James Wright Books

Often when you see books written about the life of black people in any point and time before the 1960's its main message is "My life was hard because white people are terrible," and that gets very redundant. However this was quite refreshing, as he did not harp on racism on every page. This is a very well written and intresting account of this man's unique life experiences and all the strange, crazy people he encountered within his family and outside them as well. People who have a few or several nuts on their family tree will be able to relate to Black Boy.

The best autobiography EVER, in fact I am not even sure it should be called autobiography because it is much more than that for many reasons. Autobiographies are often flat and either self pitying or glorifying, but this one is completely at another level. I was so impressed by the brilliant mind that shines through all obsacles, and his writing is just so natural, logical and insightful, not just about his personal life experiences, but about human suffering, senseless oppression, and unyiedling human spirit. Wow!

I ordered this book because it was on my nephews book-report list. It's a good book. But it is full of bad language. I think it's an adult book--with a very compelling story. But completely not for kids. I know kids hear bad language all the time. But to have it presented to them by a 'trusted' adult--gives it a kind of condoning that it doesn't need.

Not only did I reaceive the book on the promised delivery date, but I found it to be in perfect condition. It was purchaed for my grandson who is really enjoying it.

Every time I read a book about the plight of blacks in the South in the early part of the 20th century as Jim Crow society solidified I have to shutter in disgust. I have just finished reading communist Harry Haywood's autobiography Black Bolshevik. I have read Malcolm X's words on the fate of his forebears in the post-bellum South and now I have read Richard Wright's autobiographical sketch Black Boy. I will make no defense of the unequal treatment of blacks in the North. There is none. However, Wright's descriptions of the physical and psychological damage, as presented by his own experiences of Jim Crow, done to blacks by Southern whites are positively feudal. There was no room for illusions about the goodness of humankind in that world. To believe so was to face personal humiliation, or worst-the lynching tree.

Wright, after great personal struggle within himself, is able to reflect on his experiences and to articulate the effect that Jim Crow had on him as a black, as a man, as a human being. It was not pretty. One can only image the fate of those less articulate than brother Wright as they try to comprehend a world not of their making but which they early on must learn to navigate. The description of this grinding struggle is heart of the first part of the book.

Wright goes back to the mist of time in his early youth to dissect the hunger, psychological as well as physical, than never was far from his door; the effects on him of a sick and helpless mother; of an absent ne'er-do-well father; and, an overbearing and religiously-driven grandmother on his early development. And those are just the problems in the house. Once Wright steps outside those comparably comfortable confines he faces the outside world of Mississippi reality that he must put on a mask in order to survive in a world that will literarily cut him down if he does not learn the code. Although Wright gives many examples of how this system robbed blacks of their personality the most graphic descriptions, by far, are those that deal with the need to have to put on the mask when whites are around. And the consequences if one did not.

And what of the great escape to the North (via Memphis) to Chicago-the Promised Land that forms the basis for the second part of the book? We have seen that urban story portrayed in other locales as well, for example, in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Claude Brown's Man-Child in The Promised Land. That is where my statement about the treatment, or rather mistreatment, of blacks in the North comes into play. In effect, Wright articulates the contours of a psychological feudalism in the North where the special oppressions of blacks as a race are met with indifference by whites. What makes Wright's case special is that through self-education and willpower he breaks out of the endless and destructive turning in on oneself to articulate his experiences and those of other blacks like him displaced from the rural life of the South to the uncertainties of urban life.

On the face of it seems incongruous that Wright would find a solution to his angst in the American Communist Party during the heyday of the `third period' in the early 1930's. I have mentioned elsewhere, most recently in my review of Harry Haywood's Black Bolshevik (part of which also deals with this period in the American party), that on reading memoirs and autobiographies of the older generations of radicals and revolutionaries I am looking for the spark that broke them from the norms of bourgeois society. I have found that there is a great range of reasons from racial and class hatreds to intellectual curiosity. I find that in the end that Wright's relationship to communism, not without some bumps and bruises along the way, came from intellectual curiosity as much as any sense of racial or class injustice.

In Chicago, in many ways the embryonic black proletarian core of the country in this period, Wright continued his struggle for physical daily survival and for intellectual understanding. His fortuitous linking up with the local John Reed Club helped, at least initially, stabilize his intellectual life. His description of the inner workings of the Communist Party and its role in its own front group creations, like the Reed Club, jibes with other accounts that I have read. The tremendous pressures to conform to party life and the party line are chilling for what, in the final analysis, was a voluntary political organization and not a cult. Moreover, one of the characters portrayed in this section bears a striking resemblance to the above-mentioned very real Harry Haywood. Wright's take on Haywood is very, very different from how old Harry portrayed himself in his autobiography. Surprise.

One of the charges brought against Wright by fellow black party members was that he was an intellectual. Self-taught, yes, but an intellectual nevertheless. One would think that recruiting such a fairly rare person, black or white, would have had the comrades spinning cartwheels. No so in Wright's case. Tremendous pressure was placed on him to conform to party dictates. Or else. This seems counter-intuitive. The relationship between communism and intellectuals and artists has always been a somewhat rocky one. But know this-then and today we need as many intellectuals as we can get our hands on to write, think and lead the struggles of humankind. Ignorance never did anyone any good. Enough said on that. If you want to get a real feel for what that old expression Mississippi God Damn from Nina Simone's song really meant read this well written and thoughtful book.

