Authors Books

Bill Pete started out as a daydreaming, doodling boy, and made it all the way to Walt Disney! Bill was born in Grandview and was raised in Indianapolis. He lived happily with his Mother, two brothers, and grandmother. His father was a traveling salesman, and didn't really come into his life until later. Ever since Bill was young, he loved to draw. During class, he would doodle in between the margins, and his books were a big favorite amongst the other kids when he sold them as second-hand. His childhood was fun filled, and he had some big hopes and dreams. First of all, he wanted to go on a safari and sketch the animals, but most of all, he wanted to be an artist. One day, in the summer of 1928, Bill's father returned "home" broke, travel weary, and demanding money. After arguing for many days, Bills mother gave in and paid his father. With that, his father drove away. Not long after that, Bill's grandmother tragically died, which put the family in complete shambles. They had to move, and everything changed. The Great Depression started, and Bills father kept taking money, so he kept them poor. Bill went through school well as a student, graduated, and went to college. That was when the work became harder. Bill was facing flunking some of his classes. One night, he ran into an old friend from school, and was persuaded to start taking some arts classes. Bill began painting, and it is there that he met his beautiful wife Margaret Brunst with which he eventually had two sons. He graduated with flying colors, and took a job as a painter. Finally, he realized he didn't have a steady income, and applied for Walt Disney Productions. He became a good friend of Walt Disney himself! Bill helped create many classics starting with Snow White, and going all the way to Jungle book. As time went by, Bill decided that after 27 years, it was time to leave. Bill had become attached to the company and his job, but mostly Walt. It was hard to say "good bye." About one year later, Walt Disney died. Bill went on to writing stories and illustrating them for children of all ages. They all relate to him in one way or another, but the one that felt the most connected to him was "Chester the Worldly Pig". Chester was who he was, and he had always been so. And like Chester, Pete "had grown beyond his expectations."

I can see myself in Pete sometimes. He never gave up and kept dreaming and kept his spirit alive. He has an easy flow to his writing that makes you feel relaxed and know that you're in for one heck of a good story. I loved his book for the truth that it told, and for the wonder that makes up Bill Pete. Keep dreaming, if you strive, you can reach the stars and soar beyond.

The book that introduced me to Bill Peet as a child and helped in inspiring me to push my art and chase my dreams. A must have for any lover of original Disney art or aspiring artist.

Wonderful book. A must for any Bill Peet fan. He captures himself in Bill Peet style - with words and illustrations - just as I would expect. The book is simple and direct, with life lessons woven between the pages.

This Book is about my favorite author Bill Peet. This book tells about his life starting his career at Walt Disney, then going to wright his own books.
Bill Peet was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, he started drawing when he was around 6 or 7. He dreamed of being a author one day. When he got into college he was in different art classes, during going to college he entered painting compititions and one most of them for extra money.
When he was asked work at Disney Annex he gladly accepted, this was around the mid 30s. After working there for a few years he was asked to work on Pinnochio. During his time at Disney he had many arguments with walt himself. He drew Dumbo, and drew the rats and the cat in Cinderella.
After he quit working for disney, Bill realized that he was a good writer too.His first book was Huberts Hair Raising Adventure, which I own along with acouple more of his books, my favorite is The Wingdingdile.
Bill Peet a tall thin man that had a dream, and made it come true wrote about 30 to 50 books, retired win 1989 after he wrote this book.This book is excellent and it will make you want to keep on reading.

I nevertheless found it quite fascinating and engrossing.

Peet is a self-professed reluctant student, especially of English classes, but he is nonetheless quite the good writer. Peet's illustrations add a lot to the pace and feel of the book and are a joy in their own right. His stories of life in Indianapolis before World War II will be interesting to any native Hoosier (as am I).

However, the most interesting part details his jobs at Walt Disney studios. His descriptions of how they made movies in the old days as well as the insider's look at Walt Disney himself are fascinating. Peet worked on several Disney movies, including Pinnochio, Fantasia, Cinderella (he created the lovable mice) and the original 101 Dalmations.

Peet brushes over his life after he left Disney a little too quickly. I would have liked to have read his descriptions of life in the publishing world as well. Also lacking is much history of his family life.

That being said, it was still fascinating, entertaining and totally worth the reader's time.

I give this one a grade of A-

This is a really fun book that everyone can enjoy. There are a lot of hidden meanings. The author makes you feel in the end that how you make money is probably just as or even more important than how much you make. I think this is a book for every one.

SO AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
I love this book! It is so awesome. Singh really leaves you hanging. You never know what will jump out at you next.

