequeathed the old mansion to his sister Sylvania, with the understanding that she could sell it if she so desired. There are rumors that the mansion is haunted, and the tale of a bizarre drowning forty-five years ago adds to the mystery. Brandy enlists the aid of Sylvania's grand-nephew, architect John Able, to gain access to Sylvania and the mansion's sad and eerie history. John and Brandy connect after sharing life-threatening experiences as they "look around" the mansion for artifacts and find human remains:

"At the same instant, the moccasin's fangs sank into John's hand. She gave a sob, sprang out of the boat, and rushed toward John as the moccasin drew back and slid over the edge of the pier into the water. John had dropped to his knees, supporting his wounded arm with the other hand."

Ann Turner Cook's twenty-six years of teaching high school literature shines through in her writing. The plot is first-rate; characters are people who are easy to relate to and care about; the action is nonstop; and the denouement is excellent. Ms. Cook intertwines a sad but wonderful ghost story into her plot, which keeps the reader guessing from page one until the delightful finale. I got totally caught up in her tale and couldn't put the book down! I personally wish I could have experienced Ann T. Cook's teaching, because I'll bet she was a superb teacher. Trace Their Shadows is an entertaining mystery and ghost story that can't help but please.

Shelley Glodowski
Reviewer

Mount Dora is a sleepy lakeside community outside bustling Orlando, far away from the big mouse and screaming rides, and is known more for antiques than crime. My most personal memory of Mount Dora is a wonderful, sleepy day of drinking far too many Dos Equis at the Mexican restaurant while celebrating Cinco de Mayo, years ago.

In contrast, author Cook takes you along with Brandy O'Bannon, an enthusiastic if inexperienced journalist, to the Mount Dora where cottonmouths strike out of the dark and old murderers flit across the mists. A classic mystery novel, Trace Their Shadows has more than a fair share of crime, clues and villains.

Cook brings an old south knowledge of the people and place alive, reviving memories of the Florida, good and bad, that is rapidly disappearing, replaced by developments and theme parks. O'Bannon reminds me of what I imagine Nancy Drew would be if she were plopped into the twenty-first century, a little more worldly-wise, but still inquisitive and forever into things she shouldn't.

Trace their Shadows is well crafted, an entertaining trip across the new Florida to the old.

Anthropologist Dutch Van Deer discovers a find of a lifetime, an underground cave of indian artifacts and graves. Some of the bones do not appear ancient and Dutch sets out to try to find out who the bones belong to and runs up against a stonewalling police department, an angry Native American community and a menacing, megalomaniac industrialist, and an ex-love of his life. As Dutch gets closer to the truth, the unimaginable happens...the murders start up again.

Gary Gottesfeld is a wonderful writer. I have read all of his books I have gotten my hands on. He only wrote 4 or 5 books and quit. I'd love to find out what happened to him. If anyone knows please let me know. Thanks, Linda

Anthropologist Dutch Van Deer discovers a find of a lifetime, an underground cave of indian artifacts and graves. Some of the bones do not appear ancient and Dutch sets out to try to find out who the bones belong to and runs up against a stonewalling police department, an angry Native American community and a menacing, megalomaniac industrialist, and an ex-love of his life. As Dutch gets closer to the truth, the unimaginable happens...the murders start up again.

Gary Gottesfeld is a wonderful writer. I have read all of his books I have gotten my hands on. He only wrote 3 or 4 books and quit. I'd love to find out what happened to him. If anyone knows please let me know. Thanks, Linda...

This book is well written and quite well documented. It contains some of the best endnotes I've seen in a long time. The author drew from several other diaries (often not published) to present a more well rounded view often elaborating in the chapter endnotes. My only complaint is that the notes were presented at the end of the chapter instead of as page footnotes. I was constantly flipping pages to access the notes as I read. Overall an interesting book to anyone fascinated with WWII.