This book along with Fatigued To Fabulous is a lifesaver--literally. I have been sick for almost two years starting with a severe case of Epstein Barr virus and cytomegalovirus. My immune system which used to be excellent plummeted and I was sick constantly. All kinds of infections including pink eye several times, a bladder infection that lasted 5 months, a couple of stomach viruses, several upper respiratory infections and chronic sinusitis. Because of all of these I am now allergic to so many thing I never used to be allergic to, including some food items. I went to my regular doctor several times with the problems I was having outside of these "easy to diagnose, easy to treat" problems and they could do nothing for me. Finally my doctor told me I had fibromyalgia and I should go back to my rheumatologist. She turned around and said that I need to get my lip biopsed for a possible diagnosis of Sjogren's Disease. I already have Raunauds Phenomenom and eczema which are associated with the immune system.

I went to a Naturopath who told me I was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and adrenal gland fatigue---just a bit away from Addisons's disease which can be really bad. I am now on minerals and other herbal supplements to help with these problems. I was having diffuse muscle and joint pain, severe headaches, my hands hurt constantly and needed to be massaged, my feet also. I was constantly tired. I still am tired quite abit.

Anyway, this book is wonderful. It is a no nonsense book and liese it all on the line for you. Tests that you can do at home to check for these problems and even certain protocols to help you through this time. It stresses that you can find relief and not to give up hope. This book believes in you and and your pain. When you cry "wolf" this book wil coming running for you no matter how many times you call wolf. Excellent book. I would recommend this book to any one having some of the above problems and those of you wholse family is not as caring as they should seem. this book will let you know that you are not online. Get this book along with "From Fatigued to Fabulous" and youcant go wrong! Enjoy!

Very few people understand the impact of low functioning adrenal glands. This book explains in simple language how to improve your cortisol levels and energy through lifestyle changes and more.

This book was ok, moderately helpful, but much of it I flipped through. I wish it had focused in more on the diet and vitamin portion because that was the only part I really got into and made notes from. Again, it was kind of helpful but it could have been better. I feel like I have to still do more research and reading to fully understand and treat my adrenal/thyroid functioning.

This book comprehensively addresses this condition, a condition that is likely more widespread than acknowledged. Much is written about stress and high cortisol but little is available on the symptoms that occur when your adrenals are exhausted and there is little cortisol. Even most conventional doctors know little about this condition nor how to treat it. Having been finally diagnosed (after probably 14 years of walking around with varying degrees of adrenal fatigue), I've used this book as a guide to healing naturally and selecting a doctor who really knew how to address this condition. This book appropriately managed my expectations as to how slowly I would heal and helped me identify much-needed lifestyle changes.

The Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome is a must read for everyone! If you have fibromyalgia, arthritis, stress or any other problem you should start here. It will save a lot of time and effort in the long run!

The norton critical edition was very useful for this novel. Having all the background about the novel as well as all the footnotes throughout the novel really aided me in my understanding of the novel. Without the information in these footnotes, the book would not have had the same meaning for me. The book itself was also very good, although a bit difficult to read. It was very interesting and it led me to a better understanding of the Victorian era and trials ordinary men at that time had to go through. A good read.

This is a wonderful classic for many reasons. But, I urge you not to read this edition, because the notes are terrible! There are notes for things that are obvious, and a lack for those things which need them. The worst offense, however, is that one of the notes (which readers are likely to check, as it gives background on a forgotten song sung by one of the main characters) gives away not only the important action of that short chapter, but also gives away the main line of the story. Awful, awful editing...

i do think it's a wonderful fiction! in the process of reading this book, i was captivated by the twisted development of the story and also Hardy's mastery language. it gives you a great picture of beautiful scenery in rural England, and there is romance, expections for what happens next. i really enjoy it !

Few literary settings are more distinctive than Thomas Hardy's Wessex, a hilly, chalky, bucolic quilt of pastures and villages occupying the southwest of England, its residents sworn to the immutable cultural traditions of centuries long past. But it is not the goal of "Far from the Madding Crowd" to be merely a sentimental portrait of a region for which Hardy has a great affection, but a grandiose drama about the eventual union of a man and the woman he loves. In summary, Hardy does accede to a Happily Ever After ending, but how he gets to this point is why his novel deserves to be read.

It's not surprising that the novel was originally attributed to George Eliot because the protagonist, Gabriel Oak, as the novel's moral anchor, is very similar in character to Eliot's Adam Bede. Oak is trying to make a living on his own as a farmer, but a stroke of bad luck compels him to take a job as a shepherd for a beautiful young woman named Bathsheba Everdene who has recently inherited her uncle's farm and commands a large number of workers and servants. Oak iconically personifies the rustic setting, not only because of his surname but because of the intimacy with which he communes with nature, and his fondness for playing the flute seems designed to evoke an image of Pan.

Oak has an awkward history with Bathsheba -- he had known her before her windfall, but in her independent spirit she spurned his love. As the head of Weatherbury farm, however, she can't get by on her independence alone, and she needs Oak's expertise in ensuring her sheep are healthy and fit for wool production. Her romantic attention turns toward a profligate soldier named Francis Troy who, through an unlikely error, has just barely avoided wedding Fanny Robin, one of the Weatherbury servants. Bathsheba's eventual marriage to Troy breaks the hearts of Oak and another rival, a neighboring farmer named Boldwood whose affections she had once teased and whose obsessive nature erupts at a most climactic moment in the novel.

