Thomas Frank Books

This book was headed for the discard pile even though I'm a ghost story junkie, but then I found a trio of really good stories buried within the dross of old pulp filler:

"Stillwater, 1896" by Michael Cassutt - A Great Lakes lumber town is visited by a man who can locate corpses underwater.

"One of the Dead" by William Wood - A vacant lot is purchased very cheaply in a canyon inhabited by movie stars, and haunted by its Spanish past.

"Night-Side" by Joyce Carol Oates - Two skeptics test a medium who can speak with the voices of the dead. The really chilling aspect of this story is its author's depiction of the afterlife.

There are also some decent stories that are worth a once-over:

"Drawer 14" by Talmage Powell - A morgue attendant sees a corpse in a drawer that's supposed to be empty. This story has a kicker at the end.

"Professor Kate" by Margaret St. Clair - A family of witches is hunted by a posse in Indian Country.

"School for the Unspeakable" by Manly Wade Wellman - You will soon guess what is going to happen to the new boy at the prep school, but it's still a spooky read. I'm prepared to bet money that the author originally set this story in England, but the editors changed the location to North Dakota to fit it into this collection.

"Clay-Shuttered Doors" by Helen R. Hull - A woman returns from the dead to host her husband's dinner party.

"Poor Little Saturday" by Madeleine L'Engle - An original fantasy, but more about witches than ghosts--I think. A woman in a deserted, boarded-up plantation house befriends a boy with malaria.

"Great American Ghost Stories" also features a so-so story by Harlan Ellison--"Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"--I think he was feeling sorry for himself when he wrote it; and a really awful early Lovecraft: "Herbert West - Reanimator." When Lovecraft is bad, he is really, really bad and this story's got sentences like, "Not more unutterable could have been the chaos of hellish sound if the pit itself had opened to release the agony of the damned, for in one inconceivable cacophony was centered all the supernal terror and unnatural despair of animate nature."

Yes, indeed. Most of the stories in this book have never been anthologized, as far as I can determine, except for a duet by Ambrose Bierce: "The Boarded Window;" and "The Stranger." But the editors could hardly have called their book, "Great American Ghost Stories" without an entry from the man who defined 'happiness' as, "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another."

Herein lies a fine collection of Ghost Stories. And it's not a barrage of cheesy tales of moans and groans in the attic. I devoured this book of shorts in one sitting. Highly recommended! Mary Higgins Clark's short story sets off the book in fine style, being the first in line. The only tale I'd say was missing from an otherwise great collection is Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily". Loved it!

Herein lies a fine collection of Ghost Stories. And it's not a barrage of cheesy tales of moans and groans in the attic. I devoured this book of shorts in one sitting. It kept my toes curled all night. Highly recommended! (Mary Higgins Clark's short story sets off the book in fine style, being the first in line) Loved it!!!

A well written collection of humerous anecdotes that occurred in this small coastal town, as told by an adoptive son. The author has spared no one, not even himself. Very entertaining and worth the reading.

This book reflects the author's love for one square mile of coastal Florida. The anecdotes make one long for tangy sea breezes, cranky neighbors, and home.

Frank Thomas captures both the historical and the hysterical sides of life in a small beachside Florida town. Thomas deftly draws characters and caricatures of the unique individuals that populate Melbourne Beach. His eye is dead-on and sometimes deadly! I highly recommend it.

I found a descriptive review of this book on the AdBusters-dot-org website

http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/69/The_Revolution_Will_Begin_with_a_Textbook_Part_Two.html

Flipping through your introductory text, you discover that it's not made up of countless variations of curves intersecting. Prose that celebrates perfectly competitive though non-existent markets seems to be in short supply. Economic heresies - "other goals may sometimes outweigh the goal of maximizing production" and "wealth itself is not well-being" - are committed left and right. After 18 years, the economics department has finally switched textbooks.

While this new text still has supply and demand curves, there are also discussions about global warming and biodiversity loss. The authors draw on insights from psychology. They raise questions about overconsumption in rich countries. And they expose the mainstream circular flow model - the one that endlessly creates products without material or energy inputs, and without generating waste - as a fraudulent perpetual motion machine. You are, to say the least, a bit taken aback.