This book kept me glued to the page. A gripping account of a teenager stuck in a concentration camp without having done anything wrong. A surprising lack of rancor, the author gives a picture of the good and bad in the people on both sides of the conflict. Also unusual are the admissions of less than perfect actions on his own part. It almost made me feel like I had been there.

This is a remarkable study in the practical morality of collaboration and of resistance. Rab Bennett shows clearly how these terms have been over-simplified in many previous studies of the second world war. The reader is invited to put herself or himself into the position of partisans who had to weigh up the economic value of sabotage against the certainty that reprisals would be enormous. Or the mother in a concentration camp who had the choice of either hiding her own newly born baby and inviting the murder of the other inmates in the hut, or herself killing it in order to save lives. Given the nazi policy of effectively holding whole populations as hostages for the good behaviour of individuals, the choices on offer were well nigh morally impossible. The author has succeeded in illustrating for the general reader the issues which faced ordinary women and men on the ground. He also makes plain that murder and atrocity were also used by resisters against Germans especially as the Reich empire crumbled from 1943. This is an excellent account of the moral dilemmas which formed the basis of German rule of subject populations.

Among the many books about World War II and the Holocaust, very few come close to explaining how the Nazis were able to successfully subjugate and exterminate entire populations and ethnic groups. Why did so many peoples (not just the Jews) seem to have cooperated in their own self-destruction? I believe Rab Bennett's "Under the Shadow of the Swastika" has the answer. At the core of Nazi policy in dealing with conquered nations and population groups was one main central principle: the doctrine of Collective Responsibility.

"On the 26 December 1939 two German soldiers were killed in a bar by criminals in Wawer, a suburb of Warsaw. The Germans rounded up all the men in the area, and in houses where there were several men in the family, the women were forced to choose who should be taken in reprisal. In one house a mother had to choose between her two sons, and another woman had to decide between the life of her husband, brother or father. Every tenth man was shot, including 34 youths under the age of 18-a total of 106 hostages..."

This was the beginning of the practice of Collective Responsibility. From then on, the Nazis refined this doctrine until they made fear and terror into "an exact science." Why didn't more people fight back? Why didn't more people help the Jews?

"..In Poland, a family of eight people were shot because they had hidden one Jewish child. In a similar incident, five Poles in a family, which included a 13-year-old and a one-year-old baby, were killed after it was discovered that they had hidden four Jews...In February 1944 the Germans were informed by Ukrainian collaborators in the ethnically mixed area of Galicia in eastern Poland, that about 100 Jews were being hidden in the Polish villages of Huta Pienacka and Huta Werchobuska. With the help of Ukrainian policemen, the Germans surrounded both villages and burned them to the ground. The soldiers assembled all the farmers together with their families and locked them in the barns..[They] stood guard to make sure that no living thing, human or animal, would escape from the burning buildings. The village burned all day."

Could the Resistance have done more to stop the Nazis? They were constantly facing dilemmas forced on them by the Collective Responsibility doctrine, which Rab Bennett explores in detail. For each act of sabotage or assassination against the Germans, members of the Resistance faced reprisals on a ratio of 10-1, 50-1, 100-1, and in many cases, 1000-1.

"On 20 October 1941, after an ambush upon a German convoy had left 30 dead and numerous others wounded, an estimated 4000 inhabitants of the village of Kraljevo [Serbia] were killed. The following day, in reprisal for the death of 10 German soldiers and 26 wounded, the town nearest the raid, Kragujevac, was subject to the most bloody reprisal of the German occupation. According to the official German hostage quota, 2300 people were executed: 1000 for the ten dead soldiers, and 1300 for the 26 wounded men."

Elie Wiesel once said, "When the Jews were being murdered, the world was indifferent. Now it asks why the Jews did not fight." The horrifying answer to both questions may be in this book.

This is my second book by Mr. Leib. I find him to be a great author and holds not only the war,but America in context of the 60's. There is no doubt to any of us that lived through that era that the war, the country, and our people were surely at risk. America as we knew it had to change and luckily it did. Let us hope that history will not repeat that era. I will read all his books as his insight is great.