The plot developments are a flamboyant display of contrivance, but Hardy masters his devices so well it's impossible not to go along with him for the ride. As an example, consider the jilted Fanny who is so weary from sickness that she has to use a dog as a crutch to get to her destination where she finally dies; not until Hardy reveals what's written on the lid of her coffin do we (and Oak) realize the role Troy played in her death. Likewise, Troy's impulsive reaction to this incident seems like a purposely destructive measure that intends to stir even more turbulence into the story.

A large part of Hardy's appeal is his prose, which maximizes the value of a mastery of language; his sentences are like finely cut gems that demand to be held up to a light and studied for their craftsmanship. I believe that Hardy is the consummate novelist; he approaches the art of the novel as a painter looks upon a canvas, a weaver upon a tapestry, a composer upon an opera -- as the supreme representation of man in harmony with nature and in conflict with fate.

In Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy introduces us to the precarious "love square". At the core of all the turmoil is beautiful farm girl, Bathsheba Everdene - spirited, vain, intelligent and adept at toying with the hearts of men. Inevitably beguiled by her charms a humble and kind farmer, Gabriel Oak, fervently attempts to win Bathsheba's affections. Enter the competition: (suitor#2) Farmer Boldwood - a wealthy and temperate middle-aged man respected in the community, eventually plunges into maniacal obsession at the mere possibility of making the beloved Miss Everdene his wife; and (suitor#3) Sergeant Francis Troy - a dashing young philandering soldier, with his share of inner demons, ruthlessness and vanity, vies for Bathsheba's hand in marriage. Bathsheba's ultimate decision, and the cataclysm it evokes, lies at the epicenter of Hardy's unforgettable ambivalent story.
Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy's fourth novel, saw publication in 1874 and earned him widespread popularity as a writer. A delicately woven tale of unrequited love and regret, set in the mid-19th century, Far From the Madding Crowd is a masterpiece of pure story-telling. Hardy's classic style is a pleasure to read as he masterfully brings his characters and their dealings to life. I would not hesitate to say it definitely captured my heart as another favourite.

I read this book twice - once on my own, and again with my daughters. While I thoroughly enjoyed it the first time through, I was pleased to find that everything held together the second time. So often re-reading a book will expose plot holes and character inconsistencies, but I found very little of that here.

As a father, I was particularly impressed by the way Dashner portrayed the parent/child relationship. In YA fiction, the kid characters need to be free to resolve the story's problems on their own. This is too often accomplished by writing dysfunctional parents or removing them all together. In The Journal of Curious Letters, Tic's father is present and helpful, making a conscious, difficult decision to let his child do what needs to be done on his own.

I also like that this story works hard to be believable, and doesn't ask the reader to suspend disbelief to the limit.

As a family, we're excited to get our hands on the next volume.

THE 13TH REALITY is the first volume of THE JOURNEY OF CURIOUS LETTERS by James Dashner. I found it a complete delight.

Tick (short for Atticus) is your ultimate unlikely hero. He has a birthmark on his neck that he hates so much that he wears a scarf year-round. The school bullies call it the "barf scarf" and when we meet him, he is in the midst of being bullied. That very day, he receives the first in a series of curious letters, each with have a clue (or two). What are they clues for? Well, if he solves the riddles in time, they will "reveal on a certain day, at a certain time, at a certain place, something extraordinary will happen."

This novel is about a kid finding courage and learning that he is stronger than he thinks.

One problem that authors of children's novels have is how to get rid of the parents. In order for a child to have dangerous adventures, the author must somehow get rid of the parent or render them impotent. So we therefore have children at boarding schools, dead parents, absent parents, incompetent parents, stupid parents, kidnapped kids, runaway kids, kids vanishing into other worlds, etc.

James Dashner hit on a solution that I loved. I don't want to give it away, because it was a truly magical moment in the story. Tick has an excellent relationship with his excellent father, whose only fault appears to be that he is very overweight. His mother is a bit more distant in the story, but since this story is as much about a father-son relationship as it is an adventure story, I found it appropriate.

Along the way, Tick uses the Internet to find other kids who got letters as well. Unfortunately, his activities online also attracts the attention of someone who works for the enemy. The enemy's attempt to hurt Tick ends up with Tick unexpectedly meeting one of his fellow riddle-solvers. Her name is Sofia and she's a somewhat Hermione-like brainy girl, except she's Italian. Later in the story, Tick meets the wonderfully refreshing Paul, who is, in his own description, "fourteen years old, six feet tall (yes, six feet), African-American, and drop-dead handsome. I love to surf, I play the piano like freaking Mozart, and I currently have three girls who call me every day, but my mom always tells them I'm in the bathroom." I can't imagine Paul being anyone's sidekick.

A fourth youth turns up once the "extraordinary" thing happens, but I won't say too much about him. The extraordinary thing involves many secrets being revealed to both the reader and to Tick, after which the four youths embark on an adventure similar to Dorothy having to steal the Wicked Witch's broomstick.

It's a rousing adventure story. Once I started reading, I had a difficult time putting it down. I really enjoyed the father-son relationship and the oddball characters who assist the mysterious riddle-writer. Some of the riddles were easy to solve, but most would have involved significant brain work. Two of them would have involved me getting out a piece of paper and doing lots of math, but I wasn't that ambitious and I just let Tick solve those riddles for me. But all were solvable by the reader.

It is a fun book and I can definitely recommend it for children of any age (including adults), but it would probably most appeal to kids between the ages of ten and fourteen.

Tick is a nearly normal 13-year old. He's a bit nerdy and loves solving puzzles, and never takes off the scarf which covers his birthmark (even in the summer).