Welcome to Microeconomics in Context, by Neva Goodwin and three of her colleagues, a team that has expertise in mainstream, feminist, institutional and ecological economics. Their text dives right into poverty, inequality, unemployment, the gains and costs involved in trade, the linkages between economic activity and the environment. To the trio of activities that are normally the focus of economic analysis - production, distribution and consumption - the authors add resource maintenance. It's a massive leap forward for economists to methodically look at what is needed in order to tend to, improve or preserve the natural and social resources that support economic activity and quality of life.

Homo economicus still makes appearances in Goodwin's book, but mainly to help students converse in the language of neoclassical economists. Instead, the authors focus on how society can shape the economy to enable people to live healthy, meaningful lives and to live in harmony with each other and with nature. They seek to resurrect the profession's historical interest in exploring means other then economic growth for alleviating poverty and deprivation. Their economics once again focuses on well-being, rather then the artifice of utility, which allows us to replace the maximization of consumption with more complex goals.

Markets still have their place, the authors concede. They communicate information about desires and scarcity amongst buyers and sellers. They create incentives and they help coordinate economic activity. But they do not correct for inequities in distribution, leaving some desperately poor while others buy a third vacation home. Markets can also favor the undemocratic exercise of power, and they can undermine the conditions required for sustainability and community. Economic policy, this text argues, must take into account these realities.

Microeconomics in Context is the ideal text for getting a solid foundation in both neoclassical microeconomics and its limitations. It also looks sufficiently like a mainstream textbook that some profs might be able to teach from it without the department chair noticing that a heretical text had made it into the building. But because it seeks to provide a foundation in the neoclassical approach, even from a critical perspective, its treatment of alternative schools of thought is at times limited. nate

This book does exactly what the above Book Description says it does so there is no need to give a summary description here.

Because this book takes a "broader" approach (which here means that it incorporates insights from non-neoclassical schools of thought and other disciplines), it necessarily gives a bit less attention to the "mechanics" of some basic neoclassical tools (viz. details about and permutations of graphical representations of models).

This is not to say it doesn't deal pretty fairly with the dominant paradigm or give a clear introductory account of it. It certainly does that. It is suggested, however, that a student wishing to thoroughly understand some of the finer details of graphical representations of neoclassical models (and deductions from them) should use this book in conjunction with a "standard" introductory Microeconomics textbook, such as by Robert Frank or John Sloman.

Equally, if a good student is to become a good economist, s/he would do well to read Goodwin et.al. in conjunction with their "standard" text. Thinking outside the (Edgeworth) box is more and more a prerequisite for economists these days.

This book does an excellent job providing an heterodox view of microeconomic theory. It provides insights from economists outside of the neoclassical model (many Nobel Prize winners), giving a more complete and realistic picture of how economics works. It is also clearly written with excellent examples and clear quantitative analysis.

most of the drinks in the front half (the traditional cocktail substitutes) turn out remarkably like sparkling lemonade. the drinks in the back are much more interesting. still, it gives people who don't drink an excuse to use a cocktail shaker and pretty glasses and feel generally froofy and sophisticated. i gave it to my best friend, a college freshman, and we have had lots of fun with it.

Love this book. The drinks are all delicious and I use the drink recipes to make ice cream and sherbet. The recipes are endless, very creative and fun.

This amazing book far exceeded my expectations. For the past several years, on Saturday nights we have friends over, and take stabs at new drinks in various Alcoholic Beverages books. We prefer the ones that show the glass to be used to clear up any confusion. The problem of course is the Kids can feel left out of the party, and those "pretty glasses" often get replaced with our regular glasses filled with soda and maybe some grenadine and a cherry. Also the non drinking adults are left to fend for soda's themselves if they're the designated driver, or are just not in the mood for a drink.

The bar books we have do indeed have a small collection of some fairly tasteless non alcoholic drinks, most without a type of glass, or worse, for like 7-10 people at a mixing (punch bowls, etc).

This book takes care of every single one of the problems listed above. This beautifully illustrated and well bound book, looks like a black version of the more popular Boston Drink Guide. Hardbound with a spiffy cover.

Inside is a wonderful section on the Essentials of running a bar, including equipment, displays of every type of glass (everything from highball to hurricane, even a pilsner glass is included).

Descriptions of basic ingredients, garnishes, a liquid measurement conversion chart, and more take up the beginning of this wonderful book.

