U Books

Being a Yorkie lover, I really did enjoy the story. Smoky was quite a dog - they are an exceptional breed. I think any pet lover/history buff would enjoy the book.

I love this book about Smoky, and I almost didn't buy it, because a reviewer said it was poorly written. But I find it quite well done, and I have read some self published books that were not. This is really a lovely little book. I think anyone would enjoy it. Certainly, dog lovers will be most interested, but those who don't care about dogs might find themselves a dog lover by the time they finish this book. The photos are great, too. I have a little Yorkie, so I especially love this story. I'm going to buy the book for some older relatives who fought in WWII. I think they'll be charmed.

I first learned about Smoky through a Wikipedia link where she immediately captured my interest. Buying the book was the next logical step in learning more about this amazing and wonderful dog, but sadly none of my local vendors had it and was in fact greeted with several different smirks when given the name of the book to search for. Thankfully Amazon had it in stock, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone. The story of Mr. Wynne and Smoky seems almost unreal during the War and the story of their life home and on the road will keep you captivated to the teary end.

When Bill writes of his experiences with Smoky it feels as though you are right there along side both of them,experiencing what they are going through.Well written and he even gives you training tips to train your dog with.Yorkie doodle dandy is a must have for any family library.Way to go Bill and thanks for bringing Smoky back for us all to enjoy!!!

Yorkie Doodle Dandy is not just another story of a man and his dog. It is a real life story of a miracle and I guess what is meant to be will be. Mr. Wynne finds his little Yorkie literally in the middle of nowhere on an island during a war. I don't want to give the story away but it shows the bonding that can take place between owner and pet and what sacrifices will be made for each other. Be prepared to laugh and cry. If you have Yorkies, like I do, run and get this book. If you don't have Yorkies, read this book and you will want a Yorkie. My deepest respect to Mr. Wynne who is one of those rare people who truly understands dogs.

"The 42nd Parallel," the first volume of John Dos Passos's "U.S.A." trilogy, is a novel about America and Americans from the 1890s up to the first World War. That sounds ordinary enough, but "The 42nd Parallel"--the title possibly refers to the latitude of Chicago, Dos Passos's city of birth and where a good portion of the action of the novel takes place--is notable more for its style than for its content, not that the latter is uninteresting. Dos Passos invents five young people from different backgrounds and parts of the country and follows the courses of their lives until their destinies eventually intersect.

The first to be introduced is a poor kid from Connecticut by way of Chicago named Fenian "Mac" McCreary who, starting out as an apprentice printer not unlike Benjamin Franklin, travels from city to city hopping trains and falling haplessly into a variety of odd jobs--assisting a con man, writing propaganda for a labor organization--until he ends up in Mexico running a bookstore on the fringe of a revolutionary movement. Then we meet Janey Williams, a middle-class girl from Washington, D.C., who makes a living as a stenographer while she is looking for a husband.

Next is a diligent, intelligent boy from Wilmington, Delaware, named J. Ward Moorehouse who after some bad luck in his career and his marriage becomes a successful public relations consultant for corporations. Eleanor Stoddard, a Chicago girl who dreams of a fashionable and cultured life for herself, breaks the social and economic barriers and becomes a highly reputable interior decorator in New York. Finally, Charley Anderson, a North Dakota native, struggles to find and keep work as a mechanic while he roams the country as a vagrant, ultimately volunteering for the ambulance corps in France as the United States enters the European war.

What all these people have in common is that they each epitomize some facet of the new American socioeconomic picture of the emerging twentieth century--the socialist, the working single girl, the corporate image softener. The novel reflects the changes America was undergoing at the time, especially in light of the problematic relations between labor, industry, and government, and the country's potential position as a new global superpower awaiting the biggest, bloodiest war the world would witness to date. Dos Passos wrote this in 1930, so of course he had the benefit of some hindsight; there was no second world war, nor even yet the threat of one, to obscure his vision of the era.

The narratives of the main characters alternate with "Newsreels" that provide glimpses of contemporary events, headlines, and snippets of popular songs; sections called "The Camera Eye" which record random prattle from snapshot subjects and look like modernist prose poems; and brief versified sketches of actual personalities and prominent figures of the day who shaped American history, from Eugene V. Debs to Thomas Edison to Charles Proteus Steinmetz. The novel is experimental in structure, but Dos Passos is breezily conversational in his prose, telling pure stories with natural drama; there is no unbelievable comedy or tragedy here, no sentimentality or jingoism, just life as it is lived.

This first part of Dos Passos' acclaimed "USA" trilogy takes the reader from the start of the 20th-century up to America's entry in World War I through the alternating life stories of five regular (white) citizens. Had he stopped there, the book might have been perfect, but modernist experimentations creep in through the "Newsreel" and "The Camera's Eye" sections and muddy up the work. These are kind of abstract prose collages or montages comprised of headlines, snatched phrases of songs, news clippings, and random phrases -- presumably intended to convey some of the mood and seeming frenetic pace of the time. The fourth element in his brew are brief sketches of notable figures of American history (some more familiar to contemporary readers than others), including Thomas Edison, "Gene" Debs, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Charles Steinmetz (pioneering electrical engineer) and more. However, if one can ignore all of Dos Passos' uneven futzing around with these various elements, there's quite a good social history underneath. When writing about his five core characters, he's very straightforward and proves to be an engaging storyteller.