Then one day he receives a mysterious letter in the mail which changes his life forever.

"The Journal of Curious Letter" is amusing, and I think I will be reading the rest of the series as it is released in paperback, but I did have some issues with it.

I know that my copy was an unproofed ARC, but there were several typos and/or omitted words. The author also tries too hard in places to be funny, and has an unnatural obsession (it seems) with the number 3.

This is probably one of the best books I have read for a very long time. The plot is good, its nice that he made the parents good, not the usual oblivious idiots you see in other books. The heroes of the book are good and pretty deep. My favorite is Sato, but Tick, Sophia and others are cool too. Can't wait until the next one!!!!!!!!! Five stars!!! (And I am sure my Alterant agrees with me.) :)

Every once in a long while you come across a young adult novel that makes you feel as though it could really change things. Whether that novel will actually change things is irrelevant. The 13th Reality by James Dashner, I feel, is one of those novels with a great potential to change the way we think about young adult fantasy.
The 13th Reality follows the story of Atticus Higginbottom, a.k.a. Tick, who receives a mysterious letter from someone named M.G. The letter gives him a choice: he can burn it and avert any potential danger that might arrive because of it, or he can figure out the clues and join in an adventure that could, literally, save the universe (Mistress Jane wants to destroy everything but her world as Tick's world to take complete control). Tick, being the interesting boy that he is, accepts the challenge, and along with a couple others, begins to learn about the nature of the universe--there really are other universes and
Dashner has created quite an interesting little fantasy tale. I say little, but really this is a story with huge potential to be an amazing series. Tick is somewhat of a typical character in YA--the oddball kid who gets picked on, but becomes part of something really big--and while that might seem like a downside it plays remarkably well with Sofia (a hard-nosed Italian), Paul (a semi-typical Californian), and Sato (a distant, somewhat realistic Japanese boy). The one thing that did seem weak was Mothball who, while a good character in general, felt a little too much like Hagrid--she's really tall and she as a Hagrid-like accent.
The story sets up very nicely for further books. The largest chunk follows the characters in our world, while the last quarter or so takes place elsewhere (involving a majority of the action since it is the climax of the story). I really liked the setup for the alternate realities and what sort of things lived there. I wanted more, though, and hopefully there will be more books in this series that will explore those realities. What is presented, however, is a fascinating collection of alternate realities (thirteen actually, plus a bunch of little ones) that are all different. Some realities are populated by people eight feet tall and others by people short and fat.
The one thing that absolutely made me ecstatic about this book was that kids will actually LEARN from it. Hold on, don't get upset. I know what you're thinking: oh no, another preachy book teaching kids moral values and blah blah. Okay, well there certainly are moral values in this book, but no more so than in Harry Potter, Leven Thumps, or a variety of other fabulous young adult fantasy series already out there. Neither is this book trying to teach kids math or something else that's boring. Nope. What it's going to teach kids is this new, exciting field called Quantum Physics! Okay, so it's not that new, but it is a booming, fascinating field. What makes this great is that you can learn from this book, but without it feeling like you're learning. The Quantum Physics actually plays out as a fun, quirky bit of magic, because, oddly enough, QP is sort of like magic anyway! Perhaps I'm not explaining this well, but I really enjoyed that Dashner presented this form of physics in the story as central to it, but without it coming off as a babbling science-fest. It was fun, exciting, interesting, and strangely cute. He tells us little things to explain why there are alternate realities, why things work the way they do, why magic exists, etc. It's all rooted, loosely, in some form of reality, but in a way that is fun!
Overall this is one of the most entertaining YA books I've read in a while. It's similar to Leven Thumps in its weirdness and similar to Harry Potter in its collection of characters and its depth. It's a strong story filled with equally strong characters and a fun premise. How many books do you know that can stick quantum physics in the story and still make it fascinating as a read for younger audiences? This might be the only one and I find that to be profoundly amazing. The 13th Reality is an intense romp through quantum physics, childhood issues, danger, and excitement and a great way to fill that HP void.

I received this audiobook as a gift for Christmas and it took me a little while before I screwed up the desire to listen to it. I have a lot of podcasts and other audiobooks vying for my attention and don't want to spend time with things that aren't really interesting to me.I was pleasantly surprised. Like most Americans I was pretty ignorant of many of the details surrounding not only the Wright brother's landmark powered flight, but also around their attempts to market the idea in their own country.
The infamous Kittyhawk flight is at about the middle of the book. I had rather assumed that it was a fait a complete, that once they had proven their technology the rest was as easy as pie. But nothing could be further from the truth.
A very worthwhile read / listen if you have any interest at all in the social politics behind one of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century.

The Wright Brothers did not achieve their historic accomplishments in a vacuum, without the advice and support of other pioneers in the quest for human flight. I suppose that this should be common knowledge, but I was unaware of the contributions of Samuel Langley and others to the study of flight before reading James Tobin's remarkable book. Before his in-depth description of the Wright Brothers work that led to the first manned flight, Tobin describes in some detail Langley's investigations into flight, including one ill-fated attempt at a manned flight that would have beaten the Wrights by just several days. Tobin goes on to describe the race for accomplishments in the area of human flight, noting such worthy competitors as Alexander Graham Bell and Glenn Hammond Curtiss. Tobin's book is thus both a touching tribute to the Wright Brothers, as well as a spirited salute to their friends and competitors (some of whom were the same people). Details such as the power struggle within their church may seem irrelevant to some, but to me they provided a richness to Tobin's book that is no doubt missing from many other works on the Wright Brothers. An excellent book, one of the rare works I plan on reading again at some point.