There are three different classes of drinks to be made. From Mocktails, which as you'd assume are mostly highball and coctail glass drinks. Also Drinks for all seasons, which are a wide variety of drinks for winter spring summer and fall, and holiday sections for each season. Lastly something called Sweet Endings, which make up the more exotic drinks, everything from spiced coffee drinks to floats and shakes.

Each recipe has an image of the glass used next to it. The directions are clear and the drinks make liberal use of a wide variety of measurements; from ounces, to parts of cups, tablespoons, and so fourth; making drink making fun and quite exotic.

The book states that the royalties from the sale of this book go to support Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Which is very commendable. This wonderful book isn't full of those cutsie kiddie phrases for drink names, but contains things like Peach Sparkler, and Banana Hurricane.

It has the look and feel of a professional drink book, and makes liberal use of the various bar techniques, glasses, and equipment. So if your little one wants to be part of the action in a fun way, or if your teenager wants to throw a party and you'd like them to feel a bit more grown up, this is the book for you.

If I had one complaint it would be that the drinks are not indexed by ingredient, which admittedly would be a rather large undertaking with non alcoholic drinks, but you get used to that in regular bar books.

This is an incredible book, well worth the money, and the only book you'll need to cater to non-drinkers of any age without making them feel childish or different, which is worth its weight in gold.

It is not needed such as the maps book is, but it deliver the merchandise for the price.

Rather short on some action, this books attempt too much in many ways.

It is still a easy book to read, that will accommodate the fast reader that wants to follow a story without stopping to much on the details.

The West Point Word War II series is one of the best sources of history on the Second World War. The Atlases associated with each volume are a must because the text refers to them frequently. The writing style is not overly technical and explains the foundations of military doctrine followed by the respective combatants in prosecuting the conflict.

The authors are able to point out the fundamental errors made by each side, the results of those miscalculations and what adjustments (if any) were made. The correct deductions are also put on display for the reader. And the authors manage to make the conflict dramatic in a professional way. For example, at the battle of Midway the Americans had put all their critical assets at risk. If all the US carriers were lost the situation in the Pacific would have been ruinous. The authors clearly point out that the Japanese fleet was overwhelming, and properly used could not have lost that battle. The American command was counting on Japanese mistakes, and the Japanese made them.

Thus, the West Point historians have injected the true drama of the situation in June of 1942. A lot was on the line and the history of WWII would have been far different if the US admirals had made the mistakes instead of the Japanese.

The entire series is filled with this kind of drama.

The background sections which cover the road to WWII is thought provoking and shows how the outcome of the war, in many respects, was determined prior to the start of hostilities. The books cover the mental attitudes that contributed to the start of the war and the course of the conflict.

The series isn't perfect. The US Army writers find a little time to subtly criticize some actions of the US Navy and US Marines. They seem to like implying the Marines were getting a lot of publicity for doing the same thing the Army was doing. This is a very minor criticism and such minor diversions do not detract at all from the superlative standards set by this very complete history.

Anyone interested in WWII, its causes, conduct and outcomes, must read this set (one book covers the Pacific war and the other the European war - and there is an atlas for each of these volumes for a total of 4 books).

This book is one of the best of the whole West Point series. The authors have found a way to describe an analyse historical events in detail and in a very serious way, yet the book is never boring nor exceedingly academic. The readers feels like a junior officer in a staff HQ and witnesses key decisions being made. A brilliant and innovative book, maybe a little too centered on the role of the United States. The Atlas is a useful complement, and reading the two in parallel is invaluable. Probably one of the best tools to understand WWII ever designed.

My daughter finds the book easy, but I guess it is appropirate for the third graders.
A great practice book.

I think this workbook will work more for some students than for others. The print is small in comparison to some other third grade workbooks available. This does give more problems per page, but this could be overwhelming too. It does cover things other than addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, such as telling time, measuring, money, calendars, and roman numerals, but it spends very little time on them. I did not like how it teaches addition and subtraction. It shows a graph and then for the addition problem 9 plus 8 it says: Find the 9-row. Find the 8-column. The sum is named where the 9-row and 8-column meet. I thought this was more confusing than anything. It does the same for multiplication and division. In explaining division it gives one page of groupings. Then the only explaination is "If 2x3=6, then 6[divided by]2=3. This is ok, but further explaination might be necessary. The book is also only 160 pages in total.

The biggest thing I do not like is that there are not answers at the back of the book for every page of problems. At one point I found that four pages in a row did not have answers. Unless you want to sit and do the math yourself or don't care if they are correct this can be frustrating.