Dos Passos uses his five characters to show the pre-war period as a time of great change in America, when the political field was still wide open and the opportunities for social mobility were a tangible lure to young people. Probably the closest to his heart is the first one we meet, a poor Irish-American apprentice printer from Connecticut named Mac. His picaresque adventures take him train-hopping around the country and into a turbulent Mexico, taking on odd jobs and working for the labor movement. Raised by Fenian rebels, he's a card carrying Wobbly and proud of it. The middle three characters are middle-class strivers. Janey is a Washington, DC stenographer whose halcyon days of youth end when her teen crush dies in a car wreck and her golden boy brother joins the merchant marine. Eleanor is a naive Chicago girl who is introduced into a "arty" set and eventually works her way up in the world to become a fashionable Manhattanite interior decorator. Both of these women's lives eventually intersect with that of J. Ward Moorehouse, an industrious Delaware boy who manages to latch on to a rich wife and leverages that to make a name for himself in advertising and public relations. A Minnesotan hick named Charley forms the working class bookend to the five characters. Like Mac, he wanders the country, living close the edge and picking up mechanic or carnival jobs where he can, and gets interested in the labor movement.

As the lives of these characters unfold over the decade and a half, we see the energetic face of modern America emerging. The rise and fall of unions, the rise of the working woman, the rise of advertising and media spin, the tension between government and the people, the rise of American hegemony and nationalism, and the inevitable class divide -- the one area that escapes major attention is race. Lest this sound rather dry and boring, the five characters go through personal and professional trials and tribulations familiar to our time. Playing an especially large role in the characters' lives are love and sex, the former generally playing out poorly, and the latter sordidly. There's an interesting tension that surfaces off and on through the lives of the male characters, in which females divert them from their avowed course. This is introduced very early in the book when Mac is warned by his father that he must stay away from women, because women will make you "sell out" and betray the revolution. The idea that a man can't be an effective revolutionary if he's got a woman to deal with is a recurring one -- which is not to say that women don't have their own problems throughout the story -- and it would be interesting to see a feminist analysis of the book. In any event, once you get used to the structure and style and concentrate on the core characters, it remains a very readable and important portrait of America's history from the perspective of a social revolutionary.

To read John Dos Passos' "The 42ND Parallel" is a unique reading experience that I highly recommend, though not to everybody. It is a great book, but very intellectual, slow and sometimes confusing --therefore it requires a lot of concentration from the reader. But those who adventure this superb work are likely to be very pleased. This is a great portrait of the USA circa 1900 --a remarkable read.

To begin with, the format of the story can be a major drawback. Not only is it segmented, but also, from time to time, sections that haven't much to do with the narrative itself pop up. Sections named "Newsreel" and "Camera Eye" may not make the main narrative --or narratives --move on, but they are important to set the mood and give historical background to the reader. They can put off the reader, or helpful, it only depends on how much one likes historical context.

Each main character is a book itself. They have long stories that are told from the beginning. Each one has his or her main conflicts, supporting characters and so forth. But the closer we get to the end, the clearer it is that all the storylines will get together in the end. And this is one of the biggest accomplishments of Dos Passos. Many writers try to do this kind of device and fail --they are neither convincer, nor surprising. But this is not the case in "The 42ND Parallel". You may have a feeling the narratives will eventually meet each other in the end, but the end is so engaging that surprises us.

Since "The 42ND Parallel" is the first installment of a trilogy, clearly, it has no ending so to speak. The narratives come to a finale, but still there is water to pass under the bridge. The last paragraph is the perfect hook for the next novel. It leaves the reader with a natural excitement to read "1919".

if you like On The Road by Jack Kerouac, than you'll love this trilogy.

When I first came across John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy (42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money) as a teenager I thought they were the most exciting books I'd read to date. I was enthralled by its scope, its style, and its highly politicized substance. Dos Passos' montage-style (that seemed to be some sort of homage to the great Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein) mixed interwoven story lines of fictional characters with brief contemporary biographies of famous contemporaries. To that he added "newsreel" items, brief inserts from news clippings of the day that gave some sense of the cultural and political world these characters inhabited. Last, Dos Passos added subjective, autobiographical snippets (the "Camera Eye") that served as some sort of exterior voice of the author. I was concerned when I picked up 42nd Parallel many years later that I would find that my excitement was more the product of teenage naivete than from reading a truly unique literary work. Happily, I was not disappointed to find that the USA Trilogy remains for me, a wonderful piece of writing, one that has fallen inexplicably out of the American literary cannon.

Seventy years later we think of American fiction from the 1920s and 1930s as being dominated by three writers, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald. It is not much remembered that at the time Dos Passos was thought of as an essential fourth. When 42nd Parallel was published Edmund Wilson's review went so far as to claim that Dos Passos was "the first of our writers, with the possible exception of Mark Twain, who has successfully used colloquial American for a novel of the highest artistic seriousness." Upon publication of The Big Money in 1936 Dos Passos made the cover of the August 10, 1936 issue of Time Magazine.

42nd Parallel is a wonderful title for Volume I of the Trilogy. The 42nd Parallel of latitude runs right through the heart of the USA. Starting from the west it forms the north/south boundary of California, Nevada and part of Utah from Oregon and Idaho. Running east it crosses Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and the New York/Pennsylvania border. After cutting across Connecticut it reaches the Atlantic Ocean just where the Pilgrims landed, at Plymouth Rock.