As the title of the book states, James Tobin offers a study of the progression of the airplane not just as a Wright brothers biography but as an examination of the efforts of many scientists and inventors in the "race for flight." As Tobin follows the years of research and test flights of the Wilbur and Orville Wright, he also switches to the works of Smithsonian Secretary Samuel Langley and Charles Manly, Octave Chanute, Alexander Graham Bell and his crew of young, ambitious visionaries which included the Wrights' chief rival Glenn Curtiss, and inventors who made their fame in France where lighter-than-air fliers were king. Tobin demonstrates through articles and correspondences how these experimenters influenced and motivated each other in their steps toward the creation of a practical flying machine.

Although this book is not a biographical study per se, Tobin does offer a lot of information on the personalities of the Wrights. Tobin examines the many letters between the brothers, their father, and sister Kate to give the reader some sense of what these quiet, mysterious inventors working in a bicycle shop were like. Tobin also gives the reader some historical context for the times; for example, the popularity of bicycles at the turn of the century during which the Wrights had their own cycle company (pg. 45), or the importance of the photos in McClure's magazine of Otto Lilienthal gliding in his makeshift monoplane in 1894 two years before he met a tragic fate in another experimental flight (pg. 49) (photographs of things in motion being relatively new at the time).

The details in this book demonstrates exhaustive research. One learns, for example, that the brothers had two buzzers in their cycle shop so that, if the second buzzer rang, they knew the customer came in just to air up his tires and they could remain upstairs conducting their many wind tunnel experiments. Of course, Tobin describes each stay at Kitty Hawk where the brothers tried their machines, Wilbur's demonstrations in France, Orville's demonstrations at Fort Myer (where the brother was injured and one of Bell's young crew members was killed), and Wilbur's sensational circling of the Statue of Liberty. I agree with another reviewer that the famous first flight on December 17, 1903 is not emphasized. I did not realize I was reading about it when I got to it. It is buried among all the many test glides of the Wrights and the frustrations of Langley. But there are many books that cover this topic thoroughly. Tobin is looking at the larger picture in this book.

The book is 366 pages of text with occasional photographs and illustrations plus a middle section of photos. It does not become hampered by technical data. The mechanical element of flying machines is described (i.e. the observation of birds to determine how the wings should work) but not in a way that distracts from the human aspect of the story. This is the first book I've read on the Wright brothers and I enjoyed it very much. I also think it is a worthwhile book for those who've already read books on the Wrights as it is an overview of the quest for flight which may cover aspects of the story that other books do not.

This could have been a tangled & complicated story, or it could have been a one-dimensional story of the Wright Brothers and nobody else. Fortunately, Tobin has the skills as a researcher & writer to sustain about half a dozen different story lines without having the whole structure collapse. I am not sure which was harder --- keeping this book coherent or perfecting the art of flight.

What was most interesting for me were how different the incentives were for the various compeitors. For some the incentive was the pure pursuit of science (the Wrights & Alexander Bell), for some the incentive was securing a place in history (S.P. Langley & Octave Chanute), and for some it was the quest for profit & commercial success, plain & simple (Glen Hammond).

Just the motives were extremely varied, so too were the approaches to solving the challenge of flight. Langley assumed that the biggest part of the puzzle was power; build an engine strong enough and the other details would just work themselves out. If Langley had had a jet engine available, he might have gotten away with it --- although I wouldn't want to be flying in any plane developed along those lines. The Wrights on the other hand, saw the challenge of lift to be the key to the puzzle --- build a device that could achieve near-vertical lift and you could probably manage without a super-powerful engine.

One comes away from this book with an enhanced respect for the natural scientific brilliance of the Wrights. So few of us actually have any knowledge of the systematic approach the Wrights took in solving the problem of lift in their little wind tunnel. Never ones to get ahead of themselves, the Wrights made sure they had explored every wing configuration they could think of before moving to the next stage of development.

Tobin could have ended the story with the Wright's first flight, but he is too good of a historian not to look at the larger picture. As soon as one battle was won, other battles needed to be fought. It is open to debate as to who ultimately won this war, depending on what your perspective was.

This was a great book. Tobin makes aerodynamics pretty understandable to almost anyone, and he has a great narrative skill. You will be left with a much greater respect for what a magnificent scientific feat achieving flight was --- after all, almost everyone else ultimately failed.

Not a biography of the Wright brothers, but the story of early flight from several perspectives. It jumps around a bit, but you do develop a sense for the various attempts and programs that were going on. Tobin presents the Wrights as the heroes, and rivals often come off negative, but the Wrights were heroes. Not 5 stars, but close, and an enjoyable read.

Reading regional "ghost story" compilations is one way to learn light history about a place or area. The stories provide quick hits of popular folklore, geography, and even anthropology, while also providing the added benefit of a chill from a good tale. I try to pick up books like this wherever I go. This one is among the best. It's not written in the first person by a kooky self-styled medium or something like that; it's simply a collection of some real spine-tinglers from one of the best regions for such a thing in America. Well-written, with a balance of short and long, unbelieveable and compelling, old and new, and serial stories and stand-alones. A good bet for anyone interested in folklore and/or life in the Appalachians.

This is a good book to read. It's just like watching the documeneries on TLC about ghosts and haunts. Buy it. It will be worth it.

This has to be ( other then the cold,cold hand ) the BEST book in my collection! I cant highly recomend it enough! Get it trust me YOU wont be able to put it down you will be HOOKED!!!!!!!!!!