The best thing I liked about this workbook is that there are lots of word problems. They don't fit many word problems on a page (usually about 5), but many times they are every other page.

I would say that this would make a great supplemental volume if your child doesn't get bored doing so many problems with small print and little color or pictures (I know these aren't necessary, but sometimes it helps). I wouldn't trust this volume to instruct your child, though if this is just a practice volume it might fit your needs just fine.

As a homeschooler, I have found this to be one of the best grade 3 math books on the market. The content is appropriate for the age level and the pace is one that the average student will have no problem keeping up with. The book gradually guides the student from simple addition all the way through division with ease and stability not found in more contemporary math books.

There are enough facts about Thomas Jefferson to easily fill a book hundreds of pages in length. So why, a reader might wonder, would an author choose to even partially fictionalize a 48-page-long children's book. Six pages are filled with specific information about a feast that did not take place, and although clarified in the author's note, it seems that young children are unlikely to distinguish fact from fiction in a biographical book. Additionally, the idea of a man who owned 100-200 slaves at any given time preparing an entire feast by himself is nonsensical. Only two pages portray slaves: one shows a smiling man at the door of a dumbwaiter; another, two small figures working the land. Their almost-absence, when recounting the life of a man whose existence depended so heavily on their labor, borders on revisionism. The illustrations are very good; the factual parts of the story are excellent; and the inclusion of several French words, complete with meanings and pronunciation, is a bonus; but the truth is overly bent. Abe Lincoln's Hat by Martha Brenner, another in the Step Into Reading series, is equally good, but all true.

All of the books in this series take one personality trait of a famous person and talk about it. The trait they chose for Jefferson was that he liked to eat. The fact that the "feast" happened over several parties as opposed to one meal is not an important enough piece of "fiction" to justify saying that the book is bad. The book does not talk about Slavery. That is covered in the book about Harriett Tubman, which is also a very good book. This is a Step Into Reading book, not a complete history of Thomas Jefferson book. Although the reading level is 2nd - 4th grade, the content is PreK - 1st.

This is a wonderful children's book about our third president (US). It provides a fun story about how he loved to read and write and eat! He brought foods back from France that weren't popular here and made them famous. Jefferson got people to finally try love apples or tomatos, thought to be poisonous here in the US, but eaten often in France.

I'd suggest reading Samuel R. Delany's essay (in Longer Views) and accidentally catching a program on PBS about Hart Crane after your first read of it. It helped me tremendously.

An epic poem which explores America, "modern" poetic imagery (the Brooklyn bridge as opposed to a tree), Columbus, Whitman, Poe, Pocahontas, and sea imagery. It also contains very bold (for the pre-Stonewall era) allusions to homosexuality, in the typical method of the period which is rooted in gender-neutrality.

I have been reading the Library of America's newly-published edition of Hart Crane's (1899- 1932) complete poems. The LOA edition includes as well over 400 of Crane's letters to his family, friends, and associates. The LOA compilation of Hart Crane's writings made me want to turn again, specifically to his masterpiece, "The Bridge". I have owned the paperback edition of "The Bridge", reviewed here, for many years. It has the advantage over the LOA edition in being less bulky and in including two thoughtful introductions to help approach this difficult poem. The first introduction is by Crane's friend, the poet and critic Yvor Winters. Winters's article dates from 1932, and it is critical of "The Bridge". The second review is by Thomas Vogler. It dates from the 1970s, when this paperback was first published, and attempts to answer some of Frank's objections to the poem. The reader will need to respond to the poem for himself or herself. But I find both Winters's and Vogler's reviews suggestive and illuminating.

Crane first conceived the project of a long poem on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1923. He worked on it fitfully for six years completing in in 1929. The poem was published in 1930. Crane received financial assistance from the philanthropist Otto Kahn (1867 -- 1934) to allow him to work on "The Bridge". We are forever in Kahn's debt. Crane's work on the poem was hindered by the complexity of its themes and by severe excesses in his personal life. But Crane persevered and was able to realize his project. Crane committed suicide in 1932. A difficult and still controversial work, the Bridge has won an important place in American literature. More than that, it has long won a place in my heart.

Hart Crane wrote "The Bridge" as an answer to the pessimism and despair of T.S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land." Crane wanted to create a vision of hope for modern life and a secular myth for the United States. He tried to do so by using the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge, engineered by Washington Roebling, as a symbol. By coincidence, Crane lived for some years in a small room in Brooklyn Heights from which he could see the Brooklyn Bridge. Roebling had also lived in this same room.

