Robert Duncan Books

This remarkable first novel of Duncan O'Finioans brings to mind another first published in my lifetime, CATCHER IN THE RYE. INNOCENCE TURNED DEADLY has the same classical input into today's circumstances as CATCHER'S had those years ago. The urgency lies in the factual information such as when he writes about the Gestapo. Believe it. It is the Truth.

I believe the events in this actually took place!
I would tell everyone to read this eyeopener!
Onec you start reading, you can't put it down!
Good job and best wishes to the author.

I loved this book!!
I couldn't put the dang thing down until I was finished reading it!
I hope there is a follow up to this story.
It sure tells it like it is!!!

Innocence Turned Deadly is a book everyone should read. As the author says, "It's mostly true!." and..thjat is what makes it so frighting!
I have had the pleasure of hearing Mr. O'Finioan on a couple of radio interviews, and he is great to listen to!
I can't wait to read his nect book!!

This is one compelling narrative that I just couldn't put down. Mr.O'Finioan is a natural story teller, and he relates his experiences as a covert agent for law enforcement with the ability to raise the hair on your neck. Readers are given insight into the underbelly of both law enforcement and criminals. You decide whether they are separated by a fine line.
Ginger Corbett

Robert Gould Shaw's letters home are a very realistic look of the Civil War battles by a unique individual with many perspectives. The brutality of battle along with the emotional turmoil from such a young officer bring the war to life. The authors have given us a true picture of a brave officer and the war. As you read the letters of Shaw you want to pull the blankets closer on the cold winter nights he spent in the field. You can share the suffering along with Shaw at the loss of friends. The courage and love of family and devotion of country are evident throughout his premature adult life. God bless the 54th and may Robert Gould Shaw and all that served with him and under him never be forgotten.

Russell Duncan's compendium of letters both exalts and puzzles.The job of editing the letters and setting them in the context of war, family ties, friendships, etc. is thorough and, for the most part, makes them accessible. Let's not forget, though, that the editor omitted some letters that don't support his main thesis: that Col. Shaw was a rich young pleasure-lover who fought to get back to his privileged existence, never changing this outlook throughout the war; he "never fully understood nor dedicated himself" to the cause of Black freedom (pp.1-2). So here we are presented with a young man raised by abolitionists who went to all the hazards of preparing and leading something new, a black regiment, before dying in the middle of it, without understanding what he was about, or dedicating himself to it. It's fashionable to "debunk" the heros of yore, but even those letters we have tell us otherwise, and Duncan reverses his appraisal, back and forth, several times. We should also beware of measuring citizens of other times against a modern baseline on classism, racism, etc. Apart from these problems, found in the introduction and some footnotes, the book lets Shaw speak for himself (he does it eloquently and enjoyably) and the reader can draw his/her own conclusion on ideas, events, and character development.

If, like me, you have seen the film "Glory", where Matthew Broderick plays Col. Robert Gould Shaw, white commander of the black 54th Massachusetts Regiment during the Civil War, you will see only a brief a glimpse of who Shaw was in his short life. Broderick does a masterful job of capturing some of Shaw's personality, but if you want to get inside this young man's head and find out who he really was, I highly recommend reading the book, "Blue Eyed Child of Fortune", ed. by Russell Duncan.

This collection of Shaw's letters shows a far more complex and conflicted young man than Broderick was given a chance to play. While his parents burned with the abolitionist spirit of Boston's intellectual elite, Shaw struggled with his own prejudices and his own self doubts throughout his short life. Never an exemplary student, he dropped out of Harvard to work in his uncle's New York firm, but rapidly found the work boring and unsuited to him. Struggling to find his place in the world, the Civil War came along and gave him a sense of purpose and direction.

Enlisting first in the 7th New York Guards, he served until his enlistment was up, and then joined the 2nd Massachusetts, gaining position as an officer. He "saw the elephant" at Winchester, Antietam and Cedar Mountain, was slightly wounded in two of those engagements, and found out first hand about the horrors of war. During winter camp in 1862-63, his father visited with word that Shaw had been tapped by Massachusetts Governor John Albion Andrew to command a new black regiment. At first, Shaw refused this offer on the basis that he felt a strong bond with the men he had fought and bled with, but then changed his mind and accepted the position of Colonel of the 54th Massachusetts.

Returning home to Boston to take command of his new regiment, he was deeply conflicted over whether these men would pan out to be good soldiers, but as time wore on and they proved their worth, Shaw's respect for his men grew, as did their respect for their commanding officer. After three months training, they left for duty in South Carolina after a grand parade down Boston streets. Shaw chafed for some action for his men, and the first that they saw was the tragic raid and burning of Darien, Georgia under the command of Kansas jayhawker Col. James Montgomery. Shaw was outraged at this action and very nearly refused his orders from his commanding officer, but reluctantly had to obey and ask his men to do what he felt was utterly immoral and against the codes of war. He would write letters of protest to his father and to others.