I truly adore this book and its sequel, The Cold Cold Hand. It is truly a wonderful source of stormy day, late night, or campfire chills. Growing up in a county where quite a few of these stories occur, I have grown up knowing many of the ones in this area by heart and now am delighted that a few have been recorded with all of the atmosphere owed to them. Why do I only give this book four stars out of five them? The stories, being well written and very entertaining, still have a few discrepancies. The stories have been either been altered for better reading or the authors have been mis-informed on some of the stories...I'm not sure which. I know because the guy in the "Ghost Wagon" story just died six years ago (this disproves part of that story in the book). These changes do not hurt the book, however, and sometimes add to the dramatic effect of it (which in itself is very dramatic on a dark night under your bedsheets). So if you want to immerse yourself in creepy, North Georgia folklore, this is definately the book to get you started.

"Ghosts and Haunts from the Appalachian Foothills" is not really a book of short stories per se. Its narratives are the literary equivalent of a Grandma Moses painting: a moment of time in rural America. Most of the narratives of ghostly encounters are charming, but not very frightening, because there is no evocation of tension or suspense. The first story in the book is probably the scariest because it is one of the few that does build up to supernatural climax. One of my favorite stories is about a guardian spirit who warns his human if there is speed trap on the road ahead. Another is about an old woman who made a pact with the devil, so that she could spy on her neighbors through a flour sifter.

At any rate, although this book did not really haunt me or frighten me in any way, you may be charmed by its tales of rural Appalachia.

I'm new to Menand. American Studies is my first Menand tome. First impression: this is a guy who is not as interested in his own ideas/habits/tastes/opinions as he is in understanding why he holds those ideas/habits/tastes/opinions. Its quite clear that Menand thinks what he thinks because he is the child of American academics of a particular time and place (the ideological schisms of the fifties and the cultural schisms of the sixties) and as a result he is skeptical of intellectual life, and doubly skeptical of intellectual extremes and writes about intellectual life/idea/habits/tastes/opinions with shrewd suspicion. As I write this Menand is working on a book about the Cold War, and the ideological battles of that decade, and I look forward to that book as he seems ideally suited to write such a book. There are few like Menand: ideology-free cultural historians. Though refreshing, this unique disinterestedness is not likely to win Menand many fans. Unlike Sontag or Kael, he is not a writer who is going to sway you to believe anything, or try anything new (unless pragmatism is something new to you). Rather, he's the kind of writer/essayist/scholar who is interested in preserving the best part of our democratic and cultural traditions: ie hes a reactionary (against the extremes of both the old right and the new left) who champions a pragmatic middle way. In the ideological & cultural wars, he's Switzerland. These are admirable, if not riveting, essays. Menand's strong point is assaying the cultural significance of cultural institutions like Oliver Wendell Holmes, T.S. Eliot, Richard Wright, CBS, William Paley, The New Yorker, Norman Mailer, Pauline Kael, Rolling Stone, Hunter S. Thompson, Larry Flint, Jerry Falwell, & Hustler. His weakness: he almost always has his eye in the rearview mirror (and that mirror is almost always firmly fixed on the overly-trodden 50's & 60's) & rarely on the present, or on the road ahead.

I had only read a couple of the essays in this collection when they first appeared in the NYReview of Books, the New Yorker, and elsewhere. As the amorphous title of the book suggests, its sum is not much greater than its parts, and yet I found most of the parts completely engaging and very rewarding. The pieces on Justice Holmes, James Bryant Conant, Al Gore, Bill Paley, and the New Yorker magazine itself were perhaps the best, although I admit that it's pretty much Bos-Wash stuff and may not appeal to a mass readership. One reviewer here has called the writing "stilted." I could not agree less. Although as of this year a member of the Harvard faculty, he, like his colleague Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (also a contributor to the New Yorker), avoids academic jargon and writes most felicitously and well. I'm not sure about the discipline of "historical studies" but Menand is certainly one of its best practitioners.

I was lead to this book after coming across Menand's recent essay in the New Yorker, "Bad Comma," which was a delight to read and could very well be a masterpiece of contemporary criticism. I confess the only piece I've read from this collection so far is the one on Pauline Kael, and it didn't strike me as being bloodless. As a matter of fact, I laughed out loud several times while reading it at Barnes & Noble earlier tonight. Menand's prose is graceful, engaging, insightful, and (as already indicated by my laughter) at times quite humorous. I say "at times quite humorous," but his wit, in paragraph after paragraph, is almost always on display. I don't agree with everything he says--for example, I AM drawn to reread Kael's best work, such as her essays on "Bonnie and Clyde" and "A Clockwork Orange"--but disagreeing on this score doesn't make the experience of reading him less enjoyable. Pnotley, in the review titled "Bloodless," asks, "Isn't there anything he [Menand] really likes?" Well, for one, he really likes James Agee's movie reviews for The Nation. Perhaps the finesse with which Menand fleshes out and dissects ideas is what Pnotley finds so bloodless: too much of the surgeon with his scalpel, that sort of thing. I can see that, but I can also see that he helps keep the patient alive and healthy. His criticism is relevant; it reinvigorates the world of letters.

The essays in this book, while interesting, suffer from an acute case of stilted writing. In many cases, the complexity of Menand's syntax places heavy demands on the reader--to the detriment of the message Menand tries to impart. In a manner all too typical of academic writers, he tries to infuse a thought with associated side thoughts within the same sentence. What we get is an overly complex sentence that ought to be rendered into two or three.