In Crane's poem, the Brooklyn Bridge is a symbol of power and industrialization and of the promise it offers to modern life. But it is infinitely more. The arch of the bride, in Crane's mythology, stretches backwards in time to the discovery of America, and further. The Bridge also stretches in space to encompass the continent in its entirety, the West, and, particularly the Mississippi River. The Brooklyn Bridge becomes, in Crane's myth, a transcendent symbol in which distinctions of time and place are oblisterated in a mystic vision of self and of the United States. The myth of the poem is also highly personal, as the poet tries to come to terms with his life. In the journey of the poem, the poet leaves his lover in bed in the morning to cross the bridge. He visits a bar at the foot of the bridge and has a conversation and a drink with an old sailor before he returns home late in the evening on the subway. The poet's refelections encompass, through meditation on the Brooklyn Bridge, Columbus, Pochahontus, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, the machine age, and the poet's own life and attempt to overcome what he describes in the "Quaker Hill" section of "The Bridge" as "the curse of sundered parentage."

Crane's poem begins with a magnificent introduction "To Brooklyn Bridge" in which he announces his theme to "And of the curveship lend a myth to God." The poem closes with the mystic vision of "Atlantis", the first section of the work Crane composed in which he tries to bring his difficult vision to unity in what he describes as a "Swift peal of secular light, intrinsic Myth". Cranes's metaphorical Bridge exists in "Everpresence, beyond time,/Like spears ensanguined of one tolling star/ that bleeds infinity/ ...", as the Bridge "Whispers antiphonal in azure swing." As Crane develops his theme, the mythical Bridge is a call to transcendence, hope and reflection and to human love and the brotherhood of man.

The poem is written in varied styles and passages of beautiful blank verse alternate with colloquial passages and with passages that illustrate the depressed, debased character of modern life that Eliot described in "The Waste Land." Crane tried valiantly to overcome these negative elements in his poem. Crane's own vision included dark, despairing moments, expressed in the "Quaker Hill" and "The Tunnel" sections of "The Bridge" which the final vision of "Atlantis" struggles to incorporate.

Some of the sections of the "The Bridge", particularly "Indiana" and "Quaker Hill" were composed in haste as Crane struggled to complete his poem and are frequently regarded as weak links in the work's grand scheme. Some sections of "The Bridge" lack the immediacy and the sheer verbal beauty of Crane's earlier poems in the collection "White Buildings."

For all its difficulties and its mixed success, The Bridge never ceases to inspire me. It is a difficult and hard-won vision of the mythic, the secular, and the personal promise of American life. It was a noble effort. I urge readers of this review to explore Hart Crane's American poem, "The Bridge".

Robin Friedman

I have several titles by J. Frank Dobie, and I also am an aspiring writer of western historical lore. I use Dobie books in my research and as guides to find information. Cow People is an excellent reference for pieces that happen on or around the big spreads of the 19th century, and an interesting read. I enjoy reading about the old timers that I have heard so much about through the years, especially the ones that were here in our area. I too have worked cattle and horses on these same lands, so it takes me to places and times with which I am very familiar. I identify with the Dobie take on things because he's home-folks. He reported faithfully the way of life in this Brush-Country of ours and was one of my grandfather's best friends.

J.Frank Dobie was memorialized in Austin Texas at the famous Barton Springs pool with a statue along with 2 other famous Texans, at a place called philosophers rock. This book is part of the reason why. In it he chronicles the stories of the real mean of the old west, the cooks, cowhands, drive captains, and cattle barons from that famous era of the late 1800's. This is done through his own experience, his uncle owned a ranch in south Texas, direct interviews with his subjects and second hand stories. His book, Cow People, originally published in 1964, doesn't just paint a picture of these people and their time, he blasts the whole place with technicolor. Must be read by all 'cow people' and wannabes.

I picked this up recently on a whim and was delighted with it. It is a quick but very satisfying read. Each story has a female lead and an element of romance, but the stories are driven more by character than love. It reminded me of Colleen McCollouh's Ladies of Missalonghi.

Most of the books by O'Rourke in my library are old westerns. I was drawn into the book and read it in one day. Wonderful narration and characters, I felt like I was in the Depression era Midwest.