Dos Passos' 42nd Parallel cuts a similar swath across the USA. Set roughly in the years from 1900 to the First World War, Dos Passos traces the lives of five characters, each from a different part of the country and each with a different class and cultural background. We are presented with the stories of Fainy McCreary (Mac), Janey, J. Ward Moorehouse, Eleanor Stoddard, and Charley Anderson. As the stories progress they converge (personally or geographically) and diverge sometimes as randomly as two ships passing in the night. We have a range of characters from a card carrying member of the International Workers of the World (Wobblies) in Mac to a budding man of wealth and importance in the new field of public relations (Moorehouse). Some hop trains and tramp from town to town looking for jobs or social unrest. Others strive for respectability and try to make a `nice' middle class life for themselves.

In between chapters Dos Passos provides us with biographical sketches of famed Americans such as Thomas Edison, Bob La Follette, Andrew Carnegie, and Luther Burbank. Also interspersed throughout the book are the Newsreels and what Dos Passos called "The Camera Eye" made up of his own musings on his life and times. All of the fictional characters live for the moment and don't engage in any literary musings on the meaning of life and their role in it. The Camera Eye seems, in many respects, to consist of Dos Passos setting out his own interior life, something missing from his characters. 42nd Parallel is a politically charged piece of work and is fully representative of the highly charged and turbulent early years of the 20th-century.

By the time I was finished with the 42nd Parallel any qualms I had about revisiting Dos Passos had long since evaporated. I recommend this book to anyone who, like me, read the book many, many years ago. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who hasn't yet discovered The USA Trilogy. You won't be disappointed.

Absolutely outstanding book on the complicated second American revolution that occured as a result of the American Civil War and the startling reversals that took place not ten years later. McPherson's essays are masterful.

First rate.

This thin book which contains series of essays on how Abraham Lincoln revolutionized our nation during one of the most important periods of our nation proves to be well written and amazingly easy to understand. James McPherson writes clearly how the American Civil War was truly a revolutionary moment in our nation's history and how Lincoln took steps to ensure these changes. How we lived, our political/racial/social norms that are part of our society today took form during the Civil War. Even the way we waged war, have it roots in the Civil War, all have Lincoln's fingerprints all over it.

The book proves to be easy to follow and read. But in its simple prose, lies amazing insights and perception of Lincoln's influence during the war and his abilities to effect changes in our nation. I would say that this book is a "must read" for anyone interested in American history.

This well-argued collection of James McPherson's occasional pieces focuses primarily on what the author sees as the fundamental changes that the Civil War brought to America's polity, economics, culture, and self-identity. The first, second, third, and seventh of the essays deal especially with this theme. The middle fourth, fifth, and sixth essays are less directly related to it, but nonetheless offer fascinating explorations of Lincoln the total war president, Lincoln the wordsmith, and Lincoln the "hedgehog."

Many of the people who lived through the Civil War thought of it as a revolution. Many historians since have agreed, although for varying reasons. McPherson's main project in this book is to figure out whether and how the Civil War can be considered the "second American Revolution."
He believes that the war was in fact revolutionary on several counts.

First, the war shifted the economic and political power balance in the United States. The war's devastation of southern property and demographics, especially after it evolved from a limited to a total conflict, shifted economic superiority to northern industry and agriculture. Moreover, the southern states' virtual antebellum monopoly of the White House, as well as their immense congressional power, was broken for the next half century. This is what McPherson (and others) refer to as the "external" revolution.

But there was an "internal" revolution too in the realm of legal rights and national self-identity. Four million slaves were freed and granted civil and political rights, and the southern aristocracy, along with the entire way of life and set of values it maintained, disappeared (or at least went underground). Moreover, argues McPherson, the war brought about a shift from early Republic concentration on liberty as "freedom from" (negative liberty), which distrusted strong central government, to liberty as "freedom to" (positive liberty), which emphasized the responsibility of the federal government to guarantee civil rights. This shift helped create a new sense of national identity that focused on the nation rather than the region: hence McPherson's claim that the Civil War moved the country from a "union" to a "nation."

The influence of the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin is present throughout much of McPherson's thinking about liberty, and McPherson also draws on one of Berlin's most famous essays in designating Lincoln (Chapter VI) as a hedgehog in his single-minded devotion to preserving the union. McPherson might be drawing on the work of philosophers of language in his fascinating discussion (Chapter V) of Lincoln's influential talent for creating and manipulating "live" as opposed to "dead" metaphors in expressing his opinions and seeking support for his policies. In both these cases, McPherson nicely weaves some philosophical analysis into his historical interpretations.

Where I find McPherson less helpful is his rather uncritical discussion of Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus (Chapter III). He rehearses the well-worn argument that the suspension was simply necessary from a pragmatic perspective--end of discussion. As Lincoln said in another context, "often a limb must be sacrificed to save a life." But this interpretation begs for a discussion of the moral and political short- and longterm trauma that the amputation inflicted on the body politic. How far can one go in suspending liberties in order to preserve liberty?

Nonetheless, the essays collected in Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution are exactly what readers have come to expect from McPherson: illuminating, gracefully written, well-researched. They aren't the final word, and I suspect McPherson doesn't expect them to be. But they wonderfully enrich the on-going conversation.

James McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom) is the preeminent Civil War author and scholar of our time. The Princeton University professor provides fresh insight into A. Lincoln in these seven essays.