To wit, in his essay "Christopher Lasch's Quarrel with Liberalism", he writes, on page 206-07 of the paperback edition:

"The 'narcissistic self', Lasch explained, was really a type of what he was now calling the 'minimal' self--'a self uncertain of its own outlines, [yet[ longing either to remake the world in its own image (as in the case of technocratic reformers and other acolytes of 'progress') 'or to merge into its environment in a blissful union' (as in the case of countersculturalists, feminists, and ecological utopians)."

Such a monster of a sentence is but on instance of a pattern all too common in this book. Clearly, one can make sense of the sentence after two or three readings, but, stil, there are more felicitous and econommical ways to write about highly abstract subjects than to lard sentences with parenthetical comments on quotations cited immediately before said parentheticals. It is an arrogant conceit, I suppose, one that claims that the reader's time is less valuable than the time spent crafting such sentences.

All of this is a shame, in a way, because, if you allow yourself the time to understand Menand's prose, he has some very interesting things to say. His words remind me of Greenspan's oracular and circuitous testimony to Congress.

Menand, Louis, American Studies. New York: FSG, 2002.
The topics covered by this uneven group of essays run from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., to Larry Flynt and Jerry Falwell. Menand also has things to say about William James, T.S. Eliot, The New Yorker, Bill Paley of CBS, Pauline Kael, Christopher Lasch, Maya Lin, and "the mind of" Al Gore. Although I did a good deal of underlining--a lot of it trying to make sense of his comments about Christopher Lasch's philosophy against liberalism--there is something about Menand's conclusory style that is off-putting, as though his opinions are the only valid ones. For example, he claims that Justice Holmes "was utterly, sometimes fantastically, indifferent to the real-world effects of his decisions," citing the infamous "stop-look-and-listen" ruling concerning automobiles at train intersections. I think there is plenty of evidence otherwise, and I'm reminded of the famous "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater" opinion in Lochner v. U.S.
At his best, Menand can summarize a view in very few, well chosen words: "It is easy to appreciate [Maya Lin's] works as environmental installations....natural materials shaped in topological contours. It takes a little longer to see that they are also refinements on destruction...the Vietnam Memorial is made by repairing a large gash in the earth." He also reminds us of things important to remember: that Al Gore wrote his senior thesis at Harvard on the impact of television on the presidency, concluding that "because television loves one face over many faces its effect has been to increase the president's political power at the expense of Congress's."
I had also forgotten that during the 1992 campaign Bush Number I "tried to make it seem that Clinton was a traitor because he had gone to Moscow as a student in1969." This month marks the 50th anniversary of the famous statement by Joseph Welch in "Army vs McCarthy"--"Have you no decency, sir?" I remember it as a two-liner, the second being "Have you no sense of shame?" Clinton in Moscow was a campaign issue in 1992!
The most startling conclusion reached by Menand is that Larry Flynt and Jerry Falwell really were on the same mission: to put the shame back into sex. The readers of Hustler Magazine also turn out to be members of Falwell's Moral Majority that claimed to have put Ronald Reagan into the White House. The chain of 7-Eleven stores sold 20% of all issues of Playboy, leading Menand to conclude that Falwell's TV audience of alienated lower class men was remarkably similar to the profile of the Hustler audience. When the Jim Bakker sex scandal brought him down during the anti-porn campaigns of the 80s, and 7-Eleven took Hustler and Playboy off its racks, it marked the demise of the culture of anything goes sexuality coincidental with the demise of the culture of televangelism. Mighty interesting.
Menand reviewed Eats, Shoots & Leaves in the New Yorker of 6/28/04, doing a carefully worded dismemberment of that sloppily written "punctuation text" written by a former sports columnist in caffeinated prose. He included an interesting digression about speaking versus writing: "The uncertainty about what it means for writing to have a voice arises from the metaphor itself. . . .As a medium, writing is a million times weaker than speech. . . .[C]hattiness, slanginess, in-your-face-ness, and any other features of writing that are conventionally characterized as "like speech" are usually the results of laborious experimentation, revision, calibration, walks around the block unnecessary phone calls, and recalibration. . . .Writers are not mere copyists of language; they are polishers, embellishers, perfecters. . . .Does this mean that the written "voice" is never spontaneous and natural but always an artificial construction of language? This is not a proposition that most writers could accept. The act of writing is personal; it feels personal. . . . Composition is a troublesome, balky, sometimes sleep-depriving business. What makes it especially so is that the rate of production is beyond the writer's control. You have to wait, and what you are waiting for is something inside you to come up with the words. That something, for writers, is the voice. . . .What writers hear when they are trying to write is something more like singing than like speaking. Inside your head, you're yakking away to yourself all the time. Getting that voice down on paper is a depressing experience. When you write, you're trying to transpose what you're thinking into something that is less like an annoying drone and more like a piece of music. This writing voice is the voice that people are surprised not to encounter when they "meet the writer." The writer is not so surprised." . . .Some writers, when they begin a new piece, spend hours re-reading their old stuff, trying to remember how they did it, what it's supposed to sound like. This rarely works; nothing works reliably. . . . Sooner or later . . . the voice shows up, . . . and walks onstage."

This book should only be purchased by those individuals that have just heard the letters S, A, and P all in a row for the first time. If you have absolutely no idea what SAP is, have no idea what an ERP is, or your company is still using punch cards, then this book is for you.

The authors provide an excellent overview of what to expect when embarking upon the implementation of an enterprise resource planning system like SAP. They provide thoughtful insight on factors that should influence the decision to proceed with such a project as well as sufficient detail on the particulars of SAP.