You wanna laugh, don't miss this one. I don't know about what the others are talking about, I didn't get any deep meanings out of this. But what I did get was great entertainment. get this one for your collection. Also nice to add to your collection are: Aesop for Children (Winter), Grimm's complete fairy tales (Grimm), Great Children's stories (Richardson). There are many other great children's books out there, but these were the ones I enjoyed the most. Oh, and I almost forgot the two classics that no children should ever be deprived of: The Little Prince (Exupery) and Charlotte's Web (White).

A brilliant story of contemporary philosophy which draws upon fable, fairy tale, and mythology-as well as modern aesthetic and mathematical thought. Even more brilliant is the style in which it was written, a literary equivalent to Cubism with all sorts of pleasant repetitions and poetic phrases. If Picasso had been a writer, I imagine him writing something like this, although he probably would have stayed away from caterpillars and butterflies, especially pink and blue ones.

The only writer who has made me laugh and cry in the same book. It can be slow at times,but trust me, stick with it! I have recommended it to many others who have told me how they laughed out loud and even cried in cafes, getting a whole lot of other people interested in the book. Now I see why so many people are enjoying and talking about what is but a simple tale of a caterpillar searching for its food plant. I think my only problem with the book is that the author didn't give the caterpillar a name. I think this bothered a lot of people. Poor thing needs a name. Instead she is always referred to as THE BRAVE LITTLE CATERPILLAR. It's tedious and tiring and I wish he had given her a name, any name, couldn't have been that hard. Personally I would have named her. But that's not reason enough to bash a book that has won the heart of so many young Asians. And if great art bears true witness to an experience, I think Singh has quite honestly captured the ambitions and anxieties, the experience, of second generation American Asians, be they Indian, Korean, or Japanese. Myself I had a dad who ever since I was a child would sneak into my room while I was sleeping and whisper, in my ear, 'Doctor, doctor, I want to be a doctor,' in a sad and futile hope to subliminally mold my dreams and desires. But when he saw that wasn't working, it was sort of forced upon me and sadly this was for his own ego. So now for his ego I truly believe I'm wasting my time studying something I really don't want to be studying. But, slowly but surely, I'm summoning up the courage to leave the 'Silk Palace' and pursue my 'food plant' whatever it may be. I admittedly don't know yet. But that's more because I regrettably let someone else define my life. In writing this, I see and feel how powerful this book is and I look forward to anything else this author has to say.

I read this book a few years ago but still recall its images vividly. The interwoven stories, foreshadowing, and imagery are quite masterful and overall present a great narrative.

Es un libro un tanto complicado, pero muy interesante. Tiene todos los elementos para vivir un poco de risas, muchos escalofríos, un buen absurdo y mucho del ser humano. Una novela que leí hace varios años y que aún recuerdo como cuando la estaba leyendo. Muy pocos libros logran eso.

Poniéndome en plan exigente, me hubiera gustado un poco mas de claridad en el ritmo de la historia, pero aún con eso, es un libro que cualquier amante de la novela debe leer.

(va sin acentos)
Este libro me parecio interesante pero no lo suficientemente bueno para darle 5 estrellas. Tuve un problema con el "ritmo" de libro en especial al principio (digamos a "grosso modo" la primera mitad), ya que me parecio dificil de leer. El autor no parecia tener la fluidez suficiente para llevar la historia, rica en personajes altos en color. En la segunda mitad, cuando se desencadenan las acciones que guiaran al lector al final del libro, se nota una fluidez en la pluma que le da al libro un impulso definitivo. En suma, me parece un buen libro, un poco desigual para ser sincera, con un cierto abuso de adjetivos y una puntuacion un poco marcada que me irritaron en un cierto momento: los que lean el libro quizas comprenderan lo que digo. No merece un 3 en la clasificacion, mas no merece un 5. Puede ser que el prologo, en el que se habla de la admiracion del autor por Garcia Marquez y su amistad con el escritor colombiano hizo crecer una expectativa que no fue completamente satisfecha y esto es quizas, tambien, un error personal.

Compre este libro hace 4 años y acabo de leerlo, no se como pude esperar tanto. Si de mi dependiera no le daria un premio sino dos. El mejor libro que he leido en este año.

El manejo del absurdo en la novela es un arte bastante delicado pues se puede convertir en ridículo o tonto con solo pequeños errores. Estos están completamente ausentes en esta novela, en la cual la locura se explica a si misma a través de millones de pequeños sub cuentos que el autor logra enlazar una historia coherente, donde un cubano ex-veterano de la guerra de Angola en su desespero por escapar de un tigre alado imaginario ( o tal vez no) que lo persigue secuestra un grupo de muchachos que lo único que querían era un poco de sexo en su noche de graduación del colegio. Sin embargo esta trama es solo incidental para que el autor nos pueda presentar como en un mundo incoherente la "locura" es un medio tal válido para darle sentido como cualquier otro.