McPherson demonstrates conclusively that the Civil War was indeed the Second American Revolution - it abolished slavery and smashed the political, economic, and social status quo. Before the War, southerners dominated American politics - after the war it was decades before a son of the south could be elected President. The absence of the south from the national legislature during the war allowed the passage of the great progressive and modernizing legislation; the Homestead Act, enabled a continental railroad, and land-grant colleges. After the war, blacks made great (if far from complete) progress in education, politics, and economics.

Unfortunately, the reactionary forces led a counter-revolution that attempted to turn back the massive changes in society with much success. That counter-revolution eventually yielded to a Second Reconstruction in the mid-20th century.

McPherson repeatedly returns to Lincoln's political evolution as the War changed from a limited war for limited ends to a total war for revolutionary ends. In the end Lincoln insisted on unconditional surrender.

I particularly enjoyed the essays entitled 'How Lincoln Won the War with Metaphors', which contrasts the communication abilities of Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, and 'The Hedgehog and the Foxes', in which McPherson favors us with a description of Lincoln as the single-minded hedgehog outlasting the multifarious foxes such as Horace Greeley and William Seward.

My only small quibble is that similar points are made using the same quotes in multiple essays (perhaps unavoidable in a collection of previously published essays), but the quotes are so evocative of Lincoln's thinking that the repetition is not only forgiven, but enjoyed.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in US history, Lincoln, or the Civil War era.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION by James M. McPherson is a thin juicy volume. You feel energized as you read and absorb its deep insights. Each of six essays shows that it was Lincoln's reality anchored character and powerful intellect that transformed the United States to the country it is today. One essay shows how Lincoln's use of metaphor, culled from Aesop's Fables, the works of Shakespeare, and the Bible made him a consummate communicator. His metaphors resonated to the deepest layers of mind of the average American in way that instilled motivation and purpose to a war that seemed impossible to manage or win. Compared to Jefferson Davis who was so highly educated and abstract but was unable to connect with ordinary folk. But it is McPherson who too is able to convey to us this president's great powers with his own metaphors i.e. "barnyard philosophy," and his essay, "The hedgehog and the fox," which compares and contrasts Lincoln's abilities with the "smartest contemporaries." ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION is a great distillate of the voluminous Civil War Literature. You must have it for your library.

The plight of the people of Libby and the other sites around the country is very sad and you want to hate WR Grace and the previous mine owners and operators. While their reponsibility is not in doubt, the book could have been improved by more information about what exactly they knew and when. I'm sure Grace et al. did not cooperate with the authors, but the extensive litigation should have made some of this information available.

I am in the middle of this book and I find it very compelling. I was interested in customer reviews and when I read the last review on how the story is not yet complete because many of the victims of this scandal do not have health insurance, I felt compelled to write.

Everyone will be making a profit on this story. WB Grace made their money and now the media will make their money. While I agree that the authors have done a wonderful public service uncovering this environmental disaster, I would like to suggest that a substantial amount of the money made on this book (and the perhaps subsequent movie) could be donated to the victims. If not for their illness, there would be no story. I was recently appalled to learn about the monies that were made by media stars on the Watergate scandal while Deep Throat (whoe courage made it all possible) was not doing quite as well. For the media to make money off these stories without providing for the victims is not right either.

I want you to read this book. It is important to you and your family. I consider myself a knowledgeable person and I don't remember this scandal when it came out in 2000-2001. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I live in southern CA, but the problems with asbestos effects all of us in the US. Attic insulation, talc products and even gardening/soil products have asbestos risks that have been used and available for sale up into the 1990's and beyond.

I must have read a review or heard one of the authors in an interview...but somehow this book made it onto my "Must Read" list. When I received the book, I questioned why I had gotten it, having forgotten what motivated my interest in the first place. But I started reading and have found this book to be a treasure.

The story is one of deception, corruption and greed on the part of Big Business, in this case the mining business. The owners and executives misled their workers, investors and the government agencies that regulated them into turning a blind eye to the dangers of asbestos in their products.

While the deception of the miners in Libby was unconscionable, the book goes on to document the Bush White House withholding information that the air in and around the World Trade Center was not healthy! Can you imagine, after a tragedy like the WTC disaster, that your own government, that you rallied round to give support, would turn on you and withhold information that the air that you breathe is full of cancer causing dust? Which tragedy is worse?

The book is truly a must-read.

Lastly, I want to point out the courage of the reporters, editors, doctors and the outstanding EPA field workers that fought to get this story out. Whistle-blowers, whose main motivation is to right a wrong, are oftentimes rewarded by getting fired and branded as outcasts. This book is ultimately a story of courage and perserverance of those determined to overcome the obstacles of standing out and doing what's right.

The author Andrew Schneider tells the story of uncovering a scandal of major proportions. It is a frightening, chilling story of hidden dangers allowed by government officials whose jobs are to keep us safe. It is the story of a mineral still used in our country whose lethal dangers were recorded by Pliny the Elder. Asbestos cannot be safely used in any manner.

This book is a masterpiece of investigative journalism - well written, throughly researched and truly in the interests of the public.

The authors do a superb job of combining all the science and politics with a touching picture of the real Americans who ultimately paid and are paying the price for corporate greed and governmental push-overs.

If you read just one book this year, this should be it!

