Western Books

Vivien Sung has to be congratulated a million times: her book is a lesson of style, design, culture and - above all - the highest knowledge of art!
It is a little masterpiece I have now in my bookcase.

I bought this book without the slightest beginning knowledge of Chinese culture or history. I just thought it looked interesting. Now, I can tell anyone who is interested in this type of book that it was wonderfully illustrated, extremely easy to understand and intensely knowledgeable and helpful. I am in awe of all the "little" things about Chinese history and culture, and this book goes thoroughly through all of it's promised categories with ease of understanding and helpful information.

This is a quick reading book, but is also a very helpful reference tool. I now know what not to give/not give as a gift, and I even know why! It is helpful in what to surround yourself with or others, your home, business, gift giving or for different types of lifestyles or happenings. Five-fold Happiness is a great gift for anyone of any age, or a wonderful read for yourself. I think that anyone who begins this book will finish it over and over again.

Enjoy and Learn!

I just bought this book and I could not stop reading it. Very very good. Well done, Vivien.

I picked up this book and found that many of the items in it are related to Feng Shui symbols and its origin. It's meant to give beginners a glimpse into the Chinese culture. It's bilingual with Chinese on one side and the English translation on the other side. The pictures are nice. I recommend it for beginners, but it is also a nice coffee table book.

Ever look at the art around your favorite Chinese restaurant and the designs on the plates, and wonder if they have a hidden meaning? They do. And Five-Fold Happiness beautifully shows and clearly explains it all. What a reference! Read this, and dazzle your friends with your insights next time you go out for lo mein.

Some time ago I was fortunate enough to bump into the books by Jan Karon's Mitford series. I never ever, in my wildest dreams, imagined that I would or could find another author to compare in almost every way to Ms.Karon. Until JoAnn Levy and her "For California's Gold! Her Sarah Daniels completelly captivated me. She is real, and so very human!She became someone who I knew, not one I simply read about. The events, the happenings, the turmoil, the tragedies, all were not simply constructed descriptions. They catapulted me right into those times, those places, and I shared Sarah's sorrow, her utter despair, kl and her unheralded courage and feelings of fear, guilt and despair. The members of her family became as close to me as they were to her! And when she finally cried, I also cried. And yet, I was so very glad that ultimately she found a measure of peace and acceptance so that she could go on with her life. And so did I. Her most appealing quality was that she definitelyl was NOT a heroine, and the ones she met along the way were definitely not heroes. Thank God for that, and thank you, JoAnn Levy for allowing me to find true and honest ability and talent in a journalistic world filled and overflowing today with incompetence and unmitigated commercialized trash! So JoAnn, I also am pleased to utter what Mr. J.S.Holliday scrawled on your manuscript, "This is good! Ed Stember Sr.

"For California's Gold" filled in a lot of blanks for me, and it should do the same for most readers. We all know the rush west was an extreme ordeal. We all know settling California was an ordeal of another kind. We all know tragedy dogged the steps of the men and women who took on the challenge. But therein lies the unsuspected void in our knowledge, certainly in my knowledge.

Before reading this book I gave no particular thought to the nature of my understanding of these historical events. Now I've learned a new perspective is as beneficial in literature as it is in trying to find the car keys. In one 280-page book, JoAnn Levy has given the whole thing life.

Ms. Levy is a unique writing talent - she has done what few authors have the nerve to try; she has written a historical novel in the first person, and she has done it so beautifully it seems as if the book was indeed written in 1856 by a tempered-by-tragedy woman named Sarah Daniels.

Ms. Levy is remarkably clever in her use of storytelling techniques which successfully weave multiple threads of interest from the first page to the last. The attentive reader will pick up on this finely developed skill in the second sentence of the first chapter. Ms. Levy employs similar techniques throughout, and it is a delight.

This book is such a good read that it is recommended on that basis alone. But if a fascinating and unique look at one of the watershed eras in world history also interests you, then you will be doubly rewarded.

Thank you, Joann, for sharing Sarah Daniels with the rest of the world. I realize that she is a compilation of many of the ladies you found in your research for your earlier books on the Gold Rush, but her character is so real you can just picture her walking through her life with all its joys and sorrows. The numbness she felt at the death of each of her children especially rings true, as I watched my mother do the same thing.

This is Joann's best work yet. I look forward to the next.