La novela es simplemente genial.

wow. a great insight of the different social divides between the haves (affluent jews) and have nots (jews living in the ghetto) .. all living in iran. Centered around a jewish girl living in the ghetto who through her gusto personality ended up living in the affluent jews arena, or so she thought; and you get to experience her journey through innocent eyes of a girl and as she matures into motherhood. You also get to see another side through her daughter. hauntingly powerful and the story is written so well that it was a page turner for me. Socially climbing and acceptance is still rife in this day and age; so it was an interesting and poignant recognition of our society.

I really love books like this that give me an interesting story that keeps me turning pages while at the same time informs me, teaches me so many nuances of another culture. I felt the author wrote with great insight and also with wisdom in her characterizations. She looks at these people like a Sherlock Holmesian Freud or Jung and does a good job of it too.

I also loved the way she included the eccentric folks that lived across the street. Iran has known so much tragedy. More than a few times I thanked my lucky stars that I was born in the United States while I was reading this book. Yet at the same time so many personal dynamics were mirrors of exactly what people experience anywhere and everywhere. It was enlightening for me as well as educational and entertaining.

With lush prose and surgical precision, Nahai examines pre-revolutionary Iran, a country hobbled by a social system so oppressive it crushes every one within it. Muslims and Jews live side by side, and each of their worlds is as socially stratified as the other. The novel is narrated by the young daughter of a wealthy Jew and her penniless mother, and she details their increasing desperation as her father falls in love with a Muslim woman. His abandonment of them leaves them emotionally bereft and socially isolated in a world that has no place for them. Brilliant and affecting. You will think about this novel for days after reading it.

Gina Nahai is one the most creative and literate authors working today and should find a regular place on the bestseller lists for her impressive storytelling talent. Her exquisite writing and character development never fails to keep me coming back for more.

Once I started reading "Caspian Rain" I couldn't put it down. Without giving away too much of the story, all I can say is that Ms. Nahai captures your interest with her complex and fascinating characters examined and described in her exquisite prose. You feel the heart and soul of the characters and every moment and situations resonates that much more deeply. I love to read anything Ms. Nahai writes and look forward to her next novel. I highly recommend "Caspian Rain" to anyone who loves to be drawn into a story that takes you to a place about universal themes dealing with real human emotions of loss and acceptance.

Reading Caspian Rain, by Gina Nahai, is like opening a golden treasure chest. Inside it, you will find all kinds of intriguing and fascinating objects. There are several interconnected stories being told . First there is the heartbreaking story of an innocent little girl, Yaas, who desperately longs for the love of her parents. In reading the book, the reader can feel her anguish, as she tries every which way to be noticed and loved. There is the story of the intelligent and ambitious Bahar, Yaas's mother, a story in which the reader can actually taste the bitterness that Bahar is left with, when she realizes that she cannot conquer any of the barriers that will forever keep her from realizing any of her dreams. There is the story of Omid, an emotionally stunted man who, while being the son of privilege, has come from a community which, as a result of being faced with deep prejudices, has had to downplay its' ethnicity and become self loathing . Finally, there are the very rich descriptions of the sounds, sights and smells of Tehran, a fourth character in the novel; a bustling city where the contradictions between the old and the new are funny, tragic and endless. The book was truly unforgettable.

This book was very insightful and I felt it put into words what I feel as an African American woman in today's society. I felt the characters are real and exist. Each story is unique. The one that stand out all by itself and is really great is Prince William blows Good.

I had the pleasure of meeting Prof. Allen at a seminar at a local library. My wife is an English student of his. I read the book and found it very entertaining. His writing skill is great. His life story from car salesman to auther is inspireing. His capacity to change into all these different types characters (and include your life occurances) in both Bounce and Church Boys and Other Sinners is spectacular. It is amazing how he can change from this intellectual man, into a poor woman. Amazingly, his stories were short, but to the point. His characters seem to deveolpe quite rapidly and mature fully as the story tanspires. I found it more enjoyable to hear his lecture and stories than to read them myself. As a speaker he is capable of capturing the audiences attention as well keeping them entertained, much as in his short stories. I wish he would consider writing novels or epic stories, preferably non-fiction (science fiction, fantasy just to name two). I really think his character development in these areas will defiantly get him a new audience as well as some writing award.