I am a member of the Detroit Historical Society and other historical organizations and have read many history books. "Alive on the Andrea Doria" is not only an interesting factual presentation of the events of this historic sea collision, but also a well written and riveting drama describing the human emotions and reactions of passengers, crew, rescuers, the anxious families and friends of passengers and crew, news media, and others involved in this tragedy. It is also the author's fascinating personal story of a young girl pulling up roots in Italy, leaving her town, friends, and school behind to come to America, where all was new and different: family, language, food, school, etc. This book is highly recommended for all.

What a wonderful book (and story). I read it straight through and couldn't put it down. The author, Pierette Domenica Simpson, did a marvelous job especially in recanting so many details (sights, sounds, smells) - and I know how hard that is because an author has it all in their mind and memory but putting in the "reader's" mind, well, that's a different story. As a retired Navy pilot and haven't spent most of my life at sea (and in the air) I really enjoyed reading Chapter 10 and Part II in general for it was extremely detailed and complete about the circumstances surrounding the collision. Moreover, as a story teller, Part I was terrific and moving as well. I was especially enamored with the author's experience as an Italian-American and how we share the stories of our families and their courage in coming to a new land to live the American dream. I write of this as well in my latest book, My Father's Compass: Leadership Lessons of an Immigrant Son, found here on [...].
Again, wonderful story with a happy ending and a must read! Perry Martini, My Father's Compass.

Alive on the Andrea Doria! is a wonderful book. Ms. Simpson, an Andrea Doria survivor, is the new Walter Lord of maritime history. She skillfully uses a wide variety of survivor recollections to retell the story of the sinking of the Andrea Doria, Italy's premier luxury liner in the 1950s, after its collision with the smaller Stockholm. These stories are about a very diverse group of people, both a variety of native Italians settling in the USA and a group of Northern-European-Americans of a variety of backgrounds. Ms. Simpson very frankly and touchingly also shares her own story and developmental history, including the circumstances that led to her and to her maternal grandparents' immigration to the USA on the Doria's final voyage. The second portion of her book details a variety of scientific evidence that explains the sinking of the Andrea Doria from a technical point of view. She provides a strong rehabilitation of the Doria's Captain Calamai, much vilified at the time of the collision, and details frankly the realities of anti-Italian and anti-Italian-American stereotyping that influenced public perceptions of the Andrea Doria disaster.

The book has many strengths. Ms. Simpson includes a great variety of survivor stories, and allows her fellow survivors to tell of their lives in great detail (frankly exceeding the masterful Walter Lord's compelling but very abbreviated depictions of Titanic survivors and victims in A Night to Remember.) She makes an effort to make the technical descriptions of the disaster understandable, she readily acknowledges the influence of her own experience and her own biases on her final text, and she wisely does not translate every word of Italian she presents--this both makes the last moments of the Doria feel more as they actually happened, and is a pleasant challenge for those of us who love the Italian language but are rusty in using same and have to work to self-translate various phrases. Moreover, Ms. Simpson also does a very good job of portraying the symptoms of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) suffered by a number of the survivors (at a time when we didn't yet have a formal diagnosis for that syndrome), and the books includes a number of excellent, evocative photographs. Most importantly, Alive on the Andrea Doria! is a validating remembrance, of the lives lost, the lives saved, the experience of Italian-American immigrants, and the tremendous heroism of those involved. Ms. Simpson, with whom I've had the pleasure of corresponding by email, stresses that this was the greatest sea rescue in history, and makes clear that just because the Doria disaster did not claim the massive number of lives that did the Titanic, the Lusitania, and the Empress of Ireland tragedies, the loss of the Andrea Doria is still a real and moving drama that should be studied and commemorated. Brava, signora, e mille grazie!

I knew little about the Andrea Doria until I read this book. Pierete Simpson has brought the Andrea Doria back to life with her book. This book was compelling and I truly enjoyed all the individual stories. The amount of research that went into this book is astounding. This book is a testament to human triumph and spirit. I highly recommend it for everyone.

Ms. Simpson was a survivor of the Stockholm - Andrea Doria collision. In this incredible documentary of that ill-fated trip she does what has not been done before. Alive on the Andrea Doria not only tells passenger and crew stories but also has explanations from nautical experts explaining how and why the collision took place.

Pierette Domenica Simpson was a child on July, 25 1956 traveling with her Grandparents to America where she was going to live with her mother and stepfather. Then her life and many others became perilously endangered when the Stockholm hit the Andrea Doria, the pride of the Italian fleet.

Ms. Simpson does an awesome job of telling the story of this catastrophic event. She tells the story through the eyes of many of the passengers that were aboard - their dreams - their hopes - where they came from - where they were going - their terror - where they are today.

Ever since that tragic night Ms. Simpson had wanted to find out why the collision occurred. She didn't accept the overall belief that it was the Italian, Captain Calamai's fault. It was important to be able to put this to rest and have closure. She sought out the help of nautical experts to recreate the collision paths using documented transcripts of the Bridge crew from both ships and today's technology. In this way they discovered that the assumed guilt of the Italian crew was misplaced.

Alive on the Andrea Doria is a spellbinding tale of the "Greatest Sea Rescue in History." Ms. Simpson did a wonderful job. Rather than making this a run-of the-mill dry documentary, it is a deep-felt account of a tragedy that should not have happened.

He has some brilliant moments about war. The Vietnam experience is very up front in his life and politics. Bush and Cheney not being war veterans seems to cause him concern. While he would go in a lot of different directions from his party, he still is a Republican. All his donations and connections to maintain his office, force him into a conflicting situations. But it is a good read. If he changed is party to independent it would be no surprise.