This is surely Levy's best work yet. If I didn't know for sure that Levy is alive and well, I'd swear this was autobiographical. The main character, Sarah, is so complete, so real! She's the type of character who proves that greatness and heroism comes from simple, down-to-earth determination. The book is no-frills, no pretense. Just a deeply touching, well-written story. I highly recommend this to anyone who, like me, reads to celebrate the human spirit.

For California's Gold is a gem of a story! JoAnn Levy's tale of Sarah's journey through life is enduring to all women. She writes with great heart, compassion and knowledge of women's hopes, fears, loves and losses that are timeless. If you read just one book this year, let it be For California's Gold.

All of the philosophers covered in this volume are difficult to read. They are difficult to read for several reasons, including: 1) some of the translations of the primary texts are mediocre at best; 2)translations never truly capture the intent of the original texts; and 3) even in the original German the ideas are challenging and difficult. Because of these difficulties, this book, which provides incisive accounts of the German philosophers, is particularly useful to the English-speaking reader. Highly recommended.

This is a truly wonderful book. The reader can grasp what is being said in a relatively short time and spend the rest of his life thinking about it. I recommend it to newcomers in philosophy to get a good introduction to the some great philosophical thinking as well as to more seasoned practitioners so that they may learn how to explain things.

Of the two reprint volumes (Greek and German Philosophers) that Oxford has published of its Past Masters series, I think all of the individual essays (except the one on Plato) are reprinted currently in its 'Very Short Introduction to...' series. So these volumes are a good deal because i think the 'Very Short Introduction' series are 10 bucks each. As well as being very clear and concise introductions by world renowned scholars.

These are highly admirable overviews by some of the best of the current set of the philsophers examining past greats.

This must have been a difficult book to put together. The editors would have to have found not one, but four great authors from which to put together introductions for the hardest authors in all philosophy.

He succeeded. This book makes immediately explaicable two of the hardest authors in all history- Kant and Hegel. I was amazed at the level of commentary in this short a work. It is almost impossible to pull this easy an introduction off. My hat is off to both Scruton and Singer.

The other commentaries and introcductions were as good as they come. Because of the ease of Schoepenhaur and Nietzsche, the authors had more room to give reasonably complete explanations and ruminations on their lives. Janner and Tannaway both make superb additions to these traditions, both commentaries worthy of being works in themselves.

This is four times a good book. My respect to all the authors, and my full throated call for people to read these books.

I was already familiar with these philosophers after taking a course in philosophy, but the way in which these authors eluciate the ideas of these thinkers makes this a five-star book. In order of their greatness I'd have to place Nietzsche first, Scophenhauer second, Kant third, and while Hegel was profound, his worship of history was a little too much for me to swallow, so I place him last.

What a story! If you like westerns and ghost stories, you'll love this.

... this is a great twist on the genre.
Slow start, but once I got going I couldn't put it down.

Full of myth, legend and strong personalities, this book has all the makings of a great tale. A repeated assault of page-turning hauntings paint a picture of dynamic frenzy. Moments of reflection, romance and tooth-gritting confrentation succeed in illustrating the competing forces pulling Roland Black in different directions. Chases, esacpes, love and bullets: this novel has them all. Highly recommended.

This is a very entertaining book! It has a great mix of the old west and the traditional ghost story.

Full of myth, legend and strong personalities, this book has all the makings of a great tale. A repeated assault of page-turning hauntings paint a picture of dynamic frenzy. Moments of reflection, romance and tooth-gritting confrentation succeed in illustrating the competing forces pulling Roland Black in different directions. Chases, esacpes, love and bullets: this novel has them all. Highly recommended.

Percival Everett's "God's Country" is at once the funniest and dryly bitterest novel about race I've read. Not to mention highly entertaining dialog -- all around, one terrific book. Everett just keeps getting better and better for me. Up next, as soon as it arrives (hurry up Amazon), is Grand Canyon, Inc. My husband was out of town this week so I was quite lonely reading Everett last night as I had no one to share the especially thigh-slapping bits except the cats and, well, let's just say their sense humor isn't well developed.