The Elwyn stories in this collection need to become a novel. I would pay to read that because they are funny, sweet segments, and the author comes pretty close to making some profound and unique statements about love and faith. Is Elwyn evil for loving Sister Morrisohn? Is their love a sin? They are so holy, and genuinely righteous, in every other way. The other story that touched me was "Get Some." Especially the idea of each of us being a diifferent colored crayon in the crayon box. "Is Randy Roberts There" is a trip! Men are little piglets! That one had me trippin. All the stories in the book are so good that I had to read the one I liked least, "JACK MOVE," twice so that I could really get it. I had come to trust the writer, and I knew he must be saying something in that one that I just didn't get. The second time through it, I focused on his style and the voice that was telling the story, and I came up with something interesting. This character, Chapman, the gay man, turned out to be a churchboy just like Elwyn in the Sister Morrisohn stories, but his question of faith is way more critical: does God consider his homosexuality evil? Notice that after his mugging, he flees back home to that place that he most associated, not with his father (who is just a symbol), but with his childhood and God. Childhood being the time we are most innocent and faith believing. Notice that the room is black and white: everything is either good or evil; he has come home to be judged by the God of his Old Testament. I started liking the story more and looking for symbols after that. I'm just guessing now, but his name is Chap-man (chapter-man--chapters in the bible man). His transvestite girflriend's name is cricket (locust--one of the plagues). Hannibal the bouncer (Hannibal tried to sack Rome, right, the seat of Christianity?). Another good story in the book is "Prince William," even though you will probably figure out its ending before you get there, it is excellent, merging jazz, blues, infidelity, and ambition into a Greek tragedy.

Nelly Fisher

I really enjoyed reading the stories from "Church Boys and Other Sinners."

Growing up in South America and having little exposure to US religions, I never realized how Christians in America behaved and thought. After I came to this country, I started getting involved with local church activities. That is how I realized how different they think and behave in America. Back home I get the feeling that people are involved with God, but they do whatever they want to do with their lives in their non-church time. There aren't so many "rules" to follow as there are here. You kind of accept that you are a Christian. You don't have to prove it as much.

Some of the stories, especially the first three and the Elwyn stories, showed me how the American kind of religion, or maybe religion in general, drives people to do things that they believe are wrong in God's eyes, and so often, despite their resolve, they end up yielding to temptation.

In the first story, Monique is this "statuesque" woman who has serious self esteem issues. In a way, she wears this mask and behaves like everything is fine, but inside she feels weak and wants to be loved. The first love of her life ruined love and trust for her when he played with her feelings. From that point on, she just couldn't value herself as she would have if nothing like this had happened. I feel like religion in her life was just a big disappointment. After having an affair with the pastor of her church, she saw him as a manipulator of minds; everybody's minds, including hers. She was not able to separate a relationship with God and religion itself. Moreover, the biggest disappointment was being dumped for the pastor's wife and being asked to pay for her own abortion of the child she carried for the philandering minister.

Allen redeems Monique by having her change over time, though. She realized that life was not a game and started giving herself more value as she rejects the pretty boy Johnny and never again answers his calls. I would really like to read a continuation of that story, which begins the collection. Hopefully, Monique will find someone trustworthy that would love and respect her and more importantly, teach her how to love and respect herself.

In "Get Some," this eighth grader, Junior, had even worse self esteem issues than Monique in my opinion. Junior could never get over the fact that his father left the family and perhaps even blames himself. Junior constantly rants that no one understood him, and even though he secretly wanted to be "perfect" like his father's other son, he would get into all kinds of trouble. In my opinion, the father figure was missing in the protagonist's life, and he did all he could to get people's attention. I feel like Junior was hostile and angry, but on the inside he was a sweet child just wanting to be loved and understood.

In "Thirty Fingers," the war within the main character between the realism of life and his idealism to keep himself "holy" is very well presented by the dialogs among characters as well as with himself. There is always a struggle to keep on being "the perfect brethren of God." Elwyn finds himself in love and gets very disappointed when he finds out that the love of his life is actually in love with someone else and even worse, committed a "horrible" sin. Angry, Elwyn, like every other human being, just yields to the desires of the flesh. I am actually very glad this story continues, but even if it didn't, I would have been glad with the end of it. Peachie did not deserve to stay with Elwyn, and in a way, he needed what he got. He is too selfish and too blind. He is too much of a "churchboy," which is the point of the whole book I think because these Elwyn stories continue throughout. In fact, after you finish reading the stories, even though only the Elwyn ones are connected, you feel as though you have read a novel. Great job, Preston L. Allen. I am surprised I haven't heard of you before. I am going to read more of your books.