Eventually, in his quest for real action for his men, they were assigned a diversionary action on James Island to allow Union troops to land on nearby Morris Island for a planned assault on Fort Wagner a few days later. Sustaining light casualties in a skirmish, Shaw was impressed that his men were indeed up to snuff as soldiers, and so, a few days later, after a long exhausting march in a storm to Morris Island during which they got no rest, they were assigned to the lead attack column on Fort Wagner on the evening of July 18, 1863.

Sadly, Union intelligence on Ft. Wagner was badly flawed. It was originally thought that the fort held a complement of only 300 men and that after days of relentless shelling by the Union navies, that the fort would be softened up enough to withstand a frontal Union assault. However, most of Wagner's nearly 1500 men were in a massive bombproof riding out the shelling, and so, when the Union assault began with the 54th leading the attack column, they took the heaviest casualties, including the young Col. Shaw, who foresaw his own demise while speaking to Lt. Col. Edward "Ned" Hallowell, his second-in-command, while on a steamer on the way to their assignment: "If I could only live a few weeks longer with my wife, and be at home a little while, I might die happy, but it cannot be. I do not believe I will live through our next fight."

Rather unfortunately, Shaw was right. He was killed upon reaching the parapets of Wagner, a bullet through his heart killing him instantly. His body was stripped and thrown into a common grave with his men, and his father asked, when the Union finally took the fort a few months later when it was abandoned by the Confederates, that his body be left there with his men. Shaw's burial spot now lies somewhere under the Atlantic Ocean, the island having eroded significantly in the past 140 years since Shaw's demise and burial there.

This book will give you a great insight into a very conflicted, complicated and yet reluctantly heroic young man who was just coming into his own at the time of his tragic death. I am sure that he would have shunned the limelight had he survived the war to live to old age and would have been content to live life with his beloved Annie, to whom he was married a mere two months before his death. Annie would never remarry and lived the rest of her life as his widow, dying in 1907. The war would doubtless have made Shaw and given him the potential to focus his life and go on to great things had he lived to do so. Having lived so much of his young life with such rebellion against his mother's domineering apron strings and not quite sure what he wanted out of life, the war gave Shaw a brief opportunity to find out what it was he was made of. In so doing, he achieved the one thing he never dreamed of, immortality.

Read this book if you are eager to know the "real" Shaw. Letting him speak for himself is the best way to know this fascinating man who died so tragically young at the peak of his life. Follow it up with "Where Death and Glory Meet", Russell Duncan's excellent biography of Shaw. By the time you finish these two books, you will feel as if you know Shaw quite well. If you want to know a few of his men, read "A Brave Black Regiment" by Capt. Luis Emilio, a regimental history of the 54th, "On the Altar of Freedom" by Cpl. James Henry Gooding, a black soldier in the 54th, and "A Voice of Thunder", the letters of Sgt. George E. Stephens, another black soldier in the 54th. I just hope that more letters and diaries from this regiment surface and are published someday. Doubtless there are more hiding in attics and other unknown places.

This book comes highly recommended for good Civil War reading of a primary source, along with the other books mentioned that are by Shaw's soldiers. Together, they beat any historian's account of this historic regiment. Read them all if you are interested in Civil War or black history.

it's must have book I love this book

The movie Glory is one of my all-time favourite movies, and I've wanted to buy this book for some time but have always put off doing so. When I finally took the plunge I found myself unable to put it down. The amount of research that must have gone into this work is astounding and I commend the author on his effort! Reading these letters (and the introduction) give the reader a profound insight into the Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts and the mind of Robert Gould Shaw. He is a much different person than was portrayed in the movie and in this book we can see his apprehension and uncertainty about the role which seemed his destiny. I recommend this book to anyone who loves the movie or is a Civil War buff. It is a great read and a wonderful education.

Wireless Intelligent Networking is an excellent publication with rare characteristics: easy to read, well organized and extremely efficient in what concerns quantity and quality of information. Technical protocols, market trends, services deployment, integration, among other IN hot issues are thoroughly dissected in WIN. This is definitely an essential tool for anyone in the Telco business, saving time and money in training for beginners and helping experts on a daily basis. A "dot.safe" investment for any company in the industry!

The telecommunications industry needs a lot of standards and
detailed information for true inter-operability. So, no book
is going to be perfect in its coverage of the material - there
is simply too much information.

Having said that, I find this book to be an excellent way to
understand the issues associated with WIN. It provides the basis
for further study and points people in the right direction for
increasing their knowledge.