When read with it predecessor, Liebs "The Fire Dream", this book provides the best of worst of the Vietnam War in a moving account of the life of a soldier as seen through the eyes of a man who wants to live and let live yet is forced to kill. I have never read a more realistic account of what it was like to be there and am doubtful that I ever will.

The stories in this collection push the reader to the extreme edge of darkness--and sometimes beyond. Valley of the Shadow is not for the squeamish or weak of heart. Characterized by a highly visual style, every story builds to a dark, often disturbing crescendo. Stories are carefully crafted, and main characters are generally well developed.

The short stories in Dr. Logsdon's collection are at times disturbing and at times horrific but always enjoyable. Set primarily in Las Vegas, Oregon, and Southern Idaho, the stories follow characters from all walks of life--strippers, college professors, spinsters, hit men, rednecks, impressionable teenagers, and more. More significantly, though, most of these characters have reached a crisis point in their lives and must decide forevermore on the fate of their souls...

A very strong Christian ethic informs the imagery and the themes set forth here, and not by accident. Dr. Logsdon is intent on showing the spiritual side of the crises that the characters undergo and in so doing places a great importance on the soul as the agent of choice as well as the object of the forces fighting within each character. If the characters choose to uphold their faith in God and listen to the warnings of their souls, they are saved, even if they are killed. But if the characters choose to be faithless and ignore the warnings, then perdition awaits them.

Dr. Logsdon also injects some very dark humor in his stories, most noticeably in "Dog-Fightin' Fool," "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John," "Naughty Jane Austen," and "The Night Uncle Willy's Car Caught on Fire on the I-95." But in all these stories, the reader is bound to be intrigued by the struggles each character must face. I heartily recommend this collection for serious readers of dark, horror-laced fiction.

Do you know whats in Kate's head .It's not just her brain but, peoples voices. Kate fear's when she hear's terrifying voices in her head. She must learn to control the voices in her head before they take over. This story really had me scared.When my mom called me I thought I was hearing vioces too. It was a very good story.I was enjoying this waiting to see what happened next. I read the story like a book because it was so long. It was a cool and scary. It made me feel like was there and I wanted to keep reading it.That was the coolest book Ive ever read.

One day, Kate hears voices while she's in the graveyard putting flowers on her grandmother's grave. It was her sickly mother's request; she fulfilled it before she went to school after her visit to her mother's hospital bed. Of course she just thinks that the whispers are someone talking, since the halls are really hollow and you can hear just about anything from the graves. Well, when the days pass by she starts to hear phone conversations that talk about things that haven't happened yet, so she goes and talks to her mom, who is recovering from her illness. That same night, though, Kate hears a phone conversation that reveals a terrifying future.

Justin has gotten brand new shoes because of some random `contest' at the sneaker store -- but what he doesn't know is that even though the shoes might be really cool, what they do is not cool at all. When some incidents happens, such as when Justin's neighbor's car is covered in yellow paint, he finds that the bottom of his shoe is covered in YELLOW PAINT!!! Then some days pass and he locks his shoes in his closet -- he's sure that someone has been taking his shoes and committing these unreasonable crimes. Then he figures out that it's the shoes themselves doing the crimes! When he's had enough of the shoes, he decides to take them to the dumpster and just throw them out for good -- but something very weird happens that might just put Justin's life in jeopardy!

Tim is over at his grandmother's house while his parents are away. He's exploring on a very nice warm day, and comes across a beautiful orchard full of apples. He's just sitting there, having a good time, when his neighbor comes out and tells him to leave. Furious, the neighbor comes barging into his house and tells Tim and his grandmother that if he's over at the orchard one more time they're going to have the worst time of their life. Tim gets so mad that the next day he goes over and does some damage to the orchard. After his satisfaction was complete, he took an apple and started munching on it. The next day, he feels sick -- and some very weird things start happening.