Preston L. Allen is a powerful new voice in African-American fiction. He evokes wonder, amusement, and profundity with every word. These (mostly) coming of age stories are at the same time absorbing and insightful, revealing the author's budding genius for the poignant epiphany and the wry-witted subtext. This is a marvelous book. This is African American literature--American Literature--at its finest and most unapologetic.

In many ways, this collection is a culmination of the pet issues that have heretofore been explored in Allen's diverse and expanding body of work: faith, affection, crime, fatherhood, duty, and especially forbidden and/or unrequited love, which I find particularly well done. For example, in both "Hoochie Mama" (his cynical literary masterpiece cum mystery/thriller) and "Bounce" (cynical literary masterpiece cum erotic urban romance), Allen's vision of romantic love is marked by overt sexual magnificence in the bedroom and a suppression of genuine emotion (or concealing of true desire) in the heart. In other words, there is a clear divide between the physical and the emotional as sexual dynamism replaces affections.

Thus, M Gantry, Allen's hoochie mama cop, can "physically" grope and be groped by her boyfriend Dake (the villain), but her heart yearns for the lesbian girlfriend of her childood. In "Bounce," Roderick Redd makes passionate love to Cindique, but his heart yearns for his ex-wife/cousin. The problem, as always, is that the object of true affection is forbidden, or restricted by a taboo (homosexuality, incest) that the protagonist adheres to.

In "Churchboys and Other Sinners," this idea is played out in a number of the stories: "C+ Baptist Virgin" has the black protagonist fall in love with a white woman; "Prince William Blows Good," an archetypal, Oedipal masterpiece, has the protagonist "desire" his vanished daughter; "His Baby Momma" has a bride-to-be responding sexually to her ex-boyfriend on her wedding day; In "Is Randy Roberts There?", Monique ever longs for Randy Roberts, her first love, no matter who she happens to be with at the time.

Nowhere in the book is the idea more advanced than in the four stories involving the teen evangelical Elwyn Parker in his pursuit of the much older and very beautiful Sister Morrisohn. First, Elwyn pursues Sister Morrisohn, but loves and longs for his childhood crush, Peachie Gregory-McGowan. Then the idea undergoes a brilliant pyscho/social extrapolation, as the protagonist's affection for Peachie wanes; namely, in the later stories we have Elwyn "loving" Sister Morrisohn, but "yearning" for the love he once had for God and the church.

True, it can be argued that perhaps Elwyn's longing is merely a sort of nostalgia, but the motif persists throughout the latter stories to the point where the grown-up Elwyn, long after the affair has so dramatically ended (I shan't reveal how), saying things like "God is Love" and visiting the religious haunts of his childhood.

Finally, Allen does something with this book that few titles by African-American writers have been able to accomplish successfully: he creates stories that are interesting and engaging as stories, not just as examples of the "ethnic" or "minority" flavor of the moment. I have seen him compared to langston Hughes because of his church-based themes, but that is only a superficial connection. I have seen him compared to John Hawkes, and that is perhaps more accurate, for both are master wordsmiths, storytellers, cynics, eroticians. The truth is that Preston L. Allen, with this work, has created genuine "literature" of the sort that Hemingway, Faulkner, Bronte, Shakespeare, and Tolstoi have created: Literature for the world. These stories are not strictly for African Americans, though the protagonists in each are black; these stories are for anyone who wants to read a good story.

Gertrude D., University of Florida

Victoria Chang's first book of poetry, 'Circle', is unusual for a poetry award-winning book in that it can stand alone, quite apart from its already sung praises. In fact, it demands it.

Her Edward Hopper 'Studies' have a wonderful feeling of osmosis, evoking often charged scenes in Hopper's notoriously solitary paintings.

'An Evening at the Chinese Opera', 'Morning Porridge', 'At Lake Michigan' (which is like a Haiku that breaks its own rules) and 'There is Something about the East Coast' are other poems of particular note.

The unique notion of the 'circle', derived from Emerson and which forms the galvanising path of the book, does pervade the collection yet the collection would in no way suffer if this were missed by the reader. In a non-pejorative sense, this may be a collection where the sum is not necessarily greater than its exquisite individual parts.