"God's Country" is an irreverent farce, one that peels away the romantic whitewashing (pun intended) often given to depictions of the Old West - even depictions that think they are being irreverent. Everett's characters, more often than not, are smelly, boorish, and stupid. More importantly, they are narrow-minded, violent, racist, sexist, and self-righteously hypocritical. Everett masterfully balances coarse humor, a broad and penetrating social critique, and a sympathetic portrait of the far more complex Bubba, a black tracker who struggles to maintain his independence and dignity against this hostile cultural backdrop: "All I want is one day where I ain't got to worry about a white man decidin' I looked crosswise at him, one day where I ain't got to worry just 'cause I hear a rider behind me, one day where I ain't called a boy." I was continually reminded of Mark Twain as I read this novel: it is that funny, and that smart.

This book is amazing. I read Everett's Watershed and liked it so much I had to read another one by him. Watershed and God's Country have just been reprinted together, and they are both incredible: funny, poignant, incredibly intelligent, and heart-breaking. Everett portrays America at its starkest, from the point of view of the downtrodden, with a dignity and surety it makes you shiver. The language is miraculous, and the story breathtaking. This is realistic fiction as I've always dreamt of finding.

It is this reviewer's opinion that Percival Everett's God's Country is nothing short of a mini-masterpiece. Set in 1871 and narrated by a very unlucky cowpoke, Curt Marder, the book shows the good, bad, and ugly aspects of life in God's Country (the proverbial Wild West).

The story opens with marauders burning Curt's ranch, kidnapping his wife, Sadie, and committing the ultimate indiscretion of shooting his beloved dog. Curt, a spineless coward and ardent racist, does nothing to stop them and watches from a distance as his home is destroyed. He hires Bubba, the best tracker in the area (who happens to be African American), to lead him to the culprits (and subsequently Sadie) in exchange for half the ranch. It is in the journey to save Sadie that Curt constantly witnesses and benefits from Bubba's selfless acts of benevolence and humanity, but is blinded by racism, stupidity, and ignorance to realize the errors of his ways. Instead, he consistently lies, steals, and cheats, largely driven by greed and his own self-interests.

Mr. Everett is an excellent writer having pulled off such a spoofy odyssey. Through his words, the reader experiences the sights, sounds, and smells of hard living in hard times. It is a relatively short novel that is richly saturated with dark humor and unforgettable, wonderfully imagined characters with names like Wide Clyde McBride, Pickle Cheeseboro, and Taharry whose speech impediment causes him to preface every word with "ta," thus earning him his unusual name. The book even includes a "cameo" appearance of "Injun killin'" George Cluster and bank robbers reminiscent of the James/Younger Gang.

This book touched on so many issues (the "isms") on a number of levels. Through the misadventures of Curt and Bubba, the author covers the institutionalized racism and social injustices that Native, Asian, and African Americans endured. There are painful scenes of an Indian tribe massacre and a lynching of an innocent black boy. The sexism exhibited against women in the West was evidenced in the Jake and Loretta storylines, and the emerging socio-economic strata (classism) between western landowners was touched upon as well. However, for me, the most powerful messages were saved in the last few pages of the novel's surprise ending. Without revealing too much, I thought it was clever in the way that the author paralleled Bubba's "dream" to live freely without fear or judgment to MLK's desire to be judged by the content of one's character and not by skin color. Curt comments that Bubba's dream did not sound like much of a dream summed up the underlying arrogance and indifference toward his fellow man that resonated throughout the story.

This is the second book I have read by this author and I have not been disappointed yet. I am looking forward to picking up his other works as time permits.

Reviewed by Phyllis
APOOO BookClub, The Nubian Circle Book Club
July 19, 2003

Womanizing and hustling, gambling and drinking, horse-rustling and cross-dressing--Everett sends up the cliches and formulae of every Western novel you ever read. And the narrator Curt Marder, part-time husband and full-time loser, adds an all-important forgotten ingredient: "I had read what I could of the dime novels about the frontier . . . and generally the little books gave a fair account, but always failed to mention the smell." That's why cowboys tended to be quiet loners: "We came together in bars and churches more or less to assure ourselves that our smells were normal and not an indication of coming death."