Senator Hagel's book should be on the bookshelf of every man, woman and student in the U.S. His bi-partisan approach to our nation's problems is exactly what has been lacking for the past 40 years. His crab-prairie dog analogy is perhaps the best summation of our political system yet seen in print.

Surely there are others in Congress who recognise what has gone wrong with our system of government, but Sen. Hagel seems to be one of the very few who has had the guts to stand up and say what he thinks. Perhaps that is way after only two terms he has chosen not to stand for re-election.

My hope is that one of our Presidental candidates will recognise that Senator Hagel has the potential to be the greatest Secretary of Defense that this country has ever had at a time when the United States needs someone in that position to reverse it's current path to destruction.

READ THIS BOOK and I'm sure you will agree.

Senator Hagel offers a clear headed and candid assessment of where America stands today and where it needs to go, particularly on the international front. Readers may find his analysis jolting in comparison to the timidity of other officials, but those who know Hagel will find his remarks as standard.

In listening to an interview of author Stephen Covey recently, I noted Covey's assessment that those who come from an agrarian experience are more likely to face the reality of people and events. That fits with Hagel and his upbringing in Nebraska.

While many of Hagel's assessments parallel my own (Congress has failed in its responsibility to be a co-equal branch of government, the use of mercenaries in Iraq is unacceptable, we need a universal service program to instill interest in our duties as citizens) he stops short of making the hard recommendation that what we really need to accomplish those things is to go back to a lottery Draft (or to threaten President Bush with Impeachment).

Hagel also offers a blunt critique of the difficulties our political process is inflicting on the ability of government to function efficiently and confront the large scale problems of our nation. The Senator strongly hints that a revision of that political process is near with either the creation of a third party or the re-constitution of an existing party.

Would that more of our Federal elected officials operate with his perspective that his oath is to ". . .America, not to a President or a political party or a policy."

His absence from the Senate will be a loss from that organization, but I expect his presence in a new administration, regardless of which party gains the Presidency in 2008.

I strongly recommend his book for its unique insider perspectives and unflinching assessment of the reality of our circumstances.

[...]

Senator Hagel's book touches on the hard facts that have been spun by politicians and American media. I believe that this "good ole' boy" has everything it takes to be President and should have taken on John McCain this year. I also believe that the reason he didn't and the reason he is retiring from politics is because he is sick of the way the Republicans and the Democrats make a political issue out of situations that require common sense thinking. Read this book and you will discover that at least one of the American politicians understands what the normal American is dealing with in their own personal life.

The books is honest, thought provoking and makes me sad when I think about not having Chuck Hagel in the Senate any more after this year. What a loss for the country.

I am a liberal democrat and I can't find many on either side of the isle who has more integrity than Senator Hagel. I attended his lecture in DC on April 24; he is an eloquent, straight-talking speaker and totally captivated the audience of mostly embassadors, diplomats and press.

I only wish he would run for president so I could campaign for him or that he would be asked and he would accept the post of Secretary of State by the next president no matter who wins.

We need more like him and now there is one less.

I'm looking into returning the book itself, just because I already own American Shelter from 1981, and it is the EXACT SAME BOOK. If you don't already own it, it is a great reference.

I own the poster American Shelter by the same author, and wanted to see the explanations behind the dates and titles. As an architectural historian, I've studied many of these styles, but there are some new variations of house styles that are not part of any other reference book. This book has fun graphics and easy to follow descriptions. For the trained historians, architects, etc., this book is an amusing addition to your collections. To the architectural housing enthusiasts, this could be a helpful resource.

I purchased this book while I was an undergraduate studying city planning. This book has been on my shelf since it was published and I still use it quite frequently today. This is a fantastic reference for anyone interested in housing, architecture and urban design. In fact, I highly recommend this book to any planning students with a housing or preservation focus. You will not regret having made the investment!

If you ever have reason to write (fictionally or otherwise) about American architecture (chiefly domestic), you shouldn't miss a chance to add this volume to your shelves. (It's included in the file I always send to Old-West mavens wanting to know what they should read.) Chapters range from two to eight pages in length and cover everything from the earth lodge of the Southeastern Plains Indians to the projected space station now three years past due. Typically, each includes the time and region in which the original style was most abundant, a few paragraphs explaining its history and salient features, and a number of finely detailed pen-and-ink sketches portraying exterior details and often cutaways and floor plans. The book can also be used as a field guide to help you decide what kind of house you happen to be looking at. From log cabins to Frank Lloyd Wright, Mount Vernon to the humble Quonset hut, every major kind of American house is here. This is an item that cries to be brought back into print. Until it is, don't miss a chance to pick up a used copy if you're afforded one.

In the world of architectural field guides, there is a division between the guides that rely heavily on photographs and those that use line drawings to represent buildings. Photographic field guides are good in that you can see actual historic homes. This is a valuable thing for people who like me live very far away from historic areas and rarely see a building over a hundred years old.

However, the great problem with photographic field guides is that it is often times difficult to understand a building style by looking at one or two representative photographs. What's worse is that often times the eye is drawn to details like electric lines or automobiles. One can spend more time trying to identify the decade the photo was taken than on concentrating on the image. For this reason, I prefer field guides that use line drawings to represent buildings. In my opinion, line drawings are a better tool for teaching the different architectural elements that come together to form a style.