Victoria Chang, Circle (Crab Orchard Review, 2005)

Every once in a while, I stumble upon a book like Circle (I say "stumble" because at this point I've no idea where I read about it originally), and all the time I spend reading poetry that ranges from the mediocre to the mind-splittingly awful is worth it. For Circle is one of those books where the poems leap off the page and come at you with a boning knife, gazing hungrily at the innards lying beneath that flap of belly fat you've been trying so hard to work off these past few years. While this is not happy stuff, for the most part, Chang manages to retain a twisted sense of humor about life, the universe, and everything:

After returning from Arkansas, I've never been the same.
Little here, little there, it's always great

to go à la carte-- it gives leverage and leave, it lends option to pull out
that front tooth or start saying y'all.

I begin to acknowledge feet with hair on the big toes, my eyes
get greener and green.

Periodically, there's a 300-point inspection and I'm checked,
re-checked, and checked again,

but what if the checker is the one missing a tooth? What if
I discover this

when I'm more than halfway? Do I turn back or keep going away
from home--

two small dots plucking broken guitars?
("Majority Rules")

Oh, yes, folks. I am unabashed in my love for this book, which will most likely make my top ten reads of the year. You want it. **** ½

What I love about Ms. Chang's work is her directness and her intensity. Though she said in an interview in June of this year that she would like to be more daring, I find her sense of political and social outrage infuses even the simplest of domestic situations, a fully committed kind of daring, as in this description of a rice dish the speaker prepares in "The Dragon Boat Festival" interwoven with a revelation about murdered baby girls: " I snip the string, unwrap the leaves, the rice pulses with steam, black dates ache, the wind smells of wet grass, sugar, fractured flesh." This is a wonderful book by an emerging poet who will become one of our nation's finest.

Reading Victoria Chang's poetry is like walking through woods in the fog, and every so often a branch smacks you in the head.

Circle is a collection of poetry by published poet and editor of "Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation" Victoria Chang. Poems encompass both the distant past, particularly laws, history, and customs of ancient China, and the muddled modern day. The female perspective, with its share of unique pains and mistreatments past and present, shines through in this interconnected anthology written with frankness and passion. Meditation at Petoskey: An old woman on the beach hands me a stone. / I tell her of the ruining landscape, tortoise backs / of stone, algae colonies, like puzzles on rock, / the lighthouse column with its cracked putty / and rotating eye. But she says, nothing has changed, / we have always been this way - a thousand young larks / mount the sudden breeze.

Very addicting! I did not want to put the book down. I can't wait to read his other books.

I thoroughly enjoyed Collateral Damage. Hannibal Jones deeply cared about people. He longed to have a private life, but always gave in to helping people who needed a "trouble shooter". I believe he could have pursued a more profitable career, however, he chose the lesser paying one to help the troubled souls who needed him the most. It was evident that he had a soft spot for women and children. He was soft spoken and easy going, but could get rough when he had too.
His perception was keen. He could read people under the surface. Once he was hired to get to the truth there was no holding him back.
I'm looking forward to reading the other three in the series: Blood and Bones, Damaged Goods, and The Trouble Shooter.

Austin Camacho's Collateral Damage is an entertaining whodunit with a cool detective and an eclectic collection of characters. The story is fast paced with some neat sleight-of-hand twists -and I'll always be a sucker for a PI who listens to Journey in the privacy of his car, and has a healthy obsession with all things barbecued. Bring your appetite for this one.

Collateral Damage is an excellent mystery set in and around Washington DC. It's a good solid story with well developed characters, plot twists and turns and kept me going right to the end. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Within the first few pages of Collateral Damage, I was hooked! I enjoyed the suspense, and how all of the characters were different, and unique. The storyline came together at the end with a bang!

The only thing wrong with this book is that there should be more of it.
Roethke represents a watershed in American letters, a watershed we kids slobbered down the wrong side of, the side not his. For delicacy of daring the difficult to bear, even to notice, he can hardly be surpassed, and this almost without ever choking up the voice -- his or ours.

"A late rose ravages the casual eye," writes Roethke in A Walk in Late Summer, "a blaze of being on a central stem." In such images we see the symbols of nature fully tapped in modern poetry -- and tapped in American English, in fresh, vivid language that overpowers the reader with its grace and presence. The poetry of Theodore Roethke is written by a man profoundly alive -- skirting the edge of suicide, losing his voice in the awe of love, reeling wildly in the throes of "the pure fury," and looking at last with calm eyes into infinity and his own undoing in the Far Field. Roethke was a true descendent of Whitman where the latter wrote "This is no book / Who touches this touches a man." But Roethke's poetry moves us as much by its lyrical language as by the power and wisdom of its experience. Roethke himself was, as represented by his art alone, a "blaze of being."