VOICES is a total thriller all the way to the end. These were three of the scariest stories I have read, and I give this book an absolute 5 stars!

Reviewed by: Spreeha

Book was received quickly and in better than expected condition. Fully satisfactory.

I would recommend the biography of W. Eugene Smith, Shadow and Substance: The Life and Work of an American Photographer to anyone interested in the life and times of this photographer. I felt that the author drew a picture of a driven, artist who had a sense of public right and wrong. From this book, I learned that whether or not he led a life that I would want my children to emulate, his sense of outrage towards social injustices were larger than his personal being. And, he presented his stories "up close" and personal. After reading the book, the photo essays became even more revolutionary and engaging. Smith becomes real. Enjoy.

"War In The Shadow Of Auschwitz" by John Wiernicki.
Subtitled: "Memoirs Of A Polish Resistance Fighter And survivor Of the Death Camps". Syracuse University Press, 2001.

In the dry September of 1939, Janusz Wiernicki was a young cadet who had just completed his freshman year at the Military Academy in Lwów, Poland. If the weather had been wet, the German 1939 invasion would have been slowed down, but it was a dry September. The first 88 pages narrate the rapid defeat of Poland and the shock experienced by this young boy as his entire world disintegrates.

His options rapidly diminish. He can not stay at the "manor" of his family; (the Irish would consider his family part of the "Landed Class"). In the woods, he becomes part of a loose organization of Polish Army guerrillas ...Resistance Fighters ... who, it appears, spend their time wandering aimlessly from place to place. There is one "fire fight" where both Germans and Poles take casualties, but, interestingly, most of the time, Janusz is assessing the charms of the various young ladies he encounters. Youth will overcome!

Janusz Wiernicki goes home on leave to visit his relatives and is arrested by the Gestapo as he is just about to return to the Resistance Fighters. Janusz was not successful in hiding his second set of forged identity papers.

The remainder of the book, some 169 pages (or 66%) deals with the witness of Janusz Wiernicki to the inhumanity of the Nazi Germans towards the Poles, towards anyone Slavic, towards the Jews, towards Nazi defined "Untermensch". The author recounts how enforced starvation in the prison camps made food the chief subject of discussion, with the complementary issue being the avoidance of rigorous labor which would hasten starvation. Perhaps Wiernicki survived because his Grandmother was able to send him food packages.

In one instance, Wiernicki used his Grandmother's food to procure a pair of contraband binoculars. Then, the author recounts how he used the binoculars to watch as Hungarian Jews were offloaded from the trains, sorted into the immediate death line and into the line where they would live for a short while more, and the horror of seeing families being sent, left to death, while some were sent, right to life. This eye-witness account is horrifying, but is the heart of this book.

As the war winds down, Wiernicki and his fellow inmates are made to trek from Auschwitz to Buchenwald. At the very end, (of the book and the war), Janusz runs away from the line of prisoners trudging along. The German guards shoot but miss him. He runs and runs. He describes taking a pistol from a young German soldier, a dead young soldier in the side car of a motorcycle. Then he meets with a vehicle bearing the white star of the American Army. Witness.

A non-Jew, author John Wiernicki was a Polish partisan and political prisoner who vividly recalls his experienced during World War II and the horrors of being incarcerated in the Auschwitz concentration camp. It was in 1943 that Wernicke as a Polish underground fighter was captured and beaten by the Gestapo, then shipped to Auschwitz. A Gentile, Wernicke's chilling memoir graphically details "life" in that infamous death camp, along with his personal battle to survive both physically and morally in the face of the utter evil that was the Nazi "Final Solution" for its enemies. Especially in the face of current efforts at anti-Semitic revisionism, War In The Shadow Of Auschwitz is a critically important and welcome contribution to the growing library of Holocaust Studies, as well as being recommended for World War II European theater reading lists and reference collections.