I use this book as a basic reference and recommend it highly.
You will not go wrong reading this book - whether you are a
wireless telecom professional (which I am) or not.

The book succeeds in presenting an inherently complex and multi-disciplinary subject in a clear manner with sufficient references to allow further study as needed.

The book provides a broad view of wireless networking, including financial, market, and technical views. The technical information is well organized and presented from more than one perspective. Rather than presenting volumes of minute details, architectural principals are introduced and illuminated.

This is one of the outstanding technical books that I have ever read. I would highly recommend it to experienced hands in the fields of wireless or wireline voice networks.

I would also recommend it to beginners with the following cavaet: this book plumbs some fairly deep waters, and does not delve too deeply into the related fields that are the building blocks of Wireless Intellegent Networking. SS7, AIN, PSTN architecture, and mobility management are all presented, but having some previous background (or somebody handy who can fill in details) would be a big help.

Wireless Intelligent Networking is an excellent publication with rare characteristics: easy to read, well organized and extremely efficient in what concerns quantity and quality of information. Technical protocols, market trends, services deployment, integration, among other IN hot issues are thoroughly dissected in WIN. This is definitely an essential tool for anyone in the Telco business, saving time and money in training for beginners and helping experts on a daily basis. A "dot.safe" investment for any company in the industry!

This is a unique book that compares the intelligent networking standards, the ANSI-41 and GSM. It not only provides useful technical information but also covers the issues pertaining to the wireless intelligent market. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in WIN and CAMEL.

I love this book. I found it completely by accident at a used bookstore and immediately fell in love with it. The humor is pure Robert Aspirin (of the Myth Adventures series) and Mel White's illustrations are the perfect complement to the humor. (Trivia note: the two con artists in the book are modeled after Mr. Asprirn and Ms. White) In-jokes abound in both the text and the artwork: keep checking the backgrounds if you don't believe me.

And just to clarify an earlier reviewer's comment, Mallory is most definately a dragon. A small blue dragon. He comes from a family of dragons; this is a plot point.

I'm afraid to say much more for fear of spoiling it for new readers. In short, if you can find it, GET IT!

In re my review earlier today... Oops. Mel White. Not Phil Foglio. Some similarities, but not all. ::sigh::

First. Duncan and Mallory is hilarious, lavishly illustrated in the best comic style, reminiscent of Foglio. Who's stealing styles from who here? It's generally a good read. Like most full-color graphic novels, it's too flaming short -- about fourty double-sided sheets, if I recall correctly. It makes a great coffee-table book, even though it's paperback (8.5" x 11") -- people pick it up, start thumbing through (USE THE GLOVES!! USE THE GLOVES!!) and start laughing. If you buy it, buy the sequels the same day. My promise to you... you will read all three within two hours and laugh yourself breathless repeatedly. --Phil

Duncan & Mallory is the offspring of Robert Asprin's hilarious Myth Adventures, and Fan Artist Mel White's equally funny imagination. The story revolves around Duncan, a hapless adventurer and Mallory, a machiavellian, vegetarian dragon who is also an outcast. With Mallories 'Guidance' they get into many predicaments that still bring a chuckle today. If you like Asprin's work, his brand of humor abounds here. White's work is remeniscent of Phil Foglio's but retains a zany originality of it's own. If you want to read one of the funniest graphic novels of the early 90's, THIS is the one to get. 10 turnips!

Spicer and Ginsberg influenced one another, as is clearly shown in this book. Ginsberg stole a lot of his ideas from Spicer, but he was still the greater poet because he touched upon the conversation of his times, while Spicer went whacko and had no real impact on his culture. Academics have taken up Spicer, but this has again had no echo at all in the popular culture.

It's particularly interesting to study the automatic side of Spicer's poetics from surrealism forward -- the relinquishing of choice for a ouija board automaticism that resulted in odd nonsense that probably did not come from the dead, but resulted in an arcane verse that did indeed catalyze some of the lazier aspects of SF poetry but which was a dead end.

Magisterial biography that brings to life a tormented alcoholic who was not even trying to be nice, or even well-dressed, enough, to enter into the public forum.

His best work is the discussions he offered in The House that Jack Built -- astounding to see what he could do when he DID enter into the public conversation. Too often in his poetry he seems to be mumbling to himself. Poets need to reconnect to the real world -- because the world is real -- it has an ecology and texture, and the poets who got this will survive. Others form dead ends into their lost selves.

Gnosticism is a dead end.

I find that the Kirkus review available here does ill-service to this important biography of Jack Spicer. One would have no inkling, from reading this review, that Spicer's poetry is one of the most influential sources for postmodern poetry and poetics in the 1990s. It is not some recent academic fad to study Spicer; rather, Spicer has been a crucial poet for many younger writers for over three decades. This biography, published at the same time with his collected lectures, should provide the opportunity for even more serious study of his work.