The action begins when a band of marauders torch Marder's house and barn, kidnap his wife, and kill his dog. ("Killed your dog? What kind of heathens do we have in these parts?" "Efficient.") After gambling away the remains of his ranch, he enlists the help of the local tracker, Bubba, a pensive black farmhand with a reputation for getting things done. This unlikely duo travels the hills and vales of the Wild West, looking for Marder's captive wife--unless something more interesting crops up. Along the way, they have to avoid a country minister selling Bibles with only a few pages missing ("a bout of illness just as we pulled away from Kansas City saw the demise of most of Deuteronomy"), a two-bit hooker seeking revenge on nonpaying customers, inbred locals who will bury folks up to their necks for the entertainment value, and the spotlight-hogging swagger of the local army commander. ("My name is Colonel George A. Custer. Perhaps you've heard of me" "No, sir." "Drat.")

Page after page, the one-liners and the tall tales keep coming. But about two-thirds of the way through the book the tone shifts bracingly and unexpectedly when an ever-present threat in Bubba's life penetrates the fog of Marder's irresponsible tomfoolery--that a posse of vigilantes is often more than happy to lynch the first available black man whenever a crime is discovered. The author relentlessly spoofs the racial dynamics between whites and blacks and Indians; Marder's buffoonery is brilliantly offset by Bubba's gravity and by a local tribe's apprehension. Yet the book never stops being funny: even when the satire becomes acidic and shines a light on uncomfortable truths, Everett keeps the reader laughing at the story's situational absurdities, its characters' foibles, and our own racial attitudes. "God's Country" is one of the most hilarious--and somber--Westerns I've ever read.

They're short, they're funny, they're topical, and they're cheap.

This book details a typical visit with a friend, and the havoc two children can wreak.

Little Critter puts it that he always has fun with his friend, but by the end of the day he's glad to be alone, a true sentiment if I ever heard one.

One thing to note is how the illustrations and the text don't always add up, a good introduction to the concept of an unreliable narrator :)

We bought this book (and most of the Little Critter books) to help us discuss what's going on in our child's life. When problems arose with what it means to be a good friend, we were making little to no headway until we read this book together. Somehow it's easier to understand when it's a favorite book character having the problem and not you.

This put a smile on my face --- and I'm over 30!!! The illustrations are colorful and funny and the story line and writing are very good.

The book is two thumbs up by me for my littel sisters and cousins. I think this book is a very good book for children 1-5. I would recomend this book to any one

Just My Friend And Me was a great book. It told you how you would play with your friend when he/she came over. It showed how to help your friend when he/she gets hurt. In someways once you have a friend come over you can't wait for them to leave so you can be a lone and do stuff you want to do and not have someone else want to do something different. Well, I hope this gives you a good idea of what this book is about. I hope all of the little children will enjoy this book. I know I did.

I have really enjoyed this book. One thing I like about it is a daily study with scriptures to back it up. I like to sit and read each morning with a cup of coffee and my bible. I really recommend it as a daily devotional.

This book covers a lot of thoughts and feelings that can be shared with your family, or used as an interactive group study guide.

I would like to give some compliments to this book, I once had a copy, but am now trying to reaquire another. Charles Swindoll has devided his book up into 144 essays so a person can read 3 a week. Some of my favorite essays is called the electronic drug (reference to television) taliking about how TV can be so mind numbing almost like some of the illegal drugs. And the other essay refers to consistency. Charles Swindoll talks about being consistent in daily habits toward toward virtues like kindness, generosity etc. Also choosing to be diligent in working your way to a goal. This book may not be a quick road to wealth, but it can lay the foundation for the use of other wealth building books. I highly recommend it.

Charles Swindoll talks about life and spirituality in a down-to-earth, easy-to-grasp fashion. He shows a keen understanding of the human condition...it's strengths as well as weaknesses. He suggests practical, sometimes fun actiivities after every chapter to start the readers on their way to true, meaningful change. A very helpful guide to daily living....

This book has been a source of both comfort and inspiration to me in my times of need. Feeling depressed? Lonely? He has the answers for you. He talks about things that we experience every day - Expectations, Love, Doubt, Forgiveness, Friendship. A timeless companion...

Once again, hats off to the author for a nice well written and well-translated edition. This book has a lot to offer if you open your mind. You can learn many wonderful things from reading this work, and it's a book that you can refer to everyday of your life. The Hagakure is broken down into many small sections, and passages with a lesson in each of them.

This book covers a wide range of topics such as: how to conduct yourself on a daily basis, to the way you should think, and the way you should view other people. Many examples I learned in my own life are found in this book, and it's nice to see that even though certain things are common sense - you can still read a book like this and receive gratification. Tsunetomo is 100% accurate throughout this book, and you get the feeling like you're receiving words of wisdom through a father figure.