Of the field guides that use line drawings, Lester Walker's "American Shelter" is the very best. It is the best for two reasons. First because of the sheer number of styles he identifies. In this book he details 103 styles whereas a typical field guide will usually identifies 20-30 unique styles. Second and foremost, Lester Walker is a very talented artist. His drawings are not hyper technical like the Historical American Building Survey (HABS) drawings which one finds in some field guides. They have a lot of personality which seperates them from what I call the illustrator school of architectural drawings.

I have been collecting field guides for a number of years and this is my favorite guide. That is not to say that there are not other very high quality guides. However, if you need to purchase just one field guide, this is the one. Hopefully, this book will inspire you to start collecting architectural field guides which in my opinion is a most worthy hobby.

THIS BOOK HAD YOU HOOK FROM BEGINNING TO END. YOU HAVE LISA WHO IS A GOOD CHICK HE WANTS NOTHING BUT FOR HER MAN TO STAY OUT F JAIL AND DO AWAY WITH THE STREET LIFE. BUT THEIR IS ONE SECRET THAT SHE IS KEEPING FROM HER MAN THAT SOONS SURFACE AND HER WORLD IS TURN UP SIDE DOWN BY CHINO AND DONNELL.I AM LOOKING FOWARD TO PART 2 OF THIS BOOK

I can't wait for the sequel. This book kept me interested in the story the whole time. I couldn't wait to get to the end because I knew it would surprise me...and it did.

Betrayal of a Hustler was an excellent written book. This book had excitement, a whole lot of drama, suspense, greed, love, anger, peace and betrayal. This book kept you on edge of your seats that you didn't want to put the book down. You were very eager to find out what happened next and to whom. The author really put her heart and soul into this book. The characters were so well portrayed that you can relate to this book through real life experiences. I give praise to the way the author portrayed the mother's in the book praying for their children's saftey. Discussing this with others, you are amazed at how you get different opinions of what is going to happen next in the second book. I can't wait until the second part comes out, I know it will be on fire also.

BLUNT, God has truly blessed you with such an amazing gift for writing. Keep the books coming and keep working towards your dream! I know that every book you write will be a best seller also. Keep your light shinning and keep reaching for your goals, dreams and most of all the stars.
God Bless, Janice T. Brewer

It has been a long time since I picked up a book that I COULD NOT put down until I finished! It had me on the edge the entire way through! Great storyline with interesting and very real characters; B.L.U.N.T. understands the world she writes about and makes the reader feel like a part of it. I must admit, the ending threw me completely off...I'm excited to see what happens in part II. Highly recommended.

B.L.U.N.T. has certainly marked her spot on the urban literary scene. The first in a trilogy, "Betrayal Of A Hustler" is an exceptionally good tale. Reminding us that no matter how rich and powerful a hustler becomes there is always a sad price to pay.
Written with style, this tale tells of friendship, betrayal, love and power. The characters that are behind the excellent cover of this book have their own magnetism that will draw you deep into the pages.

B.L.U.N.T. girl don't keep us waiting too long for the next installment.

This book got to me soon than expected which I was very happy about.
The book is in excellent condition

If you feel like you are a product of your parents and the tragedies that have occured in your life. Read this book. It is life changing. When you enter into Christ, not only does your future change, but so does your past. "All things" become new. Thus, your heritage... Christ. Your future... Christ. Your destiny, your freedom... Christ in you, the hope of glory! (Beleive the lie, empower the liar.)

It's almost impossible to take in the truth of being a new creature in Christ. I was a non-Christian professional pianist who was familiar with finding meaning and significance in the music world. Needham's poignant and vibrant book grabs me by the lapels every time I read it. The joy that results in understanding Scripture and my identity as a Christian, thanks to Needham, is only expressable through praising and loving God.

David Needham is one of the professors I've had the pleasure to sit under at Multnomah Bible College. This was the textbook to his Spiritual Life class at the school, back when he still taught it there. I have become deeply impacted not only by the book, but by the man behind it. David Needham is one of the most passionate teachers I've ever seen. When I read his book for the first time it turned a 180 in my Christian life. I realized how many of Satan's lies I'd been kept under, even in my Christian life. This book has impacted my life and relationship with God more than I can possibly say. Dear Christian, do you know who you are? Just another plain old sinner, saved by grace? Please don't buy into that lie! Read David Needham's book, and let the truth of the Word of God liberate you to dimensions of life you've never dreamed of!

"Birthright" is the updated, revised, expanded edition of Needham's earlier work by the same title.

Needham has done Christians a great service in biblically explaining the nature of our new nature in Christ. He teaches from the Scriptures with precision, clarity, and practicality who we are in Christ.

Carefully and graciously, he describes how the notion that Christians are not saints is inadequate. With depth, he demonstrates that the flesh and the old nature/sin nature are not the same.

The result is an increased joy in our regeneration and an increased confidence in sanctification through Christ.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of "Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction," "Soul Physicians" and "Spiritual Friends."

Hobert Winebrenner has a way of telling about his WW2 service. Although many suffered the same hardships as Winebrenner, only few are able to put it in words as he does. We should be grateful he wrote it down for all of us to read and remember.