This book is obviously a bit outdated but since finding good books giving you an overview of SAP is so hard, it may still be worth having a look at this one.

I bought this before starting a project as coordinator of data migration and found it gave me some good insights.

As mentioned though, a bit outdated.

This book is designed for managers and deciders who are in an evaluation phase and compare different ERP solutions. R/3 is a world-class integrated ERP solution and the less risky possible choice. If there is any doubt left, this book will convince the reader. SAP is not just a piece of software, it's also a culture and a club. Belonging to it is a real asset in someone's career.

An excellent introduction to SAP by people who live and breath it.

This book has excellent sections on Business Case, Functionality (showing the links between modules, not just functions)and Deployment Options. It really helped me understand what I was going into implementing SAP for my company.

The Book has only two dissappointing sections. The chapter on process reengineering could have been better structured and applied, Hammer has better material. The walk through of methodology in chapters 17 and 18 was dry, uninspiring and again unapplied. More could have been written on ASAP.

James Wright was of course one of the 20th century's great master poets. Each poem in this book bears his stamp of completely precise, beautiful communication. His writing can teach about the art. It does, though, seem kind of pretentious to me the way this one approach to poetry, which has its sense in it, is the only way for the words to be poetry, which James Wright must have believed or he wouldn't have done it that same way every time.

James Wright was of course one of the 20th century's great master poets. Each poem in this book bears his stamp of completely precise, beautiful communication. His writing can teach about the art. It does, though, seem kind of pretentious to me the way this one approach to poetry, which has its sense in it, is the only way for the words to be poetry, which James Wright must have believed or he wouldn't have done it that same way every time. Allegedly, his writing got experimental by his third book, but it didn't change THAT much.

James Wright's mastery of the traditional formal elements of poetry coupled with his contemporary and timeless themes makes his collection of poetry one of the best I have ever read. The first reading of his works leaves the reader wondering. The second brings comprehension. The third and any subsequent readings mesmerize as Wright's web of imagery and contemplation becomes more intricate. It is a shame that more readers do not know of his fascinating works.

This collection of Wright's work includes his experiments with formal blank verse, translations of German poets, experimental prose pieces, and characteristic free verse that made him one of America's strongest national poets with a regional identity. Wright's topics range from the pastoral landscape of people, wildlife, and industry near his Ohio hometown to the philosophical challenges of individuality, death, renewal, and union. The gray mountains, coal trains, steel bridges and murky Ohio River take their places beside docile horses, musical insects and colorful characters. But never does Wright falter to the mere reporting of a landscape through his poetry; the vision is always fresh, exacting, tense, and redemptive. I have used his work with many of my English students, and the feedback is celebratory. If you are a fan of poetry or a student of the craft, familiarize yourself with this book. Donald Hall's wonderful preface does justice to one of America's most fondly remembered poets.

I hate to give this work anything less than 5-stars, because at the moment (and probably most future moments) I revere James Wright's poetry. He makes blue collar blackened river Ohio come alive riven death with darkness and life. So this book is a must for poetry lovers.

Where it distracts me is the attempts at completeness is a difficult editor's dilemma and one that doesn't serve the poet or the poet's reader well here. There are two James Wright's out there (this book presents three), as is true with most sublimated artist that pass through a learning phase before hitting on their voice, their style.

James Wright started as a formalist (not my favored style) hailing structure and rhyme sometimes at the expense of meaning and language (disclaimer...one man's humble opinion belies a personal taste and no two taste buds seem the same). The book of course being a complete work, offers all of those poems of bandied prose. And then the editor offers a bridge or break of sorts in Wright's translated works of German and Spanish poets. Wright was a great poet in English, but the gift of gifted translation should have been left to the likes of W.S. Merwin, Anthony Kerrigan, Charles Tomlinson, and Stephen Mitchell for Neruda, Paz, and Rilke.

So, Wright's "Above the River," really first breaks the surface on page 119 after his epiphany to all thing free form. It is then that his poetry sings darkly. I leave you with some of Wright's beautiful language (there's plenty to be had). Buy the book for the rest.

In Fear of Harvests

It has happened
Before: nearby,
The nostrils of slow horses
Breathe evenly,
And the brown bees drag their high garlands,
Heavily,
Toward hives of snow.

First, I already read half of the book and since I'm very busy with school activities, work, and voluntering, I can't finish the book on time for my essay. If anyone know's a place where I can find or get some info regarding this Novel, Please e-mail me... I already have the cliff notes for it, but I need some more...

This book really had me reading. Some things in the book had digusted me but it was an amazing story. It was very realastic. I really felt like I could relate to it.

the story talked about killing, feelings of black against white people. Also included discrimation and religions with peoples opinions. this is probably the only book i would ever enjoy reading and be touched by it. With other books, i would just read it and just forget it later on. This book i'll slways remember it...

It was a pretty good book. At times it was fascinating, others wasn't especially during the ending in Book Three when it was all Bigger's thinking and talking.. No action like in the begininng that make me keep reading.

Yo people~this book was SUPERB!!!!! I am someone who HATES, and i mean HATES, to read books, but when i was forced to read this book for class, i was hesistant.. but as i started to read the book, i couldnt, and COULDNT take my eyes off of it. I stayed up late hours finishing the book. I recommend this book to ANYONE, period! This is the only book that i have liked, and probably will ever like. This book truly displays the REAL WORLD. ~Sarah Duran