Poets in the 1950s and 1960s have been well served by some of their biographers, and in this thrilling critical treatment of Jack Spicer and the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, Ellingham and Killian join the ranks of Peter Davison (The Fading Smile: Boston Poets from Lowell to Plath) and Bill Berkson and Joe LeSeur (Homage to Frank O'Hara) in magically capturing the soul of an important school in the poetic ferment of those years. The San Francisco circle around Spicer was intense, prolific and inspired, but they didn't get the publicity that the New York poets received or that the Beats had showered on them. Lack of media attention didn't stop them. They were dedicated to a pure vision of poetry as an almost religious vocation. On his hospital death bed in 1965 (he died at 40 from acute alcohlism), Spicer told friend Warren Tallman, "I was trapped inside my own vocabulary." His genius/mania to use that vocabulary in service of the Muse produced great work and reminded others of the seriousness of their purpose. Spicer, in all his contradictions and drives, leaps from these pages. The book as a whole bristles with the very energy it celebrates, both poetic and sexual (intrigue was in their blood), and is essential reading for all of us interested in the circles that nurture poetry in every creative center. As if that is not enough, the quotations from a vast number of interviews of the surviving participants make this a delicious oral history as well as a compendium of hair-raising gossip of the wild times in North Beach before tourists took it over fom artists.

I have read Poet Be Like God, and I wish neither to rate it (but there's no option available that allows one to opt out of the rating game) nor review it, but to make a correction to the idiotic Kirkus review: Jack Spicer was NOT a "Beat" poet. There were a group of Beat poets in San Francisco in the late 1950s, early 1960s (e.g.,Bob Kaufman), but Spicer wasn't one of them. His intentions in poetry were different from theirs; naturally, so was his aesthetic. Spicer was part of a triumverate of poets that included Robert Duncan and Robin Blaser who met at the end of World War II in Berkeley, Ca., and were sometimes known as the Berkeley Renaissance group, or more simply, and more accurately, as part of the San Francisco poetry scene (which was part of the New American Poetry movement). That the Kirkus reviewer could make such an elementary and stupid mistake should be taken as a clear indicator of the idiocy of the rest of the Kirkus piece of schlock.

Usually I read a lot of books in the bookstore than I put them back on the shelf (sorry B & N) but when I open this book and started reading, there was no way I wanted to put it down! I went right to the register and bought the book. I especially like the case study sections. The book is organized well and it is an easy read. I also like the b-school slant in has. Not often do you get a book on this topic written by someone whos business knowledge began way before his/her first venture. I recommend this book to not just those who want to start a business but anyone who is involved in community development.

Have you ever come to great a idea and gained great understanding in an instant and then break out in a cold sweat, due to the depth of that thought? And suddenly on day, just be browsing through the book store and just happen to pick up a book which carefully outlined your exact thought in black and white. Because that is what the case was with Mr.Wallace's book. Powerful!

A must read for any person looking to take the entrepreneurial plunge.

I bought this to start a collection of cookbooks for my granddaughter. I love it. She is going to be so excited to receive this as a gift. She is an avid baker and will love it.

I was impressed with this book and the service from Amazon.com with my ordering process.

The standard Cake Box is full of unimaginative sin. Active ingredients: Air and sweetness. (Like a politician on election eve?) With the help of this book and the zany ingredients suggested, your Cake Mix becomes something else entirely.

You will need a friend or two. The whimsical nature of these "recipes" brings a touch of hilarity to the kitchen that is best shared. Rolling around the floor in fits of laughter by your self is just not proper. You will also need a friend to help you eat the resulting behemoth. 3 bananas, after all, do add a certain bulk to the product.

This is a fantastically fun kitchen fantasy. Just don't get carried away. You will need some place besides your own tummy to tuck these treats.

The title of my review says it all--this is an essential collection for anyone serious about sound art/theory/poetry or avant-garde music. The CD is a very nice bonus, full of unbelievable rarities as well.

By focusing on "earplay" in texts by James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and other modern writers, this collection's twelve essays investigates the relationship between acoustical technologies and 20th-century experimental poetics. The accompanying CD offers soundtracks of early radio sounds, poetry readings, Dada cabaret performances, jazzoetry, audio-poems and contemporary Caribbean DJ dub poetry.

If you have read and liked World History, you will like this one also. This is more illustrated and maybe the young ones will like it better.

If you love great photography and are bored by all the predictable efforts that appear in most wine books, this is for you! Some of the shots by Max Alexander are really breathtaking, and, like the text, they really give a sense of the place. A terrific, affordable coffee table book