As I sat and read this book my mind began to flood with images I have only seen in movies. But, these images were of my grandfather. The man telling the stories is the man I sit looking at and laughing with over Sunday dinner. While I read the pages, there were times I was laughing to myself and times I couldn't stop crying. My grandfather is a hero in every meaning of the word.
Ever since I can remember my grandfather sat in his chair reading historic novels about war. And now, I sit and read his stories and accounts of what happen to and around him in World War II. I thank him for writting this book, I know it wasn't easy remembering and telling all of the horrible times he went through. I have always had great respect for my grandfather but, now after reading and understanding how he lived and made it through the war. My respect has grown a hundred times.
I am proud of him to have the courage to walk though the war again in his memories and share them with us. I will keep this book close to my heart just as I do with the man that wrote it.

What a wonderful book! Hobert Winebrenner takes you to the heart of the foot soldier of WWII in a way no one else has. You feel the intensity of battle, along with personal feelings of anger, despair, fatigue,; just a myriad of emotions. He is one of the 'unsung heroes' of the war. His detail to things such as inadequate clothing, poor equipment, etc. is superb. This book should be considered among the best written about WWII.
It's an honor to place this among all my books. Don't miss this one!

Without reservation, "Bootprints: An Infantryman's Walk Through World War II" is one of the best memoirs out there by a front-line soldier! Co-authored by Hobert Winebrenner [former Staff Sgt. in the 3rd Bat., 358th Inf., 90th Div.] and Michael McCoy [a much younger freelance writer and publisher], "Bootprints" takes the reader on a journey from the entrance of Winebrenner into the US Army as a 'citizen soldier' in 1942 to post-V-day occupation duty, and beyond (ca. 2005 when the book was published). In short, "Bootprints" is a gripping story of humanity and sacrifice during a time when civilization seemed doomed by the forces of tyranny and fascism.

The military history literature is crowded with memoirs of WWII veterans from all echelons of service, but very few are truly worthy of the highest praise. Still fewer memoirs present war from the perspective of the frontline soldier and are capable of emoting considerable shock, empathy, anger and awe from a 21st Century reader. "My Brother, Hail and Farewell!" by Edward J. Zebrowski (another former US Army footslogger) and "Black Edelweiss: A Memoir of Combat and Conscience by a Soldier of the Waffen-SS" by Johann Voss (obviously a story told from 'the other side of the hill') represent two examples of books that fit this latter category of WWII memoirs. Add to these two books "Bootprints" and one has a trilogy of outstanding memoirs from the foxholes, fields and rumble of the Second World War. It is unfortunate but true that none of these books is a bestseller in the traditional sense. Each of these three books is fast-paced and full of emotion; each tells a unique story worth reading; and none glorifies war or is self-aggrandizing. So why aren't they bestsellers? Simply put each is published by a small publishing house and their importance as historical literature is spread not by big money marketing as much as by grass-roots word of mouth. So from this reviewer to each of you who reads this, pick up a copy of each of these books!

Clocking in at 283 pages (seventeen chapters and an Afterward), "Bootprints" exudes character and emotion that engages the visceral senses of the reader start to finish. In fact, the reader feels as if they are alongside Winebrenner as the 358th lands on the Normandy beaches as part of second wave of grunts of the First US Army; then participates in the breakout from the bocage and subsequent headlong rush across France to the German border as part of Patton's Third US Army; to breach of the West Wall and retrograde movement back to the Bulge; and the bounce of the Rhine and final drive to V-E Day and beyond. Needless to say "Bootprints" is highly readable prose and at no point should a reader feel 'tired' with the book. This is a 'sit down and read it cover-to-cover' book. Do yourself a favor, find a copy of "Bootprints" and enrich your life with a story from a man who paints a self-effacing picture and gives all of his buddies from the war full credit for successes. While everything written in "Bootprints" suggests Mr. Winebrenner would humbly and firmly disagree, this reviewer feels that, based in what is written in "Bootprints", Winebrenner could have been a prototype man on which the ideal of "The Greatest Generation" was based.

"Bootprints" is a 5 star book that should be read by adults who wish to gain perspective on life, freedom, happiness and humility!!

Bootprints by Hobert Winebrenner and Michael McCoy

Bootprints is Hobert Winebrenner's story (Michael McCoy wrote for him) of his experience in WWII. In telling his tale, Mr. Winebrenner opens before the war and tells about being drafted into the army. Interestingly, once he'd completed training he was asked to train the next batch with the promise that he'd go to officer training school. Fortunately (or not), Mr. Winebrenner was given the option to become a sergeant at Ft. Sill working with forward observers and training them on basic infantry weapons. After doing this for awhile, Mr. Winebrenner was assigned to the M Company (the heavy weapons company), 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division and sent to Europe.

After spending short period of time training in England, the 90th ID was to fight in the hedgerows of Normandy. It is in this time period that Mr. Winebrenner's tale picks the pace that he follows throughout the book, chapters about a series of battles, with sub-chapter that tell of particular parts of the battle (interestingly, more often than not Mr.Winebrenner tells the exploits of others). Chapters include the battles thru the hedgerows of Normandy, recovering from wounds, Operation Cobra and the race across France, breaking into Germany, the Battle of the Bulge, and the battle for Germany. To close things out, Mr. Winebrenner closed out by telling us about the men he served with and what happened to them after the war.

Reading this book I was torn many times between four and five stars. By the end of the book it had become a strong 4.5 star book. If there are weakness's in it, they're very few and far between. The strengths are many; Mr. Winebrenner paying tribute to his mates, many of the stories are exciting, and the details are exact. Because the strength's, I have to give this book the nod to 5 stars! Mr. Winebrenner, thank you for your service!