This account shows you how to be a human being full of virtue and magnificent attributes. It conveys many qualities such as: listening to others and not relying solely on your own opinion, when to keep quiet and mind your own business, how to handle power, and knowledge, etc. This book discusses self mastery, loyalty, wisdom, respect, dedication, cowards, men of honor, and much more... Everyone can learn something from these short stories. This paperback is a little treasure, and should be treated as such. I would recommend this as required reading to a younger generation that seems lost in this modern world we live in today...Five Stars across the board...

One of the better translations of a seminal work in bushido.

If you ever feel that you need to second guess and think about what exactly the authors intended to say in the first place when reading translations of a foreign language texts, I can identify with you. I have bought other translations of Hagakure, such as Wilson's translation. I like Wilson's translations because he usually proivdes good introduction and for a while I thought his translations are the standard text, but then I came upon D. E. Tarver's transaltions largely through the positive comments made by other reviewers, especially the one who pointed out that Tarver transalted a section in the Hagakure as "...the way of the warrior is fufilled in death," instead of Wilson's transaltion which reads "...is found in death." I had puzzled what Wilson or Yamamoto Tsunetomo meant when he said that...hmmmmm....a case of inaccurate translation or there is a deeper meaning....hmmmmm

I have to admit when I saw Tarver's picture (a bearded smiling caucasion man in a jacket and white T-shirt) and his background (which is amazing but familiar like other martial artists in the US, like holding many belts ranging in diff style of martial arts) on the back of his book I thought he must be one of those New Age seeking/60s hippie/money lover/Bruce Lee fan again. But to my surprirse his transaltions are really clear and insightful.

I think he is for real. And I am glad I came upon his translation and thanks to that reviewer from Japan who pointed out the differece. The rest of his book is really well translated and for the first time I feel like Yamaoto Tsunetomo began to make more sense, so I think the problems I faced with other translations were indeed a problem of the transaltions not Yamaoto Tsunetomo.

This is just my opinion and I have read many translations of the Asian texts with transaltions or not, so hope this is helpful to you just as I was helped by that japanese REVIEWER...and sorry if I offend anyone with my stereotype of "bearded smiling caucasion man in a jacket and white T-shirt".....you know.....anyway

This translation of the book is the only one I will ever need. Sensai Tarver is a man of skill and kindness. He and I have shared correspondance and he has pointed me in the direction of finding a Ken Jitsu teacher. If you stumble apon his website MAKE SURE to take a moment and leave him a kind comment it will make him very pleased to see is work is appreciated!

Critical reading for anyone passionate about the martial arts. This book focuses on the ethical: compassion, honor, class, style, loyalty, grace and self sacrafice of the Samurai. At the same time "empty mind", controling a situation without thought, but with quick and deadly action. No tought of self. Budo. Filled with the ideology of lives lived in historic times, with drastic measures, suicidal to homicidal, that could never be accepted in MOST these 21st century cultures despite the justifications fo those acient WAYS. This awesome book is not only a non-stop read through, it's a glimpse into the past of a lifestyle that could offer remedies to many modern day issues.

Semper Fi and see U on da Mat uke...

Although a philosophical work, I found this book immensely stimulating and made me want to read more and more. Its gradual development of the concepts, its clear and essential interpretation of the Greek philosophers' sayings, along with its references to their works helps the reader to achieve a great deal of understanding. To sum up, the references to the Greek philosophical terms, which are very well interpreted, make the book an illuminating and useful guide for any student of philosophy.

This little 'Handbook of Greek Philosophy' introduces the reader to all those authors who have become a staple of any history of European philosophy: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and the Stoics.

The author had the good idea to devote nearly half of the pages to the Pre-Socratics from Thales to Democritus. As a result of this, much of what we know from Plato becomes better understandable, and besides this reader's awareness of the wealth of thoughts debated before the rise of Socrates is much heightened.

The term 'handbook' is a bit misleading, since this is not a magisterial work bringing several pounds of heavy scholarship onto your desk. It is more aptly called 'a first guide to the origins of European philosophy for the uninitiated.' However, this should not devalue the book. The book radiates the charm of old diaries and notebooks. There are many valuable nuggets strewn throughout the text, so one gets hooked and reads on.