Among Roethke's contributions to literature are his poems that treat depression. Far from letting his manic episodes paralyze him, he used them to write some his most intense poetry. "In a Dark Time" is one of the immortal poems of the 20th century, worthy to be set aside a Van Gogh painting. Roethke was not alone in treating these subjects: two other Pulitzer Prize-winning poets of his time, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, learned from him and wrote about similar themes. But Roethke's writing stands out in two ways from these poets and other poets the 50's and 60's.

One is the unity of his work and vision -- this Collected Poems traces a single spiritual journey beginning with his childhood memories of the greenhouse, and ending somewhere among "the windy cliffs of forever", last visions tragically cut short by his early death. Between those points are rendered all of the experiences of his life -- as he wrote in his first poem, "my heart keeps open-house." But he never fails to interpret these experiences and understand their significance in the larger picture of his life and poetry. Unlike so much of the poetry of Sylvia Plath and other Confessional poets, Roethke never demands that you read his biography to understand his symbolism. Rather, his symbols develop among his poems to form a kind of mythology: his recurring symbols include stones, fire, light, "the small," and the spirit.

The other difference between Roethke and other poets of his time is his technique. Roethke is never obscure; he always writes in fresh language, avoiding cliches, although his symbols are indeed personal and take time to understand. Roethke's craft is "strict and pure," such that even the staunchest defenders of Sylvia Plath have confessed that Roethke's writing is more disciplined. The Deep Image movement of poets like Robert Bly and James Wright is influenced by the kind of symbolism found throughout Roethke's poetry, and those writers have acknowledged their debt to him. Roethke retained rhyme and meter in a time when all the conventions of poetry were being ripped apart; and he did so with a consummate technical skill not to be found in the Beatniks or in the Black Mountain poets. Roethke's ear for poetry is much more sensitive than that of other poets of his time. We are gagged by the lyricism in lines like

"She came toward me in the flowing air,
A shape of change, encircled by its fire."
("The Dream")

"When all
My waterfall
Fancies sway away
From me, in the sea's silence..."
("Her Time")

"O love, you who hear
The slow tick of time
In your sea-buried ear..."
("Song")


The most exhilarating of all these are Roethke's love poems in "Words for the Wind", which justly won the Bollingen Prize and the National Book Award. These poems are unmatched for eloquence and spiritual intensity -- and it's a damn shame that modern anthologies do not reprint them, aside from the famous "I Knew a Woman." For it is in these love poems that Roethke's soul soars, and his poetic power is fully realized.

"She knew the grammar of least motion."
("The Dream")

"Light listened when she sang."
("Light Listened")

"I measure time by how a body sways."
("I Knew a Woman").


Theodore Roethke achieved greatness in art by having the courage to confront the most intense human experiences and the skill to craft them into some of the most eloquent poems of his time. If there is ONE modern poet you will read, let it be Roethke. His "Collected Poems" is a must for every poet and every lover of poetry.

I relished Roethke when I first read him in high school, along with Hart Crane, e.e. cummings, and the Beats. I still admired him in college, when I wrote poetry myself, and regarded most other "living" poets with suspicious disdain. Many poets I loved then have lost some of their charm for me (my loss, not theirs) but, forty five years later, I still read Roethke. Does that speak to you?

To My Sister; The Heron; No Bird; Elegy for Jane; She; Her Reticence; The Meadow Mouse; and of course, My Papa's Waltz--these are all some of the great poems that Theodore Roethke wrote. Roethke is one of our American masters. I found that when he was on his game (as he was in the poems above, among others) his poetry was phenomenal, but when he wasn't, his poetry could be awful. His earlier work is better than his later work, though he seems to have gotten most of his recognition for his later work. Still, for the poetry lover this is pretty much a required volume for your shelves.

At first, I was heitant to delve into this author's work simply because I'd never heard of him in all my wide readings of poetry, both modern and old.

Don't make the same mistake I did. Roethke WILL NOT disappoint you. "The Lost Son" has become my new favourite poem, and this book goes with me perpetually, and will until I finish every line in it.

Exquisite.

Leave aside the fact that Malanowski has written a totally credible scenario for DC political intrigue, with characters who are life-like composites of public figures that everyone will recognize; leave aside the fact that every fifth page you end up howling with laughter; and leave aside the fact that you can't put it down at all for the last 50 pages; at the end, I'm left feeling scared. Here we are as a society, with our powerful press, our 3-way checks-and-balances government, and the most stable and transparent democracy in the history of the planet, and Malanowski comes along to remind us that it's all for naught: no matter how advanced our democracy, and how thorough our vetting processes, our nation's fate is (and always has been) determined by a handful of individuals whose PRIVATE agendas and decisions will never be seen or known. It's the same feeling you get from reading one of Gore Vidal's "State of the Union" essays from the 1980's.

Have you become disillusioned by politicians who use shenanigans and dirty tricks to get elected or attain higher office? Do you believe they will stop at nothing to get what they want? Then, "The Coup" is for you! This witty romp through the halls of power will add to your cynicism. A completely plausible plot with an unexpected ending makes for a great read.

Loved this book. It was a real page turner, frighteningly realistic (in parts) and very timely given the state of American politics. Highly Recommend!

It reads fast and loose, like a particularly juicy episode of the West Wing, only there's no sacchraine ending served up to make everyone feel good. The ending is earned, and resonates as authentic and satisfying. A political satire come thriller that offers the best kind of characters...individuals who are neither good nor bad, but a mixture of shadow and light who battle themselves, and their competitors, to get to the top. It's also damn funny.

I tore through this in about four hours. Malanowski, a writer for Spy back in the golden age, creates a story about a vice-president sharper than everyone around him, who decides it's time for him to take the top job. It reminded me of the best parts of Christopher Buckley's Thank You For Smoking, but where Buckley can slide over the nubby edge of satire into parody -- like he did with Boomsday this year -- Malanowski never loses his footing. Funny, compelling and hellaciously smart.

I am 56 and have been reading sci fi/fantasy since, oh, about 10. This is one of the best collection of stories I have ever read. You'll be glad you read it. The fact of the color of the writers is interesting, but not important. I have read so much sci fi, and even taken a writing course. The bottom line - this is great science fiction.

I've long suspected there were more writers of color out there besides Octivia Butler and Samuel Delany. Ms. Thomas introduces a rich collection spanning decades. My only question is when will volume 2 be published? If you love SF, add this brilliant work to your collection.

A huge sci-fi and fantasy reader I am also getting ready to be a high school teacher of special ed, reading & English. This is a book that will go on my list of books to write lesson plans about and to make sure my students read. The one complaint I have about this book is that I'd read the Butler, Delany & Saunders already. Couldn't we have gotten new stories for this historic anthology? But other writers were a revelation to me.
A great book! Nalo Hopkinson's story about a (...)gone amuck, Tannarive Due's story about the very human side of cloning and Steven Barnes' chilling almost apocalytic picture of a modern African state after a coup are all terrific reading-- and why my students -- and you -- should be excited!

Writers of African descent have played a long and important role in the history of speculative literature, even though that's not always recognized, either in the past or today. But this book opened my eyes to how much wonderful talent has gone underappreciated until now. Often raw, but always colorful and deep, many of the stories in this collection have the quality to be compared with the masters of the past and present. As both a reader and a writer, this collection inspired me greatly.

I highly recommend it to anyone who's a true officianado of speculative literature.

This is a collection that the literary world needed badly. Typical 'speculative fiction' (encompassing sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and other literary persuasions) often features humanity uniting against common enemies or disasters. But for people of color, the alternative present or near-future utopia/dystopia in any speculative story probably won't be so rosy. Technological advancement, alien contact, or astronomical disasters probably won't eliminate prejudice and inequality, as the writers of African descent collected here show us in consistently hard-hitting ways.

The settings and themes of these short stories are uniformly fascinating and thought-provoking for any intelligent reader. As with any collection of works from various writers, the quality of the stories varies a bit, and this book does have a few bumps in the road that deserve the thumbs-down for heavy-handedness. Examples include the predictable melodrama of 'The Woman in the Wall' by Steven Barnes, or the poorly-plotted conspiracy theories of 'The Space Traders' by Derrick Bell. However, these are minor quibbles, and even these stories contribute to the sheer fascination of this book as a whole.

My favorites include the supremely moving Jazz Age vampire story 'Chicago 1927' by Jewelle Gomez, an outstanding look at the human costs of cloning in 'Like Daughter' by Tananarive Due, the creepy erotic thriller 'Ganger (Ball Lightning)' by Nalo Hopkinson, and the heartbreaking dark fantasy of 'Gimmile's Songs' by Charles Saunders. Of historical interest we have 'Aye, and Gomorrah...' from the master Samuel Delany, the groundbreaking 'The Goophered Grapevine' from way back in 1887 by Charles Chesnutt, and the very chilling 'The Comet' by W.E.B. DuBois (I had forgotten that DuBois wrote fiction, and his important stories are ripe for rediscovery). Kudos to Sheree Thomas for creating this hugely important, haunting, and illuminating anthology. [~doomsdayer520~]