There are some minor technical weaknesses. Readers looking for a synoptic vision which puts all things in their proper context and builds a grandiose web of cross references will be disappointed. But the bottom-line is: Read this book and you will have not wasted your time but on the contrary gained a strong feeling of what philosophy is all about and how the Greeks did it.

From the countless citations an intense feeling of immediacy develops, of being near to the sources from where philosophy once sprang like from a well of fresh water. What looks like a weakness turns out to be a strength: The author is not standing in the way of getting at the sources of original insight but makes you go there yourself.

I have to admit that I am no specialist on Greek philosophy, while the author seems to be. Thus I cannot evaluate the quality of the selections. But this does not change my evaluation as a reader that the book deserves close reading and will repay study.

Because there remains much to be improved in technicalities as is cross-referencing and index etc. I gave only 4 stars this time.

Finally I found the right book, which helped me to understand the main concepts of ancient Greek philosophy.

I am a student of philosophy and I have had many difficulties in understanding the Greek philosophical terms and concepts. This book with its countless citations enabled me to understand all these terms like logos, phronesis, doxa, episteme, nous, eudaimonia etc. Due to its essential reference to the most of the Presocratics I could finally grasp the metaphysical and epistemological concepts of Plato and Aristotle. The author does not only show the way to discover the Greek wisdom through the innumerable fragments, but he also helps the student to do a further research into the enormous work of Plato and Aristotle, since he quotes the references of their work related to certain topics.
Really amazing and helpful work!!

I find most of the reviews really enlightening on the qualities of the book; so to say ` an excellent guide and interpretation of Greek philosophy and not a mere collection of translated texts of the Greek thinkers'. However, I would not agree with such a discriminating proposal as `to rewrite the book in native speaking English', unless we mean to suggest that Leibniz and Beckett's excellent writings in French and Wittgenstein's works in English should be rewritten by a native language speaking person.

The author, by developing progressively the concepts and due to his brilliant interpretation of the different philosophical schools of thought, leads the reader to gradual comprehension of the Greek philosophical conceptions. The `Doric' style of the language (poor), following the Greek philosophical tradition, does not interfere with the reader's understanding, but on the contrary develops a feeling of immediacy and prompts the student to go on and to search through the original writings of the philosophers by himself. All that makes the book valuable as a guide and introduction to Greek philosophy, because it increases the reader's awareness of philosophical questions and consequently it is getting more people interested in philosophy.

A very good read!

The storyline was great and the characters are believeable. None of the John Wayne stuff, just real characters who get hurt, tired and hungry.

Quick Charlie Sims, while a con man, is a likeable fellow and I hope he shows up in future books.

Ralph Cotton has proven that, once again, he's the best!

This is not a typical western novel full of typical western characters. It is an original and well thought out piece of work, written by a gifted story teller. The excitement is electric and humoruos. If this is the first in a series, I can't wait for the next one.

I have read six books by Ralph Cotton. All have been good. I think I like the series that starts with Montana Red better. This one gets a little out of the west with the trip to Chicago and a regular police force. Sullivan Hart and Twojack Roth are federal deputies hunting JT Priest and his coharts. They have killed Hart's father, who was also a deputy. They track him across the country to Chicago. They are helped by Quick Charlie Sims who is accused of robbing a bank, but it was robbed by Priest. Quick Charlie is a good character I hope he is used again. The last few pages are very good as Mabrey, another outlaw, in with Priest, is taken care of by Quick Charlie. Really like the westerns I read to be more set in the west. However, Cotton is very good and it makes for an interesting read.

Author Ralph Cotton puts America's Western Heritage in prospective with another new series. He has again developed believable characters. Charlie Sims rates high among my favorite Cotton's characters... Don't want to spoil a great story. It's worth a read... Bought and had it finished in two days... Simply couldn't put it down... A great tale filled with action and adventure...

I brought this book home and read it straight through. This is the kind of story you can get carried away by. There is not a wasted minute without action. The writer knows how to make things funny and serious at the same time. Judge Parker and his two marshals are more real and tough then any I've seen in a long time. Charlie Sims and his girlfriend would make a big hit tv series. I also brought home three other books by this writer and read all of one before my wife took it and started it herself. I now am reading another one. So far they are all this good! We are both fans now.